The House on Primrose Pond

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The House on Primrose Pond Page 33

by Yona Zeldis McDonough


  “And what was the whole story?”

  “That I was doing it for me. To fill some loneliness I’d been harboring for years. An emptiness. An ache.”

  “You really wanted a child.”

  “I really did. But that didn’t give me the right to try to take yours.”

  Susannah put her arms around Alice, and for a few seconds held her very tight.

  FORTY-ONE

  Susannah walked back to her own house slowly, stopping to pick some wildflowers—tall pinks, purples, and blues whose names she had yet to learn—for her kitchen table. As she arranged the flowers in an old glass milk bottle, she thought about Alice’s apology. She had not realized how much she had needed it until it was offered. Maybe the two of them would become, if not friends, then something else, something they had yet to invent.

  Susannah spent the rest of the morning getting her living room back in order. She repositioned chairs and moved the bed and folded up the screen near the door. Corbin would help her bring them to store in the garage; he would be over tonight. Maybe later in the month she would have a yard sale—everyone around here seemed to do that. Alice could join her if she wanted. She suspected that there would be many things Alice was ready to let go of now.

  After finishing in the living room, Susannah went upstairs to her laptop. The week before, she had thought she was ready to send the material she’d been working on all these months to Tasha. In addition to the sample pages—she had about fifty in all—she had assembled a timeline of the events she’d narrated. She hoped it would help Tasha see the scope of the story. Then she had realized there was something missing, a postscript, as it were. And so she wrote a coda, purely fictional, but in her mind satisfying. There was no evidence whatsoever that Betsey’s life had unfolded in this way. But it was Susannah’s need for symmetry—and to give some modicum of peace to her character—that impelled her to write it as she did.

  About a year after little Ruth’s birth, Prudence took sick and died. With her death, so died my secret. I had told no one else and I never would. But once I had Ruth’s namesake in my life—a serious, dark-haired child whose needlework was uncommonly fine—I began to think of her, the other, more often than I had in recent years. I felt the need to atone for my sin against her. Yet it was not clear how I might do this. Then the path opened before me; why had I not seen it before?

  I had, as I said, many children, and so I was well versed in what to expect from the process of bringing them forth, and I had assisted in many births in the area, as was the custom. I noticed that the other women present began to defer to my judgment and seek my advice; I became, for all practical purposes, a midwife, skilled in delivering newborns and easing hardship for their laboring mothers. Sometimes a child died, or a mother, but more often than not the babes I delivered and their mothers lived and thrived. So I developed something of a reputation in these parts.

  I began to experiment with herbal remedies of my own devising to mute the pain, and also with implements to aid in the deliveries, first trying silver serving spoons or tongs to help grab on to a babe that would not slide easily down the narrow passage. What would my Sunday dinner guests have thought had they known! Later, I went to the village coppersmith and had him make me larger versions of both, with slight alterations I had requested. When he asked what my purpose with these implements was, I demurred. Though no witches had been burned in New England for a long while, I still thought it was best to be circumspect. A woman who knew too much—about the birthing process or anything else—was considered suspicious.

  The girl came to me one stifling evening in August, when nightfall did nothing to cool the air and the insects hummed and buzzed urgently in the dark. I had never seen her before; she was not from around here. Short and slight, from the back she resembled a child. But when viewed from the front, the roundness straining against her gown was clear for all to see. She told me she had a husband, and that he was away. This was a lie, of course. I knew that she had no husband—and yet here she was, belly as big as the moon. Poor poppet!

  “What’s your name, child?” I asked.

  “Anne Smith,” she said. Another lie. “I was told you could help me,” she said. “The pains have started and I think my time is near.”

  “The water—has that broken yet?”

  She nodded, and her eyes held the glazed terror of a rabbit caught in the jaws of a fox.

  “Well, let’s get you settled and see what’s what.”

