An Embarrassment of Riches

by Margaret Pemberton

  By the time morning broke she had long abandoned her efforts at being brave. ‘Why doesn’t the baby come?’ she cried despairingly to Sister Mary Louise, tears streaking her face.

  Sister Mary Louise was no longer bustling and smiling. She had attended many long labours, but never before a labour where the pains had been so frequent and intense from the onset and where the birth showed no sign of progressing.

  ‘It won’t be long now, my dear,’ she said comfortingly, but there was no confidence in her voice and her heavily lined face was troubled.

  In mid-afternoon she took the unprecedented step of leaving the room and hurrying to the Mother Superior’s office.

  ‘I know it’s against all previous practice, Reverend Mother,’ she said breathlessly, ‘but the baby is showing no sign of entering the birth canal and I must request that a doctor be called.’

  The Mother Superior regarded her freezingly. ‘It is expected that the occasional births that take place here do so under conditions of the strictest secrecy, Sister Mary Louise. To call in a doctor would be to betray the trust that the family in question has placed in us.’

  ‘I understand that, Reverend Mother,’ Sister Mary Louise said unhappily, clasping and unclasping her arthritic hands. ‘But unless a doctor is called the baby will die …’

  The Mother Superior’s expression didn’t alter. A baby born dead would not distress Mr Hudson.

  ‘… and the mother will die of exhaustion,’ Sister Mary Louise finished.

  The Mother Superior’s jaw tightened. That was a different matter altogether. Mr William Hudson had appeared to be a loving father and there was no telling what his reaction might be at such an outcome. He might even demand that his generous monetary gift to St Ursula’s be returned. It was a risk that was not worth running. Sister Mary Louise was right. A doctor would have to be called.

  ‘Go back to your charge, Sister Mary Louise,’ she said curtly. ‘Leave the matter with me.’

  It was late evening before East Grinstead’s doctor arrived. As he entered the room Genevre gave a sob of relief. At last someone had come who would be able to help her. At last she was in skilled, knowledgeable hands.

  He strode towards the bed, a big man in a frock-coat and top hat and sporting luxuriant mutton-chop whiskers. Setting his bag down on the floor he examined Genevre’s pupils and then took her pulse. Another barbaric pain contorted Genevre’s body and, as she groaned in agony, he removed the crumpled, sweat-soaked sheet that covered her and pushed her nightdress up to her hips.

  Sister Mary Louise cried out in protest, rushing forward to pick up the sheet and replace it. He turned towards her, the expression in his eyes freezing her into immobility.

  ‘You can’t deliver a baby without seeing what you’re doing,’ he snapped scathingly, appalled at a woman so aged and inept acting as midwife. ‘How can you tell how the birth is progressing if you can’t see the pelvic floor?’

  He took off his top hat and tossed it on to the nursing-chair. His coat followed. ‘I want hot water and carbolic soap and I want you to tear strips off this sheet and to plait them into a rope.’ The June heat was stifling and he shot a glance at the tightly closed windows. ‘And I want those windows opened.’

  Sister Mary Louise hurried to do his bidding and the doctor said to Genevre: ‘Your baby may not be coming because it’s laying incorrectly. In a few moments I’m going to try and determine its position with my hand. When I do, don’t fight me. I’m going to give you something to bite on and that should help you bear it.’

  Genevre didn’t care what he did as long as he made the baby come and the pain stop. There was now not even the slightest intermittent relief from it, only the intensity varied. As it built up yet again into a suffocating wall she arched her back, appalled at the knowledge that the terrible cries filling the room were her own.

  The doctor rolled his shirt-sleeves high and Sister Mary Louise asked quaveringly, ‘What are you going to do? Are you going to have to perform a caesarean? Is the lassie going to die?’

  The doctor immersed his hands and arms into the bowl of hot water she had brought for him and began to soap them with carbolic. ‘What I do depends on what I find at the mouth of her cervix. If surgery is necessary I have ether with me.’

  Sister Mary Louise blanched, gripping on to the back of the nursing-chair for support. Never again would she volunteer to bring a child into the world. Never again would she assume that all births were as straightforward as those she had attended with Sister Immaculata.

