Another Man's Child

by Anne Bennett

  ‘Let her sleep while she can,’ Sadie advised. ‘She’ll have plenty of work to do soon and if I were you I would close my own eyes too.’

  Celia was feeling very jaded, but didn’t think she’d sleep on the uncomfortable chair, but she lay back as far as she could and closed her eyes.

  She was woken with a jerk by a scream that went on and on, bouncing off the walls as Annabel writhed and thrashed on the bed, arching her back as the pain gripped her and pulling on the towel tied to the bed-post with such vigour that she threatened to pull the bedhead crashing down on top of her. The pains were not coming in waves any more but were relentless and unremitting like a wall of pain and Annabel would only pause to take a shuddering breath before the heartbreaking screeches began again.

  Sadie threw back the covers. ‘I can see the head,’ she yelled over the noise, but Celia doubted Annabel heard her for she seemed incapable of hearing anything much. ‘Nearly there, bonny girl,’ Sadie continued unabashed and then suddenly a cascade of water burst from Annabel with such force it hit the bedhead. ‘All right,’ Sadie said. ‘Now you have to push.’

  The screams had stopped as if Annabel had no energy left to scream but she was giving agonising moans and at Sadie’s words she shook her head vehemently from side to side. ‘I can’t.’

  ‘You can and you must,’ Sadie said and Celia joined in to encourage and cajole her to give one more push, and one more and again, over and over until the head was eased out by Sadie and a thin puny body slithered after it and lay still between Annabel’s legs. ‘It’s a girl,’ Sadie said, just as the doctor tore up the stairs.

  He had no time for the baby. ‘I would say this wee mite is too small and puny to survive,’ he said, handing the child to Sadie and Celia saw the tears glistening in Sadie’s eyes and felt a lump in her own throat as she gazed at the perfectly formed, tiny, wrinkled child.

  Annabel was too far gone to be aware of anything wrong with the child.

  ‘Something else for her to come to terms with,’ Celia said and she remembered Annabel had wished the child to die, but it was one thing to wish it and quite another for it to happen. She might feel guilty about those thoughts now.

  The doctor had witnessed the women’s distress and he said, ‘It’s always sad when a child dies, but if I do not tend to the mother now, she might go the same way.’ And both Celia and Sadie knew they had to swallow their sorrow in order to help the doctor as he said, ‘I really wish she had gone to hospital when I suggested it months ago for if she is to recover, hospital is her only option now.’

  Annabel seemed only semi-conscious after the birth and the doctor noticed this too. He was pressing on her stomach to help her deliver the placenta and said to Sadie, ‘Keep her with us if you can. Gives her more of a chance that way.’

  Sadie laid the baby in the cradle ready prepared and took her place beside Annabel, holding her hand and speaking to her in a fairly loud voice and Annabel’s eyes flickered open for a while, but showed no recognition before they closed again. Suddenly, the afterbirth was expelled, followed by a gush of blood.

  ‘Almighty Christ!’ the doctor cried and Celia stood almost transfixed at the scarlet stream pumping from Annabel and soaking into the mattress. The acrid stink of it was filling her nostrils when the doctor yelled at her, jerking her out of her appalled reverie. ‘Fetch towels for Christ’s sake and plenty of them and I’ll need use of the phone.’

  Celia ran to do the doctor’s bidding, glad to be doing something and also glad, if she was honest, to be away from the very sick young woman and wee dead baby, for every time she thought of them, tears prickled her eyes. But there was no time for tears, they were a luxury she couldn’t afford. As she came back with virtually every towel they possessed in her arms, she met Henry at the head of the stairs.

  ‘What is it?’

  Celia shook her head. ‘She’s bad, Henry. Very sick.’

  ‘Has she had the baby?’

  ‘Yes, it was a little girl, small and puny. She didn’t survive. I must get these towels for the doctor. He needs use of the phone, he said. I think he’s calling an ambulance.’

  Henry nodded briefly. ‘I’ll wait out here for him.’

  Celia didn’t answer but hurried from him and when she went into the room it was to find that Sadie and the doctor had raised the base of the bed on books.

