Accidents of Providence (29 page)

Hereupon the curious nature of events began to unfold: The body was lifted by the anatomy doctors into the coffin and transported to a private house owned by one of the surgeons, Mr. Lilburne following the doctors. On reaching the house, they laid the corpse on the dissection table, where Mr. Lilburne, standing by the head, suddenly observed Rachel Lockyer to show some small sign of life by appearing to take a breath; and in breathing (the passage of her throat being straightened) obscurely to rattle. Having noticed this, he gave a loud outcry, so that the physician holding the dissection knife started and stuck the corpse’s shoulder by accident. The anatomy professor visiting from London College also observed her to take a breath, and swiftly ordered a stop to the proceedings, all the physicians and faculty in the house crowding around the body. Perceiving that some life might yet remain in her limbs, they discussed with one another what to do next, it violating their profession not to undertake everything within their means to act in the direction of her recovery; yet it disappointing their scientific curiosity to forgo an opportunity of dissection.

After some lengthy discourse the proponents of her recovery won out. The doctors sat the body upright on the table and pried apart the teeth, which remained gripped together in a death’s embrace. After opening the jaw with pincers, they poured down the throat some hot liquids, first a scalding wormwood, then scurvy-grass ale, and these caused her to rattle still more. They then turned to the extremities, and placed hot compresses on the arms and legs, rubbing and chafing vigorously, and calling Mrs. Lilburne to rub the chest and stomach, she having arrived an hour earlier. They then poured more spirits, until some hours later Rachel Lockyer briefly opened her eyes, causing Mr. Lilburne to fall into a near faint, saying he could not believe someone whom they were prepared to cut open was alive and blinking. The anatomy professor replied that she was not out of the woods yet.

This was the course of their ministrations over the next four days: as soon as the patient would show some sign of life, or give off some warmth in the extremities, they would let her blood. I observed this firsthand, being called to the house that night and returning for several days following. The first time they tried, no sooner was her arm tied, but she suddenly twisted away, as if suffering a seizing convulsion; the vein being opened, she immediately bled out seven ounces, so fast the physicians could not stop it swiftly. They bound her arm and placed her in a heated bed, where they pressed warm oils into her extremities and chest, and poured lye soap and water over the wound where the rope on her neck had been knotted. Meanwhile crowds began arriving. Reverend Kiffin from Devonshire Square, unable to believe what he was hearing, traveled to the house in Westminster to see for himself, saying repeatedly he had seen Rachel Lockyer expire on the gallows. When he departed they called for Mrs. Lilburne and told her again to rub the patient’s limbs. Within three hours Rachel Lockyer opened out into a tremendous sweat. Her face also began to swell, as her feet had done, and her throat went waxy and red where the rope had knotted it. Mrs. Lilburne questioned the anatomy professor, asking why they were troubling to save this woman if she was to be sent back to Tyburn as soon as she recovered; surely they would not send back to the gallows someone whose recovery was so clearly an act of providence. The anatomy professor said he did not believe in signs and wonders, for such events had ceased after the Primitive Church, and God now spoke to Christians using only Reason, and Nature, and the Scriptures. Mrs. Lilburne, not in agreement, traveled to the home of Mr. William Walwyn to seek his help and support. Receiving her request, he straightaway composed a formal plea for a stay of execution, soliciting the justices of the peace for the obtaining of a reprieve, that in case she should be recovered to life, she might not be taken back again to execution. Whereupon those worthy gentlemen, considering what had happened, and weighing all circumstances, readily apprehended the hand of God in her preservation, and being willing rather to cooperate with divine providence in saving her, then to overstrain justice by condemning her to double shame and sufferings, they were pleased to grant her a reprieve until such time as her pardon might be completely obtained. But some of the clergymen argued there would be no use granting a reprieve simply for a person failing to die when she should; an error of the hangman had allowed her to live (said they), but it should not be allowed to keep her from dying; a hangman’s mistake did not alter the original verdict. For some hours a group of religious and learned men debated these questions, until having his fill of them, Mr. Walwyn ordered them all to leave, and most agreed (as they were filing out) that in the end it was better to pardon her.

