An Accident of Birth
An Accident of Birth
Susanna raised her head from the pillow. It was dawn, or nearly so. She poked the comfortably slumbering man beside her. “Time to get up, Sam.”
“Bmph.”
“Sam?” She jabbed.
“Another few minutes.”
“No. Up now.” She let her sharp voice do the jabbing.
She perched on the edge of the bed. For a long, ugly moment her stomach threatened to turn over. The air was clammy in their tiny flat; how she hated to leave the warm covers for cold air and cold clothing.
“Sukey, beloved, why must we rise at the same hour each day, eat meals at the same time, share prayer and devotions at the same moment each day? Gets a bit monotonous, you know. What if I should feel like being pious, say, two hours after the appointed time? Or an hour before?”
“A regular and orderly day provides that nothing will be neglected. You might well feel more pious later, but keeping to a strict order ensures that you’ll be pious, whether you feel like it at the moment or not. One must never trust whim and feeling.”
“You don’t trust your feelings of love toward your brand new husband?”
She twisted to look at him. “You are debating in order to forestall rising, and for that purpose any topic will serve. Up.”
Susanna slipped into her shoes. These soft cotton shoes were much Colder than the leather slippers she was accustomed to. She must remember, next visit to Spital Yard, to bring her other shoes. She gave her wool shawl an extra wrap around her shoulders and swung the cold porridge pot in over the fire.
Sam grabbed a handful of kindling and set about reviving the fire banked last night. “You measure our hours, but must you measure the porridge? I think just once I would like to eat as much as I can hold.”
“Exactly what the children of Israel said in the book of Numbers, just before God sent quails and made them all sick. The Lord provides all you need.”
“True.” Sam blew gently; a wisp of orange flickered and flared. He stared a bit at the seductive little flames. “I wonder if I did right to resign that ship chaplaincy. Seventy pounds was more than twice what I’m making now as a curate. Thirty pounds a year. Why, there was a day when your father’s household consumed thirty pounds in a month.”
“Had you kept the chaplaincy you would have been out sailing the seven seas, and I would still be haggling for eels in my father’s house. I much prefer that we be together in our own household, and that couldn’t happen with a ship’s chaplaincy.”
Sam went about his daily toilet as Susanna made up the bed. She paused by the window—her tiny, only window in this small flat. It looked out upon the wall of the building beside. Into the dank alleyway between the two buildings she dumped the chamber pot, as she did every morning.
The fire was going well now, and Sam had dropped the porridge pot lower. Susanna gave it a stir and brought out porringers and spoons. The dishes were that nice pottery made in Chelsea. The spoons, from Sheffield, had been purchased in a quaint shop on the bridge. Susanna had added much to their humble little flat here—paintings, rugs, serving pieces from among her possessions at Spital Yard. Had she married as penniless as most girls, she could never have contributed these extra pretties that added so much to the cramped and musty little rooms. Her existence and Sam’s would be much more drab without these lovely touches of a finer way of life.
The water should be hot enough by now for tea. She prepared the teapot as Sam scraped away the last vestiges of his whiskers. They sat at table just as the rising sun set the forlorn little window to glowing.
Sam asked God’s grace upon William and Mary and God’s oversight in these present difficulties with France. He brought the whole church and its clergy to the Lord’s attention. He remembered his little curacy here in a shabby corner of south London. Then he blessed the porridge and the tea.
Susanna lifted her spoon and put it down again. “There, Sam, you see? Ask and ye shall receive. I don’t feel up to porridge this morning. You may have my portion as well as your own. Perhaps that will fill you as far as you will hold.”
He frowned. “Are you sick?”
“Not really. Just a bit tippy inside. I feel well enough.”
After breakfast they entered into daily devotions, which Susanna recognized as a rehearsal for his sermon come Sunday. He left a-visiting then—a thing he did often and well—and she brought out her musty old books for her own two hours of study.
Susanna loved these quiet hours. At Spital Yard she had indulged herself with endless hours of private study, exploring both larger questions and occasional curiosities, and she learned as much from the casual as from the formal.
A hand rapped so softly at the door Susanna was not quite certain at first that it had happened. The knock came again. She put her book aside and opened the door.
