Year of Wonders. Geraldine Brooks

      ‘All right, Mummy. Now! Look up!’ I tilted my face and opened my eyes to find myself in a velvet rain of rose petals. The soft, sweet-scented shower brushed my cheeks. I pulled off my cap and shook out my long hair and let the petals land in its tangles. Little Tom gurgled with joy, his fat fists batting at the bright cascade of pink and creamy yellow. Jamie leant out over the sill above me, shaking the last few petals from a corner of sheet.

      ‘This,’ I thought, smiling gratefully up at him, ‘this moment is my miracle.’

      And thus we passed the wondrous days of our reprieve, and I busied myself in preparation for a winter that was hard to conceive of on those heavy afternoons, when the bees buzzed into hives that brimmed with the heather-scented honey. There were apple ladders poking through the trees and tripods going up all around, waiting for a day cool enough for the hog butchering. Though we had none of our own swine, I always helped my neighbours the Hadfields in return for a portion of bacon. Alexander Hadfield was a fastidious man who preferred cutting cloth to hacking at flesh and bone and would not soil even his second-best suit of clothes in any manner of outdoor work. So Mary’s eldest by her first husband would do the slaughter and the butchery. Jonathan Cooper was a big lad like his late father and made short work of it, while his little brother Edward ran about with Jamie, finding ways to shirk the small chores we laid on them. Every time we sent them to fetch a bavin to keep the cauldron boiling, the two of them would disappear behind the woodpile, howling with delight over some new game they’d invented. Finally, Mary left off washing the guts for the sausage casings and went to see what manner of mischief they’d devised themselves. She came back with one hand occupied in holding Edward by the ear and the other extended as far in front of her as possible, dangling something, glossy and black, tied to the end of a string. As she drew closer I could see it was a dead rat, a sorry little corpse, all wet and rheumy-eyed with a smear of bright blood about its muzzle. Behind her, Jamie walked sheepishly, dragging another such. Mary flung the one she carried into the fire, and at her prompting, Jamie reluctantly did the same.

      ‘Can you believe it, Anna, the two of them were playing with these loathsome pests as if they were poppets. The woodpile’s full of them, seemingly. All dead, thanks be for small mercies.’ Since we couldn’t halt our work, Mary called Alexander to deal with the rat-fall, and the two of us shared a quiet laugh as her man, too nice to give a hand with the hog butchery, dispatched bloody rodent corpses instead. Somehow, the sight of him at his task eased our load a little bit as we toiled on, competing against the fading light to get the fat rendered and the sides salted. It was, as ever, hard and hateful work, but I kept my mind fixed on the smell of the bacon sizzling in my skimmer and thought how Jamie would enjoy it a few weeks hence.

      When at last the skies clouded it was almost a relief. The misty rains seemed restful to the eyes, rinsing the landscape. But the damp after the heat brought fleas beyond any infestation I remember. It is an odd thing, how biting pests of all kinds will find one person flavoursome and another not to their liking at all. In my house, the fleas feasted on my tender children, leaving them covered in madding welts. I burned all our bedstraw before I went to see the Gowdies for a balm. I was half hoping to find Anys by herself again, for I longed to talk more with her, to learn how she had come to understand the world as she did. I thought that she could teach me much about how to manage alone as a woman in the world, how to embrace my state and even exalt in it, as she seemed to. She had hinted frankly enough about her many lovers, and I found myself consumed to know how she managed them, and the nature of her own feelings towards them.

      And so I was disappointed when it was old Mem who met me on the step, her shawl saying she was on her way out, and her hasty manner making me think she was due at some confinement, though whose it might be I could not think, for none that I knew who were with child were yet within a month of their time.

      ‘Ah, I could have saved you the walk, Anna, as I’m on my way to the Hadfields. Young Edward Cooper is burning up with fever, so I’m bringing him a draught.’ I turned to walk back with her, fretful at this news. Although she was very aged, her hair thin and silvery where it escaped her fraying cap, Mem was straight and lithe as a green cornstalk, and she moved with the vigour of a man. As we hurried to the Hadfields, I had to lengthen my own stride to keep up with her. When we got to the cottage, a strange pied horse was tethered to the post by the watering trough. Mary met us at the door, flustered with anxiety and, it seemed, embarrassment. ‘Thank you, thank you indeed for coming, Mem, but Mr. Hadfield sent to Bakewell for the barber-surgeon, and he is with Edward now. I am sure we are all grateful for your wisdom in these matters, but Mr. Hadfield said we must not stint here, and surely Edward’s father, God rest him, did leave me in purse to handle the expense.’

      Mem made a sour face. She did not think any more of barber-surgeons than they were wont to think of cunning women such as she. And yet Mem helped us as she could for pence or payment in kind as each of us was set to manage it, while the surgeons would not stir without the clank of shillings to line their pockets. Bowing coldly, Mem turned and walked away. But I was curious, and so I lingered until Mary signalled me to follow her. The barber-surgeon had asked to have the child brought downstairs, as I expect he would not deign to work in the crowded upper room. Mr. Hadfield had cleared his tailor’s bench and little Edward was laid naked upon it. At first, I could not see the child for the surgeon’s dark bulk was in my way, but as he stepped aside to reach into his bag, I winced. The poor little soul was covered in squirming leeches, their sucking parts embedded in his tender arms and neck, and their round, slimy nethers flicking and twitching as they feasted. I supposed it was fortunate that Edward was too far gone in his feverish delirium to understand what had befallen him. Mary’s face creased with concern as she held the child’s limp hand. Mr. Hadfield stood beside the surgeon, nodding deferentially at his every utterance.

      ‘He is a small child, so we need not draw overmuch to restore the balance of his humours,’ the surgeon said to Mr. Hadfield, who was holding Edward’s shoulders. When the time had elapsed to his satisfaction, he called for vinegar and applied it to the engorged creatures so that they twitched all the harder, their jaws relaxing as they sought to escape the irritant. With a series of deft tugs, he pinched them off, a spurt of bright blood following, which he stanched with linen scraps that Mr. Hadfield provided him. He rinsed each leech in a cup of water and dropped it into a leather pouch alive with writhing lobes. ‘If the child is not improved by nightfall, then you must purge and fast him. I will give you a receipt for a tincture that will open his bowels.’ The man was packing his bag as Mary and her husband thanked him. I followed him into the street and, when the Hadfields were out of hearing, made bold with the question that was tormenting me.