  ‘May help a little,’ the doctor said gruffly as he packed the towels around Annabel. ‘But she is haemorrhaging and needs to be in hospital if she is to have any chance at all.’

  ‘Lord Lewisham, my br … brother, is waiting outside to show you where the phone is,’ Celia told him and it was as the door clicked behind the doctor that she heard the splutter from the cradle. So did Sadie and she lifted the child out and gave her a little shake.

  ‘The child may be small,’ Sadie said. ‘But despite all she is alive and I think she should have a chance.’

  Celia nodded. ‘And me.’

  Sadie parted the folds of the shawl and gave the baby a slap on the bottom and the baby roared in outrage and, as the newborn’s wails filled the room, Celia burst into tears.

  ‘Might be small but her lungs seem to be in full working order,’ Sadie said. ‘Let’s show Miss Cissy the beautiful daughter she has given birth to. It might give her the strength to fight if she has something to fight for.’

  Celia knew Annabel might not feel that way at all, but Sadie didn’t have to know that.

  Annabel lay as still as a stone and Celia initially thought the rigours of the birth had tired her out and she had fallen asleep. However, the room was quiet, too quiet, and Celia was handed the baby, whose screams had given way to small, hiccupping sobs. Sadie stepped forward and put her fingers on Annabel’s neck. Then she laid her head on her chest. She sprung away from the bed suddenly with a cry and said to Celia, ‘We have to have the doctor back in here quick and your brother better come in too,’ and she ran to the door and shouted for help.

  The doctor arrived first and he didn’t need to be told what the problem was. He began immediately pumping at Annabel’s chest and even the baby was quiet, slumbering in Celia’s arms as she stood like Henry and Sadie and willed Annabel to begin breathing again. She didn’t, however, and eventually the doctor stepped away from the bed and he spoke to them all as he said, ‘I’m sorry, she’s gone.’

  ‘Gone?’ Celia repeated and although the word hammered in her brain she couldn’t quite believe it. Women had babies all the time and they didn’t die from it. Sadie stepped forward to take the baby, but Celia held on to it. She could see that though Henry was heartbroken at the death of his beloved sister, he was struggling to control himself for to show such abject grief at the death of the friend of his sister might have sparked some speculation. So to distract him as much as anything else Celia said, ‘The baby rallied. She’s alive.’

  Henry took little notice. But the doctor was surprised. ‘You might lose her yet,’ he warned. ‘She is very small and undernourished because her mother wasn’t eating properly. You must take great care of her.’

  Henry looked at the baby for the first time and saw how small and frail she appeared and said, ‘You don’t have to take that on board on your own, Anna. I can engage a nurse.’

  Celia brushed the tears from her eyes and swallowed the lump that threatened to choke her and said, ‘Cissie wanted no nurse and I promised that I would help her. Now I would like to care for the baby in her memory.’

  Everyone was impressed when Celia said that and, though she meant what she said, she thought it would be a temporary arrangement until a foster family could be found for the baby. It did mean that she had to put aside her grief at the loss of Annabel to care properly for her child.

  FIFTEEN

  It was Sadie who bought bottles for the baby and showed Celia how to make up the National Dried powdered milk and stressed how important it was to properly sterilise the bottles and advised that she rub the teat with salt first to remove any residue of milk. Th
is was a strange thing for Celia and she had never bottle-fed a baby because her younger brother and sister, like most of the babies around, had been breast-fed.

  Sadie also showed Celia how to line the crib with cotton wool so that the baby would be kept extra warm and knew where the best suppliers of baby clothes and equipment were and wrote out a list of the child’s requirements for Henry to buy. Celia was immensely grateful to Sadie for her help and advice; Sadie thought, like Celia, that the best way to honour Annabel’s memory was to care for her child in the best way possible. The day-to-day care though was down to Celia and as the baby had to be fed little and often Celia’s days and nights were fully occupied.