  By this time, Joel had built a guest cottage set a little ways from the house, and it was sometimes used when our home overflowed with company. But when it was empty, I delivered the babies there. There was a back room that I claimed, with a clean, soft bed, plenty of fresh linens, and a little fireplace where I could heat the water. I kept my copper implements in that room, in a locked trunk and well hidden from prying eyes.

  I had the girl Anne—if that’s what she told me, I would not challenge her—lie down and loosen her garments so I could see how far along she was. To my surprise, she was nearly ready to start the pushing, so I had her disrobe and slip into one of the cambric shifts I kept folded and stacked for just this purpose. I might have asked one of the other women I knew to help, but I sensed she would not want this and so I did not. Besides, it looked as if it were going to be an easy birth. I was confident I could manage it on my own.

  I was right. The birthing went swiftly, and she did not cry out, only twisted her head against the pillow and contorted her mouth terribly from the pain. Strands of her brown hair had come loose and stuck to her forehead; I smoothed them away and pressed a cool cloth to the spot.

  “You are so kind—” She stopped, clearly gripped by the convulsion. But it was all over quickly and once I had washed and swaddled the babe—a fine rosy boy, bald as an egg—I placed him in her arms. It was then that she started to weep, great torrents of tears splashing down and leaving dark spots on the cambric.

  “What is it?” I said, though I knew. “It’s all done now—you have your boy, and he’s a nice big one too. Who would have thought a little wisp of a girl like you would have such a strapping baby?”

  She cried harder and I brought another cool compress for her wet, mottled face. “I lied.” She hiccupped. “He has no father. At least no father who will claim him.”

  “Ah,” I said. “I see.” And of course I did. It was an old story. The oldest. Men will play, women must pay.

  “I don’t know what to do! My father sent me away and my mother would not go against him. I have nowhere to go, no one to help me—”

  “You’re wrong,” I said. “You have me.”

  “You?”

  “I will help you. And it will be our secret. It was dark when you came, wasn’t it? No one saw you.”

  “No one,” she said.

  “Good,” I said. “That’s important.”

  “What will you do?”

  I looked straight at her. “The less you know, the better.” Then I got her cleaned up and helped her stand. She held the infant—quite tenderly, I thought—while I stripped and changed the bedding. Then I brought her some supper and tucked the two of them in. “Don’t light the fire or a candle, or make any noise at all. I’ll be back soon.”

  “Is there anything I can do?” she asked.

  “Feed your son,” I told her. “And then kiss him good-bye.”

  While she was eating, I went out and saddled Harley, the gentle gelding that Joel had bought for me. As it happened, Joel was away on business in Concord and was spending the night there with one of our sons. Good. What I planned to do was best known by as few as possible.

  The horse was unused to seeing me here at night and pressed his muzzle into my hand, looking for an apple. “Not now,” I told him. “Later.” It was pitch dark but I had a lantern and the horse knew the way out of the barn, across the meadow, and to the pebbled road that led toward J
affrey. We rode along quietly, and when we got to the house I tied up the horse to the iron hitching post and knocked softly on the door.

  The man who opened it had broad shoulders and heavyset arms. His face, in the humid night, was slightly flushed and I could see the dark stubble on his unshaven cheeks. “Betsey!” he said. He was surprised to see me. But not unhappy. “Are you here because—?”

  “I am,” I said. “And you’d better hurry. I want it all done before morning.”

  He ushered me inside and called out, “Mary, it’s Betsey Eastman! Betsey’s come!”

  A woman hurried to the doorway, a few just-starting-to-gray curls escaping from her linen cap. “May the Lord be praised,” she said softly when she saw me. “We’ll be there as soon as we can.”

  “I’ll be ready.” Then I turned and went back out to Harley, who had been waiting patiently for me. I had an apple concealed in my dress pocket, but I did not want to tarry; I would give it to him when we were at the barn again.

