But now, she said to herself as her eyelids became heavy, there was enough to worry about without anticipating further trouble; she must wait until the child was born and take it from there …
She didn’t know what time in the night it was when she was woken from a deep sleep by the sound of a groan. At first it seemed to be coming from some distance; then suddenly it was in her ear, and she sprang into a sitting position and dimly made out through her sleep-filled eyes that Angela was not only sitting up but bent forward, her hands clutching her stomach.
‘What is it, dear? Are you in pain?’
For answer Angela just rocked herself from side to side; and Jessie sprang from the bed, turned up the light and was pulling on her dressing gown as she went round the bed, exclaiming, ‘It’s all right, dear! It’s all right.’ But when her sister flopped back into the pillows and lay gasping, she had the horrified feeling that it wasn’t all right and that there would be no time before the responsibility of the baby was indeed upon her.
She now went to the wash-hand stand and brought a wet flannel back to the bed, and with it she began to wipe Angela’s sweating face.
When she was almost thrust aside by her sister’s outflung arm as Angela again sat upright and began to rock herself, Jessie looked wildly about her for a moment, before she rushed from the room and along the landing to hammer on her father’s door. And when she heard a sort of grunting sound, she flung it open, crying, ‘Daddy! Daddy! Angela’s in great pain. Come, please! Come!’ Then she was running back to the bedroom again.
A few minutes later, when Ward looked down on his daughter as she cried out aloud, he turned to Jessie, saying, ‘Go and get Carl. Tell him to ride for the doctor.’
‘Yes, Daddy.’
She was at the bedroom door before she turned, saying, ‘But Doctor Patten is away.’
He looked towards her, then seemed to grind his teeth for a moment before he said, ‘Well, you’ll have to get the other one. And fetch Patsy back.’
On reaching the hall she paused a moment before running into the clothes closet, where she pulled off a peg one of her father’s coats which she flung around her shoulders.
In the kitchen she put a match to a candle lantern; and then she was out in the yard, the cold night air making her gasp.
At the cottages, she hammered with her fist on Carl’s door, and in a loud voice she yelled, ‘Carl! Carl! Come quickly. Daddy wants you to get a doctor. Come on, Carl! Do you hear?’
It was a full minute before the door was pulled open, and Carl, blinking down on her, said, ‘What on earth’s the matter? What is it?’
‘The baby…the baby’s coming. Daddy wants you to ride for the doctor. Doctor Patten is away; you’ll have to get Doctor Wheatley. And…and he wants Patsy.’
Patsy had appeared at Carl’s shoulder and Jessie said to her, ‘She’s going to have the baby. She’s crying out.’
When Carl said, ‘Good Lord! It’s only seven months gone,’ Patsy muttered, ‘I’m not surprised,’ and dashed back into the room, calling over her shoulder, ‘I’ll be there as soon as I get into me clothes, Miss Jessie.’
Carl now said, ‘Go on back. You’ll be frozen.’
When the adjoining cottage door opened and Annie appeared, enquiring, ‘What is it, child? What’s the rumpus?’ Carl answered, ‘It’s Miss Angela, Annie. I think the baby is about to come.’ And when Annie answered, ‘I’ll be over directly,’ Patsy’s voice came from their cottage, yelling, ‘You stay where you are, Annie!’
Annie made no retort to this, but, looking down on Jessie, she said, ‘Get yourself back, dear, and into your clothes; you’ll freeze,’ and with this she banged her door; and Jessie was running again.
Back in the cottage Carl began to pull on his outdoor clothes as he said, ‘I hate to go to old Wheatley’s. It just would have to happen that Doctor Patten should be away the night.’ Then hurrying towards the door, he called, ‘See you, love,’ and Patsy’s answer was brief: ‘Sure.’
Five minutes later he was on his horse, and within a further ten minutes he was banging on Doctor Wheatley’s door. But he had to bang for a third time before a window was opened and a female voice called, ‘Who is it?’