  Henry had sent a telegram to his parents to inform them of Annabel’s death for he quite reasonably thought they might like to be involved in seeing the final resting place of their only daughter. But in their reply they said they would leave all arrangements to him and that they wouldn’t be attending. Henry was angered and shocked to the core that Annabel was not forgiven even in death for something that had not been her fault anyway.

  But one way or another his sister had to be buried, though it was a sad little funeral that took place at Erdington parish church a few days later. There was only Henry and Celia there as Janey and Sadie had stayed behind to look after the baby and make refreshments on the vague chance that someone might come back with them.

  Celia knew she had to attend that funeral to be some support for Henry so she didn’t bother explaining to him that Catholics were not allowed to attend services at other churches. She knew her soul would already be as black as pitch because she had missed Mass for months so one more transgression hardly mattered. Anyway, those at the house still thought she was Henry’s sister and would have thought it mighty odd if she hadn’t gone to the funeral of her dearest friend.

  Celia thought the service very short and quite shabby for a vibrant young girl not quite seventeen. The vicar delivered the eulogy and when he prayed for the young widow, Cissy McCadden, taken in childbirth, it gave Celia a shock, for all she had been semi-expecting it and she lifted her eyes and met Henry’s bleak ones. She knew she would have to speak with him soon about the subterfuge they had concocted, which surely wasn’t important now that Annabel was dead. As it was she thought it decidedly odd to follow the vicar in prayers for her own soul when she was alive and well.

  Later, they stood at the open grave for more prayers to be said and then they watched the coffin lowered into the hole dug ready. Henry threw the first clod of earth in and she followed suit and as her clod of earth landed with a dull thud she said her own private goodbyes to the girl she had become so fond of, tears stinging her eyes.

  Many times in the couple of days after the funeral she wondered where her future lay now. The plan had been that she would stay with Annabel and help her care for the baby until it was taken to its new foster home and then they would assume their correct names. Annabel would return home if she was let and Celia would go with her as her lady’s maid. Celia had often wondered if it would come off as Annabel wanted. She had no idea how things like this were done among posh people in these big houses.

  Annabel’s death threw their plans into disarray anyway and she wondered if Henry had thought of this. She needed to talk to him about the baby’s christening as well, despite the fact that he often seemed burdened with grief.

  Henry was in actual fact taking a long time to get over both his sister’s tragic death and the mean way she had been buried and two nights later he sought out Celia in the nursery after dinner. She had just laid the baby down after her feed and was surprised to see Henry at the door and she saw at once that he had been drinking heavily.

  ‘What is it, Henry?’ she said. ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘You can ask that after that fiasco of a funeral we both attended recently?’

  ‘Oh Henry.’

  ‘Don’t “Oh Henry me”,’ Henry said. ‘Annabel should never have been buried in that pitiful way. And maybe it’s my fault?’

  ‘How can that be?’

  ‘Well if I had announced who she was after she died,’ Henry said, ‘then Annabel would have had the proper funeral that she was entitled to. It would have been conducted in the family’s parish church and afterwards her body would have been laid in the family vault. Relations and friends would have come from far and wide to lament the cutting short of a young life and their sympathy might have been something of a comfort for all of us. And people would have expected my parents to be organising it and any reception to be at their house. They would have hated every minute of it, but been forced to do it because not to do so when it’s your own daughter who has died would look so odd. But it wasn’t their reaction that stopped me saying anything.’

  ‘So what was it?’ Celia asked.

  ‘It was the thought that everyone would want to know how she died and I couldn’t bear the thought of her memory being besmirched when she isn’t even here to defend herself. Especially if my parents had intimated that it was all her own fault, as they might. In fact her abuser might attend for he is a man my father tries to keep on the right side of. I couldn’t have borne seeing him there, knowing that it was his fault my sister died.’

  ‘I know it was,’ Celia said almost impatiently. ‘But there is no point in going over and over it. It won’t help or solve anything. It’s like poking a sore tooth.’

  ‘Dear, dear Celia,’ Henry said and she felt his deep dark eyes boring into hers and his voice was thickened by the tears that, as a man, he was unable to shed. ‘Whatever would I do without you?’

