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“Mistress Jones, I am so glad you are here.” The woman wrung her hands as she approached them.
“I only pray that I may be of help. I have brought my granddaughter Lucinda with me. My sight is not as sharp as it was, and I must rely on her youthful eyes. She is training to be my assistant. This is your daughter?”
“Yes. Mary. The youngest.”
“How long has she been like this?”
“The stomach cramps came on this morning. Most sudden and severe.”
“Has she eaten something to upset her digestion?”
“Nothing that we did not all have.”
Grandma Jones put her hand to the girl’s forehead. “No fever?”
The woman shook her head. “Only this, which is why I called for you.”
The woman reached a hand under her daughter’s night shirt and pulled out a blood-soaked cloth. It was obvious even to Lucinda’s less experienced eyes that the blood was too fresh and copious to be explained away as her time of the month.
Grandma Jones drew the mother aside, and Lucinda had to strain to catch what she said. “Does Mary have a sweetheart, or a suitor?”
“Indeed, she does not. She is only a girl of sixteen summers even though she looks womanly for her age.”
“I will need to look closely for the source of the bleeding.” The girl began to groan and draw her knees up, causing her mother to hover anxiously until Grandma Jones sent her to boil water to scald some more cloth, with the reassurance that all was in hand. She spoke soothingly to the groaning girl and began to feel her belly working her way around in a circle, fingers probing for lumps and places of tension.
“When did you last have your courses?”
Mary hesitated, then reluctantly confessed. “Four months gone.”
Grandma Jones waited a few moments while Mary’s belly convulsed with another bout of gripping pain. In the ebb between pain and awareness, she quietly explained. “I will give you a remedy that will help a little with the pain and some warm compresses to soothe the ache. The bleeding and cramping may go on for a few days. Do not be alarmed if there are some larger clots of blood or tissue. That can sometimes be the case.”
Anxiety clouded Mary’s large luminous eyes as Grandma Jones continued, “I believe you were carrying a child, but sadly the child has not taken.”
“No. That cannot be,” Mary cried out, distress streaking across her pale face. “Please do not tell my mother. It is not what you think...I have not...I would not. My reputation...I would be ruined.” She buried her face in her hands. A muffled sob escaped through her fingers, and her dark hair tumbled forward in a tangled mess.
“I am afraid your mother will want to know the nature of the problem.”
Mary sobbed harder turning to face the lime-washed walls. “I cannot talk of it,” she said between sobs.
Despite all manner of gentle coaxing, Mary refused to be drawn any further on the matter. After settling her with a hot poultice, Grandma Jones drew the girl’s mother aside. Lucinda strained again to hear what was said.
“Mary is not like that. She is a virtuous and pious girl.”
“I have seen many a virtuous girl whose virtue has been preyed upon through no fault of her own. Is it possible something could have happened against her will?”
All color drained from the woman’s face. She swayed on her feet like a bowling alley skittle not-quite knocked down. Lucinda stepped behind her in case she should suddenly sink. “There was...an incident around three months ago.” Clutching one hand to her breast she paused and took a deep breath. “My husband and I were out on errands and left Mary to tend to the shop. She had just finished selling a man a length of jute rope. After the customer left, she turned around to restore the rope to its place on the shelf and as she did, another man came in. She said she could not see his face as it was covered by a cloak. He asked for our finest small rope, which is stored up high, so you need to stand on a stool to fetch it down. She said when she was perched on the stool, he knocked her to the floor and made off with the whole coil and a few coins. We had no reason not to believe her account. She did not seem to be harmed but was exceedingly distressed. Then a few days later I spied bruises on her wrists which she could not account for. The bruises were quite distinctive. They looked like a bracelet. You don’t think he could have? Surely not?” The woman’s words sputtered to a stop. “Please. Do not say anything of this. The shame...it would destroy Mary.”
Grandma Jones nodded in sympathy, taking the sting out of the bad news with a salve of reassurance and a dose of common sense.
“We never reveal matters of a private concern. Perhaps the child not taking is a blessing. Your daughter is young and healthy, and her body will recover quickly. With no evidence to the contrary, no one need ever know what has occurred. If she chooses to confide her troubles to you, then listening and caring are as good a remedy as any, but many girls prefer to push the unpleasant away and simply try to forget.”
During the whole exchange Lucinda kept a silent and respectful distance, not giving any indication that she heard every word. There was nothing she could do to improve the situation. Yet as they walked home to Whitefriars and the fencing academy filled with loud and confident men, all clanging and banging at each other, she could not quell a growing outrage at what she had witnessed. Her thoughts churned, and she found herself squeezing the hilt of the short dagger she always kept hidden in the folds of her skirt. Finally she could stand it no longer. She had to know more.
“Grandma, have you seen circumstances such as this before?”
“Too many times,” Grandma Jones replied without slowing her pace.
“If the girl was attacked and ravished why would she not speak up? If it were me, I would want the scoundrel punished.”
