TEARS OF THE FOOT GUARDS

RONDO - STAVE LXVII

S T A V E

LXVII

15th July, 1781, Pornographie of Birth

Abed in a dressing gown, gigantic belly ‘bout to pop though the rest of her thin, ‘cept her dumplings – twice their size with a Temper. Until a week ago, she took lessons and continued performances in keeping with Medicine Domestique. The fact she’s Pregnant made her desirable all the more – to hear that voice with the lump in her belly and the thought of how it got there. She took to wearing a man’s waistcoat and abandoning pregnancy stays. When she would sing, she’d tie around her a gigantic ribbon with a bow in front like a Package. How wonderful legitimacy. What would’ve been ruinous blossomed into Fortune. How pleased they were; Howard no longer mattered. Lucky man, MacEachran, to have his wife in vogue and providing cash – Lucky man wherever he was, if he was – hopefully in Virginia alive and walking about and not in a Rebel prison or buried in a Low Country swamp.

Was he, she thought? Lucky? Dead? Did he think of her? He cannot help but think of her and refuses to break free. Damn his tenacity.  

She’d tucked him in a box. Couldn’t help it. Providence turned her in another direction and the Obedience he loved, dead. Not that she wanted it to happen, but it did – at Howard’s table, escaping down the street, and in the alley. She’d made love to Geordie like the final draw of breath and released that spirit. The world changed . . . at least for the moment. And this life growing in her, this part of her – everything different. Still, she was in danger. The way the child kicked. Would it seek revenge for its unborn siblings and its birth tear her body apart? 

Such reasoning! What next – pneuma in rocks and trees? God no longer tinkers. The cogs engage in their time, only to release. To think otherwise is Superstition. Yet, this too demands Faith. But Providence, easy Providence – one’s Special, subliminal in notion. An Intention just for her – the daily signs, the small wonders, an amalgam of arcana and science – her life was its Proof . . . Was it proof?

You live in the Story, Jaruesha had said. The Story, with its comforts and horrors. Does God even care? Jesus on the Cross opening his arms?

My sin – regardless what Conceit may say – that too is the Story. Beauteous, glorious Sin.

A cramp.

It wants out and she rubbed her waist to dissuade it. A cold black night out her window. Sticky. Around her eyes, sweat. Her body crying it be over with . . . Not yet.   

God, I’m thirsty.

Must she want it? Intrusive thought. What will it look like? She’d seen mothers cooing over the ugly little things. Not half of them seemed to live and the other half wouldn’t die no matter what was done them.

Cramp again. The sprat tussling, brawling . . . What did its father give it? What part of its nature will be beyond control? Boy or girl, she’ll make it a better human than the parents who made it. Or will she see it and reject it? See its father and never be free? Should she have sent it on its way like the others? 

I will never do that again . . . Not that it’s wrong. It can’t be wrong before the Quickening, so say the Clergy and Doctors of Science. No remorse. Nothing wrong . . .

She winced, the contraction hard.

This is good. Very good. The Grishams can’t wait, acting the doting parents for the daughter they no longer had. And what officer does not love me? And would not marry me if MacEachran’s is dead? The Story. Deorsa dead? . . . Elliot?

Thank God.

Howard too.

Thank God again.

Her life. Her rooms. Her money. Dependent on no one ever again.

She raised herself up, her belly dropped as she made for the door.

“Mrs. G.” Her voice filled the house.

“Yes, my dear.”

“Please come up.”

The Grishams had a Birthing Chair of wood and leather. Mrs. Grisham and Binah placed it in the kitchen near the rear door, which could be opened to cool the room and to quickly discard the more unsavoury aspects of birth. Though Binah a seasoned mid-wife, Mr. Grisham insisted on a Physician Accouchuer; he would not see this child lost like their babies and if anything should go wrong, there would be the presence of Male Knowledge and Strength. “And I will pay the fee.”

The physician, the same who had seen her before, ordered the floors covered with oilcloth. “Good to be in the kitchen. The materials shall be close at hand. Please have ready the following: water, wine, gin, butter, sugar, fresh beer, garlic or mustard or onions.”

 “Do you not require boiled beef and potatoes, Dr. Sims?” Mr. Grisham asked incredulously, to which Elizabeth Grisham was completely chagrined. Binah with an imperceptible shake of her head.

“Sir, your presence is not necessary,” the doctor said. “You may wait outside or take a chair in the corner. And since you’re offering, a glass of brandy would do nicely for me.” He took Obedience’s pulse. “Tell me when you have a contraction, Mrs. MacEachran.” 

“Now,” Obedience said.

He looked at his watch. “Tell me when it happens again.”

Minutes passed. “There.”

“Tell me when the contraction stops and the next begins.” He turned to Binah. “Give her a glass of diluted wine.”

“Stopped,” Obedience said after a minute.

“How does the pain manifest?”

“A pressure in my hips and an ache in my back and legs.”

“Very good. Have you evacuated?”

“Not in some time.”

“Do try, madam. Better for us all.”

As Binah helped her to the privy out back, there the gate leading to the alley. “Here we are again.”  

“What goes around, comes around.”

