‘You just wait till she’s a bit bigger,’ Nell said as she laid Betsy down on a towel and removed the sodden napkin. ‘You’ll find it hard to deal with the washing. But come on, get that letter read; I want to hear his news.’
Hope sat back down and opened the envelope. It was only one page, and at the second line she blanched.
‘Oh no,’ she gasped. ‘Bennett’s sick.’
She continued to read, and when she’d finished she dropped the letter in her lap and covered her face in her hands.
‘Tell me?’ Nell said, hastily putting Betsy back in her crib and moving to drop on her knees in front of her sister. ‘What does the letter say?’
‘You read it, I can’t. I think he must be dead.’
Nell picked up the letter and took it over to the window for better light.
‘Dear Hope,’ she read.
I hope you are well and that the baby has arrived by now, I also
fervently hope that Bennett is now home with you and recovering his
health. I have just got back from being off with the cavalry for a
while, and of course I went looking for him only to be told he’d been
taken sick with fever. By the time I got down to the hospital he’d
already been sent off to Scutari.
Nell stopped reading when she heard Hope wail. ‘It’s all right, my love.’ Nell dropped the letter and moved over to comfort her sister. ‘He doesn’t say Bennett’s dead, only that he was sent off because he was sick.’
‘That letter is dated 20 August,’ Hope sobbed. ‘Bennett had already been ill for a while then – if he’s alive, why hasn’t he written?’
‘You know how erratic the post is from there,’ Nell said soothingly. ‘Bad news travels faster than good, we all know that. If he’d died you would have heard.’
‘You don’t know what it’s like there,’ Hope insisted. ‘Men die all the time and sometimes no one knows who they are.’
‘But he’s an officer,’ Nell said firmly. ‘They don’t lose them!’
Hope looked up at Nell with fear-filled eyes. ‘They took him to Scutari, Nell. That place is a hell-hole, everyone knows that. He’s dead. He’s never coming back to me.’
Chapter Twenty-five
Nell woke with a start, sat up and fumbled for the candle. Betsy was screaming and it was clear that once again Hope wasn’t going to move to comfort her.
It had been this way for days now, and Nell was at the end of her tether. She got out of bed, pulled a shawl over her shoulders, and taking the candle, padded barefoot across the landing into Hope’s room.
‘There, there, my little love,’ she said as she scooped the baby up into her arms. ‘Nell’s got you now.’
Betsy was soaking wet and clearly very hungry, sucking at her little fists.
Nell stripped off the wet nightgown and napkin and replaced them with dry ones, then moved closer to the bed. Hope was just the same way she’d been for days, lying flat on her back, staring into space, seemingly unaware of anything.
‘You must feed Betsy,’ Nell said.
When Hope didn’t reply, or even look at her, Nell called her name, tugged at her arm and repeated her request, louder this time. There was still no response.
‘What will Bennett say if he comes back and finds his child half-starved?’ Nell said angrily. ‘You are her mother, for God’s sake!’
‘He won’t come back. He’s dead.’
An icy shudder ran down Nell’s spine at the cold and expressionless tone of her sister’s voice.
‘If he is dead, then all the more reason for you to take care of his baby,’ Nell spat at her. ‘Sit up this minute and put her to your breast.’
Betsy began to scream again; even in the gloom of one candle Nell could see that her face was almost purple with rage.
‘You are inhuman. This little scrap wants nothing more than your milk. You can lie there for as long as you like feeling sorry for yourself, but you’ll feed her first.’
Nell put the child down on the bed and wrenched Hope’s nightdress open. Her breasts were as big as melons, the veins standing out because they were so engorged with milk. ‘You will let her feed. I won’t stand by and let you be so selfish.’
She picked up Betsy and put her to Hope’s breast. She latched on hungrily, but still Hope didn’t attempt to cradle her in her arms, or even look at her.
Nell perched on the bed supporting the baby, so tired she felt she could drop to the floor at any minute, but she knew she couldn’t go back to bed until Betsy’s hunger was satisfied and she was back in her crib.
