A Mother's Love (17 page)

It wasn’t proving an easy pregnancy. She’d never been sick with Sara, not that she could remember that time with any clarity. Emma Hardy prophesied a boy, rightly or wrongly, saying that morning sickness always happened when you carried a boy. Harriet hoped it would be, although she didn’t care for this part of it. Even when the sickness finally abated, she felt no easier, with persistent heartburn and the increasing weight of the growing child dragging on her, even at five months.

‘It’s going to be big,’ she confided to Emma. ‘I’m carrying it all in front this time. I feel a proper barge.’

‘It ’as ter be a boy then,’ Emma commented, her coarse round face certain. ‘That’ll be nice for Sara. She looks proper lonely sometimes. It’ll be luv’ly fer ’er to ’ave a bruvver ter play wiv. That’s what she wants, y’know, a bruvver ter play wiv.’

‘Mmm, I s’pose so,’ Harriet sighed, her speech slipping as always in her neighbour’s presence so she wouldn’t be accused of putting on airs. Sometimes Harriet felt she was two people – one for those like Emma, another for Matthew. But, like him, she too was concerned by the way Sara was talking. She’d tried to correct her, especially the words she ought not be learning; had even resorted to a sharp slap now and again, but beyond reducing Sara to tears, it hadn’t cured her. The child was perverse like her father; didn’t care about upsetting her at every turn; drove her to distraction. Perhaps once they had moved away, things would be easier, and Sara would be less spoiled.

‘I think it cannot be too soon,’ Matthew had said, and he was probably right.

‘It’s in Victoria Park Road – ever so nice. And Matthew’s found shop premises just around the corner. Really spacious.’

Nursing her bump, Harriet sat in the front parlour of her parents’ house. Her mother was still sipping tea. Aunt Sarah had finished hers, and was now embroidering a runner with the rapid application of the skilled.

Jack and Matthew had gone down to the yard, the former to smoke one of his beloved cigars, Matthew to enjoy a cigarette while they discussed the making of furniture for the spare room to be occupied by the baby when it was old enough. It was a bit early to think of furnishing the room, but Harriet hadn’t wanted it to lie empty.

‘We’re moving in next week.’ Inside her the baby gave her ribs a small kick of approval. ‘It’s just the sort of house I wanted.’

‘About time.’ Her aunt didn’t lift her gaze from her embroidery. ‘Looking at this one, looking at that one – I wondered if you’d ever find anything to suit.’

‘You have to be careful what you’re looking for,’ Harriet said a little tartly, causing her aunt to glance up at her. ‘Well, it’s not like buying a loaf of bread. We’ll be living in it for a long time, I expect. You have to be careful.’

‘Yes, one can’t be too careful,’ Mary put in. ‘If you don’t like a new place, it causes such a lot of worry having to move out again, or putting up with it. And what with the baby due soon … Two months to go, isn’t it, Harriet?’

‘Ten weeks,’ Harriet supplied. She had seen her doctor, who had asked lots of questions and come to that conclusion. ‘But I only wish I felt a little more well carrying it. It’s this heartburn; it still keeps me up at night. I can’t sleep at all. I have to keep walking backwards and forwards – it’s the only way to disperse it. And I keep Matthew awake too. But he’s so kind. So concerned. No one could be more concerned.’

Not like Will
, she added mentally. He hadn’t given her condition with Sara a moment’s thought; rather, he had complained incessantly about being kept awake if she had to go down more than once to the privy because the baby was sitting on her bladder. He would swear at her and once had even got up and taken a swipe at her, telling her to get herself back into that bloody bed and not make so much bloody fuss so he could get some bloody sleep. Many a night with Sara she had lain beside him not knowing what to do with herself, too frightened to move in case she angered him.

‘Matthew often has to get up and go downstairs to fill stone hot water bottles,’ she said with pride. ‘To put against my back to ease it. It’s such an awful feeling, like it’s suffocating me. He’ll get me a glass of water so I won’t have to hobble downstairs, and he often has to rub my back to ease it. He’s been so wonderful.’

‘He’s a good man,’ remarked her mother. She reached for the teapot to refill her cup, and tutted. ‘Oh, bother, it’s gone lukewarm.’

