Song of Songs

by Beverley Hughesdon

  For three days I lay on my bed, waiting. The woman came in with food and spoke to me; I answered her, but I saw she was ill at ease, nervous of my manner and way of speaking, so when I dismissed her she went, and did not stay to make me eat. As soon as I heard the front door close behind her I crept downstairs on my shaking legs and threw the food on the range. But when he came back he made me eat, so I knew I could not die here. Besides, he was a strong man, a vigorous man; when he thought the time was right he would come to me again and put another child inside me, so that I could not die. I had to go soon.

  On the fourth day I sent the woman away, and got up while he was still at work. I dressed myself in my best clothes and took the money I had kept safe in my dressing case – Robbie’s money, my brother’s last gift to me – then I climbed slowly down the stairs already wearing my hat and coat. But I knew I had to be careful and cunning – he was a determined man, if he guessed the truth he would come after me – I must prevent that. So I took a piece of paper from my writing case and wrote on it: ‘I have gone away with Conan.’ I looked at it, hesitating, but I had to be sure, so I added, in large clear letters: ‘I love him.’ And I put my message on the table, where he would see it as soon as he came in.

  Then I left the small house, walked down the cobbled street and through the grimy town until I came to the station; there I sat down and waited for the train to Manchester.

  Mr Shepherd came out of his office at Hareford. ‘My lady, were you expected? The family are all away and no one has come to meet you. Shall I telephone the Hall?’

  ‘Thank you – please tell them to send a groom with the governess cart – that will do.’

  It was a young groom; I did not know him. I climbed very slowly into the governess cart, Mr Shepherd’s hand below my elbow. As the boy picked up the reins I told him, ‘To Lostherne first, to the church.’

  He drew up in front of the lych gate and helped me out. I walked on my unsteady legs up between the graves until I came to the one I knew so well. I stood before the white stone with the two beloved names carved on it and told them, ‘Not long now, my brothers – I will come to you soon.’ I had delayed too long already. And the breeze on the hillside ruffled my hair and caressed my cheek as I smiled at the stone and whispered, ‘I will not keep you waiting.’ Then I walked back to the governess cart and was driven home, to Hatton.

  Cooper met me at the door. I said, ‘I have been ill, I need to rest. I will take all my meals in my room, thank you.’ He stepped aside and I walked with my back held straight up the wide staircase; I would not walk down it again.

  They brought me my meals, and as soon as the maid had gone I crept along to the housemaid’s pantry and flushed them all away. I would defeat my body at last. But on the second day I was careless – the girl came in as I was finishing – I walked past her without speaking, my face averted, but I was frightened. It was Mrs Hill herself who came up with my dinner tray; she said Cook had prepared a special soup for me but she was not sure if it was well-enough seasoned – would I try a little now? I knew I must not betray myself so I picked up the spoon and swallowed the soup and she stood there, watching me, until I had drunk most of the bowlful, then at last she went away. I waited while her footsteps receded, then stole out to my pantry. When I came back the tray by my bedside seemed to have moved a little – I was nervous – but then I decided it was only a trick of the light and climbed once more into my bed.

  As I dozed through the next morning I heard the door opening, and Mrs Hill came in again – with Letty. My sister came to my bed and looked down at me. ‘Hello, Hellie – how are you?’ I did not reply and after a moment she turned to the housekeeper and said, ‘Yes, Mrs Hill – you and Mr Cooper were quite right to phone me. You may go now.’ Letty moved closer and spoke again: ‘What are you doing here, Helena, at Hatton?’ When I did not answer she asked again, ‘What are you doing here?’ Her steady gaze held mine.

  At last I answered, ‘I’m resting.’

  ‘Why? Have you been ill?’ I turned my face away but she persisted. ‘You do look ill, Helena – I wonder what’s wrong with you?’ It was not long before she inquired, ‘Are you expecting a child?’ I could not keep my face expressionless and when she asked again, ‘Are you expecting a child, Helena?’ I felt the tears of weakness on my cheeks.

