The Linnet Bird: A Novel (17 page)

“Whoever robbed you will be well away. What with the Guy Fawkes celebrations and the crowds, it’s easy for them to do their work.”

I withdrew my arm and stood still, unable to take it in for that one moment. The enormity of what had happened was unbearable. All this time on the street, so careful with my savings, and now caught in the oldest trick. What had I been thinking? Had my brains, as well as my back, been jolted by the fall from the carriage?

“I could see you to your home, miss,” the young man said. “If you’re worried about walking out on your own.”

I raised my head. Worried about walking out on my own? Was he blind? Did he not see me for what I was? Or perhaps he did, and thought he could slip in a free one by pretending concern. Nobody got one for free, not from me. I’d had enough taken tonight. Almost everything. I put my hands on the slight swell of my abdomen.

“I’m perfectly fine to make my way,” I told him, realizing I’d have to walk. “If you’ll tell me which way it is back to central Liverpool.” The pain in my back had a firm grip now.

“But—but if you’ve been robbed, you’ll have no money for a carriage. It’s a long way.”

He appeared genuinely concerned. But so had the woman who had just taken away my future. I had to press my lips together tightly to hold back the low moan threatening to push its way out.

“My name is Shaker,” the man said. “And I can assure you that you don’t look in any condition to be humping it all that distance. You’ve come over quite pale. Is it your back, miss?” He looked pointedly at my fist, planted into the small of my back, kneading at the pain which was now coming in a definite rhythm of gripping and then lessening waves.

“I’ve had a fall. It will pass soon,” I said, breathing deeply as the pain ebbed.

“Could I buy you a warm drink? Would that help?” he asked, and as I opened my mouth to say no, a particularly deep pain grabbed so viciously that I did cry out this time, and without meaning to, clutched at the man’s lapel.

He put his arm around my waist, holding me until the sensation lessened. “I suspect it’s not your back, miss, but something else,” he said, not meeting my eyes, but fixing his stare on the braided, wrapped topknot of my apollo.

I felt his fingers spread over one side of my abdomen. They pressed gently through my corset, as if probing. “Please,” I said, softly now. “I just need to get home. If I can only—” But the wave crashed into me again; this time I had to bend over and the sound that came from my lips was animal-like, almost a grunt.

He picked me up, then, with one quick swoop, and the pain at that moment was too intense for me to object. He made his way through the lurching crush of bodies as I leaned against his chest, keeping my eyes shut tight. I couldn’t bear to think of what was happening, what I had started to suspect, but now knew, with certainty. It was wee Frances, shaken from her warm home, shaken loose and wanting to be born. Too early, far too early. There would be no chance she would live if she came now.

Chapter Ten

I
WAS ABLE TO STAND BESIDE HIM, WITH HIS SUPPORT, AS HE HAILED
a carriage, and he helped me inside. “Where shall I direct the driver?” he asked, leaning in the open door. “Where is your home?”

I thought of the stifling, airless closet. The girls would be out at work for the next four or five hours. I would have to do this, alone, on the pallet on Jack Street. I felt my lips shaking as violently as the hands of the man who called himself Shaker.
No. No no no.
My head wagged with each inner
no
.

Shaker misinterpreted what he saw. “It’s all right. Look.” He pulled a few coins from his vest pocket. “Here. It’s enough to pay the driver.”

I couldn’t say anything, just kept my eyes fixed on the faded wine-colored curtain over the window.

Shaker waited until the carriage jolted with the impatient shifting of the horses and there was a rough question from the driver. Finally Shaker answered and climbed in beside me.

Neither of us spoke. I concentrated on the swaying curtain, biting down through each fresh assault of pain. It was no longer only in my back, but around the front and radiating down my thighs. Within ten minutes the carriage stopped, and Shaker helped me out.

“Where are we?” I asked, looking around the dimly lit street with its row of neat two-story terraced houses sharing common walls and brick façades. I recognized traces of simple elegance in the doorways and windows, which were tall and well proportioned. I could see that the doorsteps and windowsills were well scrubbed and whitened. I cupped one hand under the rise of my abdomen in an attempt to ease the pressure.

“We’re in Everton, north of the city. This is where I live—Whitefield Lane.” Shaker opened the unlocked door and led me inside. All was in darkness but for the red glow of a dying fire in a room to the left. Urged by the press of Shaker’s hand on my back, I slowly made my way up a flight of narrow stairs toward a landing. A sliver of light showed under one of the two doors there. He hesitated, and in that moment the door opened and a gaunt, gray-haired woman holding a well-thumbed Bible in one hand and a candle in the other stared at us.

“What is all of this?” she demanded, her voice querulous, holding the candle in my direction. The flames cast craggy shadows on her scowling features. “Who is this person?” I saw her sharp eyes taking in the cut of my dress, my apolloed hair. I knew the odors of the alehouse—spirits and tobacco and sweat—emanated from us.

“It’s a young woman in distress, Mother,” Shaker said.

I didn’t think my legs would hold me any longer. I clung weakly to Shaker’s sleeve, and he put his arms around me to help me stand. I leaned my forehead against his chest.

