Born of Woman

by Wendy Perriam

  ‘Late for you, sir, isn’t it?’

  ‘I’ve had a busy day, Len.’

  ‘You’ll have the glove, sir, will you?’

  ‘Please.’

  The last of the pregnant schoolgirls crept away as Len picked up the scratchy loofah glove and scoured it across Matthew’s thighs and stomach. He lay helpless on his back, a child again, being punished for his idleness, his forbidden feast of biscuits, his shameful private orgy in the hot room. Nanny Len flipped him on his front, drubbed him with a vicious bristled brush.

  ‘Family all well, sir?’

  ‘Fine, thanks.’ They would have cleared away the dinner by now, the boys settled down to their homework, Anne preparing for the morning rush. He hadn’t finished his own homework, got too distracted and aroused, but he would start again first thing in the morning.

  Len rinsed him off with three sluicings of cold water, then slapped and pummelled his flesh as a final service. ‘Right, that’s it, Mr Winterton. Have a good evening, sir. It’s still hot outside, they tell me. And lovely weather forecast again tomorrow.’

  Tomorrow. Matthew climbed off the slab, purged, restored, refreshed. Tomorrow he must work on Lyn again, invite Hartley Davies’s chairman for a drink and start a few rumours going, persuade his staff to curtail their summer holidays, think about a printer. Tomorrow …

  ‘Business going better, sir?’ Len was still hovering for his tip.

  ‘Yes, Len, thanks. I think I can truly say that things are looking up.’

  Chapter Nine

  Jennifer lay alone in her squalid bedroom, tried to ignore the dust, the mess, the overflowing waste-bin. A few short hours and she could be up again, make a start on the house. The haemorrhaging had stopped, the doctor was hopeful, she had saved her baby. She should feel more triumphant, but her early elation had withered like a rose attacked by blackfly. There were roses in the room, huge scarlet ones from Matthew’s garden, brought on his second visit as a bribe and a reward. They needed water. They were drooping in the vase, petals already falling, splashed like pools of blood on her cheap white dressing-table.

  Thank God she had stopped bleeding. Every drop had seemed like a cell or pore of her precious baby flushed down the lavatory or seeping into a sanitary towel. Even now, she feared it might be born minus vital bits and pieces, as if what had leaked away could never be replaced. ‘Complete rest and relaxation’, Dr Groves had urged, and as if in mockery, there had been constant turmoil and upheaval. Everything had got muddled up together—her baby, their return to Cobham, Lyn’s fury, Hester’s diaries, Matthew’s pleadings and all their jobs and futures.

  She closed her eyes and saw Matthew sitting there, his tall grey form shaming and over-awing the shabby little room, his voice booming and wheedling on, confusing her, enticing her, taking things away. She had been torn between him and Lyn, Lyn and the baby, even Lyn and herself. Now she felt only drained and exhausted.

  She slumped back against the pillows, stared through the window at the jumbled roofs and chimneys jigsawed against the tiny square of sky. Cobham felt so confining after the splendour of the Cheviots. She missed Hester’s house already. Eleven weeks had made her joint mistress of it, and even Lyn had seemed content to stay there, once he had recovered from his cold.

  Spring had come and helped them renovate the house. Bare branches trembled into leaf, grass changed from grudging scrub to cocksure green, birds coupled, hatched and flew. Lyn had been a different person, then. They had laughed together, talked together, made love inside, outside, on walks, in woods, in bed. Proper love—the front way—but always with a Durex now. She’d had a strange instinctive feeling that it was too late for Durex, that she was already pregnant from their one encounter in the cellar, but dared not say in case words could somehow puncture it, make it just a dream. It was a dream in some ways—living in the country, working in the sunshine, watching Lyn grow healthy and contented as she cooked Hester’s dishes, tried out Hester’s herbs, and felt Hester’s grandchild build from cell to cell inside her.

  Only when her period was two weeks overdue did she feel she had to tell him. He might well have noticed himself, except he was always vague and ostrich-like about things like periods. She tried to choose her moment. It wasn’t easy. They seemed always to be busy—eating, working, sleeping, discussing something else, even making love. It was worse when they made love—seemed a double deception to let him go on fumbling with those futile rubbers, taking all that trouble to prevent a baby who was there. Or was it? Could she be that sure? She had seen no doctor, had no test. Perhaps she was so eager to be pregnant, she was holding off her period by the sheer force of her will. Better see if she missed a second one.

