The Midwife's Tale(94)

“Thank you for coming at such a late hour, Lady Hodgson,” she said. “The baby came just minutes after we sent for you. He gave us a scare, but all is well.”

I congratulated Elizabeth and searched the room for Dorothy Mann. She sat on a couch, holding a glass of wine. I sat beside her. I recognized the mixture of exhaustion and relief on her face—she knew how close the night had come to ending in tragedy.

“A difficult case,” I said. Dorothy nodded and sipped her wine. “Elizabeth doesn’t know how bad it was, does she.”

“I didn’t want to worry her while she was in travail, and now that the child is safe there is no reason to frighten her. The child came with his shoulders first. Every time I tried to turn him, he seemed to fight me. Soon he lodged himself so tight I feared for both mother and child.”

“How did you save him?”

“I remembered something you talked about once,” she said with a faint smile. “I put her on her hands and knees, so the baby might work back up to the matrix. That gave me enough room to work. He took a beating, but I turned him.”

I could hear the pride in her voice. She had performed a miracle and knew it. A servant brought me a glass of wine, and I gladly accepted. Dorothy and I drank and talked of the news of the town, of births and deaths.

“I don’t know if you have seen her yet, but I sent a client your way last week,” I said.

“Really? Who was it?”

“In truth, I don’t know. I heard talk of a pregnant serving-maid in All Saints parish. I told them to report it to you.”

“Oh, yes, Ellen Hutton. I visited her yesterday. She refuses to name the father, but I haven’t started to press her yet. She will tell me soon enough. She doesn’t seem brave enough to deliver a child alone.”

“Ellen Hutton?” I asked, my mind racing. “Stephen Cooper’s servant? She is the pregnant maid?”

“She didn’t deny it, just refused to say anything. But I felt her belly and breasts. In my judgment she is pregnant.” She paused. “Aren’t you caring for her mistress while she is in the Castle?”

I sat in silence, trying desperately to make sense of this piece of news. I knew that Ellen’s pregnancy could be vital to solving Stephen Cooper’s murder, but between the wine and the late hour, my addled mind could not see the picture clearly.

“Lady Bridget, are you all right?” Dorothy asked.

“Yes, I’m fine. How long has she been pregnant?” I asked urgently.

“It’s hard to say—five months, perhaps. What is going on? When did you become interested in ordinary bastardy cases?”

“It is nothing,” I said. “I must go.”

I paid my respects to Elizabeth and walked home as quickly as I could. The rising sun transformed the Minster’s walls into towering columns of flame. As I gazed at their majesty, my mind raced over the facts of the case. In the fresh air, my head cleared and I began to understand the importance of what I’d learned.

When I arrived home, I pulled Martha into the parlor. “Ellen Hutton has been pregnant since February,” I blurted out. She looked at me sharply and I saw her mind begin to work its way through the implications of my discovery.

“Who is the father?” she asked. “Could it be a suitor? She told us Mr. Cooper chased her suitor away even though he was an apprentice nearing his freedom.”

I furrowed my brow, trying to get the final pieces to fit together. “Who did Cawton the tailor say Richard was courting?” I nearly shouted in excitement when I remembered. “The tailor said Richard was courting a girl named Helen. But it wasn’t Helen, it was Ellen! It must have been! And it can’t be a coincidence that both their masters were murdered. Richard and Ellen killed them both.”

“But why would they kill Mr. Cooper to begin with?” Martha asked. “What did they have to gain from murder?” Her question brought me up short.

“I don’t know. Perhaps they hoped to rob him?” I wondered.

“But they didn’t rob him. They deliberately killed him.”

I shook my head and continued to think. While some of the pieces fit, Martha was right—Ellen and Richard had no obvious reason to kill Stephen.

A dark look crossed Martha’s face. “They killed him for revenge.”

“Revenge for what? Because he tried to keep them from courting? That’s hardly the worst thing that Stephen did.”

“When we saw Ellen at the apothecary shop, what herbs was Richard using?”

I closed my eyes, picturing the scene in my mind. “Thyme … hyssop … Oh, God!” I cried, my eyes flying open. “Dittany. Ellen wasn’t there getting herbs for Esther’s cough. She was getting them for herself to end the pregnancy. They wanted to kill her child before he was born. But why?”