Mad Alice Lane

Chapter Twelve

Alice

Almost every woman I know has lost a child. It is not an uncommon occurrence. In fact, it's more common than bringing one alive and kicking into the world, and even if you manage that miracle, to have a child reach its adulthood is considered good fortune. The fact that I had lost my baby troubled no one but myself; even dear Eliza was concerned only for me, I feared. I knew my husband cared not, and Ma thought it a blessing. After all, it was only a bastard child. And no one mourns for them. But I did.

Daily I found myself at the church of the Holy Trinity, sometimes without even knowing how. There was a bench in the graveyard placed for reflection and prayer. Sometimes I sat and stared into nothingness, other times I wandered from gravestone to gravestone, but always careful never to go close to the sight of my child's own burial.

I must never forget that what Eliza and I did was an act of blasphemy. No bastard child, no unbaptised child, can be laid to rest in holy ground. I feared that to linger over the spot would be to bring unnecessary and dangerous attention to it, yet I knew that I was not the first mother to have committed such a crime. I would do so again.

When the weather was miserable and to sit outside would be to draw unwelcome notice, I gravitated to the church itself. Before my wedding, I had never known its interior. It was not my local church; I had no call to be there, yet I found the uneven flagstones and the unyielding hard wooden box pews a comfort.

To feel the cool surface as I sat was to feel grounded somehow and even the white-misted air that escaped my mouth, regardless of the outside temperature, brought succour. It was fitting to sit amongst the dead, the icy cold and austere interior when I had been brought lower than ever before. If the sun broke through the clouds and the glorious stained glass window in the east was brought alive in dancing rays of brilliantly alive colour, I would leave. I could not bear the sight of it and I would return to my duties across the street.

Duties that must not be forgotten and my husband saw to it that they weren't. Every morning, as before, I rose before him to prepare his breakfast, often crossing paths with Simon, the apprentice, whose eyes I could not bring myself to meet, as he stoked the fires.

Every day I cleaned the house from floor to ceiling; every midday I presented Thomas with a plate of hearty food and Simon with his smaller one, while I chose not to partake. I knew I was becoming smaller, my husband remarked upon it. He did not even grant me an evening's reprieve from his ministrations after I miscarried, only commenting on how pleasant it was to tup a wife who no longer looked like a pregnant sow.

An unfair comment, as at barely four months my stomach had only boasted a small round to it, but my heart grieved for the flatness that was indeed clear to see a mere day later. After all the fuss it had caused, my baby had left this world with barely a mark. And yet, it was only several weeks later that Thomas began to complain of the new angles in my body. My breasts, which had once shown themselves full of promise, were shrunk close to my chest, while my ribs and collarbones stuck sharply from under their thin skin covering.

There was no looking glass in the house, but reflections bore the truth of his remarks as cheekbones I had never known had stretched my face, gaunt hollows taking the place of rounded rosy cheeks. I had lost my looks, and my hair, so thick and golden, had begun to shed with every brush stroke.

I continued my wifely duties as best I could, not for the sake of the fat sweating pig that shared my bed each night, but for my own, with the knowledge that if I did not, I must surely go mad.

But despite my best efforts, Thomas was becoming increasingly infuriated by me: whenever the urge took him, he used me like a whore. I disgusted him. I was not the woman he had married. Even with a bastard in my belly, I had been lusted after for my fine looks, I had bettered myself by working for a fine family, and yet, within a few short weeks, I had been reduced to a haggard shell.