The Midwife and the Assassin (10 page)

I tried to push such melancholy thoughts from my head, but instead my mind ran to my daughter, Elizabeth. In a few short years men would come a-courting. While I would try to find a better husband for her than Phineas had been to me, there were no sure wagers. What if I chose poorly? What would I have her do if her husband were inclined to violence? Meekly suffer whatever outrages her husband chose to visit upon her? Or demand to be treated with the loving kindness that a husband owed his wife? I knew my answer to that question, but I also knew that if I voiced such thoughts, if I said on the street,
Women should not be made to suffer at their husbands' hands
, people would call me a troublesome and tumultuous woman just as they called Katherine one. And perhaps they would be right.

 

Chapter 8

The following Sunday, Martha and I returned from the afternoon service at St. Mary-le-Bow to find two letters newly arrived from Pontrilas, one each from Elizabeth and Hannah. I opened Elizabeth's first, hoping that her anger at being left behind had faded. It had not. The fury of her words—
abandoned
,
forsaken
,
discarded
—mixed with the tears still visible on the paper to rend my heart in two. I cursed Marlowe for drawing me away from my daughter and renewed my vow to finish his business as quickly as I could. Hannah's letter confirmed what I'd read in Elizabeth's; she was by turns furious and morose, and spent every minute she could out of the house, riding to the eastern edge of my estates and gazing toward London.

I wrote a brief note to Hannah, thanking her for her patience, and a longer letter to Elizabeth. I told her of my love, and lamented the pain that my departure had caused her.
I promise that I will return the moment that my work here is done. You must be patient.
But I could not, of course, know when that would be. I summoned one of Mrs. Evelyn's boys, and sent him to the Horned Bull with the letters.

He'd not been gone for long when Katherine Chidley knocked on our door. “Thank the Lord, you are both here.”

“What is it?” Martha asked.

“Not now,” Katherine replied. “The walls are thin. Besides, I need a pot of ale.”

When Katherine led Martha and me north on Bread Street, then onto Milk Street, I knew that we must be going to the Nag's Head. Women and men in the neighborhood nodded when they saw Katherine coming, clearing a path so we could pass without any trouble. Katherine was even more powerful than I'd imagined: for while I had received such courtesy in York, that was by dint of my birth; she had earned this respect entirely by her deeds. We arrived at the tavern and Katherine called for three pots of ale.

“Word has come from Newgate that Grace Ramsden will be tried for infanticide,” she said. “They say that she stole the child from his mother, killed him, and then smuggled him into her delivery room.”

“My God,” Martha breathed. “They found the mother?”

“No,” Katherine said. “Nor has she confessed.”

Martha and I stared at her in confusion. “If there is no accuser and no confession, why will she be tried?” I asked at last.

I'd thought about Grace Ramsden many times over the previous week, and I simply could not believe that she had deliberately murdered a child in order to keep her clients. No midwife would do such a thing.

“They have nothing but the sheriff's suspicions,” Katherine said. “But that was enough to convince a magistrate to order a trial. And what she did was so horrible, I fear the deed will be enough to see her hanged, whether she murdered the child or not.”

“She hasn't told them where she found the child?” I asked.

“She's not spoken a word since they took her to Newgate,” Katherine said.

“When will she be tried?” Martha asked.

“All too soon,” Katherine said. “The Assizes start this week.”

In my youth, I would have trusted the law to mete out justice, and simply allowed the trial to run its course. But my final years in York had showed me that the law concerned itself with power above all else. If it also offered justice, that was only by happy accident. I also knew that Katherine was of a similar mind, and I could guess why she'd sought out Martha and me.

“If we do nothing, she will hang,” Martha said, speaking for both of us. “We cannot allow that, not on such thin evidence. We have to find out what happened.”

“I hoped you would say that,” Katherine said. “If she did not kill the boy herself, she must have found a stillborn child. But where?”