  ‘Not any longer, not any longer,’ and I closed my eyes.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ But still she would not leave me in peace. ‘Did Ben send you here?’ When I did not reply she answered herself. ‘But no, he would have brought you himself, and Cooper told me you came alone.’ I looked up and saw that she was reasoning, she was thinking my clever, logical sister. She drew up a chair and sat down in it, making herself comfortable, like one who intends to stay – I hated her. ‘And Ben has not been to see you, not even written – that’s strange, Helena, very strange, because he loves you. So I wonder why not?’

  I closed my eyes against her, but she was merciless. ‘I’m sure he would not have stayed away – unless –’ her fingers seized my wrist - ‘What did you write in your note, Helena? The note you must have left for him.’ I pressed my lips tightly together but her nails bit into my flesh and her voice was tireless, inexorable. ‘Tell me, Helena – what did you write? Tell me.’ She asked over and over again until at last I told her.

  Then she stood up and said, ‘Conan’s in Norway, he went last week. But I don’t think you came here to find Conan.’ She left me shaking in my bed, and when she came back in the afternoon she had Ben with her. When I saw him I turned and buried my face in the pillow; my whole body jerked with shudders. I heard his voice: ‘Lass, lass – what have I done to you, what have I done to you?’

  Letty’s reply rang clear and firm. ‘Nobody has done anything to her, Ben, what she has done she has done herself. They should be here by teatime – I telegraphed this morning.’ She left, but I knew he was still there, sitting in the room, watching me – but I shut my mind against him; I had a duty to perform.

  Then it was my mother’s voice that spoke. ‘Helena, wake up!’ I dared not disobey. ‘Why will you not eat, Helena?’ Her dark eyes were hard, demanding the truth – and at last I told it.

  ‘Because I killed my babies.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Helena – you miscarried. They were not even formed yet, it was too early.’

  She did not understand. My babies were formed, they were beautiful. They had lain on Nanny’s lap, wrapped in fleecy white, and I had seen their small round faces – two in one and one in two – and Ena had lifted me up so I could lean over and kiss them. Mine, all mine. And now I had killed them. Twice I had killed them.

  But she would not let me be; she repeated over and over again, ‘Why will you not eat, Helena? Why will you not eat?’ until I could bear her anger no longer and cried aloud in my despair, ‘Because I must die!’

  There was silence in the room – my eyes lighted on each figure in turn. Ben sat in his chair, his face in his hands, his shoulders shaking – I knew I had nothing to fear from him. My father stood beside him, his face ashen and shocked – he could not meet my eye; Papa had always been a coward – good. My eyes moved on – and checked; it was the women, the women I had to fear. They stood tall and strong at the foot of my bed and looked straight back at me – their level gaze did not drop. I turned desperately from pale blue to dark brown and back again – neither pair of eyes wavered; and now I was frightened. It was I who looked away.

  ‘A nursing home – they will know how to make her eat.’ Mother’s voice was inflexible.

  Letty nodded in agreement. ‘Yes, they will.’

  Mother began to move towards the door. ‘There’s a place in Surrey – I will phone at once.’

  ‘No, Mother, not Surrey.’ My mother drew breath sharply. Letty’s hand gestured towards Ben’s huddled shape. ‘She has a husband – it must be Manchester.’

  ‘Surrey.’

  ‘Manchester.’

  The two pairs of eyes locked; it was the
brown which gave way. ‘Manchester.’

  Two men came, wearing white coats. They lifted me up and rolled me on to a stretcher; as I had so often done to others. Then I was carried down the wide staircase and out into the darkness. A nurse sat in the back of the ambulance with me, her cap white and starched as mine had once been.

  It was not a long journey. They carried me out again and up another flight of stairs and into a high white room. Another nurse came forward and helped to lift me from the stretcher; as I had done in my turn. My mother spoke, their starched caps dipped in assent, then they turned and looked at me: compassionate but passionless. One said, ‘She will eat.’ And her eyes were the eyes of Sister Foldus and all the sisters I had known – sisters who would not willingly let their patients die – sisters who would fight, and win, and defeat me.

