At night in the blackness of the set-in-the-wall bed they sometimes made love. It was becoming more difficult because of her swollen belly, but making love, in any position or in any manner at all, was the only pleasure in her life. She felt it must be for him too. As a result she became more and more daring, touching him, stroking, caressing him, and knowing by his little grunts and groans that it must be giving him pleasure too. It was the only time she experienced any real closeness with him. As each day followed another the bitterness formed a harder and harder shell around him.
She tried to preserve daily contact by talking with him but her attempts at conversation never got very far. She wept for him and the remnants of his pride that he hung on to so desperately. But she couldn’t tell him why she wept, and he thought it was only because she was hungry and he couldn’t give her enough money for food.
His face had set with the strength of bitterness. He had visibly drawn further away from her and hardened as if he were cast in a mould of iron that would never break.
She had tried to melt him with her hands but the feel of his big frame and how it had obviously lost much of its covering of flesh only served to make her tense herself. She could not sleep for worrying about him. Her mind sought ways in which she might help him. Could she find a job? A post as governess would be the only employment she might be qualified to do, but who would employ a governess from the Briggait? Who would give her any kind of work? Her soul quailed at the thought of the mill. Yet she resolved to ask Tibs if there would be any chance for her there. Of course, her baby was due any time now. It might be better to wait until the baby came. But then—what to do with the child? She supposed she would have to depend on Mrs Gunnet’s looking after it. This gave a painful edge to her worry. But the more she thought of it, the more it became obvious that she had to find work. They were barely surviving now. How could an addition to the family be supported?
Luther was doing his best. It was not his fault that they were all but destitute. He had taken her into his home and made her his wife. Many another man, she realised now, would have left her to fend for herself on the streets.
As soon as the baby came, she determined, she would seek employment. In the meantime she would do her best to cope with the work in the house and the search for scraps of food. She insisted that she received the children’s wages and any money that Luther managed to earn so that she could do the shopping. Their mother was no longer fit enough and needed more rest, she explained amidst Mrs Gunnet’s protestations. She resolved to do better than her mother-in-law in squeezing the most from the shopkeepers.
She learned where to go by simply wandering round all the shops in the poorest areas until she found her bearings, and soon she knew not only the best places to go but the best times. If she went last thing on a Saturday night to a shop that sold perishable goods, and pointed out to the shopkeeper that his merchandise would be stinking rotten by the time he opened again on Monday, the chances were he could be talked into giving her a bit of fish or a jug of milk for next to nothing.
It was on one of these shopping expeditions that Augusta took a sudden longing to stroll along Argyle Street and gaze at the windows of establishments in which she had once been able to buy without ever bothering about cost. It was a balmy September evening and the gas lamps were strung along the street like a diamond necklace. The shop windows too shone jewel-bright through the velvety dusk. Carriages with lanterns swinging clattered cheerfully over the cobbles.
Augusta allowed herself to be jostled along as she gazed this way and that with interest. The din of the streets had just about reached its climax, with vendors lining the whole length of the causeway shouting their wares, then despite the racket she picked out a familiar voice:
‘Do be careful, girls. Keep behind McKenzie. He will clear a path.’
Dumpling-faced Mrs Binny was shepherding her two daughters across a pavement towards a waiting coach.
Halfway there, she stopped abruptly and cried,
‘Mary, Fay, look! It’s Augusta Cameron!’
The sisters put gloved palms to mouths in shocked dismay and fluttered back as Augusta stepped forward to greet them. ‘Oh, Mama!’ they twittered in unison, like two tropical birds in their pink coats and their yellow and white feathered bonnets.
Augusta was suddenly aware that no bonnet covered her grubby hair; it had long before been sold. The coat she wore was shabby and so tight she could not fasten it across her enormous belly. Her slippers as well as her stockings were dirt-splashed and torn.
‘Oh, my dear,’ wailed Mrs Binny, ‘what has that dreadful man been doing to you?’
