“Oh, I have a touch of tertian fever,” she said carelessly. “But I’m well enough to care for a good woman in her time. Will you wait here, Rob, and I’ll send . . .”
“Jem,” he volunteered reluctantly as if he did not want this strange woman and these horsemen, who had appeared from nowhere, to know his name.
“I’ll send Jem back to you, if I need anything. If he doesn’t come within minutes you can go on with your ride.”
“Can we come out in your boat again?” Walter asked. “That was a merry day, wasn’t it?”
She felt her pale face flush warm at the memory. “It was a good day,” she said, keeping her voice level. “But we can’t go out now till the spring. The wind is up, and most days the harbor is too rough for me. And it’s cold. We’ll go again when it is sunny and calm.”
The two young men waited on their horses, as Jem guided Alinor through the narrow ways between the fishermen’s cottages. Each little home had a net shed attached, some had huts thrown up as sail lofts, some of them had lean-to hovels where a man might smoke his catch, or salt down fish in a barrel. Every now and then a straight track served as a rope walk, filled with cords snaking up and down, tied to a post at each end, being woven into three-strand or five-strand ropes. It was a jumble of dwellings. The houses were walled with driftwood and clay, the roofs a patchwork of old sails and nets thatched with dried bladder wrack. The smell of old rotting fish, the brine of the nets and the occasional foul breeze of a burning midden filled the air. Not even the wind from the sea could clear it. Jem led her to one of the better houses, set sideways to the sea, the waves sucking on the pebble beach below, with a little garden hedged with driftwood. It had a good slate roof and a chimney built of brick, and sturdy white-painted walls made from ship’s timbers and mortar.
“Goody Auster,” he said. “In there,” and pointed to the front door.
Alinor went in. The house had two downstairs rooms at the front, one for eating and all the household work, and the other one, divided from it by a wall of thick decking planks, was the bedroom. A lean-to room at the back was the scullery and a ladder led up to the upper story where other members of the family slept in the storeroom. Coming down the ladder was Mrs. Grace.
“You’re here very quick,” she said approvingly.
“My son brought me on his horse,” Alinor said. “He’s waiting to fetch anything extra that I need.”
“You’ll want to see her,” the older woman said, and opened the little door so that Alinor could go into the downstairs bedroom.
The young woman was leaning against the wall, her hands over her face, her big belly straining against her nightgown. She did not turn her head as Alinor came in, but she winced at the creak of the door. “I want Joshua,” she whispered.
“Here’s Mrs. Reekie come to help you in your time.”
“I want Joshua,” was all the young woman said. “Ma, I feel sick as a dog.”
Alinor felt a reassuring sense of her own competence. Here, she was not a frightened woman who had ruined the lives of her children and herself; here, she was the only one who knew what should be done, who had witnessed and helped at many births. She went quietly up to the young woman and put the back of her cool hand against the girl’s flushed forehead, noting how stiffly she held herself.
“Does your head ache?” she asked her. “Your neck?”
The girl’s eyes with dark dilated pupils flicked once at her and then she closed her eyes, leaning her head to the plank wall. “I can hardly bear it,” she said.
Alinor went quietly from the room and found Jem waiting outside the front door. “Go to my son and tell him to pick me some feverfew,” she said. “A big bunch. And then tell him that I can manage the rest, and he can go.”
Jem nodded and took to his heels down the dirt track. Alinor went back inside, smiled at Mrs. Grace, and took the girl’s icy hands.
“Now,” she said reassuringly. “Let’s get you comfortable.”
All through the day, other young wives and older women came and went with gifts of ale and bread, apples and cheese, with swaddling bands and birth caps that they had laid away in lavender, staying to gossip at the fireside and send in their best wishes to the birthing chamber, each hoping to be allowed inside. Alinor kept the door shut against them and kept Lisa Auster quiet. She gave her sips of tea made from dried raspberry leaves, and salads of feverfew to eat. Only when her fever had cooled and her headache was soothed did Alinor admit the gossips who had come to see her, and then only two at a time until her pains started to come often, and Alinor judged that her time was coming. Then with her mother and her mother-in-law and two best friends to hold her hands and praise her courage, Lisa walked around the room and finally settled on the bed as they lit the smoking oil lights. The heavy stink of fish oil scented the room. Alinor washed her hands.
“Washing?” Mrs. Grace watched anxiously.
“Yes,” Alinor said quietly, and then she came to the girl, who was kneeling against the bed, and persuaded her to squat over the bowl so Alinor could wash her with clean water brewed with lavender and thyme.
“She’s not a heifer waiting to calve!” Mrs. Grace objected.
“If I have to help the baby out, it’s better,” Alinor said quietly.
“She’ll catch her death!” the woman warned.
The young woman was growing uneasy, her moans of pain coming more quickly. “Is it now?” she asked Alinor.
“It’s soon,” Alinor confirmed. “Do you want to kneel up on the bed?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know . . .”
“You see where you feel best,” Alinor advised her, and watched the girl move around, now leaning over the bed, now lying down. Finally, she settled on the wooden floor, her back against the bed, and the older women gave her a peeled wand of wood to bite and offered her a rope to heave on during the birth. Alinor stood back until they started to speak of the ordeal that was coming and that it might last for hours, even days, and how they had suffered. Then she stepped forward.
“The baby is coming,” she told the young woman. “Just let it come. There’s no need for pulling on a rope. All the work is in your belly.”
Wide-eyed, the girl saw Alinor’s face shining with calm conviction. “This is the best day’s work we will ever do,” Alinor said. “Let the baby come.”
The girl squatted, holding to the post of the bed, her belly standing up, every muscle rigid, and she groaned. Alinor knelt before her, watching her frightened face, calming her with a hand on her shoulder. She could see her belly standing up in a spasm, and urged her to push and then rest.
“I can feel! I can feel it . . .”
The women wailed in a wordless chorus with her. “That’s right,” Alinor said, intently watching the young woman. Then finally she said: “Wait, wait, I can see the head!”
There was a gasp of pleasure and excitement in the room, and everyone crowded closer. “Here you are,” said Alinor, her voice filled with joy as she gently took hold of the baby’s head and slippery shoulders and, moving with the mother’s rhythm, swaying with her, brought the baby into the world. Skillfully she held it by its feet, like a writhing mackerel, and slapped it gently on the back to clear the breath, and then bent her head and sucked the baby’s nose and mouth and spat the liquor and blood on the floor. There was a brief silence, a waiting silence, and they all heard the muffled cough and then the wail as the newborn baby breathed air for the first time.
“A girl,” Alinor said. “A girl.” The cord still pulsed, and the baby opened her mouth and cried. Alinor looked at the perfect hands, the wrinkled skin smeared with white wax and blood, the dark hair plastered on the tiny head, and the small flushed protesting face. She felt the tears rush to her eyes and bit her lip to prevent herself from weeping for pity and joy. “A girl,” she said again. “A precious girl, a gift from God Himself.”