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BythetimeIwas fourteen, I was fully cognizant of my ability to heal others. My father suspected something was afoot, but he was too indolent to investigate it seriously. I would catch him watching me with a gimlet eye sometimes, but I pretended nothing was the matter. I would tell him one day—it felt wrong keeping such a secret from him, but I had promised my mother and as I grew older, I understood why she wished to keep it a secret. It was not so long ago that women were burned on stakes for lesser acts of strangeness, and she wished to keep me safe.
My mother had her faults, and I was not always her favorite child, but she was not a cruel woman. She would do almost anything to protect her children, and it turned out this extended to other innocents as well.
One day in the summer of 1805, a tenant ran to the kitchen door and beseeched Cook for assistance. His wife was laboring hard and they suspected twins, but the midwife was in the next village over and would not be back for hours. He wondered if anyone at the house knew what they were about. The woman on the nearest farm had no children, and the elderly woman who usually helped with such things had moved away last winter. There was no one else.
Cook immediately set to action. She ordered a maid to collect items for a basket and sent a girl to fetch Hill. Mrs. Hill had no children of her own, but she had sat with my mother for each of her deliveries and knew enough. My mother heard the commotion and came into the kitchen to investigate.
“What is going on?”
Cook explained in short order as she roughly packed a hamper, the maids watching with nervous expressions.
“I will go,” said my mother in a stout voice.
“You, Mistress?”
She stood taller. “I think we can both agree I have the most experience with the birthing room.”
No one could argue that. Besides her own children, she had been with my aunt Phillips for the birth of each of her three children and my aunt Gardiner had delivered her second child in Longbourn’s third best guest chamber. My mother had been stalwart and useful throughout, and she knew it.
“Lizzy, fetch your things. You shall accompany me.”
I did not need to ask why my mother would wish for my presence in a difficult birth, but it was clear the others in the room did not understand why she would want a fourteen-year-old girl along.
“You shall help mind the older children,” she added.
We both knew she said it for the sake of the servants’ curiosity, but I nodded and rushed to gather my bonnet while my mother put on her boots.
Shortly we were on the road in my mother’s gig—a gift from my father the year before—and rushing to the Turners’ farm.
Mary Turner was in a bad way. She was pale and shaking, covered in sweat, and her stomach was hard as a rock.
“There now, Mary,” my mother cooed gently to her. “How long has this been going on?”
“Hours now, mistress. The babe won’t come down!”
Another pain washed over her and I cringed in sympathy.
“We have it from here, Mr. Turner,” my mother said simply but not unkindly. “Wait with your older children. We will call if we need you.”
Mr. Turner kissed his wife’s cheek and left the room, his eyes filled with worry.
Mama felt Mary’s belly and bit her lip. “I think you are right. I can feel him lying crosswise here. We need him to turn.”
Mary let out a keening wail and it was all I could do not to rush to her.
“Elizabeth.”
That was all my mother needed to say for me to step into action. I moved next to Mrs. Turner and placed my hand on her shoulder.
“I am going to attempt to move him,” said my mother. “I need you to try to relax.”
Mrs. Turner nodded, sweat dripping down the side of her face. I saw a basin with water and wrung out a cloth, dabbing it over her face to do what I could to cool her. I hummed as I went along, a soothing song my grandmother favored.
My mother met my eye and nodded, and I placed a second hand on Mrs. Turner and went from humming to singing softly. Mama gestured with her eyes and I moved my left hand down to Mrs. Turner’s enormous belly, resting my hand just above where my mother was doing a strange motion in an effort to make the baby turn.
I had long ago learned that I could heal a person by touching them. I had since experimented enough to know that two hands healed faster than one, and skin on skin contact was the fastest of all. The longer I touched them, the faster they healed. If I touched the affected area directly, it was faster still. And for some reason neither I nor my mother could understand, singing seemed to assist the process.
