Ellie Pride

by Annie Groves

  ‘When?’ Lydia cried bitterly. ‘Oh, Amelia, I am so –’

  Hastily Amelia interrupted her. ‘Alfred says that you may expect to be confined before the end of the month.’

  ‘Yes. He has said as much to me.’

  Lydia’s lips trembled. She had not been able to bring herself to ask her brother-in-law if he still believed her life to be at risk. She had been too afraid of what he might say, and so instead she had allowed herself to believe Robert when he insisted optimistically that she had nothing to worry about. But sometimes in the dead of night, she woke sweating and trembling, her heart racing and her mouth dry, overwhelmed by fear.

  Making plans for Ellie’s future, and the ways in which she could thwart Gideon Walker’s intentions of ruining her daughter’s life, gave her a means of escaping those fears.

  ‘Cecily is to put off her wedding until next year so that you will be able to attend. She is determined to be a June bride,’ Amelia informed her sister.

  What she could not tell Lyddy was that she herself had had to suggest discreetly that her daughter plan her wedding more than twelve months hence, just in case they should be overtaken by events. She certainly had no wish to wear mourning at her own daughter’s wedding.

  And neither had she any wish to lose her youngest sister, but Alfred had refused to offer her much hope.

  ‘The damage caused by the birth of her last child is such that I do not believe she can survive this birth. I pray that I may be wrong,’ he had said to his wife when she had questioned him.

  ‘You must not tax your strength, Lyddy,’ Amelia told her now. ‘Whatever happens, you can trust us, your sisters, to do whatever is necessary for your children. We have already discussed this.’

  ‘Yes, I know that, Melia, and I am grateful to you all…’ Tears welled in Lydia’s eyes.

  Quickly Amelia bent and kissed her cheek. ‘I must go. But remember, Robert is to send for Alfred the moment you need him.’

  Wanly, Lydia agreed.

  The forthcoming birth of Lydia’s child was also the subject of discussion in Alfred’s handsome consulting room in the Winckley Square house.

  ‘But if the risk to Mrs Pride is so great,’ Paul Charteris was saying earnestly, ‘then surely there can be nothing to lose and everything to gain by adopting such a procedure.’

  ‘Have you discussed this with your father?’ Alfred challenged his son-in-law-to-be.

  Paul sighed. ‘I have, but he believes there are too many risks involved.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Alfred pounced. ‘To perform a Caesarean operation to remove the child might seem to be a solution, but in my view it is one that carries far too much risk, not just to mother and child, but also to the reputation of the surgeon who carries it out, to make it a responsible or viable option.’

  ‘But if it is the only means of saving the mother and her child, surely it is better to take that risk than to stand by and –’

  ‘Paul, Paul, your ardour does you credit,’ Alfred told him sombrely, coming round his desk to place a consoling arm about the younger man’s shoulders, ‘but I fear you are permitting your emotions to overrule your judgement, and that is something no physician should allow to happen.’

  Bewildered, Paul watched him. His own father had been as loath to acknowledge the potential benefit of performing a Caesarean delivery as his prospective father-in-law was.

  Caesarean deliveries were performed, of course, when the mother’s life was agreed to be of less value than that of the child she was carrying, or where a choice had to be made between mother and child, but to perform one where both mother and child were expected to survive was a dangerous medical procedure. And yet the operation had been done – and successfully. It was Paul’s dream that one day such operations would be a matter of course, and that he would be performing them; that he would be at the forefront of his profession, not content, as his father was, to rest on his reputation and accept a knighthood, but to push back the medical barriers as far as they could possibly go; to conquer the perils of infection, surgical trauma and blood loss.

  Reluctant to abandon his dream he burst out, ‘Perhaps if Mrs Pride were to be consulted…If she were told, offered the choice…’

  Alfred looked outraged. ‘How can you suggest such a thing? No! Poor woman, she already has enough to bear. She should be left at peace now, to compose herself for what lies ahead. That is our most solemn duty and responsibility to her.’

  ‘But surely, sir, our first and foremost duty is to try to save her life and that of her child,’ Paul insisted doggedly.

