Mistress Shakespeare (22 page)

All that would have pitched me into melancholy or a rant, but Will was right—nothing mattered but Jennet right now. “Should I go look for John?” he asked, not budging from the doorway. “Fetch a neighbor?”

“Fetch some hot water, so we can wash her and the babe.”

“All right,” he said, turning away. “It was boiling.”

Jennet screamed again and threw herself so hard to the side I thought she might fly off the bed. With a wooden bowl of steaming water, Will was quickly back. He came into the room this time.

“What about my looking for John?” he repeated.

“You might miss him. Can you help me here? I was trying to turn the babe into the right position, but I don’t know what to do.”

To my amazement, he did more than help. He almost took over. He tied ropes of sheets for Jennet to hold and knotted those to the bedposts at the head of the bed. He propped stools sideways against the foot of the bed so that she had something to brace her feet on when she bore down.

“Let’s try to turn the babe, head down,” he said, when I explained the problem to him.

But too late for that. I was appalled to see the infant’s head drop, but not to lead the way through the birth canal. “Don’t push, don’t push!” I ordered Jennet. “Maybe we can still turn—”

But my words died in my throat as a tiny foot thrust itself into view. Help us, Lord, help us, Lord, I prayed silently. Send John back and help us, Lord.

Jennet began to howl like an animal in pain.

“Breech,” Will whispered. “I think it’s called a breech.”

“I don’t give a fig what it’s called. We have to save this child!”

Though I was terrified, I leaped to action. I had to get that babe out and fast, for what if it too strangled on the cord—or what if it got stuck and killed Jennet?

“Push when I tell you, Jennet,” I said, taking hold of that tiny, warm and slippery leg with a shudder. “Will, give me a piece of linen to hold it firm.”

He picked up a bolster Jennet had kicked onto the floor, stripped it of its linen cover and turned that inside out. I waited a moment, praying another foot would appear and I could gently pull the babe out that way. But no other foot.

“I don’t mean to hurt you now, Jennet, but I’m going to feel for the other foot.”

Her eyes glazed, she was panting in great, heaving breaths. “Do it—anything . . .” she cried.

I pushed my fingers up inside, then felt the other foot. Tiny toes, little toenails. Slippery, getting bloody too. Will sponged the mess off with a wet towel. Holding both legs with the piece of wet linen, I tugged.

Jennet went rigid but did not cry out. I thought she might have fainted but I plunged on.

“Yes, pull,” Will whispered. “That’s all you can do.”

I pulled again, more steadily now. Jennet shifted her legs; she was still with us.

“Push, Jennet!” I ordered. “I have your child’s legs and I want the rest of—of her!” I shrilled in excitement as the babe was born to her waist in a gush of wetness and blood. “Oh, it’s a girl—a daughter, Jennet!”

John should be here. Where was John?

“Bear down, bear down,” I told her.

“I am!”

Suddenly, I recalled something else my father had done. He’d had one of the carriers push on the mare’s belly while he’d pulled the foal out of her.

“Will, gently press down where you feel the head. We have to do this fast.”

“The cord!” Jennet gasped out. “The cord. The shoulders are stuck! It will cut off the cord!”

“I see the cord!” I told her. “It’s pulsing with life!”

But even as I looked at it, wrapped around the baby’s waist, I could see that the life beat within it was slowing. I touched the cord in awe and anguish. Will did too; our hands slid together and a jolt of energy from him leaped up my arm.

Will put both his hands on Jennet’s belly. “Hurry,” he mouthed. “Now!”

I wrapped the baby’s lower torso in the linen to keep her warm and to get a better grip. What if I killed Jennet doing this? If John had to choose, he’d want his wife’s life, and yet I knew Jennet would choose the child.

I curled my hands over the babe’s slippery pelvis and thighs and gently pulled, then harder while Jennet braced herself against the stools and Will tried to push the head. I tried to rotate the body, hoping something would pop free. I blinked back tears; sweat dripped in my eyes and off my nose. My damp hair hung in hanks. The green gown I’d put on to visit Philip Henslowe clung to me like a soaked second skin.

