Chapter Sixty-Three: A Name

Sleep would not come. Not on the bed. Nor in the chair. Or on the couch. Each night, I lay awake.

Days passed slowly.

I would sit for hours at my writing table, blank sheets of paper laid out before me, pen in hand. No words came.

My body ached after only a few minutes in any position. Comfort could not be found anywhere and the fatigue was overwhelming at times.

Simply breathing was a chore, even when sitting quietly.

I cannot go on another day in this way!

Twinges of pain would pass through my abdomen, the surface becoming rock hard for a few seconds.

Teasing.

Hello, mamma! I am here, still, waiting…

Anxiously I paced. Up and down the dirt road, around the kitchen.

I read the Biblical story of Samuel’s mother over and over, searching for clues in her dedication and making my own bargains with God.

Each passing day made me more frantic. I could not feel contrite. I could not wish away my time with Nathaniel. I cherished every single moment. No shame.

I was all the more damned.

I will attend church with him every Sunday, rain or shine. I give my word. I will encourage him to join the priesthood. Just let me keep him. Please.

At the same time that I made my bargains there was an unspoken sense of the inconvenience that a deity presented.

This God was the reason I had to bargain in the first place. God had made laws. I had broken them. Hence Levi’s death and my own suffering. Now here I stood, swollen and uncomfortable, pleading for mercy. Mercy I would not have to ask for if this God did not exist.

This God who killed my first baby.

My heart wished silently for God to be dead, but I would not allow my mind to complete the thought lest it be heard by eternal ears and ruin my chances at happiness.

At the edge of town I had rented this small cottage. Nondescript, soft gray stone. A modest garden that would be alive with color come spring. It was already furnished with musty linens and worn upholstery. It would make a reasonable home.

There was a midwife. She was a middle aged woman who dressed plainly. Her dark hair was streaked with large swaths of silver and she was missing a fair number of teeth when she grinned. The syncopation of her smile served to undermine confidence on some level but she was well respected by the local villagers and I resolved to trust her.

“This baby is my one tie to my late husband. If I lose the baby, I lose him.” I explained over a cup of tea that I had been recently widowed and had come here searching for a fresh start.

“Bless you, child!” She patted my arm, tears showing on her careworn cheeks. She shook her head. “God will bless you, I know it.”

“Thank you.” I patted her arm back solemnly, nodding, hoping that she was right. The baby shifted. The movement was reassuring.

A maid and a cook were found. Both young. Sisters, in fact. They were silly girls who had not yet been jaded by the realities of their existence. Slim and lithe and full of joy, their mousy brown hair was generally unkempt and their aprons frayed, but they were hard workers and their laughter brought light to an otherwise dismal existence.

The dark wooden crib sat in the floor by the fire. Each night I held the christening gown in my lap that I had bought for Levi those years ago. A blanket I had purchased in London lay folded in the crib, waiting. The silver rattle glowed in the light of the fire in the grate.

A name. I needed a name for him.

Ernest.

The time was coming. Soon.

Chapter Sixty-Two: Stealing Away

The train lurched to a stop at the Bristol station, the brakes giving their customary screech in protest. It woke me up from the semi-trancelike state that I had been in for the past half hour. I looked out the window at the pillars that held up the roof of the station overhead, my face close enough to the glass that it quickly fogged up, obscuring my view.

“…and so I told him to just leave it to me…” Her lips did not stop moving, even for a breath it seemed.

The middle aged woman sitting before me had not stopped talking since we had left Paddington station. Her hands had remained folded in the lap of deep burgundy traveling dress. This had been disconcerting. Someone who talked that much and with that degree of animation, typically used their hands. I had stared at her, trying not to seem rude, but I had been irritated that I could not think my own thoughts. Fortunately she had not required much beyond the occasional nod or gasp to feel I was engaged.

Excusing myself, I stood to stretch my legs, stepping onto the platform to walk a bit before continuing the journey to Cardiff, in Wales. I could still hear the woman talking to herself behind me on the train car.

I glanced around quickly, looking for recognition on any nearby faces. Fear gripped me, momentarily as I surveyed the crowd.

I was aware of the life growing inside of me, the fullness there. My precious gift. Only I knew the secret that I carried with me.

At any moment, it could be gone, this second chance. Miscarriage. Malformation. Still birth.

My sweet baby Levi.

This could be the same. Please do not let this one be the same. I remembered Levi’s cleft lips searching for something to eat, his intestines peristalsing in my hands outside of his little body. He had wanted to live but he had not been given a chance. All I could do was helplessly love him.

I wanted to pray, to beg, but I was not sure I had the right to make such requests of God at this point… even if I wanted to so desperately. Would God hear me? Would God care? Did he understand my loneliness and my sadness?

Only time would tell.