  The slow tears oozed from under my lids as they washed me and dried me and combed my hair and plaited it. Then one came to me with the feeding cup and said: ‘Drink.’ I turned my face away. She spoke quite quietly: ‘If you do not drink doctor will sedate you, and we will pass a tube through your nose and pour food into your stomach. Then we will empty your bowels and insert nutrient enemas, too – so you see, you have no choice.’ And I, whose hands had passed those tubes, whose fingers had put food into the bowels of others, I knew she spoke the truth – so I drank.

  The next day my mother came. ‘Why, Helena, why?’ Her eyes bored into mine.

  ‘Because I killed my babies.’

  ‘Why do you keep saying that, Helena? Of course it is nonsense – women often lose children in the womb – it has happened to many of us.’

  ‘I killed my twins, my brothers. I killed my brothers.’

  Her eyes narrowed as she raised the long ebony cigarette holder to her lips. She drew in the smoke, then repeated, ‘You killed your brothers? But that too is nonsense, Helena. Victor and I were both there with you when Eddie died – we were there, beside you.’ I stared up at her. ‘And Robbie – they told us afterwards, Robbie had been dying for months – that at the end he was lucky to go so quickly.’ She looked down at me for a long time, her cigarette forgotten in her hand, then said, ‘But it wasn’t luck, was it Helena?’ And read the answer in my face.

  And then, at last, I understood; I had been wrong – God was far-off and remote – it was not to God that I owed my debt; it was to this woman. ‘Man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery. He cometh up and is cut down, like a flower.’ Born of a woman – and I had cut him down. This woman, who stood so straight and terrible before me: she had carried Robbie for nine long months in her womb, and had laboured to give him birth. So it was she who had the right of judgement over me – and she who would exact vengeance.

  I looked up into her stern dark eyes and made my confession. ‘No, Mother – it was not luck. I killed him. I killed your son.’ And then I lay silent, waiting for my sentence.

  She moved away from me, and I heard her address me from near the high narrow window: her voice was very clear. ‘Helena, I always thought you were weak – too timid, too yielding, to be my daughter – but now I see how wrong I was, how terribly, foolishly wrong.’ She turned from the window and came and stood at the foot of my bed; her eyes found mine and held them, so that I could not look away as she pronounced her judgement. ‘Helena, he was my son – I gave him life.’ I lay waiting, far beyond hope. Her voice was strong and unflinching: ‘And if he had come to me in his agony and begged for death – than I would have given him that also.’ I saw her face soften with compassion, and she leant over the bed and took my cold hands in hers. ‘But he did not come to me, it was you he came to in his pain and suffering – and you gave him the gift he craved. I thank you, my daughter, I thank you.’ I felt her hand rest on my cheek for a moment – then, with a soft rustle of skirts, she was gone.

  As I lay in my high white bed I heard again her words of absolution. Then I turned my cheek into the pillow and whispered aloud, ‘And I thank you, my mother – I thank you.’ Then I fell asleep.

  The next day she came again. ‘I am sending to you a man who will help you, Helena. You must do as he says.’

  ‘Yes, Mother.’

  He was tall and thin and stooping, with a long pale face and sparse grey hair. He sat by my bedside and said, ‘Tell me about the war, Lady Helena – tell me what you did in the war. I want to know all of it.’ His clear light eyes fixed on mine, and his voice was low and even so my lips moved and I began to tell him what I had done in the war. The stench of the East London in autumn, the staring frightened eyes – the pus, the blood and the fear. The days when Gerald came home and betrayed me in my innocence. The pathetic bobbing stumps I had held, the wounds I had probed as men lay sweating under my hurting hands. The bodies I had laid out. Eddie, babbling in his delirium as he lay dying – but there was no time to grieve. The Somme days – the reek of the battlefield as convoy after convoy brought in its burden of torn bodies and mutilated limbs. The men without feet, the men without hands, the men without faces, and the men with raw holes between their legs where their genitals had been blown away. And I had nursed them all – and learnt to smile at them, every one.

  The blackened frostbitten feet of the men in Rouen; the gasping, choking sound of men drowning in their own lungs. Conan, weeping on my lap in the small hotel. Then those slimy green legs I had clutched to my chest as the surgeon’s saw crunched through the bone while stretcher after bloodstained stretcher was carried into the small theatre hut at Étaples. My feet, slipping and sliding in the pus and blood as I moved from table to table in an endless desperate fight against death.

