‘Sarah, what news?’ Harry asked.
Sarah glanced at the gravestone Harry was carving for her in-laws, then stared back at Emily, though she elicited no further reaction.
‘I think thee should come, Harry.’
‘What?’ Harry blanched and another scream answered him. His wife had not passed.
‘Just to be close by, offer her comfort,’ Sarah qualified. ‘Old Peg is with her now, but this is an hard one. Martha needs to know you’re near. Though be warned, she’ll not show thee much appreciation till the birthing is complete.’
And mayhap not even then, Harry thought as he nodded his understanding and followed Sarah to the cottage. He did not pause as Emily placed a brief hand on his arm as he passed; nonetheless, he felt and appreciated the comfort she offered him.
***
Sarah slipped through the bedchamber door, careful to open it no wider than necessary; she did not want to give Harry any larger a view than necessary from his vantage point in the corridor.
‘He’s just outside the door, Martha.’
‘Oh, sitting comfortably is he?’ Martha yelled between grunts, each one crescendoing to a hoarse scream. Sarah forbore to point out the heavy tread of Harry’s hobnailed books as he paced the boards outside.
‘Well he might! He’ll never get near me again. If he tries, I’ll make sure I pass on every ounce of this agony.’ The last word was barely recognisable from a shriek, but everyone within hearing understood. Including Harry. His pacing stopped and both Sarah and Peg heard the crunch of his chair back against the wall as he dropped into the seat. Martha was oblivious.
‘Can thee not widen thy legs any further, lass?’ Peg had been encouraging her to do this since she’d arrived an hour ago, but to no avail.
‘I’ve already told thee, no I ruddy well can’t!’ Martha screamed. ‘There’s summat wrong, has been for months, thee knows that.’
‘Her legs and hips just ain’t working right,’ Sarah interrupted before Martha could resume her earlier name calling. Peg had nearly left five minutes after her arrival due to the filth that had spewed from Martha’s lips. ‘Is there another way?’
Peg stared at the stricken woman on the bed for a moment, then accepted these were not the usual insults of a woman in the throes of childbirth. ‘Aye, mebbe so. Help me roll her on to her side, Sarah, then we’ll get her on to her knees, see if that’ll help.’
‘It’d better, thee awd carlin, else I’ll have thee hanged for witchcraft.’
‘Martha!’ Sarah was horrified. That was not something to be joked about. A couple of hundred years before, near a dozen people, most of them women from just over the hill at Pendle, had been hanged for the same, possibly another in her own house on West Lane.
‘What’s thee dawdling at, lass?’ Peg broke into Sarah’s thoughts. ‘ ’Tis an idle threat, she knows I’d have her turned into a toad afore she could even blink at constable.’
Sarah laughed, even Martha made a strangled, gurgling sound that passed for a moment of mirth, then screamed anew as her two attendants manhandled Martha into a crouch.
The next pain elicited such a shriek, even Peg blanched, and Harry banged on the door, demanding to know what torture they were inflicting upon his wife. He obeyed Peg’s sharp instruction to remain where he was.
Peg, who still had the strength of a farmer’s wife despite being near seventy, grabbed hold of Martha’s midsection, pulled, and dropped the mother’s knees to the floor. Martha’s head and shoulders collapsed on the bed in a temporary relief. Sarah leapt on to the soiled coverlet and grabbed her friend’s hands, desperate to offer support; to do anything to help.
‘Push reet hard now, lass,’ Peg instructed, one hand buried in Martha’s nether regions. ‘I can feel the head. Thee’s nearly there.’
***
Harry winced at the curses emanating from his bedchamber, and uttered a quick prayer that the parson would not hear his wife’s profanities, then hung his head in shame at his disloyalty.
He sprang to his feet and recommenced his pacing of the corridor. ’Twas not lengthy enough to ease his fears, and his hobnailed boots did the floorboards no good at all. Martha’ll have my guts for garters, he thought when he spotted the scuffmarks occasioned by his turns at the window and stairtop. I hope.
He winced at another scream, even put his hands to his ears in an attempt to block out the sounds, then slumped back down on to his chair, head in hands. How can anyone survive this? Mother or child?