I wondered if John had gone mad with fear and run away. No, not stalwart John. And here was Will with me, helping. Whatever fate had done to the two of us, I loved this man. Being with him made me go shaky and weak but ever strengthened me too. Ambitious and proud and maddening at times, he was proving here how brave and strong and loving he could be. This was our child now too, the child we could never have together.

The first shoulder popped out. We gave a little cheer. “Just one more big push, Jennet! Jennet?”

“I think she’s fainted.”

“Maybe she’s losing too much blood. Can you push harder then?”

He did. The other shoulder birthed as easily, though both arms were still inside. As if I knew what I was doing, I reached up past the neck to bring them both down and out. What I thought was victory now panicked me again. The last babe had gone blue before he died. This birth cord was turning blue and the babe’s legs too. The horrid memory of Kat, not breathing under the river ice, jolted me.

“Throw water on her face, Will. She has to push. You push too, and I’ll pull.”

He did as I said, and poor Jennet sputtered awake. “Push, Jennet!” I shouted. “Push now!”

“Cut me open if you must. Anything . . .”

But the head seemed snagged. We tried again. I flexed the head, for I now had a chin resting on the child’s chest. The remainder of the face must be in the hollow of Jennet’s tailbone but still inside her.

The tiny body got bluer. Maybe the stuck upper forehead was pressing on the cord. I had to clear a way for the little girl to breathe. The wet, warm body shuddered weakly in my hands.

“Will, turn Jennet on her side—toward you.”

He did; she screamed and fainted again. My muscles were burning. I twisted the tiny body, lifted, pulled.

The sucking sound of the child trying to breathe inside Jennet sounded like a scream in my soul. The cord had collapsed. The little body was going cold in my hands.

“Now, once more!” I cried with a sharp sob.

Will accidentally bumped my arm. The tiny neck pivoted, the head freed itself, and our babe was born into the world.

 

 

 

We tended to Jennet
and cleaned and cuddled the child. When Jennet regained consciousness yet again, I placed the swaddled bundle in her arms, though she was too weak to hold her daughter without my bracing her arms. Still, the look on her face was pure rapture.

Will went out looking for John and brought him back, sobbing with joy and relief when he heard all that had happened. His head was bandaged with someone’s handkerchief, and he was as white as that. In his headlong rush to find help, he had darted out in front of a cart; he’d been knocked unconscious and was tended by strangers. When he regained his senses, they had walked him home.

We gave the new parents time alone with their daughter, but John soon summoned us back and motioned us to come to the bed where, looking almost as spent as Jennet, he perched next to her, propped up with the babe lying between her breasts.

“Perhaps the secret of success,” John said, “is for both of us to be knocked out and for Anne and Will to handle it all. We can never repay both of you and shall cherish your friendship for life. And we would be honored if you would stand as the child’s godparents,” he added, as he stared at Jennet and the child through his tears.

“By what name shall she be called?” Will asked.

“We were afraid to think of that before,” John admitted.

“We’ve decided,” Jennet whispered, “that you both brought her into this world as much as we and you shall name her.”

“Anne, what say you?” Will asked, turning to me and taking my hand.

“Yes, to the godparenting and—if you all agree—I would choose to name her Katherine and call her not Kat but Kate. Will and I had a dear friend Kat, but this little one wants to live and—”

I burst into tears before I could say
and Kat did not.
Will held me while I cried on his chest, completing the ruination of the new doublet he’d donned to face Philip Henslowe.

“Oh, no,” I said, wiping at my tears and pulling back. “Is it still morning? Will, we must hie ourselves to Bankside.”

“It’s past midday, and we’ll find Henslowe on the morrow,” he told me. “I hear he moves about to his various businesses this time of day, and I have a play rehearsal in less than an hour.”

“All right then, let’s seal it all,” John said, getting unsteadily to his feet. “The apprentice and the maids are back downstairs with the new shipment of wine. I say we have them prepare a celebration meal, and we all drink cheers to Katherine Davenant’s perilous entry to this busy, crazy world.”

