Time Shall Reap

by Doris Davidson

  ‘It’s a bit like biding in a village, though,’ put in his wife. ‘Everybody kens everybody else’s business, and they’re just as narrow-minded as the folk in your Auchlonie, I’ll be bound, so we’ll need to make up a story about you to stop their tongues wagging, but we’ll wait till Jimmy’s away.’

  ‘I’m just going.’ He smiled at Elspeth on his way to the door. ‘I see you havena started yet, but maybe it’ll all be past before I come home at night.’ Giving a nod to his wife, he went out.

  Mrs Watson poured out a cup of tea for Elspeth, refilled her own then said, ‘Now, we’ll have to sort things out. Have you seen a doctor yet?’

  ‘No, I was feared the doctor would tell my mother.’

  ‘So you’ll not ken when you’re really due?’

  ‘Oh, aye, for I was only wi’ John ... once.’ The day they had spent together was too shameful to think about, and in any case, the conception could easily have taken place that night at the fireside. ‘In the second week o’ November.’

  According to Mrs Watson’s reckoning, Elspeth’s baby was due about the middle of August, any time now, and her own at the beginning of November, and they made their preparations for their coming infants in the warm summer afternoons – the girl was too conscious of her bulk to go out – talking ‘twenty to the dozen’ as Jimmy would have teased them if he had heard them.

  Elspeth told her landlady about her life in Auchlonie and Mrs Watson recalled the days of her youth in Peterhead, where her father had been a trawlerman, often away but free with his money when he was at home. ‘There was three o’ us – me and Rosie and Danny. Poor Danny.’

  Elspeth was curious. ‘Did something happen to him?’

  ‘He got tired o’ the trawling, and he come home one day and tell’t Mother he was going to Canada.’

  The girl’s heart turned over sickeningly. ‘My John was wanting to go to Canada, but his father wouldna sign the papers. I bet he wishes he had, now, for John would have been at the other side o’ the world when the war started, and he’d never have been killed.’ Her eyes swam with moisture at the thought of her dead lover.

  ‘If he’d went to Canada, you’d never have ken’t him.’

  ‘No, that’s right, I didna think. Well, I’m glad he never went.’ Elspeth paused. ‘Did Danny go?’

  Helen Watson smiled sadly. ‘Aye did he, and he wrote every week for a while, and said he was getting on fine, but the letters dwindled away and stopped.’

  ‘Did you never find out why he stopped writing?’

  ‘The last we heard, he was out o’ job, but about six month after that, my mother got word from a mission in Toronto that he’d died in their place. They said he was a vagrant immigrant, and they’d found her address in his pocket.’ Helen gave her eyes a furtive wipe. ‘Poor Danny, he must have been down and out at the finish.’

  Recalling that John had said he would never be down and out, Elspeth blinked her eyes and tried to hide her distress, but Helen had noticed and deftly changed to a cheerier topic.

  When Elspeth laundered the baby clothes, she marvelled at the convenience of the gas iron. The flat iron at home had to be heated on a trivet at the fire, and her mother had spat on it to see if it was hot enough. If it was, the spit formed into a ball and rolled off, then the iron had to be run over an old piece of cloth to clean it, but it cooled very quickly, and had to be put back on the trivet every few minutes. Mrs Watson tested hers by touching the base plate gingerly with a licked finger. It didn’t have to be cleaned, and kept its heat for as long as she wanted.

  When Jimmy came home just after six one evening, he said, ‘I could hear the two o’ you from the bottom o’ the stair. Your tongues would clip cloots.’

  ‘Away wi’ you.’ Helen smiled. ‘We was just having a quiet conversation, putting the world to rights, like.’

  Elspeth was amazed at the teasing that went on between them. There was never a dull moment, even when they played cards in the evenings. The Watsons had to teach her the rules, for her father had never allowed playing cards in the house, but she had learned quickly, and often beat them at Snap, Rummy and Strip-Jock-Naked. She was still not very good at Whist, because Jimmy played two hands, which totally confused her.

  ‘I ken some folk would think we’re heathens,’ Mrs Watson remarked on the Sunday, ‘but there’s nothing bad about playing cards on the Sabbath, as long as we’re not gambling. Playing for money would be a real sin.’

