Midwife : Liza

by Valerie Levy

  “’Twas the excess of water brought about the trouble,” Liza muttered to no-one in particular, “Made the head too big to come through - not surprising, mind, with all that other water in the womb - far too much, spread to the head, that's what happened. But old Liza made it come away.”

  Once more she was an old woman, stooped and tired. A momentary spell of dizziness overcame her as she stood, and Beatrice caught her before she fell. She helped Liza lower herself back onto the stool.

  “Time you were home, Liza, you’re tired out and no wonder,” Beatrice laid her hand on the midwife’s shoulder and squeezed gently. “We can tidy up here.”

  “No, no, the afterburthen’s not here yet, the danger’s not passed till it’s out, bleeding’s more likely after the womb has been so stretched, has had to work so hard …”

  “It’s coming now. No need to worry, Liza, it’s all complete. Goodwife Miller’s caught it.” Beatrice collected Liza’s instruments for her and then went to help her from the stool. Liza offered no resistance, in truth, she was worn out, weak with relief that the surgery had succeeded. She would be glad to be home. She knew the women would care for Mistress Attehill; all of them had basic midwifery skills learnt from their own childbirths, or from the confinements attended as part of ordinary village life.

  Walter Attehill would dig a hole on the side of some ditch that evening and bury his stillborn child, quickly and quietly.

  On her way out of the cottage, Liza stopped by Margaret who by then had been untied and hoisted up the mattress. Although she looked wan, Margaret managed a weak smile and took the midwife’s hand.

  “Liza. I nearly died. You saved me.”

  Liza grimaced and muttered under her breath. “Aye, old Liza saved you, child. Who knows, maybe my skill, how I’ve used my skill today, maybe it’ll count against the evil I've done to Master de le Haye.”

  Chapter 10

  Anton worked most of the morning in the herb garden adjacent to the Infirmary. He had arranged to meet Rosalind later, and he sighed in mild irritation at the thought. He had much to do in the garden and Infirmary. The weather was perfect for growing, long warm days with the occasional shower to keep the soil moist. The crops were growing well in the fields around Hollingham and Reedwich, and if all continued the same, the harvest would be good. He wanted to finish clearing another patch of earth overgrown with weeds just by the wall. The garden needed to be much larger; more herbs and other plants were always required for the Infirmary.

  As he worked, he thought about Rosalind. Making love to a clean young girl was a most pleasant novelty, but she had started to bore him slightly the last time they met. It would be bad mannered to jump on and off her as though she were a whore, he thought, but doing all the work whilst she just lay wriggling her hips became irksome after a while. After her initial forwardness she had seemed to revert more to the shy, moonstruck girl of their first meeting. She'd probably be only too willing to learn the tricks he could teach her but, as she'd soon be married and gone, it hardly seemed worth his while.

  He was mildly annoyed at her deceit; if he had known of her virginity he doubted he would have made love to her. She had been convincing enough to trick him, but continuing their meetings and lovemaking was dangerous. Especially in the light of day, but the alternative of leaving the monastery at night would be asking for discovery. The doors were locked and guarded, and his absence at the night services could not fail to be noted immediately. It was all getting too risky, he decided; this afternoon would be the last time. There was too much to lose. Healing was his reason for being, and he would not wager his mission here as Infirmarer for the sake of a silly young girl, however enticing.

  Since the earliest of Anton's memories, healing had been the essential thread running through his life. When he was a small boy he found a kestrel with a broken wing. He took the bird home and bound the fragile bones. The kestrel died, but as Anton’s skill grew over the years more and more of the birds and animals he treated lived. The intricacies of the small living bodies he held in his hands fascinated him and when an injured bird or animal he had cared for flew away, or ran whole again into the wilds, he experienced an almost mystical surge of joy. Healing came as naturally to him as breathing and he could not imagine doing anything else with his life but caring for the sick, whether animal or human.