  ‘Do you think that I am not aware of that? Lydia Pride is not just my patient, she is also my wife’s sister,’ Alfred reminded Paul sternly. ‘And, besides, I am not convinced that such an operation, even if it were successful in saving the child, could save her. She should never have conceived again. It was only by good fortune that she was spared last time.’

  Paul took a deep breath before asking, ‘Then would it not perhaps have been better for the pregnancy to be terminated in its early stages?’

  The words fell into a heavy silence that suddenly filled the room. Alfred’s face grew stern. ‘I shall pretend that you did not utter that remark, Paul.’ When Paul said nothing, Alfred burst out angrily, ‘You know as well as I do that such a course of action is against the law.’

  ‘Yes I do, which is why women, poor creatures, are forced to resort to the desperate measure of paying some filthy harridan to maim and murder them.’

  ‘I will not listen to this, Paul. You are not talking about our own womenfolk here but a class of women you should know better than to discuss. If a woman has a need to resort to…to the solution you have just allowed to soil your lips, then it is because she herself has sinned and is seeking to hide that sin from the world and escape her just punishment for it!’

  Paul gritted his teeth. The older man was only echoing the view shared by his own father, he knew, but it was a view that Paul himself did not find either acceptable or honest, never mind worthy of his Hippocratic oath. It was on the tip of his tongue to remind Alfred that, far from sinning, Lydia Pride had been an admirably dutiful wife, but he could see from the florid, bellicose expression on Alfred’s face that such an argument was not likely to find favour.

  ‘I have done my best for Lydia. I –’ Alfred coughed and looked embarrassed, ‘– I have discussed with Robert the…benefits of, ahem, not completing the…the act…’

  ‘But there are far more modern and reliable ways of preventing conception than that,’ Paul burst out, unable to contain himself.

  Once again his frankness earned him a disapproving look. ‘I have no wish to continue this discussion, Paul.’

  Frustrated, Paul turned away to look out of the window.

  ‘There is a gentleman to see you, ma’am, a Mr Dawson.’

  ‘Thank you, Fielding. I am expecting him. Please show him into the library,’ Mary instructed.

  She had been advised to hire a manservant by the friends who had been so kind to her when she had originally left home to seek employment – and freedom – in London. A woman in her position needed to have the protection of a male retainer, they had insisted.

  ‘I’m not so sure about giving me protection, but he certainly adds an aura of grandness to the place,’ she had laughed to one of her neighbours, Edith Rigby, when she had invited Mary to take tea with her.

  ‘Good afternoon, Mr Dawson,’ Mary greeted her visitor as she hurried into the library. ‘Will you take tea? You have had a long journey here, I suspect.’

  ‘Tea would be very welcome,’ her visitor confirmed, his accent betraying that, unlike Mary herself, he was neither a member of the upper middle class, nor a local. His accent had a distinctly cockney twang to it, which was explained by the fact that Mary had originally recruited him via her contacts in London.

  ‘So,’ she sat down behind the huge partners’ desk, which had originally been her father’s, indicating to the waiting man that he was to
take a seat, ‘what news do you have for me?’

  Her heart sank as she saw the expression on his face.

  ‘I very much regret to have to tell you, Miss Isherwood, that the woman you wanted me to trace – your nurse, I believe you said she was – passed away some time ago. She was predeceased by her husband, and, as you informed me, she was in the employ of Earl Peel of Lancaster.’

  ‘Yes…yes…I…I understand.’

  ‘I have brought you bad news, I can see, and I am sorry for it.’

  Mary gave him a wan smile. ‘You must think me foolish, Mr Dawson, but Emma was very dear to me. She was my nurse, you see, and my closest companion after the death of my mother. She was less than a dozen years older than I, and had been hired originally as a nursery maid.’

  Frank Dawson remained quiet. He had experienced many scenes likes this one in his work as a private investigator, but something about Mary Isherwood’s quiet dignity elicited his highest accolade – his rarely given respect.

  ‘Emma was everything to me,’ Mary told him simply. ‘But then she…she had to leave. My father decided that I was old enough not to need her services any longer, and so Emma took employment elsewhere, which was how she met her husband. We kept up a correspondence for a while, until…until I quarrelled with my father and…and left home to go and live with friends in London.’