This being decided, the physicians once again and several times nearly lost her, the woman’s internal wounds being so severe, some said she would not survive the week. But by and by she gave indications she could hear, by opening an eye when they spoke to her, this being the case when they mentioned gloves; and when they said the name
Robert
she opened both, and looked straight at them a minute. The physicians, fearful lest the swelling of her neck increase, applied a poultice, and took from her left arm seven ounces more blood. They prepared a drink of steaming posset, and sent Mrs. Lilburne again to minister to her. The next day they found her much improved and able to speak. Around noon they ordered another clyster, and a cataplasm, which is a plaster compounded of certain ointments to prevent a contusion. By six o’clock she was sitting up of her own strength, and conversing with her visitors in good humor, saying she was quite certain God had made a mistake, and His interventions were intended for another prisoner. She had a good color, and some who visited that day (myself among them) agreed she looked stronger than she had during the trial. When the faculty of the physicians’ school inspected her, they asked what she recalled of her ordeal. She replied that she remembered nothing past the night in the Newgate hold where the bellman had prayed the 121st Psalm over her. She had no knowledge of anything that took place after, neither of being carried on the cart that took her to Tyburn, nor of being observed by the crowds that lined the street; nor did she recall the gallows. She was like a clock whose weights have been lifted for a while and then put back into place, not recording that a lapse in time has happened.

That night she complained of terrible pains in her side, and upon examination it was revealed she had a new contusion. The physicians having departed for the evening, only Mrs. Lilburne and myself were left to dress it. The next morning we sent again for the physicians, as she was complaining of numbness in her tongue, to which it was explained that she had bitten through a part of it when she was hanging. The day after that her pulse returned to normal. By degrees the blackness that had been spreading around her neck turned to blue and then yellow. Over the course of the next five days it vanished. She stayed under the care of the physicians several days more, until they said the best recovery was to get her home to her family. Mr. Lilburne replied that she was one of those women who did not have any, but Mrs. Lilburne said what she had was good enough, namely, friends. After some discourse the Lilburnes agreed to let her return to their rented lodgings near Winchester House, so they could provide for her care; and Mr. Walwyn paid a sum to support her upkeep and recovery. This is the same place where she has continued to reside since, it now being more than three weeks since her day of execution. Being able to eat, walk, drink, and sleep without disruption, she has said to the physicians that she does not wish to keep the coffin wherein she laid, even though they offered to give it to her for a keepsake. So many visitors have sought her out that John Lilburne has asked those who can afford it to pay for the privilege of seeing her. So every visitor has given as he is able, and the Levelers have collected the profits. This is said to have caused William Walwyn to spill over with rage, for, says he, before long pilgrims will be coming from all corners of the world to touch the hem of her cloak, a practice that disregards the precept that all men and women come into this world equal. But she has stayed on at the Lilburnes’, quietly and without complaint, and visitors from all corners are coming to see her, to marvel at the same woman whom they previously condemned, and to say how God has blessed Rachel Lockyer.

Having done now with the medical aspects of this case, it is fitting for me to conclude with a word about the larger investigation, for after all, she was thought to have been meted a just punishment. I have spoken with this woman in the days following her execution. I have concluded that while she transgressed the law by concealing the death of her infant, the law as it stands is inadequate. There exists immaterial as well as material evidence in cases such as these, as in a case of treason. Both kinds are of value, material evidence being such facts as the state of the bedclothes, or the lungs of the infant, or the report of the coroner; but immaterial evidence being the intention and state of the soul. This matters as much as any other evidentiary claim, and indeed at times will surpass the latter. Herein the law falls short. It is possible this glovemaker’s delivery might have gone differently had she not attempted to give birth alone or to bury her sorrow by herself. Why she insisted on such a solitary course I shall never know for certain, but her fear and shame were likely great, or if not that, her stubbornness.

