A Mother's Love (24 page)

It was a lovely afternoon, the sun warm and mellow. Harriet clung to Matthew’s arm as they shopped in Knightsbridge. He had brought her up here to buy a new dinner gown before the Christmas season began to send prices soaring. She would choose carefully, wanting the best but knowing she mustn’t overdo it. Matthew’s pockets weren’t bottomless, and she’d had enough of skimping and scraping when the journal hadn’t been doing so well not to want to risk punishing their savings too drastically.

Ignoring those jostling past her, deaf to the noisy congestion of traffic behind her, she stood gazing into the window of one of the smaller stores at the most delightful dress she’d seen all day. A tea gown of palest green chiffon and lace, it was expensive, nearly eight pounds – five weeks’ wages for Mr Hallet. Yet the more she knew it to be too extravagant, the more the sight of it drew her.

‘No, it’s far too expensive,’ she demurred, hoping it would have the opposite effect and sway him. But he too was studying the price.

‘Do you think it’s practical, my dear?’

‘It’s for Christmas. Christmas gowns are never practical. They’re for special occasions. They’re not meant to be practical.’

‘That is true …’ Her anticipation rose. Even though he was still looking at the price, he was at least melting a little.

She became aware that the sound of military music from Hyde Park, where there seemed to be parade going on, had grown much louder. Forgetting the gown for a moment, she turned with the other shoppers, interested in the now fast-approaching music.

The traffic began drawing to each side of the road, making a space down the centre. A couple of elderly crossing sweepers came smartly to attention. And then she saw it, the head of the column appearing, a glint of brass in the autumn sunshine, a flash of scarlet.

The rolling drumbeats had begun to shiver the air. Bugles and trumpets blared. Through the centre of the halted traffic it came, a wide column of wonderful, well-built men, every man the same height, every face florid with health, expression stern and proud beneath its white, low-peaked pith helmet, every rifle at the same slant on the shoulder as every other, Blanco’d webbing white as the driven snow, boots polished to such a shine as to send the sun’s reflection back to blind onlookers. And those boots crunching in step – it was like a single tread, as loud as though a huge giant was shaking the ground.

The blare of bugles and the thrump of drums going right through Harriet’s breast made her head ring with its joyous noise. Then came the mounted troops, harnesses jingling, plumes jiggling, the erratic clatter of hooves in stark contrast to the measured crunch of marching feet.

Cheers rose from the pavements as column after column passed by, bound, every onlooker now realised, for South Africa to show the Boers, who had dared to declare war on Britain two weeks earlier, what she was made of.

‘Isn’t it wonderful?’ Harriet cried, her voice drowned out by all the music and cheering. But Matthew saw her lips move and read what she was trying to convey.

‘Splendid,’ he bellowed back, and she could only just about hear him. ‘Makes one proud of one’s country.’

The column passed on its way to entrain at Victoria station, she imagined, and thence to the coast to board some great ship. It was all so romantic.

The music fading, the traffic began to move together again to reform into as big a congestion as before: cabs, carriages, carts, omnibuses, their sides advertising Nestles milk, Taylor Bros cocoa and Ogden’s cigarettes; mundane after the glory that had passed by just a moment before. Pedestrians resumed their shopping. Harriet dragged Matthew into the shop to buy her gown.

She looked a picture in it, its waistline fitting so tightly that she was forced to purchase a new corset while she was about it to help restrict a waist she was sure had expanded after four pregnancies.

She didn’t know then, of course, that the gown would not be used for Christmas after all. By Christmas, her waist would already have begun to thicken another inch or so to make the wearing of the gown virtually impossible, despite all the help her new corset could afford her.

The last Christmas of the century. Because it was such a special occasion, Matthew paid a visit to his parents, going early on Sunday morning, Christmas Eve, so as to return the same evening. He went alone, knowing by now that they wouldn’t welcome Harriet. Though it hurt, though he should have felt chagrin over it, blood was after all thicker than water.

He would have liked to take Jamie to see them, but it would have upset Harriet and as two wrongs never did make a right, his parents must settle for him without their grandson.

His mother was writing to him on a regular basis now – once every couple of months, with all the family gossip. His father had mentioned coming up to London in the New Year, and hoped to meet him somewhere – possibly even to be shown over the journal. Matthew thought he might attempt in a circuitous way to bring him back to their home. Who knew, it might break the ice for good.

