A Multitude of Sins

by Margaret Pemberton

  A waiter weaved his way between the crowded tables towards them. The restaurant had been decorated to resemble a Mississippi steamboat, and he looked curiously out of place with his oriental face and high-collared white-buttoned jacket.

  ‘I’ll have oysters, please,’ Elizabeth said, her choice dictated by the knowledge that the lobster and crab were at present swimming below the restaurant in large cages.

  ‘I will have the lobster,’ Julienne said, suffering from no such qualms, ‘and a bottle of Chablis, please.’

  She looked round at the neighbouring tables, but there was no one she recognized. She felt unbelievably tired. Keeping Ronnie and Derry happy, as well as Tom, was proving to be quite a feat, even for her.

  ‘You’re looking unusually pensive,’ Elizabeth said, resting her hand on her tummy as the baby gave a definite kick. ‘Is anything worrying you?’

  ‘No,’ Julienne said with a little sigh. ‘I was just thinking that maybe it is time I settled down a little. I shall be twenty-seven in June. Perhaps I should be thinking of having a baby, like you.’

  ‘Have you told Ronnie about this burgeoning maternal instinct?’ Elizabeth asked, amused.

  Julienne’s pansy-dark eyes finished their reconnoitre of the restaurant. She had seen no one of interest. ‘I do not think Ronnie would mind,’ she said, a note of surprise in her voice. ‘I think he might even be quite pleased.’

  The waiter was at their side again, piling the table with appetizers of spring rolls and spare ribs and dumplings. Elizabeth ignored them. She was six months pregnant now, and the baby was playing havoc with her appetite. Some days she was ravenously hungry; others she had to force herself to eat even the lightest of meals.

  ‘Doesn’t it give you a guilty conscience, Julienne?’ she asked musingly as Julienne lifted a dumpling from its basket with her chop-sticks.

  ‘Comment?’ Julienne asked, startled, wondering if Elizabeth was referring to Derry or to Tom.

  ‘All this food,’ Elizabeth said, indicating the laden table. ‘I don’t know what things are like in France, but ever since the beginning of January bacon and butter and sugar have been rationed in Britain, and now the government has announced that every Friday will be a meatless day and that no beef or veal or mutton will be sold on Mondays or Tuesdays.’

  ‘It is those pigs of U-boats in the Atlantic,’ Julienne said graphically. ‘Ronnie says that once the Navy has put paid to them, and supplies are able to reach Britain from America, without hindrance, then there will be no further restrictions on how much food people can buy.’

  ‘I’m sure Ronnie is right,’ Elizabeth said without much conviction. ‘But it’s March now. How much longer can it go on?’

  It went on all through April. On the ninth, two German divisions invaded Denmark and Copenhagen was taken within twelve hours. On the same day German troops landed near Oslo and the fierce and bloody battle for Norway began.

  ‘At least we’re fully prepared against an enemy attack in Hong Kong,’ said Adam at the beginning of May. They were seated at a corner table in the Peninsula’s flower-filled restaurant. Their weekly meetings had continued, but the reconciliation that Adam had hoped for was as far away as ever. She was happy. She was in love with Raefe. And with great reluctance, prompted by the existence of the child she was carrying, Adam had agreed to institute divorce proceedings against her on the grounds of her desertion and adultery.

  He was trying hard not to think about that now. For the next hour he had her entirely to himself. It was what he had looked forward to and lived for all through the week. With dogged determination he refused to allow thoughts of their pending divorce to blight his fleeting happiness.

  ‘The Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps will soon be a force to be reckoned with,’ he said with pride. ‘We’re carrying out training now on a regular basis. Leigh Stafford has joined, and even Denholm Gresby is giving us his support.’

  The formation of the Volunteer Defence Corps was his major interest. It ensured that when the time came men like himself would be able to fight in an officially recognized unit. ‘We have all types of men offering their services,’ he continued enthusiastically. ‘Businessmen and bankers, Customs officers and clerks. My God, but we’ll give the Japanese a run for their money when the time comes!’

  She smiled. Despite his heavily greying hair and the deep lines that now ran from his nose to his mouth, there was something eternally boyish about him.