He stepped back and looked at the bulky shoulders of the housekeeper, and he called up to her, ‘The doctor’s wanted. ’Tis an emergency. The baby’s coming…Gibson’s farm.’
The head was withdrawn, but within a moment it seemed, the woman cried down to him, ‘Doctor’s in no fit state; he’s heavy with cold. He shouldn’t be taken out of his bed.’
Carl knew what he was heavy with, and it wouldn’t be with cold, and so he cried back to her, ‘You rise him up; I want a word with him.’
‘He’ll be no use to you, I tell you.’
‘Nevertheless, woman, get him up.’
‘Who do you think you are talkin’ to? Don’t you dare call me woman. And he’s not this long in bed; he shouldn’t have been…’ There was a pause before she added, ‘He shouldn’t have been out,’ and these words were practically cut off by the window being banged.
It was some minutes later when the door was pulled open and the housekeeper stood grimly aside to let him enter; and there he saw the doctor shambling down the staircase, and having to aid himself by holding on to the banister.
On reaching the bottom, he stood swaying, a sign giving no satisfaction to Carl that his surmise had been correct: the man had not long been in his bed and had been indulging as usual with some crony or other. The man was a disgrace.
‘What time of night…is this? What you want?’
‘Mr Gibson’s daughter’s child is about coming; and she needs attention.’
‘Well…why come to me? Where’s your favourite scien…tific modern man and…’
The housekeeper was standing by him now, and she said something that was not audible to Carl, but the doctor seemingly understood, and he said, ‘Yes…Yes. Playing the big fella.’ Then looking at Carl, he said, ‘I’ve…I’ve got a chill on me. I…I couldn’t travel.’ His words were becoming thicker.
Carl watched him turn an ear towards his housekeeper and nod; then he was speaking again: ‘As…as this good woman says, there are two…two women there. They should…be able to handle it. ’Tis a farm, isn’t it? Seen things born before.’
When his arm that had been around the stanchion of the stair-post slid slowly from it, and the florid bulk sat down with a plop on the second stair, Carl looked at the man in disgust, and he dared to say, ‘You’re not fit to carry the name of a doctor, sir.’ And on this he turned and went out, and, having mounted his horse, he rode swiftly back to the farm.
When he reached the house it was to find Annie in the kitchen, the kettle bubbling on the hob and her busily cutting up a linen sheet into squares, and as she did so she greeted him with, ‘These are things that should have been already prepared, yet even these have been under taboo. But nature will out, and it’s shown it will out in this case…Is he coming?’
‘No; he’s as full as a gun, mortallious, I would say.’
‘Dear God! Well, what’s to be done?’
He looked at her in some surprise and said, ‘Couldn’t you see to her, Annie?’
She looked down at her work and did not speak for a moment; then she said, ‘I’ve never had any childer of my own; and although I was in the room when the lasses were born, the doctor was there, and he did the necessary. Quite truthfully, lad, I’d be no hand at it. But your Patsy now; she’s helped bring calves into the world and a good few sheep, besides what she must have learned in the Hollow. She’ll handle it all right.’
He looked at her in amazement, the while thinking that there were things about people you never guessed at. Annie, this motherly-looking woman who had spent her life on a farm was afraid of birth. And now she even shocked him by saying, ‘And in this case, God knows what to expect. It could be a monstrosity, and I wouldn’t bear look on it. I just couldn’t,’ and she looked up at Carl again, her expressio
n seeming to plead for understanding; but he could say nothing except, ‘I’d better go up and tell them.’
She nodded at him, then returned to her task of cutting up the sheet.
On reaching the landing, he was surprised to find the master standing there. He seemed to have been leaning against the wall; but now he was facing Carl.
‘Well?’
‘He won’t come. In any case he would have been of no use, sir. He’s drunk, heavily so. But I shouldn’t worry; Patsy will see to her.’
When Ward made no reply, Carl asked, ‘Will you tell her, sir?’ Then after a moment, just when it appeared that Ward was thinking deeply about something, he answered sharply, ‘Yes. Yes, I’ll tell her,’ and with this he turned about and went towards the bedroom. But as he opened the door there came at him a piercing cry, one which might have been wrenched from an animal in torment. He stopped dead and turned his head away.