  She did. By then she was feeling sick as well, and her breasts were taut and swollen, which was harder to conceal. She couldn’t bear to deceive Lyn any longer, but every time she tried to broach the subject, the words aborted on her lips. All the ordinary words like baby, expectant, pregnant, were somehow too worn and faded for the wild scared excitement leaping in her belly. It was more than just a baby—part of a whole tradition and a lineage. She had conceived this child the night she found the diaries, so it was special, sacred, meant. How could she present it to its father in stale, insipid clichés, while they were munching toast and marmalade or plastering a wall?

  In the end, she made an occasion of it, cooked Hester’s Celebration Pie and packed it in a basket with a chocolate cherry cake and a bottle of home-made wine. It was a shimmering summer evening in the first week of July, and they were lying on the grass at Windy Gyle, the hills crouched all around them, the sky so close it was almost touching their heads. They had picnicked there, alone except for the curlews and the sheep. She packed away the wrappers, scattered crumbs for birds, then stuttered out her news, voice weak and tiny like an embryo itself.

  Lyn had said nothing, absolutely nothing. She wasn’t sure if he had even heard. The steady munching of the sheep seemed to move closer and closer until it was roaring in her ears.

  ‘Lyn, did you hear what I said?’

  ‘Yes.’ There was less blue in the sky, more cloud now.

  ‘Did you know already? Had you guessed?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, aren’t you going to say something?’

  ‘I … I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘You’re pleased. Or worried. Or even angry. You must feel something about a child. Our child.’

  ‘It’s n … not a child. You … you probably missed your period because of the shock of Hester’s death. Or being in a strange environment or …’ Lyn was torturing a piece of grass, slitting it with his thumbnail into smaller and smaller shreds. ‘Look, we’d better go back. It’s getting cold.’

  When they got in, Lyn went straight upstairs. She could hear him opening cupboards, slamming drawers, went up after him. Their suitcases were lying on the bed, already overflowing—not her careful tissued packing, but muddy shoes on top of shirts, books creasing up her clothes.

  ‘What are you doing, Lyn?’

  ‘We’ve got to leave. Now.’

  ‘Leave? Why? Whatever for? I thought we’d planned to …’

  They had argued for an hour or more, Lyn insisting that the idyll was over now and he must return to work and Matthew’s office before they were destitute; she begging that they stay and suggesting ways of survival. They could become almost self-sufficient with a few hens and ducks, a vegetable plot, an animal or two …

  ‘And what are we going to use to buy our animals?’ Lyn made them sound ridiculous, impossible like dinosaurs.

  ‘Well, we could both get jobs to start with—to tide us over the bad patch. Any jobs—casual ones, just to save enough to set us up. And I could work at home, as well. Make things and sell them, like Hester did herself.’

  He had gone silent then, pacing up and down the bedroom, hands clenched, head down. She sat and watched him, struggling with her own rage and disappointment.

  ‘How can we go? Just w
altz off and leave the house to fall apart? We haven’t even finished the repairs. And all those things we planted in the garden—they’ll be ruined if we go. And what about my friends? Molly was coming round for lunch tomorrow, and I’d promised to help with …’ Her voice was rising, losing its control.

  ‘We can phone Molly—now. Ask her to keep an eye on things. Tell her you’re not well.’

  ‘That’s not true, and anyway she’d think we’re mad rushing off like this. It is mad, Lyn, you know it is. Totally unreasonable.’

  He had suddenly swung round, heaved the suitcase to the floor, pulled her on to the bed instead, clung to her, almost hurt her with the fierceness of his grip. ‘OK, it is unreasonable—unfair, insane—I admit all that, but what else can I do? Don’t you see, I’ll lose my job if we stay up here? You know what Matthew’s like. How can I keep a … a family if I’m out of work or on the dole or something? Anyway, it’s not just a question of money. It’s … it’s … I can’t explain, but it would be lousy for a child if its father didn’t … Anyway, it’s not a child—of course it’s not. You’re probably just unwell. We must get back to Cobham. You can see Dr Groves there and he’ll give you a proper check-up and … Oh, please don’t cry, don’t cry …’

  They had motored back to Cobham in under nine hours. Lyn drove so fast, she had felt jolted, sick and terrified, not the glorious morning sickness of early pregnancy, but a sour and desperate nausea as their protesting Morris gasped along the motorway.

