The Heretic’s Wife Read Free

world righted itself. The infant—which Kate with her limited experience judged to be about two months—fastened a gaze on Kate’s face and smiled. Both the gaze and the smile seemed wise with some primal knowledge, as if to say, I know who you are and I pronounce you worthy. A gurgle followed the smile. Then another.
    In that moment Kate’s heart grew about three sizes.
    She was still holding the child, exchanging tentative endearments in some ancient language known only between women and babies, when the mother came back.
    “So sorry. Thank you so much for watching my little Madeline.” She paused to catch her breath. “She was slowing me down. A cutpurse snatched my day’s wages, and I had to give chase.” She grinned and held up the thin little bag. Coins clinked inside it. “My name is Winifred. I’m a seamstress at the shop one street over and my mistress was out. I couldn’t leave the baby alone.”
    “Madeline? That’s a beautiful name,” Kate said. All her anger at thewoman for abandoning the child on her floor had melted away. “She’s a beautiful child.”
    “Her daddy is a Frenchy,” she said, by way of explanation for the name, or perhaps the good looks, judging by how her face lit up when she spoke of him.
    The baby was still gurgling and Kate was still bouncing the child in the crook of her arm. She was momentarily distracted by the apparent fearlessness of the young woman, who couldn’t have been more than seventeen—Kate’s own age when the apprenticed printer with whom she’d exchanged only a few fumbling kisses was found with his hand in the bookshop coin box and sent away in disgrace. This girl already had a husband and a child and was chasing down cutpurses as though it were all in a day’s work.
    The woman reached out her arms. “She likes you. She doesn’t usually take to strangers.”
    “You are very brave—or very foolish,” Kate said, unconsciously drawing the child closer to her.
    “Oh, ’twas just a lad. I boxed his ears and sent him home to his mama a little wiser. He was probably hungry, but I can’t afford to feed him. My man would be that unhappy if I came home empty-handed. He works as a waterman in Southwark. It takes every penny we can scrape together to feed the three of us. A lot of people on this side of the river won’t use him ’cause he’s a foreigner.” Her arms still outstretched, the woman moved a step closer. “I’ll take her now. I’ve imposed long enough.”
    Kate reluctantly surrendered the little girl. “No imposition,” she murmured.
    Winifred lifted the baby into her arms, buzzing her on the nose with her own. “You were Mama’s good girl, but now we have to go. Your pa will want his supper,” she said. She exited the shop in a rush and a swoop, almost as quickly as she had entered it, throwing a “much obliged, mistress” over her shoulder.
    “Please, anytime,” Kate called to her retreating back. “No trouble. Really.”
    She stood for a moment in the doorway, not feeling the rush of cold air, her arms remembering the weight of the child. The lamplighter was at work and the beadle had begun his watch. Soon it would be dark outside, the night stretching out before her. She would light her own lamp, read a bit from a recent translation of Dante that they had for sale, careful not to smudge the pages, of course. Then she would eat some stale bread and cheese, maybe abit of dried fruit. She did not cook much since her brother had married, been glad to be relieved of the burden these two years. Then she would bank the fire in the shop and go up the winding stair to her small bed—just big enough for one.
    First she had to sweep up the broken glass. She picked up the broom, but just leaned on it, wondering what had changed; whence came this sudden sense of loneliness and dissatisfaction? She thought of the poor women who slept in the shadow of St. Paul’s in whatever doorway they could find shelter. You should thank God, Kate