A Mother's Love (19 page)

At home, Harriet had been standing at the window for fifteen minutes. Before that she had been pacing the floor, fretting, for the past half hour. Where were they?

‘Oi’m sorry, mum, but Oi don’t know what ter do with it, but it’s getting orl burnt up. Please, mum, would you come an’ look at it, please?’

She turned as Carrie, the little fifteen-year-old maid-of-all-work, came into the room.

‘What’s the trouble now?’

‘Loik Oi said, it’s orl gettin’ burnt. Please, mum, come an’ look.’

‘Oh …’ Harriet gave a deep, exasperated sigh and followed Carrie along to the kitchen.

Matthew had engaged the girl some weeks before. Fresh up from the country, she’d had to be shown how to cook and iron, though she was good at cleaning, making beds, washing and sewing. But the minute anything went wrong she was totally lost and needed help to set her right again. It was rather like having a dog and barking yourself. But she had come cheap – which was all Matthew could afford at the moment with the journal just ticking along after that peak last year. She hoped his fortunes would increase before long and they could afford at least two domestics of better quality than this one – a proper maid and a decent cook at least.

‘See, mum,’ Carrie opened the oven door for Harriet to inspect the waiting Sunday roast. The beef was beginning to dry around the edges, and the potatoes were becoming far too baked. The sprouts simmering in the pot were growing softer and sloppier by the second.

‘Take it all out!’ Harriet ordered sharply. ‘Set the table …’

‘It’s orlready set, mum.’

‘I know. But get the meat out and put it on a dish and take it into the dining room, with the potatoes. Strain the sprouts in a colander, put them in a tureen and take them in too.’

‘They’ll get orl cold, mum, waitin’.’

‘I don’t care! Do as I say. If everything’s cold, it’s their fault.’

‘Whose fault, mum?

‘Nothing to do with you!’

It wasn’t fair. How dare they be so late! Her in her condition, with only three weeks to go, standing on her feet half the morning supervising this fool of a girl when she might have been up in her room taking things easy in readiness for the birth!

She heard Matthew’s key turn in the lock. With difficulty she lumbered into the hallway. They were glowing, the pair of them, glowing from the fresh air they had enjoyed while she had been confined to a stuffy parlour – no matter that the sash window was up – and a steam-filled kitchen. Matthew had asked her to go with them, but how could she have stood for hours in her condition while they played silly fools with a stupid kite? She had told him so. He had looked apologetic, but had gone off with Sara anyway. And now they were laughing.

‘Lovely!’ she burst out. ‘Nice, I must say. I hope you’ve enjoyed yourselves?’

Matthew’s laughter died. He looked crestfallen. ‘I’m sorry, we are a bit latish. We …’

‘A bit latish! Nearly an hour latish! There’s me stewing where you’ve got to, not knowing. The Sunday dinner’s got spoilt. Carrie flustering all over the place not knowing what to do. I honestly don’t know what use she is to me – it’s money down the drain. I have to do nearly everything myself. For a couple more pounds a year you could’ve got someone with more idea what they’re doing.’

‘I’ll dismiss her, my dear. Look for someone better.’ But she wasn’t interested. That wasn’t her immediate complaint.

‘I told her to put the dinner out, and if it’s got cold, then it’s just too bad. I don’t care!’

She shrugged away from the arm he curled about her waist in compensation for his thoughtlessness. ‘It’s got me really wound up, wondering what might have happened to you. How would I know if there’d been an accident? Standing at that window, stewing.’

He stood, lost and ineffectual, looking at her, forbidden to touch her. ‘I really am sorry, my dear …’

‘Don’t
my dear
me!’ She put a hand to her stomach and then to her head. ‘If you want to eat, it’s all there in the dining room. I’m going upstairs to lie down.’

‘What about your dinner?’

‘I feel too wound up to eat. I’d be sick. I have to lie down.’

‘I’ll come up and sit with you.’

‘You stay down here. With her. You seem to prefer her company to mine anyway.’

She turned as sharply as her heavy stomach would allow. Something on the floor impeded her movement, caught her foot. Sara, worried by her mother’s attitude, had laid her kite prudently down against the wall of the hallway, but it had fallen over and now lay on the floor. It was this that Harriet’s foot caught.