  When he was twelve years old, his curiosity led him to the hospital run by the local monastery. Sick animals were all very well, he thought, but since he wanted to study medicine it was time he made the acquaintance of sick people. The Infirmarer, an old man, wise from a life of studying and experimenting in the healing power of herbs, at first poked gentle fun at the intense boy. Soon, however, he realised the strength of Anton’s passion to learn how the humours of the human body worked and balanced themselves, and to heal its sicknesses. Brother Bernard and the boy became fond of each other, and during the next few years Anton sought his company whenever possible. He watched, helped, asked interminable questions, and learnt all the monk could teach him.

  Life treated him well for the next few years. He studied in the mornings, visited the Infirmary in the afternoons, and whored in the evenings. The problem came when he reached his seventeenth birthday. Dom Vizzinci assumed, as his only son, Guiseppe, as he then was, would eventually take over the family business. Guiseppe never bothered to correct his father's assumption; he dreaded the explosion he guessed would follow. He was not interested in banking; he had his heart set upon studying medicine at Padua, the greatest Italian medical school and one of the most prestigious universities of Europe.

  As expected, a bitter row resulted when Guiseppe refused to follow into the family business. His father refused to finance his studies; he would do nothing to encourage him, and Guiseppe remained adamant in his refusal to become a banker.

  The row simmered on for weeks. Father and son refused to speak to each other, each remaining as obstinate as the other. At last, Guiseppe’s mother lost patience with them, particularly her husband.

  “The boy’s determined to be a physician!” she shouted at him one evening. “Medicine’s an honourable profession, you have many nephews only too willing to take Guiseppe’s place in the business, but no, you're too obstinate for that. Obstinate as a mule. If you were a good father you would allow him to follow his own path.”

  Dom Vizzinci would not listen. “I am a banker. My father was a banker. My father’s father was a banker. My son will be a banker.”

  In desperation, Guiseppe asked the advice of Brother Bernard. Could he become a monk, an Infirmarer like his old friend, perhaps? The August-inians might accept him into their order, the old man suggested. They worked amongst ordinary people; they taught, healed and cared for the old and destitute; they gave spiritual guidance to whoever wanted it. Brother Bernard thought they would welcome a young man already adept in the arts of healing, and who would one day be skilled enough to supervise an Infirmary.

  And so it transpired. Guiseppe left home and, as soon as he was of age and no longer needed his father's consent, to his father’s horror became Brother Anton, an Augustinian Canon. He studied theology, philosophy and herbal medicine, travelled far from Italy and learnt several languages as he worked.

  He had not seen his parents since becoming a monk. Dom Vizzinci never tried to contact his son, but his mother sent an occasional message, with the help of her scribe as she had never learned to read or write. Anton received her latest letter a few days ago.

  “Your father has forgiven you in his heart,” she had dictated, “He refuses still to speak of you, but I, his wife, believe you are forgiven. He is a proud man, but he loves you. If you should return to us, I believe you could ask of him whatever you wish, and it would be granted.” As always, his mother enclosed money in the event that Anton would relent and need it for his passage home. He knew he should not keep the money; he should have relinquished it to his Order but, nevertheless, he kept it. It paid for the whores.

  All in a
ll, he thought, life was good. Even though he was not a physician, even though he had never studied at Padua, at least he had his own hospital to supervise. Admittedly a small one, but he did not intend to stay there longer than he need before applying to supervise a much larger Infirmary. This he knew in his heart, was where his future lay, and he would allow nothing – nobody – to deflect him from his path.

  He would meet Rosalind one more time, but that would be the last. He went to seek permission from Abbott Julian to absent himself for the next few hours to collect plants from the woods.

  Agatha Furnier rapped on the door of Widows’ Cot before pushing it ajar. The July morning was still cool, but as soon as she opened the door a wave of heat and smoke assailed her. She reeled back momentarily before collecting herself and entering. The floor was strewn with jars of herbs and cooking paraphernalia; as usual, Liza was hunched on her stool, stirring the brew that bubbled aromatically over the fire. The midwife looked up and rose stiffly, her old face crinkled in welcome.

