Hamnet(65)

‘The thing is . . .’ she whispers ‘. . . it was me . . . I sent him away . . . and then my mother died.’

‘I know she did,’ Mary says, moved. ‘You won’t, though. I am sure of it. You are strong.’

‘She . . . she was strong.’

Mary grips her hand. ‘You will be fine, you’ll see.’

‘But the problem . . .’ Agnes says ‘. . . is that . . . I should never . . . I should never have . . .’

‘What? What should you never have done?’

‘I should never have sent him . . . to . . . to London . . . It was wrong . . . I should—’

‘It wasn’t you,’ Mary says soothingly. ‘It was John.’

Agnes’s head, lolling on its neck, snaps round to face her. ‘It was me,’ she mutters, teeth clenched.

‘It was John,’ Mary insists.

Agnes shakes her head. ‘I shan’t make it through,’ she gasps. She grips Mary by the hand, her fingers pressing painful spots into the flesh. ‘Will you take care of them? You and Eliza. Will you?’

‘Take care of who?’

‘The children. Will you?’

‘Of course, but—’

‘Don’t let my stepmother take them.’

‘Certainly not. I would never—’

‘Not Joan. Anyone but Joan. Promise me.’ Her expression is maddened, drained, her fingers clamped into Mary’s hand. ‘Promise me you’ll look after them.’

‘I promise,’ Mary says, frowning, staring into the face of her daughter-in-law. What has she seen? What does she know? Mary is chilled, discomforted, her skin crawling with horror. She refuses, for the main part, to believe what people say about Agnes, that she can see people’s futures, she can read their palms, or whatever it is she does. But now, for the first time, she has a sense of what people mean. Agnes is of another world. She does not quite belong here. The thought, however, of Agnes dying, in front of her, fills her with despair. She cannot let that happen. What would she say to her son?

‘I promise,’ she says again, looking her daughter-in-law right in the eye. Agnes lets go of her hand. Together, they look down at the dome of her belly, at the shoulders of the midwife, below.

The second labour is short, fast and difficult. The pains come without interval, on and on, and Mary can see that Agnes, like a swimmer going under, cannot catch her breath in between. Her screams, by the end, are ragged, hoarse, desperate. Mary holds her, her own face wet with tears. She begins to form, in her head, the words she will say to her son. We tried our best. We did everything we could. In the end, we couldn’t save her.

When the baby emerges, it is clear to them all that the death they have been dreading is not Agnes’s after all. The baby is grey in colour, the cord tight around its neck.

No one says anything as the midwife eases the body out with one hand and catches it in the other. A girl child, half the size of the first, and silent. Eyes shut tight, fists curled, lips pursed, as if in apology.

The midwife unloops the cord quickly, deftly, and turns the little doll upside-down. She lands a slap on its bottom, once, twice, but nothing. No noise, no cry, no flicker of life. The midwife raises her hand a third time.

‘Enough,’ says Agnes, holding out her arms. ‘Let me have her.’

The midwife mumbles about how she should not look on it, how it is bad luck. It is best, she says, you don’t see it. She will take it away, she says, and make sure it gets a decent burial.

‘Give her to me,’ Agnes says, and goes to rise from the stool.

Mary steps forward and takes the child from the midwife. Its face is perfect, she thinks, and the image of its brother’s – the same brow, the same line of jaw and cheek. It has eyelashes and fingernails and is still warm.

Mary hands the tiny form to Agnes, who takes it and holds it to her, cradling the head in her palm.

The room is silent.

‘You have a beautiful boy,’ the midwife says, after a moment. ‘Let’s bring him here and you may feed him.’

‘I will fetch him,’ Mary says, starting towards the cradle.

‘No, I will,’ says the midwife, crossing before her, stepping into her path.

Annoyed, Mary pushes at her shoulder. ‘Out of my way. I will fetch my grandson.’

‘Mistress, I need to say that—’ The midwife is squaring up to her, but she never finishes her sentence because from behind them comes a thin, spiralling cry.

They both turn, in unison.

The child in Agnes’s arms, the girl, is wailing, arms rigid with outrage, her minute form rinsing itself pink as she draws in air.

Two babies, then, not one. Agnes tells herself this as she lies in bed, curtains drawn against the sharp draughts.

It is by no means certain, in those first few weeks, whether the girl-child will survive. Agnes knows this. She knows it in her mind, in her bones, in her skin, right down to her heart. She knows in the way her mother-in-law tiptoes into the room and peers at the children, sometimes putting a quick hand to their chests. She sees it in the way Mary urges John to take the babies to be churched: she and John wrap the infants in blanket after blanket, then tuck them into their clothing and hurry to the priest. Mary bursts back into the house a while later, with the air of a woman who has completed a race, outrun an enemy, holding out the smaller of the twins towards her, saying, There, it is done, here she is.