Brackenbeck

by Margaret Dickinson

  Jim never mentioned Anthony’s idea to her, nor she to him. But he was no longer content to let her hide herself away in Kendrick House.

  ‘Katharine, you’re coming out with me on Sunday if it’s fine and not too cold.’

  ‘No, Jim, I’d rather not, please.’

  The frown returned to his eyes.

  ‘Katharine, you’re coming.’

  She looked up at him and read the determination in his face. She sighed and said no more. Argument was useless and besides she could not be bothered to argue. She hoped for rain, but the afternoon of the following Sunday was fine and as warm as one could expect on a late February day on the moors. Jim carried her out to the car and solicitously wrapped a warm rug round her.

  ‘It’s sometimes rather chilly in this contraption up on the moors,’ he joked.

  This was the first time Katharine had seen the motor car at close quarters. She found herself sitting high up on the front seat. It was comfortable but as Jim had said, a little draughty, but in her new coat, Katharine was warm enough. The only protection was given by the windscreen.

  ‘I thought we’d drive up on the moors rather than through the village,’ Jim said, climbing up beside her. Katharine was grateful for his thoughtfulness.

  This was also her first ride in a motor car and for the first time since the accident, she found herself captivated by the experience. They chugged along the road, shouting to each other above the noise.

  ‘Jim, it’s marvellous. I had no idea.’

  ‘See what you’ve been missing. You should have come weeks ago.’

  Katharine nodded.

  Up on the moors it was cold, but still pleasant. Jim stopped the car on the roadside, right at the edge of the moorland.

  Katharine could not help but notice and be amused at the change which came over Jim as they sat in the car gazing at the scene. He was usually rather quiet and reserved, even though he was obviously so much happier, but here on the moors it was as if a spring were released in him and all his love for the moorlands and hills was unleashed and came rushing out like the bubbling beck itself. He knew the moorlands in every season, knew their every mood – the bitter cruelty of their savage winter, the unwilling spring and then the summer, never warm, but always retaining that austerity, and still he loved them and never seemed to tire of talking of them or visiting them. His eyes would roam over the dark, craggy hills rising from the moors covered with heather or springy bracken. The long rough grass waved in the breeze and always, not far distant, there seemed to be the sound of rushing water, for everywhere there seemed to be streams tumbling over the rough rocks hurtling down, twisting and gurgling.

  The whole effect was of sombre, massive beauty, but Katharine felt it was a man’s country, the only delicate beauty seeming to be the white-boiled cotton grass on the moors and the blue harebells. The curlew, with its melancholy cry as if he too mourned the bleakness of the place, wheeled above them. Only the acrobatic lapwing, the bird Katharine had seen on her first arrival, but whose name she only learnt now from Jim, seemed incongruous in the sorrowful, desolate surroundings. Even the grouse with its ‘go-back, go-back’ cry, seemed to reject visitors to its domain.

  The moors and hills were home to Jim and the car rides to the moors became more frequent in the spring and summer. But Katharine hardly enjoyed them, her first interest in his motor having waned, and she would long to return home. All the time she remained silent, listening to Jim, but still taking no really active part, no lively, questioning interest.

  At times she would see him watching her, the frown deep on his forehead and his eyes full of untold misery.

  And she would feel ashamed.

  July brought a letter from Elizabeth.

  ‘I have two weeks’ holiday, next month,’ she wrote, ‘though how I’ve managed it I don’t know. We’re so short of staff at the moment. I wonder if I might come north to see you? The coolness of those moors of Jim’s are calling me from these sun-baked streets. Oh Katharine, it’s unbearably hot here …’

  Katharine was delighted. At last a contact with her hospital – only it was no longer hers.

  But she awaited Elizabeth’s arrival with pleasurable anticipation – eager for news of the world she had left behind and for which she still hungered. She voiced none of this to her husband, but, although he too seemed pleased at the prospect of a visit from Elizabeth, she wondered whether the puzzled look so often in his eyes now included surprise at the change in Katharine. She knew herself to be looking forward to her friend’s visit and she could not hide it. Her eyes were brighter and she made plans and preparations – more so than she had done for the family at Christmas.