There stood a girl of perhaps fourteen or fifteen—sixteen at the very most—and obviously pregnant. “Forgive me intruding, mum; might I have a moment with you?”
“Come in.”
The child-woman took two steps into the room and stopped. Her eyes drifted from the flowered rug with its elaborate Greek key border to the small, delicate painting by Poussin on the far wall.
Susanna broke the silence. “Poussin was French and papist, but his work is very well regarded. And his subjects were frequently scriptural. My sister found that at a little open-air fair near Bishopsgate.”
“Ye were wealthy afore ye married, I can tell.”
“Reasonably so, yes. And wealthy now, for I have a good man. Please be seated.”
“Thank you, mum.” The girl perched herself nervously on the edge of a kitchen bench. “Would that I ‘ad a good man.”
“You have a man, obviously. Not a good one?”
The girl studied the dingy gray floorboards, but she didn’t blush. “I’ve ‘ad many men, mum, but none now. None of them wants a girl this big, y’ken? No man and no income; not lately. Not till this baby’s born will I be attracting men again.”
“I’ll make tea.” Susanna busied herself in the silence with pot and water and crushed tea leaves, buying herself some time to think this through. She knew about prostitutes from afar, but never had she actually—er—talked to one. And this girl appeared to feel no shame, no remorse, no idea that she might be offending either God or man.
“What I come for, mum; I didn’t know where else to ask. Sure not the curate. ‘E’s a man. Felt better talking to a lady.”
“About what?”
“M’ soul. I ache for religion, least I think I do, but ken not where to find it. I’m not the sort as is welcome in church.”
The tea was ready enough. Susanna poured.
The girl’s eyes grew as big as the teacups. “Y’ve fine tea service, mum. Truly elegant. I never drunk tea from elegant cups before. This is a—a treat. Thank you, mum.” And in the pools of cold hopelessness that were her eyes, a warm spark flickered.
Susanna sat down across from her. “I am Mrs. Wesley. What’s your name?”
“Molly. No last name. M’ mother wasn’t married at the time.”
“You seek religion. What do you feel is religion?”
“God, mum. Church. Worshiping God.”
“Permit me to read to you from Scripture.” Susanna placed her Bible on the table beside her teacup. She broke it open to St. John’s gospel. “These are the words of Jesus talking to His disciples just before His passion—that is, before His death and resurrection. Chapter fifteen, verse ten. ‘If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love.’ And over here in James; one of my very favorites, St. James. So practical. Here, end of chapter one. ‘Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.’”
“I can’t keep myself unspotted. I’m spotted.”
“But you needn’t remain that way. God forgives transgression. He can cleanse you, according to Scripture. But you must obey Him, and fornication and adultery are contrary to His commandments.”
“No. You don’t understand because you’re ‘ighborn. I was born spotted. I’ll always be spotted, because I ‘aven’t no other way to be. This is all I know.” Her voice fell. “It’s what I am.”
“I must think about this. I’ve never encountered this sort of problem before. I cannot believe that God would condemn you to such an existence with no way out. St. Paul said in First Corinthians, and I believe I can quote it verbatim: ‘God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will, with the temptation, also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.’ From that we may assume there is hope for you. A way to escape.”
“I d’know.” Molly frowned. “Tis a living, mum, same’s any other.”
“No, not the same as any other. The same as the thief’s, who steals contrary to God’s commandments. Or the usurer at the bank, who is just as hideous a sinner as the thief, for all his rich garments. It’s not a living that pleases God. You seek religion. To please God is the highest form of religion.”
“I ken what ye’re saying. But I can’t. I just can’t.” And those bottomless eyes drifted down to study her teacup.
Susanna laid her hand on Molly’s. “And I don’t know how to help you. I’m sorry.”
Molly gazed at the hand on hers. The huge eyes brimmed up and spilled over. “‘Tis the first time in m’ life anyone’s took the trouble to touch me gentle like that. A caring touch.” She laid her other hand on top of the pile. “Mum, I’ll do m’ best. I just don’t know ‘ow to go ‘bout it.”