She could have understood Hope’s reaction better if she’d been informed officially of Bennett’s death. But the Captain clearly didn’t think he was dead, so why should Hope believe it to be so?
After some twenty minutes of feeding, Betsy fell asleep. Nell took her from Hope’s breast and winded her, then put her back into the crib. As she turned back to Hope, she saw she hadn’t even covered her breasts.
‘Can’t you even cover yourself?’ Nell said angrily. ‘Do you know how tired I am? Can’t you think of anyone but yourself?’
There was no reply, and Nell was so incensed that she slapped Hope’s face hard. But it had no effect – her sister just lay there as before, as if she couldn’t see, hear or feel anything.
‘You’re wicked,’ she shouted. ‘Even the most miserable wretches that end up in the workhouse will take care of their own. As soon as it’s light I’m going to send for Dr Cunningham, because I don’t know what to do with you any more.’
She left the room then, fearing she’d do the girl a mischief if she remained with her.
‘I don’t know what to do, Master Rufus,’ Nell sobbed when he dropped by the next morning. ‘I’m all in, I can’t do no more.’
Rufus had been in Keynsham collecting some corn for his chickens and on an impulse decided to stop off at Willow End to see Hope and her baby. The moment he saw Nell he knew something was drastically wrong. Her eyes were puffy with crying and she looked completely exhausted.
Then she related how it had been for her in the last ten days since Captain Pettigrew’s letter and began crying again, sobbing out that she was afraid Hope would end up in an asylum.
Rufus hadn’t seen Hope since the day she came over to the gatehouse, but Matt and Amy had called just a few days after Betsy’s birth and they’d reported back to him that both mother and child were doing well, in fact they said they’d never seen a happier new mother.
He hadn’t heard about the letter from Angus Pettigrew, however. If he had, he would have called immediately.
Rufus could well imagine that getting such a shock so soon after giving birth would be shattering, but like Nell he couldn’t understand why it would make Hope reject her baby.
Nell showed him the letter from Angus, but to him it didn’t sound unduly alarming, for there were only three or four lines about Bennett and the rest was taken up with what the Captain had been doing and the plans for yet another bombardment of Sebastopol.
‘He wouldn’t have written about Bennett’s sickness so lightly if he thought there was a possibility he might die,’ Rufus said.
‘No, he wouldn’t,’ Nell sobbed. ‘But it is suspicious that Bennett hasn’t written himself. Even if he was so poorly he couldn’t hold a pen, surely he would have asked someone to write for him?’
Rufus agreed on that point, but he had no intention of encouraging Nell to think the worst. ‘He probably did, but it just hasn’t got here,’ he said firmly. ‘Now, you go and rest, Nell. I’ll go and talk to Hope.’
Rufus walked into Hope’s room without knocking and went straight to the window to pull the curtains back. Betsy was asleep in her crib, but as he turned back from the window and saw how much Hope had changed since he last sawher before the birth, his heart sank.
She had been glowing then, her cheeks pink and plump, her eyes sparkling the way they did when she was a young girl. Now her face was thin,
white and drawn, and her dark eyes were blank and lifeless.
He sat on the edge of the bed and took one of her hands in his. ‘This won’t do, Hope,’ he said gently. ‘I’ve read the letter from Angus and there is nothing in it to suggest Bennett is dead. You know perfectly well that post can be delayed for weeks coming from the East. And, as Nell says, bad news travels at twice the speed of good. If he had died you would have been informed by now.’
‘They’ve buried him without knowing who he was,’ she replied, her face contorted by grief. ‘That happened many times out there.’
‘Maybe it did with rank and file, but not officers,’ he insisted. ‘Nell has written back asking Angus to find out more. But meanwhile you must remember you are a mother and have a duty to take care of Betsy.’
‘I can’t,’ she said wearily.
‘You named her after your friend who died. You didn’t neglect her in her hour of need. You stitched up the Captain when he was wounded, and nursed countless other men too. Are you telling me they were more important than your own little baby?’
‘You don’t understand,’ she said, turning her head away from him.