  “Come along, come along now, child, tell Liza your tidings.” She picked her way carefully through the clutter on the floor over to Agatha, her wizened face alight with the expectation of good news. Agatha beamed back at her.

  “All night long I’ve been plagued by gripes.” Liza nodded in satisfaction and Agatha continued. “I swallowed the mead before I went to bed, like you told me, lay waiting, and sure enough, before long I started griping and colicking.”

  “Good, good. And you’ve not seen your flowers?”

  “Not since the end of May. And most mornings I’m spewing.”

  “Aye, there’s no doubt, ‘tis a mother you’ll be soon, Mistress Furnier,” Liza grinned as Agatha giggled, dark curls bouncing and escaping from under her linen cap. “And I ‘spect you want me to tell you what you’re carrying. Slip your gown off from your top, my dear, let Liza look at you. Aye, 'tis a lad.”

  “How do you know, Liza?”

  “Boys are always carried on the right side of the womb, that makes the right breast bigger - like yours.”

  Agatha was impressed. She laughed. “Sam’s like a dog with three balls, he’s that pleased and proud of himself. You’ll deliver me, Liza?”

  “Aye, providing God spares me that long.”

  “Oh, really, Liza, you’ll go on for ever. Why, I can’t imagine Hollingham without you here in Widows’ Cot.”

  Liza turned away and sat on her stool, facing the fire, her face now sad and pensive. She spoke so quietly Agatha had to strain to hear. “You don’t know, child, you don’t know the evil old Liza’s done.”

  “You, Liza? Evil?” Agatha knelt by her side and laid her hand on the old woman’s knee. “You’d never do no evil. You help us all, help to heal us when we’re sick and deliver us of our babies, always at our beck and call – look at how you helped Margaret Attehill, she'd have died along with that - that baby with the devil's - Why, I don’t believe you’d do evil to anyone or anything.”

  Then she remembered. “Oh, Liza, you don’t mean the curse, do you?” Liza said nothing, just kept staring into the fire. “That were nothing, you was upset, your cat’d been killed and you wasn’t caring what you said!”

  Liza turned towards Agatha. Her eyes, red and watery from the smoke, were troubled and intense. “Old Liza meant every word, child. He did me evil, he burned my cottage, he killed my Murrikin.” Her voice cracked in indignation. “He needs me out of here, he says, no matter here's my home. And he won’t stop till he gets what he wants, till Bonney and me are dead and out of his way." Her bony shoulders slumped and she turned away again to the fire. “He’ll kill us both in the end, you’ll see, child, you’ll see. He's an evil man, and I'm scared of him. But, even so, old Liza should never have done it.”

  Agatha pulled the other stool over and sat beside her. She patted Liza’s hand as she spoke. “Nicholas de le Haye’s well, the curse hasn’t taken. He’s still rampaging about, he’s still the bully he’s always been. Forget the curse, Liza, God probably didn't hear you,” she crossed herself, “or else the Holy Virgin knew you was too upset to realise what you was saying and prayed to Him for you.”

  "No child, he's thinner every time I see him. My curse is still on him, he’ll not escape that. 'Tis an evil deed I've done, Agatha, evil. Old Liza's always worked to bring life, never death. And I’ll pay for my sin in the end.”

  Agatha reached over to hug her. “Don’t you worry now, Liza, he’s not worth fretting over. Richard Reeve and Master Brooke will make sure no harm comes to you. Just take care of yourself, and remember, I’ll be wanting you to help birth this babe.” She patted her abdomen, as yet still only naturally plump and not swollen by the baby within.

  Liza smiled once more as Agatha walked out of the door. “Aye, child, I’ll be with you when your time comes. That's all I stay for now, to help bring life.” She turned back towards her fire and spoke softly. “ ‘Tis all I ever stayed for.”