I wore the brooch with Nathaniel’s hair and words every day. It was almost a superstition now, a belief that this, and somehow he, would somehow protect me and protect the baby I carried. The piece had turned out beautifully. The jeweler had produced quality work, true to his word.

A stranger, a man, nodded at me as I passed. No one else minded me as I walked up and down the covered platform. I recognized no one and so relaxed somewhat, deliberately slowing my pace.

I had selected Cardiff due to its rapid growth. With so much flux in the population, there would be little attention paid to me, I hoped. I would tell everyone that my husband had died of typhus after returning from the war, thus explaining the pregnancy and my loneliness. Once I had delivered, I would move on elsewhere, and then move again, putting as much distance between me and any question of my character as I possibly could.

The enormity of everything was not lost upon me. On some level I was stealing this child. I struggled with the urge to let Nathaniel know, I did not want to do this alone, but in the end what would that accomplish? Only more heartache for everyone. How could he be expected to choose between two families? And what if he tried to take this child from me? I would be destroyed. No, this was a secret I must bear alone.

The train whistle blew, startling me… piercing my thoughts.

Sweeping the stray wisps of hair back under my bonnet, I carefully climbed back into the car and took my seat, steeling myself for the onslaught of words.

Chapter Sixty-One: Doubt

I waited anxiously for the days to tick by. Still I had no long term plan. I felt I could think better once I had the brooch and so I put off any serious consideration until I had my bit of Nathaniel back in my possession.

Time slowed, it seemed, almost to a standstill. My days were marked by words and meals, both of which were meager. The stories had stopped coming. There was more, much more, to say but it would not flow out of me onto the paper in any coherent fashion. As for the food, I had no appetite. Why pay for something I could not eat? And so I did not.

Sunday I decided to venture out to church, more out of boredom than piety. The streets were thick with those hurrying to seek their weekly absolution. Children, scrubbed clean, were dragged behind their mothers and fathers dressed in Sunday best. Old women walked more deliberately, likely held back by their rheumatism. Everyone was on their way to pay their respects to the almighty. Or at least they were making sure everyone else saw them doing it.

As I took the great stone steps myself, I realized that my heart felt bruised and tattered and that the holes had been filled by resentment. I was not ready to let go of all of the anger that was holding me together. Somehow, I knew that stepping across the threshold would start to chisel away at it. Once that was gone, what would I have left but grief and despair? Resentment and anger might not be the most pleasant of emotions but it was better than the alternative at this moment.

And what of remorse? I felt none for my love of Nathaniel, for my time with him, naked. Wasn’t remorse required of me prior to crossing this threshold? I searched my soul. No. No regret. I would live those moments over and over a thousand times a day if I could.

I hesitated at the heavy, ornate door, not entering. It must have been a lengthy pause. Someone behind me shifted and then coughed impatiently.

Turning, I found a young married couple waiting expectantly. The woman stared at me, clearly irritated that I was blocking their path. She did not know that I could not be hurt by her. She was too young to have been affected much by life. Soon, that would change, I felt certain. Instead, I pitied her.

“I beg your pardon,” I whispered to them as I passed. The gentleman touched his hat to me, nodding slightly. The woman glared from beneath her green velvet bonnet, her matching green eyes flashing.

Walking back down the steps, I pulled the black cloak tighter around me. Inquisitive looks from other parishioners followed as I retreated. What were they thinking about me, I wondered.

Coward. Sinner. Heathen. Damned.

It was only a few blocks to the hotel and I hurried as quickly as I could, not wanting to be out here in the open where I suddenly felt so vulnerable. Why was everyone looking at me? I touched my veil, the bonnet, smoothed my skirt…making sure nothing was out of place. It must be my imagination. I looked over my shoulder. There! A man in a black frock coat was looking back at me over their shoulder. It was real. But why? I am supposed to be an apparition, dressed in mourning. Does the magic not work on holy days, then?

Back in my rooms I sat holding the Bible I had purchased a few days previously. I did not open it.

All of my life there had been a nagging undercurrent of disbelief, that feeling that what I had been taught about God was not quite real because it did not make sense. Yes, I had read the verses. I had heard the sermons. But there was something missing. They were all leaving out the most important part but I did not know what that part was specifically. All I had was that suspicion, the doubt. It was this doubt that I now grabbed hold of with both hands.

Chapter Sixty: The Color of Blackness

I resolved to stay in London for a few weeks. I took up residence in a modest but respectable hotel as I gathered my wits and continued to write the stories of the people I had met in Scutari and Balaklava.

The first real order of business was pressing.  I had to purchase new clothing as what I had brought with me from the Crimea was very worn and several seasons out of fashion. I spent money on three lovely new dresses, undergarments, and shoes only to find that as a single woman there was much curiosity. Everyone from hotel staff and shopkeepers wanted to ask me personal questions and I had much difficulty explaining my situation.

