‘Take it back, Sir. You blacken my name.’ The cold air seemed to have sobered Willoughby up somewhat.
‘You tarnish your own name, Captain, if that is what you ever were. You behave only as one from the prison not one born of good blood.’
‘Kiss my britches! I am of noble blood, I assure you.’
‘I have heard it said you stole horses from your own father when you were only a lad, and that your fingers were such lime-twigs you could not enter any house that something would not stick to them!’
‘You insult me, Monsieur Cellier!’
‘I have also heard it said you are a coiner and the marks on your hand are where you were burnt for your deeds.’
‘I am outraged…’ Willoughby did not seem so sure of himself now. It appeared that some of what Pierre was saying had power over him.
‘Furthermore,’ continued Pierre relentlessly, ‘you told Madame Cellier the scars on your back were self-inflicted by the claws of a cat to repent your sins, but I have information they are whipping marks from previous convictions. What say you to that!’
‘I say you listen to the gossip of women that should not leave a birthing bedside!’
That was the final straw as far as my husband was concerned. He drew back his fist and swung with all his might. The sound that filled the freezing air was satisfying as if I had horse whipped him myself! Willoughby flew back and landed on his buttocks and skidded a short way. His sword belt broke and flew off to the side.
Satisfied he did not stand again, my husband turned on his heel and strode off toward home still holding his side. As I approached Willoughby on my way to catching Pierre he felt his face with his hand and whined pitifully, ‘He broke my jaw!’
I reached him and he held out his hand to be pulled to his feet. I ignored it and said, ‘I want you out of the house. You must move your things from the garret at once, you ungrateful, ungodly cur! We do not wish our children to be influenced any longer by a man such as you,’ and walked on. His present actions having wholly outweighed the benefits of his past that we might have use of. The two priest scholars trailing me also ignored his hand and moved faster to catch up with me.
From the road behind us, I could hear Willoughby still protesting and pleading his cause like a squeaking pig. ‘All the world does ride me! I was only following your instructions, yours, and those of Lady Powys and the Duke…’
We left Willoughby’s complaining behind and soon found ourselves at home, where I made herbs and bread into a poultice for Pierre’s wound and bandaged his side. With good fortune, Willoughby’s sword had barely scratched the surface, and although there was blood, it had not cut anything vital.
I worked quietly, not wanting to speak, though I could not help caressing Pierre occasionally and finding a moment to kiss him thoroughly. He had a youthful sparkle and strength about him that I had not seen in him for a long time. He was more attractive to me than he had been since our last child was born and lost. There was something most becoming, most romantic, about a man who can pick his fights and win.
My thoughts jumped back to Willoughby sitting ungainly in the road.
But what had I become, that I had lost my charity for a fellow man? I should be angry with him for showing his true self. But was it he I was angry with? I was the first to admit it was myself that incurred my ire. Was I so vain I had thought to be the one to change him, to make him an honest man? I had rescued him thinking I was a good woman of charity, taking him from that place, and giving him a home and a job, and changing his course in life. All I had done was move his course through my life, but still it ran where the strength of it would take it.
As I replaced bottles in my bag, Peter stood and came up behind me, put his arms around me and pulled me close.
‘He is gone from the house?’
‘I have ordered it so,’ I said, leaning against him and feeling the warmth of his chest through the open shirt. ‘Do I come across as a bawd, Pierre? I am told I am a bawd and a wit.’
‘You are a good woman, ma chère sage-femme, my sweet flitter-mouse. Do not think more on coffee house talk nor that of the street. The ones that fill those places have nothing better to do but to comment on the lives of others when they have none of their own.’
‘But am I of any use? What if I have done wrong by sending Willoughby from here. We gave him shelter and a job and took him in our home, then cast him out when he was but himself. What kind of charity is that?’
‘Your charity has helped more than you remember, ma chère. From what I am told, you have made bail for hundreds, maybe a thousand, and you have given relief to more than double with food and blankets and alms. Most of all, you have given many hope they never would otherwise have had. Never doubt it, my dearest, you are a good woman.’
I loved my husband for those words, but he had not reached the end of them.
‘And that is only one place in your life…for all the infants and mothers you have saved, you have earned a place beside the angels, and those you have saved will bear witness to that. Think you on all that you have done, and you must see a line of all those lives you have saved or made better in this world!’
I could not help but argue.
‘Yet I am spat on in the street, and I have been beaten ‘til the last breath of life was only returned to me because your hand held mine, my dear husband, and you were my beacon I used to navigate home through the darkness. As a woman I am given no credence, except what I demand, so long as those that have what I want wish to give it. I am denied an education, only receiving one for that my own mother had an education from her own mother. And as a Catholic, I am unable to work with any but my own kind. And as a midwife, I am considered untrained and uneducated, though I know more than most, and if I am not employed in searching out witch marks, I am marked one myself! I am then ostracised from much of society, my own class, so I cannot practice openly for all that ask me. Nay, I am a monster in the Three Kingdoms.’
Where the outpouring came from, I do not know, but it thankfully fell on my dear husband’s ears. If it had fallen on another’s, my words might not have received any understanding.