Some might also think I should now relate some tale about what she saw during her brief sojourn to the next world; for surely she was gone from this life some minutes, so perhaps (some say) she saw demons if she was guilty, or the communion of saints if she was not. Others say she must have brought back with her some special knowledge of the end times for which the saints of our day are waiting. From such speculations the reader must come away unsatisfied, since this woman was so far from knowing anything while she was dead that she remembered not even what had happened while she was still alive. It is not so different from a man who has had too much strong drink in an effort to quell his grief, who upon waking remembers the cause of his grief but not what was done to quell it. So also for this woman, who has been given what most of us will not receive, that is, a second chance. The good philosopher Hobbes has said, “A friend is he that loves, and he that is beloved,” and if this be not a true course, I know not what is.

Thomas Bartwain, Investigator

R
ACHEL AWOKE.

She opened her eyes, and the ceiling wavered into focus. She blinked and in came the walls. She was lying on a low mattress in a room that had a sheet suspended from the ceiling as a partition. Papers and pamphlets covered the floor. A stack of pamphlets, four feet high, was pushed against the wall beside her. She was lying on her back and when she looked up to see where the stack stopped, the pamphlets seemed to form a tower. She was in the bedroom of John Lilburne’s rented house in Southwark.

Her eyes drifted over the papers and books and pamphlets. Slowly, over the course of several minutes, she realized she was reading the frontispieces. She was reading the titles. She was reading the spines, for those of John’s works that had them.

She rolled the titles around in her mouth. At first she did not realize what she was doing. If you have never read before, the first words slithering toward you declare neither their identity nor their intentions. They decline to tell you who they are or what they will require. You are not sure what is happening; you cannot see the gift coming; you see only words, sliding forward, ragged and misshapen, living.

Rachel
, the words were saying.
Wake up.

She could read. She was awake. Which came first? She swallowed. The back of her throat was riddled with sores. She touched her neck, felt the puffed and swollen skin. She removed her hand. She reached for the closest of the pamphlets.

It was a copy of Freeborn John’s latest work,
The People’s Martyr.
Rachel thumbed through it, at first uncomprehending. Then she read it straight through. She read it in one sitting. It was a page-turner. When it was over she pressed her thumb and forefinger against the lids of her eyes and lay flat against the mattress. She stayed that way some time. She did not think about all the lies John had told so much as the words he had summoned and recruited to the page. The words were beautiful. They swam toward her; they slid up onto the bank. The words became flesh and then the flesh took on wings and then the wings made a picture; she could see things in her mind as she was going along. The words tapped at her, a woodpecker drilling a trunk. Then the tapping became new words and the new words grew, and what was grown was love.

She opened her eyes. She sat up, blinked again. She slid to the edge of the cot and put one foot down on the floor, then the other. She stood up. She stood up and took hold of what remained her life.

Three weeks after the anatomy doctors had sent Rachel to the Lilburnes’ to finish her recovery, Elizabeth decided her friend was well enough to go home. But where was that? She broached the subject with Rachel over breakfast. “I think it’s time,” she said.

In the past few days Rachel had rediscovered her appetite. Presently she was devouring pudding studded with stewed raisins. She had slept through most of January, including through the announcement that the Council of State had issued her a formal pardon. She had almost missed the one-year anniversary of the death of the king, which was coming up shortly.

“Time for what?” she asked, her mouth full.

“To decide what comes next.”

Rachel conceded that she hadn’t decided what came next.

“Well, what have you been doing with yourself all this time?” Elizabeth’s voice contained a hint of frustration.

“Sleeping,” Rachel reminded her.

“Oh.
Well.
I suppose I can allow for that.” Elizabeth reached out, snatched a raisin from the pudding, and popped it in her own mouth. Then she said, “I’m going to miss you.”