by Val Wood
When Nan came downstairs she sat down abruptly. Connie saw that she was trembling. ‘Is there owt I can do, Mrs Carr?’ she asked.
‘No. Yes. Fill ’kettle again. Mrs Norman wants a cup o’ tea, but don’t mek it till she comes down and onny mek a small pot. We’re about drowning in tea – an’ price of it …’ Her voice trailed away.
‘I’m sure Jeannie will be all right,’ Connie ventured in a small voice, guessing that the old lady was anxious.
‘How do you know?’ Nan snapped. ‘You know nowt about it.’
Oddly Connie wasn’t upset by her manner; rather she was pleased that Mrs Carr was actually talking to her. Generally she ignored her as if she were invisible.
‘I lost two babbies at birth,’ Nan muttered. ‘You never forget it. It’s a dangerous business is birthing, ’specially for us that’s poor.’ She glanced at Connie as they heard Mrs Norman’s footsteps on the stairs. ‘You can mek ’tea now. I don’t want a cup,’ she said, ‘but Jeannie might.’
Mrs Norman breezed in. ‘It’s not going to be long,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Her waters have broken already and ’babby’s well on its way. Oh, thanks, love,’ she said to Connie as she poured a weak cup of tea. She looked into the cup. ‘Did you put any leaves in ’pot? I’ll not be able to tell my fortune wi’ this.’
‘I don’t like mekkin’ it too strong,’ Connie said nervously. ‘Specially when it’s somebody else’s tea.’
‘Quite right.’ Mrs Norman blew on the hot liquid. ‘Jeannie said for you to go up if you were still here.’
Connie glanced at Nan for her approval but Nan didn’t look at her, so she escaped and ran upstairs. Jeannie was still on her feet and pacing about.
‘Mrs Norman said I should stay in bed,’ she whispered. ‘But I can’t. I don’t want to. I wish Ma was here.’
‘Shall I walk about wi’ you?’ Connie asked her. ‘Mebbe if you’ve somebody to lean on?’
‘Yes, please,’ she breathed. ‘If you would.’ She grasped Connie’s arm. ‘That’s better. Thank you, Connie. I’m so pleased that you’re here.’
To Jeannie’s astonishment, tears welled up in Connie’s dark eyes and ran down her face. Connie gulped. ‘Nobody’s ever said that to me afore,’ she said huskily. ‘I’m allus a nuisance, allus in ’way of everybody. I wonder sometimes why I’m here at all, cos I’m not of any use to anybody.’
‘Don’t say that,’ Jeannie begged. ‘Of course you are. I’m glad you’re here anyway, and I think that probably Nan is too, though she’d never admit it. She wouldn’t have been able to fetch Mrs Norman so fast, for one thing.’
Connie wiped her streaming eyes on her sleeve. ‘No, she couldn’t run as fast as me to Stricky an’ that’s a fact.’ She gave a weeping laugh and then glanced anxiously at Jeannie as she stopped in their perambulations and bent double.
Jeannie groaned. ‘Fetch Mrs Norman back, Connie – please!’
Mrs Norman was regaling Nan with some tale when Connie went into the kitchen but Nan wasn’t really paying any attention and she looked up sharply when Connie said, ‘Jeannie needs you, Mrs Norman. She wants you back upstairs.’
‘Sit down,’ Nan said to Connie when the midwife left to climb the stairs again. ‘How does she seem?’
‘A bit uncomfortable but not bad considering,’ Connie said, careful not to make any wrong judgement. ‘Women are brave, aren’t they? I don’t know if I would be.’
Nan gazed into the fire. ‘Have to be, haven’t we? We just have to get on wi’ it. It’s worse seeing somebody else go through it than it is for yourself. Some onny have one, though. Like your ma.’ She was silent for a moment and then pronounced, ‘Mebbe if she’d had more bairns her man might have stopped at home an’ not run off wi’ somebody else’s wife.’
Connie didn’t know how to answer, or even if an answer was required, so she kept quiet and gazed down at her lap.
‘Still,’ Nan went on. ‘That’s ’way it is an’ it wasn’t your fault. You were onny a bairn when he went.’
‘I was ten,’ Connie whispered.
Nan heaved a sigh. ‘Aye, you would be; ’same as our Harry.’
There was a sudden shout from upstairs and Connie leapt to her feet. Then a squalling sound and Nan covered her mouth with her hand. ‘That’s it,’ she quavered. ‘That’s it. Please God they’re both all right.’
