The Midwife's Revolt (12 page)

“What do you propose?” she said wryly. “Have you a stork in that sack of yours?”

“No, indeed,” I replied. “I have something far better than a stork.” I went to my bag and removed a vial of white powder.

“What is that?”

“Our ancestors used it to make their eyes beautiful.”

Still, she did not guess.

“Belladonna
,
” I said
.
“The ladies placed drops of it in their eyes to dilate their pupils. It was quite the fashion at one point.”

Abigail sighed. “I sometimes have the distinct impression that our forebears were deranged. Anyway, what do you propose to do with it? The baby can hardly come out my pupils. Though I wish it could.”

“No. Listen.” I explained to her how, in extreme cases, I coated the opening of the
os
with powdered belladonna to help dilate the cervix without the swelling that often occurs with manual attempts.

I proposed we try the belladonna if she were not in travail by Friday. It was now Tuesday. She agreed to the plan, and I left her half an hour later, lighter in spirit than I had found her.

But this poor child was not to be. Early Saturday morning I was called once more to her home, where I delivered my poor friend of a stillborn girl, whom she named Elizabeth and cradled in her arms.

Sad as this sight was—Elizabeth was a perfect, beautiful baby—it was also a relief, for the cause of death was readily apparent: the baby had been strangled on its own cord, which I found wrapped tightly ’round its little neck.

19

ABIGAIL WAS SLOW to recover her spirits,
and a low mood in one so bent toward optimism set Martha and me low as well. There was now little to be had of any goods at any price—not lead, nor powder, nor coffee, nor tea. Our mills were obliged to make molasses from cornstalks. We worked our fingers so hard making knickknacks that they grew swollen and numb. At times we felt as if God had abandoned us.

News from beyond our town was bad as well. The British Army had captured Philadelphia, and Congress was forced to move out for its members’ safety, first to Lancaster and then to York. For several days before she received word, Abigail anguished that the Regulars had captured John.

Martha and I continued to deliver babes, though how these women became with child we knew not, since the men were all gone. We hid these activities as best we could from Abigail. Indeed, I did not see a great deal of her that autumn. No doubt we were both greatly occupied. In addition to making goods and delivering children, Martha and I had our usual weekly chores such as boiling the clothing, hanging it to dry on the line, and ironing. For the harvest we also needed to card the flax, slice and string the apples and pumpkins, set the corn to dry, and make our jams and jellies. At day’s end, we flopped down on our beds, breathless with fatigue. Only an unwillingness to waste our candles forced us to sleep at all.

At long last, late that October, we finally received news to lift our spirits. Martha and I were lugging bushels of apples down the steep cellar stairs when we heard a chaise pull up by our door. It was now quite unseasonably cold. The following day it would snow.

“He has surrendered! He has surrendered!” we heard the voice of our beloved friend. We knew Abigail meant General Burgoyne. He and his near six thousand soldiers had given themselves over to General Gates at Saratoga.

Martha was so astonished that she dropped her end of the basket, and the apples went tumbling down the stairs.

I made us chamomile tea as Abigail recounted everything she had heard.

“There is to be a great celebration in town tomorrow, and you must come.”

“I should like that,” I said.

“Oh, no, there is far too much to do,” said Martha regretfully.

“But think, Martha. You might see your brother,” I said. “Thomas.”

She sighed wistfully. “Yes. Perhaps.”

“But is he not in the South now?” Abigail asked, puzzled. General Howe was at that time in Germantown, Pennsylvania. I had forgotten about Mr. Miller’s connection to Howe, no doubt because I had wished to.

“No, he stayed behind.”

At the mention of Martha’s brother, we fell silent, each no doubt thinking our own thoughts.
Why had he remained in Boston?
I wondered but did not ask. Possibly to guard the few British holdings left at the wharf or perhaps to monitor Rebel activity.

In private, Abigail and I had discussed the possibility of Thomas Miller’s being a spy for the enemy.