  ‘A lot of people still think that the Volunteers are unnecessary and that there will be no call for them,’ she said, toying with her sweet and sour pork and finally pushing the plate away from her.

  She didn’t feel very well. The baby was lying uncomfortably, and she had been awake through most of the previous night with a severe attack of the previous night with a severe attack of heartburn.

  ‘I hope you’re not one of them,’ Adam said, shocked.

  She managed a smile. ‘No, of course not. I’ve been aware that the Japanese threat is real for a long time now.’

  ‘Then, who is it who thinks the Volunteers are unneccessary?’ Adam persisted.

  ‘Late-night drinkers at the Jockey Club,’ she said vaguely, knowing that if she gave any names he would immediately single the offenders out the next time he met them, demanding that they explain themselves.

  ‘Then, they’re misinformed idiots,’ he said contemptuously.

  Elizabeth’s smile deepened. The gentleman in the Jockey Club bar who had loudly stated that the Volunteers were flapping and there wasn’t the remotest possibility of an attack by the Japanese had been a high-ranking executive of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank; she shifted uncomfortably on her chair, wishing that the baby would rearrange itself.

  ‘Are you all right, Beth?’ Adam asked quickly, immediately concerned for her.

  ‘I’m fine,’ she said reassuringly. ‘It’s just that I’m so big now that it’s difficult to be comfortable.’

  ‘How much longer have you to go?’ To her bemusement he had never found any difficulty in talking about the baby. It was Raefe that he would never mention.

  ‘Six weeks or thereabouts.’

  An all-too-rare smile touched his mouth. ‘I’m surprised that you can still sit at your piano.’

  ‘It isn’t easy!’ she said with feeling. ‘I must be the only pupil Li Pi has ever had who has to have her back rubbed at half-hourly intervals!’

  They laughed, and for a few brief seconds it was almost possible for Adam to believe that she had never left him. That they were sitting as they used to at Four Seasons, or on the terrace of their home at the Peak, sharing a drink and chatting about each other’s day. His laughter died. They weren’t in their own home. They were in an impersonal hotel restaurant, and the baby they were referring to was not his. He said tersely: ‘Are you happy, Beth? Truly happy?’

  The old pain coursed through her. She was, but the agony of telling him so almost crippled her.

  He had stretched his hand out towards her across the table, and she took it. ‘Yes, I’m happy, Adam,’ she said quietly, her throat tight. ‘Please don’t keep asking me. My answer hurts you so much, and I can’t bear it.’

  ‘Then, come home!’ he said fiercely, his fingers tightening on hers. ‘It isn’t too late, Beth! The baby can have my name. We’ll leave Hong Kong. We can go to America or to Canada. No one there will ever know. We can be a family again.’

  She shook her head, futile tears stinging the backs of her eyes. ‘No, Adam. I’ve made my decision, and it has been the right decision. For me.’

  His shoulders slumped, and he looked suddenly ill and tired. ‘Then, that’s it,’ he said defeatedly. ‘I shan’t ask you again, Beth.

  But the offer will always be there. Even after the baby has been born. Even after the divorce.’

  She squeezed his hand, unable to speak. The musical trio in the far corner of the room began to play ‘Night and Day’, and she rose to her feet. ‘I must go,’ she said thickly. Raefe was lea
ving that afternoon for a flight to Singapore and a meeting with Colonel Landor, and she wanted to drive him to the airport. ‘Goodbye, Adam. Take care of yourself.’

  ‘Bye, Beth.’ He rose heavily to his feet. ‘Take care of yourself, sweetheart.’

  She nodded, aware that Miriam Gresby was lunching with a friend half a dozen tables away, and that she was staring across at them with outraged curiosity. She walked quickly from the room, her back straight, her head high, graceful despite her advanced pregnancy.

  Miriam Gresby had seen to it that no one in Hong Kong had been left uninformed of her desertion of her husband. The most surprising people no longer even spoke to her. And the most surprising people had continued to be unfailingly kind and courteous. Major-General Grassett’s wife, for example. And Lady Northcote, wife of Sir Geoffrey Northcote, the Colony’s Governor.