  On Monday, a letter arrived from Donald. ‘He never writes much,’ his mother said, after she’d read the single page, ‘but at least it shows me he’s still alive and thinking about me. You ken, Elspeth, maybe you should write to your mother and give her your new address. She’ll be wondering where you are, and she’ll be worried about you.’

  ‘She never answered the letters I wrote when I went to Janet’s first,’ the girl said, pouting a little.

  ‘Maybe she was still a bit mad at you for landing in trouble, but she’ll have cooled down by this time.’

  ‘Maybe she will.’ Elspeth had not thought of this before, and sat down in the afternoon with a pen and paper.

  ‘It’s from Elspeth,’ Willie Mavor remarked as he handed a letter to Lizzie. ‘It’s a good while since you heard from her, isn’t it?’

  ‘She likely hasna had time to write,’ Lizzie replied, rather frostily.

  Her patent unwillingness to talk about it did not stop the postman. ‘That’s the young generation for you. The minute they’re away, they forget about their mothers and fathers, but when they’re in trouble it’s us they turn to again.’

  ‘Aye.’ Lizzie edged the door shut a fraction.

  ‘I mind when our ...’

  ‘I’m sorry, Willie,’ she burst out, desperate to be rid of him, for he was worse than an old woman with his gossip, ‘I’m terrible busy the day.’

  He did not take offence. ‘That’s all right, Lizzie. I’ll hear about Elspeth another time.’

  Closing the door properly, she went across to her chair at the fire and opened the envelope warily, her eyebrows lifting when she saw the address. Elspeth had surely left Janet’s house, but Quarry Street? Who did she know there?

  Dear Mother,

  I met Mrs Watson on the train when I was coming to Aberdeen, and she managed to get out of me why I was so upset. I told her I was to be biding with my auntie and she said if we didn’t get on to come to her. I suppose you know Janet and me had a fight, and she put me out, so I came to Quarry Street, and Mrs Watson let me have her son’s room. He is in the Gordons.

  Lizzie took a deep, shuddering breath. Why had Elspeth fallen out with Janet, and why was she living with absolute strangers? And townsfolk had different morals from country folk – no morals at all, some of them. She bent her head to the letter again.

  I am very happy and the Watsons have promised to look after me when my time comes, which should have been past by now. They are very good folk, and he works at Rubislaw Quarry.

  Your loving daughter,

  Elspeth

  Lizzie’s heart was racing with anger at Elspeth for taking matters into her own hands. Janet was maybe difficult to get on with, but she’d been brought up as a good Christian and she would never have put Elspeth out, not with her so near her time, not unless she had done some-thing awful. The girl had gone off the rails altogether and didn’t deserve a mother’s love. Why should she worry about her, Lizzie thought, crumpling up letter and envelope furiously and flinging them into the heart of the fire, then watching with satisfaction as the paper curled and blackened. She had been afraid to answer the other two letters the girl had sent in case Geordie found out, but she wouldn’t dream of answering this, and she would burn any more that came without reading them. Elspeth had chosen to go her own way, well, let her see how she would get on. Geordie had been right all along. She was no daughter of theirs any longer.

  ***

  Elspeth had been worrying all night again, and approached Mrs Watson in the morning. ‘I ca
n’t expect you and your man to keep me for nothing ...’

  ‘It’s all right, lassie,’ Helen smiled. ‘Me and Jimmy’s been speaking about it, and we can easy keep you till ...’

  ‘I’ve got some money,’ Elspeth protested. ‘I paid my board to Janet out o’ my wages, but I’d to buy the hippens out o’ what my mother and Miss Fraser gave me. My last mistress, Mrs Robb the doctor’s wife, gave me enough gowns and vests and jackets to do for a while, and she’s promised me her old pram if somebody goes for it when I need it. So I’ve still got the five pounds I got from her when I left. That should see me through for a good while.’

  ‘Keep it for a rainy day,’ Jimmy said, draining his cup.

  His wife smiled. ‘Aye, you never ken when you might need it. You’re away then, Jimmy? I’ll tell her what we were saying last night.’ She turned to the girl again when the door closed. ‘We’re willing to feed you till after the bairn’s born and ...’