‘Oh … damn the thing! Everything you do,’ she blazed at her. ‘Everything …’

In blind rage, she stamped on the offending kite, tearing the red and blue tissue paper in all directions, and snapping the slender cane supports. The sight of destruction only drove her to greater need to destroy as she savagely kicked and buffeted it before the horrified gaze of her husband and daughter until all that remained was a shapeless mass; all the time screeching hatred of them both for their insensitivity to her feelings.

It was unreasonable. She knew it was unreasonable. But she felt she had no power to control herself. Had Matthew come near her, she would have hit him. Had Sara come within hitting distance, she felt she would have gladly killed her. Instead she centred every vestige of her pent-up emotions on the thing at her feet.

Tears were pouring down her cheeks, and her screeching had become foreign to her ears, as though it were someone else’s voice she heard. Now, suddenly, Matthew was holding her tightly to him and she was weeping on his shoulder, utterly without strength. She had a blurred vision of her daughter standing there, her face puckered, clenched little fists grubbing at her eyes as she too wept.

‘And you, you little wretch,’ she found strength enough to blurt out over Matthew’s shoulder. ‘You can get out of my sight! I don’t want to look at you. I hate you!’

‘No, Harriet! You don’t mean that. Take a hold of yourself.’ He held her from him to stare into her face. His own was tight, his eyes like caves in his head. ‘You’re becoming hysterical. Now calm yourself. Breathe deeply.’

With an effort she tried to comply, did to some extent, but she couldn’t help weeping. ‘I’m sorry, Matthew. It’s just that … I didn’t mean to … You paid out for that thing. I’m so sorry …’

‘It’s not the kite,’ he said slowly. ‘It doesn’t matter. It’s Sara. It was her you stamped on, don’t you see?’

The child paused in her crying to look from one to the other, bewildered. Of course it was the kite her mother had stamped on, not her. It had been such a lovely thing, swooping up so high in the sky. She had wished she could hold on to it and fly up there with it, had been sure she could in time. But now it was all broken. It would never fly again.

Something inside her said nor would she. Then something else inside her said no, but one day she would make it her aim to fly far and strong in the face of all adversity. But she was too young to understand its meaning and thought only of her poor kite all broken and useless and she burst into tears again.

It was dark outside. She’d never been up so late before. Nanna Wilson had brought her back a little while ago. She had taken her up to her bedroom and then gone away after giving her a cuddle, saying she must be good until Daddy came to fetch her to see Mummy.

She had stayed with Nanna all yesterday and all today. She loved staying at Nanna’s house, where she would hide in all sorts of nooks until Grandad found her. Then he’d chase her, puffing, as she ran squealing with laughter until she let him catch her. She never had as much fun in her own house – Mummy was always cross the moment Daddy tried to play the same sort of games.

She’d had such a lovely time, and now she was home again and it was all quiet in the house, except for a funny sound coming from Mummy’s bedroom – a thin, harsh mewling that she couldn’t properly make out.

Sara looked up from playing with a doll as her father came in. He stood looking at her for a moment, his eyes gentle and loving. Then he came and crouched beside her.

‘You have a little baby brother come to live with us, Sara.’

Comprehending that a baby would be staying with them and that he was a brother, Sara gazed up at the beloved narrow face with its tickly fair moustache and its deep brown eyes.

‘His name will be James Matthew,’ he went on. ‘And you must love him very much.’

Must. A word she knew very well. It meant she had to do as she was told or her mother’s eyes would flash at her, often followed by a sharp smack, and her father’s eyes would go dark and sad.

‘We will all love him very much.’ Matthew smiled down at her. Touched by the child’s unsmiling face, he attempted to explain. ‘We are his mummy and daddy. We are
your
mummy and daddy. And we love you too – very much. As you love me and Mummy.’

‘Me love you and Mummy,’ she repeated dutifully.

‘
I
– love you and Mummy,’ Matthew corrected, smiling.

‘Me love you and Mummy too,’ she stated solemnly.

Matthew’s smile broadened and he let the childish error pass. She was so sweet in her efforts to express herself, and Matthew loved her so very much that his heart often ached from it. Time enough for her to correct her babyish way of saying what she meant.

