Remembrance Read online

  As Alida’s contractions came with closer frequency, she twined her arm about the girl’s, feeling her cold skin next to her own. Her fingers slipped about the girl’s nearly lifeless ones. She did this not for comfort or even for relief of pain, for the truth was, Alida often felt that she could have continued her embroidery during birth.

  The reason she held the girl’s hand was to encourage the spirit of that child to enter her child. Alida began to pray, turning her head toward the girl so she was close to her ear. “God, grant that this child may come unto me,” she whispered, for what felt like hours.

  The girl had shown little sign of life for quite a while, but just lay there unmoving, her huge belly swollen. It was as though the child inside her had given up hope of trying to get out and had resigned itself to its approaching death.

  When the girl seemed to be drawing her last breath, Alida turned the limp head toward her so they were nose to nose. With all the life Alida had in her, she prayed and begged God to give her child the spirit of this woman’s son.

  When she felt Alida’s breath on her face, the girl’s eyelids flickered and after several tries, she managed to open them slightly. When she looked at Alida, with her eyes closed in fervent prayer, the girl seemed to rally some.

  To Alida’s astonishment, for she thought the girl past any sensibility, the girl’s fingers tightened around her own. The girl’s grasp was as weak as a kitten’s, but Alida could feel life lingering in the frail body.

  When the girl spoke it was so quietly that only Alida could hear her. The rest of the women in the room were bustling about, trying to look busy, so no one else noticed the faint whispers of a dying girl.

  “My child shall be your child;

  Your child shall be mine.

  They will be one spirit in two bodies.

  They will live together; they will die together.”

  Her English was broken, and in ordinary circumstances Alida would have had difficulty understanding her. But it was as though the experience they were now sharing, this giving of life, made the girl’s words crystal clear. Alida heard her and knew without a doubt that what the girl had said would be emblazoned on her heart forever.

  “Take my child,” the girl whispered.

  Even Alida blanched at the words. To take the child would mean ripping the girl open, leaving her to die an even more agonizing death than she was now experiencing.

  “What’s the gypsy girl saying?” Berta asked. To her anyone who did not have the white skin of an Englishman was a “gypsy.”

  “Take my child,” the girl said louder.

  When Alida hesitated, the dying girl gripped Alida’s hand with all her strength.

  “Take my child!” the girl said, her face so close to Alida’s that her breath went into Alida’s lungs.

  “Yes,” Alida said and gripped the girl’s hand in response. She knew what it felt to be a mother.

  “Take the child,” Alida commanded, and when the four maids in the room and the midwife did nothing but stand there and look at her as though she weren’t aware of what she was saying, she half shouted at them. “Take the girl’s child, I tell you. Take it!”

  The midwife responded first. “I will need a knife,” she said to a stupefied maid behind her. “A large knife and sharp,” she repeated, shoving the maid toward the stairs.

  Alida had no more time to think as three contractions came together quickly and she knew that her own child was near to being born. She started to pray again, no longer trying to lower her voice, but making sure the girl could hear her. “Let our children blend,” she prayed. “Let them be one. Give me this girl’s son. Let me have it for my own child.”

  Suddenly, everything seemed to happen at once. The terrified maid returned with a kitchen knife, and Alida’s child began to shoot down the birth canal just as the midwife ripped the belly of the girl open to free the suffocating child from inside her.

  Blood was everywhere. It was astounding that so tiny a girl could have so much blood—and there seemed to be something wrong with Alida too, so that for a while no one could tell whose blood belonged to whom.

  In the turmoil of seeing to the mothers, the babies were nearly forgotten. Still attached to their mothers, who at the moment both seemed in danger of dying, the babies were dumped on top of each other, like newborn puppies, lying between their pain-crazed mothers.

  One of the children was a boy, an enormous boy, with lots of black hair and black eyes, his skin the color of pale honey. The other child was a girl, as pink and white as a dew drop. The downy hair on her head was golden and her skin was like cream.

  Both babies, stunned after the birth, seemed to wrap themselves around each other, clinging to each other as though seeking comfort for what they had just been through. Since no one was holding them aloft and smacking various parts of their bodies, they seemed to feel no need to cry.

  Into this chaos of screams for more cloths and more straw to sop up the blood, into the confusion caused by the midwife, who knew that now was the time she had to prove that all the food she’d eaten over the last year was worth it, came the wet nurse.

  Meg Watkins was a large woman, perhaps fat, but many said that it was Meg’s huge heart that made her so big. She was now nearly thirty years old, an old woman by the standards of the farmers who were her neighbors, and she had taken loving care of hundreds of other people’s children.

  Nine months ago Meg had become pregnant and nearly everyone in the village had rejoiced for her. They teased her “old” husband, Will, mercilessly, and he, in his quiet way, had blushed. But everyone could see that he was as pleased as Meg was.

  But just four days ago Meg had given birth to a set of twins who had lived only long enough to be blessed by the priest. Neither she nor her husband had cried or shown any grief when the babies had died. Meg had gone about her business as though her life had not ended, and her husband had buried the sweet little bodies in the churchyard.

  Within minutes of Alida’s leaving her daughter’s marriage feast, the entire village knew what was about to happen, and they knew that a wet nurse would be wanted. As a body, they went to Meg and her husband and when they met with reluctance, with Meg saying she wanted to take care of no more children, her husband “persuaded” her by picking her up and shoving her into the back of a wagon, which took off running, not allowing Meg a chance to change her mind.

  So now, Meg found herself entering the chaotic room, with women running hither and thither. Meg took one look at the two women on the bed, saw that one, her belly ripped open, was already dead, while her ladyship looked pale enough to be near death. Meg dismissed the women, for her love of children was such that she cared little for the mothers. Meg’s only concern was for the two children entwined about each other, nestled between the women.

  For all that Meg was sweet tempered, she knew how to get things done and she had known Berta since they were girls together. She knew that Berta was a bully and if allowed, would cause as much confusion as possible and do as little work as she could get away with—all while trying to look enormously important.

  While Berta had the young, gullible maids enthralled as she gave an incomprehensible lecture on the state of Alida’s afterbirth, Meg took the knife that had been used on his mother and, after tying it off, cut the cord of the boy. In spite of his size, the boy looked as though he needed attention first as there was a quietness about him that made Meg fear for his life. Had she the time, she would have reduced the midwife to tears for her neglect of the babies, but instead, Meg’s big, strong arms went out to pick up the slippery boy.

  But the minute she touched him, the children’s arms and legs tightened about each other, renewing their grip on one another. When Meg gave a gentle tug, they clung tighter. Putting one hand on the girl’s chest, and one on the boy’s, she pulled, but they held fast to each other. They did not cry; they clung.

  Removing her hands, Meg looked down at the children in wonder. In her experience, newborn ba