By the time I was on my way to Tolpuddle, I had lost my earlier vision of new beginnings. I wished only to remove myself from the stink of Mrs. Grundy’s privy and the sound of Papa’s voice constantly nagging about my failure to “nail down John Beverley Robinson,” accompanied by an ongoing moan about the fact that Mr. Robinson no longer seemed to find his patronage of importance. I half expected to find my Aunt Jane—Papa’s sister—a female version of himself. At least, however, I kept repeating inwardly, her nagging and moans would be on a new variety of topics. From Uncle Henry Warren, the vicar of Todpuddle, I expected only morning and evening prayers and lengthy dissertations on God, the Holy Spirit, and Christ.
It was a pleasant surprise, then, to find my aunt and uncle waiting for me at the coach stop at Tolpuddle Inn with smiling faces and tender words of welcome. In a moment they had helped the coachman unload my trunk; another moment and they had each grasped a leather thong so that they could carry it between them. “The vicarage is just a few steps away,” Aunt Jane told me, and we set out immediately, heading down a cobbled street flanked by thatched cottages.
The vicarage was beside the Church of St. John the Evangelist and its ancient graveyard. Like the church and cemetery, it seemed to date back several centuries. It was surrounded by a stone wall with a gate leading to the front door, through which we entered into a huge room with a ceiling of strips of wood and plaster, an enormous open hearth, and walls of books. Two servants immediately took charge of my trunk and led me upstairs to my bedchamber, a pleasant room with stone walls, a narrow bed tucked into one corner, and a window looking out on a river. A chamberpot lay near the bed, and—thanks to St. John or Whomever—there was no stink.
“Beautiful,” I said, looking out the window at the river and its tree-lined banks. It was only later that I found out from Uncle Warren that the lovely stream was called the River Piddle. We had a good laugh over that!
* * *
Life here over the next months was happy. For once, I found purpose and direction in my daily activities. When I first came to Tolpuddle, I told Aunt Jane that my sisters and I spent our waking hours in York sitting in the withdrawing room making over dresses for balls we were not allowed to attend—especially if the Odious Mrs. Small was to be present.
She laughed. “There will be no time for stitchery in this household. Did you notice the cottages that line the main street of this village?”
“Picturesque from a distance,” I said. “Small and dirty up close.”
My aunt’s bottom lip poked out in a manner that reminded me of Papa when he was about to deliver a verdict, professional or personal. But the words that came from her mouth were nothing like Papa’s. “They belong to the farm workers who plough the fields, shovel sheep dung into the soil, milk the cows, plant and harvest the crops, and do a hundred other rough tasks for which the wealthy landowners in Dorset pay them six or seven shillings a week.”
“And most of those cottages have but one room in which the whole family—sometimes, as many as ten people--must dine and sleep,” my uncle added. “You may have wondered why dear Jane spends all her mornings in the kitchen with Cook. They make stews, soup, and bread, and in the afternoons she takes it all to these people.”
“I will gladly help you in any way I can,” I said.
My aunt rose from her chair and gave me a hug. “Dear niece,” she said, “what have I done to deserve such an offer?”
“And I have assisted at the lying-in of several women in York, and I can—”
“You are a midwife! Oh, Henry, we are blessed!”
My uncle moved from his chair and went to the shelf of books that lined the walls. “Midwifery is such an honourable profession,” he said, “going back in time to the Roman era.” He pulled down a book in Latin from the shelf and translated a passage for me by a second-century Someone called Soranus. “A midwife should be literate, with her wits about her, and respectable. She must be capable of allaying the anxiety of the mother and knowledgeable about obstetrics and pediatric theory.” He looked at me. “Yes, Jane, we are indeed blessed to have Anne with us.”
I hugged Uncle Henry so hard he dropped the book on his gouty toe.
* * *
And thus began my new career. In the mornings Cook taught me the fine points of open-hearth cooking, and in the afternoons, Aunt Jane and I took baskets of food to the cottagers on the main street of the village. The squalor of these places was distressing, but I quickly learned how to behave.
“We must never show pity or disgust,” my aunt said. “The smell will be bad, but you must not put a handkerchief to your nose. And be sure to dress warmly so that you do not shiver in the dampness caused by the broken walls and damaged floors. These people cannot remedy their condition, and we must not seem to condescend.”
Uncle Henry was always busy too. Child mortality was high. Often we would see a small child crawling about on the cottage floor in a condition nearing starvation. Not surprisingly, a few days later, my uncle would conduct a funeral service.
Boys as young as seven or eight worked in the fields clearing stones and weeds from the fields. But the income of the household never seemed to be adequate for the expenses of rent and food. Aunt and I did what we could to alleviate conditions, but at times it seemed hopeless. Stealing and poaching were commonplace, and Uncle Henry spent a good deal of time in the magistrate’s court defending the men who had tried vainly to alleviate the sordid conditions they and their families lived in.
I had never a spare moment during these days in Tolpuddle, but here in rural England I felt happy and fulfilled. I began to understand the courage of the men and women who lived here, and the grit with which they faced the pangs of their circumstances. I even started to think about my eventual return to York where I could perhaps persuade Papa to loosen his purse strings and do something worthwhile to bring surcease of pain to the poor people of our little Canadian town.