by Ann Swinfen
‘Aye?’ said Anne.
‘I think I can read the signs,’ the woman whispered. ‘Are you in labour?’
Anne gritted her teeth as another surge of pain engulfed her, then nodded without speaking.
‘How do you come to be travelling, so near your time?’
‘The baby is not due for another month. We needed to leave London.’
The woman nodded sympathetically. ‘We too. We go to my brother’s house in Woodstock. Our warehouse was looted and there was very little we could save. Were you attacked by the army?’
Anne smiled wanly. Why, after all, should she not tell this woman who she was and why she was fleeing from Westminster? It might be that she would need help, and the endurance of misery and accident had made comrades of them all.
‘My husband is a Member of Parliament. He’s arrested and imprisoned for trying to reach a peace settlement. He thought we should be safer back in Staffordshire, so I’m taking my children and household to his father’s estate. If we can but reach there, we’ll be safe.’
The image of Swinfen rose up before her, the rich fields and woods, the lake, above all, the rambling house. It was half timbered, with plaster and brick, three centuries old at least, the original hall house extended by wings and additional storeys as the family had grown and prospered on the land they had owned before the Conquest.
Anne felt the sting of tears beneath her eyelids, a desolate yearning for sanctuary. The house with its odd staircases, its crooked gables and elaborate Tudor chimneys, would look absurd beside some of the fine new buildings in London, designed on the classical lines of Italy. But she had loved the place since childhood. They would be safe in Swinfen, where she could lay down her burdens and become a daughter of the house again, happily yielding the lordship to her father-in-law.
The merchant’s wife shook her head.
‘Staffordshire? It’s my opinion you’ll not travel further than Oxford, my dear. How soon do you think the baby is coming?’
Anne could not suppress a small gasp as the next contraction seized her.
‘Not more than an hour or two now, I fear. Do you know how long it will be till we come to Oxford?’
‘We may reach it in time. If we don’t, we shall tell the driver to stop, and turn the rest out into the snow. Don’t be afraid. Look at your fine family about you. The new child will be as sturdy as they, I’m sure.’
‘I lost two as infants,’ said Anne, with a sob. Kindness was almost more than she could bear at the moment. ‘After my eldest son, who’s fifteen. Then four were untimely born before Nan there.’ She nodded towards Nan, who was leaning against Doctor Hadley, fast asleep.
‘You’ve never a son of fifteen!’ exclaimed the woman. ‘A young girl like you!’
‘Ah, mistress, you flatter me,’ said Anne. ‘Today I feel three score at least.’
It was some comfort to talk; it diverted her mind from what was happening, beyond her control, to her body. It had grown dark outside, and the candle lamp was hanging again from the roof of the coach. At last they heard a shout from outside. The walls of Oxford were ahead. There was a lurch as the exhausted postilion climbed up to the seat at the back of the coach.
As the sound of the wheels changed, Anne drew aside the piece of canvas that had been hung over the broken window. They were passing over a ramshackle bridge.
‘Magdalen Bridge,’ said Dr Hadley. ‘Not collapsed since I left, I see. No more than a few minutes now to Carfax.’
Through the broken parapet Anne could see the dark waters of a river reflecting back the coach lanterns. Ahead and to the right was a college with a fine tower. The horses picked up their pace, for the road had been cleared here at some time during the day, despite a later covering of snow, and they sensed a warm stable and good feed ahead of them. The coach moved briskly along a wide street that curved gently to the left, past handsome buildings. As it drew to a halt finally at the Carfax crossroads, a great pealing of bells began.
‘All the bells of Oxford ring out at midnight to greet you,’ said Doctor Hadley, helping Anne gently down the step of the coach.
Anne nodded. At the moment neither bells nor the hour of the night interested her.
‘I must reach an inn as quickly as possible,’ she gasped. ‘The baby is coming.’
Doctor Hadley regarded her with a bachelor’s profound alarm.
‘The Mitre. That’s a respectable inn, and close by. Can you walk there?’
‘Needs must,’ said Anne. ‘There is no other way.’
