Our Own Country: A Novel (The Midwife Series) (26 page)

32

IT WAS AROUND NOON THE FOLLOWING DAY,
and I was in my chamber. I had just received a letter from John, though it was signed “Isaac.” The letter said nothing of great import, merely that he was working hard on the
America
and that Phoebe did not give him a bath every day like Cassie did. Uncle was very low without Cassie and would scarcely touch Dinah’s cooking, which brought the girl to tears near every day.

Though the letter contained nothing sentimental, I held it to my breast. Someone knocked upon my chamber door and the sound startled me.

“Come in,” I said, setting the letter down upon the bed.

The door opened and in walked Lizzie.

“Hello, Eliza.” Lizzie smiled warmly at me.

I curtsied.

Impulsively, she hugged me about the shoulders. There was no question but that she felt my expansive girth between us.

Lizzie was a picture of rusticated good health: Her face was tan and her eyes were bright. Her auburn hair fell about her shoulders, unadorned and unpinned.

“You are with child,” she remarked, pulling back from me.

“As you see.” My voice quavered but I endeavored to retain a dignified bearing before my sister-in-law. I curtsied.

“How do you feel?” she gazed into my face, her head cocked earnestly.

“Quite well,” I said. “Should I feel otherwise?”

“Has the nausea passed?”

“For the most part. My senses are—heightened,” I admitted, recalling my revulsion upon arriving home. I realized that I longed to share my feelings with someone—there had been so many new ones—but pride held me back.

“Any bleeding?”

“Bleeding?”

“Yes. You know—down there.”

“Of course not!”

“It is common enough.” Lizzie smiled. She then cast me an odd look and said, “Shall we sit?”

“I prefer to stand.” The truth was, when I sat I could not breathe at all.

“Well,
I
should like to sit, for my journey was rather long.” And here she sat on the bed with a sigh, while I remained standing next to the chair.

Lizzie smelled of the outdoors. Her homespun gown was clean, though not pressed. Clearly, she was far more occupied with her garden or the women of Braintree than with her toilet. Beside her, I felt like a fatted goose.

“How many months?” she asked.

“Five, I believe. Or a little more.”

“You will not sit because you cannot, am I right?”

“I can sit if I choose to,” I said peevishly.

Lizzie merely smiled. “Would you allow me to touch you?”

“Certainly not!”

“I mean simply to ascertain the size of the child. One can plan things better, knowing when it is due. Please.” She pointed to my bed. “It shall take but a moment.” Lizzie came forward and unbuttoned my gown. When she felt how tightly my stays were tied, she cried, “For God’s sake!” and loosed them at once. I let out a great involuntary sigh.

“Heavens above, Eliza. You mustn’t tie your stays like this. You’ll choke yourself and your babe. Indeed, I should greatly prefer it if you did not wear them at all.”

“Not wear them? What do you propose? I have but three gowns, all too small for me otherwise.”

“Well,” she considered. “Can you sew? Were you to sacrifice one gown, you could easily add panels to your other two.”

“How hideous. They are nowhere near the same color or fabric.”

Lizzie replied, “No, I agree, it won’t do for going abroad. But within your own home I should think no one would take it amiss.”

“Go abroad!” I let out a grim laugh. “As if I could do such a thing. Why,” I added, looking out my window, “we have British officers here even now, strolling about the town.”

“Who I’m sure have never gotten a woman with child,” she said, peering out the window. Just then a smart-looking officer with a full gray head of hair strolled by with a young maid on his arm.

Lizzie grinned. I had to admit that my sister-in-law was quite pretty. Working in the sun had brought out her freckles and given her hair a coppery glow. Her eyes were warm and fairly sparkled with an almost mischievous intelligence.

“In any case, Mama would never permit me to go abroad,” I said glumly.

“It’s a shame. The fresh air would do you good. You’re too pale, Eliza. Perhaps you could spend some time each day in your garden. Doing light chores—weeding, pruning, and such. When you find you are out of breath, stop. Now, if you will . . .”

