Her head ached and her eyes burned in the night. She would awaken with a start at the sound of the voice. The voice spoke into her ear. She could tell the direction it came from but when she stared, terrified, into the dark room, there was nothing. And sometimes the voice spoke right inside her head, waking her with its booming tone. ‘Go home to your husband and children, Rosie,’ it said, louder and louder until she felt her head would burst if she didn’t reply.
But how? How to reply to a voice?
There were some exercise books in the house and she wrote down her replies, working by the light of candles. She wrote the replies and she copied the questions. ‘Why have you left your husband and children? Sin no more, Rosie,’ the voice said.
Rosie wrote the answers, breathing fast and wild, putting the words on paper until her hand lost its grip on the pencil or the questions came faster than she could answer them and then she would cry as if in pain, her tears splashing onto the paper. But still she didn’t sleep.
When morning came she was tired and she found herself following Iris around, helping. One day Iris found her wandering upstairs, a shovelful of cinders in her hand, looking for the back door. Iris had laughed about it and assured her that her mam took ‘funny turns’ when she was expecting, but Rosie knew it was a punishment.
The baby would come in February. Oliver would be with her for a week at Christmas. Perhaps the voice would tire of her and go away.
It was late on Christmas Eve when Oliver arrived at Chapel Street station in Southport. Last-minute buyers filled the crowded shops and he waited his turn in Boothroyd and Rimmer where he bought Rosie a heavy velour cloak, deep purple, trimmed in silver-grey squirrel. It was large enough to conceal her considerable size and handsome enough to be worn later.
He was impatient to see her. Since she had come to him he found himself more strongly devoted to her. Her every need was anticipated by him; he could not bear to see a troubled look in her eyes. He strode as fast as he could through the busy throng and soon was running down the gaslit streets he knew so well to the house where everything that he loved was waiting.
She had left a lamp in the hall and in its glow he saw that she had placed sprigs of holly along the top of the ornate mirror above the half-moon table. There was a new runner on the shiny floorboards and in the drawing room a fire danced in the high marble fireplace throwing gleaming glances off the polished brass fender and reflecting warmly onto the red plush of the armchairs.
Rosie was in the kitchen, up to her elbows in flour, pressing cut circles of pastry into patty tins and filling them from a stoneware jar of mincemeat. There was flour on her nose and in her hair and by reason of her size she was obliged to stand back from the table. She pushed a floury hand into the small of her back and straightened. Her smile was as warm as ever but to Oliver she appeared weary.
‘Why are you doing that, love?’ he asked gently. ‘You don’t need to do the cooking yourself. Where’s Iris?’
‘I let her go home to her family. She’s very young you know, only thirteen. It’s the first time she’s been away from home at Christmas and I think they’ll be glad to see her.’ She looked apologetic. ‘You don’t mind, do you, Oliver? She’s coming back the day after tomorrow and we can do without her for one day. Her mother has just had a baby. I gave her some food to take home with her. They haven’t got much.’
‘You’re too soft-hearted, Rosie,’ he chided. ‘I love you for it but you must remember that I’m paying her to help you; not the other way round.’
‘I know. I can’t get used to having someone work for me. I feel awful when Iris is rushing about, filling coal scuttles and carrying pails of water and I’m sitting there, watching.’
She put the tin in the oven and washed the sticky board before taking off her pinafore and wiping the flour from her face.
‘How’s my son doing?’ Oliver put a hand on her round, swollen belly. ‘He’s taking up a lot of space.’ He felt the child moving under his touch and kissed Rosie’s floury cheek.
She pushed him away, smiling. ‘You’re sure it’s going to be a boy, aren’t you?’ she asked. ‘I’ve only made girls up to now.’ A shadow crossed her face. ‘I hope my girls are going to have a happy Christmas without me.’ Her eyes filled with tears. ‘I’ve sent them three beautiful dolls and a picture book each. I sent them to Agnes to be sure the girls get them. The Hadfields let them see my sister.’