Getting up, she took a small brass bell from the sideboard and opened the door, then rang the bell urgently. Harriet heard Violet’s voice drift up from downstairs and then her mother asking for another pot to be made.

Aunt Sarah fastened off a green leaf with a flourish and searched among her other colours for pink silk for a rosebud. ‘You should’ve waited for this one to be born before moving. All this upheaval at so late a stage isn’t good for you. You should be taking things easy.’

‘I don’t think I could face it afterwards, Aunt – having the baby and Sara as well as all the confloption of moving.’ Confloption was a family word, always used for something difficult to overcome.

She paused as Violet came in, grabbed the teatray with its remains of their afternoon tea and bore it away.

‘Once we’re settled in,’ Harriet went on as the door closed with a noisy click, ‘I can concentrate on this baby. Though what we’re going to do about Sara when I’m having it, I don’t know, now that I won’t have Mrs Hardy to turn to.’

‘Your mother and me will take care of her without too much fuss,’ Sarah offered briskly. Her sister nodded her ready consent.

But Sarah Morris noted eager relief on her niece’s face as she accepted the offer. Too eager. The girl definitely displayed some strange sort of aversion to that child, though how she could towards such a pretty little thing as Sara she couldn’t imagine. Perhaps that was all it was – imagination. She was too imaginative by far. Mary had always said so. But she felt it so strongly, in her bones so to speak. And she always trusted what she felt in her bones, no matter what Mary said.

Matthew went and picked up the mail from inside the shop door, his last duty before leaving this hole forever. He realised now just how much he had hated the place, the squalor all around, the closeness of the traffic going by, the noise – almost as if he were operating his business on the pavement. He was heartily sick of Mrs Hardy forever popping in, of Mr Hardy’s hearty conversation, his rusty voice uttering ripe epithets every other word he spoke. There would be plenty of passing traffic where they were going, but the pavements were wider, fending off the nearness of it. One thing he’d noticed about the new premises was the feeling of space. And to close up every evening and walk the five minutes to a nice orderly home would be heaven.

The move was going more smoothly than he had hoped. He had found shop premises in Cambridge Road, just by where it became Mare Street – quite large and very promising, with a decent yard at the rear. The house was just five minutes away in Victoria Park Road, not as large as the house he had always dreamed of having – just a kitchen, scullery, parlour, dining room, study, four bedrooms upstairs, basement and two rooms in the attic. It was not exactly the mansion he would have liked – his money didn’t stretch to mansions – but he could still dream that one day …

Harriet had been delighted with it. She had gone with him to find the wallpaper for the new nursery, taking ages to choose the right colour. Her father had made the furniture for the room, and Harriet had spent hours deliberating over the drapes. In fact she had been so intent on the new baby’s room, she had left little time to think about Sara’s new room at the top of the house. He himself had to find things suitable for it, and as far as he could see he had done her proud: pink flowered wallpaper with fawn curtains and a fawn bedspread. At nearly three and a half, Sara was now old enough to show appreciation of a room that wasn’t a box. She had squealed delightedly as she climbed on to the newly painted attic windowseat to gaze out over the park across the road.

‘Twees!’ she squealed, pointing happily to the plane trees in full leaf along the park’s perimeter. And listening intently at the open sash window, she laughed. ‘A didcky-bird singin’, daddy. A didcky bird singin’.’

‘Yes, darling.’ He had knelt beside her, gazing at the foliage opposite as he put an arm about her little body. ‘Singing, darling. Sing-ing. Sing-ing.’

‘Sing … ing,’ she repeated faithfully. ‘Me like the didcky-bird sing-ing.’

At least it was a start. Lovingly, he had squeezed her diminutive torso, so delicate in his clasp. One day, if he had anything to say about it, she would be a fine lady, tall and elegant and with nothing in this world to be ashamed of as the young men crowded around her hoping for her favours. And he would choose her a fine husband with wealth and, who knew, a title. And she would be so happy, for the young man would be her choice too. But if he wasn’t, there would always be another of equal standing for her to claim.

He smiled at the thought as he bent to gather up the letters. Sara was quite the loveliest, most charming child. He sifted briefly through the different-sized envelopes: a few bills, but also a decent amount of subscriptions as far as he could see. The journal was more than holding its own. One day it would be a substantial publication distributed countrywide. He and Harriet would have their mansion.

