Winsor, Kathleen

1644

The
small room was warm and moist. Furious blasts of thunder made the window-panes
rattle and lightning seemed to streak through the room itself. No one had dared
say what each was thinking—that this storm, violent even for mid-March, must be
an evil omen.

As
was customary for a lying-in chamber, the room had been largely cleared of its
furniture. Now there remained only the bed with its tall head and footboards
and linen side curtains, half a dozen low stools, and the midwife's
birth-stool, which had arm rests and a slanting back and cut-out seat. Beside
the fireplace was a table with a pewter water-basin on it, brown cord and a
knife, bottles and ointment-jars, and a pile of soft white cloths. Near the
head of the bed was a very old hooded cradle, still empty.

The
village women, all perfectly silent, stood close about the bed, watching what
was happening there with tense, anxious faces. Sympathetic anguish, pity,
apprehension, were the expressions they showed as their eyes shifted from the
tiny red baby lying beside the woman who had just given it birth to the
sweating midwife bending down and working with her hands beneath the spread
blankets. One of the women, pregnant herself, leant over the child, her eyes
frightened and troubled—and then all at once the baby gasped, gave a sneeze,
and opening its mouth began to yell. The women sighed, relieved.

"Sarah—"
the midwife said softly.

The
pregnant woman looked up. They exchanged some words in low murmuring voices and
then—as the midwife went to the fireplace and sat down to bathe the child from
a basinful of warm red wine—the other slid her hands beneath the blankets and
with firm gentle movements began to knead the mother's abdomen. There was a
look of strained anxiety on her face that amounted almost to horror, but it
vanished swiftly as the woman on the bed slowly opened her eyes and looked at
her.

Her
face was drawn and haggard, with the strange new gauntness of prolonged
suffering, and her eyes lay sunk in dark sockets. Only her light blonde hair,
flung in a rumpled mass about her head, seemed still alive. As she spoke her
voice, too, was thin and flat, scarcely above a whisper.

"Sarah—Sarah,
is that my baby crying?"

Sarah
did not stop working but nodded her head, forcing a quick bright smile.
"Yes, Judith. That's your baby—your daughter." The baby's
angry-sounding squalls filled the room.

"My—daughter?"
Even exhausted as she was, her disappointment was unmistakable. "A
girl—" she said again, in a resentful tired little whisper. "But I
wanted a boy. John would have wanted a boy." Tears filled her eyes and ran
from the corners, streaking across her temples; her head turned away, wearily,
as if to escape the sound of the baby's cries.

But
she was too exhausted to care very much. A kind of dreamy relaxation was
beginning to steal over her. It was something almost pleasant and as it took
hold of her more and more insistently, dragging at her mind and body, she
surrendered herself willingly, for it seemed to offer release from the agony of
the past two days. She could feel the quick light beating of her heart. Now she
was being sucked down into a whirlpool, then swirled up and up at an
ever-increasing speed, and as she spun she seemed lifted out of herself and out
of the room—swept along in time and space . . .

Of
course John won't care if it's a girl. He'll love her just as much—and there
will be boys later—boys, and more girls, too. For now the first baby had been
born it would be easier next time. That was what her mother had often said, and
her mother had had nine children.

She
saw John's face, the shock of surprise when she told him that he was a father,
and then the sudden breaking of happiness and pride. His smile was broad and
his white teeth glistened in his tanned face and his eyes looked down at her
with adoration, just as they had looked the last time she had seen him. It was
always his eyes she remembered best, for they were amber-coloured, like a glass
of ale with the sun coming through it, and about the black centers were flecks
of green and brown. They were strangely compelling eyes, as though all his
being had come to focus in them.

Throughout
her pregnancy she had hoped that this baby would have eyes like John's, hoped
with such passionate intensity she never doubted her wish would come true.