  ‘Oh, but I couldna take charity. My mother aye said ...’

  ‘It’s not charity, it’s what any decent folk would do for a lassie in trouble, and once you’re on your feet, and fit enough, you can take a job and you can start paying for your keep. Just think about it and you’ll see it’s the best way.’

  So overcome by the Watsons’ kindness, it did not occur to Elspeth to wonder what would happen to her child if she went out to work. It was enough for her that she would not have to worry about money, and that she would have something in hand for any emergencies that could arise in the future.

  She had received no reply to the letter she had sent to her mother to let her know where she was living now, and when she mentioned it, later in the day, Mrs Watson tried to excuse Lizzie. ‘Your auntie’s likely told them you’re not there any longer, and your father’s maybe that angry at you for fighting wi’ her he’ll not let your mother write.’

  Elspeth was practically sure that Janet would have told her father everything, including the fact that she was pregnant, so he probably had forbidden her mother to write, but she would send one more letter, just in case the first one had got lost. She still thought nostalgically about her parents at times, but life in Quarry Street was so free compared with what it had been in her own home and at Rosemount Viaduct that she was quite content where she was.

  On his way back for breakfast, Geordie had almost reached his own gate when he saw Willie Mavor coming, and waited to see if there were any letters for him.

  ‘Fine morning, Geordie,’ the postman observed, as he handed over an envelope, then added, ‘It’s to Lizzie from Aberdeen ... Elspeth, I think.’

  Receiving no reply, Willie swung his leg over the cross-bar of his bicycle again to carry on with his round, and Geordie stuffed the envelope into his pocket with trembling hands. When he went inside, Lizzie said, ‘I thought I heard the postie’s voice. Was there any letters?’

  ‘He was just passing the time o’ day wi’ me,’ her husband said, gruffly.

  Having wondered if Elspeth had written again, Lizzie let out her breath as she went through to the back kitchen. She wanted to know how her daughter was – her initial anger at the girl’s last letter had passed – but she was glad that there hadn’t been one today, for Willie Mavor would have given it to Geordie. She wished that she hadn’t destroyed the other one, for she couldn’t remember the address, and she meant to answer the next one, to let Elspeth know she still cared about her.

  As soon as his wife had turned her back, Geordie took out the envelope and dropped it in the fire. He would have liked to find out if his daughter was keeping well, but he didn’t want the ache in his heart starting up again. It was best this way.

  When another week had gone past, Elspeth grew very agitated. ‘It should have been by this time,’ she said one afternoon. ‘There must be something wrong.’

  ‘Don’t fret, lass,’ Mrs Watson comforted her, ‘first bairns are often late, and as long as you’re still feeling the bairn moving about inside you, there’s nothing wrong.’ She was sorry for her lodger, and wished that she could help, but it was into September and she was feeling burdened down herself, with her own time only six weeks off.

  When the girl’s labour finally began, the first sharp pain shooting through her lower abdomen about fifteen minutes after she went to bed, she ran through to the kitchen as soon as it had passed. ‘I think I’m started, Mrs Watson.’

  Jimmy, in the act of taking off his trousers, hastily pulled them up, and Helen turned round from washing her face at the sink, her hair, only faintly shot with grey and free of any hairpins, almost reaching her waist. ‘How many pains have you had?’

  ‘Just the one, but it was real bad.’

  Elspeth’s eyes were fixed beseechingly on the other woman, who said, gently, ‘It’ll maybe be hours yet before it’s born, so it’s too early to get the midwife. I’ll make us a pot o’ tea, an’ we’ll just sit a while.’

  Elspeth sat down, and Jimmy pulled his shirt back over his head, resigning himself to a long wait. He would have to fetch the midwife when the time came, so he’d have to forget about sleep for one night.

  They were still drinking the tea when the girl doubled over again, her mouth twisted with agony. ‘That’s less than ten minutes between them,’ the older woman remarked. ‘Maybe you’d best go now, Jimmy.’

  The man nodded and lifted his shoes off the fenderstool.

  ‘Finish your cup o’ tea first, Mr Watson,’ Elspeth whispered. ‘What’s a minute or two back an’ fore?’

