The Midwife's Revolt (8 page)

12

I WAS ABLE to rise from my
bed in a week’s time. I began to attack the tasks I had sorely neglected during my illness and was just hanging herbs to dry when, from the parlor window, I saw a beautiful carriage drive down my bumpy lane. Its painted swaths of French blue and gilt wavered through the glass. Two very fine horses stood impatiently before my door. None of us had such carriages then in Braintree, except for Colonel Quincy, and even his was not so fine.

Fearful, and with the basket of herbs over my arm, I made my way outside. Just as I stepped forth, a gust of autumn wind rose off the sea and blew a huge pile of leaves in my direction. The wind tugged my hair violently out of its pins. When the leaves settled and I had plucked my hair off my face, I saw Eliza Boylston step down from the carriage, helped by her coachman. I gripped my basket to me and braced myself to run.

“I am not going anywhere,” I said to Eliza.

But Eliza merely smiled indulgently, as if speaking to a child. “I agree—you’re not. But might we come in? We are tired after our journey, and my driver needs refreshment as well.”

Suddenly a skinny girl, her face obscured by a large black bonnet, descended from the carriage, and I felt a swift shame that my bad manners had been perceived by a stranger. “Excuse me. I have only recently recovered from a dire illness.”

“I’m sorry to hear it,” said Eliza, backing away as if perhaps she would reconsider entering my cottage.

I led them inside, took their cloaks and bonnets and mitts, and bade them warm themselves by the fire. The driver, an old Negro by the name of Jupiter, unhitched the horses and led them to my barn. He then disappeared, presumably to find the necessary, and did not reappear. The girl had not yet looked up, and Eliza had not yet introduced her. I put the kettle on to boil, then inquired, “And this is Miss—”

“Oh, forgive me. Miss Martha Miller, Mrs. Jebediah Boylston.”

“How do you do, Martha,” I said.

“Well, thank you, Mrs. Boylston.” She looked up just long enough to catch my eyes, then looked away. I guessed her to be about fifteen years of age.

“Poor Martha has had a terrible time of it,” Eliza began. “She has lost her mother and father both. She has but one brother in all the world, but he has lodgings at Rowe’s Wharf. Not at all suitable for a young girl.”

This was indeed a sad story, but as yet I had no thought of its having anything to do with me. I gave them both good hot dishes of tea with milk and biscuits. While I was unable to add sugar to the meal, I had some honey stored for special occasions. I went and fetched it in the cellar. I took a small dollop from the jar, placed it in a china cup, and served it. Going even that far exhausted me, however, and I sat myself down.

“It’s nice honey. From the bees I—we kept.”

“Martha”—Eliza turned to the girl as if she hadn’t heard my comment—“if you’ve finished your tea, fetch Jupiter and have him ready the carriage. I plan to depart in fifteen minutes. Tell him he may ready Star as well.”

“Ready Star?” I stood, knocking my dish off its saucer and spilling tea onto the table. “What for?”

“Papa wishes to have him back. Surely, having no carriage you can have no need of a horse.”

“But I
do
need him—I am very often abroad helping the women of this parish. And other parishes as well.”

“Oh, that,” she said distastefully. “I had forgotten.”

“He was Jeb’s. I won’t give him up. You may tell your father that.”

“If you recall, Star was a particular gift to Jeb upon his marriage.”

“Yes, and now that he’s gone, his few things are mine,” I said, turning so that she could not see my involuntary tears. I then took a deep breath and exclaimed, “Why is it you have shown me no love or kindness since the day you met me, when every day I was prepared to love you? Why is your heart so cold?”

“My heart is my affair,” she said stiffly, reaching for her cloak and bonnet.

“And no doubt it shall remain so!”

Eliza merely threw her cloak about her and said, “You don’t know me. Or my heart. Martha”—Eliza turned, her long neck stretched to its full swan-like length, her color high with pique—“tell Jupiter we’re going.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Martha nodded and, hat and cloak hastily donned, headed for the tiny cabin behind my house where Thaxter lived.