He did not want to be reminded of Rosie’s children. They were well cared for, she knew they were, and he did not want to talk about them. ‘You’re not still worrying about them, are you?’ he asked and there was an edge of annoyance in his voice. She had been talking a lot about Jim and the girls lately. He believed that she should pour all her love and all her heart into him and the child she carried for him. ‘I thought you’d put all that behind you and wanted to live as my wife?’
‘I’m not your wife, though, am I? I never can be. There’s to be no more talk of divorce.’
He had upset her and was instantly contrite. He covered her mouth in kisses. ‘I love you, love you,’ he told her fiercely. ‘I don’t want you to think about anyone else.’
She pulled herself from his embrace. ‘I miss you so much when you aren’t here,’ she said tearfully. ‘Go into the sitting room, Oliver. I’ll come in when these mince pies are done.’ The Christmas season had been a trial for her. She found herself thinking of the girls, of Jim.
The voice came intermittently. Some nights she slept but she did not feel rested. Her mind was in a turmoil. It was as if her own voice came from afar off. She heard quite clearly what people said, around her, yet she was not always able to reply.
There were only three weeks to go. Soon the nurse would take up residence and the doctor had been told when to expect a call. Rosie found her thoughts turning away from the present. Agnes wrote, secretly, telling her that the girls were well and that Jim’s health had improved. Agnes said they missed her and Rosie began to long to see them again, to be a family once more.
In her mind a terrible plan was forming and she found herself unable to stop from daily working out the details. Letters flew swiftly between Yorkshire and Southport. Agnes was a tower of strength. Agnes would help. Jim was pining for her. The children were refusing food. She would go to them as soon as the baby was born. She would refuse to suckle the child, then she would be able to forget it had ever been born. She would tell Iris to find a wet nurse for the infant.
She’d write a letter of explanation to Oliver. She’d wrap up the exercise books for him and then he’d understand, when he read, what the voice had been saying. He’d never forgive her.
She was unable to face him with the truth … the truth … in truth she’d made a dreadful mistake. God would punish her and the children if she didn’t repent. Wesley Hadfield’s words came back to her, ‘The sins of the father shall be upon the children’, he had quoted, and she was ashamed. But didn’t Wesley himself preach in chapel? And didn’t he say that the Lord forgives those who truly repent of their sins?
‘Oh, Lord, forgive me!’ Rosie prayed, muttering the words to herself when there was no one around to hear.
Her labour pains started, two days early, in the middle of the night, only hours after Oliver had left the house to return to Middlefield. The midwife Oliver had engaged was in residence, sleeping in an attic bedroom. Rosie roused Iris and told her to call Nurse Allenby down.
It was going to come quicker than the others, Rosie knew. Already the cramping waves of pain were coming fast and long. She pulled her knees up, rubbing the soles of her feet on the bottom sheet, gripping the iron bar she could feel underneath the mattress’s edge. Iris and the nurse would soon be there. Iris was a sensible girl. There were twelve children in her family and Iris was the eldest. Where was the woman? How long did it take her to get dressed and downstairs?
Rosie heard them, coming down the stairs, their voices a long way off. It was a dream, an awful, painful dream. She heard them talki
ng at the foot of the bed. ‘I was with me mam when she had our Kenneth,’ Iris was telling Nurse Allenby. ‘There’s always someone expectin’ at our house.’
‘Is everything to hand, girl?’ Nurse Allenby asked. ‘The binders? The napkin and the shawl?’
‘Yes. There’s new clothes. Everything new. I hope Madam lets me help with the baby. I hope she doesn’t get a nursemaid.’
Rosie twisted the sheets, almost tearing them. A hand touched her forehead and she heard the nurse say, ‘They’re coming good and strong, Mrs Wainwright. It’s good, my dear. Good.’
‘Mrs Wainwright asked me to find a wet nurse,’ Iris was saying in a faraway voice. ‘I found one but I told Madam what me mam says. She says it’s nice, feeding babies. Like a little bird, filling itself up. I could show Mrs Wainwright how to do it, like me mam does.’
The nurse was pulling the sheet out of Rosie’s hand. ‘Get the clean towels. Now, Iris. Hurry, girl. The baby’s coming.’
