Loyalties clash at the outset of the American Revolution. Below is an excerpt from the new historical novel, Outcasts of Essex by Jane Hulse.

CHAPTER 1

It’s all Elisabeth Foster’s fault: Elisabeth and her big belly.

If she weren’t about to explode with child, I wouldn’t be chilled to the bone, trudging through wet snow to a dreary shack on the other side of town.

Of course, Mother, in her quest for sainthood, is the one who ordered me on this march. It’s my bad luck to be the daughter of the only midwife for miles. No doubt she’s already at the birthing bed
with herbs, tinctures, and appropriate scripture for balky births and hysterical mothers-to-be.

Worse yet, she’s anointed me her apprentice, at her side for births, bee stings, bowel disorders and conditions too foul to even mention. I’ve tried to tell her a hundred times that I don’t have the stomach for catching newborns. The sight of blood leaves me queasy or worse, puking my innards out. But she insists it’s God’s will. Obviously, God didn’t consult me.

My life has been a disaster since Father printed his latest edition of the Essex Journal. He called the patriots “a pack of rabid dogs” for denouncing the King and his abysmal rules. Is it any wonder that nearly everyone in Essex—and probably most of New Hampshire—hates him, and now me too? Father, a loyalist, would die for the King, or so he says. I wouldn’t go that far, but he’s hardly ever wrong about anything, at least anything he admits.

Finally, I see the Fosters’ tiny log cabin. At least it will be warm, and I can thaw out my frozen feet. But I walk into what surely is the most miserable home in Essex. Barely a stick of furniture. The floor is dirt and the place smells of wet dog. Rain plinks into buckets in the one drab room.

“What kept you, child?” Mother asks, her eyes never leaving the small bed where Elisabeth lay huddled under a ragged quilt. I’m not a child, I’m 15, old enough to know my own mind!

“One of the hens escaped again. Had to go round her up,” I say. The truth is I overslept—a mortal sin in Mother’s view. Lately she’s a bundle of nerves, nagging Father daily to give up the newspaper before the rebels, the so-called “patriots,” drive us out of town.

I greet Elisabeth with a cheery “good morn,” which she barely acknowledges. Only 18, she looks scared to death, pale and scrawny but for the colossal bump under her quilt.

“Sarah, fetch a damp cloth for poor Elisabeth’s brow.”

Poor Elisabeth? My feet are numb, and Mother is already barking orders. I want to scream. But she looks like she’s been up for days. Her blond hair, usually so tidy under a cap, is loose, with thick strands hanging down over her face. She keeps biting her lip, a sign this isn’t an easy birth.

“I’m going to die. I know it, Mrs. Barrett,” whimpers puffy-eyed Elisabeth. Sweat drenches her forehead. “God is punishing me.”

“Hush up now, my dear.” Mother can wrap a command in a blanket of tenderness for the likes of Elisabeth, but not for me. It’s “Sarah, fetch this,” or “Sarah, wash that.”

I know exactly what Elisabeth has done. She let John Foster seduce her before they were properly wed five months ago. According to Mother, John was slow to marry a pregnant Elisabeth until her father stepped in and threatened a taste of his whip. Knowing all the local gossip is the only advantage to being the midwife’s daughter. Of course, Mother swears me to secrecy, although it’s no secret the Fosters’ little bundle is arriving months early.

I press the cloth to Elisabeth’s forehead. “There, this will help,” I say, putting on my most soothing voice. But water drizzles down her face and onto her bedclothes.

“Just leave me be!” Elisabeth barks.

I jump back, nearly falling over. “Why must I be here?” I whisper to Mother.

“Shhh! Poor soul has no womenfolk in Essex.”

I’m a prisoner. Sleet pounds the roof. Wind rattles the windows. The walls close in. Worse yet, the room stinks of motherwort, black cohosh and shepherd’s purse—Mother’s herbal concoctions for sluggish births.

When she isn’t tending Elisabeth’s every whim, she frets.

“I hear the smallpox has descended on Boston,” she says. “That deadly scourge will be here in no time.”

Soon Elisabeth lets out a shriek that pulverizes my brain. “The pains are fierce … they’re coming faster.”

“I feel the child’s head,” Mother says, reaching under the quilt. “Sarah, come here and give me your hand.”

“No, please Mother.” Suddenly, I feel hot and dizzy. I can’t force myself to feel or look at the source of Elisabeth’s screams. Nor can I summon the excitement Mother always has at these moments. I feel the morning’s porridge rising in my throat.

“Push, Elisabeth!” Mother commands. “Push like it’s the devil himself fighting to come out.”

Elisabeth’s face contorts into a grimace that makes me look away.

“Watch closely, Sarah. Once you’ve birthed your own, it’ll be easier.”

Birthed my own? What is she thinking?

“I don’t plan to marry, Mother.” I didn’t intend to blurt it out, but there it is.

“What nonsense! Of course you will. Now come here and give me a hand.”

It’s not nonsense. I’ve got bigger plans than having babies. Besides, I’m not as fetching as my best friend Emma. My face is long and thin. My red hair, a mess of curls that won’t behave. Emma has mountainous breasts that she flaunts whenever she can. Mine are the size of two fried eggs.

Even worse, Emma has doomed even the least prospect of my marrying. “Sarah,” she told me, “You’re too headstrong. Boys don’t warm to that.”

“Sarah, pay heed!” Mother’s voice jars me back to the awful reality.

Elisabeth’s rigid body produces one last push and the baby shoots out, covered in white muck and splotches of blood. I struggle to keep my balance.

“Elisabeth, you have a fine son! What will you name him?” Mother beams.

“John Edgar, after my husband.” Elisabeth whispers.

Naturally, I think. Name him after the irresponsible lout who got you into this mess.

Mother wipes the squalling infant clean and wraps him in a fresh blanket. Then she pauses for a moment and closes her eyes.

I know what’s coming. I’ve heard it a thousand times before.

“Our God in heaven, thank you for giving us another soul,” Mother intones, just as she does with all her babies. “May you bless John Edgar Foster with good health and a strong spirit.”

The familiar words calm me. Mother loves babies, probably because she’s lost so many of her own. Two from influenza just weeks after birth, and the twins to scarlet fever before their third birthday. Now it’s just me and my older brother Seth.

“Sarah, put the kettle on,” Mother says. “I can do with a cup of tea.”

I smile. Mother knows full well that the colonists are refusing to drink tea from England just to show King George they won’t be bossed around by the mighty British Empire.

“No one will tell me I can’t have my tea,” Mother says, removing the precious stash she keeps hidden in her medical bag. I love this tiny, wicked part of her.