I finally lay back on my bed and allowed Lizzie to feel my belly. Her hands were steady, knowing. She pressed gently, evenly, around the circumference of the babe. She nodded. “Yes, about five months. Or perhaps a little more.” I stood and moved to take up my gown, but she blocked my path. She held my stays in one hand. Glancing at the window, she moved to open it. Suddenly, with a great flinging motion, she tossed them out the window.

“What on earth?” I cried.

Lizzie handed me my shift, which Cassie had cleaned and pressed. “Here—you may wear this, with your dressing gown. When you’ve let out your gowns, you can change then. See, you breathe far more easily already. Some color has returned to your face.” I reached for my little looking glass and peered into it. Indeed, the color in my face had risen; I now looked rather more alive than dead. “Mr. Miller shall return for you next month.”

“Return for me?” I cried, though I knew, and had known, the point of her visit to me since she arrived.

“To bring you to Braintree, of course. I think you’ll like it there.”

Though isolated and depressed, I had no wish to leave Papa. Braintree seemed even farther from John than Cambridge, and the thought of meeting the Adamses filled me with dread.

“In fact—” Lizzie continued brightly, “why don’t you come next week? It’s beautiful just now on the farm, and you shall be able to go abroad freely.”

I shook my head. I would go, certainly, but not yet. “I cannot leave Papa.”

“Very well. But if you change your mind, write to me.”

I nodded. Lizzie curtsied and left.

After she had gone, I called for Cassie and instructed her to retrieve my stays. She dutifully went to fetch them but returned a few minutes later with empty hands, which she spread before me with a shrug.

“Where are my stays, Cassie? They were right beneath the window, on a rose bush.”

“I suppose an animal got ’em,” she shrugged.

“Animal indeed,” I said, staring at her blankly innocent face. Then Cassie burst out laughing, and I joined her.

33

ONE MORNING, I WOKE TO FEEL A
distinct motion in my belly—a little leg must have stretched itself straight, for, sitting up and staring in awe, I saw a lump rise up just above my belly button.

“Cassie!” I called. She came running. “Cassie! I felt it! It kicked me!” Cassie placed a hand on my belly, but the babe had withdrawn.

“It come again,” she assured me. “Dere no way out—but one.”

“Cassie!”

Now that I had felt the babe move, I could no longer bear the thought of strangling it. We set about that same afternoon fashioning two new gowns. It hardly mattered which we chose to sacrifice, since not one of them, once altered, would be fit to be seen in. My blue and green gowns now had twin plum-colored panels down both sides. Hideous! However, they would do well enough to wear about the house.

By June, I found the idea of going to Braintree less terrible than I had previously. It was true that I would be farther from John, and would have to leave poor Cassie and Papa. But I would be free of my mother, who no longer even sat with me at table. When she came upon me in the library or elsewhere, she would actually turn on her heels and retreat as if I were an unwelcome guest. Somehow, the destruction of my once-fine gowns, in service of this growing bastard within me, was the final straw for her.

By any measure, I knew, I had fallen from grace. Yet I did not
feel
I had sinned. At least, not in loving John. I cringed to think of my shallow friendship with Louisa, and my ignorant flirtation with Mr. Inman. But, thinking of John, I felt only the greatest pride and tenderness. Never had I known such a good man, and I did not know at that moment whether my love for him made me better or worse than Mama believed me to be.

My feelings about the war had changed as well. I had compassionated with the wounded boys. Disgust had filled my breast at the arrogance of Cousin George. But it was only through my love for John that I truly understood the evil of oppression. To be silenced in one’s opinions, forbidden in one’s passions—this was to forbid a man his own manhood, his humanity.

However, there remained a sticking point in my mind concerning this great Cause of ours. There had been, and yet was, so much talk of independence. But what of our slaves? No one took their measure. Few, even among our great leaders, spoke of slavery. I knew not how they lived with their own rhetoric, or with such a paradox.