‘You mean my husband?’ Augusta tilted her head in a defiant show of pride. ‘He has been trying to keep me from starvation. And it has not been easy since my father has banned him from decent employment.’
Now Mrs Binny stepped back and brought out her handkerchief to waft about as if to dispense an unpleasant smell. ‘But, my dear, at best he was only a common servant.’
‘My husband was never common, Mrs Binny.’ She turned to the Misses Binny and eyeing their ringless fingers said, ‘Still not able to get a man of any kind, I see.’
Leaving them fluttering behind their mother in dismay, Augusta continued her promenade along Argyle Street. But the pleasure had gone. The glare of gaslit shop windows, the stentorian-voiced hucksters, the push and pull of the crowd exhausted instead of excited her. Homesickness for Cameron House and for her own mother was swelling in her chest like a dangerous balloon.
Chapter Eighteen
‘There you are, squire!’ Luther’s eyes creased with a hard mockery of his old laughter. ‘I was in the area so I thought I’d meet you and walk you home.’
Neither Billy nor Rose answered and his gaze sharpened and probed at them to discover why they looked so apprehensive, as well as tired. He hoisted Rose into his arms, but instead of flopping immediately into sleep as she’d done on previous occasions, this time she nervously picked at his jacket. Billy’s shoulders hunched against the cold but there was an aura of misery about him had went beyond physical suffering. The child’s distress sent rage bludgeoning about inside Luther.
‘Where’s Tibs?’ he asked the boy.
‘I don’t know.’
‘What do you mean, you don’t know.’ He stopped in his tracks. ‘She comes home with you every night, doesn’t she?’
Rose began to moan and weep until Luther gave her a shake.
‘What’s happened?’
‘She’s run away,’ Billy said.
‘Run home, you mean?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Where, then?’
‘She wouldn’t tell us. She was crying at dinner time. She said she’d never see us again. Afterwards the overlooker came searching for her. He beat us to try and make us tell where she’d gone. He wouldn’t believe we didn’t know. We don’t know, Luther, I swear it.’
Luther stared down at the strained face topped with the tufty stubble of hair.
‘It’s all right, Billy,’ he managed. ‘I’m not blaming you. Maybe she’s at home. Let’s hurry and see. If she’s not there I’ll come back out and search the town.’
He lengthened his stride for the rest of the way and Billy had to run to keep up. The child was palpitating with breathlessness by the time they reached the house. His mother, rigid-backed and tight-mouthed, was dishing potatoes on to plates set around the table.
‘Has Tibs been in yet?’
She threw him a wary look. ‘Tibs? Isn’t she with you?’
‘Where’s Augusta?’
His mother made no reply and putting Rose on one of the chairs he strode through to the room where Augusta was tugging a brush through her hair.
‘Have you seen Tibs today?’
‘Not since last night. Why?’
‘She’s disappeared. Run away, Billy says. God knows where. I’m going back out to search for her. You see that Mother stays here.’
Mrs Gunn
et was already marching across the room for her shawl but he stopped her. ‘No, Mother. I don’t want to be worried about you as well. Leave this to me, I’ll find her even if it takes all night.’
Augusta hastened heavily towards him and blocked his path to the door.
‘Luther, have your supper first. You’ve had nothing to eat since morning.’
‘For God’s sake!’
‘You must eat something.’
‘That’s all I need. You to start nagging me.’ Irritably he turned back to the table and began stuffing potatoes into his mouth without sitting down.
At his side again, Augusta held up a cup of milk. Without a word he drank it down.
‘You’ll feel better after that.’ She touched his arm and had an almost overwhelming longing to have her caress returned. She needed him. The burden of herself had become too exhausting, and the mystery of birth a frightening reality around which her thoughts revolved more and more.
She had tried talk to Mrs Gunnet about what giving birth would actually mean, what she should do and who could help her. She knew of course that a doctor was out of the question. They could not even afford a midwife. But Mrs Gunnet had completely closed her mind against Augusta.