Doctor Hadley gave hasty instructions to the driver and to Peter about the luggage, then took her by the arm, carrying her Turkey bag in his other hand.
‘I’ll go with you,’ said the merchant’s wife. ‘My husband will see that your family and goods come to no harm. We also stay at the Mitre, and he’ll conduct your family there after us.’
She seized Anne’s other arm, and between them they half carried her, stumbling along the snowy street. The blizzard had ceased and a moon had risen. Its light cast a strange silver luminescence over the magical city of towers, where the ringing of the bells echoed amongst the snowy spires and battlements.
At the Mitre, the innkeeper and his wife were soon roused, and Anne found herself hurried away through a maze of winding passages to a large room at the back of the inn. The merchant’s wife, whose name she had at last discovered to be Mistress Otwood, went with her. Doctor Hadley, murmuring something about a physician, disappeared again in the direction of the street, with an air of escape. The inn-wife hastened ahead with a warming pan of coals, the kitchen boy was roused to light the fire in the chamber, and Anne allowed herself to be led, and undressed to her shift, and put to bed. It was a relief to her to surrender responsibility for herself into other hands. The contractions were coming so fast now that she knew the baby would arrive before any physician or midwife could be found, roused, and brought here.
As if at a great distance, she was aware of the sounds of her children and servants arriving, and the bustle to find them food and rooms, but her world had shrunk to this bed, the firm hand of Mistress Otwood holding hers, and the pain that women bear to atone for Eve’s sins.
In sorrow shalt thou bring forth children.
Anne was not sure whether she had spoken aloud. The inn-wife was bathing her face and crying out encouragement as the agony built to a crescendo. Every time, it seemed as though her very body would be ripped apart.
‘I can see the head!’ exclaimed Mistress Otwood. ‘Only a minute more, my dear, and a new child born to you.’
Suddenly, in an explosion of scarlet pain, the child thrust out into the world and Anne collapsed back on the bolster, her lungs heaving, as the other two women busied themselves with the baby, forgetting her. Her hair, drenched with sweat, clung stickily to her cheeks and her nails had drawn blood from her palms.
‘All’s well,’ said the inn-wife. ‘A beautiful little girl, and none the worse for coming early, for she’s not much undersized.’
They wrapped the baby in a piece of blanket and gave her to Anne to hold. She was too tired to examine the child closely, but she was well formed and breathing naturally, her small wrinkled fists against her face. Yet Anne grieved. Grieved for John helpless and unknowing in prison, and for herself stranded in a strange inn, with yet another soul to care for.
The physician, a brisk bald-pated man, arrived about half an hour later and declared the baby sound and healthy. He was less happy about Anne, whose ribs were unbearably painful after the labour of bringing forth the child. The physician bound them tightly and told her she must rest and let all be done for her.
‘And how is that to be?’ Anne asked. ‘I’m but halfway on my journey. I have a household of ten—nay, eleven—persons besides myself to convey to Lichfield.’
The physician shook his head.
‘You must not travel for several weeks. Didn’t your waiting gentlewoman say that you have friends in Oxford?’
‘The Harc
ourts of Stanton Harcourt. They have a house here in town also. But I do not know if they are at home, and they aren’t expecting me.’
‘I’ll make enquiries in the morning,’ he said, ‘and call on you again at noon. In the meantime, I want you to rest.’
When he had gone, Mistress Otwood laid the baby in a cradle the inn-wife had found, saying it had once belonged to her own children. Then bidding Anne goodnight, or rather good morning, she tiptoed away. Anne scarcely saw her go. The strapping around her chest made it difficult to breathe, but it eased the pain in her ribs somewhat. She tried to find a comfortable position, but, before she could do so, she fell into a heavy sleep.
Next morning the children were brought in by Patience and Bess to greet their new sister, but showed little interest. New babies were old news to them.
Nan did say, ‘I’ll help you all I can, Mama. I’ll look after the little ones. You mustn’t worry.’