Rufus put his hand on her cheek and drew her head round to face him again. ‘Just because I’m a man without a child of my own doesn’t mean I can’t understand the torment you are in. I have taken care of my mother since Briargate was burned down; I’ve dealt with her endless self-recriminations, the tears and the explosions of rage. There were days she couldn’t wash or dress herself, when she wouldn’t eat, and paced the floor at night instead of sleeping. I was afraid that I might have to put her in an asylum. Nell is afraid that is where you are heading.’
‘They can put me anywhere; it’s all the same to me.’
‘I don’t believe that,’ Rufus exclaimed, his voice rising in agitation. ‘You might feel like that now, but you can beat it because you are strong. You have to get out of that bed, pick Betsy up and think only of her. In a little while you’ll find she will be a comfort to you.’
‘What do you know?’ she snarled at him. ‘You grew up in luxury. While you were still sleeping in your featherbed I was clearing the grates, scrubbing floors, carrying your damned mother’s slops, even cleaning up your father’s vomit. If it wasn’t for Bennett I’d have been forced to live my whole life in a rookery. I might have had to sell myself just to eat. I can’t live without him.’
‘You can if you have to,’ Rufus said, holding her two arms and shaking her a little. ‘Remember, you are the girl who ran away from Albert, who had the courage to stay away because you didn’t want him to hurt Nell. You bravely worked in St Peter’s, nursing those whom no one else would. Angus wrote home and told us that the men over in the Crimea worshipped you for what you did for them. A woman who can do all those things can nurse her own baby, even if her heart is breaking.’
She stared at him with blank eyes. ‘Loving Bennett was what made me strong then,’ she said. ‘He filled up all the empty places inside me. You don’t know what that’s like.’
Rufus looked at her, and tenderly stroked her face. ‘Don’t I? You think you are the only one with empty places inside you? I might have slept in a featherbed, Hope, but I never had the kind of love you had from your family. My father was either out somewhere or drunk, and Mother only spent an hour a day with me at most. It was Ruth and Nell who took care of me and I always envied you because you had their love. Have you any idea what hell I went through at school? Beaten by the masters and the older boys, half-starved, always cold during the winter. I felt I was sent away as a punishment, but I didn’t understand what I’d done to deserve it.
‘As for the years after you disappeared, I had nothing and no one at Briargate, not you, not Nell, no one. Baines was too old to do anything; Mother and Father skulked in the study while Albert strutted around like he was lord and master. It was hell at school, but misery at home.’
He sawa slight softening in her expression and knew he must continue.
‘I only went to Oxford to get away,’ he said. ‘But I never fitted in there either. They called me “Farm Boy”, and other crude terms I can’t repeat. It was only at Matt’s farm that I felt I was worth something.’
Betsy began to cry and Rufus got off the bed and went over to the crib.
‘Hello, little one,’ he said, bending to pick her up. ‘Now, stop screwing your face up like that, it doesn’t become you.’
Holding her against his shoulder, he stood by the window with her. ‘Your mother saved my life years ago,’ he told the baby. ‘She once said that she was angry that her mother had given up and died and left her alone. Personally I thought that was a bit strong, after all, the poor woman was very sick. What do you think, Betsy? Should a mother put her husband or her child first? Would you understand if your mother turned her back on you because she was afraid of living without your father?’
He heard a faint sniff from behind him, and knew Hope was crying.
‘She was the prettiest, funniest, liveliest girl for miles around,’ he went on, kissing Betsy’s little head. ‘Brave as a lion, kind, caring and as sharp as a box of knives. Not the kind of person you’d expect to end her days in an asylum at all. I hoped too that she was going to come up to Briargate soon and give me her opinion on whether I could turn the stables into a house for Lily and me.’
He turned as the sobbing became louder. Hope was distraught, tears pouring down her face as her head thrashed from side to side on the pillow.
Nell had told him that Hope hadn’t cried, apart from briefly when the letter first arrived. She said it was as though her sister’s spirit had left her and all that was left was a shell. But as he looked at Hope now he thought maybe these tears were necessary to free that spirit from whatever dark place it had hidden itself in.