In my remaining weeks in Cambridge, I managed to eke out a sweet, small life, consisting of visits to Papa, meals with Cassie, sewing infants’ clothing in the garden, and reading the few but precious letters I received from Isaac. Mama took her meals in Papa’s chamber, and we hardly spoke two words to each other.

As my date of departure approached, I decided to broach the subject with Cassie of teaching her to read. Great delicacy was needed, however, for I had no wish to assault those wounds that, while scabbed over, had never fully healed.

“Cassie,” I said one evening as we took supper in the kitchen. “You know that we shall soon be separated. I should like to be able to write to you without Mama’s interference.”

“Naw,” she waved her long-fingered hand at me. “Last ting I need is to read and be gettin’ de white man’s ’eadache. I got a black ’eadache of my own.”

I let the matter rest then, but a few days later I brought down several of my old lesson books and that same primer I had used with Toby. We had no other, but as I could do nothing about that, I kept calm and prayed it would not raise the ghosts of bitter memories.

I put the books and primer before her.

“Please, Cassie, if you could find a way to do this for me, I would be most grateful. I shall soon be parted from you, and while it is your choice whether you put the skill to any other purpose, the thought of my not being able to write to you makes me miserable.”

“Well, why don’ you say so in de firs’ place? Now, dere’s a reason to be reckon with. All dat knowledge dis, knowledge dat—
now
you’re sayin’ someteeng. C’mon, bring dat book over here.”

“Oh, Cassie!” I hugged her. “You shall soon find that the pleasure of reading is its own reward.”

“If you say so.” I caught her roll her eyes. That far, she would not go.

As it turned out, Cassie was as quick at learning as her son had been. I don’t know why this fact surprised me, except for the years I had been told that “they” can’t learn, and that “they” are slow. Cassie gave the lie to both. She could focus for long moments at a time. It was usually I, or Mama, who reminded her she needed to begin making dinner, or to set out breakfast, or some other errand.

Cassie soon made such progress that, with a little help, she was able to read the headlines of the papers. “Cassie, we must show Papa how clever you are. He won’t believe it!”

I took her by the hand and she resisted a little, but at last I managed to drag her into his chamber.

He had been resting with his eyes closed, the paper clasped in his hands, but when he heard the door squeak his eyes opened. “Eliza, is that you?”

“Yes, Papa, but I bring Cassie. She has something she wants to show you.”

“Cassie wishes to show me something?”

“No, sir,” said Cassie, beginning to back out the door.

“You do, too! Don’t listen to her, Papa. Or rather, hand her your paper there, and then listen. Here, let me sit you up.”

I propped the pillows behind him and took the paper from his hands. “Here you go.” To Cassie I whispered, “Now, take your time. You know these words.”

Cassie cleared her throat importantly. My mind flashed back to the time Mr. Inman, wishing to impress me with his absolute power, bade Cassie read the front of the
Odyssey
. What a terrible memory, the more so because I did nothing to intervene but to plead a sudden headache. Today, I thought with grim satisfaction, I would behave quite differently.

Cassie pulled on her petticoats, to straighten them. She shrugged to adjust her frock, and I was about to tell her she was not entering a wrestling match but simply reading a bit of print when she cried, in a loud, clear voice:

“Bree-teesh Aban-don Pheela-delphia.”

I clapped my hands together.

Papa said, “Well, what do you know!”

“Oh, Cassie!” I hugged her. “Genius possesses you. That was marvelous.”

Papa was laughing now, and I feared h
e’d
bring on a coughing fit when suddenly Mama popped her head in.

“What ruckus is going on in here, pray?”

“Oh, nothing, Mama. Cassie was simply reading Papa his morning paper.”

I sucked on a smile and felt myself infused with a delicious spite just as Mama said, “Read Papa his paper! Why, what’s the world coming to? Next thing you know, they’ll be writing their own declarations of independence!”

But nothing Mama could say dampened our joy on that day. And later, after supper, I came upon Cassie when she thought herself alone in the kitchen. Apparently Papa had given her his paper as a gift, for there she was, tracing her finger across the smaller print and sounding out the words as softly and steadily as a prayer.