  More men, tired and mudstained, soiled with their own excrement, men weary and weeping, men at the end of their tether and far, far beyond. Their pitiful, frightened faces as the bombs dropped – my own body rigid with fear as it huddled in the slit trenches while the enemy flew above. I heard my voice in the gas marquee again – singing, singing – as I pulled apart the seared eyelids and dropped liquid on to sightless, staring eyeballs. The war ended, but mine did not; the men still died, blue faces vomiting up their own lungs as the flu destroyed the survivors. And last of all, my brother, my own brother, choking and crying in my arms – until at last I reached for the syringe and plunged in the needle, and rubbed his arm with my palm and whispered, ‘It’s all right, Robbie – not much longer now, little brother.’

  Then the man stood up and leant over me and touched my face as he said, ‘But there is time now, my child – now there is time to grieve.’ And I knew he spoke the truth and I began to weep. I cried and slept and woke to cry again. I wept as they cleansed my body, I wept as they fed me, I wept as they washed my hair and laid it out on the pillow to dry – and I wept as they held me over the bed pan. Ben Holden came – I saw him through eyes blurred with tears, and still I wept on.

  Then, one day, the man came again, and his pale eyes held mine as he told me, ‘You have wept enough – now sleep.’ So I closed my swollen lids and slept. I slept as they washed me and made my bed. They woke me to eat and I swallowed in a daze; they held me over the bed pan and I was asleep by the time they lifted me off. I woke for a moment and saw Ben Holden, through sleep-blurred eyes, and heard him murmur, ‘Sleep, my Helena sleep, sweetheart,’ and I closed my eyes and slept again.

  Part VII

  DECEMBER 1920 to JANUARY 1922

  Chapter One

  But one day I woke up.

  The wall was white and empty in front of my eyes, so I turned my head a little and looked through the high window at the pale-blue sky outside. Grey wisps of cloud chased each other, like children playing tag – it must be windy today. The nurses sat me up to eat my breakfast and it was good to be sitting up and looking around me. The brass fender glinted in the light from the fire, and I smiled at the flames leaping and dancing behind it as I rested against the pillows, waiting. That morning Ben came.

  He wore his best serge suit and his round black toecaps shone with polishing.
His shirt was white and crisp, but his brown hair had ruffled a little where he had pulled off his cap too quickly, and he was panting slightly. He pulled up a chair and sat down at the foot of the bed. ‘How are you today, lass?’

  Smiling I said, ‘Better, Ben – I’m feeling better today.’

  He smiled back at me. ‘Aye, I can see that – you’ve woken up.’

  I nodded, slowly, because I had not long left my dreams. Then I asked, ‘What will you be doing today, Ben?’

  ‘I’m on at one, lass – that’s why I came so early. I’ll likely be doing a shunting turn at Sykes today. I won’t complain if I am – I had a rough shift yesterday, driving the banker up to Haslam. Boiler were overdue for a wash-out, so we had to keep opening draincocks and shutting regulator – just when we needed steam to get up bank.’

  ‘Did you get up the bank?’

  ‘Oh aye – we got her up at finish – with a bit of cursing and swearing!’

  We sat and looked at each other, then I asked, ‘How long have I been here, Ben?’

  ‘More’n two months now, lass – it’ll be Christmas ’afore very long.’

  ‘Christmas – I wonder if it will snow?’ I smiled. ‘I do hope it snows, just once.’

  ‘Aye, happen it will.’

  We sat in silence for a while; he held his cap between his knees and his blue-grey eyes never left my face. Then he stood up slowly. ‘I mun be going now, lass – take care of yourself. I’ll come again tomorrow.’ He moved to the doorway, pausing to look back at me again. ‘I love you, Helena.’ Then he was gone.

  I snuggled down in the warm bed and thought of this man whom I had abused and misused, humiliated and lied to – yet who still loved me.

  That afternoon the nurse came in smiling. ‘You have another visitor my lady – your cousin, Mr Finlay.’ Conan strolled in, tall and lithe; drawing up a chair to the foot of my bed he placed his cane and his hat and his gloves beside it on the carpet and sat down saying, ‘How are you, Hellie?’