  The doctor turned towards the bed. ‘When the next pain reaches its height I’m going to feel for the baby,’ he said to a barely conscious Genevre. He handed her the rope made of sheeting. ‘Hold this and bite on it. And draw your knees in towards your stomach.’

  Dizzily Genevre took hold of the plaited sheet. ‘You won’t let my baby die, will you?’ she gasped. ‘Please don’t let my baby die!’

  The doctor didn’t respond, with one hand pressing on to her swollen stomach he was busy positioning his other hand at the mouth of her vagina.

  Sister Mary Louise moaned and grasped the nursing-chair, sending the doctor’s top hat rolling across the floor. She was truly beginning to be of the opinion that it would have been more Christian to have allowed Genevre to die rather than have her exposed to such appalling indignities. When Sister Immaculata had delivered a baby she had always done so with the mother remaining modestly covered by her capacious nightgown. Sister Immaculata had reached beneath the nightgown in order to make whatever examinations were necessary and to ease the baby into the world when it finally emerged from the birth canal. Never had she caused the mother mortifying shame by exposing her to public view.

  Genevre had no thought of shame. She was aware only of pain; pain so total, so seismic, that she no longer felt like a human being. As the doctor plunged his hand high into her body she felt like an animal. She sounded like an animal.

  Collapsed on the nursing-chair Sister Mary Louise covered her eyes and began to pray.

  Genevre felt as if she was being ripped apart, wrenched apart, torn apart. When the doctor removed his hand she could see as if from a long way off that it was covered in blood. Struggling to focus on him, struggling to stay conscious, she saw him take a metallic, shiny instrument from his bag. And then he approached her again.

  It was Sister Mary Louise who tremblingly held the ether pad over her nose and mouth. It was Sister Mary Louise’s gnarled hand that she last felt upon her flesh. There was a brief moment when she returned to consciousness. She could hear her baby crying and, as she moved, struggling to see it, her life-blood gushed from her in a hot, devastating tide. She knew she was dying. She knew she was never going to rear her baby. Never going to even hold it. And she knew that she would never, under any circumstance, see Alexander again. The knowledge was too terrible to bear. With her last remaining strength she pushed herself up against the pillows crying out despairingly: ‘Alexander! Alexander!’ and then she said quite clearly, ‘Stasha. I want my baby to be named Stasha.’

  ‘Surgery was unavoidable. Without it both your daughter and the child would have died.’ The Mother Superior uttered the words with clipped distaste. The entire Hudson incident had been a débâcle. Because of the doctor’s ridiculous request that a window be opened, Genevre Hudson’s cries of agony had been heard as far away as the refectory and the orphanage, as had the name she had called out as she died. Sister Mary Louise had innocently taken it that Alexander was one of the names Genevre Hudson wished to be conferred upon her son. The Mother Superior allowed her to retain the illusion, but did not share it. Genevre Hudson had called out for her lover and it was a breach of taste that she could not forgive.

  William Hudson said thickly, ‘I would like to see my daughter.’

  The room had been scrubbed from top to bottom. No bloodstains remained. There was no lingering smell of ether, only the odour of carbolic.

  Genevre lay on the bed on which she had died and w
hich now served as her bier. She had been dressed in an all-enveloping calico garment and her hands had been folded piously across her breasts. Sister Mary Louise had begged a rose from the garden and had tucked it tenderly at the point where her wrists crossed.

  He stared down at her. When they had last parted she had touched his face gently, telling him that she loved him. And he had not responded. He had not told her that despite the shame she had brought on them both, he loved her as he had always loved her.

  He had not called her his little dear, his little love, his kitten. And now it was too late. Alexander Karolyis’s bastard had killed her.

  ‘Do you want to see the child?’ the Mother Superior asked later when they were again in her office and arrangements for Genevre’s body to be moved to Yorkshire for a family burial had been completed.

  He sucked in his breath, the last vestige of blood leaving his cheeks. Without waiting for his answer the Mother Superior rang the bell on her desk. She knew very well that he didn’t want to see the child, but it was, after all, his grandson. She had been inconvenienced enough over the affair and she didn’t see why he shouldn’t be inconvenienced as well.