We considered the question while we drank our ale. “The mother must be a single woman, perhaps a widow, perhaps a maiden,” I said. “And a poor one at that. No respectable wife would give over her child so easily, even if he were stillborn. She would demand a proper burial.”

“Mrs. Ramsden might have delivered the child dead-born, and told the mother she would take it to be buried,” Martha said. “If the mother had no husband to oversee the funeral, she would never know the truth, and wouldn't complain to the Justices.”

Katherine considered the idea for a moment before shaking her head. “That relies too much on chance to be the whole story,” she said. “Mrs. Ramsden announced her pregnancy last spring. She could not have known that she would deliver a singlewoman of a stillborn child just in time for her own travail. She planned her scheme more carefully than that.”

“What if the mother's a whore?” Martha asked. “If so, the child would have no father to claim him, and the mother would be happy to avoid a whipping for bearing a bastard.”

“And if Mrs. Ramsden got to know the city's doxies,” I said, “they could help her find a stillborn child when she needed one.”

Katherine nodded in grim satisfaction. “Grace simply waited until she reached her supposed time, and
then
found a willing mother. Once she had the stillborn child, she feigned her own travail.” She turned to me. “Hold tight to your deputy, Mrs. Hodgson, else I might take her for my own.”

“What do we do now?” Martha asked.

“If we have to find a harlot, the place to start is in Southwark on the other side of the river. In the morning we'll begin our search.”

“Southwark?” I said with a smile. “I can provide a guide to accompany us.”

*   *   *

From the moment they met, Will and Katherine got along like old friends. The four of us chattered amiably as we walked south to London Bridge. We fell silent, though, when we reached the gatehouse on the far end. We looked up at the row of heads that had been posted on pikes as a warning against treason. A raven sat on one man's head, croaking indignantly, as if he hungered for more executions. I looked away, and we entered the city of Southwark.

Once we passed over the Bridge, it felt as if we were in a different city, for Southwark made the chaos of London seem like a model of order and uniformity. The houses were lower built—none more than four stories tall—but the streets were ill maintained, and Southwark's residents seemed to be even less inclined to good order than London's; chapmen, fishwives and shopkeepers filled the air with a cacophony of voices. Before the war, Southwark had been home to London's theaters, as well as bear- and bull-baiting pits. While the greatest of these had been closed, many smaller disorders persisted in the knowledge that London's officers had no power south of the river. It was this gap in good government that made Southwark so attractive to London's brothel-keepers and thus drew us across the river.

“The best place to start is in the Clink.” Will pointed to the west, past a church the size of a small cathedral.

“I'm afraid to ask,” Martha said mischievously, “how you know where to find a brothel.”

“A blind man would be able to direct you to the stews.” Will laughed. “They are entirely shameless here.” The four of us skirted south of the church and passed a decrepit mansion that lay further west.

“That's Winchester House,” Will said. “It was home to the Bishop, when we had bishops. And those are the theaters, of course.” To the west and south we could see round buildings looming over their neighbors.

“We should go first to the Holland's Leaguer,” Will said.

“It is real place?” I asked in surprise. Years before I'd heard of a most scandalous play, also called
The Holland's Leaguer,
but I had not realized it existed outside the author's debauched mind.

“Aye,” Will said. “In the flesh, if you will.” We turned one final corner and found ourselves standing before a large and ramshackle tenement. A garishly painted quean stood at the entrance trying to lure customers with flashes of her bosom. She noticed Will's interest—in the building, I told myself—and approached him. She took his arm and whispered something in his ear that caused him to turn a deep crimson. Martha laughed at Will's state before stepping forward to take his other arm.

“Er, that is tempting,” Will said once he'd regained his tongue. “But impossible, I think. In truth we are here on more serious business.”

“We would like to see your bawd,” Katherine said.

The quean looked us over before she answered. “He'll want to know why,” she said. “You can't just walk up and ask to see him, you know.”