‘My dearest Lizzie, come with me to France! I tell you, you would be respected in every house, your rank and circumstance would be a boon, and your fine wit and your good charity would be of the highest grace. Here we are as black sheep in a field of white. In France, we would be black sheep in a flock of black sheep. In a county of non-Catholics, we are considered a hidden cancer that will eventually cause pain and death to all who surround us, yet in France, we would be would be the healthy body. Consider it, ma chérie, let us go there where we are not outcasts in the eyes of the law.’
Such temptation was hard to resist, but I was bound by obligation to my craft, to those that needed me.
‘One day, Pierre. One day,’ I said. ‘I cannot leave at this time. I cannot run out on the Catholic mothers who might otherwise be left untended. And who else will look after them! And what of those innocents accused in prison?’
‘I knew that would be your answer, my dear Lizzie, but please do not let that day be when I am dead and gone,’ he said sadly.
I did not know what to say, for I knew he longed to return to his homeland, but I did not know any other life than this. I could not imagine living in another place. I was needed here, where I could alleviate suffering and make a difference. Though it be safer in France, there would be none that needed me so much.
‘We will see your homeland again, Pierre. You have many good years ahead of you yet!’
I could not bring conviction into my voice as I would have liked, but Pierre pulled me close and simply said, ‘I know, Lizzie. I know.’
17
23rd day of October, 1679
After Susan closed the door on Henry, apothecary husband of Rachel my eldest daughter that lived nearby, the same that had once prepared the
opium that had failed to loosen Strode’s tongue, I returned to the kitchen.
Susan went back to housekeeping since she had to do the work of two now I no longer employed my maid, Margaret. I had dismissed her soon after the Jesuits were hanged, for she slandered me to Rachel saying that Willoughby was ‘riding me’, and she did not mean he treated me shabbily.
‘‘Tis common truth, Madam Cellier.’ With her head raised, Margaret had looked me directly in the eyes when I confronted her. ‘‘Tis the Words that fill every bar and coffee house!’
I might have cut out her wagging tongue had I not encouraged that idea in the jail and fervently wished that was where she had heard it. But, still, hearing tell she told such tales to my own blood, sullying her mind against me, was not to be tolerated.
‘You live in this house. Know you this that you told her yourself?’ I raised my hand in challenge. ‘Have you proof of the tales you tell?’ She could not have seen a thing that did not happen.
Margaret blushed, whether from shame of spreading false rumours or from indiscretion, I knew not. She looked to the ground, but did not stay silent. Her voice was still defiant.
‘I see how you look at him, Madam. You are not indifferent.’
‘He is but a youth, Margaret! What think you, would he look at an old woman as me?’ I did not wish to appear that I was fishing for affirmation, so I fast continued, ‘Of course he would not, any more than I would want any other than my husband!’
‘You spend uncommon time with the man, Madam. He is notorious for being neither fickle of character nor caring of age. I see how he looks at you too.’
Whether I was more angry at Margaret’s loose tongue, her insult of me or the truth of her words I could not tell. She had no doubt caught me secretly admiring our young guest now and then – I could not at that time fail to find his stature exceptionally satisfying – and her eye might be equally keen regarding his look to me, though he had done nothing to indicate more than gratitude and respect towards me. However, this did not give her the right to speak up to me as she was doing, nor did it give a maid the right to say as she pleased about one that paid her and to enforce such airy talk from my own home as if it were the truth… My hand of its own volition came up and slapped Margaret’s face. The sound of it gave me the tremors for it was not a thing I had ever done to a servant before.
‘Margaret,’ I said, then stopped. It was wrong of me to smack Margaret, but it had been wrong of her to talk about me around town, worse, to my daughter. I could not have one of so little honour in my service. ‘Get out, Margaret. Get out and take your things with you.’
I saw the realisation that she was evicted fill her face from bottom up. First her chin dropped as her mouth fell open, then her cheeks flushed, filling the mark of my hand and last her eyes filled with unshed tears.
‘I have served you well for many years, Madam! Have pity on me. Do not throw me on the streets at this hour! My fault is not so harsh I deserve such mean treatment.’
‘This is only one lapse I learned of, Margaret, but am I omnipresent that I know of every time you blacken my name? How can I ever know if you besmirch me again? It is bad enough that others talk nonsense of me behind my back, but to have you do so as well is far worse. I should be inclined to trust one that lives in my household, but I cannot trust one that does not stand up for my name, even less one that blows on embers of talk and fires it into full flames! You must go, Margaret, but I will take pity on you this night, and you will leave on the morrow.’
With no word of gratitude for my concession, Margaret bent her head once more, gathered her skirts and left the room. Before she closed the door, she wiped one eye with her hand, and said, ‘Dismissing me will not dismiss the talk, Madam. The flame has been burning too long and is as unstoppable as the Great Fire. Your name has long been ashes beneath most decent folk’s feet!’
If I had a rejoinder to that, Margaret was no longer there to hear it. She left the next morning and that was all I saw of her since. I had as yet found no replacement and so Susan took over the cooking as much as she was able, and sometimes when my tasks did not fill the day I was able to do some of the household tasks.
