“So you must,” she finished with a sigh. “I know, but all the same, I think you should let it out.”
“My mother… my mother never… screamed.”
“Well,mymother nearly yelled her head off, to hear her tell it, and she was no worse a mother for it,” she replied, her brown eyes narrowed at me and her hand on her hip.
“Forgive me,” I replied with a smile. Julia was forever telling me to stop being so hard on myself. What she didn’t realize, even after all this time, was that I was simply doing things in the way that I was raised. For all thecallouses on my hands and the simple gowns I wore, a part of me would always be gentry.
“Oh, never mind, I forget that you—Cecily, I see the baby!”
I could have wept in relief, if I’d had the strength for it.
“Push, Cecily, push! That’s it! Yes, harder now… oh, Cecily.”
I hardly heard her last words, because the cry that pierced the air was so loud and beautiful that it drowned everything else out, even the pain that I felt. “My baby?” I rasped.
“Yes, Cecily, he’s beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.”
A son. For one short moment, my heart stopped. So it had been a boy, after all. Wallace had his deepest wish. Then I remembered that it was Antony who would raise my boy, Antony who would be his father. John was such a wonderful boy and I knew he too was eager to help rear the child. Thinking of them helped me to relax, and I held my arms out for my baby. From the moment I first saw him, all other thoughts fled completely. He was still screaming pitifully, his face red and his fists clenched, but I thought that for all the jewels I’d once worn, I’d never seen anything more precious.
“He’s perfect, Cecily,” Antony murmured, stroking the baby’s cheek. I smiled up at him and nodded my agreement. “You’re certain you’re feeling well?”
“Yes, Antony,” I assured him as I stared down at my newborn son. It was a question I’d answered already a dozen times, but I would let him ask it as many times as he needed to satisfy himself.
“What will you call him?”
“I was thinking of George,” I answered, beaming at my sleeping child. “George Antony.”
“Well,” my husband replied after a long pause. “If that is your wish.”
“It is.”
“Hello, George Antony,” he whispered, and there was no mistaking the pride in his voice.
Being a mother was harder and yet more rewarding than I ever would have imagined. I found myself enchanted with this tiny human being that had formed inside of me, and baby George cast a spell that seemed to bewitch everyone. Antony doted on him, snatching him from the floor the moment he came in from the fields and bouncing the baby on his knee until his gurgled laughter filled the house. John was very protective of the baby, and very helpful to me as well, always willing to fetch a fresh blanket or entertain him while I caught my breath.
Of course, it was nothing like it would have been if I’d still been a duchess when he was born. He would have had a wet nurse and his own governess. I still would have been expected to live with the court, as I’d done before. There were moments when I longed for the easy existence I’d taken for granted, idle moments when I thought of Susanna, or my mother. But as afarmer’s wife, idle moments were hard to come by so there wasn’t much time for thinking of the past or what might have been. Besides which, being present when my son laughed for the first time, or to see John play on the floor with him, made all the hard work worth it.
Antony was as patient as he was kind. He showed me how to perform the tasks I needed to learn and remained encouraging no matter how many times I had to ask him to show me the same thing. I’d thrown myself into my new life with abandon, and in time I’d built a name for myself in the small, widespread community that we lived in. It was shocking to me how easy it was to make friends with other wives. They seemed desperate for friendship and all it took was a single kindness to build a relationship. Julia and I visited one another on a weekly basis and while I feared I’d never become accustomed to the easy rapport commoners enjoyed with one another, I had come to value her friendship.
So much so, in fact, that I’d told her my secret. As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I’d gone rigid in my chair, watching closely for her reaction.
“Well, that it explains it,” she’d said as she set her cup of milk down. “I’d thought for some time now that there was something a bit different about you. Now I know.”
I’d been surprised but relieved at how easily she’d taken the news and subsequent meetings had proven that it really didn’t bother her.
“You see?” Antony had said when I’d told him. “I keep telling you that you have to give people a chance.”
How right he’d turned out to be. It seemed that the people around me—the more time went by, the more I stopped thinking of them ascommonersand thought of them as friends—were a constant surprise. I was even surprising myself. I’d never imagined that I could live in such an isolated community, doing hard labor day after day. Why, taking care of children without help from a governess was, in and of itself, a monumental task. Yet, somehow I was surviving. To tell it true, I was even thriving.
“Lady mother!”
I turned at the sound of John’s voice, shading my eyes with my hand. “Yes?”
“I’ve got to get something from the house! I’ll be but a moment!”
“Of course! See you shortly, John.” I turned back toward the fence, laughing to myself as I watched for Antony to come home for the day. He’d gone into town on business and as I was every time he went away, I was anxious to see him safely returned to me. In these times, John took his father’s orders to watch after me and the baby very much to heart and seemed reluctant to take his eyes off us for even a second.
I’d mentioned it to Antony the last time he’d been away, but he’d simply smiled. “You don’t see it, do you, my dove? John’s grown very fond of you. He’s afraid if he gives you the chance, you’ll fly away.”