Connie looked at her. She would have liked to hold her hand or touch her, but did not dare in case of a rebuff. ‘Is it over, do you think?’ she whispered. ‘It were quick!’
Nan swallowed. ‘Aye. It was.’
Mrs Norman yelled from the top of the stairs. ‘All over,’ she exclaimed. ‘Mother an’ babby are fine. It’s a boy! Better put ’kettle on again.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
THE BABY WAS small but perfect. Everyone agreed on that as they gathered round the bed.
‘That’s why he was an easy birth,’ Mrs Norman pronounced. ‘Think yourself lucky, girl,’ she told Jeannie. ‘I’ve delivered some whoppers in my time and they’re never easy.’
‘He’ll soon grow.’ Nan looked down at him in the crook of Jeannie’s arm. ‘He’s got a look of Harry already,’ she said. ‘All that dark hair.’
Jeannie smiled. She was dark-haired too. ‘Would you like to hold him, Nan? Your great-grandson!’
‘My word.’ Nan’s voice was husky. ‘I hadn’t thought o’ that.’ She took him from Jeannie and put a finger under the baby’s chin. ‘Now then, young Harry.’
‘I’m going to call him Jack after my father,’ Jeannie said firmly. ‘He’ll be Jack Foster Carr. Foster’s a Hull name,’ she told Mrs Norman. ‘My da’s family came from Hull.’ She gave the information quickly, before Nan could make any objection to her choice of name.
‘Aye? There’s still a few Fosters scattered about,’ Mrs Norman told her.
Connie was allowed to hold the infant and then Mrs Norman took him, wrapped him tightly in another sheet and placed him in a drawer that she had commandeered and softened with a thin pillow and blanket.
‘Let him rest now,’ she said. ‘He’s had a difficult journey coming into this world, and his ma needs a rest too. A cup o’ cocoa is called for.’ She addressed Connie as if she was in charge of the refreshments. ‘Nowt like it for building up new mothers an’ getting ’em ready to feed a hungry bairn.’
Jeannie felt herself blushing. There was so much she didn’t know about babies. She suddenly felt vulnerable and anxious. She was not yet seventeen and was in charge of another human being. What a responsibility. She felt tears gathering in her eyes. If only Ma were here, she thought for the umpteenth time. She’d know what to do. And I wish Harry would come home; it was almost Christmas and she wanted him to share the joy of their first Christmas together.
She was advised to stay in bed, and when Connie had left she asked Nan if she would like Connie to come in and run errands for her. ‘She’d be more than willing, I know,’ she said. ‘And I don’t like to think of you having to climb up and downstairs.’
Nan said that she could manage, that she didn’t need any help from anybody, but the next day, when Connie timidly knocked on the door and asked if there was anything she could do, Nan unexpectedly told her to come in and asked her if she’d take a drink upstairs to Jeannie.
‘And mebbe you could slip to ’butcher’s afore he sells out,’ she said. ‘See if he’s a bit o’ beef left and I’ll mek some broth. Finest thing for building you up.’ She sat down in the chair by the fire and gave a deep sigh. ‘I might have some myself. Buck me up, it would.’
‘I can’t believe she’s talking to me,’ Connie whispered to Jeannie. ‘She never looked ’side I was on afore an’ now I’m running errands for her.’ She sat on the bed and looked down at Jeannie and the baby. ‘Isn’t he beautiful?’ she said. ‘I could run away wi’ him.’
Jeannie changed Jack over to her other breast. ‘I’d find you.’ She smiled. ‘Maybe you’ll have a bairn of your own one day, Connie. And don�
�t say nobody will have you, because it isn’t true.’
Connie shrugged. She seemed different. Not quite as bowed down as she had been. She’d seen Rosie, she said, and told her about the baby.
‘She asked me how I knew an’ when I told her I’d been here at ’birth, she was flabbergasted. Said at first she didn’t believe me, that Nan wouldn’t have me in ’house. But when I told her that I’d run to fetch Mrs Norman and that I’d made tea and cocoa, she shut up tight as a clam.’
‘I wonder if she’ll come and see her nephew,’ Jeannie murmured. ‘Does she have a grievance against Harry?’
Connie hesitated, and then said, ‘Rosie has a grievance with everybody.’ She rose from the bed. ‘I’ll have to go. I’ve to catch ’butcher.’ She bent to stroke the baby’s cheek and gave a sudden grin which lit up her plain features. ‘See you tomorrow, Jack.’