  The Cobham house smelt fusty when they entered it at dawn, seemed small and makeshift after the solid walls of Hernhope. The garden was a wilderness. Morning sulked through the windows with drizzle and grey skies. Lyn had put the kettle on. It seemed strange to turn a switch instead of stoke a range.

  ‘Cup of tea? You look pale, Snookie.’ He had used her love-name only in relief because they were home and she had already started bleeding. Just a spot or two of blood, but enough to threaten a pregnancy. She turned day into night and went to bed at seven in the morning. The bleeding got slowly worse. The next day the doctor came—not the cheery, swarthy Mepperton hack, but the suave and Old-Spiced Cobham thoroughbred who expected sherry on his house-calls.

  He confirmed the pregnancy. ‘But you’ll have to rest, my dear. Go to bed and don’t get up at all until the bleeding’s stopped completely. That long drive probably shook things up a bit, gave your babe a fright, but if you stay put now, you can save it.’

  She had sunk back against the pillows and felt her fear and nausea turn slowly into triumph. The baby she had craved and willed and prayed for was now a concrete medical fact. She hadn’t dreamed it, hadn’t just imagined it, and she would lie in bed for nine whole months, if necessary, so long as she could save it. Lyn had snatched his coat and slammed the door. It was the first and only time she had been totally at odds with him. It was as if the baby had cut her off from being a faithful reflection of his moods. Instead of fretting with him, she had felt like a firework—sparking, fizzing, glittering—a shower of Golden Rain lighting up the whole of greater London.

  When Matthew came on Monday, the firework had burnt out. The bleeding hadn’t stopped yet, sleep had proved impossible, and Lyn who needed nannying himself, was having to act as char and nurse. He couldn’t cook, so he brought up little messes, sloppy scrambled egg with baked beans floating in it, burst and blackened sausages, even a jelly which refused to set. There were worse messes under her bed. She found it unbearably embarrassing that he had to empty all her chamber-pots—cope with smells, excretions, urine mixed with blood. She was totally dependent on him, for her food, her potties, even a clean nightie. It frightened both of them.

  She had been almost relieved when Matthew walked upstairs. The house was so tense, she was glad of any distraction. Lyn had urged her to keep quiet about the baby, yet she longed to share her news, make it a triumph again, instead of the crime and tribulation Lyn had turned it into. But there were only further problems, so it seemed. All the things they had returned to Cobham for—the house itself, Lyn’s job, his security and steady salary—were now threatened and at risk. ‘Unless you agree to publish,’ Matthew smiled.

  That only set up fresh fears. He had alarmed her with his talk of unique historical documents, his insistence on employing experts and researchers to fill in all the background to the diaries and create a living slice of history. What if one of his experts discovered she had tampered with the record, by tearing out a page, accused her of falsifying history, defacing important documents? Or supposing Matthew simply guessed that something had happened to Hester, to account for the gap in the diaries and her puzzling change in life-style? Even Lyn had thought it strange when he read his mother’s jottings as a servant down in London and the sudden break with her gracious Fernfield childhood. She had had to keep reiterating how war disrupted everyone, and how the death of Hester’s father (like his own) had obviously resulted in a total change of fortune.

  With Lyn, it had been a private matter only, but Matthew was planning to open up the diaries to the world. In the end, she was so scared, confused, exhausted, so upset by Lyn’s latest bout of anger, that she confessed about the page she had removed, blushing crimson as she rummaged in her Tampax box. She’d felt relief as well as shame. At least she wasn’t the only one who knew now. She had also done her best to protect her husband, save him further shock. Yet Lyn still refused to agree to publication. She herself had reluctantly acceded, as the only way to save them all from a bleak uncertain future. She tried to talk him into it, in return for Matthew’s help.