I realized then that Eliza’s errand was not to kidnap me. No, it was to kidnap Star. Needing food and clothing, I would be a burden to a family in reduced circumstances. On the other hand, Star was worth a good hundred pounds. Selling him would make them comfortable for many months. I stood at once and moved to the side door.

“Thaxter!” I called.

Hearing two people calling him, my field hand did not at first know whom he should approach. I opened the door. Seeing me, Thaxter nodded. Though I was not very close to him, I smelled rum.

“Thaxter, please tell the driver that Miss Boylston and her maid wish to leave. Then ride Star over to the Adamses. You can walk back.”

It appeared as if he would ask me a question, but my peremptory look cut him off.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. Before two minutes had passed, I heard him gallop off upon Star. Triumph!

“Well,” said Eliza, “we shall leave aside the discussion of Star for the moment.”

“Think that if you like,” I replied bitterly. “You shall never have him. And never again shall I discuss it. Now go.”

“
I
am going,” she said. But the way she said it, I suddenly felt as if I had been lingering under a misapprehension. “But before I do, I must tell you about Martha. Her presence here is not our doing, but is entirely due to the goodness of Colonel Quincy—”

“Colonel Quincy?” I cried. I had not a clue Martha was meant to stay with me.

“Colonel Quincy sent word to us that you were ill and in need of help. He suggested Martha. She is the daughter of former friends of my parents. Good, loyal subjects, neighbors of the colonel at his Boston house. Poor Martha’s parents succumbed to illness on their way to Halifax. They say the conditions were pestilential.”

“Oh, no.” My heart suddenly understood the girl’s mute, desolate countenance.

“Well, as I was saying,” she continued, “it was soon arranged for the girl to come here. She could help you and meanwhile learn a useful
. . .
trade.”

“I see.” At last, I finally did see. Abigail and the colonel had finally made good on their promise to procure me a servant. “Well, I will take her because it is the Christian thing to do. Clearly she has nowhere else to go. To stay with you would be a fate worse than death. Surely you cannot believe you will be allowed to return to Cambridge anytime soon.”

“You may be right about our having to remain in Portsmouth,” she allowed. “We are resigned to it.”

I was going to say, “I am pleased to hear it,” but my father always told me that sarcasm was for second-rate minds. I therefore said nothing.

Eliza took her leave then. I did not curtsy. The clatter of hooves and rattling of the wheels were already growing distant as the November sky grew dark. Immediately, my thoughts turned toward this orphan who had quite literally landed on my doorstep, and who, no doubt, wanted to be there as little as I desired her to be.

Martha said not a word after Eliza had gone.

I was used to silence. In the months since Jeb had died, I had built up a great deal of silence around me. Apart from Abigail’s visits, or my midwifery, or “Thaxter, have you chopped the wood yet?” I often went for days on end without uttering a single word.

However, I now needed to say something; it would be ill-
mannered not to.

“Well,” I began, taking her one small bag and heading toward the stairs, “let me show you your room.” I could have set her in the tiny dairy by the kitchen, but I was always in the kitchen and didn’t want her upon me every waking moment.

I gave her the second-best bedroom, the one I had thought to populate with children one day. It had a small bed and chest, and I left her to look about while I fetched the only other linens I had besides my own—some fine ones I had brought to housekeeping from my family and never used. She helped me tighten the ropes and beat the bed, then spread the fine linen upon it without my having to ask her.

“I will weave you a rug by and by, and see if perhaps Abigail—that is Mrs. John Adams—has a chair she can loan,” I said.

“Thank you,” she replied.

I looked at her downcast head.

“You must be tired.”

“Yes, a little,” she said. Though only three words, I noted in them a fine, clear Boston accent.

“Well, there is a chamber pot here.” I pointed to the corner, where a rather elegant Staffordshire blue-and-white chamber pot sat, another heirloom of my mother’s. “And just behind the house, to the left of Thaxter’s cabin, is the necessary. Oh—but you’ll need a candle.”

Though exhausted, I made to descend the stairs, but her hand on my shoulder stopped me.

“I have no urgent need of it,” she said. “I can fetch it later, when I go down—”

At once I knew she felt she had misspoken and would say, “for supper,” to which I had not invited her.