When he again looked towards the bed it was to see Patsy endeavouring to pull a sheet over his daughter’s knees.
Taking a few steps into the room, he beckoned to her, but before she moved from the bed she spoke to Jessie, and none too quietly, saying, ‘Don’t try to hold her arms down. I’ve told you, miss.’ Then she turned to peer at Ward who was standing beyond the rim of light cast by the lamp; he leaned towards her, saying quietly, ‘Carl couldn’t get old Wheatley, he’s drunk. Do…do you think you could manage?’
She drew in a deep breath before she answered, ‘I’ll have to, won’t I? There’s nothing else for it. I…I’ve never brought a child afore…animals, yes. Yet’—she moved one shoulder in a characteristic gesture—‘I’ve seen some bairns being born.’ She nodded at him now, more reassuringly: ‘Yes, aye, I’ll manage,’ she said. ‘That is if things come straightforwardly. If it gets stuck…well, I don’t know. We’ll just have to wait an’ see.’
During this exchange she had not once addressed him as master or sir, and it had not passed his notice, and somewhere in his mind was the thought that she was speaking to him in much the same manner as Annie did.
She was about to turn away when she said, ‘How’s the time going—’ and now she did add, ‘master?’
‘Nearly one o’clock, I think,’ he answered, as he watched her walk towards the bed in which his daughter was lying, comparatively quiet now except for her heavy gasping breath. He knew that he himself could bring the child; yet not for the life of him could he even approach the bed at this moment, for whatever she was about to deliver into the world would be obnoxious to him. And if it was a distorted body, well, he had already made up his mind what he would do about that…and even if it wasn’t.
When Patsy heard the door being closed, she turned to Jessie, saying, ‘I’d bring the big chair up, miss, and sit yourself down. There’s nothing going to happen for a while; it could be a long night.’
Jessie’s voice came in a startled whisper now as she said, ‘But she couldn’t go on like this all night, Patsy. She’d be worn out. She’s tired already. It’s dreadful…terrible.’
‘It’s natural, miss.’
‘What!’ Jessie screwed up her face. ‘All that pain? her screaming with it? No, no; don’t say it’s natural.’
‘I have to say it, miss: that’s birth. That’s how you came, and me an’ all,’ to which Jessie’s reaction was in words which were long drawn out, spoken as she walked away: ‘It’s unthinkable. Well, I knew there must be some discomfort, having seen the animals; but…but not like this.’
‘Look, miss. Sit yourself down for a time. She’ll be all right. Don’t worry. The quicker the pains come the quicker it’ll be born.’
When, by four o’clock in the morning, there was still no sign of Angela’s delivering her child, Ward ordered Annie into the room, saying, ‘Those are both young lasses up there; go and see what you can do.’
And so Annie, eyes weary for sleep, her legs heavy with water, mounted the stairs and went into the bedroom. She knew it would be of little use telling the distraught man that she’d had no experience in such matters. And after saying, ‘There, there, my lovely,’ and patting the face of the heaving half-demented girl, she willingly sat in the armchair that Patsy indicated, and waited.
Annie was dozing when she heard Patsy’s voice exclaiming, ‘Aye, aye! Here it comes, miss. Another push. Another push. That’s a good girl. Come on. Come on,’ and she struggled to her feet as she watched the tiny body slipping out of the equally small frame, and heard the girl let out a great sigh before sinking deep into the bed.
‘She’s whole…bonny.’ The tears were in Patsy’s eyes and her voice was thick as she dealt with the cord before handing the tiny, yelling infant to Jessie, standing now holding a towel, her face awash with tears.
Patsy pointed to the basin of water on the wash-hand stand: ‘Clean her eyes first; an’ put another towel under her; then lay her on the wash-hand stand. She’ll be all right. Go on: you can do it. I must see to Miss.’
