I looked around the room between contractions and thought of the possibilities. I had to get away from these people and deliver my baby among friends. A day of labor had left me too weak to get up, so I could hardly get up and run away from them.
But perhaps I could rely upon the strength of some, and the weakness of others. I have already mentioned that Brigitte was built like a stallion. And I could tell she was good. Sometimes I am not the best judge of character, it is true, but when you are in labor, confined with certain people for what seems like a week, you come to know them very well.
“Brigitte,” I said, “it would do my heart good if you would get up and find Princess Eleanor.”
Brigitte squeezed my sweaty hand and smiled, but Marie spoke first: “Dr. Alkmaar has strictly forbidden visitors!”
“Is Eleanor far away?” I asked.
“Just at the other end of the gallery,” Brigitte said.
“Then go there quickly and tell her I shall have a healthy baby boy very soon.”
“That is by no means assured yet,” Marie pointed out, as Brigitte stormed out of the room.
Marie and the midwife immediately went into the corner, turned their backs to me, and began to whisper. I had not anticipated this, but it suited my purposes. I reached over to the nightstand and wrenched the candle out of its holder. The nightstand had a lace table-cloth draped over it. When I held the flame of the candle beneath its fringe, it caught fire like gunpowder. By the time Marie and the midwife had turned around to see what was happening, the flames had already spread to the fringe of the canopy over my bed.
This is what I meant when I said I must rely on the weakness of some, for as soon as Marie and the midwife perceived this, it was a sort of wrestling-match between the two of them to see which would be out the door first. They did not even bother to cry “Fire!” on their way out of the building. This was done by a steward who had been walking up the gallery with a basin of hot water. When he saw the smoke boiling out of the open door, he cried out, alerting the whole palace, and ran into the room. Fortunately he had the presence of mind to keep the basin of water steady, and he flung its whole contents at the biggest patch of flames that caught his eye, which was on the canopy. This scalded me but did not really affect the most dangerous part of the fire, which had spread to the curtains.
Mind you, I was lying on my back staring up through the tattered and flaming canopy, watching a sort of thunder-storm of smoke-clouds clashing and gathering against the ceiling. Quickly it progressed downwards, leaving a diminishing space of clear air between it and the floor. All I could do was wait for it to reach my mouth.
Then suddenly Brigitte was filling the doorway. She dropped into a squat so that she could peer under the smoke and lock her eyes on mine. Did I call her stupid before? Then I withdraw the accusation, for after a few heartbeats she got a fierce look on her face, stomped forward, and gripped the end-seam of my mattress-a flat sack of feathers-with both hands. Then she kicked off her shoes, planted her bare feet against the floor, and flung herself backwards towards the door. The mattress was practically ripped out from under me-but I came with it, and shortly felt the foot of the bed sliding under my spine. My buttocks fell to the floor and my head rapped against the bed-frame, both cushioned only a little by the mattress. I felt something giving way inside my womb. But it hardly mattered now. It felt as if my whole body were coming apart like a ship dashed on rocks-each contraction another sea heaving me apart. I have a distinct memory of the stone floor sliding along inches from my eyes, boots of the staff running the other way with buckets and blankets, and-gazing forward, between my upraised knees-the huge bare feet and meaty calves of Brigitte flashing out from under her bloody skirt hem, left-right-left-right, as implacably she dragged me on the mattress down the length of the gallery to where the air was clear enough for me to see the frescoes on the ceiling. We came to a stop underneath a fresco of Minerva, who peered down at me from under the visor of her helmet, looking stern but (as I hoped) approving. Then the door gave way under Brigitte’s pounding and she dragged me straight into Eleanor’s bedchamber.
Eleanor and Frau Heppner were sitting there drinking coffee. Princess Caroline was reading a book aloud. As you might imagine, they were all taken aback; but Frau Heppner, the midwife, took one look at me, muttered something in German, and got to her feet.
Eleanor’s face appeared above me. “Frau Heppner says, ‘At last, the day becomes interesting!’”
People who are especially bad, and know that they are, such as Father Edouard de Gex, may be drawn to religion because they harbor a desperate hope that it has some power to make them virtuous-to name their demons and to cast them out. But if they are as clever as he is, they can find ways to pervert their own faith and make it serve whatever bad intentions they had to begin with. Doctor, I have come to the conclusion that the true benefit of religion is not to make people virtuous, which is impossible, but to put a sort of bridle on the worst excesses of their viciousness.
I do not know Eleanor well. Not well enough to know what vices may be lurking in her soul. She does not disdain religion (as did Jack, who might have benefited from it). Neither does she cling to it morbidly, like Father Edouard de Gex. This gives me hope that in her case religion will do what it is supposed to do, namely, stay her hand when she falls under the sway of some evil impulse. I have no choice but to believe that, for I let her take my baby. The child passed straightaway from the midwife’s hands to Eleanor’s arms, and she gathered it to her bosom as if she knew what she was doing. I did not try to fight this. I was so exhausted I could scarcely move, and afterwards I slept as if I did not care whether I ever woke up or not.
In the plaintext version of my story of labor and delivery, Doctor, I tell the version that everyone at the Binnenhof believes, which is that because of the disgraceful cowardice of Marie and of that midwife, my baby died, and that I would have died, too, if brave Brigitte had not taken me to the room where the good German nurse, Frau Heppner, saw to it that the afterbirth was removed from my womb so that the bleeding stopped, and thereby saved my life.
That is all nonsense. But one paragraph of it is true, and that is where I speak of the physical joy that comes over one’s body when the burden it has borne for nine months is finally let go-only to be replaced a few moments later by a new burden, this one of a spiritual nature. In the plaintext story it is a burden of grief over the death of my child. But in the real story-which is always more complicated-it is a burden of uncertainty, and sadness over tragedies that may never happen. I have gone back to live by myself at the house of Huygens, and the baby remains at the Binnenhof in the care of Frau Heppner and Eleanor. We have already begun to circulate the story that he is an orphan, born to a woman on a canal-boat on the Rhine as she escaped from a massacre in the Palatinate.
It seems likely that I shall live. Then I will take up this baby and try to make my way to London, and build a life for both of us there. If I should sicken and die, Eleanor will take him. But sooner or later, whether tomorrow or twenty years from now, he and I shall be separated in some way, and he shall be out in the world somewhere, living a life known to me only imperfectly. God willing, he will outlive me.
In a few weeks or months, there shall be a parting of ways here at the Hague. The baby and I will go west. Eleanor and Caroline will journey east and enjoy the hospitality, and take part in the schemes of, the women whom you serve.