From
the time she had been a very little girl Judith had known that one day she was
to marry John Mainwaring, who would, when his father died, succeed to the
earldom of Rosswood. Her own family was a very old one in England— their name
had been de Marisco when they had first arrived with the Norman Conqueror, but
during the centuries it had changed to Marsh. The Mainwarings, on the other
hand, had sprung to their greatest power in the last century, sharing the
spoils from the break-up of the Catholic Church. Their lands adjoined and there
had been friendship between them for three generations—nothing could be more
natural than that the eldest Mainwaring son should marry the eldest Marsh
daughter.

John
was eight years older than she and for many years he paid her scant attention,
though he took it for granted that eventually they would marry; the betrothal
papers had been signed while he was yet a child and Judith no more than a baby.
All during the years that they were growing up she saw him frequently, for he
came often to Rose Lawn to ride and shoot and fence with her four older
brothers—but he was no more interested in her than in his own sisters and
merely tolerated, with good-natured indifference, her awestruck admiration. He
went away to school—first to Oxford, then to the Inner Temple for a year or so,
and finally off to Europe for his Tour. When he returned he found her a young
lady, sixteen years old and beautiful, and he fell in love. Since Judith had
always been in love with him and the families were so well agreed, there seemed
no reason to wait. The wedding was planned for August: the August that war
began.

Judith's
father, Lord William Marsh, immediately declared
for the King, but the Earl of
Rosswood—like many others— spent some weeks of indecision before joining the
Parliamentarians. Judith had heard the two of them arguing, time and again, for
the past year or more, and though they had often grown so angry that they began
to shout and brandish their fists, at the end they had always agreed to drink a
glass of wine and talk about something else. She never guessed that the
quarrels might change her life.

The
Earl of Rosswood had said a hundred times that he could stand Charles I's
absolutism, but not Laud's church policy—while Lord Marsh was convinced that
should the crucial moment come his friend would gather his wits and go with the
King. When Rosswood did not he was shocked and then filled with bitterness and
hate. Judith had not actually realized that England was at civil war until her
mother coolly told her that she must think no more of John Mainwaring— the
wedding would never take place.

Stunned,
Judith nodded her head in agreement—but she did not really believe it. The war
would be over in three months, her father said so, and when it was they would
make up the quarrel again and all be friends. The war would be merely a brief
unpleasant interval in their lives—it would change nothing of importance, undo
no serious plans, destroy no old familiar customs. It would not really affect
her or anyone she knew.

But
when John came to tell her goodbye before he left for the army, Lord William
rode out to meet him in a threatening rage and ordered him off the grounds.
Judith cried for hours when she heard about it, for now he was gone away to war
with never so much as a kiss between them.

A
few days later Lord William and her four brothers went to join the King and
with them went most of the able-bodied men on the estate and from the village.
The war began to
seem real to her now and she hated it, resented the intrusion into her life which
had been so secure, so gracious and happy.

As
Lord William had predicted, success ran with the Royalists. His Majesty's
nephew, gigantic, handsome Prince Rupert, won victory after victory, until
almost all England but the southeast corner was in the King's hands. But the
rebels did not give up, and the months began to drag on.

Judith
was busy, for there was a great deal to do now that the men were gone. She had
no time to practice her dancing or singing, to embroider or to play the spinet.
But no matter how much work she did she continued to think of John Mainwaring,
wondering when he would come back to her, still planning for a future untouched
by civil war. Her mother, who guessed easily enough at the reason for Judith's
thoughtful quietness, impatiently ordered her to put him out of her mind. She
hinted that she and Lord William were planning another and more suitable
marriage, to a man whose loyalty was unquestioned.

But
Judith did not want or intend to forget John. She could no more have considered
marrying another man than she could have accepted some strange new God thrust
suddenly upon her.

When
John had been gone five months he managed to send her a note, telling her that
he was well and that he loved her. "We'll be married, Judith, when the
war's over—no matter what our parents have to say." And he added that as
soon as he could he would come, somehow, to see her again.