  She slid herself with difficulty behind the wheel of the Chrysler. Raefe had tried to persuade her to allow a chauffeur to drive her, but she enjoyed the mechanics of driving and she wanted as few household staff as possible intruding on their privacy. Their only resident servants were Mei Lin, who had timidly asked Adam if she could follow Elizabeth to her new residence, and Raefe’s long-term houseboy.

  The vehicular ferry was nearly empty, and she stepped outside the car and leaned her arms on the rail as the short crossing between Kowloon and the island was traversed. She still didn’t feel very well. Her stomach muscles were uncomfortably tight, and there was a pain low in her back that she couldn’t ease.

  They docked in Victoria and she drove the car off the ferry, wondering if perhaps Raefe was right, and it wouldn’t perhaps be more sensible to have a chauffeur, at least for the next five or six weeks. The temperature was in the eighties, and the heat, unalloyed by any breeze, drove down from the sky as from a burning-glass. ‘Next time I venture into pregnancy,’ she said to herself as she turned the Chrysler’s nose towards Mount Collinson, ‘I’ll make sure that the last few months fall in the winter!’

  The sea was glorious as she skirted the coast, rippling out through jade-green to aquamarine to deepest indigo. She turned right, twisting up into the flank of the mountain, wishing that Raefe wasn’t leaving for Singapore. He would only be away for three or four days, five at most, but she knew how intensely she would miss him. The Chrysler’s tyres rolled over a bed of dried verbena and turned the last corner before the house.

  She slowed the Chrysler to a halt, savouring the sight of it. Blue convolvulus looped down the side of one wall in long belled strands. Scarlet geraniums flamed against the blue paintwork. Carnations of every shade, from deep flame to mother-of-pearl, crowded the white-edged steps. She slid the car forward again, happiness striking through her like an arrow. This was where she belonged. This was where her heart lay.

  He was in the bedroom, putting the last of his things into a small overnight case. ‘I was beginning to think you were planning sabotage,’ he said with a grin. ‘Delaying coming back until it was too late for me to catch my flight.’ ‘It would have been a very sensible idea,’ she said, stepping into the circle of his arms and laying her head against his chest. ‘I wish I had thought of it.’

  His arms tightened around her. ‘It won’t be long,’ he murmured tenderly against her hair. ‘Just a few days.’

  She nodded, and he hooked a finger under her chin, raising her face to his. ‘I shall miss you,’ he said, lowering his head to hers, kissing her lingeringly.

  The drive back across the island to Kowloon and Kai Tak Airport was one she could have done without, but it never occurred to her to tell him that she was not feeling very well. She wanted to be with him right until the last possible moment. And that meant driving with him to the airport, and then driving herself home again.

  It was six o’clock by the time she wearily took the coast road eastwards for the second time. She determined to go to bed early when she arrived home. She would ask Mei Lin to make her a cup of hot chocolate and she would have a long leisurely bath, and then she would go to bed and read. A trail of lilacs lay, unbruised, across the track. She steered the car round them, leaving them as perfect as before; and, as she did so, something damp and warm seeped on to her legs and her abdomen was seized by a cramping pain, as if it were in a vice.

  She sucked in her breath sharply, her hands clenching the wheel. The Chrysler wavered slightly and then straightened. The pain eased and began to die. She let out a grateful sigh of relief, the alarm-bells in her brain awakened but not yet ringing. By the time she reached the house they were ringing so loudly that she was deafened by them.

  The doctor who had been attending her at the antenatal clinic had told her exactly what to expect. And it wasn’t what she was now experiencing. He had told her that the pains would start gradually and intermittently, that she would have plenty of time in which to arrange to be driven into Victoria to the maternity hospital.

  She stumbled into the house, gasping for breath as another strong convulsive pain seized her. ‘Mei Lin,’ she called, an edge of panic in her voice. ‘Mei Lin!’

  ‘Yes, missy,’ Mei Lin answered, stepping forward to meet her, a smile of welcome on her face. It vanished in an instant as Elizabeth leaned back against the wall for support, beads of perspiration on her forehead, her face chalk-white. ‘Missy! What the matter? What happened?’

  ‘The baby is coming,’ Elizabeth gasped. ‘Help me to bed, Mei Lin. Telephone the doctor! Telephone Mrs Nicholson!’