  Rosalind hurried along the forest tracks to the clearing. This time she had permission from her mother to be away from the manor house. She had said she wanted to take food to Margaret Attehill - she had, in fact, visited Margaret who was still weak from her last childbirth - but had not tarried so there would be time to meet Anton.

  Without Lord Roger and his men the manor house was peaceful, and, Rosalind thought, even more boring than usual. Lord Roger and his retinue had departed for the Continent several weeks ago. Following his custom when away, he had left only two armed men and a few villagers to serve and protect his family and manor house.

  The stable grooms, Hugo and Thomas oversaw the care of the horses, oxen and cows, as well as the barns that stored wheat and oats. They lived in one of the tiny dwellings built against the side of the courtyard wall, near the main gate. There was a cook and a scullion in the kitchen, two dairymaids and a laundrywoman, Mistress Carpenter, who came in every day from the village.

  Rosalind thought her mother would scold her on her late return to the manor house, but she did not care. She must talk to Anton today. Although she had visited the Infirmary on a few occasions with her mother, this was only the third time she had been able to meet him alone in the forest.

  The last time, before they had made love, the monk took from his pouch a small jar. “Drink this, cara,” he said. “This physick will prevent conception.” It was a mixture of pennyroyal and rue, steeped in wine. “Conception is impossible for a virgin the first time she makes love, but now - now you are truly and most positively not a virgin,” he grinned, “there is the possibility.”

  He had read, in some countries, men put tied-off strips of sheep's intestine on their yards to prevent the male and female seeds from mixing, thus preventing conception, but the method sounded very unpleasant to him and so he had never tried it.

  Rosalind had shuddered as she drank the brew, as much from the thought of pregnancy as the bitterness of the herbs.

  Anton sat waiting for her, sitting underneath the oak tree as usual. He rose swiftly as he saw her approach, and walked to meet her.

  “I don’t have long, cara, I have to get back ...” he kissed her long and hard. “By the - you are beautiful today,” he muttered. Rosalind clasped his head between her hands and brought his face down once more to hers. He thought she had never looked lovelier. She wore a surcoat of a rich dark yellow, hair arranged in thick lemon loops around her ears, skin glowing and perfumed with rose petal water.

  “Anton, I love you so much,” she breathed in his ear. He bit gently on her neck, careful not to leave any mark. Perhaps after all, he thought, he might risk one or two more meetings, maybe he would take the trouble after all to teach her some of the more interesting ways of lovemaking. Judging by her actions today, she would make an eager student.

  “Come with me. I have something for you,” he whispered into her ear. “A lonely cock seeking a warm roost.” He saw a look of puzzlement cross her face, swiftly followed by comprehension, and she giggled as he led her to their patch of br
acken. He took her in his arms and pressed against her.

  “Anton,” she said, “You will take care of me, won’t you?”

  He suppressed a quick burst of impatience. “Of course I will, cara, I'll care for you and love you - until one day you'll marry your rich lord, and then you'll forget about this poor monk, no?” He smiled down at her but her expression was sombre now, and she did not smile back. “Come now, time is short, let us …”

  “Run away with me, Anton.” He felt his eyebrows arch in surprise.

  “Now, cara, we both know that’s not possible - why should we want to run away together? I think your father would say something about …”

  “He is away, he would not hear for days, weeks even.”

  “But why, cara? All we want now is here. This will end sometime soon, you will marry your rich lord, I will work on at my Infirmary - maybe we'll still meet if you live nearby, perhaps when you are in London, an important lady at the Court and …”

  “I am with child.” He stepped backwards and laughed. “Impossible!” He saw her face whiten as she stood looking at him. “Cara, you cannot possibly be with child - we've only been together twice. The first time you were a virgin and could not have conceived, the second time I gave you a potion to prevent conception - and anyway, that was only a few weeks ago, it would be too soon to tell." Anton became more serious. "You are such an innocent - with child, indeed! Now, let us do what we came for as I need to return soon.” He put his arms round her once more and bent to kiss her. She pushed him away.