Sims directed her to the sofa in the front parlour, no use having her in the chair yet; labor will take some time. “Put the oilskins down wherever she should sit or walk.”

Obedience drank the diluted wine, which they gave her every half hour. It made her sweat. “Is this necessary?”

“When the hour comes, Madam,” Sims informed, “you’ll thank me for it.”

The wine took her. How will I be at this popping thing? Another hard contraction. She gulped the wine. What if they must cut it out?   

“Anything wrong, Mrs. MacEachran?” Sims asked.

“I was just thinking . . .”

“Don’t do that, Madam. Many false terrors are experienced from Thinking. Life has enough trials without our multiplication.”

“How would you know?”  

“It’s your first. And all you know are stories. Be comforted your strongest condition is generally the First. I’ve delivered a good many and you’re a hearty woman. Not to worry. I shall do my best. Say your prayers. They do give comfort. I’m sure there’s a Bible for you to read or maybe Mrs. Grisham can read to you.”

“No thank you. I think I should like another drink.”

“I have the trick.” Sims reached into his medical box for a vile of powder. A tiny spoonful in her wine. “It will have an instant effect, but not dull consciousness. Drink it.”

An instant calm, her body relaxing, but a contraction snapped her up and the placebo effect gone.

“Anything we can get you, my dear?” Mrs. G. asked.

“Might I hold Binah’s hand?”

G. looked to her husband. “Of course.”

Another sharp pain and she squeezed with surprising strength. God dancing us on his Strings, she thought. Would this child be the vehicle of his Will? God manifests himself in punishment, the ultimate Consequence, even if he’s the fanciful being skeptics deride. He bursts forth whenever there’s Judgment. Must she be judged? What’s she done that had not been done throughout the age? She knew. Providence, a double edged sword. What goes around, comes around, Binah said. But better that than caprice – it’s a far more dangerous world without limits. Her father’s voice, the Scripture: “‘I wound, and I heal; I kill, and I make alive: neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand.’” Her stomach like a berry ‘bout to pop, and the child to change everything.

Fifteen hours in labor. They put her on the chair. Sims examining that Cleft of Venus so many would pay to touch. “It is a large child, Mrs. MacEachran.”

“Could’ve told you that,” Binah mumbled.

“You’re not going to cut me?”

“It is not my intention.”

A contraction jolted Obedience up. Then another and another. She cried out. Sims gestured to Binah to pour the gin. “Give her a dram.” She began shaking.

This is it, Obedience thought. The Punishment.  

Another. Her body breaking, bones pulling from joints and her legs spread in the chair, a Spectacle. It went on and on. She screamed. A quarter-hour strike of the clock, then a half-hour, an hour and so on. Tears streaming down her face as Sims and Binah, miserable with pity, looked on. Flies buzzing through the open doors and windows. “Do something! Make it stop! It must stop!” Binah with a cool cloth to her head. Obedience threw it off. “Don’t touch me!” She screamed again. “Fucking men! Goddamn science! Goddamn sin!” Another scream. “Fucking war!  Fucking Providence! Never again! Take me then, you fucking God! You bloody vengeful Thing! . . . I have to shit!  I have to shit!”

“It’s coming, Mrs. MacEachran,” Sims with his forceps ready. “Push now.”  

Obedience grit her teeth. Something changed. It was moving.  

“Push, Mrs. MacEachran.”

Her body coiled, a push with all her might.

It’s coming. It’s coming! Into this world! This bloody world! God help it! God help it!

“There’s the head.” Sims calm like an officer going into battle. He turned to Binah. “The beer and water.” She poured them in a wash basin. “Have the blanket ready.”

Sims took the head. Obedience pushed. Sims smiled.

“Mrs. MacEachran, you have a son.” 

Obedience wept with uncontrollable shaking as Binah washed the infant in the bath of water and beer. Sims, taking crushed garlic, held it under the infant’s nose. It balled and pissed all over them. Obedience laughed at its sound. Sims gave the child over to Binah who cooed with its every cry. She saw in it its father.

Sims took her pulse. “You preserved quite well, Mrs. MacEachran. By the life of me, every time I see it, I don’t know how you can endure it. You’re the bravest of creatures.”

As they waited for the afterbirth, Binah placed the child in Obedience’s arms. A rush went up her spine as she continued to quaver. She kissed it and kissed it – what God has put in her arms? “What is this? What is this?” she kept saying.

“Your son,” Mrs. Grisham said, her own eyes tearing.

“I want a priest.”

“A what?” Mr. Grisham stunned.

“A priest,” she repeated, her tremors more violent.

“You shall be all right, Mrs. MacEachran.” Dr. Sims assured. “You’re not bleeding.”

“For him,” she said. “I want him baptized should anything happen.”

“Baptized?” Grisham asunder. “Your people are Papists? Mr. MacEachran then?”

“Do as I say. He is mine and I want him baptized straight away.”

“It shall take some doing, but Binah can fetch you one from an outlying parish.”

“Yes,” said Dr. Sims. “But in the meantime up to your bed. Rest is the best medicine.”

“I shall take him,” Mrs. Grisham said, her hands already pulling at him. “He has your nose.”

“But his father’s eyes and chin,” Obedience said.