  Jim seemed quiet and withdrawn and grew more so as Katharine’s pleasure in Elizabeth’s visit increased. She feared he guessed the underlying reason for her interest, but still he said nothing.

  Elizabeth would bring back medicine into her life – more so than could Anthony for through Elizabeth, Katharine could recapture and conjure up the feel of the hospital. She could not understand herself why, even though she shrank from undertaking any work here in Brackenbeck, as Anthony had suggested, still, against her better judgement, she thirsted for news of her child patients in London. If it had done nothing else, she realised, Brackenbeck had helped sweep away much of the bitterness in her heart that she had fostered in her lonely room in London against her own colleagues in the medical profession – an unreasonable bitterness she realised now.

  But Katharine was somewhat thwarted in her intentions, for when Elizabeth had been welcomed to Kendrick House, she soon made it quite clear that she considered herself on holiday.

  ‘Katharine, my dear, I want to forget all about that place for two heavenly weeks,’ Elizabeth said in reply to Katharine’s questions. Katharine could not prevent the disappointment from showing on her face.

  ‘I think,’ Jim said quietly, his eyes never leaving Katharine’s face, ‘that she has been counting on your visit, Elizabeth, to recapture her life at the hospital.’

  ‘How very perceptive of you,’ Katharine said bitterly and saw Elizabeth’s eyebrows rise in astonishment. Katharine’s remark – totally unlike her – had obviously shocked her friend and indeed, had surprised her husband. But her anger at Elizabeth’s refusal to discuss the hospital life with her and finally at Jim having guessed the truth had caused her to vent her chagrin upon her husband.

  ‘I’ll have to be going,’ he said. ‘I’ll see you at dinner, Elizabeth.’

  And he strode from the room without a backward glance at his wife.

  ‘Kate, dear. I’m sorry if I’ve disappointed you. But to tell the truth, we’ve been so short-staffed just lately that I’m so weary with it all. Perhaps,’ she added placatingly, ‘after a week or so I’ll feel more like it, but please,’ she raised her hands in mock despair, ‘spare me for the moment.’

  Katharine sighed.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said with contrition. ‘And I’m even sorrier that Jim saw through me. I didn’t want to hurt him.’

  ‘Well, I think you have done,’ said the forthright Elizabeth. ‘I don’t know about you, Kate. A fine man like Jim for a husband and you still hanker after practising as a doctor. And here I am dying to meet some handsome young man with a small fortune.’

  Katharine smiled, cheered even against her will by Elizabeth’s buoyant good humour.

  Katharine had invited Anthony to dinner again in the hope that his presence would increase the possibility of the conversation turning to medicine. But because of the incident earlier in the day, at dinner she wished to avoid the topic.

  The atmosphere between Katharine and Jim was decidedly strained, though he gave no indication to his guests that anything was wrong. He was courteous and polite towards his wife and helped her as usual whenever necessary. But the tender solicitude was missing. Katharine realised that not only had she hurt Jim because he loved her, but she had also insulted his pride before Elizabeth. And that she knew was unforgi
vable.

  The feeling of tension was somewhat lessened by the fact, which became more obvious as the evening progressed, that Anthony and Elizabeth were immediately mutually attracted. Indeed, so absorbed in each other did they become that had Jim’s attitude been at all noticeable to either of them, they would have been far too engrossed in each other to realise it.

  The conversation, centred upon general topics, touched lightly here and there, as might be expected, on the subject of medicine, but it certainly did not monopolise the talk. And because, more and more now, Katharine was ashamed of her behaviour, she hated the very sound of the subject and shuddered every time the conversation turned in that direction. She tried to emulate Jim’s attitude and play the charming hostess, but as time passed and it was obvious that Anthony and Elizabeth needed little help from anyone else to keep their conversation going, she fell silent. Jim too spoke little, but he seemed to Katharine to be listening intently to what his guests had to say, occasionally adding a comment of his own. And whilst she frequently glanced at him, trying to read his expression, he, on the other hand, never once looked at her directly. His face, usually so easy to read, was a mask of indifference. Only the deep frown between his heavy eyebrows gave any indication of his inner conflict.

