It was dawn and a grainy light seeped into the room. I had already learned that northern countries are deprived of sun and light for most of the winter and to make matters worse, the winter was endless. I felt that Scottish houses ought to have tall, elegant windows to allow as much light in as possible but from the low cottages in the village to castles such as ours, all had tiny windows and low ceilings, as if light and air were something to avoid. I had been told that the narrow windows were for defence, so I could understand the lack of light in the old tower house, where William and I slept. But in the new wing, built around a courtyard, I couldn’t see much improvement. At least our windows had glass, unlike the cottages, and we had shutters to keep out the wind and ice.
I rolled onto my side and eased my legs to the floor, pushing myself into a sitting position. One arm rested across my huge belly, the other traced the extended navel protruding beneath my nightshirt. With my foot I tugged at the rug below the bed and pushed myself into a standing position. I was almost upright when my breath was wrenched in one long gasp by a pain that seared from my lower back through to my belly. My hands found the table beside the bed and I leaned into it, panting through the pain. It passed and I waited, pressing my hands into the small of my back until I felt confident that I could pad across to the shuttered window. I pulled the heavy shutters apart and through iced glass, I could see lights in the windows across the courtyard and knew that my mother-in-law, Lucy, was up and a fire would be warming the kitchen. Soon, one of the servants would reach us with glowing coals for our fire and I could curl up against William until we were brave enough to dress.
Another pain, weaker this time, like the pains of my monthly bleed. I walked over to the crib that had been William’s and pushed it so it rocked back and forth, creaking like a branch in the wind. Would there be a baby tonight, the last night of the old year, or would the child be born into a new century? I shivered with fear, thinking of the ordeal ahead. The women at St Germain hadn’t spared me the horrors of childbirth. One of us might die, or both.
Shivering with cold, I crawled back into bed and curled up behind William, putting my icy feet on top of his.
‘William, I think the child is coming.’
‘Christ! Winifred!’ I wasn’t sure if his reaction was to my news or the shock of the cold. He turned to face me, holding me as close as he could. ‘The child is soon to be born?’
‘I’m having pains.’
‘Do you want me to fetch my mother and Grace?’
‘Let’s wait, as long as we can. Can we pretend it’s not happening?’
‘What shall I do?’
‘Rub my back and sing to me. Sing me the songs you entertained us with at St Germain.’
‘I’d prefer to fetch my mother.’
‘Then you’ll be sent away from me. Stay a little longer. Please, William.’
In the short time before I arrived at Terregles, Lucy had taken Grace as her helper and companion. My new servant, a girl from the village no more than ten years old, knocked and asked if she could set the fire. She stacked the grate high with logs, glancing shyly across the room at the strange scene in the bed. She must have seen what I hadn’t noticed in the gloom, the blood in the pisspot that I’d left by the door and being a clever little girl, she had taken it to show my mother-in-law.
Soon our peace and warmth was ruptured by the arrival of light and voices, blankets and hot water. William was banished and I was wrapped and placed by the fire, my feet on a stone bottle filled with boiling water. I was given warm ale, laced with spices and honey. Lucy ordered the bed to be stripped and clean bedding flapped like sails over the wide mattress as the servants shook out the sheets, creating draughts that made the fire smoke. It felt like the entire household crowded the room, cleaning every surface with vinegar. Lucy thought the baby was early but I knew the child was late by many days.
Once the room was clean, the servants were dismissed and Lucy helped me shuffle back to bed. I rested against a bank of pillows and watched my mother-in-law carry hot water and cloths to the table beside the bed.
‘I need to wash you down, Winifred. You must be clean for the birth.’
She wasn’t my mother. I hardly knew her. ‘I can do it myself. Please leave me. I’m not in much pain yet.’
Lucy hesitated, about to argue, but she was a quiet woman who saw everything but said little.
She nodded. ‘Very well, I’ll ask Alice to sit outside the door and I’ll check on you myself every half hour. I’ll send Grace up to you as soon as her tasks allow.’
I waited until she closed the door then shuffled backwards out of the bed. I forced myself to wash every part of me, shivering with cold and pain. I heard my mother’s voice lecturing Mary Beatrice about the risk of infection and washed and washed as if I could wipe away the pain with each stroke. Lying back in bed, the ripples of labour seeped out of me and I slept. I woke to find Grace holding my hand.
Wonderful Grace, who had turned from cosseted lady’s maid to farm hand, without complaint. ‘Have you finished in the dairy?’
‘I thought of you while I was milking. You’re going through what those poor cows suffer every year. And you’ll have to make milk, just like them.’
I looked down at my breasts, swollen and ready. ‘Where does the milk come from? There’s no hole.’
‘It just oozes out of the cracks. At least that’s what happens with the cows. We must be the same.’
This thought silenced us and we were quiet together as only Grace and I could be. A log shifted in the grate.
‘How late is it?’
‘Almost time for dinner. I’m not sure if you should eat. How are the pains?’