She delivered the meat to Nan, and also some marrow bones which the butcher had given her when he heard who it was for. But she didn’t come the next day, or the day after, and the following afternoon Jeannie decided she would get up and sit downstairs and make the child a crib in a shopping basket.
‘I’m not an invalid, Nan,’ she said when the old lady said she would rue being up too early. ‘I feel fit and I don’t like being upstairs on my own. Nor do I want you to be running about after me. And besides, I want to be downstairs for Christmas. I wonder why Connie hasn’t been?’
Nan hmphed. ‘Can’t be trusted,’ she grumbled. ‘It’s just as I thought. Bad blood.’
Jeannie let out a sigh. ‘I don’t think so. She meant to come to see Jack. She told him she would.’
Nan looked at her. ‘Telled him? An’ what did he say?’ she said, her voice harsh with sarcasm.
They heard the back door open, but Jeannie knew it wasn’t Connie. Connie would have knocked. It was Rosie.
‘I heard you’d been delivered,’ she said, standing with her arms crossed in front of her. ‘News gets round.’
‘Yes,’ Jeannie said, wondering whether Rosie’s delay in coming to visit was deliberate. ‘It’d be Connie who told you, I expect?’
Rosie lifted her shoulders nonchalantly. ‘Might have been. Can’t remember.’ She looked down at the baby and her face softened. ‘He looks like our Harry.’
‘That’s because he is Harry’s,’ Jeannie said pointedly. ‘Has Connie been at work?’
‘Not for a couple o’ days, no. Why?’ Her eyebrows lifted. ‘Is she your best friend?’
‘She might be,’ Jeannie said. ‘She was here when she was most needed.’
Rosie looked uncomfortable. ‘Yeh, well – I know when I’m not wanted.’
Nan gazed at her quizzically. ‘You allus disappeared when you were asked to do summat, even when you were a little bairn,’ she said. ‘So don’t come over all hard done by.’
‘I’m not,’ Rosie muttered sullenly. ‘Anyway, I’m here now, aren’t I? What ’you going to call him?’
Jeannie was sure she was only feigning interest. ‘Jack,’ she said. ‘Jack Foster.’
Rosie looked at her. ‘Jack Foster?’
Jeannie nodded and picked up the baby. ‘Jack Foster Carr is his name. Would you like to hold him?’
Rosie shook her head. ‘No thanks. I’d be scared o’ dropping him. Anyway, I’ve got to be going. Auntie Dot’s waiting for me to fetch ’fish in for supper.’ She turned to leave. ‘I expect Harry’ll be pleased it’s a lad.’
‘I hope so.’ Jeannie smiled. ‘I can’t send him back!’
Rosie glanced at her. She didn’t smile in return; she obviously didn’t think the remark funny.
‘You shouldn’t be having visitors,’ Nan said after Rosie had gone. ‘And you mustn’t go out.’
‘I wasn’t going to,’ Jeannie asked. ‘I don’t want to; it’s too cold and wet for the bairn, and besides, I want Harry to see Jack before anybody else does.’
‘It’s supposed to be unlucky to go out,’ Nan muttered. ‘You should be churched first.’
Jeannie swallowed. She’d heard of it. Churching: originally a religious ritual of purification for those who believed that women who had given birth were unclean and sinful. We were sinful, I suppose, she thought, Harry and me, conceiving a child before marriage. But we married in church so our child isn’t illegitimate. And anyway, why is the mother sinful and not the father?
‘When Jack’s baptized, I’ll ask the parson to bless me,’ she said in what she thought was a kind of compromise.
To her surprise, Nan, after chewing this over, said, ‘I’m never sure whether I believe in all that. And I don’t think it’s done in chapel. But it might be unlucky if you don’t,’ she added.
I’ll chance that, Jeannie thought.
‘If you go out on the road, will you ask about Connie?’ she said. ‘Ask if anybody’s seen her.’
‘No I won’t!’ Nan’s voice was scandalized. ‘Whatever will folks think if I start asking about that family?’
‘It’s not other folk or her family I’m bothered about,’ Jeannie said quietly. ‘It’s Connie.’
The following day was Christmas Eve, and when Nan came back from shopping, armed with everything they had ordered, she was full of renewed energy. ‘Harry’s ship’s coming up ’Humber,’ she puffed. ‘I’ve just seen Billy Norman. He says it’ll dock at dinner time. Praise be,’ she murmured. ‘I hope they’ve had a good trip an’ earned some money.’