  ‘No, I damned well don’t!’ he thundered at her, but it was too late. Sister Mary Louise was at the door, the child in her arms.

  The Mother Superior had been standing behind her desk with her hands folded and hidden, traditional fashion, in the long sleeves of her robe. Now, as William Hudson’s oath violated her room, her hands shot out from her sleeves. Splaying her fingers on the surface of her desk she physically steadied herself, saying with a satisfaction she couldn’t conceal: ‘Your grandson, Mr Hudson.’

  William Hudson spun around, nostrils flaring and eyes blazing. Sister Mary Louise was leaning against the door, almost catatonic with shock at his outburst. The baby in her arms was wrapped in a white wool shawl, its eyes tightly closed. He was aware of a mop of black, silky hair; hair the colour of Alexander Karolyis’s hair; hair that was mid-European, not English. For several long, terrible seconds he was rooted to the spot and then he lunged for the door, pushing Sister Mary Louise and her cargo unceremoniously aside, intent only on putting as much distance between himself and his illegitimate grandchild as was humanly possible.

  A minute later Sister Mary Louise and the Mother Superior heard the heavy outer door slam shut behind him. The Mother Superior breathed a sigh of relief and folded her hands once more in her capacious sleeves. ‘Take the child to the orphanage,’ she said dispassionately to a still-stupefied Sister Mary Louise. ‘I doubt that Mr Hudson will be returning, but the child is not to be made available for adoption, just in case.’

  Chapter Eight

  The months Alexander spent as Lord Powerscourt’s enforced guest were the longest, the most tedious and the most fraught-filled of his life. His father had long since recalled his official companion and tutor, seeing no reason to continue paying a salary when the young man was unable to fulfil his function of guiding Alexander around the art galleries of Europe. His host was seldom in attendance. Powerscourt’s Irish estate was for his relaxation and leisure. In the winter he resided in his London town house, sat in the House of Lords and enjoyed the comfort of his St James’s clubs and the opera.

  For a few weeks in the early spring Lady Powerscourt and two of her daughters were Alexander’s companions, but their visit was of all too short a duration and when they had gone his sole companion for week after monotonous week was Sir Ralph Fiennes-Bourton.

  There were times when Alexander wondered if his first act on regaining his health would be to strangle Fiennes-Bourton. The older man made no attempt to ease Alexander’s boredom. He would wheeze pompously into his room every morning, give him a cursory examination and wheeze out again en route for the Blackwater where he fished endlessly and obsessively, uncaring of the weather. In the evenings he would work on his monograph.

  Sometimes, in an effort to survive the crawling tedium, Alexander would play chess or cards with Powerscourt’s butler. For the most part he simply lay prone on his bed waiting for nerves and muscles and tendons to heal, and he thought of Genevre.

  Powerscourt had already ascertained the Hudsons’ Yorkshire address for him and he had also made enquiries after Genevre.

  He wrote to Alexander on House of Lords notepaper in early March:

  William Hudson is there and has been since the beginning of the year, but Miss Hudson did not return home from New York with him. She is understood to be enjoying a trip to Italy with an aunt. Sorry not to be able to be more helpful, my boy.

  Alexander had been grateful. Powerscourt had done as much as he could and it was more than most men in his position would have done. All that remained now was for Genevre to return from Italy, and for him to regain his health and strength.

  In the first week of May he took his first, tentative step. Fiennes-Bourton was euphoric, declaring that he never would have done so if it hadn’t been for his constant, caring presence. A letter was immediately despatched to Victor Karolyis. Alexander wrote again to Powerscourt, asking if he could ascertain if Genevre was back in the country again.

  By mid-May Alexander was able to walk in the grounds with the aid of crutches. His father had demanded that he return home as soon as he was physically able to do so, and Powerscourt had written to say that it appeared Genevre was at present in London with the aunt who had accompanied her to Italy.

