‘When I fell pregnant, I told him it was the priest that done it to me. But he wouldn’t believe me; said I was a filthy whore. He wanted me out of the house, so he told them I had demonic fevers. That my wounds were by my own hand.’
I buried my head in my hands. How had we ended up here? I had left home inspired by the suffragettes, the modern women who were going to achieve equality and the freedom to pursue their own happiness. With the stroke of a pen, we were locked up. Troublesome women with inconvenient ideas.
‘How long have you been here? You look so young.’
‘Three years. I’m twenty-two.’
My tears spilled forth once again. It all seemed so hopeless. She gave my hand a firm squeeze.
‘You have to be strong for the baby,’ she said, then got up and undressed before climbing into the other bed.
I lay down on the thin mattress and looked up at the moon shining between the bars on the window. Mary was right. I had to look after my little Rosebud. I would eat the food, go outside and breathe the fresh air into my lungs and keep as healthy as I could. If this was the way it had to be for now, then I would accept it. For her good. I couldn’t let myself get worked up like I did today. I knew it wasn’t good for her. So I would be calm and, when the time came, they would take me to a hospital to have my baby and that would be my chance to escape.
Two weeks passed, with every new day identical to the last. One could never have imagined the length of days when there is nothing to do, say or think. The most remarkable feature was the cold. I could see my own breath when I spoke. An elderly woman took a fit one morning at the breakfast table, shivering and convulsing with the cold. She was practically hopping off the bench, such was her suffering.
‘Let her fall on the floor, it’ll teach her a lesson,’ said Nurse Patricia.
The nurses wore their overcoats and despite every fibre of my being instructing me to keep quiet, I simply had to speak out.
‘Can you not see that she will perish with the cold in this place? Surely you can spare her some extra clothing?’
‘She has the same as everyone else.’
And that was the end of that discussion. I gave the woman my cup of hot tea when it came. It wasn’t a great loss, watery as it was and tasting peculiarly of copper.
A new woman arrived that day, which gave us all something to focus on. We welcomed her in as best we could and I could now understand the thirst for information that had greeted me when I first arrived. Everyone wanted to know why she was here, mostly to drown out the mind-numbing boredom. I hoped to be proved right by her story – another innocent victim. But we couldn’t make any sense out of what she was saying and before long she was taken away to be treated, whatever that meant.
Word came back that she came direct from the courthouse where she had stood accused of drowning her child. She believed it was a changeling, that her real baby was taken by the fairies. I almost got physically sick when I heard. I knew I would go mad myself if I didn’t get out of that place. People imagine that the worst thing about incarceration is the thought of being locked inside, but there is another trauma to endure. Whilst some of the women were simply anxious or depressed, I was now living with women suffering all types of physical and mental disability and not only that, was considered to be one of them. That has a profound impact on one’s sense of self; of what is true.
That night, I thought my time for escape had come. The pains in my stomach felt as though I were going into labour and the water that wet my bed confirmed it. I called out to Mary and asked her to alert the nurse. She banged on the door and shouted, but no one answered for a very long time. Of course, it happened in the early hours of the morning, as these things often do, and there was only the elderly nun on duty. She thought I was exaggerating the agonising pain of labour and said she would not wake the poor doctor from his sleep to come and tend to a spoilt English brat like me.
‘Stop your play-acting,’ she said, through the grille in the door.
‘I don’t want you to call the doctor, I need to go to a hospital!’ I was so excited at the thought of leaving, that I hardly noticed the pain.
‘Hospital? Sure, didn’t the cat have a fine litter the other week and managed it all on her own.’
That was her final word on the matter, and all I could hear were her footsteps fading away.
‘They’re not going to leave me here, are they?’ I asked Mary, who now sat at the end of my bed, patting my back.
‘Not to worry,’ she said.
Another contraction came and I groaned my way through it, twisting the ends of the blanket tight around my wrists. The night carried on that way and I must have slept in between contractions. Mary stayed with me all the while. Any time I asked a question, she would tell me again not to worry, in a way that made me very worried indeed. As though all hope was futile. At six o’clock, Nurse Patricia came to get us up and when she saw the state I was in, called for the doctor.
‘Please,’ I begged her, all pride forgotten. I was in agonising pain and hadn’t had so much as a glass of water. ‘Please get me to a hospital.’
‘You don’t need to go to hospital to give birth. Maybe that’s how things are done in England, but not here. Childbirth is the most natural thing in the world,’ she said, pulling my nightdress up and shoving her cold hand between my legs.
‘Get your hands off of me!’ I spat at her and she responded by slapping me across the face.
I’m not sure what would have happened if Dr Hughes hadn’t arrived at that very moment. He took charge immediately and sent her to fetch towels and a basin of boiled water. Two hours of contractions which felt like I was being ripped apart and I no longer knew or cared whose hands were on me. They were shouting at me to push and I pushed. Someone kindly placed a cold flannel on my burning face. I screamed for my mother, even though I knew she wouldn’t come. I begged Armand to come and rescue me. And then another push; different this time, the pressure released. Voices whispered and I saw a nurse carrying away a bundle.
‘Where’s my baby? Where are you taking her?’ I couldn’t be sure if anyone had heard me, my voice was weak and my throat raw. ‘My baby? Please give me my baby!’
A man’s voice and words that made no sense. The cord was wrapped around her neck. She suffocated. Born blue. I don’t remember very much after that. I suspect I started to go mad.
Chapter Forty-One
MARTHA
‘So, what aspect of Austen’s theme has changed with this book, her last published before her death?’