  She swallowed deeply as she said, ‘There are other things we must do and the first of these is a name for the baby for she must be christened.’

  Henry knew Celia was breaking off any tentative intimacy between them and sticking to practical things and she was right to do that. Anyway, she had a point for the baby couldn’t be called that for ever.

  ‘Did Annabel have any names in mind, do you know?’

  Celia shook her head. ‘Annabel tried not to think of the baby as a living, human being and didn’t discuss names at all.’

  ‘What about Grace?’ Henry said. ‘Her governess told her the story of Grace Darling when she was quite young and it fascinated her. She told me Grace Darling was the bravest woman she had ever heard about and one with the nicest name and after that, if ever she was playing some sort of pretend game, she always called herself Grace.’

  ‘That’s lovely,’ Celia said. ‘I’m sure that Annabel would like her daughter called after someone she so admired, but what of a family name as well? What is your mother called?’

  ‘Catherine.’

  ‘Well Grace Catherine goes well together,’ Celia said. ‘Would your mother like the child named for her or would she be affronted?’

  ‘I don’t know what would please or offend my mother because just at the moment I feel I don’t know her at all, nor my father either. You know, Celia, when I was growing up and living at home I never thought for one moment that there would ever come a time when either Annabel or I would do something bad enough to be cast out of the family so completely. The way they have treated Annabel, even after her life was snuffed out, beggars belief.’

  ‘It probably wouldn’t happen to you, the son of the house,’ Celia said. ‘In Ireland the sons generally have a much easier time. Anyway, you couldn’t have a child out of wedlock and that seems to be the worst thing any girl can do and yet the father of the child is seldom blamed in the same way.’

  ‘I know,’ Henry said. ‘It’s not at all fair, is it?’

  ‘No, but all the talking in the world won’t change it,’ Celia said. ‘Meanwhile Grace Catherine is a lovely name and if that offends anyone then that’s just hard luck.’

  So with no pomp and very little ceremony Grace Catherine was christened in the same church that had held the funeral service for her mother just days before. By necessity, for there was no one else, Henry was her godfather and Celia her go
dmother.

  Henry thought the child should have been wearing the Lewisham family christening gown that had been handed down through the family for years but Celia refused to let him dwell on that and reminded him that the child was two weeks old, and wouldn’t care if she was christened in a sack.

  ‘Christening her and giving her a name is far more important than the clothes she was wearing,’ Celia said. ‘So let’s go home now and never give the Lewisham christening gown another thought.’

  Andy wasn’t to know when he sent the letter that his brother was courting a girl from Donegal Town and that she knew all about Andy McCadden running off with Celia Mulligan. Most of the young chaps were not that surprised for they had seen the behaviour of the two of them at the dances and they were prepared to be understanding for both Andy and Celia were well liked.

  Once the Guards had been informed to try and apprehend the pair before they went to England, there was no way their disappearance could be kept secret. Then there was the tale Seamus Docherty had come back from England with, saying he had bumped into Andy on the platform at the station in Liverpool.

  ‘Told me he was going to try to get set on in the building trade there,’ he’d tell anyone who wanted to hear and more especially if they bought him a pint to lubricate the throat. ‘Pack of lies of course for if he was biding in Liverpool why did he then take a train bound for Birmingham and that Celia Mulligan along with him?’

  Now there was this letter just out of the blue from Andy that Maeve, Chris’s girlfriend, told Norah about when she met her in the town. ‘And you say that he never mentioned Celia once?’

  ‘No, that’s what struck Chris as so odd,’ Maeve said. ‘I mean, according to Seamus Docherty – and there’s no point in him lying – they travelled to Birmingham together, or at least in that direction, so where is she now? Puzzling, isn’t it?’

  Puzzling and damned worrying, Norah thought as she made for home later, all the way worrying about Celia and where in God’s name she could be. She knew that Andy McCadden was the key to it, but according to Maeve he had no address they could write back to and, as he claimed he was working on a canal boat, which she supposed was going up and down all the time, Norah could see that that could be the truth.