“Distress? Distress?” the woman repeated. “From where I’m standing, she’s just drunk. You dare to bring home a drunken whore?” I turned my face to look at her, and she stepped so close that I felt the fine spray of spittle that flew from her lips. “You disappoint me, my boy, and, much worse, you disappoint the Lord with this type of behavior.”

“Mother. You don’t at all understand the situat—”

“No. I don’t. But I do know that I can’t abide to see such a one as her under my roof.” Her head swiveled on her thin, wrinkled neck as she bent to speak into my face. “Fornicator.” The word came out a harsh whisper.

Shaker ignored it. “And it’s our roof, Mother. Our roof, not yours.”

“You give me one good reason why I should allow this, Shaker. One good reason.”

“Christian charity, perhaps?” Shaker enunciated, a sarcastic impatience in the words.

This changed the woman’s expression, and she stepped back.

The agony made my knees buckle, and I moaned now, feeling tremendous pressure. I held tightly to Shaker’s jacket so I wouldn’t fall. In the circle of his arms, I felt the tremor of his hands on my back become more violent as he spoke up to his mother.

“The young woman is about to give birth, Mother. She needs help.”

Heard out loud—
give birth
—the words were horrifying.

“She doesn’t look with child. Although it could be because she’s skin and bone, worn down by her frenzied fornicating.” The woman moved closer to me again, peering first at my belly and then at my ringless fingers and then into my face. “And why, I ask, have you brought her here? You’re not . . . connected with this girl, are you?” Her rheumy eyes were boring into mine; now they grew suspicious and fearful. “Do you bear some responsibility for her state? Son? Tell me you have no responsibility toward this woman. Please.” The final word was pleading.

I echoed her word as the pressure felt like iron tongs, forcing my very bones apart. “Please,” I moaned to Shaker. “Please. Help me.”

He dragged me into a dark room, half carrying me. His mother was relentless, following us. Wavering, monstrous shadows created by her candle danced on the walls. “Why doesn’t she go home, where she belongs?”

“She’s been robbed of all her money. The crowds tonight . . .” Shaker trailed off. “And she needed help,” he said for the second time. “Now go, Mother. Go back to your room.” His voice was low but strong. “I insist. This is not your business.”

Finally, the woman said nothing more. She left, taking the candle and closing the door behind her.

My body was no longer in my control. In the darkness I heard my voice rising in a spiral, a strange, warbling call, and Shaker laid me gently on a soft surface. There was the rasp of a congreve and then the flare of light as he touched the match to the wick of an Argand lamp. In its glow I saw I was on a narrow mattress on a rope-slung frame. It seemed the pains were building on each other, the time between them shorter and shorter. Explosions of noise in the distance signaled the height of the Bonfire Night fireworks. I was being torn in two.

“It’s too early. It’s far too early,” I whispered, drawing my knees up and apart as Shaker lit a fire in the small fireplace.

“Yes, I know,” he said, almost as if to himself. “And it appears to be too far along to stop.”

“I don’t know what to do,” I said, panting now.
And I’m afraid.

Shaker’s hands were jumping wildly as he washed them in a basin. Water splashed over the front of his coat and he removed it. Booming and crashing rattled the glass pane of the window. “I do,” he said, and then came to me.

“L
ET ME SEE HER
.”

“You don’t want to do that, miss. It will only upset you.”

“I said I want to see her.” My words hissed as if filled with venom.

It had been over quickly; I didn’t question anything Shaker had told me to do as he pushed up my dress and undid my stays and tucked my chemise up out of the way and then placed his large knuckled hands on my abdomen and began murmuring instructions. He gave me a clean pad of cotton to bite down on when the worst of the pain came. Afterward, he pulled the stained sheet from beneath me and spread a fresh one, then brought extra cloths for the bleeding and warm water and a soft flannel for washing. He left me alone and I took off my dress and corset and cleaned myself, slowly, all over. My movements were slow and heavy, and when I was done I lay back on the bed.

Morning hadn’t yet come, although the light in the lamp seemed dimmer, and the darkness in the corners of the room was fading. Wind whistled at the window.

“It’s my baby. You can’t tell me that I have no right to see her.” I tried to keep the command in my voice, but I shivered even with the blanket wrapped around me, and the last of the words fell off weakly. Shaker had opened the window a few inches, and the cool air rushed in, bringing fresh, somehow green-smelling air. The air I had breathed for so long had the heaviness of gray. The fireworks had long been over, and there were no sounds from outside. Used to the endless clatter and shouts of Jack Street, I found this room eerily quiet.

He studied me for another moment and then went to a washstand that held a porcelain basin. “Wait, then.”

I closed my eyes, hearing small splashing sounds, gentle rustling. “What are you doing?” I finally asked, opening my eyes and trying to find a comfortable sitting position, pulling the blanket firmly around my shoulders.

He didn’t answer but finally came to the side of the bed. He squatted beside me, lowering the decorated porcelain basin, and I looked at the tiny shape under the clean linen handkerchief that had been carefully draped over it. A miniature winding sheet.