At the Sign of the Star (12 page)

Anne was surprised. “I did not think you would know so much. You have not been near the birth chamber so often as I.”

“I read it in Jane Sharp's book for midwives.”

“Jane Sharp! My father will not allow her book in the house. He says that it is obscene.”

“He would rather that midwives make their deliveries uninstructed, then?”

“You and I are not midwives,” she pointed out. “Does your father know you read it?”

I had not thought of this. Probably he did not. But he had never sought to censor my reading in the past. I do not know why I myself bothered to read
The Midwives Book.
I was not interested in women's mysteries. Some girls are drawn to the secrets of the birth chamber from their earliest years; I was not. I had known too much dying there, perhaps, or maybe it was simply my temperament to prefer the gossip of men to that of women. And yet I read Jane Sharp, and read her hungrily, that I might learn all I could about what was about to pass in our household.

“I have learned from Hester and Joan, as well as Jane Sharp,” I said to Anne.

“Yes, we women always learn from one another. I heard lately of one lady who ate too many strawberries, and her child was born with the red mark of the berry upon his cheek. And there was another woman, who was startled by a hare bounding across the lane, and she gave birth to a baby with a hare lip.”

This I found most interesting, but I had something to relate of even greater fascination. “
I
heard of a woman … do not repeat this, I beg of you…” I leaned forward and lowered my voice. “A woman Joan worked for dreamed of coupling with an Italian man, and when her baby was born it had dark hair, like an Italian, instead of the blond hair she and her husband had.” I sat back in triumph.

“It cannot be true,” Anne said, almost in a whisper.

“Joan herself was there at the birth.”

This story impressed Anne greatly, and I felt that I had come off well, in spite of being younger and less experienced in women's mysteries. It bothered me not that Joan had made me promise never to tell what I had told Anne. I had known from the start that I would break the promise when next I saw Anne Gosse, for what is the good of knowing a deep secret unless you can share it? As Joan herself knew full well, or she would not have shared it with me.

“I think you will adore your little sister, Meg,” Anne said.

“A sister would not be so bad—”

“If it is a brother you will adore him even more.”

“I do not think so. A girl would only
share
in my father's fortune when it came time for her dowry, but a boy would take all.”

After that day with Anne I thought often about what she had said, and wondered if she was right that I did not wish Susannah to miscarry. Some days it seemed so. Other days it seemed only that I did not wish a miscarriage to be my fault. Wherever the truth lay, I was so careful with her that my father remarked on it one time as we passed on the stairs. He put a hand on my shoulder and gave me such a smile that I could not help but return it. And then I felt badly, as though I had told a lie.

I studied Susannah's face each time I entered her room, for I knew that if she carried a boy it would make her right eye brighter, her right cheek rosier, and her right breast fuller. But I could not see any difference between her right and left sides.

“Has the midwife looked at your urine?” I asked her boldly one day, as I brought her ale and bread and butter while she lay abed. (She had an enormous appetite for bread and butter, and desired to have it several times in a day.)

“Certainly,” Susannah replied, tearing greedily at her bread.

“And is it tinged with red, or with white?” I asked.

“She cannot say, not yet.” She looked up at me and ceased chewing a moment. “What do you know of such things?”

“Why, it is all in Jane Sharp's book. We sell it in the shop.”

“Who is Jane Sharp?”

“She is a midwife who has written a book for midwives.”

“Bring it to me, please. I want to read it.”

“My father says it is not good for women in your condition to read such things. Do not trouble yourself.”

And I took the empty tray away.

My father had said no such thing, of course, but I did not doubt that he would agree with me. I had no doubt, either, that he would like as much as I to know the sex of the child Susannah carried. One day in the shop, when the rain poured down and the customers stayed away, I asked him if he would not consult Mr. Barker about it, but he told me only that it was no concern of mine, and I did not dare to press him.