  ‘I am longing to see these famous moors of yours,’ Elizabeth was saying. Her blue eyes twinkled merrily at Anthony and her dark curls, which she tried to smooth into an elegant style, escaped and curled becomingly round her face. She was wearing a cream-coloured silk chiffon dress covered with tulle and guipure lace, and looked, Katharine thought, utterly charming. Anthony, smiling back at Elizabeth, seemed completely captivated.

  ‘And may I make so bold as to offer to show them to you?’

  ‘Why, I’d be delighted,’ she replied in mock surprise, though no one in the room was in much doubt that they both wished to meet again and soon.

  And so it was arranged that on the following afternoon Anthony would escort Elizabeth up the hills and on to the moors.

  ‘Of course, I don’t expect you will like them,’ Anthony said. ‘City girls don’t you know. Kate doesn’t, do you Kate?’

  And Anthony and Elizabeth both looked towards her, but not Jim. There was a slight pause as they waited for her answer. And she knew that, though he was not looking at her, Jim too was waiting for her reply.

  ‘In my case, it’s rather difficult. I’m one of these stupid people who never value anything until they have lost it. Most likely if I had to leave Brackenbeck now, and the moorland, I should miss it.’

  Her remark had deeper meaning than any of the other three could guess. She had left Brackenbeck once and only she would ever know how much she had missed the place, and its people, during her five years away from it. She had lost her ability to be a doctor, and a woman doctor at that. In the process losing her personal fight for the emancipation of women. And she had, at first, bitterly resented the loss. Now, if she were not careful, she could in her own foolishness lose her husband’s love. And in so doing, would she, she asked herself, only then find out how much this man really meant to her?

  She sighed. It was time she came to terms with life and sorted out her feelings.

  The evening ended. And as Jim carried her upstairs later, Katharine put her arms round his neck and buried her face against his shoulder.

  ‘I’m sorry, Jim,’ she whispered. ‘ Please forgive me.’

  He laid her gently on the bed and stroked her hair. She saw he was smiling, though his smile was tinged with sadness.

  ‘Forget it, my dear. I try to understand, but sometimes, it is difficult …’

  Katharine shook her head.

  ‘It’s all my fault, Jim. But I do so hate being like this. If only I could walk again, everything would be all right, I know it would.’

  ‘Katharine, please don’t … oh, never mind,’ he sighed distractedly and walked from the room.

  Obviously she had said the wrong thing once more. But here she felt that it was Jim who was being unreasonable. Why should he not want her to walk again?

  But this was a question she could not answer.

  Elizabeth’s visit passed all too quickly. And it seemed that Katharine saw little of her, for she spent most of her holiday in Anthony’s company, whenever the two could contrive it.

  ‘Oh Kate,’ she said on her last morning in Brackenbeck. ‘I have been so discourteous to you. Can you forgive me?’

  Katharine laughed.

  ‘There is nothing to forgive, Elizabeth. I am only too happy that you have enjoyed your stay. You have, haven’t you?’

  ‘Oh Kate, I can’t tell you just how much. Kate,’ she added in a confidential tone. ‘Please don’t say anything, not even to Jim, for I don’t know how Anthony feels, but as far as I’m concerned, I’ve found my handsome young man.’

  ‘But he doesn’t have a small fortune,’ Katharine smiled at the happy face of her friend.

  ‘Oh that! I shan’t give that a second thought,’ she said, blushing prettily.

  ‘When shall you be seeing him again?’

  ‘I don’t know. He hasn’t said anything. You see, I may be imagining it all. Perhaps it’s nothing more to him than just a casual acquaintanceship.’

  ‘He’s taking you to the station this morning, isn’t he?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then I’ve no doubt he’ll make his intentions clear when you have to part. And I want to know, and as Anthony is not likely to tell me, I want a letter from you immediately you get home.’

