Tidelands

“Follow me,” Alinor told him, and led the way, sure-footed along the top of the bank, the waves lapping in the darkness below them till she could see the ferry-house, her family home, as a dark bulk on the skyline. Her brother, woken by Farmer Johnson’s gallop up the road, held a lantern for the two of them to walk round the front of the house by the dark rife, to the road, and then led the farmer’s horse to the stone mounting block beside the track to Sealsea village.

Farmer Johnson heaved himself into the saddle and Alinor stepped onto the mounting block and then seated herself behind him, her feet on the pillion step, her back supported by the saddle.

“Hold tight,” her brother said, and she nodded and took a grip of the farmer’s wide belt.

“Look for Alys in the morning,” she replied. “She’s working at the mill tomorrow. Make sure she has some breakfast.”

“Aye. God bless you, and the godly work you do.”

The farmer clicked to his big horse and the animal started to walk, and then went into a shambling canter. Alinor held tight, one hand wrapped inside his belt, the other gripping her sack of precious bottles and herbs clinking in her lap. The mud track to Sealsea village was deeply rutted and puddled, but they stayed on the grassy verge, and as the sky lightened they could see the way ahead of them. After two miles, the horse recognized his home, dropped down into a walk, and turned into the gateway of the farm. Ahead of them the riders could see the moving lights in the downstairs windows as the servants went to and fro. Alinor felt the familiar sense of excitement at what was before her: anxiety that she would be faced with some complication of birth, confidence in the vocation that she had learned from her mother, that she had taught herself, that she was born to do. She had an illuminating sense of standing at the gateway to life and death and feeling no fear.

The farmer pulled up the horse and turned in the saddle, holding Alinor’s sack of physic as she stepped down to the mounting block, and then he handed her the precious sack and dismounted himself. “This way, this way,” he said, leaving the horse to stand at the door as he hurried Alinor inside.

“Here’s Goodwife Reekie,” he said to an older woman, whom Alinor recognized as his mother.

“At last!” she replied rudely. “You took your time!”

“Good morning, Mistress Johnson,” Alinor said politely. “How does Margaret do?”

“Poorly,” the woman said. “She can’t sit down and she won’t lie down either. She’s tiring herself out walking up and down.”

“For God’s sake!” Farmer Johnson cried out. “Why didn’t you make her rest? Goodwife Reekie, make her rest!”

“Let me see her,” Alinor said calmly. “Farmer Johnson, would you ask them to boil up some water and bring it in a bowl? With soap and linen? And some hot mulled ale for her to drink? And d’you have any wine you can heat up for her?”

“I’ll get it, I’ll get it all!” he assured her. “Boiled water in a bowl and mulled ale and mulled wine. I’ll get it all.”

He rushed towards the farmhouse kitchen, roaring for servants, as his mother led Alinor up the wooden stairs to the master bedroom.

The room was stifling hot, a fire of heaped logs in the fireplace and the windows shuttered and covered with tapestries. In the center of the room, one hand gripping the post of the bed, was Margaret Johnson, very pale in a stained nightgown. Her own mother was pulling ineffectually at her hands and urging her to lie down on the bed and rest, for assuredly this could go on for days, and she would die of exhaustion before the baby came, or die of hunger during labor.

“Alinor,” she said in a little gasp as Alinor came through the door.

“Now, Margaret, how are you going on?” Alinor spoke gently.

“My waters have broken; but now nothing is happening,” she said. “And I am so hot, and so grieved. I think I have a fever—could I have a fever? And I am breathless.”

“You might have a fever,” Alinor said, taking in the disordered room and the ill-concealed panic of both the older women, the housemaid piling another log on the fire. “But it is very hot in here, and you are bound to be breathless if you are walking around and talking.”

“I told her so,” her mother confirmed, “but she’ll listen to no one, and we wanted them to send for you hours ago, but Mother Johnson said no, and now she’s tired herself . . .”

“Do you have any lavender in the garden?” Alinor turned to Farmer Johnson’s mother. “Could you gather me some fresh heads for the floor?” She turned to Margaret’s mother. “Could you go and see that they are bringing the water I asked for?”

“The house is at sixes and sevens,” the woman replied. “I daresay they’ve let the kitchen fire go out, and there is nothing for anyone.”

“If they can’t manage the birth of a baby, I’m sure I don’t know why,” Mrs. Johnson said rudely. “I had ten in that very bed. One was born dead and one came before its time . . .”