He could hear her coming down the stairs, taking her time, her tread lumbering and heavy. Mrs Hardy was helping her. It sounded like a regiment of elephants coming down.

‘Now yer’ll be orright, won’t yer, luv? You take it steady now. And don’t ferget yer ole friend, will yer? Pop in whenever yer like, luv. Bring the baby ter see me when it’s born. I’d like that. I’m proper sad ter see yer go, ’Arriet. I’ll miss yer.’

‘I’ll miss you too, Emma. You’ve been a real friend to me.’

‘I ’ope I always will be.’

Matthew smiled, listening to them. Emma Hardy was like an old hen, fussing, ever fussing. But he’d be glad to be rid of that incessant rough voice of hers. Still, she had helped Harriet such a lot. He nodded to himself on that thought. Still grinning, he went on sorting through the envelopes, opening one or two at random, then with an effort spreading out the bill or the letter he drew out. He should really wait until he had a flat surface to do this on, but just one more, then he’d put the rest away.

Awkwardly, he spread out a single sheet from one envelope on top of the mound of correspondence. Another letter, obviously from a satisfied subscriber.

He began casually to scan it, his mind still half on Harriet and Emma Hardy’s parting conversation. Suddenly he realised what he was reading and his smile froze.

Dear Mr Craig,

I have been meaning to write to you for simply ages. You do realise how very cross and upset I was to have you leave in such haste. Surely, dear Mr Craig, you must have realised the fact that I was very angry and very, very hurt – deeply hurt. Wounded. I so believed that you loved me. But I fear I may have frightened you off, my dear, with talk of our future. I thought you true. I gave myself to you in my bed in the belief that you were indeed true, that your intentions were wholly honourable, and that what happened between us was a token of that honour. But I saw in your frantic haste to depart how dismally mistaken I was; that you had no intention at all of honouring anything and took me into bed solely for your own lamentable desires.

I was so humiliated. I saw myself unclean, deflowered, defiled by your ill use of me, and had every intention of seeking you out and confronting you to avenge myself of your night of rapture that so beguiled me into thinking you honest and loving.

And now, Mr Craig, I am writing to tell you …

‘I’m ready to go, dear.’

Harriet’s voice at the door behind him sent a shock searing through him. He swung round, trying to stuff the letter back into its envelope, in his haste dropping the rest of the mail, which scattered itself around his feet.

He would have dearly loved to devour it, do anything to destroy it, but could only hide it among the rest of the post as he bent hastily to gather everything up.

What was Constance writing to tell him? That she had been made pregnant by him? That she’d be coming here to confront him with the evidence of his adultery? He made a rapid calculation – the baby would be two months old, old enough for her to travel. His blood felt as though it ran cold in his veins, yet his brow had grown damp with sweat. Harriet, herself seven months pregnant, to be faced with … this.

There was no time, nowhere to hide to read the rest of it. He had to concentrate on the move, and with Harriet constantly beside him directing this, organising that, the hours passed, and still he had not read the letter. Harriet seemed exasperatingly tireless; everything was apparently designed to thwart him in his purpose.

‘You must be tired, sweetest. Our room’s ready, you know. Why not go and lie down awhile? I’ll finish the rest of the unpacking.’

‘I’m not the least bit tired.’ She laughed. Even after all the moving, the following four hours unpacking and sorting and setting up, she still looked as bright and chirpy as ever as she prinked the new curtains of the baby’s room he’d put up for her – flowery cream-coloured chintz, suitable for boy or girl, though she had now got as far as insisting it would definitely be a boy.

‘You’ll tire yourself out completely doing that,’ he warned in desperation. ‘That can wait. It’s not as though the baby will be going in here this very afternoon,’ he attempted to joke.

She laughed in response. ‘If I lie down,’ she said, still busy, ‘I’ll only get heartburn again. I’m much better on my feet. But for that, I feel so well these days.’ Her pride in her condition rang out in her voice.

There was nothing he could do but hold on to the hope that when she did finally tire towards evening, he’d have a chance to read the rest of the letter.

But she didn’t tire. As the evening approached, with everything at last neat and tidy, she was eager to enjoy the novelty of sitting in their new parlour overlooking the park, the late sunshine slanting in through the large bay window, insisting he sit opposite her after Sara had been put to bed in her new bedroom upstairs.