  ‘I am sorry if my investigations have brought you unhappiness.’ Frank Dawson gave a small cough. ‘There is, of course, the matter of my fees, but –’

  ‘No, no…I shall pay you now,’ Mary insisted firmly. ‘Do you have your account?’

  Relieved, Frank Dawson reached into his pocket for the invoice he had written before coming north. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Mary, it was just that he knew the way that rich folk could take their time about paying bills.

  ‘Oh…’ she began, and then checked. ‘I had heard that Emma had had a child, Mr Dawson, a son. I don’t know if…?’ Mary’s face had become slightly pink and she sounded a little nervous.

  ‘Oh, yes, I almost forgot,’ Frank Dawson responded. ‘I was that concerned about telling you that your nurse had passed away that I nearly overlooked the boy. It’s all here.’ He proudly removed a notebook from his pocket and tapped it with one thick forefinger. ‘A son born not a year after they had wed, he was.’

  ‘I see. And what do you know of this son, Mr Dawson, if anything?’

  ‘There is not much to know, ma’am, other than that he visits this town in his line of business. Well, not exactly his line of business, since he was apprenticed to a master cabinet-maker in Lancaster, but it seems that Master Wareing could not find work for the young man, having three sons of his own to take into the business, and so currently by all accounts Mr Gideon Walker is working for William Pride, a cattle drover, whilst he tries his luck at setting himself up in business as a cabinet-maker.’

  ‘A cabinet-maker…and he visits Preston regularly, you say? Goodness, you have been thorough and clever, Mr Dawson,’ Mary complimented him. ‘You wouldn’t happen to have an address where I might find him, would you? I may have come into my inheritance too late to do anything to reward Emma for her care of me, but perhaps I shall be able to benefit her son – for her sake and her kindness to me.’

  ‘Very worthy sentiments, if I may be so bold as to say, ma’am. As to the young man’s address, I shall do my best to discover it, ma’am, and once I have done so I shall send you a note of it,’ Dawson promised.

  ‘You are every bit as efficient as my friends promised, Mr Dawson,’ Mary smiled, discreetly adding an extra guinea to the money she was placing on the table in front of her. ‘And I am very grateful for what you have done.’

  After Frank Dawson had gone, Mary frowned into the silence of the room.

  There had been a time when Emma had been everything to her: mother, sister, friend, protector.

  The genteel poverty in which Mary had lived during her father’s lifetime, scraping a living giving private French lessons, had made it impossible for her to do anything to repay Emma for her care of her as a child, but now things were different.

  With so much renovation needing to be done on the house she could easily find work for a skilled cabinet-maker. And surely she owed it to Emma to do for her son what she could no longer do for Emma herself.

  SIX

  Newly returned from Lancaster, as always when he walked past the huge bulk of the Hawkins cotton mill on his way to his lodgings, Gideon was struck by its gauntness and the dark, sour shadow it threw across the narrow street. Not for anything would he want to work in such an environment, and he sincerely pitied those who must. As he turned off the main street and in through the ginnel that led to the yard that housed his lodgings, he saw Nancy walking towards him.

  ‘Still seeing that posh lady friend of yours, are you?’ she demanded, giving him a bold-eyed look. ‘’Cos if you ain’t…’

  A meaningful smile accompanied her words, but as she deliberately reached out and touched his bare forearm with her work-roughened hands, Gideon had to stop himself from protesting. Her touch was nothing like Ellie’s and it was almost a profanity even to think about his beloved in close proximity to a woman like Nancy.

  ‘Just wanted to thank you, like, for helping us out wi’ poor Peggy. Snuffed it, she did, of course. Best thing for her really. She was too far gone to risk what she did. Fair butchered her, that old Jezebel who calls herself a wisewoman did. Better she had had the brat and then left it on the doorstep of the foundling home – or, better still, with its father.’ Her face twisted into an ugly bitterness. ‘Not that he’d care to acknowledge it, nor what he gets up to wi’ lasses who can’t afford to say no to him.’