It would soon be over. She could catch the train to Bradford – Bradford.
‘All right, my dear?’ the nurse was saying. ‘It’s coming. I can see baby’s head.’ Rosie gritted her teeth, held her breath, grunted against the effort, grasped the woman’s apron. ‘It’s coming too quick, Mrs Wainwright. Too quick for a first baby.’ The nurse’s strong arms were pressing into her. ‘Right, mother. One more push … Good … Nearly there … And again … Push.’
Rosie fell back, panting for breath. ‘I can’t! I can’t, oh … No …’ she heard herself wailing before another, final surge of pain took her.
‘Here we are, love. Here comes your baby!’ Nurse Allenby was cupping the baby’s head in her capable hands as the little slippery body eased out of her.
It was over. It was done.
‘It’s a boy, Mrs Wainwright. A fine, healthy boy. Oh! What a little beauty. He’s a big ’un!’
The baby’s cries rent the air. The afterbirth slid away from her. It was all over. Rosie turned her face to the wall.
Nurse Allenby didn’t like the look of the mother. The woman was clearly in a fever. She lay there, white-faced, two spots of flaming colour in her cheeks. She wondered whether to send the girl, Iris, for the doctor. No, the girl was a simpleton. She’d sponge her patient down and get a drop of quinine for her in the morning.
Nurse Allenby knew how long first babies took to bring into the world. No, this mother had had at least one child before. And Mrs Wainwright wouldn’t look at the baby. The mother had turned her face to the wall when she handed it to her. She’d refused to hold it. It was not as if it had been a difficult birth. It had been quick and easy.
Nurse Allenby tucked the sheets round Rosie. ‘You, sleep, dear. I’ll take baby into my room. He won’t need milk for hours.’
Rosie left the house at seven o’clock that morning after creeping into the nurse’s room where the child slept peacefully. She would not pick him up. She stroked his dark, downy hair and he stirred. She’d call him Oliver. He would have to be Oliver Hadfield, since she couldn’t put his father’s name on the birth certificate.
‘Oliver Hadfield,’ she whispered. ‘I can’t take you with me. You belong to your father.’
Her bag had been packed for a week. She took with her all the letters she had received from Bradford, so that she could not be traced. She wrote a letter to Oliver and left it with the three exercise books full of her rambling thoughts.
She felt light and cold and wonderfully free as she made her way to the station. Unless guilt came to torture her, she thought, her mind would be calm. She was doing what was right. The voice would cease.
There wasn’t a train until ten and she was afraid of being found, if they sent out to search for her. She bought her ticket and left the station. There was time to call in at the registry office before the train left.
Chapter Eighteen
Oliver let himself in on Friday night and found Iris standing before him in the hall.
‘She’s gone, sir! I didn’t have your address. The midwife left the next morning. I couldn’t reach you. She left the baby behind. I took him to Mrs Marsden’s. She’s the wet nurse. Five shillings a week, sir. She’s nursing him until she knows what you want to do with him. Me mam said she’ll take him in for you, if you want.’ The words came out in a rush as if she’d been dreading telling him.
‘What are you saying, girl?’ Oliver shook her by the shoulder. ‘Is this some kind of a joke? Answer me!’
Iris faced him, trembling. ‘Mrs Wainwright had her baby last Sunday, after you left. The baby’s at Mrs Marsden’s. She’s the wet nurse. Madam told me to ask her. Madam left the house the next morning and I don’t know where she’s gone. I knew she hadn’t gone to you or you’d have brought her back.’
A feeling of cold fear washed over him. Could it be true? Would the girl lie over a thing like this? He released her shoulder and raced up the stairs. Their bedroom was empty. ‘Rosie!’ he called out, over and over. ‘Rosie! Where are you?’ He crashed from room to room. ‘She must be here.’
There was no trace of her. The wardrobe held only his clothes. Her brushes were gone, where they’d lain beside his. He couldn’t believe it. Now he came down the stairs, heavily: bewildered.
‘Sit down, sir,’ Iris was saying. ‘It’s not my fault. You won’t tell me to go, will you? She’s not in the house. Here’s the parcel she left.’