If I were still Lady Hodgson, I could have bought an audience with the bawd no matter the price, but
Widow
Hodgson could hardly spend so freely, not in Katherine's presence.

“A few days ago a woman might have come here.” Katherine paused, knowing how strange her words would sound. “She was looking for a stillborn child.”

“What do you mean?” the quean asked. “You found a child and you are searching for his mother?”

“No,” Katherine said. “A woman came here, to purchase a stillborn child.”

The quean gasped and sputtered in response. “My God, have you gone mad?” she demanded. “Who would do such a thing?” She produced a whistle from her apron and blew three times. Two large and very ugly men strode out of the brothel. Each held a cudgel and seemed eager to put it to use.

“Get away from here,” the quean hissed, her bosom heaving. “If I see you again, you'll be much the worse for it. You are lunatics, you are, buying a stillborn child!”

“
We
do not want to buy a child,” I tried to explain. “We are looking for a woman who…” I stopped my speech when one of the men stepped forward, slapping his palm with his club. There seemed no point in arguing further, so we moved on with as much speed and dignity as we could. Once we were out of sight of the brothel we stopped to catch our breath.

“Perhaps we should try another approach,” Katherine said with a smile.

“If we are following Mrs. Ramsden's trail,” Martha said, “it is not the bawd we need to talk to, but the doxies themselves.”

“How can we find a whore without talking to a bawd?” Katherine asked. “If the three of us try to hire a
putain
, it will surely bring attention we don't want.”

“We send Will by himself,” Martha said. “He can hire the doxy.” While Will turned crimson again and struggled to find his voice, Martha explained her scheme. “He can go with the harlot as any man might. And once they are alone, he can give her a few pennies and ask about Mrs. Ramsden.”

Katherine and I glanced at each other and looked to Will. He still seemed shocked that Martha would send him alone into a brothel.

“If you have another way, we can try it,” Martha said.

None of us did.

“Very well then,” Martha said. “Let us begin.”

The four of us pooled our ready money and estimated that if all went well we could send Will into four or five brothels. We found another such place not far from the Holland's Leaguer, and Will entered.

“How long do you think he'll be?” I asked.

“Not long if he knows what's good for him,” Martha replied.

Such was the case, for soon after the brothel door burst open and Will stumbled into the street followed closely by a young harlot.

“His pintle is as soft as an overcooked carrot, it is!” The girl crowed with unseemly joy. “But you're welcome to return any time you'd like, and I'll make it stand right tall. But for now you should go on your way.”

Will rejoined us and we hurried to find an alley where we could talk.

“What happened?” Katherine demanded.

“That little play was the doxy's idea.” Will had once again turned bright red. “She told me to pretend I couldn't, er, stand. That way she wouldn't have to give a share of our money to the bawd. It seemed like a kind thing to do. I didn't know she would announce my failure to all of Southwark.”

“Did she tell you anything of use?” Martha asked.

“Aye,” Will said. “She heard gossip about a woman searching for a doxy who had neared her time.”

“Was it Mrs. Ramsden?” I asked. “It must have been.”

“She never saw the woman,” Will said. “And doesn't know anyone who did. But I think we are close.”

“I hope so,” Martha said. “If you visit too many more brothels your face might stay that color.”

*   *   *

It took visits to two more brothels, but at last Will found a woman who said she could answer our questions.

“She can't talk right now,” Will said when he returned to us. “But around supper she'll meet us in the alehouse on the corner.”

I glanced up at the autumn sun, hanging low in the reddening sky. I did not know when a harlot took her supper, but I hoped she would not be long. I did not look forward to a night walk through Southwark.

The four of us crossed to the alehouse and found a table by a window from which we could see the brothel door. The ale was undrinkable and the food unfit for the city's vermin. We sat in tense silence hoping the harlot would bring us closer to the truth, but we also knew she might be lying in the hope of tricking Will out of a few more pennies.