  ‘Yes, missy! At once, missy!’ Mei Lin panted as she helped Elizabeth into the bedroom.

  She fell on to the bed. The pains were getting harder, and they were six weeks too early. They began to merge into one another so that there was no respite, no abatement in which she could gather together her strength and her stamina. Six weeks too early! The words beat like a tattoo in her brain. Something had gone terribly, dreadfully wrong. She should be in hospital. Raefe should be at her side. She should be welcoming decently spaced-out contractions, working with them, breathing with control, not thrashing in agony attended only by a terrified Mei Lin.

  By the time the doctor came she was barely conscious. ‘It’s all right, Mrs Harland,’ he said reassuringly, his voice reaching her from what seemed like a vast distance. ‘An ambulance is on its way. Now, do exactly as I tell you.’

  She clung to consciousness and to the sound of his voice. She was dimly aware of towels being spread on the bed, of her underclothing being removed.

  ‘The baby is breech,’ she could hear him say tautly. ‘I’m going to have to try to turn it round.…’

  He tried once, twice, three times. Someone was screaming long and low. Mei Lin placed a wet cloth against her brow, and she realized with horror that the person screaming was herself.

  ‘Have … you … done … it … yet?’ she croaked, her voice barely audible.

  He shook his head, knowing it was too late to transfer her by ambulance to the hospital, knowing that unless he succeeded in turning the baby soon he would lose both child and mother.

  ‘Now! Again!’ he said fiercely. ‘When the pain is at its height!’

  Some dim far-removed part of her brain wanted to laugh. When the pain was at its height! It had never been anything else. It ripped through her, stunning her with its savagery. She sucked in her breath, groaning in agony as once again his hands reached deep inside her. This time he gave an exclamation of relief.

  ‘That’s done it! I’m sure of it! Now, summon up all your strength, Mrs Harland! Push!’

  She could no longer do anything of her own volition. She could only cling desperately to the last shreds of her strength, praying for it to be over. Praying for the baby to be born. Praying for it to be all right.

  ‘That’s it! Wonderful! Once again!’

  She was drenched in sweat, barely able to hear him, no longer able to see. She was being split apart, rent in two. She heard herself cry out, a long primeval ululation of victory as her exhausted body finally succeeded in expelling the child from her
womb. She wanted to open her eyes, to see, to speak, but she was falling into a vortex of black rushing winds.

  ‘My baby …,’ she whispered. ‘My baby.…’ And as the winds closed over her head, submerging her, she was aware that something was wrong. Something was not as it should be. She tried to think what it was, and at last, as the darkness became total, it came to her. There was no noise in the room around her. No murmur of congratulation. No sound of a baby’s cry.

  Helena’s open-topped Morgan bucketed up the rough track towards the house. Mei Lin had sounded panic-stricken on the telephone, and Helena had asked to speak to Elizabeth, in order to ascertain exactly what what was happening. Mei Lin had told her that Elizabeth couldn’t come to the telephone. That she was having the baby.

  ‘You mean that her contractions have started?’ Helena had asked, puzzled.

  ‘No!’ Mei Lin had sobbed. ‘Baby come now, Missy Nicholson! This minute!’

  She rounded the last corner of the track and saw with relief that the doctor’s car was already parked outside the house. In Helena’s experience first babies always took their time in coming. She had been in desultory labour for eighteen hours with Jennifer. She stepped out of her car and, as she did, a long agonizing scream froze her to the spot. ‘My God!’ she breathed, her eyes rounding in horror, and then she broke into a run.

  ‘Something velly wrong, Missy Nicholson!’ Mei Lin gasped as she entered the house. ‘Baby coming fast and not the right way round!’

  The bedroom door was closed against them, but beyond it they

  could hear the doctor saying urgently: ‘That’s it! Wonderful! Once

  again!’ And then there was a silence.

  The ambulance had rolled to a halt beside Helena’s Morgan by the time the doctor walked slowly out of the bedroom. He was a burly man with a thatch of still thick hair and a deeply lined face.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said to Helena as he stepped into the corridor. ‘The baby is dead.’