So it was I who went to Mr. Barker. I pretended to myself that I went to learn the sex of Susannah's child, but it was not that. I knew that he would not tell me, and besides, I had no coin with which to pay him. I think in truth I went to tell him that he was wrong, that I was not the pilot of my craft.

The girl showed me in to the same room in which I had sat before, and soon Mr. Barker came to join me. We stood before each other for a moment in silence. He was all impatience; I was filled with courage and anger.

“Well, what is it, girl?” he asked me sharply.

“I do not know whether you are a good astrologer or a bad one,” I answered.

He looked at me with astonishment. “Well, I know that you are an insolent, impudent, immodest girl,” he retorted.

“I know,” I said, as though it were not very important. “I have tried to change, but I cannot.”

“You must ask God for His help,” he said gravely.

I nodded politely. It was true I had not tried this expedient, but in my heart I knew this was not a thing God could change. It seemed to me that He Himself had given me my ungovernable tongue, and it seemed doubtful that He could take it away now.

“What difference does it make to you if I am a good or a bad astrologer?” Mr. Barker asked more gently.

“You foretold a great loss in my life, and it came to pass. But you told me I was the pilot of my boat, and I am not. I am not.”

“Yes, Margaret, you are. But you are not the ruler of the sea. You cannot control the tides, the currents, the hurricanes. Those you must endure, as must we all.” He looked tired when he said it, and I wondered if he was troubled. “Have you steered your boat into the wind, as I bade you?”

I pondered this. “I do not know how.”

“When you learn how, things will go easier with you.”

“Mr. Barker, can you tell the sex of the child my stepmother carries?”

“I might predict it, if your father asked me to do so—or your mother. But they have not. Ah, Meg, do not look so! Ask me for something I can give you.”

At this I lifted my head and said, “Show me your collection, then.”

He was surprised for a moment, and I think he debated whether he should once more be offended by my impertinence. But then he smiled broadly. “It is always a pleasure for me to share my treasures with others,” he said, and led me to the next room.

It was only another parlor, with stools and tables and a leather chair, but against one wall many shelves had been built, each higher than the next. And each shelf was crowded with strange things. I could not see what sat upon the high shelves, but nearer to my eye there lay a row of long bones.

“Whose bones are these?” I asked.

“This is the bone of a dog,” Mr. Barker said, lifting up one that was gray and jagged. He put it down and pointed. “This is from a fox. I do not know whence this came. This is the skull of a cat.” He picked up this last and handed it to me.

I stared curiously at the small, hollow bone that sat upon my glove, trying to imagine it with flesh and fur and whiskers. Suddenly I thought of Louis, and handed it back.

“Is everything in your collection dead?” I asked.

“Except those things which never lived. Here I have rocks, some gathered from the countryside, some from the shore. This is a lump of tin, before it has been coined. It is from Cornwall. And this is lead; it is from Derbyshire.” I looked curiously at the tin and lead, but they did not look interesting. “This is a Roman coin. It is many hundreds of years old. I bought it from a man who found it in Aldersgate Street.”

This I looked at with more interest. It was heavy and square and bore the likeness of a man upon it, even as some half-groats bear the head of King Charles, and some shillings that of King James.

He showed me many things, some everyday, such as lumps of coal, and some strange, such as more coins and pieces of broken pottery. He had shells from faraway islands, and odd carved pieces he said came from Africa. He had many feathers, and a dead bat, and some dead insects. He had a piece of parchment so old I could not read what was writ upon it, which he did not let me touch.

When he had shown me all he led me to his door. “Why do you collect such things?” I asked him before I ventured out upon the Strand.

“When a child is born, he looks first only to his mother. As he grows he learns he has an entire household around him, filled with servants and sweets. Still later he ventures into the streets, and hears the ragman cry, or sees the cocks fight. He learns his letters, his Latin, his arithmetic. Always he is looking beyond himself, and learning. But one day, if he is like most men, he stops. He thinks he has learned all.” He smiled at me. “I did not choose to stop, that is all.”

