By dusk I was leaving Mitchelstown in a carriage, my hastily packed bags on top. I hadn’t been allowed to say good-bye to the girls, or to Margaret. I could feel my heart beating through my homespun shift, my jacket. When I turned to take one last look down the avenue, there she was, lifting the skirts of her dress, hair flying, face streaked with tears, running after me, legs and arms pumping as hard as they could, bare feet on gravel, yelling over and over, “Please, Mary, don’t leave me! Don’t leave!”

I opened my hand and pressed it against the glass. She held hers in the air up to mine, fingers splayed, until the distance between us was too great a gap. She slowed and then stopped, straining for each breath, nostrils flaring like a racehorse, spent. I couldn’t bear to take my eyes away, even as she grew smaller. But even then, I could see her strong jaw set, like her hands on her hips.

Margaret King, I knew, would save herself.

Mrs. B

September 6, 1797

“Wet nurse engaged to give the Poor Babe suck. Puppies brought in for the missus.”

Milk fever, caused by stagnation, was to be avoided at all costs. Mrs. B had become dexterous over the years in drawing off an engorged breast, with the aim of more pleasure than pain. If the breasts grew knotty, she rubbed them softly with an oil-moistened hand. But the midwife, much as she tried, couldn’t keep up with Mary’s abundance. She used cabbage leaves to ease her discomfort, but it was Fordyce who finally ordered puppies brought in. He recommended that poor Mr. Godwin be spared the sight of it—in fact, spared the truth of most things.

Midday, Godwin led bright-eyed Fanny in by the hand to deliver her mother a nosegay from the garden. Mary, blessed with a respite from the fever and chills, hid her feelings, closed her eyes, and smelled it in, the small bouquet. Mrs. B could see that she fought through her fatigue to name the flowers with her little girl, always teaching. She drew each letter in the air with her finger: “P is for ‘poppy.’ L is for ‘lavender.’ Y is for ‘yarrow.’ And C is for—”

“Cosmos!” Fanny shouted.

It brought delighted tears to Mary’s eyes, quickly followed by sad ones. The absent baby left a hole that not even Fanny could fill. The whole house felt it. Strange, how quickly a baby’s gurgles and cries become part of the furniture, a habit of being, the way you walk around a chair, even if it’s been taken away. Or still feel a limb that’s been severed.

“When will baby Mary come home?” Fanny asked her mother. “I want to play with her.”

“Soon enough, Fannikin,” said Godwin. “Soon enough.”

“Will you play with me, Mama? We can take my hoop to the field, like we do.”