Anne kissed and thanked her. It seemed she was forgiven for kidnapping her reluctant daughter from school. The inn-wife bustled in during the morning to say that Doctor Hadley had called to enquire after all the party, but would not step up to see the baby. Anne suspected a certain nervousness on his part at the prospect of venturing into a female chamber amid all the clutter of a new baby. She was deeply grateful to him, however, this stranger whom she had misjudged at first.
The physician came, true to his word, at mid-day. The baby still slept, that first exhausted sleep after birth, before hunger turns the helpless newborn into a demanding tyrant. Although he pronounced himself content with the baby, despite her early appearance in the world, he was the bearer of some bad news.
‘It seems that Lady Harcourt is not in Oxfordshire,’ he said. ‘Or rather, Lady Waller, as she now is. The whole family is removed to her new husband’s home for the winter. And the house at Stanton Harcourt is quite cut off by the blizzard. I’m afraid you must make shift to stay here, unless you wish to find other lodgings.’
But Anne was too tired to think of moving her household. There was room for them at the Mitre, and they would stay here until they could continue to Lichfield.
‘One matter concerns me,’ she said next day to Mistress Otwood, who had called to say her farewells before travelling the last miles to Woodstock. ‘Since the baby was not due to arrive until we were established at home in Staffordshire, I’d intended to engage a wet nurse there. I don’t suppose I shall be able to employ one in Oxford who’s willing to move so far away from home.’
Mistress Otwood shook her head. ‘Unlikely. You’re feeding the baby yourself now?’
‘Aye. I must,’ said Anne. ‘I’ve never done so before.’
‘Naturally.’ Any woman of sufficient means always employed a wet nurse.
Anne sighed. ‘I find myself very tired. But I suppose, from Eve onwards, women have always borne this burden.’
The other woman patted her hand. ‘Soon you’ll be at home in your father-in-law’s house and you can lay aside your cares. You will be able to rest. When your ribs have healed, I’m sure you’ll feel strong and well again.’
When she had gone, Anne eased herself back on to the bolster. She clung to the thought of Swinfen Hall, its lighted windows casting golden paths across the snow, welcoming them home to peacefulness and safety. Tomorrow she would write a letter, announcing their return. Despite her worries she fell asleep smiling.
Chapter Fourteen
After the events of December twelfth—when three of their number were released and four carried off to closer confinement at St James’s—a tedious week passed with little to affect the prisoners. Occasional news reached them from the outside world. Jacob passed on any gossip he gathered in taproom or street. A few informative letters arrived, despite the vigilance of their guards, and Jacob brought what newspapers he could, from the Moderate with its sectarian passions to the Presbyterian Mercurius Pragmaticus. Three more of their number were released, mockingly, one by one: Parliament’s archivist and antiquarian, Sir Simonds D’Ewes, the commissioner Sir Harbottle Grimston, and Francis Drake.
On Sunday the London pulpits resounded to fierce sermons praising the prisoners’ fortitude, condemning the army’s purge of the members, and urging congregations to work for the release of those still imprisoned. Bold preaching, which called forth ominous threats against the clergy from the Army Council, more sure of its power and more arrogant by the day. Word on the streets was that all work of Parliament and the courts was collapsing. The citizens who had not fled London fretted under the burden of quartering and feeding the troops.
For the men who remained imprisoned, it was heartening to learn of the support of preachers and citizens, but their own situation did not improve. Apart from Prynne, who had known worse confinement in the Tower, they were unaccustomed to such restriction of their persons. All of them gentlemen of means, they were wont to command, rather than to submit to orders. Moreover, the majority of them had been reared as countrymen. London itself was distasteful to them at the best of times, with its lack of fields and open spaces, with its filthy river and choking air. To be locked in the inn, where even the most fastidious were becoming somewhat rank, was a torment.
‘The one thing we may be thankful for,’ John said to Crewe, ‘is that it’s not the summer season, with the weather hot and the air foetid. I am as fond as the next man of those who serve with me in Parliament, but I’ve no intimate need to know which of them snore the loudest, which have the least seemly manners at table, or which fail to change their dirty linen.’
