Cape Doctor

The South Easter raged, whipping dust into the hot, hazy air. Snatching leaves off the fruit trees in the Company Gardens. Blasting away the smoky pall that hung over 1818 Cape Town.

 

Dr James Barry hastened her horse up the stony track over Kloof Nek, down into the green calm of Camps Bay Glen. Sweat trickled between her tightly bound breasts. She was desperate to throw off her scratchy military uniform and stifling body padding. Desperate to reach the Round House. Her black poodle Psyche raced to the watering trough and lapped thirstily. Her gaze softened. He'd really enjoyed his daily pastry from the German bakery this morning. Looked so funny with cream smeared on his cheeks. Just out of reach of his tongue.

 

'Is Lord Somerset here yet?' she asked the groom who raced to help her dismount. Her voice thin and high. She shot the groom a scowl to counteract the impression of unmanliness. 

'Not yet, Sir,' respectfully. 

She retreated to her shuttered rooms. Tore off the imprisoning uniform and flung herself on the bed. Her hand rested lightly on her curving belly. She smiled at the butterfly flutter of movement.

 

A clatter of hooves in the yard. Shouts for the groom. A perfunctory rap on her door. Lord Charles Somerset, Governor of the Cape Colony, stormed into her room at the shooting lodge. 

'Did you see the sign?' he demanded. 

She had. 'Sodomites,' in black paint stark against the white-washed wall. How far from the truth. 

'I've a mind to muzzle that Thomas Pringle and his damn press,' he growled. 

She almost laughed but kept a straight face. She wasn't going to let anything ruin this precious evening. A whole night alone. No social engagements. No servants apart from her faithful Jamaican manservant, who knew. She'd bought John at the only slave auction she'd ever attended. An ebony block of dignity. Freed him immediately.

'I know. It's scandalous, isn't it?' she said. 

He ran his fingers through her short, copper crop. 'If only they knew.' 

She sighed. At fifty-two Charles was still a handsome man. Horses and hunting kept him fit. Just a touch of grey at his temples. Just a few lines scorched across his forehead by the African sun. That, the slow torture of losing his beloved wife Elizabeth, as well as the endless cares of politics and governorship. James loved him so much. Barely noticed he was twice her age. She reached up and pulled him down towards her.

 

John had laid them a simple supper on the veranda. The surf boomed below. The sky, streaked crimson, orange, apricot and pink hovered above the mother-of-pearl sea. The deafening evening frogs' chorus slowly replaced the cicadas shrill daytime thrum. James picked at her salad. Charles tucked hungrily into his Springbok fillet. She sipped some cool goat's milk. He seemed relaxed. Timing was everything with difficult subjects. Normally she didn't care too much. There were not many people whose opinion or friendship she valued. 

'Charles, I've been thinking.' He looked up. 

'We can't keep pretending this situation doesn't exist. I'm about four months pregnant now.' Already she'd shed the padding she usually wadded around her narrow waist.

 

'You know I'd love to marry you,' he answered steadily. Her heart wrung tears from her eyes. He was prepared to endure the scandal that would surely follow. He'd be a social pariah. It would be political suicide. And what of herself? If she wasn't Dr James Barry, British Army Medical Inspector, she'd revert to being plain Margaret Ann Baulkley, bankrupted Irish green grocer's daughter. She let out a heavy sigh. She had everything to lose too. Her position. Her profession. As a woman she'd not be allowed to practise as a doctor let alone a surgeon. The worst was her pride. She'd be the laughing-stock of the British Empire. But something had to happen.

 

'We need complete privacy for a year,' he mused, sipping his wine. 

'I could go and stay in the Karoo farmhouse until after the baby is born.' 

'And me?' he asked a little peevishly. 

'You could go on leave to England as planned. Give the rumours time to die down.' 

'Hmm, not so great. I'm alone in drizzly London and you're holed up baking in a Karoo farmhouse with our baby. How do we get to the point where we're married?' Just a tad sarcastically.

 

She sat quietly untangling the strands of her past. Her uncle, the painter James Barry had recognised very early on that his niece was a prodigy. When her father had been cast into the debtors' prison, he’d had gone to one of his more liberal friends, David Erskine, Earl of Buchan, with his dilemma. Between them, they'd launched her future. Margaret and her mother would set sail for Edinburgh where Margaret, dressed as a boy would attend the University as a literary and medical student. She smiled wistfully remembering her mother's tears as her long tresses hit the floor of their tiny cabin. How they'd laughed as they pinned towels around her trying to create a vaguely manly shape. No waist, bound breasts and slightly broader shoulders. They couldn't do much about her height. She was just under five foot. It would have to be heels. Luckily, they were in fashion.

 

She qualified as a doctor at seventeen. The following year was spent at Guy's Hospital in London where she passed her surgeon's exams brilliantly. She'd joined the British Army by-passing the usual physical with a word or two in the right ears from David.

 

'David, Earl of Buchan,' she said softly. He was a mutual friend. She stopped an inappropriate smile. Charles and David were probably related somehow. The whole British aristocracy seemed to be. 

'How about if I return to England as soon as the baby is old enough to travel? As the widow of some far flung colonial general. Maybe from India,' she thought aloud. 

'We could ask David to introduce us at a dinner, or a ball, or at a picnic, or a hunt perhaps. Which do you prefer?' she asked playfully. 'You could court me, which could be fun. The theatre, the opera, restaurants, shopping trips for gorgeous dresses.' She loved living in Africa but knew it's limitations. 