Jeannie felt huge relief washing over her, but she glanced at Nan and wondered how she’d paid for the shopping. Since finishing Charlie’s nets she hadn’t earned anything; she knew that Nan’s money pot would be low. To give the old lady her due she didn’t grumble about the lack of money, but now Jeannie was anxious.
‘Did you have enough money to pay for the Christmas food?’ she ventured. ‘For the extras, I mean? The pork pie and everything.’
Nan sighed. ‘I got a smaller pork pie than we’d ordered. I don’t like it as much as I used to,’ she added.
‘You did right, Nan,’ Jeannie told her, ‘and I shan’t want much, it’s too rich, so there’ll be enough for Harry.’
Nan nodded. ‘He’ll bring money home; course he will.’ Her voice dropped to a mutter. ‘He’ll not let us go short won’t Fred. He’s a good lad.’
Jeannie smiled. ‘Harry, you mean,’ she said.
Nan blinked. ‘That’s what I said,’ she snapped. ‘Harry. He’ll be home soon and looking forward to seeing his son.’
‘Do you think anybody’s told him?’ Jeannie said, and out of the blue she recalled Josh Wharton and how she’d been sent to tell him to hurry home. Poor man; the birth of an infant and the loss of his wife a few days later. The perception of those consequences was more powerful now than when she had been a child. But that’s not going to happen to me, she thought determinedly. Harry and I will have lots more children and a long life together.
But thinking of Josh Wharton, she couldn’t help but dwell on Ethan. How would he react when he heard, as inevitably he would, that she was the mother of a child? Would he, after all, look round for a wife he could love and forget Jeannie, even though he had vowed that he never would? And if he did, what would she feel? Regret? Remorse for having hurt him? Or relief that he could love someone else and live a life without her? Jealousy, she thought; her emotions, heightened after the birth of Jack, tingled at the mere thought of it. That is what she would feel. For she knew in her heart that whilst he was a single man a part of him would always belong to her.
‘They mebbe have,’ Nan answered and Jeannie looked up, having forgotten her question. ‘Mrs Norman will have spread ’news. He’ll be rushing home any time now.’
But two o’clock came and then three, and conviction grew upon Jeannie that Harry had gone straight to the Wassand Arms and was spending his hard-earned wages. At half past three the back door crashed open and Harry staggered in.
‘Let’s have a look at him,’ he bellowed, coming into the kitchen. ‘Let’s see my son.’
/> His face was weathered and his dark hair curled on his neck. He wasn’t drunk but he was very merry, and Jeannie thought she couldn’t blame him for that. On hearing the news that he was a father his mates would no doubt have carried him off to celebrate the birth.
She lifted the baby out of his basket, loosened his swaddling sheet and held him up to Harry, but Harry stepped back as if astonished. ‘He’s onny little, isn’t he? Will he grow?’
‘Come and sit down, Harry,’ Jeannie said, feeling slightly put out that he hadn’t even looked at her, ‘and then you can hold him.’
‘I don’t think I want to.’ He frowned, but bent closer. ‘Look at his little fingers.’ Tentatively he put a finger towards him and Jack curled his tiny hand over it. ‘Look at that,’ he breathed. ‘How strong he is. Do you think he knows who I am, Jeannie?’
‘Yes,’ she said, feeling a rush of tenderness for the father of her child. ‘I think he knows that you’re his da.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
HARRY HAD BROUGHT home a parcel of fish, which Nan set about cooking straight away.
‘Not sure if I want any, Nan,’ Harry said. ‘Have you nowt else?’
‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘We haven’t. But tomorrow we’ll have a joint o’ beef an’ Yorkshire pudding an’ savoury sausage meat, and,’ she said, turning to look at him, ‘Christmas pudding. And if you’ve any money left over mebbe we could run to a drop o’ brandy for ’sauce.’
Harry grinned, and putting his hand in his pocket brought out a small bottle. ‘You see! You thought I’d forget, didn’t you?’
Nan took it from him. ‘Yes, I did,’ she said, and Jeannie, not part of this tradition, looked on at Nan’s softened expression and Harry’s satisfied smirk, and felt like a stranger.
Harry tipped out the money in his pocket and threw it on the table. ‘There you are. There’s me wages. Well – most of it.’
Jeannie and Nan both looked at the small amount and although Jeannie said nothing, meaning to have a discussion later, Nan asked, ‘Is that all there is? It don’t seem much for ’time you’ve been away.’