After a few moments of silence, he raised his head. Why is she not screaming? Then a new cry, a babe’s. But relief did not come, Martha was too quiet.
Sarah emerged from the room, her eyes downcast.
‘Look at me, woman! What is the news?’
She crouched beside his chair. ‘Thee has a son, Harry Sutcliffe. A fine boy.’
‘And Martha?’
‘She’ll recover.’
Harry eased his back with a sigh of relief. ‘She lives?’
Sarah nodded. ‘Aye, she does, but she’s weak. She’ll be abed for some time.’
‘But she lives, she’ll recover?’
Sarah said naught.
‘Sarah Butterworth, tell me!’
‘Walking will allus be difficult, and she’ll bear thee no more children.’
‘But she lives?’
‘Aye, Harry, she does.’
‘Can I see her? And the boy?’
Sarah glanced at the closed door. ‘Not yet, it’s been an ordeal, let her rest. I’ll bring the bairn out when he’s fed. Oh, and best Edna stays with Lizzie a while longer, till Martha regains some strength.’
6.
Martha stared down the flight of stairs and gritted her teeth. A woman’s laugh echoed up the dark stairwell and Martha turned sideways on to the steps, thumped her gnarled hawthorn walking stick on to the top tread and grasped the bannister with her free hand. Grunting, she forced her right foot down a step, then her left joined it.
A deep breath, then she jammed her stick on to the next step and she repeated the process.
She was greeted at the bottom by Emily Brontë. ‘Good morn to you, Martha. I was just about to come up and help you.’
‘Aye, so I heard,’ Martha muttered as she brushed past the parson’s daughter and thunked her way to the kitchen. She sank into her prized rattan chair by the fire with a sigh and eyed with distaste the basket on the table.
‘Where’s that been? I’d better not have to scrub the tabletop when she’s gone.’
‘Good morn, Martha,’ Harry said, refusing to let his wife’s sour temper spoil the day so soon. He was becoming well-practiced at this particular trick. ‘How did thee sleep?’
‘Like I were lying on a bed of thorns.’
‘Better than nest of wasps the night afore.’ Harry tried a smile to no avail.
‘Hmph,’ was Martha’s only response.
‘I’ve brought you fresh-baked baps.’ Emily bustled into the kitchen and removed the cloth from atop her basket. ‘And some new honey from the sexton’s hives.’ She placed the goods on the tabletop.
‘Thank thee, Miss Emily, that’s much appreciated. The sexton’s honey is best in village, ain’t it, Martha?’
‘Hmph.’
‘My pleasure. But I must hurry, I’d like to get the rest of these to Weaver’s Row while they’re still warm.’
‘Pass my regards to Lizzie and rest of ’em, will thee?’ Harry said.
‘They appreciate thy charity do they? Hardworking men and women the lot of ’em, earning their way, then you turn up to dole out the scraps from thy kitchen.’
‘Martha!’
Emily held up a hand to forestall Harry’s protest. ‘You may call it charity, Martha Sutcliffe, but no one turns down Tabby’s baking nor John Brown’s honey.’
‘Aye well, Tabitha Aykroyd must be into her seventies now, barely able to walk she is, and you and your family still have her ke
eping house as if she were a young lass.’
‘Now look here, Martha Sutcliffe.’ Emily planted both hands on the tabletop and leaned forward to glare at Martha. ‘Tabby is as much a part of the family as I, Charlotte, Anne or Branwell. And you’ve never heard her complain, have you?’
Martha looked away and stared into the fire.
‘Papa is the parson of this village, and we all know however hard everyone works, there isn’t enough food for all the hungry mouths. So Tabby and I turn what we can from the collection plate into flour, and we bake; all ruddy week we bake, so everyone in this godforsaken rookery of a village can eat!’
‘Just making an observation. No need to get het up.’ Martha glared at Emily. ‘Bet the wives of this “godforsaken rookery of a village” love you calling on their husbands. Choosing which one to take for thyself is thee? Or has thee already chosen?’ She looked at Harry, her accusation clear.
‘You bitter old witch!’
‘Now, now, that’s no way for a parson’s daughter to speak.’
Emily’s colour rose further, her cheeks flaming red with her ire.