Christmas at Harriet’s parents was as jolly as ever, with every member of the family gathering for dinner. It was made even more pleasurable, not only by their celebrating the last Christmas of the century, but by a special announcement being made by Harriet’s eldest brother.

Everyone was leaning back from the table, replete and contented, after Jack Wilson’s brother George had toasted the Queen: ‘A grand old lady, frail in body now but as strong in will and keen in mind as ever – an example to us all – may she reign over us for many years yet – God Bless Her.’ John chose this moment to make his announcement. He stood up, thrust his thumbs importantly into his waistcoat and cleared his throat to attract everyone’s attention.

‘Right, everyone, while we’re all gathered here round the dinner table, and I’ve got you all captured, so to speak …’ He laughed. ‘I’ve got something to tell you that’s of great joy to me.’

He looked fondly down at the fair-haired, oval-faced young woman sitting beside him. Some of the family had already met her at John’s home, but few had been in conversation with her, the pair always being too eager to be on their own for anyone else to see much of her. Her name was Charlotte – John called her Lottie. Her family lived in Dalston. That was all they knew about her, but they’d suspected something had been in the wind for a long time.

‘Last week,’ John continued, trying hard to contain his joy and making a poor job of it, ‘I asked Lottie to be my wife and she has accepted …
And
her father has given his blessing,’ he shouted above an outbreak of forks being tapped on glasses by all the men and cries of pleasure by the women. ‘We plan to become engaged next month. The wedding’ll be around July. Everyone’s invited, of course.’

Everyone was getting up, coming round the large family table to shake his hand or embrace him, all without exception kissing Charlotte’s pretty blushing cheeks, she looking flustered all the while.

‘Twenty-four,’ bellowed Uncle George, who still lived way out in Hertfordshire. ‘That’s a nice age for a young man to wed, that is.’

Later, in a corner of the parlour, John was buttonholed by his brother. ‘I can’t announce anything myself, but you know I’ve been going out with the most marvellous girl these past three months, though I’ve not brought her home yet. She only lives in Roman Road but her people are very nice. They took to me straight away, I think. In fact her father treats me as though I’m Irene’s last chance.’

‘She that plain?’ John stifled a chortle.

George looked offended. ‘Of course not, but she’s so shy, they despair of her. But she’s not shy with me. In the New Year I’ll bring her here. Then you’ll see for yourselves. I hope after that, in a while, to propose to her.’

‘You? You’re only twenty-two. You’ve got a life to live before you knuckle down to marriage.’

‘I’m old enough.’

‘How old is she?’

‘Twenty-three.’

‘Good Lord! Baby-snatching?’ John’s voice ringing around the room brought everyone’s eyes to George’s quickly crimsoning face. Jack Wilson came over, grinning benignly.

‘Take no notice of your brother. I don’t doubt that she’s a very presentable young lady, George, and I’m glad to see you’ve decided to stop sowing all those wild oats of yours. By the time you do wed, you’ll be John’s age. So you, young man …’ he glanced in amusement at his other son, ‘have nothing to put on airs and graces for.’

With this, he slapped both sons on the back and went to join his brothers, who were making for the piano for a singsong.

Harriet’s announcement was delivered more modestly as, a sherry in her hand, she sat in the hot, crowded parlour with her mother, Annie, Clara and Aunt Sarah while the others gathered around the piano to sing the rest of the evening away.

‘I have been to see Dr Horder,’ she confided. ‘According to him, it’ll be around the time John gets married.’ And this time she was certain the baby would be full term, healthy, and another boy.

Jamie had been taken downstairs. He was always being taken downstairs, and Sara, approaching six years old, was beginning to sense the oddness of that.

She was hardly ever allowed to go down. Daddy came up quite often, and once he told her that he’d practically lived all of his childhood up in a nursery, and after that had been sent away to school.

‘But why can Jamie go downstairs and not me?’

‘He’s a baby. They are special to their mothers. And he’s a boy. One day he’ll go away to school, as I did. She’ll not have him for a long while and she wants to make the most of him while he’s here.’

‘When I was a baby I wasn’t ever brought down to see her.’

