I can still hear their cries of joy mixed with the roar of the waves as we took them, one by one, on board. I joined the rescued men in a prayer of thanks, but later, all alone staring into another coming storm, feeling the spray like a thousand pinpricks on my face, my soul mounting and sinking with the waves, I knew that I had saved them too. I felt my own insignificance on that vast ocean, yes, but also what power I have, we all have, to force the human heart. And I knew that to let that ship drown to the bottom of the ocean with all its sailors would have been to let new Lisbon die by sea again, and my dear Fanny be buried twice.

Mrs. B

September 5, 1797

Poignand didn’t have the nerve to show his face again, and wasn’t asked. Dr. Fordyce returned after his lunch at the chophouse to sit by Mary’s bedside through most of that first night. Mrs. Blenkinsop would have said that he slept in a chair and snored, while she kept watch, with strict instructions to wake him if there was any change. She was glad of being in charge. No one had said it out loud, for Mr. Godwin’s sake, but childbed fever was everyone’s worst fear. It was said to be caused by foul, noxious air that arrived on the wind, or came from a woman’s own body. For Mrs. B’s part, the more that doctors were about, intruding on the business of childbirth, the more women died of it. She didn’t need science; she had experience.

As for remedies, she had rarely seen more applied with greater diligence and less success. Bloodletting was one thing—early and often, according to Poignand. Others preferred Peruvian bark, an emetic for vomiting, or an emollient clyster—a mix of linseed tea and new milk, cream of tartar, rhubarb, or castor oil—to help carry off the morbid matter. If the patient was truly sinking, doctors often advised throwing everything at her: strong infusions of the bark, wine, and cordials, applying blisters to the abdomen, even injecting antiseptic solutions into the uterus. Mrs. B believed her only duty was to keep Mary comfortable and give her strength for the fight, whether this was an ephemeral fever or not. Only time would tell.