2

As the weeks passed and Susannah's belly swelled beneath her apron, my father became less merry and more cross. Everyone in the house knew the reason, for nearly every day the argument began anew. Sometimes he pleaded with her, sometimes he commanded her, but to everything he said she replied: “It would not be right, my husband.”

Even before she was carrying, Susannah and my father had argued about whether she was to have a wet nurse, but now the argument had grown fierce. “You are my wife and you will do as I bid,” he told her, and went scowling about the house and shop. But I doubted that she would.

Of course I was on my stepmother's side in nothing; I could not be. But I knew that if I were she I would feel the same. I do not know if I will ever bear a child, but if I do so I will not send it from me the moment it is born, to be nursed at another woman's breast.

“It would not be right, my husband,” she said over and over. She said it calmly, but she said it firmly.

One Sunday afternoon after dinner my stepmother and I sat in the parlor together, I reading, she at her needlework. It was the last day of April, but the rains yet rattled at the windowpanes. Susannah was very restless, and asked me to put a stool nearby that she might put her feet upon it and be more comfortable, and then in five minutes she asked me to remove it, and then to put it back, and so forth. I did all that I was asked politely, and murmured my concern for her. My concern was neither felt nor feigned, it was in some strange middle-land. I told myself that I wanted her to miscarry, yet I also worried sometimes that I might bring the child harm because I did not welcome it.

The fourth time I moved the stool for her she said, “I am sorry to bother you so.”

“'Tis no bother.”

“Yes, it is a monstrous bother, but you bear it well. You are careful of your brother or sister.”

I began to read again, for I did not like to hear false praises. Then I looked up. “Jane Sharp says that you ought to wear an eagle-stone. A stone within a stone, you know, it is like the babe within you. If you wear it round your neck, so as to touch your skin, it will keep you from miscarrying.”

Susannah smiled faintly. “Yes, I have heard that some believe that.”

“They are from Africa, but I know they are to be had in London. Why do you not ask my father to buy you one? Jane Sharp is a wise midwife.”

“I will do so, if it pleases you.”

We heard the outside door then, and straightened up in expectation, for my father had gone out directly after dinner but said he would speak with Susannah immediately when he came home. Now he brought into the parlor a smiling, big-bellied woman with rosy cheeks.

“This is Mrs. Walker,” he said. “Her babe will come two months before yours, so she will have her strength back before she begins to nurse your child. She lives in Broad Street, so the babe will not be in the country, but close by, and can be brought to you often. This much I do for you.”

I looked at Susannah, waiting for her to say in her calm way, “It would not be right, my husband.” But she did not, and I could see that she was too tired to argue it more. Her face was pale and her eyes were shadowed with her weariness. She lifted her head as though to speak, but then dropped it again. Her hands lay still on her needlework.

I do not know why I did what I did next. Perhaps because I thought of Louis, happy sucking at my mother's breast, and thinking of him could not do otherwise. But later that afternoon when my father was out, I searched through the shop and collected all the texts I could find to support a woman nursing her own child. Jane Sharp wrote that sending a child to a wet nurse would change its disposition and expose it to many hazards. Robert Cleaver wrote that it would “break the bond of holy nature,” but he was a Puritan and I did not know if my father would heed his words overmuch. I was glad now to have read
The Ladies' Calling,
though it had given me such pain, for I thought Dr. Allestree's arguments might be the most persuasive with my father. He wrote that women of wealth and rank do not lower themselves in nursing their own children, because a baby takes its rank from its mother and is exactly equal to her, whether she be beggar or gentlewoman.

I gathered together all these works and laid them out upon my father's table in the large parlor, one next to the other. Then I waited to see what he might say.

The following morning all the works were back in the shop, but I knew not how my father had taken my interference, for he said nothing. But at dinner that day, he said to Susannah, “I have told Mrs. Walker we shall not need her services.”