Suddenly Augusta didn’t want Luther to go at all. It wasn’t that she didn’t care about Tibs. But she was frightened. What if the baby started while Luther was gone? She had not been feeling well all day.
‘I wish you worried about me half as much.’ She didn’t mean to sound childish but somehow she couldn’t help it. ‘All I’m good for it seems is looking after your mother. It’s your mother this and your mother that . . . .’
‘Can you never think of anyone but yourself?’
After he’d gone she wiped her face dry and dragged herself over to the table to eat her supper. No one spoke and the silence seemed to press down with the ceiling until she felt suffocated by it.
Mrs Gunnet was clearing away the plates, when Billy at last said: ‘I’d better go and look too.’
His mother gave him a brusque nod. ‘You’re a good clever lad. You’ll find Tibs all right.’
Augusta thought it foolishness for him to go out trailing the streets when he was so tired but she said nothing. They would not listen to her anyway. To them she was nothing but the cause of all their misery and misfortunes.
She ached with restlessness. Despite her vague feelings of indisposition a fountain of energy leapt within her. Unable to bear sitting still a moment longer she went through to the room and began tugging the bedclothes straight, tidying drawers, rubbing at the furniture with a duster. Then unexpectedly her concentration switched back to herself. Pain crunched across her lower abdomen, making her gasp. It lasted for a few seconds and then it was gone. Her pulse quickened and loudened like the tick of a clock. The baby must be coming. She had to seek help without further delay. Forgetting to put on a coat she retraced her steps through the kitchen and then out to the yard. A full moon had draped a translucent veil inside the deep pit of the close, making shadowy mounds of the dunghills but covering the tall tenements in silvery scales. High in one of the buildings voices swirled in argument. From some low corner a cat growled. Augusta picked her way across the yard then steeled herself to pass along the dark corridor to the one-roomed hovel in which lived the woman with the children she’d once helped. The oldest boy had died, and at the time Augusta had done her best to try to console the woman, whose name she had discovered was Mrs Dinwoodie.
Mrs Dinwoodie’s husband had been one of the few men employed by the mills to clean and sharpen the carding-frames but he was killed in an accident at work. She had not been able to find a job and had been recently forced to let out her home for a few hours each Friday and Saturday night for prostitution. On these nights she and the children slept huddled together on stairs or landings or shop doorways. As the woman had explained to Augusta, to survive you had to get money somehow. They had become quite friendly. Meeting occasionally at the water-pump, they would stop to gossip for a few minutes. Sometimes they bumped into each other at the small groceries in High Street or Gallowgate Street where they both tried to haggle to get as much food as possible for the little money they possessed.
Mrs Dinwoodie was surprised to see her at such a late hour but immediately asked her in, apologising for the lack of a chair.
‘Tibs has run away,’ Augusta explained. ‘And Luther and Billy have gone out to search for her. They might be away most of the night for all I know and I’m worried in case the baby is on its way. You know what Mrs Gunnet is like and she gets worse every day. I will get no help from her.’
‘Never mind.’ Mrs Dinwoodie patted Augusta’s arm. ‘I’ll do what I can. Pains started, have they?’
‘I had one before I came across.’
‘Was that the first?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, I’d say there’s not much fear of you delivering before morning.’
Augusta hesitated with a mixture of anxiety and embarrassment. Then lowering her voice to a whisper so that Mrs Dinwoodie’s children shouldn’t hear she asked, ‘What . . . what happens exactly?’
‘They’ll start coming more often until it arrives. You’ll manage. There’s no need to look so feared.’
‘You mean I could manage myself if the worst came to the worst?’
‘I don’t say that. There’s the cord to cut and the mess to get rid of and you all cleaned up. The baby’s eyes has to be wiped as well. But don’t fret. I’ll see to everything. Better than some midwives. Some aren’t all that fussy.’
‘When will you . . . oh!’ Pain unexpectedly robbed her of breath and she grabbed at the older woman for support.