‘That’s enough, Martha!’ Harry thundered. ‘Emily has been nowt but friend to us. It ain’t her fault thee’s in pain.’ He bent to pick up their son, Thomas, now a year old. ‘Ain’t his fault neither, and he needs his ma. Thee barely even looks at him.’
‘Hmph.’
Harry sighed, walked over to his wife and placed their son in her lap. He glanced at Emily, whose temper, he saw, was not yet under her control. If it ever were, he thought ruefully. ‘Come on, lass, there’s no talking sense to her these days. Thank thee for bread and honey, and my regards to thy father. I’ll see thee out.’
Emily re-covered her basket with the cloth, gave Martha a parting glare, which was returned in full, then turned and made her way to the front door, Harry close behind.
‘I’m sorry, lass. Mornings ain’t a good time for her. She’s still in so much pain, has been since birth, but at least she’s getting about easier now than she were.’
‘But the birth was over a year ago, Harry.’
‘Aye, and don’t I ruddy know it.’
Emily touched his arm. ‘Don’t give up hope. I have some more of the preparation Mrs Hardaker makes.’ She gave him a small bottle. ‘She’s still not happy about making it up without seeing Martha, you know what druggists are like, but she trusts me. And knows Martha of old.’
‘Thank thee, Emily. It does help, even though she won’t admit it and I have to sneak it into her food.’
‘Just take care, Harry, she’ll have you in the gaolhouse for trying to poison her.’
Harry grunted. ‘Nay, she won’t.’ He cheered up as the thought struck him. ‘Without it, she’d never get upstairs on her own. Happen laudanum’s the only thing ever gives either of us a bit of peace.’ He laughed. ‘Anyway, she needs me to earn our living. She wouldn’t want to rely on alms or you for her bread, even if I really were poisoning her.’
‘That won’t be an issue after next week.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’m departing with Charlotte for Brussels on Tuesday next.’
‘What?’ Harry’s mouth dropped open in shock. ‘You’re leaving? You? But—’
‘I know, I know, but we’re serious about founding this school, and Charlotte is convinced a few months studying in Brussels at the Pensionnat Heger will give us vital experience and make it much more likely to succeed.’
‘A few months?’
‘Weeks if I can help it.’ Emily smiled. ‘You know how I get if I’m too long from the moors.’
‘Aye, ’tis like a sickness in you.’
‘So you know I won’t be away long.’ She glanced at the house. ‘Martha should be cheered, at least. She hates the very sight of me, it seems.’
‘Don’t thee mind her. She’s a jealous woman, in all things. Allus has been. And pain’s making her worse.’
‘Mrs Hardaker has upped the amount of laudanum.’ Emily indicated the bottle that Harry still held in his hand. ‘That should ease the pain; the pain in her body anyway. Branwell swears it heals pain in the mind an’all. Maybe my absence will help to heal the pain in her heart.’
‘I’ll miss thee, Emily,’ Harry whispered.
‘Aye, I know. I’ll miss you too. All of you.’ She turned to encompass the dogs, duck and pheasant that patiently awaited her. ‘Wish I could take all my friends with me.’
Harry knew he was excluded from that sentiment, it was only the company of animals and birds that Emily craved.
7.
Edna grasped hold of her mother’s skirts, trying to hide in the folds as a dray cart, laden with casks, thundered down West Lane, barely a foot away.
‘Oh don’t fret, lass,’ Martha scolded as she knocked on the door. ‘ ’Tis only a drayman. Scared of owt, thee is.’
‘How do, Martha, thank thee for coming,’ Sarah Butterworth said as she opened the door.
Edna shrank even further into the protection of Martha’s skirts. Sarah had only just survived the outbreak of smallpox a couple of years before. Glad of her life, she nonetheless rued the loss of her looks; her face now a patchwork of disfiguring scars left behind by the foul pustules.
‘Aye, well, sorry for thy troubles,’ Martha said. ‘What else are friends for?’ She followed Sarah into the house and deposited Edna and Thomas into the care of Sarah’s eldest girl, Betty. Aged seven years, she’d be following her elder brother’s footsteps on to the mill floor any day now.