'Then you could propose. We could get married and I'd be the second Lady Somerset.' She'd grow her hair long again in the Karoo.

 

'That could work,' he said slowly. 'I like the idea of courting you properly in London.' He kissed the tips of her tiny fingers. Held her gaze across the table. 'Ironic that David has to help change you back into a woman again.'

 

Dr James Barry left Cape Town quietly a week later accompanied by a small guard, a wagon loaded with provisions, John and an excited, prancing Psyche. The guard was dismissed at Calitzdorp.

 

James loved the Karoo, especially the beginning and end of each day. The colours saturated her. She wasn't so fond of the shimmering midday though, when it was hammered senseless by the sun. She dozed in the shade of the deep veranda then. 

 

The household were sworn into secrecy. She posed as Charles' niece, an upper-class young English lady 'in trouble'. Smuggled into South Africa to have her baby far from the prying eyes and wagging tongues of Europe.

 

Every morning after breakfast, James, John and Psyche took a slow stroll. John always carried a gun. There were few lions around now. Buffalo and rhino were more of a risk. Leopards and baboons for Psyche. They mostly saw herds of springbok starting away on stiff legs or impala moving off at a steady graze. As they lumbered slowly up the low koppie standing guard over the farm, grasses imperceptibly gave way to thorny scrub. James picked a round spekboom leaf, bit into its tartness and stuck it under her tongue. Moisture drew back into her mouth; a trick learned from a San girl whose broken leg she'd set.

 

She wrote to Charles often. '... This morning we found a baby tortoise, so small it would have fitted in a tea strainer. Such a perfect miniature.' Ending whilst the postman watered his horse at their well. 

'We miss you terribly and so look forward to being re-united.'

 

According to her calculations she was eight and a half months pregnant now. The baby's movements were less violent and frequent. She knew his head had moved down into her pelvis. Felt the ligaments of her hips stretching. Welcomed the ache. Then nothing. No movement. James gently massaged her baby through her belly to wake him. Still no movement. 'Don't panic,' she steadied herself. 'All new mothers are anxious. You know this.' Still icy dread numbed her.

 

The midwife came. Placed her ear against James' naked stomach for an age. An internal examination. With hands scrubbed red clean. James insisted. 

'The cord is wrapped around the baby's neck.' The verdict. 

The doctor hastily summoned. Another examination. 

'We must bring on labour immediately.' 

James took the offered herbs. Walked slowly up and down the veranda, her weight resting heavily on John's arm. Her bare feet comforted by the smooth surface beneath them.

 

It became a surreal nightmare. Schizophrenic. James the doctor floated above Margaret the woman trying to save her baby. Cooly, the doctor pictured the umbilical cord entwined around the tiny neck. The blue face crumpled in distress. The woman however thrashed, sweat-darkened curls sticking damply to her shoulders. She regained control, breathed, waited, pushed. As hard as she could. For as long as she could. Then again. And again. At last, he came in a slippery gush. The midwife working frantically to break the grip of the coils. The baby limp, lifeless. She sucked out the mucus. Blew gently into his mouth and nose. The air lifted his puny chest. Gently pressed the air out. Blew gently again. And again, for an eternity. It was no use. There wasn't even a thread of a pulse.

 

James recuperated slowly. The bloat in her belly subsided, leaving permanent silver scars. Her breasts, missing the tug that should have been, dried up. She tried to think. Tried to work out what would be fair and rational for both herself and for Charles. Without their baby, the price of being together was too high. She was a surgeon. She imagined the torment of being trapped in the role of an English Lady. Knew she couldn't act it forever. The frustration would tear them apart. 

 

Eventually she picked up her quill and wrote. '... I'm terribly sorry Baby Charles didn't make it. The umbilical cord was wrapped tightly around his neck. We buried him in the family cemetery just below the farm koppie. May the Lord bless him and cherish him as I know you would have.' 

 

'The mother is physically fine. Doing everything in her power to regain her strength. But she is utterly heartbroken for several reasons.' 

 

'I find myself unable to join you in England.' 

 

'Take good care of yourself. 

Your friend forever,

Doctor James Barry'

 

James, John and Psyche left the farm soon afterwards. Riding short distances every day. At their first evening camp, 'John, would you please give me a haircut?' 

He reached out to grip her narrow shoulders in his huge, gentle hands. 

'With pleasure, Sir!' he beamed. 

A week later they rode across the sandy Flats towards Cape Town. A stiff breeze was tugging the tablecloth over Table Mountain. Dr James Barry smiled. The Cape Doctor at work.

 

Postscript

 

Dr James Barry went on to perform the first Caesarean in the British Empire where both mother and child survived. On a kitchen table. By candlelight. After her tour of duty in Africa, she served with distinction in Mauritius, the Caribbean, St Helena, Malta, Corfu, the Crimea, where she managed to fall out with Florence Nightingale, then Jamaica, and finally Canada.

 

Charles and James remained lifelong friends. Soon after these events, he married Lady Mary Poullet and returned to the Cape. They had a further three children bringing the total number of his progeny up to nine. James played the role of a doting uncle. Charles fell ill while James was working in Mauritius. She immediately returned to England and helped care for him until the end.

 

She retired to London in 1864 as Inspector General of Hospitals in the British Army. Charles' children were frequent visitors. She died a year later. Sophia Bishop, the servant tasked with laying out her body, discovered the truth about her sex. 

 

John returned to Jamaica.

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