It hurt to watch her anguish – he wanted to take her in his arms and comfort her. But he had Betsy in his arms and he knew that his role today must be as her protector.
So he watched and waited patiently until Hope’s tears began to subside and she fumbled for a handkerchief to blow her nose and dry her eyes. She looked terrible, her face blotchy and red and her eyes swollen. But it was better than the blank nothingness there had been before.
‘You’ll feed her now,’ he said. It was an order, not a question, and he was relieved when she nodded.
‘Good girl,’ he said, and laid Betsy on the bed for a moment. He helped Hope sit up, wiped the tears from her cheeks and plumped the pillows up behind her back, then put the infant in her arms.
‘I’d like to stay and keep you company while you feed her,’ he said with a smile. ‘But I don’t think Nell would approve of that! I’ll be downstairs, though – just call when you’ve finished.’
He paused at the door, relieved to see she was cradling Betsy tenderly.
‘You aren’t alone, Hope,’ he said softly. ‘You’ve got so many people who love you. Come what may, we’ll never desert you.’
Rufus felt as if he’d been wrung out as he walked downstairs and into the kitchen. Nell was still slumped at the table.
‘She’s feeding Betsy now,’ he said, putting his hand on Nell’s bowed shoulders. ‘I’ll stay for the rest of the day, now go and lie down.’
‘But there’s meals to be got, napkins to wash,’ Nell protested.
‘Dora can do that,’ he said gently, for he could see Nell was almost as distraught as Hope. ‘It won’t hurt to let things slide for now. You’ve worked so hard all your life, Nell, it’s high time you took a rest when you need one.’
He helped her to her feet and hugged her to him. It seemed such a short time ago that he had been a little boy running to her and burying his head in her soft breasts for comfort. Now she was the small one, her head only reaching his chest, and he hoped he was comforting her.
‘I think she’ll be all right now,’ he said soothingly. ‘You Rentons are made of stern stuff. I’ll write to the Captain today too. Now the war over there is drawing to a close, maybe he can
go to Scutari and find Bennett for us.’
Three weeks later, Rufus arrived at Willow End again, this time with a pony and buggy, to take Hope and Betsy to see his mother.
He felt a surge of absolute delight when Hope came out eagerly, wearing a becoming red hat with a jaunty feather, and with Betsy tucked beneath her red-checked cloak. Rufus had been in and out several times in the last three weeks, and although Hope still hadn’t heard anything more about Bennett she appeared only worried and tense, not melancholic.
Yet today she looked really well again, her smile bright and her colour good. A little thin, perhaps – Nell had reported she wasn’t eating very well. But she looked much better.
Nell was just behind them. As always, she wore a snowy-white apron over her dark dress and a lace-trimmed mob cap.
Rufus jumped down from the buggy and took Betsy from Hope’s arms, pretending to nearly drop her. ‘My goodness, you’re getting heavy. I don’t know if Flash will want to pull you all that way!’
‘She’s a greedy girl and no mistake,’ Nell said fondly. ‘And you take good care of them, Rufus, and get them back before dark.’
‘It’s so good to see the sun again, even if it is very cold,’ Hope said. She sprang up into the buggy and held out her arms for the baby. ‘All that rain we’ve had! I haven’t set foot outside for the past four days.’
‘This might be the last good day before winter comes upon us,’ Rufus said. ‘The animals’ drinking troughs were iced over this morning, and all the leaves have come down now.’
He got up into the buggy beside Hope, tucked a rug over her knees and pulled her cloak a little closer over the baby. Then, lifting his cap to Nell, he clicked at the horse and they set off down the road.
Hope leaned out beyond the buggy’s hood and waved goodbye to Nell. ‘She isn’t entirely happy about me going to Briargate. There’s something between her and your mother; do you know what it is?’
Rufus glanced sideways at her and grinned. ‘Reckon it’s just that business of Mother not supporting her when you disappeared.’
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