“If he is, he’s very obvious about it. Besides, everyone’s a spy these days for one side or another,” she’d said bitterly. “John dares not send me information of any great import, for fear of it. But I hear a great deal about what he ate for dinner.”

“How vexing,” I’d replied.

Catching my serious look, Abigail laughed.

We come now to a part in my narrative that I do not like to tell. Soon after we heard the news of Burgoyne’s surrender, I became suspicious of my own dear Martha. My thoughts began to run away with me immediately after I heard that Thomas Miller had stayed behind in Boston rather than leave with Howe’s army.

On the day after we heard the good news, we rode in Colonel Quincy’s fine carriage to Boston. Abigail sat by my side, and Martha was seated across from us. I looked at her and could not rid myself of the thought that she was a spy sent by her brother to oversee pesky Rebels in the North Parish, with a particular interest in the tiny lady who sat by my side.

In my own defense, and for the sake of Truth, I must reveal certain facts that I have thus far omitted from my tale. Since earlier that spring, I had caught Martha reading or writing letters, which she did not offer to share with me. Passing by her chamber one evening, I happened to notice several drafts of a letter made out to her brother in which General Howe was mentioned.

But what of that? Was the poor girl not entitled to communicate with her one living relation on earth? But the mind must have the story and, missing the truth, will piece together a fiction from ragged scraps. Thus, as we drove to Boston, my concern grew feverish in my brain until I had worked myself into a genuine panic.

We stayed at the house of Abigail’s uncle, Isaac Smith, where Abigail occupied her favorite room—a closet of her very own. It had a pretty little writing desk by a window. Abigail pronounced it a very great luxury to be without her children for a full day. She said she would use the time to write John a letter. Martha and I were quite comfortably installed down the hall, where we shared a bed.

I watched Martha undress for bed. To say I observed her might be more accurate, for in my overwrought state I fancied she would at any moment betray herself in word or deed. I don’t know precisely what I expected. Would she mutter “Long live King George!” in her sleep?

“You stare at me quite profoundly,” she said mildly. “One would think you’d never seen a naked woman before.”

I caught the irony in her tone, as we both knew I’d seen women in every naked particular. Indeed, Martha’s slender little body was quite worth looking at. She had the kind of body clothing hides rather than complements. Her full breasts, slender, curving hips, and long, well-turned legs would have smitten any man who gazed upon them.

“I’m thinking you are very attractive without your clothing.”

She raised her eyebrows and placed her shift before her, suddenly as self-conscious as Eve after biting the apple.

“Well, you parade about in manly garb astride a horse. Why then can’t I be like Guinevere and fly naked through the streets? Oh, Lizzie”—her tone became cheerful—“I’m vastly contented! For tomorrow I see my beloved brother. It has been too long.”

It was arranged that we would take the colonel’s carriage the following day, and that Mr. Miller would meet us at the wharf. We set off in some trepidation, for while few Tories remained in town, it was not unknown for sudden personal conflagrations to occur. More than one man had been caught in a crossfire of muskets.

At the wharf the celebration of Burgoyne’s surrender was in full swing, with fire displays and loud demonstrations. We stood observing a band of jokesters burning the king in effigy when a fine carriage pulled up beside us and a servant descended, then helped a tall young man to alight from the carriage.

“Thomas!” Martha cried. She went running toward him. It was Mr. Thomas Miller, the notorious and beloved brother.

“Oh, sweet sister!”

He lifted her off the ground and hugged her fiercely. There were tears of joy on the poor girl’s face. When her brother finally released her, Martha saw fit to introduce us. Another young, quite dandified man alit from the carriage behind Thomas and bowed, though I doubted he knew to whom he was bowing.

Mr. Miller introduced his friend, whose name I now forget. But he was the owner of the carriage and no doubt from a family of considerable wealth. Thomas’s friend soon mounted the carriage and waited there, not wishing to intrude upon the family scene.

Martha then said formally, “Abigail Adams, this is my dear brother, Thomas Miller. Thomas, Abigail.”