In order to make life easier, I decided to enter full mourning again. No one would hassle the grieving widow. I moved about the crowded streets unhindered, an anonymous figure cloaked and veiled in black. When William had died the clothing had seemed a prison. Hot, stifling, uncomfortable. Now, as a shadow, I was unrecognized, untouched. Eyes were averted. No one spoke to me except to quickly give me what I wanted or needed, hoping I would move one quickly before I brought bad luck or my tears or worse. It was freedom itself. The color suited my grieving, stained heart and the veil hid my deep sadness.

Nathaniel’s gift I kept with me at all times but as the paper began to show wear quickly, I realized that it needed to be better preserved. Still, to do so meant giving up my one relic, if only for a time, an act that was painful to consider even if it were temporary.

Eventually I enquired after reputable jewelers from the desk clerk at the hotel and had been directed to an establishment several blocks away that specialized in memorial pieces. I had a very specific item in mind. A gold brooch enameled in black with the word Recuerdo engraved upon the face. A reproduction of the one worn by the young lady in the painting in my rood in Edinburgh oh so long ago. Inside, behind a thick crystal, would lie the bit of his hair and the message…Victo Dolore. Thusly, he would be locked away, my secret, but I could still have him close to my heart.

“Good day, Madame,” the jeweler croaked as I entered the shop. He was a tiny, wizened old gentleman with a loupe stuck into one squinting eye. Much of his posture and appearance reminded me of a troll, but he did not seem unpleasant. He had looked up from his current project when he heard me enter.

“Good day, sir.”

“I will be with you in a moment.”

He continued tinkering away on an exquisite garnet encrusted bauble as I wandered past the display cases with their jewels reclining luxuriously on the folds of red velvet. Pearl necklaces, onyx crosses, emerald earrings, diamonds watch fobs all twinkled and shone in the late afternoon light. Each was constructed with a place to stash some memento of a departed loved one, tucked away behind glads. As I examined the pieces I began to doubt that my design was elaborate enough to serve as a fitting memorial. I began to panic a bit.

At last the jeweler cleared his throat and stood, putting down his tools. His fingers were gnarled and misshapen. How could he do such fine work with hand like this?

“How can I help you?” he asked after what seemed a lengthy period. The loupe was gone, replaced by a pair of wire rimmed spectacles.

Wordlessly, I showed him my crude sketch, smoothing out the folded paper on the countertop. He nodded, peering over the wire frames. A “Hmmmmmmm…,” escaped his lips.

He looked up at me. “I can have it ready in about two weeks time, I believe.” Glancing down at the drawing again, he was apparently lost in thought, tabulating some important variable. “Yes. That should be sufficient time. Is that acceptable?” He again looked up at me, this time quizzically. A wiry gray eyebrow was raised as a question mark.

“That soon?” I was taken aback by the speed of his answer and the promised time to have the order completed.

“Certainly.” He shrugged. “It is a simple yet elegant piece.” My heart lifted a bit at his praise. He would know beauty when he saw it, wouldn’t he?

We discussed price with some good natured haggling. Eventually we agreed on an amount. Truthfully I would have paid any price.

“Well then, that is most agreeable.” I handed over my precious bit of hair and the scrap of paper, aching as I did so, then paid him half of the agreed upon sum. “I will return in two weeks.”

He nodded acceptance of the arrangement, then returned slowly to his workbench, easing along with an arthritic shuffle. I turned to leave.

“This will not make it better, you know.”

“Pardon me?” I paused with my hand on the door handle and turned back, not sure I had heard him correctly. He was staring hard at me.

“This will not make it better,” he repeated.

“I understand,” I said, bowing my head. But I did not. And he did not. No one could understand because I could not tell them this dark black secret of mine.

He settled back to setting the showy garnets in their new golden home.

The door jingled as I closed it tight behind me, taking a deep breath.  The air inside was less polluted but had been stifling nonetheless.

I walked slowly back to the hotel. His words bothered me. I was not sure that I wanted to feel better. Somehow the pain made it feel more real and suffering seemed necessary to atone for my sin. I had enjoyed my sin, making it all the more sinful. Certainly this fellow was attempting to assuage his own guilt for capitalizing on the grief of others by offering bits of pseudo-sage advice. I would never see him again after I paid for my brooch and I was glad.

I felt lost without my treasure, ungrounded. This was silly I recognized but I was unsure how to change the fact.

I found myself wandering the streets wondering how would I fill up my days and my nights. I played through the moments with Nathaniel again, hidden behind the black veil. I hoped that the more I relived those feelings, the deeper they would be etched into my memory. I did not want to lose even a second of that precious time. The sea of people parted easily for me as I passed, no one wanting the bad luck of touching me, the widow twice over.