The baby lay in its crib. Its face was very red and all screwed up. Sara thought it very ugly, not at all like the doll she had in its toy crib in her room. She had seen other babies, passing in those wheeled things called perambulators, a word she couldn’t say, though she’d heard Mummy talking about having to have one and it now stood in the spare bedroom waiting for this baby. She knew Aunt Clara had a baby she constantly held on her lap whenever she came visiting. Sara wasn’t sure she wanted to keep coming for years and years to look at this baby who was to be her brother.

‘What do you think of him?’ Daddy was asking. His voice had an odd sound to it, like someone near to tears.

She looked up and saw his eyes were indeed glistening. Perhaps it had something to do with the baby, she thought, as she leaned over the crib to get a closer look, which she thought was expected of her. It tilted towards her a little. She reached out a hand to touch the red, crinkled cheeks. She wasn’t prepared for the sudden fierce push against her shoulder that nearly took her off her feet.

Harriet watched Will’s daughter approach the crib, the small face stiff with jealousy and dislike. She hadn’t wanted Sara to come anywhere near the baby, but Matthew had insisted.

‘We must not let Sara feel left out, my dearest. I know she’ll probably not understand, but once she sees him, it will be much easier for her to accept him. Far better than explaining to her.’

The baby had been born at about six in the evening after two days of unbelievable pain, the excruciating labour of straining and pushing until the sweat poured from her brow, her body trembling with fatigue with nothing achieved until finally the birth of her son took away the pain, leaving only its recollection.

She had been too weak to argue with Matthew and lay already hating Sara’s intrusion long before Matthew reappeared holding the child’s hand, leading her towards the crib.

Harriet felt herself grow cold as Sara leaned over the flimsy crib, felt a shock of terror rip through her as it tilted, saw the hand reach out towards her tiny newborn son’s cheeks, those childish nails ready to scratch the tender flesh. Like some fearsome wraith, Will seemed to hover behind his child, guiding those nails to rip and tear.

She heard herself cry out. ‘Don’t you dare touch him!’

Automatically she rolled on to her left side towards the child, the hovering demon behind her. Her right arm extended, her hand struck Sara’s shoulder, sending her tumbling, but her son was safe.

Matthew had leapt to Sara’s aid, was picking her up, his face creased with disbelief, directed towards herself.

‘She wasn’t going to hurt him, Harriet.’

‘She could have done.’ Tears of distress clouded Harriet’s vision. She fell back, weakened by her sudden movement. There was pain in her stomach where the midwife had unfeelingly kneaded the afterbirth free. ‘She could have done,’ she wept feebly.

Matthew put Sara aside and came to crouch beside her. ‘I know, my darling, my sweet wife. It’s all been too much for you. I’ll take Sara away now, then come back and sit with you. Try to sleep and I’ll be back in a tick.’

He bent and gently kissed her brow, pushing aside the strands of auburn curls stiff from their recent bath of perspiration.

‘I love you, Harriet,’ he whispered, ‘and I’m so proud of you.’ He patted her hand, then crept out with his hand around Sara’s.

She watched them go, stepfather and stepdaughter, the child with no idea of Matthew’s true relationship to her, confident of her hold on him. Dear God, far more than my own hold, Harriet thought with a deep-seated pang as she saw him smile down.

She turned her face away as the door closed and gave herself up to a welter of sobbing, quiet lest he hear and come back with that lost look he had when he wasn’t sure how to cope. She felt so lonely, so forsaken, so betrayed. Sara had become Matthew’s life, even above his own newborn son, whom she felt, looking back on the last few hours, he hadn’t taken all that much note of.

Sara coming first? She’d put a stop to that, as soon as she possibly could. Hatred welled up in her, her sobs growing even more distressed. That child had a demon inside her, Will’s demon, which pushed her to ever greater evil. Harriet sniffed wetly, her tears soaking her pillow. As soon as she was strong enough, she would tell Sara of the true relationship between her and Matthew. Show Will he couldn’t steal Matthew from her, she mused, her eyelids closing.

She was asleep when Matthew returned. He stood looking down at her for some time, his love pouring out for her, noting the damp pillow, her still wet lashes, her face wan from her labour even in sleep, the strewn auburn hair. Carefully, so as not to disturb her, he hooked a strand of hair from her cheek with his little finger and dropped a light kiss on her forehead.

His son was asleep too, the little red face surrounded by its embroidered linen cap beautiful in repose, tiny red lips petal soft, the mouth small and round as a button.