‘Another already?’ Mrs Dinwoodie remarked. ‘You’re going to be quick.’
Augusta ground out words: ‘When will you come?’
‘I wasn’t thinking there’d be any call till morning. But I tell you what, I’ll take a run over after I get the children to sleep.’
‘You won’t forget, will you?’
‘Give me an hour. And see there’s plenty hot water ready, and a pail or something for the afterbirth and scissors or a knife for the cord and something to tie round it.’
The moon kept flitting behind clouds as Augusta shuffled back across the yard. One moment a phosphorescent gleam lit her path, then suddenly all was black and she had to edge forward with sensitive toes and hands protectively outstretched. Managing to avoid the dunghill, she scuffed her feet free of papers and other rubbish strewn about. The sound of argument from inside one of the tenements had soared into violence. The woman was screaming hysteically. The man made no sound.
In helpless harassment Augusta reached the rickety wooden stairway with the familiar piece of wood trailing loose, then felt her way along to the corner under the stair where the Gunnet door was hidden. At the door she was startled by another grinding contraction. Clinging to the doorhandle she forced herself to take deep breaths until the pain went away. A resolution to be brave took possession of her mind. Mrs Gunnet, Mrs Dinwoodie, no one was going to see her go to pieces and behave in a cowardly or in any way reprehensible fashion. If Mrs Gunnet and Mrs Dinwoodie and innumerable other women could have their babies here, like this, so could she.
Already she regretted betraying a shaft of fear to Mrs Dinwoodie and, rallying all her concentration and courage, she prepared herself to cope with whatever was to come.
The kitchen table was cleared. Mrs Gunnet, eyes shut and face like a death-mask, filled the chair by the fire. Her feet were set apart but firmly on the floor. Her hands flatly gripped the arms of the chair. On her lap was the box that contained her letter and other remnants from the past.
The doors of the set-in-the-wall bed in which Rose was now sleeping were tightly shut. The dresser, the tables, the chairs were brooding black shapes beyond the faltering light of the candle.
With difficulty Augusta emptied the kettle into the big cauldron of a pot then trailed back out to the yard, praying that th
e pump had not been shut off. Fortunately it had not and she was able to fill the kettle and lug it back to the kitchen. Then it occurred to her that it would be better if the water was kept ready in the room so that Mrs Dinwoodie might be spared the ordeal of passing to and fro in front of Mrs Gunnet.
In between ever-increasing contractions she managed to carry a shovelful of coal through and set a fire burning in the room. Then she transferred some water into the tin bath which she struggled to carry through and clatter down in the fireplace. Next she crept slowly out to the yard to fill the kettle again. She had just managed to return and place the kettle on the room fire when she was brought to her knees with a pain that forced a scream from between clenched teeth.
The relief when the pain faded away was exquisite. But she hadn’t time to savour the delicious release, she had too much to do. With increasing application of will and concentration she forced herself to fetch the coal pail from the kitchen, empty the few pieces it contained on to the fire then take it out to the yard to wash it at the pump. Pain drowned her again as she clung to the handle, and left her blindly fumbling and splashing at water and getting herself soaked. Somehow she found her way back to the house, past the stony Mrs Gunnet and into the room. Hardly knowing what she was doing any more, she set out scissors on the table, and thread, and the gown she had made for the baby from one of her petticoats, and her face sponge and towel. She wondered if she would be able to climb into the high bed without Mrs Dinwoodie’s help, and prayed that an hour had passed and that she would at any moment come.
The contractions were gripping more often now, hardly allowing her time to recover from one before another overwhelmed her. She longed for the comfort of the bed but she knew she could no longer reach it. She was marooned on her knees on the hard floor, tearing at the settee with broken fingernails. By the time she heard the faraway knocking on the outside door she was reduced to writhing on the floor like an animal, sometimes squealing, sometimes grunting, completely possessed. The persistent knocking grew louder and she heard herself cry out through a delirium of distress for the woman to enter.
The Dark Side of Pleasure Page 13