“Well, let’s see.” With three hands there already, Susanna added her last contribution to the stack. “Down at the wharves each dawn the fishwives buy from the catch, then carry fish uptown to peddle house to house. No one to whom you’d sell fish cares what condition your belly’s in. But you must be prepared to haggle and argue well. Perhaps something like that.”
“I ‘adn’t thought of that sort of thing.”
“And as to church. Attend regularly. Listen and learn. Make your confession and from thence-forth determine to do rightly. And after the baby’s born, come to the curate to be churched.”
“Churched?”
“The Thanksgiving of Women after Childbirth. It’s called the churching of women. A service performed outside the service of worship, so you needn’t feel uncomfortable about appearing before a congregation. It’s done privately at the rail.”
“Do ye think the others’ll object to me being there?”
“If any gives you grief, send that person to me.”
Molly’s cheeks still glistened, but her eyes were alight at last. “Oh, mum, I do want to please God!” Her hands squeezed Susanna’s. “And now, mum, I best be going. I do appreciate your time. And ‘twas a lovely tea.”
The girl rose. Susanna saw her to the door, gave her hands one final squeeze, and watched as Molly walked down the long, dark hall.
She closed the door and leaned against it a moment. Should she tell Sam about this unusual episode? She had no desire or reason to hold anything back from him. On the other hand, he might not understand. A church leader ought not be expected to be associated with sinners of that stripe.
Besides, in a way Susanna had just performed a ministry here, a ministry beyond her husband’s scope. But ministry is a man’s prerogative. Also, a decent and upstanding household must never feel the footfalls of a lady of non-virtue. Such a thing was not tolerated in polite circles. A woman, even a household member, might be a courtesan and adulteress, but she was still a giant step above the lowly harlot. No, Susanna had best keep all this to herself.
A timid knock startled her. She opened the door.
“Mum? Sorry to bother ye again. But I’ve friends in the same fix as me. Mought I tell ‘em they can talk to ye as well?”
“Of course.”
Molly burbled, “Thank you, mum!” effusively and hurried off. Susanna marveled at the change in the girl’s demeanor; she carried her head higher now and walked smartly.
That settled it. If more of these girls would be coming around, this thing might become a full-blown ministry, with no other label possible for it. Susanna very definitely ought not mention the matter to anyone, Sam included.
She returned to her books, but her mind refused to stay amid their pages. She had known for as long as she could remember that physical beauty was an accident of birth; a chance occurrence blessing some women more than others. But here was another accident of birth she had never considered. What if she had been born to an unwed girl in the filth of London, instead of in the secure household of a respected religious leader?
No opportunities, no expectations. No way to learn God’s will, much less to study and find ways to please Him. No way to prepare oneself for entry into heaven. That girl, five years younger than Susanna, was already an accomplished lady of the night and said she knew no other life.
An accident of birth.
When Sam returned for lunch Susanna was still pondering the ramifications of chance.
Her bridegroom kissed her warmly and gave her an extra hug.
“How’s the tippy feeling?”
“Gone now, thank you.” She clung to him, buried her head in his shoulder. “Elizabeth gave me a list of symptoms which signal pregnancy, and I display several of them. I suspect that may be the case here.”
He wrapped his arms around her. His boyish grin turned the dreary little flat into sun-washed Kensington Garden. “Baby Sukey! And if it’s a man-child, what shall we name it?”
“With my father, my brother, and my husband all named Samuel, I have little choice; I’ll call him Eleazar.”
He laughed roundly and delightedly and hugged her still closer. “Lunch can wait.” He tipped her face up into one of his eternal, enveloping kisses that made the world with all its weightiness tiptoe away.
All but one worldly weight. If Baby Sukey or Baby Sammy were indeed on the way—and that seemed likely—the child would be born here, in the depths of London. Not Spital Yard or a quiet village or some other wholesome place. Susanna Annesley Wesley’s child would be cast among the Mollys and the men who paid the Mollys. Her child would be a part of a way of life neither she nor God could countenance.
She had so glibly quoted that passage about temptation to a girl who suffered an unfortunate accident of birth. Now she must teach that passage to a son or daughter who would walk in the midst of cruel temptation from birth on.
Rarely was Susanna Wesley ever frightened by anything life had offered her.
She was frightened now.