‘That’s the funny thing. They’ve almost gone. As long as I lie here they stay away. I know I have to go through with this birth but I don’t want them to come back.’
‘I’ll go and check with Lucy. She knows what should be happening. I’ll fetch you some more warm ale and ask Alice to see to the fire.’
Grace stood to leave but I gripped her hand. ‘Stay with me, please.’
‘You’re on a different path now, Win. I’ve no experience of this and can’t help you. You need Lucy. But I’ll come when I can.’ She bent over and kissed me on the forehead. The firelight and candles made shadows that leapt and flickered on the walls and I watched the patterns rise and fall. My body felt as if it wasn’t mine, as if I had been ill for some time. I had a dull ache in my back and although my limbs were weightless, my eyes felt round and heavy. This would end one way or another.
I lost track of time but hours later there was still no child. I fought against more washing and the forced emptying of my bowel with soap and water. I fought against the walking, the forced march up and down, up and down, my legs dragging behind me. I wanted to lie down and I wanted food. I screamed and bit and yelled for my mother. The pain in my back was like a knife scraping the flesh from my spine and the foul whores that were with me made me walk. They wanted more pain.
And then the worst thing happened. I lost myself. My body was taken over and I shook and roared as if possessed. At last, they allowed me to lie down on my side, my leg lifted wide across my mother-in-law’s shoulder. There was only torture. Deep shafts that threatened to disembowel me. And with the agony, a groan and roar that made me bear down as if a boulder would pass from my groin. Again and again.
Lucy shouted. ‘Stop pushing!’
‘Stop pushing yourself, you ugly old bitch,’ someone screamed.
Grace’s voice. ‘Here’s the head.’
Lucy’s voice. ‘Hold on. Don’t push. Pant. Pant. That’s right. Good girl.’
‘Leave me alone.’
Lucy. ‘Push with the pain. Push now.’
A wet slither. Silence. ‘He’s here. A boy. A great big boy.’
A baby cried. Far way. Lucy passed me a bundle and someone very old and wise stared at me as if he once knew me but couldn’t recall my name. He smelt of my body and old blood. I looked at him again and his threadlike fingers clasped the sheet as if someone might snatch it from him. He frowned and yawned, bored already.
‘Talk to him. He’ll recognise your voice.’
‘Hello, baby.’ He opened his eyes and searched my face. He knew me.
‘Here, I’ll help him suckle.’ Lucy reached into my nightshirt and lifted out a breast. She squeezed the nipple between her finger and thumb and touched the baby’s cheek. He turned, mouth wide and Lucy pushed the dark nipple between his lips. I felt the pull and tug of his mouth, strong and deep and my sagging belly tightened with waves of new pain.
‘Help me. I’m hurting again.’ I was afraid. I’d heard of women bleeding to death after delivering a perfect child. Husbands left alone with tiny babies. New wives.
‘Shush. It’s just the afterbirth. Keep suckling the babe and it’ll come away the quicker.’
Grace and Lucy moved softly around the room, sometimes in light, sometimes in shadow. They whispered to each other and Grace carried away something dark wrapped in a sheet. I nursed my son, stroking his hair, still sticky from my body. Alice appeared with warm water and Grace eased the child from my breast to bathe him. I heard him cry. The women bathed me too but I wanted him. He was returned to me, clean and warm. I breathed his newborn odour and kissed the deep pillow of his cheek. At the graze of my mouth, he turned towards me and our lips touched. Resting him against my upturned knees, I gave him my fingertips to grasp and lifted his arms. His dark eyes never left my face.
Lucy sat down on a chair by the bed, her apron clean and hair combed. ‘He’s a fine boy, Winifred.’ She brushed her hands across her lap. ‘If I didn’t know better I’d say he was a child who’d gone past his dates. Look, his skin is flaking. That’s a baby who’s waited a wee while to be born.’
‘No, he’s a few weeks early.’ I studied the child’s fingernails, unable to look at her. My mother-in-law was a devout woman. Telling the truth wasn’t possible.
‘Ah well, they’re all different. All the same and all different. William will be very proud. It’s a joy for me to have a child here and he will be glad of a boy to inherit the title.’
‘Where is William? Can he see his son? I want him here with me.’ I looked at her, my eyes pleading that she break the rules about men and births.
‘He’s ridden out to Edinburgh, my dear. I’ve sent a boy with a message. He’ll be home soon.’
I tried to hide my disappointment and turned my face to the wall. She was William’s mother and he could do no wrong but he had let me down. She patted my hand.
‘You’re tired. It was a long birth having to deliver that big head. Let’s hope it’s a girl next time.’
‘There won’t be a next time. I’m not doing that again.’
‘Well, Grace and I won’t mind if you wait a while.’
‘I’m sorry. I was awful.’
‘I’ve heard worse. Now, you get some sleep. Keep the baby with you. It’s cold outside and I think it will snow. He’ll come to no harm next to you. Hold him at the breast until he sleeps. I’ll ask Alice to bring you some food.’