“You are no guest here, Martha. You are free to eat when you choose, or you may take your meals with me. Indeed, it would be easier that way. Nothing fancy, mind you. I rise before dawn, generally, and have my breakfast as the sun rises after I have milked Mildred and Bertha and fed the other animals. Dinner is at one, except on the Sabbath, when we eat at noon.”

I heard my words: they sounded ridiculous. Indeed, I had not made an actual meal in many months. But I was driven to present my life to this stranger as if it were full and orderly instead of hectic and lonely. Now, locked into this false tack, it appeared I could not stop. “One does not want to be digesting during Parson Wibird’s sermon. He has no sense of humor, I assure you. For supper, I generally have some cheese and bread before falling unconscious upon my bed.”

At this, Martha gave me a tiny curl of her lip, and I was heartened. For though I knew her to be in mourning, there was nothing I abhorred so much as a soul with no leavening of humor about it.

I had the opportunity to observe Martha’s appearance then: she was quite small, about the height of Abigail Adams, but thinner. Her hair was a shiny sable brown, fashioned in a simple knot above her head. Her eyes were of a quite beautiful amber color. Had there been some life in them, they would have shone like the sun. Her brow was dark and thick, redeemed from commonness by a tall, fine forehead. Her mouth was full and charming, but I would know more when I saw her smile. All in all, she seemed as plain and shy as a fawn. And yet
. . .

“Well, I’ll bid you good-night. I am not quite well yet and so shall retire early. Perhaps I said that already? Oh, but of course you knew that anyway. That’s why you are here. Or part of the reason why—well, good night.” I cut myself abruptly short, as my words had begun to make little sense. “Let me know if you need anything. I’m just across the hall.” I pointed to my chamber, but five feet away from hers. “There’s a great deal to do on a farm. I think I can safely say you will not be bored. As for books, I myself find precious little time to read, and I have but six books, though they serve me well. Make free to read them. And now,” I inhaled, almost comically, for indeed I had long since exceeded my supply of breath, “good night.”

I was just shutting her door when she called to me in a soft voice, “Mrs. Boylston?”

The name sounded strange to my ears. “Yes, Martha?”

The girl frowned, and I thought she would tell me that she wished to return to Cambridge at first light.

“I suppose if I am to be shipped downriver like a slave, I am glad to have a grieving madwoman for my mistress and not that tedious snob.” Her words, clearly articulated, bespoke the finest upbringing. Their content, on the other hand, could not have been more surprising. It made me burst into relieved laughter, in which she soon joined me.

13

I AWOKE BEFORE dawn to milk the
cows and feed the animals. Halfway out the door, I realized that I had a servant now. I returned to her chamber to rouse her. Martha was sleeping soundly, and I hated to wake her. But she rose without complaint and followed me out of doors in the dawning light, watching as I scattered seed for the chickens, poured grain into the pigs’ trough, and added fresh water to their drinking pool. I then demonstrated how to milk a cow.

We sat in Mildred’s stall—or, rather, we took turns sitting on a three-legged stool Jeb had made—and I showed her how to pull down on the teats. Pressing my face into Mildred’s warm flank, I grasped two teats in my fists and yanked. Out came the milk into the tin pail. Suddenly, I heard Star whinny.

“Ah.” I smiled. “There’s the object of my dispute with Miss Eliza yesterday. You may visit him if you like. He loves carrots or apples.” My voice quavered at the memory of how I used to scold Jeb for stealing my pie apples to give to Star.

With a deftness not lost on me, Martha returned us to the subject of milking Mildred. “Let me try,” she said.

She took up the stool in my place and grasped Mildred’s teats too gently. When no milk was forthcoming, I said, “That will do well for a woman’s teats, not a cow’s.”

“What’s that you say?”

“To bring on stronger travail, if it has slowed or ceased,” I explained.

Martha turned red in the face and shrank down until she was nearly beneath my cow.

“Come now, Martha.” I smiled. “I am sometimes called to do far ruder things. As you soon will be. It will help greatly when you learn to think only of the safety of the mother and her babe, not the means by which we sometimes achieve that end.”

