Free The Apothecary's Daughter by Charlotte Betts Page A

questioning me?’ He pushed out his chin and balled up his fists.
    ‘You must let the afterbirth come in its own good time!’
    ‘Rubbish! Let’s get this whole sorry episode over with and then you can bring your wife some beef tea and she’ll soon be sitting
     by the fire giving thanks that she is saved. And I can be away to my next patient.’
    Before Cornelius could argue, Ogilby tugged at the cord again and the placenta came free. Blood gushed from between Elizabeth’s
     legs.
    An expression of surprise flitted across Ogilby’s face.
    ‘Mama!’ Susannah kissed her mother’s forehead but her eyes remained closed.
    Goody Tresswell hastily stuffed a handful of rags between Elizabeth’s thighs but almost immediately they were saturated. She
     snatched up the bedlinen and wadded it up on top of the rags but in only a few moments that too was scarlet and dripping.
    Ogilby took another nip from his flask and watched silently as the midwife bent over Elizabeth and attempted to stop the flow
     as it cascaded over the edge of the bed and soaked into the floorboards.
    Cornelius sank to his knees, buried his face in his wife’s hair and began to pray, imploring God to save his beloved.
    After an interminable time Goody Tresswell straightened up and shook her head. ‘It’s no good, sir. She’s gone.’
    ‘Damnation!’ Ogilby swigged from his flask again and then offered it to Cornelius, who swept it out of the doctor’s hand with
     a bellow of rage before breaking into harsh, racking sobs.
    Numbed, Susannah stared at her mother, lying there so white and still. Disbelieving, she put out a finger to touch her skin.
     It was still warm. Was this really her mother? Dead?
    It was then that she looked into the basin on the table beside the bed. A tiny hand was raised, as if saluting her, from a
     sea of congealing blood. But it was the baby’s face which was Susannah’s undoing. The eyes were half-closed and the perfectly
     formed rosebud mouth looked as if it was pursed ready to take its mother’s milk.
    Susannah started to scream.

    Susannah leaned against a wall in Crown Alley, the vomit rising in her throat as she remembered that terrible day. Even after
     all this time she could remember every dreadful detail. Martha had been lucky so far; she had no idea of how perilous childbirth
     could be. But Susannah had seen it for herself and the prospect of risking her own life in such a way was unthinkable. Marriage
     brought children; there was no escaping the fact. She took some deep breaths until the sickness passed and then started walking
     again.
    Further up the alley a man was shouting and it took a moment for Susannah to realise that he was shouting at her.
    ‘Get away! Don’t come near me!’
    Confused, she stopped in her tracks.
    ‘I saw you struck down. Get you home and bolt the door behind you!’
    ‘I’m not ill, merely a little faint.’
    ‘It’s the pestilence, that’s what it is, and you’re abroad infecting innocent souls.’
    ‘No, you’re wrong, I promise you!’
    ‘I saw you taken sick! Get away from me!’ The man’s voice rose as hysteria took hold of him.
    ‘Truly, I am well!’
    The man bent to pick up a stone, threw it at her and then took to his heels and ran away.
    There were only a few people in the alley but they began to shout at her too.
    As another stone skimmed past her head she turned and fled back the way she had come.
    Twenty minutes later, heaving for breath, she arrived at the back gate to the yard. Mathew and John, playing with their bricks
     in the dust, looked up at her curiously as she let herself in.
    ‘They’ve been looking for you,’ said Mathew. ‘Have you been crying?’
    ‘Mama is cross because you didn’t tell her where you were going.’
    ‘I’m not obliged to let your mama know my every movement!’
    Mathew shrugged and turned back to his bricks.
    As she went in by the kitchen door Susannah saw the two boys’ heads close together, watching