They were sitting in a corner of the dining room, which had become by now a kind of common-room for the prisoners. To occupy his hands, John had whittled a crude set of chess men from scraps of kindling, tinting half of them black with ink. They had sketched out a chess board on one of the candle tables with a bit of chalk, and now played every day. In normal times, John was skilled at chess, but he was too much distracted by his thoughts to concentrate on his moves, so that Crewe, who was more resigned to their unhappy situation, was for ever winning.
‘Checkmate,’ said Crewe placidly. ‘You’ll drive me to vanity and excess, John, if you continue to play so badly.’ He began to set up the pieces again. ‘I’m sure Anne and the children are safe back at Swinfen by now.’
‘I’ve had no word.’
‘Be reasonable, man. A long journey with a gaggle of children and servants! She has enough to occupy her. And even when she has time to write, how shall she send? We don’t know what’s afoot out there. There may be no official post any more. Or it may be reserved for the army officers and their cronies. She may have to wait weeks, until she can send a letter by a trusted friend.’
John sighed and took down his pipe from the mantelpiece. Thomas Lane had sent them a supply of tobacco two days earlier, to their great comfort. With it had come a letter, saying that their friends were striving their utmost for the prisoners’ release. But apart from the three who had been recently fetched away, there was no sign that their captors were relenting.
‘What day is this?’ John asked.
Crewe looked up, and scratched his head.
‘I’ve quite lost count.’ He turned and called out to the room in general. ‘What’s the date today? Can anyone tell?’
‘The nineteenth of December,’ someone said.
‘Nay, nay, ‘tis the twentieth,’ said Prynne. ‘I’m keeping a record.’ He tapped a packet of paper he carried with him everywhere. ‘I shall write a memorial of our imprisonment from the notes I’m keeping, to lay before all the world the scurvy treatment we’ve received at the hands of those tyrants.’
His face flushed with enthusiasm, the branded letters showing livid on his cheeks.
‘All shall know them for the devils they are, flouting the laws of the land and the privilege of Parliament!’
‘Thank you, Will,’ John called. ‘I only wanted to know the date.’ He grinned at Crewe and said in an undertone. ‘We may mock Will, but he has maintained a sturdy c
ourage in face of much cruelty. We should ask ourselves whether we could have endured, as he has, such torture and maiming. I fear what I might do under torture.’
He spoke the words lightly enough, but his fear was real.
‘He once told me that he could endure anything,’ said Crewe, ‘as long as they did not cut out his tongue.’
John chuckled. ‘Aye, well, he can even laugh at himself, when the mood takes him.’ He rubbed his shoulder, where the dagger thrust was nearly healed, but itching.
After contemplating the board, he moved a pawn and leaned over the fire to light a spill for his pipe.
‘The twentieth of December. So we’ve been confined for two weeks. And it’s but four days till the Eve of Christ’s Nativity. Do you suppose they will allow us to celebrate Christmas by attending church?’
Crewe made his move. Inattentively, John moved his bishop.
‘Not they,’ said Crewe. ‘The “Elect”? They’d abolish Christmas. They say it’s a pagan festival.’
‘Maybe in some things—the Yule Log and the mistletoe and the kissing bunch. Yet they’re but the trimmings. The heart of the day is the heart of our Christian faith, the birth of our Redeemer. I can’t follow their arguments. I agree with the purifying of the church, ridding it of the malpractices of the bishops, with their fat lands and ill-gotten money, and their tyranny against poor Christian folk. But this Puritan desire to rob faith of all joy and all beauty, that I cannot understand.’
Crewe studied the board for some time, then moved his knight and took John’s bishop.
‘There’s a kind of man, I think, who believes that the only true faith is a faith that hurts. If it’s joyful or beautiful, it must be the work of the devil. That’s why they smash the statues and the lovely old glass windows of our churches, and rip up altar cloths and vestments embroidered with love and piety.’
John nodded.
‘True enough, and that, I would argue, is a kind of sickness. Indeed, in itself it’s a kind of blasphemy, for did not God himself create the beauty of the world?’