  The Wainwrights—that was their name—arrived soon after, and Anne handed over the boy to them. Through the years, I’d delivered five or six—I had lost count—of Mary Wainwright’s babes, all of them born dead, save one, and he’d lived less than an hour. I’d told Mary that if there were ever a babe in need of a mother, I would call on her. Now that time had come.

  They took the child with a reverence that was truly touching to see, and stole away quietly, using the dark to cloak their journey. I kept Anne hidden in my birthing room all the next day, and at dusk the following evening I took her to the home of friends in Somerset, with whom she had secured a ride to Portsmouth. She hugged me good-bye, and I insisted she take a small parcel of food and another dress—she had almost nothing with her—and she promised to repay me when she could.

  “That won’t be necessary,” I told her. “You have already repaid me, more than you can ever know.” Because it was that other one I was thinking of, the one who’d come to Salisbury alone and friendless and found not comfort, not kindness, but—because of me—sorrow and death.

  Some years later—it might have been three, it might have been four—I got a letter from that girl. She had indeed gone to Portsmouth and found work in a tavern. This might have led to a life of moral degradation and ruin. Instead, she caught the fancy of an older gentleman, a widower who owned a fleet of whaling vessels, and he married her. He set her up in a very fine house, with maidservants and a butler, while he trolled the high seas in search of the whales and their precious oil. She had a daughter the first year of their marriage, and then a son. All this she put forth in her letter, and included were some bills whose value far exceeded that of a loaf of bread, a slab of ham, and an oft-mended old dress.

  Of course there had been curiosity about the Wainwrights’ new baby—and speculation, both of which were followed by a brief formal inquiry. I told the magistrate that the child, a foundling, had been left in a basket at my doorstep, probably because of my reputation as a midwife, and though there was no witness to confirm my story, there was none to deny it either. After a while the talk died down. The girl who had given him up had shed her old identity. No one knew her or where she had come from, and until her letter arrived, no one knew where she had gone either. After reading it twice, I destroyed it, ripping it into smaller and smaller pieces and then burning those in the hearth until only ash remained. The child slid seamlessly into his new life and became known as Will, the Wainwrights’ darling boy, cynosure of their lives. That was all anyone ever needed to know. My part in the story was never revealed. Until now.

  Susannah attached the timeline and the sample pages to the e-mail she had composed to Tasha.

  Here it is. You said I had to decide if I was telling Ruth’s story or Betsey’s. I think the answer is that I’m telling both. In my mind, the two are bound together, braided as tightly as wires. Betsey’s actions had fatal consequences for Ruth, and Ruth’s tragic death shaped Betsey’s life; they truly can’t be separated.

  What you’re seeing here is just the rudimentary mapping out of the story. I’ll need to add more—about Betsey, about Ruth, and the times in which each woman lived. Ruth’s life has a clear and tragic arc. But this is not true of Betsey and Betsey needs her story too. And in the absence of the factual material, I plan to fill in from my imagination. I’ve already written a scene in which Betsey has a small role in the birth of a neighbor’s child, and another in which her work as a midwife is explained and described.

  Thanks for your vote of confidence, and for letting me pursue this unfamiliar path; I think it will take me to a place we both want to go.

  Then she hit send. The answer, which Susannah read while sitting at the desk in her bedroom, took only a few days to arrive. Tasha wasn’t one to let things linger.

  I think you’ve nailed it, Susannah. Or in any case, you’ve convinced me that this story, Ruth’s and Betsey’s, is worth telling and that you’re the woman to do it. I think it’s going to be a very strong book—maybe your very best. I’ll get the contracts department to draw up the paperwork. What do you think about a deadline of January 7? Let me know; excited to be a part of your new journey.

  Yes. Tasha said yes! Susannah would get to write her book. She hadn’t realized how happy this would make her until the possibility had become a reality. She reread the e-mail. January 7. That would be just a little over a year since she had first moved back here, to this town, this house, this new and surprising life.

  Her eyes strayed out the window to the pond, which was swollen from all the snow this past winter; the water lapped high along the shoreline.