  Gideon didn’t know what to say. He had guessed what had happened to the girl. William Pride had spoken openly to him about the way some of the mill girls were forced to supplement their small incomes, and their resultant need of the illegal services of the town’s notorious ‘wisewoman’, who for a fee was willing to help terminate their unwanted pregnancies.

  ‘Poor little sods might just as well throw ’emselves int’ Ribble!’ he had told Gideon wryly. ‘At least that way ’ud be quicker and less painful.’

  Gideon had kept his own counsel, although he had found what he had been told disturbing.

  His landlady approached him as he walked into the house.

  ‘There’s a letter for you,’ she told him. ‘It came a couple of days back. Shall I fetch it?’

  Nodding, Gideon tried to conceal his impatience as he waited for her to return. He had made enquiries about a couple of shop premises, and maybe the letter was about one of them.

  When his landlady returned with a sealed envelope with his name written elegantly on it, Gideon resisted the temptation to tear it open straight away. She was watching him with open curiosity, but, sidestepping her, Gideon made for the stairs.

  Once inside his own room he ripped open the envelope, frowning a little as he read its contents.

  Disappointingly, it wasn’t about either of the shop premises he had visited. Instead, the letter declared that its writer was aware that he was a skilled cabinet-maker newly come to the town, and that she had some work she wished to discuss with him if he could make himself available at the address given on the letter when he was next in Preston.

  Ruefully Gideon reread it. Well, at least he had a potential offer of work, even if he did not have any premises, but he was warily conscious of the work he had done that had still not been paid for. This time he would behave a good deal less naïvely and trustingly when he visited his would-be customer.

  He studied the address. Winckley Square. Very posh. What exactly was it that Miss Mary Isherwood wanted him to make, he wondered.

  At least he would have some good news to tell Ellie. Whistling cheerfully under his breath, Gideon washed quickly and then put on fresh clothes. The last time he had been in Preston he had promised that he would take Ellie boating on the river. The thought of being with her mad
e his heart lift in anticipation.

  ‘Oh, my poor head. What on earth is that dreadful noise?’

  Ellie sighed, trying not to betray either her impatience or her longing for Gideon’s promised arrival and her escape from the stuffy, claustrophobic atmosphere of her mother’s room and company.

  ‘It is the men who have come to install the new telephone,’ she replied as patiently as she could.

  Fretfully Lydia Pride pressed her hands to her temples. ‘I cannot understand why your father should have been so unthinking as to have them come round now when he knows that I am suffering from a bad headache.’

  Ellie said nothing. The truth was that her mother had been suffering from ‘a bad headache’ and an even worse temper on and off now for weeks, and Ellie couldn’t help fidgeting a little and glancing longingly towards the window through which the late spring sunshine was shining in intoxicating temptation.

  ‘You must go and tell them to stop, Ellie,’ Lydia announced. ‘I really cannot stand any more of this noise. And whilst you are downstairs, tell Cook to prepare me a tisane. It might soothe my poor aching head. No, you had better make it yourself, Ellie, I am sure that Cook did not use newly boiled water yesterday when she made me one. It had a distinctly sour taste, and she had used far too much ginger!’

  The taste of her mother’s tisane could not be any sourer than the air in this room, Ellie decided rebelliously, and certainly nowhere near as sour as her mother’s mood. Ellie scarcely recognised her gentle, laughing mother in the cross shrew she had turned into these last few weeks.

  ‘The men are almost finished,’ she tried to placate her.

  ‘But why could they not wait a little?’

  ‘Mother, you were the one who insisted that Father had a telephone installed as soon as he could, remember?’ Ellie couldn’t prevent herself from challenging. ‘You said that if all your sisters had telephones then you must have one too. You said that Father would find that it increased his business,’ Ellie pressed on, ignoring the protective little voice inside herself that was urging her to remember that her mother was not well, and that the pregnancy must be making her feel uncomfortable. Ellie couldn’t wait for the next few weeks to be over. In fact, she decided crossly, she wished her mother would have the baby now and then perhaps the Pride household might get back to normal!