  After the man went out, his wife said, ‘Have another cup o’ tea to settle your nerves, Elspeth.’

  The white-faced girl accepted the cup gratefully. ‘Did you have a bad time when Donald was born?’

  ‘It wasna very good,’ Mrs Watson laughed. ‘It aye seems bad at the time, but you forget about it quick.’

  Elspeth smiled wanly. ‘How long was it wi’ you?’

  ‘Och, that’s nothing to go by.’ Helen did not want to frighten the girl by telling her about the seventeen sweating hours it had taken to bring Donald into the world. ‘Every woman’s different, and when it’s past, you’ll be wondering what all the fuss was about.’

  ‘Aye, I suppose so, but I’m real scared.’

  ‘There’s nothing to be scared o’, it’s the most natural thing in the world. Even Queen Mary had to go through the very same. Oh, is that another one?’

  By the time Jimmy returned, Elspeth’s pains were strong and quick, but he shook his head at his wife when she looked up from wiping the girl’s brow. ‘The midwife wasna in. Her man said she was at another confinement.’

  Elspeth let out a low moan, whether from the pain or the disappointment, Helen couldn’t tell, but she said, briskly, ‘Well, I’ll manage myself. I ken what has to be done so you go back to your bed, lass, and Jimmy, you’d best go and lie down on the couch in the parlour, out o’ the road. You need your sleep, or you’ll not be fit for your work the morrow, and I’ll likely be trotting out and in here for water.’

  ‘I could easy boil the water for you,’ Jimmy offered.

  ‘No, no, I’ll manage.’ She allowed the girl to drag herself past before whispering to her husband, ‘If I need you, I’ll waken you, for God kens what’s in front o’ her.’

  ‘Aye, it’s best to be prepared.’ Jimmy shook his head again and went through to the best room.

  Elspeth knew she was dying. Nobody could suffer like this and come through alive. Any second now, she would find herself being welcomed by St Peter at the Gates of Heaven ... no, he wouldn’t welcome her, because ... the reason eluded her, but it was there, somewhere in her fuddled brain. With her eyes tightly closed, she prayed to be released from these unbearable dragging pains that were ripping her whole body apart.

  ‘Elspeth.’

  She wouldn’t answer. Why couldn’t she die in peace?

  ‘Come on, lass. You must keep pushing.’

  Her body responded to the insistent order in spite of her. Pushing ... pushing down. Pus
hing as hard as she was able.

  ‘That’s it, Elspeth. Now, just one more, that’s all.’

  Just one more? If it would end this purgatory, she would force herself to try. ‘Yaagh!!’ Who was crying out like a beast in mortal agony? ‘Yaagh!!’

  With excruciating speed, all her innards forced their way out of her and it was over. She was floating like a feather ... up and up in blessed freedom. Death was a great relief after the heavy burden, whatever it was, that had weighed her down for so long. It would be sheer tranquillity now, for all eternity.

  But ... a hand was rubbing her tender belly, she realized, with some irritation – an urgent hand, making the pain return, if not quite as bad as before. She had thought she was done with it. Must she suffer more?

  ‘I’m sorry, Elspeth, lass, but it’ll be a lot worse for you if I don’t get the afterbirth off you.’

  Afterbirth? Once, years ago, she had seen a calf being born, and her father had told her that the horrible bloody bag of waste which came out of the cow behind the calf was called the afterbirth – or placenta. She couldn’t have just given birth, surely? It would explain the pains and the aching void in her insides, but it couldn’t be possible, and she didn’t want to think about it – not with her father fresh in her mind.

  Something slipped out from between her legs, guided down by the disembodied, firm, pressing hand, and at last there was no more pain.

  ‘Good lassie.’

  It was a familiar voice, but she was too exhausted to make any effort to place it. She had to die, to get away from the shame she had brought on her father and mother. Shame? Now she remembered. That was why she would be turned away from the gates of Heaven. After the sin she had committed, she would be sent to Hell, to be burned in the ever-lasting flames. She fought now against the consuming lassitude. She didn’t want to die. She didn’t want to go to Hell. She longed for her mother’s comforting arms, but it wasn’t Lizzie’s voice that had talked her through the terrible ordeal. It was one she had known and trusted ... but whose?