She nodded. Summoning all her strength and displaying a magnificent unwillingness to fail, she grasped the teats hard, pulled down, and squirted me full in the face.

“Oh, I’m sorry!” she cried.

I began to laugh and wiped the milk from my face. She fell to laughing as well. We soon enjoyed that milk in our coffee and breakfast porridge.

My illness had put me far behind in my chores, and in that first week, as the last leaves fell from the trees and the ocean took on its steely winter-gray coloring, we worked many long hours in silence. By day we put up the fruit, carted corn to the mill, lugged apples off to the cider house, and carded the fluffy clouds of wool that had gathered dust in baskets since the summer before. Then, as the light waned, we sat in silence by the fire, spinning, boiling, and peeling until our hands were as stiff and red as those of scullery maids.

The silence was not uncomfortable to me; indeed, I have observed that companionship does not rely upon words so much as it does a person’s inner state. Martha’s soul was patient and deep. She asked for nothing, expected nothing.

One day, as we sat working by the fire, my thoughts drifted to the question of how Martha had known the Quincys. I knew her family had been their neighbor in Boston, but little else.

“Know you my landlord the colonel?” I asked.

“Colonel Quincy, you mean?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, I saw him often when he resided in Boston. He and his former wife were friends with my parents, until the beginning of the Troubles.”

“And does your brother remain in Boston?”

“Oh, yes.” She smiled.

“And have you sold the ancestral house?” I inquired.

“No—that is, our former home is occupied by the Continental Army. Thomas keeps rooms by Rowe’s Wharf. He does the occasional errand—for General Howe.”

“General Howe!” I exclaimed. While I knew that Martha had come from a background quite similar to my own—Royalists for whom life in the colonies had already become increasingly dangerous—I had no idea that her brother was actually working for the British Army. This was bad news indeed. General Howe had commanded the forces at Bunker Hill. A boy of Howe’s army had killed my Jeb.

I had hoped to invite Martha’s brother to visit. Now, that was out of the question. I could hardly introduce him to Abigail, or to Susanna Brown, whose husband even now remained with Colonel Prescott.

As if reading my thoughts, Martha said, “I will go to him for Christmas. It is all arranged.”

I did not ask Martha what she thought of the Cause, nor did I offer my opinion. But the divisive issue of loyalties remained unspoken between us.

The following Tuesday I was called upon by William Glover, whose mother was thought to be expiring. Martha came with me. It was her first expedition. It had snowed the night before, and our breath made fog in the frigid air. Our toes froze as we scuffled through the unshoveled snow up to the road.

As we neared the Glover house, I proceeded to discuss proper comportment in the chamber of one who was expiring or who would soon expire. I had seen many deaths, but poor Martha had not. She lost color at the sight of the unconscious woman, but she refused to sit when I proffered her a chair. I felt the pulse; it was quite slow and faint. I knew the end to be near. William sat sobbing, and I comforted him as best I could, knowing I could not do as much for his mother.

When I found no pulse half an hour later, I showed Martha how to close the eyes. I gently asked the son to leave us so that we could wash the body and dress it in what clothing the family had prepared. It was customary to have one’s death garments woven well ahead of time, sometimes years ahead, so as not to be caught without them when the time came.

Martha shuddered at this idea. “I do not like to think of my raiments being in a drawer, waiting for me.”

“No, but it is practical.”

“Have you yours?” she asked, rubbing the rose oil I had given her into Mary Glover’s feet.

“No, but God grant I have
some
time yet.” I smiled. I would turn twenty-one on the twenty-third of December.

As we made our way home late that night, Martha asked, “Is the transition between life and death always so seamless, then? I saw no change in Mrs. Glover.”

I grasped Martha’s hand in mine, for clearly the sight of this, her first death, had unnerved her.

“Not always. But I have learned to be grateful when it is.”

“I should not like to just
. . .
drift away like that.”

“Shall I throw you a parting ball?”

She glanced at me warily in the cold moonlight. “No, but something. Some awareness, at least.”