Jennet had drifted off in exhaustion, and John handed little Kate to me. I held her against my breasts, rocking her slightly as Will and John went out to see to the meal. I’d have to wake Jennet soon for her to try to nurse Kate, but my love for this little one was as fierce as if I’d borne her. I vowed to always cherish her as she grew and as she found her own life and loves. I was so happy for John and Jennet, so grateful to Will. But right now, in this fleeting moment, this newborn miracle was mine alone.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Will and Jennet had been right
about the Bankside area of Southwark. It reeked of forbidden pleasures and danger, even at this early morning hour, so I could imagine what it might be like in the afternoon when it was swelled with folk at the theatres and animal-baiting gardens, the inns and stews. But no one had told me Bankside bore the heady scent of excitement too.

I decided to forgo a comment to Will on the actual smells here. Not only the stench of horse droppings or the drainage ditch, but that from the animal gardens and, worse, the fact that Southwark was the site of the so-called “stink trades” meant no one wanted across the river. Brewing and leather tanning went on nearby, though, as I was forced to breathe the air, those smells seemed to lessen, so, no doubt, one became used to them. At least I could see that there were open areas with vegetables and flowers growing here. Better yet, it wouldn’t take much of a walk to be out in the fields and woods beyond.

On our wherry ride across the river, Will had explained that the area was outside the control of the Puritan-leaning city fathers, for it was in the shire of Surrey in an area called a liberty or a bastard sanctuary. Such areas existed in other spots surrounding the city, such as Shoreditch. Yet I knew Bankside had a worse reputation.

He said that the liberties had been controlled by the Catholic Church in earlier times and were, therefore, outside the reach of royal justice. Such areas originally sheltered criminals and debtors; now they were home to prisons like the Clink here in Bankside. In the Protestant England of the Tudors, the liberties remained privileged places where vagrants, beggars, cutpurses, prostitutes—and yes—play actors congregated. Foreigners, watermen and soldiers lived here in great numbers because of the cheap rents. Of course, thousands of English citizens were drawn here daily by their desire to take advantage of all the entertainments.

“The Bishop of Winchester used to control the area,” Will added. “He licensed the whores in the stews. There are aplenty still, though I warrant they are all abed this time of the morning. Some folk still call them Winchester geese for their flocking about the area. But then,” he added as we walked away from the Paris Garden Wharf, “I’ve heard them called Roses lately too, since they’ve been hanging about Henslowe’s theatre.”

“I hope your knowledge of them is from observation only.”

“Writers must study all at close range,” he said only and went back to his lessons about the area.

As we walked along High Street by the river, he pointed out the Rose Theatre. People speaking foreign languages—Will said Dutch and Flemish—and hawkers hurried past us, but I did not feel threatened with him at my side, guarding me and the plays.

I held both
Love’s Labour’s Lost
and
Titus Andronicus
to my chest, as carefully as I had cradled little Kate. I carried them to keep Will’s arms free, for he wore a dagger stuck in his belt as well as his sword. He’d given me a bodkin, a long, thick pin, to keep up my sleeve, and it poked me when I turned a certain way. It was like a little pinch to remind me all this was real: the only man I’d ever loved was on the cusp of fame and fortune—I was convinced of that. I had helped him and was here to share it all.

As we approached Henslowe’s Rose Theatre, I saw it was smaller than the two at Shoreditch. The playhouse looked to be round but was actually sixteen-sided. The walls were lath and plaster; thatch so new it was still butter-hued covered the upper galleries but had a hole in the center to let in light.

Next to the Rose, almost dwarfing it, were two animal pits, looking much like theatres, where bulls and bears were baited. Although it was too early for that also, we could hear the roars of the caged bears and the deep-throated barks of mastiffs Will said would be sicced on the bears later, though it was often the bears that won the bloody brawl.

“How can a theatre audience hear the players’ lines with all that going on?” I asked.

“It’s just another reason the playwright has to be very good, the actors too, always ready to adapt. Henslowe didn’t even put in a stage at first, hoping to use the Rose for other entertainments—jugglers, acrobats and the like—but he’s got one now. And no, we are not going to look for any of that ilk to see if they could be Italian ropedancers.”