It wasn’t a nightmare that awoke her. Or if it was, nothing remained of it but a vague feeling of unease in the darkness.
Anna stretched her legs in the bed, the coarse cotton sheets cold against her exposed skin. It felt good. A light film of perspiration covered her and one of her heavy woolen socks had come off. She must have been restless, though unaware of it.
She’d taken to leaving the curtain open a crack when she went to bed. That hint of connection with the world outside calmed her, reminded her where she was…and who she was, though there was nothing comforting about that.
Her stomach felt queasy, but any time she ate more than a few morsels, she regretted it. She’d drunk a whole glass of rich Yorkshire milk that evening, because Putnam would not let her go to bed until it was gone.
She closed her eyes, took as deep a breath as she could, and slowly let it out again. Imagined Lewis’s voice soothing the horses.
Three days he’d been gone. Where was he now?
The baby shifted. It was a small movement, perhaps stretching his little legs as she had done. The poor infant, cooped up inside her all these months, cheek by jowl with all his mother’s anger, fear, and misery. He must be desperate for escape. Don’t hurry, little one. Life outside will be no improvement.
Her body relaxed, her mind let go, and images crept in as she slipped over the edge into sleep. An indistinct view of Yorkshire from the coach window. Pulling up in the snow-covered yard at the Rose and Crown, though they had arrived in August. Waiting for their luggage, the coachman handing her a bandbox and a baby. Seeing Gideon approach, the surprise of it, not knowing what she should feel. “Is that your babe, Miss Shame? Let me see.” Flipping back the blanket that protected it from the cold, she saw a skull. Swaddling clothes filled with nothing but bones. She hugged those bones to her breast while Gideon laughed, mocking, demeaning. Then Lewis was there, nodding to her. “Look again, Anna.” Terrified, she reached once more for the corner of the baby’s blanket…
Another roll in her belly brought her full awake. A strange sensation, as she imagined thunder might feel if you could not hear it, or the roll of a ship in stormy seas. Not painful, but not something one could ignore.
It passed quickly, but she knew what it was. This was what had awakened her the first time. This nightmare was real.
All these months she’d dreaded it. Yet oddly, now that it was here, calm settled over her like a blanket. At the very least, things would change. No more of this dreadful purgatory. For the next few days, she was in fate’s hands, she and her baby. After… Well, there was nothing she could do about After, until it arrived.
The midwife had said the process would move slowly at first. “If it starts in the night, as often happens, don’t tha’ be wakenin’ me. Just slip a note ’neath my door so I’ll see it when I rise. Mornin’ be plenty o’ time.”
Anna had no idea how far off morning was. It could be one hour or six.
They could sometimes hear the bells from St. Peter’s or St. John’s, depending on the wind. She listened idly as her mind wandered through the familiar maze of faces and places, the if-onlys and could-have-beens, the litany of choices made and regretted. With each contraction of her womb, the sad chronicle paused as her focus shifted from mind to body. Then it moved on.
She would regret giving up her child, no doubt about that. But did she have a choice? Were there options they had missed, she and Putnam? And Lewis too, the sweet, deluded soul. She smiled at his naïveté, cried for his loss and her own.
If she had been less naïve last spring, would she have recognized Lewis and Gideon for what they were? Two sides of a coin, opposites in so many ways. She had made no choice then, not even flipped the coin.
She had hardly noticed Lewis. He’d seemed a boy then, diffident and unsure. Now he was a man. Still serious, still restrained, as he would always be. Still learning. But he showed the bones of something rare and valuable. Something irresistible. What a superior husband he would make for some woman.
It would not be her, and it was her own stupid fault. What was that line from Othello? ‘She wished that heaven had made her such a man?’ Well, heaven had done its part, and Anna had bungled it.
How long did she lie there, drifting in her thoughts, waiting for each successive pang? By the time the dawn light brightened the room, she had almost given up on it. Perspiration slicked her skin again as the spasms came more frequently, regular now and purposeful.
She rose and used the chamber pot, dug her missing sock from between the sheets and sat on the bed to pull it on. Taken by a pain as she bent over, she pressed one hand to her belly and straightened. She didn’t need that sock. When the spasm passed, she dragged on her dressing gown and went for Putnam.
“Oh, my dear, ’tis too soon,” Putnam exclaimed, waking from a sound sleep. Her eyes were puffy, her graying hair in a ragged braid. Old and tired—why had Anna not seen it before? Frightened too, perhaps as much as Anna herself.
“Lord have mercy, child. What are you doing barefoot? Get you back in bed. I need a few minutes, then I’ll go and see Mrs. Milledge.”
Anna did as she was told. When Putnam bustled in, she looked more like the Putnam Anna was used to, clean and tidy, her hair in its usual bun. But a pucker of strain still pulled at the corners of her eyes.
“I’ve got the fire going in the parlor. It’ll be a bit before it’ll boil the water or heat a brick for your feet, but it’s on its way, don’t you worry.”