  ‘No,’ he’d said, banging down a bowl of tinned rice pudding and a spoon. She couldn’t eat it, not when he had garnished it with anger. It was still congealing there when Matthew and the doctor arrived almost simultaneously the following afternoon, Matthew with his roses, the doctor in his riding mac. The fine spell had broken now and it was drenching down with rain. But there hadn’t been a drop of blood since midnight.

  Matthew had prowled around the kitchen while Lyn took the dripping coat and showed Dr Groves upstairs. He felt her tummy, examined her breasts. Lyn was staring at the floor, one foot tapping nervously.

  ‘Fine, Mrs Winterton. Things have obviously settled down now, but I’d like you to stay there another forty-eight hours, just to be absolutely safe. If there’s no more bleeding at all, you can get up and carry on as usual, but nothing strenuous please. I won’t call round again. Just make an appointment to see me in my surgery and we’ll book you a bed for your confinement.’

  Lyn had showed him out again. She’d watched them from the window, the doctor’s Cambridge-blue Rover 3500 gliding round the corner, Lyn drooping by the gate, rain darkening his shirt-sleeves, beating on his head. He had started to walk away from her, down the narrow street, shoulders hunched, hands stuck in his pockets.

  ‘Lyn,’ she’d called. ‘Come back!’

  He returned an hour later, shoes squelching, trousers waterlogged, and clutching a bedraggled bunch of anemones in a soggy twist of paper. ‘For the baby,’ he had murmured and tossed them on the bed. Matthew’s Crimson Glories were already smirking in a cut-glass vase, Matthew himself sitting on the bed, pouring tea from an expensive china teapot they used only as an ornament.

  ‘Tea for you, Lyn?’

  ‘No, thanks.’

  She had poured him one herself. ‘Look, have a cup. You’re soaked. There’s a dry shirt in that drawer there. And you ought to change your shoes. You’ll …’

  He hadn’t moved, hadn’t touched the tea, just slumped by the wall, hair dripping on to his shirt. She was damp herself, the wet stems of the anemones seeping through the sheet. She picked them up and smelt them. The blooms looked bruised and feverish, smelt of nothing.

  No one spoke. Matthew checked the teapot, cleared his throat. An aeroplane droned over, and in the next-door garden a child began to cry—a shrill and fractious wail which got slowly louder. Lyn suddenly sprang up, lurched towards the door.

  ‘All right,�
� he said. ‘You win, Matthew. You always win.’ His voice was very low and controlled as if he feared to let it off the leash. ‘Publish your bloody book and be done with it. There’s no way out if I’ve got another mouth to feed.’

  The very next day, he returned to Matthew’s office and started work on the layout of the book. Matthew didn’t believe in wasting time. The arguments continued. Matthew was planning to use the flower and wildlife drawings in the sketchbook as another aspect of Hester’s charm and skill. Lyn insisted they were Susannah’s work and had no place in the book.

  ‘You can’t prove they’re Hester’s,’ he muttered.

  ‘And you can’t prove they’re Susannah’s.’

  Lyn flung his pencil down. ‘Look, I know this isn’t Hester’s work. You’re just hoodwinking the public, spoiling the book by packing it full of lies.’

  ‘I’m pleasing my public, Lyn, and enhancing the book with some delightful illustrations. There’s no proof who did them either way, in fact, so let’s not argue, shall we?’

  Jennifer turned on her side, tried to get more comfortable. At least the quarrels were confined to the office now. She was glad Lyn was back at work. She needed peace to recover, adjust to her new role. She was to be not just a mother—that was promotion and wonder enough—but a vital part of Matthew’s whole new project. He had explored their Cobham kitchen, marvelling at booty brought from Hernhope, recognising almost forgotten objects from his boyhood—Hester’s wooden gingerbread moulds with their carved design of rose and thistle, the handsome ham-stand with its central spike, the smoked glass spice jars still mostly full and fragrant, the cream and butter coolers. Even in the rush of leaving Hernhope, she had insisted on collecting up these treasures so that she could take some part of Hester back with her.

  ‘Do you realise, Jennifer, we’re both working for the same end—to glorify and resurrect Lyn’s mother? You see that, don’t you? We have a personal responsibility to her, a family pride and loyalty to safeguard and perpetuate everything she wrote.’