‘He’s upstairs,’ Sarah said. She lit a candle and led the way up, solicitously walking slowly to give Martha time to climb the stairs.
‘In here.’ She pushed open the door to a small, dim room and used her flame to light two more.
‘Ain’t this the haunted room?’ Martha asked.
‘Aye, none of kids’ll sleep in it for fear of the Pendle witch. He has no choice now, though.’ Sarah nodded to a trestle table under the shuttered window.
Martha walked over to the small, still figure of Edward, and crossed herself. ‘Such a shame, and him only seven.’
‘Eight,’ Sarah corrected. ‘He turned eight last month.’
‘Of course he did, damn fine day it were too. Strapping lad he were, such a shame,’ she repeated.
‘Aye, he were a good worker. Old Man Rook thought highly of him up at mill. He had a good future ahead; family won’t be same without him.’
They stood in silence a moment, regarding the child’s body. Betty could only look forward to a spinner’s wage, Edward could have had his own loom in a few years and earned a decent wage weaving pieces for the Rooks. Ain’t going to happen now.
‘Aye, a right shame,’ Martha said again.
‘Aye.’
‘Reet, so what needs doing?’ Martha had had enough of sentimentality and got down to the business at hand.
‘The lot, I’m afraid. Wash him, dress him, then sew him into his shroud. Our Robert’s gone to see Tobias Webster about coffin boards, then parson will bury him next week.’
‘Next week? Why so long?’
‘He has his own bereavement, ain’t you heard? His sister passed last night. All funerals have to wait.’
‘Miss Branwell’s passed?’
‘Aye. That’s why we’re doing this. Doris is up at parsonage, laying out Miss Branwell, and I’ll not have my Edward lying here still with mill dust on him. Bad enough it killed him, he’ll not suffer it in death an’all.’
‘It were the mill lung?’
‘Aye. Either that or the consumption. Result’s the same, anyroad.’
Sarah bent her head to her son. ‘He’s loosening up now.’ She eased his left arm out of his jacket and Martha limped round to take care of his right.
Sarah lifted him to remove the woollen garment, folded it neatly, and placed it on the seat of a wooden chair. ‘It’ll do for our lass’s boy, Stephen. He’s growing fast that one.’
/>
‘Aye, ’tis a good jacket,’ Martha said.
‘Sewed it mesen,’ Sarah said unnecessarily. Almost everyone in the village made their own clothes.
She untied his shirt, then moved the body into a sitting position so she could lift it over his head.
Next were his breeks, then his long johns, and soon the eight-year-old boy lay pale and mottled with blue on the makeshift table.
Sarah fetched a bowl of water and placed it on the wooden boards by his feet. Both women wrung out rags and started to wipe away the dirt from Edward’s skin.
‘So if Miss Branwell’s passed, the sisters will no doubt be returning home,’ Martha said.
‘Aye, more than likely. They’ll want to be here for their aunt’s funeral, no matter how far they have to travel. She more or less raised them after their ma died so young.’
‘Hmm.’
‘Thee still fretting about Emily and Harry?’
Martha shrugged.
‘They’re just pals, Martha, allus have been, ever since they were little. Thee knows that.’
‘She allus hangs about him.’
Sarah tsked. ‘No she don’t. She stops by to say how do, the workshop and house is right by the parsonage. ’Twould be an insult if she didn’t.’
‘Far too ruddy often if thee asks me.’
‘She ain’t got no eyes for anyone, ’cept them animals that follow her around everywhere.’
‘She’s a rum ’un.’
‘Aye, that she is. And so’s thee, Martha Sutcliffe, if thee can’t see that Harry only has eyes for thee.’
Martha screwed up her face in a scowl.
‘He still ain’t touched thee? Not since ...’ Sarah knew better than to mention Thomas’s birth, even though she’d lived every agonising minute with Martha.
‘Won’t let him.’ Martha shrugged. ‘Last bairn all but crippled me. I ain’t chancing another.’
Sarah said naught, but stroked the cheek of her son.
‘I’d love more, but Robert won’t come near me now.’ She indicated her face. ‘Hardly ever here, either. It’s just me and the girls now.’
‘Well, what a pair of misery guts we are!’
Parliament of Rooks Page 21