Abigail allowed him to kiss her hand. She bowed slightly, but not without casting me a fleeting sideways glance. I gave him my hand limply, with obvious reluctance. To his credit, Thomas Miller bowed deeply and appeared not to notice my slight. He then gazed across the crowded wharf. “Quite a celebration, isn’t it?”

“We’ve all been in ecstasies since we heard the news,” I said.

Mr. Miller’s was not a countenance one could exactly call handsome. He had a large, straight nose; big, wide-set eyes of an astonishing amber color; and a full mouth. His hair, like his sister’s, was a rich auburn brown.

Mr. Miller looked entreatingly at Martha, who saw her cue to end the awkward scene by mounting the carriage. He took her hand and helped her up. From her perch, she cast me a regretful look. As they pulled away, Thomas Miller glanced down at me briefly, then nodded respectfully to Abigail as he bade the horses go.

“Regards to your husband.” He tipped his hat to her. “General Howe is a very great admirer, as am I.”

Abigail and I looked at each other without a word. We both knew that, while General Howe might admire John Adams, he would not be distraught by the appearance of a noose around his neck.

“Insufferable platitudes!” I cried once brother and sister were gone.

But Abigail replied, “I thought his manner quite pleasant and sincere.”

“Then you have been too much out of company to recall the meaning of
pleasant
or
sincere
,” I replied sullenly. I was angry with Mr. Miller, not her. But she took the offense, and rightly so.

“And you must take care not to judge men too hastily, for grave mistakes have been made by those more perceptive than you.”

Here, she turned her back on me.

This was the closest Abigail and I ever came to having an argument. She was older than I by eight years, and I had been insufferably rude to her.

We sat across from each other in silence on the journey back to her uncle’s house that afternoon. I had regretted my words moments after uttering them. Who was I to tell Mrs. John Adams that she had been so much out of company that she did not know
pleasant
or
sincere
—she who had dined with Dr. Franklin and John Hancock, and even His Excellency and Martha Washington?

I felt miserably ashamed of myself. And yet, so much had my obsessive thoughts taken hold of me that, by the time we approached the house late that afternoon, I could not prevent myself from saying, “It would do well, I think, to take care what you say in Martha’s presence.”

I had said it to puff up my own flagging sense of importance and perhaps to regain some of my lost esteem in her eyes. It was an egregious error. For what had we, in those days, if not our loyalty to one another?

The effect of these words was fat upon the fire.

Abigail pulled herself up and faced me squarely. Though she was tiny, I felt she towered above me. “And how do I know that you yourself are not a spy?” she said. “You, of all people, have my ear and my trust. You are privy to my most private correspondence with John. You profess to be my friend and Martha’s. Perhaps
you
are not who you profess to be!”

Reader, if you had any idea how these words cut me, you would pity me. I watched her stride into the house, saw her aunt’s servant racing after her most officiously, leaving me alone and utterly bewildered on the road.

Moments later I was able to compose myself sufficiently to move toward the house. I dropped my bonnet, cloak, mitts, and scarf on a chair, crossed into the hallway, and followed her upstairs. I found her sitting with her back to me by the window, staring out at the steely-gray autumn sky.

“Abigail, forgive me,” I said. “I can’t live knowing I have fallen in your esteem.”

“There are many things we say we cannot bear, and yet we do,” she said calmly.

“No, truly, I
cannot
bear it. I will die.” And with these words I fell by her feet, took her hands, and lay my head pitifully in her lap. “You are my only friend. Without you, I am alone in the world.”

I thought she would say that Martha was my friend, too, and that I had grossly wronged her. Instead, she said, “You must learn to love yourself and your own company. As for others, there is no guarantee. You have only yourself for certain, until the last breath.”

“What a lonely thought!” I cried. “A most terrible, lonely thought.”

My misery and distraught tears pricked her maternal sensibilities at last. She placed a hand on my head and caressed me, and the touch of her hand made me sob like a child. I threw my arms around her calves and hugged her tight.