Anna grabbed Putnam’s hand and held it tight. “What would I do without you, Putnam? What Mr. Aubrey said the other day… He’s right. I haven’t been as considerate of you as I ought. I’m so grateful you’re here with me.”
Putnam stroked her hair. “There, there. Don’t you worry about that, either. What you’re going through would suck the manners out of the queen’s own ladies. Not that they display those fine manners to the servants, from anything I’ve ever heard, but that’s neither here nor there. We’ll get through this day, Miss Anna, and the next one too.”
She squeezed Anna’s hands and pulled away. “I’ll go and see Mrs. Milledge now, and then I’ll get you some tea and a bite to eat. You just rest easy while I’m gone.” Anna shivered. The room felt colder without her.
Putnam returned with the midwife at the end of a spasm that left Anna trembling. Mrs. Milledge was a big woman, a head taller than Putnam and twice as wide. The same age, within a few years, though she had a business-like manner that Putnam lacked. She seemed to fill the room, and it was not merely because of her size.
She eyed Anna and pulled a watch from the capacious pocket in her apron. “So, Mrs. Stanley, the babe’s birthday has arrived. When did th’ pangs start?”
Anna shook her head. “I can only guess. It seems like hours.”
“No matter, the examination will tell us what we need to know. How art tha’ feeling?”
“I… All right, in between the pains.”
“’Tis natural to be afraid, dearie. No need to pretend th’art not.” She strode to the window and twitched the curtain closed. It was not heavy enough to block all the outside light—at least Anna would be able to tell if it was day or night.
“Light some candles, Mrs. Putnam. Keep the room dim, and ’ware of drafts. Now, let’s get her up. I’ll walk her around a bit while you put this canvas sheet on the bed. Blankets on top, but don’t tuck them in.”
“Should she be on her feet?” Putnam sounded doubtful.
“Won’t hurt a thing,” Mrs. Milledge replied. “There’s them as deliver their babes standing up.”
It felt good to walk, though Anna was glad of the midwife’s sturdy arm. They ambled twice around the parlor, and as they returned to the candle-lit bedroom another spasm hit her. Mrs. Milledge consulted her watch again but said nothing.
The canvas felt stiff and cold beneath her. She huddled under the blankets, pushed them away, pulled them up again. Putnam flustered about, helping with those silly, temporary comforts and biting her lip.
Mrs. Milledge watched them, and when the cramp had eased she pushed the blankets up to Anna’s knees and made her preparations for the examination. Her hands were large enough, they could have been a man’s.
Anna closed her eyes, hiding herself away from the discomfort and embarrassment. Strange to think that Gideon had been there, alike yet so different. This was an invasion that went on and on. When it finally ended, she wanted only to curl up in a ball and disappear.
Would it be different if this were a pregnancy she had tried for, longed for? If a loving father waited in the parlor to see his son, to kiss her on the forehead and say, “Well done, my dear”?
Even without a father, would it be different if this were a child she could keep, cuddle, and raise to adulthood?
She would never know.
Mrs. Milledge straightened from her inspection and washed her hands in the bowl Putnam held for her. “All perfectly normal, Mrs. Stanley. ’Twill be hours yet.” She smiled at Anna’s dismay. “I know that’s not what you want to hear. Most women are eager to get it done. But the babe knows what he’s about, best leave it to him. In the meantime, tea and barley water, and summat light to eat. I’ve other patients to check on. I’ll come back in two or three hours.”
She left then, though Anna wanted to hang on to her, take refuge in her unruffled calm. What if she did something wrong? Ate too much or too little? What if a draft crept in under the bedroom door? She felt restless, but she dared not get up. What if she walked too far, or lost her balance and fell?
Putnam brought her some tea. It tasted good, sweeter than usual. “There, Miss Anna, a little something to get you started. That Mrs. Milledge, she sure is coolheaded. Did she put your mind at ease?”
“A little.” A lie. “You’ve been through this before, haven’t you?”
Putnam shook her head. “No, miss. I didn’t come to work for your mama ’til you were six. An’ that snippity chit your brother married had no need of me when her time came, what with that fancy man-midwife—oh, excuse me, he’s an accoucheur.” She said this with a dramatic roll of her eyes that made Anna smile. “And the monthly nurse, and that French-faced madame she calls her dresser.”
Putnam fussed with the bedclothes. “The way she looked at you when we came home from London, like you was the muck she tracked in on her shoes. As if she was so pure. Little Clarence was born not seven months after they married.”
“Was he?” Anna said. “I never knew that.” It painted a different complexion on her sister-in-law’s perfect countenance. Until the family learned of Anna’s pregnancy, Susan had been delighted to treat her as an unpaid nanny. After that, she was banned from the children’s presence. To know that Susan too had sinned… She was no better than Anna. Except that she had managed to get her man to the altar. Good to know that Roland was honorable enough to do his duty.
What would happen when Anna returned home? Would she continue as a pariah, or be compelled to spend her days caring for her brother’s children? While her own little boy grew up in a workhouse far away.
The next pain came as a relief, blocking all thought.