I’d forgotten about food but the word brought with it a passionate hunger. I watched Lucy move towards the door and a memory of poor Mary Beatrice filled me with horror.
‘Lucy … the queen … she had to do that in public, in front of the court and envoys from other countries.’ Worse, she’d had to give birth in front of my father.
Lucy turned. ‘Aye, she’s a brave woman. You were lucky to serve her.’
My spirits darkened and the whisper of desperation I had felt after my mother’s death rose inside me. William didn’t come home for two more weeks as it had snowed heavily and the roads were impassable. The snow dampened all sound and from my small window I could see only dancing white flakes that drifted against the walls of the house. Day and night were the same. The baby cried and fed and filled the cloths that wrapped him with a foul green shit that smelt like rotting seaweed until turning an alarming yellow that Lucy said was normal. My breasts leaked milk and my nipples cracked. I cried with pain each time he suckled and he always suckled. Lucy brought me lanolin from the sheep to rub on my nipples and said it would pass. I wanted a wet nurse. Sometimes I was angry and wouldn’t pick him up and he roared with frustration, his tiny fists screwed up in rage. Alice had been given nursemaid duties and at ten years old, she seemed to know more about babies than me. She would look at me with contempt and lift the hot red child and walk him up and down, soothing him with whispered words. I wanted someone to soothe me. At night I would shout for her, demanding that she see to the baby and change his sodden cloths but in the day I felt ashamed as she fell asleep by the fire, looking like the child she was.
Lucy and Grace visited when they could but there was still a household and a farm to run and many sick and elderly in the village who needed help. When I was alone I cried and raged at my miserable life, trapped in a tower with a tyrannical baby and his nursemaid. I wept for William, needing him and hating him. I imagined him carousing with his friends in Edinburgh, wetting the baby’s head in every inn the town possessed. I fantasised about leaving the baby and William and going to my sister’s convent in Bruges. I would have some peace and he would be sorry.
Finally, I heard horses in the courtyard, then William’s tread on the staircase. I had no time to remove the baby from my breast. William swept the outside into my over-heated cell, his hands and cheeks reddened with cold and his hair and cloak damp with melting snow. He wrapped us in his embrace, kissing my hair and eyes and nose, whispering my name and begging my forgiveness.
‘I wouldn’t leave you, Win. I meant to be in Edinburgh just for the old year’s night and then the snow fell. I wanted to be with you. I’ve pined for you every day.’
He was here now. He loved me. I forgave him. ‘Here’s your son. He’s a tyrant and a bully. He doesn’t like me.’
William lifted the baby from my arms and the child studied his father with the same steadfast gaze he used to take my measure. ‘He’s a fine baby. He looks like you. See,’ he turned the child towards me, ‘he has your eyes.’
William began to undress the baby and I tried to stop him. ‘He’ll catch cold!’
‘This room’s as warm as the cows’ byre and doesn’t smell much better. Let me look at my son.’ William stripped the child and laid him down between us. He kicked his legs and cycled his arms, seeming glad to be free of the cloths that bound him. ‘He won’t disappoint the ladies.’
‘William be quiet, he’s just a baby,’ but I laughed for the first time since the birth.
‘Look, Win, he likes you, he’s smiling at you.’
I saw the fleeting ripple on the baby’s lips. It could have been a smile. I felt hope, like first light on an early summer’s day.
William’s eyes danced with pride and excitement. ‘You won’t believe who I met in Edinburgh.’
‘I can’t guess. I don’t know anyone in Edinburgh apart from my sister.’
‘Your brother-in-law, the Earl of Seaforth. He took me home to meet Frances and their children. You didn’t tell me he’d fought so many battles with James and was even at the siege of Londonderry. Only ten years ago he tried to start a Jacobite uprising in the north. He’s a true Jacobite, not like those old fools at St Germain. He fights for what he believes.’ William pulled off his wig and fell back against the pillows. ‘God, I was so proud to meet him. I’m so proud to have married into a proper Jacobite family. Your parents, your brother, your sisters, you’re all true to the cause. And you, my love, serving our king and queen for so long, I can’t believe you chose me.’
There was a great deal I could have said but I kept my counsel. If this myth satisfied William then I wouldn’t correct him. But I was interested in Frances and how she managed life with a husband who was a soldier and started uprisings.
‘When we were children she was too old to be my friend and she married so young. She seemed to disappear. How many children do they have now?’
‘Three, two boys and a daughter.’
‘Did they ask about me?’
‘Of course, and I told them all I know. They have insisted that once you and the baby are fit to travel, we must all come to Edinburgh. Frances longs to talk to you about your parents’ final years and your time at court. She sends her love and a gift for the baby.’
‘William,’ I hesitated, ‘meeting the Earl of Seaforth hasn’t given you a taste for fighting, I hope?’
‘Not me. I’m too much of a coward. Besides, the Earl has just been freed after four years in prison. I want to be with you and our child, not have you visiting me in a cell.’
I leant across our child and kissed him. ‘I’m so lucky too. I can’t believe you chose me.’