  Elizabeth laughed.

  But evidently their expectations were not forthcoming, for when Elizabeth’s letters arrived, it told of no ‘declaration’ from Anthony. In fact, she only casually referred to him in passing. Katharine was disappointed. She had hoped that it was the beginning of a romance, which could culminate in her friend coming to live in Brackenbeck.

  The weeks passed and during the summer days, Jim still took Katharine on excursions to the moors. She began to enjoy these outings a little more than she had done previously. And because Jim seemed so much happier here, in the open countryside, she chose their last visit to the moors before winter closed in, on a cool autumn day, to tell him.

  ‘Jim,’ she said suddenly as they moved slowly along a rough path, the car jogging up and down. ‘Stop the car. I want to tell you something.’

  He did so immediately and turned to face her.

  ‘What is it, my dear?’ he said as the noisy engine died away.

  ‘Jim, I’ve something to tell you.’

  ‘Yes?’ he prompted gently.

  ‘We – I’m going to have a child,’ she heard her voice say in curiously flat tones. She watched his face as the realisation and joy spread over it. He took her hand in his and raised it to his lips.

  ‘My dearest,’ his voice was husky.

  ‘You’re – you’re pleased?’

  ‘Of course, of course. It will be a son. Or a girl like you. Just like you.’

  She made no reply.

  ‘You’re – you’re not pleased?’ he asked, bewilderment in his tone.

  She shrugged and looked away over the flatness of the moor to the rugged outline of the hills, clear-cut against the grey sky.

  ‘I – just don’t feel anything.’

  He made no reply, but she knew she had hurt him deeply now, and once more she felt ashamed. He had given her his all and she could not even bear his child with joy.

  They said little after that and soon Jim turned the motor car towards home.

  Their secret remained such for some time. Perhaps because she was seated so much and went out little, none of the usual speculation concerning a young woman married a short time ran amongst the women. Anthony, of course, was told and he attended her. Mary and Tom were taken into their confidence when Katharine reached her fifth month. Mary was overwhelmed and blushed pink with pleasure.

  ‘Oh, how grand it’ll be, Katharine. I should like – another, you know,’ she confided hesitantly. Katharine
still felt that Mary, in her shyness, held her in some awe.

  ‘Perhaps, perhaps, before long … And then they’d grow up together, wouldn’t they? And of course, Kate’s not all that much older. Oh, how lovely it will be.’

  Katharine nodded and tried to smile, tried to show some interest.

  But when the child began to move within her she felt the stirrings of other feelings until now alien to her. It was as if the new life within her was giving Katharine herself new life too. For the first time since she had known of her pregnancy she began to think of the child as a living being with a will and personality of its own. But over-riding all her other thoughts now grew the fervent desire that by the time her child was born she would be able to walk again. What sort of mother could she hope to be confined to a bathchair, she asked herself?

  Katharine had visited the very depths of despair and depression. The only way for her lay upwards and though the way was long and hard at last a glimmer of light lay ahead in the form of her unborn child. Though she began to improve within herself, within her own private thoughts, it was some time before she began, hesitantly, as if feeling her way in the dark, to reach out towards Jim.

  And she did not find him wanting. Instinctively he helped her in the way she needed it. Encouraging her interest in their child came naturally, for he could talk of little else.

  ‘It will be a son, or a girl just like you,’ he would say not once but a dozen times a week.

  ‘Would you prefer a son, Jim?’ Katharine would ask softly.

  ‘Well – yes and no,’ he would smile. ‘ I should love a daughter just as much and yet …’

  ‘The old, old, feeling,’ Katharine would smile too, though a little sadly, ‘male superiority.’

  ‘No, no, Katharine, it’s not …’

  ‘But it is.’

  ‘Every man wants a son to carry on the family name.’

  ‘But why shouldn’t a girl carry on the name? Why is a girl so inferior?’

  ‘They’re not inferior, just …’

  ‘Just what?’

  ‘Well, they are the weaker sex.’