A fire blazed in the drawing room. Oliver took the parcel and sat with it, turning it over in his hands, not wanting to know what it might contain. Iris made coffee and brought it to him and when she left the room he slowly opened the parcel and took out a letter from inside.
‘Oliver, my love,’ she had started, in her untidy handwriting. ‘You’ll never forgive me. It’s hard to write this. God wants me to go back to my husband and children. I must repent of my sins. I am a wicked woman but Jim has forgiven me. Voices talk to me in the night and then they talk to me when there’s nobody else around. The Voice says I am a sinner. “Go home to your children and sin no more”, I hear it over and over, louder and louder and the Voice will not go away until I leave you. The Voice will not follow me to Yorkshire. Please don’t try to find me. I’m not going to live in Bradford. Agnes has found us a house on the moors, where Jim will get better.’
He opened up the parcel and found the exercise books. They were pages of scribblings. She had underlined the Voice every time she wrote it; her handwriting almost indecipherable. The book dropped from his fingers. They were the scribblings of madness. Rosie had gone mad and he had not even known.
His thoughts went back to her, to her sleeplessness, her tears, her turning away from his kisses. He’d imagined it was normal behaviour for women in her condition. Women spoke of strange cravings they had, out-of-character demands they made at these times. And he’d done nothing, waiting for it to pass.
And now she was gone. All that he loved was gone from him. It was not anger he felt now but a terrible, cold loneliness. How could he go on, without Rosie? Who would he live for? How could it end like this; his love for Rosie and their love for the child? Hadn’t she wanted the child? Had he been blind?
Finally he rang for Iris. ‘Take me to see the child,’ he said.
He followed Iris through the cold dark streets, past the big houses and down smaller roads. They turned into a street of mean houses, cramped and close. Iris stopped and nodded to him. Oliver rapped on the door.
A big woman, plain and unwelcoming, showed him in. ‘Your baby’s in here,’ she said, opening a door into a small, unheated room to the right of the front door. She went on, grumbling in rough tones, ‘It’s about time someone came to see him, the poor mite. Is the mother dead or something? Why did she send him with a housemaid? Why hasn’t she come for him? And I haven’t been paid yet.’
By the wall stood a high-sided wooden cot and the woman reached inside, lifted out a long white bundle and placed it, heavy, in his arms. She left the room.
Oliver gazed at the little scrap of
humanity, the tiny face of his son, lost in a welter of nightdress, woollens and shawl.
‘How could your mother leave you, little one?’ he whispered. ‘Oh, my God. How am I going to bring you up?’
The baby opened his eyes and stared, unblinking, into the eyes of his father and in that moment, as he looked, a new emotion burst into bloom in Oliver, a feeling he had never experienced; a fierce protectiveness that was religious in its intensity. He would never let any harm come to this child; his child. He would defend it with his life.
Tears sprang to his eyes and splashed onto the tiny face. He took a corner of the flannel nightgown and wiped both their faces. How could she have left her baby? Rosie wasn’t impulsive, she hadn’t left on a whim, and Oliver knew with a sudden, cold certainty that she would never come back. Unless, he thought, she came back for the child.
He held his son to his cheek, felt the snuffling of the baby’s face against his own. This feeling, the strongest he had ever had in his life, had shaken him with its power. He was a father. Was he alone in feeling this? Every minute, somewhere in the world, fatherhood came to some man, so why had nobody told him it would be like this? And now that he knew this emotion, this overpowering love for his son … his own … his flesh and blood, he must make plans for the future.
He placed the child carefully in the cot and slipped from the room. There was a table in the tiny hallway and he put two gold sovereigns on it, for the baby’s milk. Then he left the house, and went back to the home he had created for Rosie and was now to be his son’s. He sat by the fire, alone, thinking deeply and more seriously than he had ever done.
‘What choices have I?’ he asked himself. Then, as if to answer, ‘I could take the child to Middlefield … engage a nanny and a governess … sell this house and buy a house in Middlefield.’
The Runaway Page 22