‘You didn’t have a nurse or a nursery then. We couldn’t afford that in those days. We all lived together. Do you remember?’

Yes, she did remember, but even then her mother had been distant – cold. Even when her father played with her, she hadn’t joined in or laughed with them.

‘If I didn’t go to school,’ she stated now, ‘I’d be bored up here all on my own.’

‘You like school, don’t you?’

She nodded, staring out of the window across a park that was grey and damp on a cold March Sunday morning. Had it not been for school, she wouldn’t have thought her life any different to other people’s. But from friends she had made there, she learned that they enjoyed far more of their mothers’ attention than she ever had. It made her think: what she had imagined to be jealousy when Jamie seemed to have more of his mother’s time than she did, had really been a sense of loss she hadn’t understood. Now she did. What she still didn’t understand was why. Perhaps mothers did love sons more than daughters. After all, she was coming to understand that men were more important than women, had to be more educated, so perhaps they needed more attention than women.

In a way that new thought made her feel a little better.

Harriet’s hands unclasped from prayer and moved tentatively down to her stomach. She lifted her head. ‘Annie – I think it’s started.’

Annie, who wasn’t so much praying as watching the couple kneeling together at the altar steps, looked more peeved than concerned. ‘It can’t have – not here.’

Hearing the hissed exchange, Clara, kneeling further along the pew, looked round her husband at them and mouthed, ‘What’s the matter?’

Fully attentive now to the situation, Annie mouthed back, ‘She’s started,’ and her finger stabbed at the now cringing figure.

Clara shook her head, her lips forming the words, ‘She can’t have – not here?’

Annie nodded. To add weight, Harriet moaned.

The sound disturbed Matthew, lost in private prayer while the two at the altar received God’s blessing upon their union. He looked up, saw Clara’s incredulous expression, then glanced quickly at his wife.

‘Harriet, are you …?’ Wordlessly, she nodded, becoming more distressed by the knowledge of where she was than what was happening.

‘She oughtn’t to have come,’ Annie whispered angrily.

Her husband craned his neck round her. They’d arrived late, Annie having spent far too much time fussing over her sons as pageboys. Trying to create as little disturbance as possible, Robert had sat on the wrong side of her, too late to change places as Lottie, looking like a dream, made her serene way down the aisle on the arm of her father, yards of lace floating behind her, scalloped hem held unsteadily by Sara and her cousin Alice, while two other bridesmaids and Annie’s boys in eighteenth-century costume clogged the length of the aisle.

Robert was looking anxious. ‘What can we do? Can’t she hang on till the end? There’s not much more to go.’

‘Of course she can’t!’ Annie’s reply was a stage whisper, bringing other heads up to see what the fuss was about. ‘She should have known better and not come. She knew how near her time was.’

‘We must get her outside.’ Matthew had his hand under Harriet’s arm. ‘Can you get up, my dear?’

‘I can’t move!’ Her voice was a sob. The pain, coming from nowhere, was growing more intense by the second. She had thought herself safe – at least a week to go. Plenty of time. Now she was caught by fear, seeing a repetition of her last pregnancy, which had ended in painful miscarriage. ‘Oh, God – I’m frightened.’

Her words, rising on sudden hysteria, echoed around the church, rebounded off bare walls, unabsorbed by pictures, the Stations of the Cross, the painted robes of the Virgin and Child, the eagle-topped lectern, the gold and white pulpit, the gilded Saviour on the great cross above the altar, or the stained-glass windows behind.

Most of the congregation was agog now. Even the bridal couple had turned, Lottie’s face a picture of dismay at the most important moment of her life being interrupted. The vicar, towering over the kneeling pair, stood stark and alone, arms frozen in a crucifix-like gesture, in the act of concluding his blessings, his expression of godly joy now transformed into one of human irritation.

Clara was squeezing hastily past her husband, past Matthew, to Harriet’s side.

‘Quick, Matthew! Help me get her outside. Carefully and quietly as possible now.’

It was amazing how silently it was done. As for unobtrusively – every eye, including the vicar’s, followed them on their way, everyone transfixed by the business. Annie, her husband and Clara’s Fred in train, Harriet stumbled down the aisle, supported on one side by Matthew, and on the other by Clara. Her parents, in the front pew, were unable to move, torn between concern for their daughter and respect for their son and his future wife.