  Alexander read and re-read the letter hardly able to control his impatience and excitement. In just a few more weeks he would be able to walk unaided. In just a few more weeks he would leave Ireland behind him and travel to Yorkshire. There, at gunpoint if it should prove necessary, he would get Genevre’s address from William Hudson. Within hours they would be reunited and when they returned to New York she would do so as his bride.

  Hour after hour, day after day, he struggled with arm and leg exercises, building up his muscles and his strength.

  ‘It’s wonderful to see the change in you, my boy,’ Powerscourt said genially when he arrived in June with a party of friends for a couple of weeks’fishing. ‘Fiennes-Bourton has done a marvellous job.’

  Alexander had given a small smile and kept his thoughts to himself. It hadn’t been Fiennes-Bourton who was responsible for him once again being able to walk. It had been his own, obsessive determination. He had willed himself to be able to walk again in order that he could find Genevre.

  ‘I’ll be leaving you in a few days’time, sir,’ he said to Powerscourt as they sat companionably in wicker garden-chairs, waiting for Powerscourt’s friends to return from a day’s fishing.

  A slight frown creased Powerscourt’s forehead. ‘Are you sure that isn’t a little precipitate? You may have recovered, but you haven’t yet recuperated. Why not wait until the summer is over before you leave?’

  The prospect of remaining in Ireland for even a day more than was absolutely necessary made Alexander shudder. ‘No, sir,’ he said with unequivocal firmness. ‘I appreciate your offer and your kindness but I can recuperate at my family home in Dutchess County just as well as I could do here.’

  ‘Or Yorkshire?’ Powerscourt asked, raising a querying brow.

  Alexander grinned. ‘Or Yorkshire,’ he said, the blood singing along his veins as he thought of how near he was to the moment when he would hold Genevre in his arms again.

  The next morning he breakfasted early, before Powerscourt’s other guests were up and about. He would leave on the coming Saturday. He would travel by rail to Dundalk and then sail from Dundalk to Holyhead. From there he would travel by rail to York and then he would hire a carriage and driver to take him the remaining fifteen miles to the Hudson mansion at Aysgarth.

  Having eaten his fill of devilled kidneys and bacon he reached for the toast and marmalade. It would only take him another day to travel by rail to London. By this time next week he would be with Genevre. He opened the newspaper laying crisply beside his plate, his hand shaking with nervous anticipation. She was only days away
from him now, only hours away.

  The newspaper was The Times, specially despatched from London to Waterford for Lord Powerscourt’s enjoyment. He turned the front page with its columns of personal notices without even glancing at them, searching the inner pages for a headline denoting news of the war ravaging America. With rising irritation he saw that yet again priority had been given to a subject of much less importance, the protocol between Britain, France and Russia providing for the incorporation of the Ionian islands into Greece. He was about to turn the page when the name Hudson leapt out at him. It was beneath the heading: OBITUARIES.

  He pushed his plate away and opened the newspaper more fully on the table, wondering if the deceased was perhaps a relative of Genevre’s, wondering if it might even be William Hudson who had died. A footman removed his plate. Another poured him a fresh cup of coffee. Taking a sip of it he began to read. The words made no sense. He was gripped by a hideous sensation of déjá vu. It was as if he were reading Charlie’s letter again. He could see the writing on the page but the content was too terrible, too unbelievable, for his brain to make any connection between them and reality.

  Miss Genevre Hudson … aged twenty … only beloved daughter of the railway king Mr William Hudson … died suddenly of a fever … a delightfully accomplished young lady … resident for many years in New York … a star in New York’s social crown …

  The room was spinning. His hands flailed, seeking for support. The coffee cup was sent flying, scorching hot liquid pouring on to his trousers. He read the words again and again, choking for breath, uncaring of the commotion he was causing as one footman attempted to mop dry his trousers and another one dashed off to inform Lord Powerscourt that his guest had been taken ill.

  Dead. Ginnie dead. It wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be possible. The printed words swam up at him, incontrovertible and irrefutable. ‘Genevre Hudson … only beloved daughter … died suddenly of a fever…’ She was dead and he would never see her again. Never hold her. Never kiss her. Never make love to her. It was too monstrous to be true. Too obscenely vile. Too inconceivable.