“Awareness that one shall soon be eternally unaware is not a state favored by mankind.”

At this bit of philosophy, Martha fell gratefully silent on the topic.

Two days later Martha attended her first birth. As bad luck would have it, it was a complicated one.

The Holbrooks’ house stood on the main road, just beyond the parish center. Smaller than my own cottage, it was attached to a small smithy next door. Within, it was dark, and the ceilings were so low I felt in danger of bumping my head. I saw no maid, and two older children chased each other throughout the close rooms in a noisy game of tag. I shushed them sharply and bade them go to their chamber. My tone must have frightened them, for off they went!

Martha silently cast her eyes about her, but I could tell she was appalled at the close conditions. In the great room—a misnomer, in this case—Beth Holbrook lay, quite unwell, insensible of her children running wild. I moved to examine her. Martha stood off a ways, wordless, but I bade her approach. Beth looked up from her bed, relieved that I had arrived.

I proceeded to touch the mother. Martha stood by my side, positively agape. To me, the place Martha now gaped at in amazement had become little more than a gateway to me for the living creature within. Sometimes the gate would not open as it should. At other times, the child’s head would lodge beneath the
os pubis
and I would have to reach in, simultaneously lifting the head and turning the body to dislodge it, then quickly pulling the babe out before it could get stuck again.

Such was the case with poor Beth Holbrook. The woman screamed as if I were murdering her. Martha now looked as though she might faint.

“It is painful, but causes no harm,” I reassured her.

She looked horrified but said nothing, and within five minutes the child was born. The babe, a fine girl no worse for having been stuck, cried lustily. I cut the umbilicus, cleaned the child, tied its belly-band, and put it to the mother’s breast. It took to sucking immediately. The sight brought tears to my eyes, which Martha did not fail to notice.

I instructed her to massage Beth’s belly. Martha did so without flinching, and soon the placenta was delivered.

Beth looked at me gratefully.

“Bless you,” she said, and began to cry out of sheer relief.

“The worst is over. You’re very brave,” I said.

“Have you children of your own?” she inquired.

“Oh, no,” I said mildly. “I was wed but a few months before my Jeb died at Breed’s Hill.” I wrapped her stomach and placed a cotton cloth between her legs and fresh sheets beneath and above her.

I was amazed at how much easier my story had become, as if, told often enough, even the worst events could be told calmly.

“I’m so sorry,” she said.

We spoke some more as I showed Martha how to place the pillows and to massage the mother’s hands, one by one, as the baby sucked. I have found massaging the hands affords great pleasure and relaxes the mother so her milk will come in. Throughout her lesson, Martha continued to look at me with mute amazement.

Soon Beth lay back against the pillows and shut her eyes. She and the baby dozed contentedly. It was now past two in the morning, and by the time we finally returned home, it was past three. Neither of us could sleep. I got a fire going, boiled water, and made us some chamomile tea.

Martha had not said a word. It seemed she had not yet recovered from the shock of seeing her first birth. But the birth was not what Martha had on her mind at all, for suddenly she blurted out, “How can you continue to do that which causes you such suffering?”

Her question startled me, for I had never given voice to this obvious truth. I was unable to reply at once. Gathering myself, I said, “I have been trained to midwifery and healing from an early age. My poor dear mother trained me. It appears that God did not fashion me to have my own children, so I must be content with helping others bring theirs into this world. Indeed, I am highly gratified by it.”

My tone brooked no opposition. Surely, had I spoken one more sentence, I would have burst into tears. Martha acknowledged my speech with a nod, and we moved on to speak a little of Mrs. Holbrook’s travail.

“And now, I think it wise we get our sleep, as the animals are hungry at four, whether we sleep or no.”

And so we both slept like the dead. I awoke an hour and a half later, grieving in my heart for all I had lost and all I would never have. I went to wake Martha but took pity on her when I saw how pale she looked. I let her sleep and went to do the chores myself.

Martha descended an hour after I had risen.

“You shouldn’t have let me sleep,” she said with annoyance.

“It’s all right, Martha.” I offered her a mug of coffee. “Perhaps after another bad night, you shall do the same for me.”