Annie was now wiping Angela’s face, and she turned to Patsy, saying, ‘Can you deal with the afterbirth?’ and Patsy replied, ‘Yes, if it comes natural like. Otherwise, I don’t know. We’ll just have to wait and see. Poor little soul.’ She stretched out her hand and touched Angela’s cheek, encouraging her: ‘That’s a good lass. You’ve made it. You’ve made it.’ Then turning to where Jessie was still attending the child, she said softly, ‘Bring her here, and show it to her.’
Jessie gathered up the child in a towel, almost joyfully now, and moved hurriedly towards the bed, both Annie and Patsy stepping aside so that Angela could see her child. And when she did, the response was so loud, so piercing that they both fell back in astonishment. Angela’s mouth was wide as the screams issued from it, and her hands were flailing as if to throw the child from her.
‘There now! There now! There, my love!’ Annie was aiming to hold down the flapping hands when Patsy said, ‘Out of my way! Annie,’ and she took hold of Angela by the shoulders and shook her gently as she cried, ‘Stop it! miss. Stop it! All right! All right! You don’t have to see it. Only stop it!’
They were all well aware of the opening of the door, but no-one moved towards it until Jessie, who was standing in the corner of the room holding the small bundle to her, suddenly turned about to where the padded basket was standing on a low chair and, placing the child in it, she wrapped the towels well around it before covering it with the small quilt that lay across the bottom of the basket. Then she carried it towards her father; but she passed him and went into the corridor without speaking; but as he muttered, ‘Wait!’ he followed her, closing the door quickly behind him.
‘She couldn’t bear the sight of it, Daddy. It is dreadful…dreadful. And it is so lovely. It’s a little girl, and she is quite whole…beautiful. And look, she’s got quite an abundance of hair already.’
He did not look at the child, but at her, and said, ‘I’ll take it down.’
‘It…it has to be kept warm, near the fire.’
She did not release her hold on the basket until he said, ‘Yes. Yes, I know. Give it here.’
She stood watching him carrying the basket and holding it away from him until he disappeared down the stairs. Then she returned to the room, only to stand near the door, her hand tightly over her mouth, the tears running over her fingers, before she made her way towards where Patsy was seeing to something on the bed that looked very distasteful.
Becoming aware of Jessie, Patsy stopped what she was doing and turned quickly towards her and asked, ‘Where’s the child?’
Between sobs, Jessie said, ‘Daddy’s taken her down to the kitchen,’ causing an immediate, unprecedented reaction from Patsy: she dug her elbow sharply into Jessie’s arm, saying, ‘Go down and see to the child. Go on now, quick!’
‘But why? Daddy has…’
‘Do what you’re told, Miss Jessie,’ Annie interrupted her, and the tone of her voice made Jessie turn and stumble from the room; but it wasn’t until she was running down the stairs that she asked
herself again, Why? and when the horrifying answer came to her she cried out inwardly. No! No! How dreadful of them to think he would do such a thing.
She entered the kitchen in a rush, and Ward turned from where he was standing in front of the fire, demanding, ‘What do you want?’
She didn’t answer but she looked towards the hearth and around the room. There was no sign of the basket holding the child.
‘Look, go back upstairs. I’ll be with you shortly.’
‘Daddy, where is the baby?’ Her tone was harsh now and she was no longer crying.
‘Do what I say immediately.’
‘No! No! Daddy. I won’t. Not this time I won’t. What have you done to the baby?’
‘I’ve done nothing to the baby.’
‘Well, where is it?’
‘I’ve told you. Go upstairs and stay for a while. When you come back it’ll be on the hearth waiting for you.’
She shook her head wildly, and then started to yell, ‘I want the baby, and I want it now. Where…’
She stopped when she heard a whimper, and she looked towards the cold-store larder at the far end of the kitchen. This was a narrow room, marble-shelved and stone-floored, and cold enough to keep milk fresh for three days, even colder than the dairy. And now she flew towards it, thrust open the door, and there, on the stone floor and lying on the towel, she saw the child quite naked. The basket was on the shelf.
The Maltese Angel Page 28