  Last January, she could not have imagined Corbin or Alice or Dave, and yet all three had become so important, even vital to her. She could not have imagined Ruth or Betsey either; had she not come here, to Primrose Pond, their stories would not have ever been known to her. Sometimes, she still felt that rough blade of grief over Charlie’s death hack through her—that would never entirely go away. But now she had, if not everything, then so much: love where she had not expected to find it, work she truly and deeply wanted to complete. Her children were thriving. And it was finally spring—the air was mild, and clusters of tulips and late daffodils had cropped up around the house. Susannah reached out to stroke the glass paperweight Alice had given her, the convex surface smooth under her fingers, the swirled, shining colors a tiny counterpoint to the glittering surface just beyond the window’s frame.

  EPILOGUE

  Susannah dips first her foot and then her ankle into the placid water of Primrose Pond. Although it’s early August, the water is cool. No matter—to her, it’s perfect, and she wades out until she’s waist deep before diving in. Then she propels herself under the surface for a few seconds before emerging again. The water is very clear. Even at this depth, she can see her legs, and even her toes, beneath her. Scanning the horizon, she can make out the houses across the pond. They are mostly hidden by the trees’ lush growth; last winter’s heavy snow has created dense canopies all around. The birch trees stand out, white and slender, amid the green, and pockets of cattails cluster along the banks.

  Laughter erupts from the wooden raft a few yards away. There’s Calista, red hair a shock in the sun. While her friends—there are three, all girls—are clad in skimpy bikinis, Calista wears a discreetly dotted one-piece from the 1940s that she and Alice found in a thrift shop in Maine; it makes the other girls’ choices seem cheap and obvious. When Calista catches sight of her, her arm shoots up and she waves. The deep freeze of the winter is over, and although there are still moments of friction, by and large her prodigal daughter has returned.

  Jack is on the raft too, with a couple of his friends, including Gilda, the pretty blonde from across the pond. He’s grown even more these last months, and his face is losing the soft curves of boyhood so quickly that Susannah fears she won’t even be able to remember what they were like.

  Pushing her soaked, mi
nk brown hair out of her face, Susannah swims over to the raft to join them. She hoists herself up and the kids shift over to make room for her. “Look, Mom—there’s Alice. And she brought Panda with her!” Calista starts to swim toward the elderly figure walking down the path. Alice wears a long white caftan covered in tiny embroidered flowers, a large straw hat, and large, dark glasses. In her arms is a small brindle Pomeranian: Panda. Calista reaches the dock and pulls herself out of the water so she can hurry up the path to meet Alice.

  Although Alice and Susannah have moved tentatively toward each other, Susannah has to accept that their relationship will always have an undercurrent of—what, tension? Resentment? Alice still has to live with the knowledge of Dave’s betrayal, and Susannah is the concrete proof of it. Explaining the story to Calista and Jack had brought all that up again. And Susannah cannot entirely forget those months when Alice seemed almost her enemy, intent on wooing her child away from her. But the kids seem oblivious to these undercurrents, and effortlessly cast Alice in the role of grandmother; Susannah can see how their easy acceptance and affection have helped to soften the spiky edges.

  The dog starts squirming when she sees Calista, and Alice hands her over. After Emma’s death in the fire, Susannah had combed the region looking for a rescue poodle for Alice. And she’d found what she thought was the perfect one: a year-old apricot standard owned by a family in Newington whose youngest child developed a severe allergy to the supposedly hypoallergenic dog. But to her surprise, Alice declined. “Emma was the poodle to define all poodles,” she said. “I couldn’t ever have another.” And instead, she found Panda—the anti-poodle.

  As Calista stands cooing over the fluffy little dog, Polly Schultz, who is visiting for the week, walks down the path, flip-flops smacking loudly. She has a big striped towel under one arm and a paperback under the other. “Are you coming in?” Susannah calls out to her.

 

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