This day, after I had gathered the tea cups Henry and I had recently used and taken them to the kitchen, I was pleased I did not have to share the cooking area with Margaret while I worked, since rarely did I have time to make my preparations from the herbs I had dried or steeped in oil months ago. Oh! Could there be a more pleasing way to pass the time? And such an agreeable nosegay of summer scents gone until another year passes.
It was only disagreeable that my son in law had brought news of Willoughby’s deeds from the town. Though his ear had merely picked the bones of the matter from gossip rife in the coffee houses, any den where busybodies collect was already replete with the meat of it, and it was enough to know the captain was soon to be returned to the place I had first found him.
Henry was unable to discover all of what had now occurred, but I feared I would not be pleased to know the all of it, particularly as it was only two days since Henry and my husband had once more given bail for Willoughby’s release and were forced to give sureties that he would stay free from trouble.
The man was proving a badly chosen nag – more burden than benefit – only discovered after the horse dealer had left town.
On Thursday a week before, which must have been the fifteenth day of October in the thirtieth year of the reign of King Charles, Willoughby had come to me, his face flushed in excitement, with news he had seen proof of the Presbyterian plot against Catholics and had asked for my guidance on the matter. Forgetting our earlier fight, he had, he told me, held vigil at the Green Ribbon Club, and good fortune had brought him into the acquaintance of one of the most unpopular men of government, Mr Mansell. It transpired that this man had no sense and kept in his rooms damaging papers showing the involvement of himself and others of the plot.
Willoughby informed me that Lady Powys had told him to take rooms near the man and ply him with a drink or two. Then, when Mansell was in his cups, Willoughby should put into the man’s pocket some papers revealing his treason.
I was convinced of the dishonesty of putting papers in the man’s pocket if they were not there before, but if Willoughby spoke the truth, we could soon see the end to our persecution. I had not forgiven him, but I put aside my own loathing for the sake of the cause to talk to him. So, I told him I was shocked that he should even say such thing about Lady Powys and that I did not believe she was such a woman as to fabricate a plot where there was none, and he must be vigilant to honesty. Furthermore, I told him, I would have no part of any false plot.
‘Well, hang me if the plot isn’t as real as this table!’ he had said, slapping his hand down hard on the surface and making me jump. ‘It is only for want of proof he does not hang from the gallows.’
So adamant was he of the man’s guilt and that proof of it lay in the man’s rooms, I suggested he did as Lady Powys said, and found rooms nearby. ‘But,’ I told him, ‘you must be sure to stay honest, for if you once stray down the path of deceit you will not so easily find the path back to truth. You must find where he keeps these papers you spoke of and then present them to a man of the law.’
On the Saturday two days after that, he returned to me and told me he had taken rooms with Mr Harris in Axe Yard, the very house where Mansell had lodgings. He had, he said, been to the magistrate to obtain a warrant to search Mansell’s rooms, but it was refused him. He had then gone to the king, who had shown him to Secretary Coventry, who also refused him.
‘Why will they not look?’ he shouted, quite agitated. ‘The proof is there to be found. I know it is there! If they will not look, he will escape the justice that should be done him. He will be free to plot the king’s death and to blame it on such as us, and no one will stop him! What should be done, Mrs Cellier? Tell me what should be done!’
&
nbsp; I paused for a moment. I would not play false, but could not bear to think of the king in danger.
‘Have you gone to Customs House? I am sure they might be interested to know…’
‘Customs House? That is no good to me!’ he shouted. ‘They are not interested in anything but smuggled goods!’
‘And there is your answer, Captain!’ I placed my hands on my hips. I could hardly conceal my satisfaction. ‘Did you not tell me of your suspicion that Mr Mansell conceals Flanders lace in his rooms?’
‘Lace? What would he do with lace! His crime is not to smuggle cloth but to plot and design against the king! He…’
Willoughby was uncommonly slow today, possibly due to another night in the taverns. ‘But…are you not of a suspicious nature?’ I interrupted, ‘and, are you not suspicious of his trips abroad since you have lived in his company?’ I was glad to see him at last pause in his ranting. Now I had his attention.
‘Madam Cellier,’ he had exclaimed suddenly. ‘You are brilliant! They would simply have to search Mansell’s rooms for contraband and, when the did, they would be sure to find the papers!’
So eager by this idea was he that he forgot our quarrel and came over and hugged me hard. It was quickly over then he was gone without another word. I was left with the smell of day-old ale and sweat, but also of the warmth of a young body against mine, something I had long forgotten. I quickly dispelled that longing with a shake of my head and a reminder to myself of the bounder he was, yet that feeling mixed with the memory of male smell emerged unasked at inconvenient times over the next days, no matter how much I tried to push it away.
That was all I heard of him until after noon on Monday, the twentieth day of October, when he came to our house, with Justice Edmund Warcup and his men following close on his horse’s tail. No sooner than Willoughby arrived with news that he had seen to it Mansell’s house was searched, and the papers he had seen were found, Warcup and two others came knocking at our door.
The Popish Midwife Page 19