Seven Dials (34 page)

‘It means there’s nothing wrong with me. That I had a silly conniption fit as my old Boston nursemaid would have called it, and the sooner I get back to work the better -’

‘Not quite, my dear,’ he said very gently. ‘Not quite. You do realize that you’re pregnant, surely?’

She closed her eyes against the knowledge that had been beating at her for so long and said loudly, ‘No!’

‘No, you didn’t know, or no, you would rather not know, or no, you aren’t? Which is it?’ He still sounded friendly, but there was a firmness that could not be resisted in his voice and she still kept her eyes tightly closed, needing to exclude him and all his words as well as his face.

‘No, it isn’t possible -’ she said and then caught her breath, knowing how ridiculous that sounded. ‘I mean -’ and then she opened her eyes and stared at him miserably. ‘I mean, it shouldn’t be possible.’

He shook his head, smiling a little. ‘I’m afraid Nature is infinitely more clever than any of her children, my dear. Whatever method you tried to use to circumvent her, you failed. Most people do, in my experience.’

‘I didn’t use anything,’ she said and took a deep shuddering breath. ‘It was all so - unexpected, so -’

He frowned sharply. ‘This was against your will? Have you
been abused by someone who -’

‘Abused?’ She laughed then, a sharp little sound in the stuffy room with its high iron bed and forbidding scrubbed furniture. ‘Oh, yes, I’ve been abused. By myself. No, don’t look at me like that - it’s too complicated to explain, and I’m sure I - the thing is, I just don’t see how it could have happened. Once, damn it! Just
once
and I’m pregnant? It can’t be -’

‘Oh, but it can,’ Dr Forester said. ‘And it is. Haven’t you noticed the changes in your breasts? You can’t tell me your nipples have always been so well provided with Montgomery’s tubercles? You remember your obstetric training, I imagine? You were taught how “the nipples darken, enlarge and develop small white protuberances rich in lubricating lanolin”? I’m sure you do - and as soon as I saw those, my suspicions of the correct diagnosis for your - what was the phrase? conniption fit? - charming - were confirmed. The nausea and vomiting, the fainting - now, when was your last period?’

‘I’m not sure.’ Suddenly she reddened, deeply ashamed of this evidence of her own improvidence. How often had she sat in obstetric clinics in her student days and felt the frisson of irritable disapproval that went through the doctors whenever a woman said that she didn’t have so simple a fact clearly marked in her memory? Women who didn’t know every detail of their own bodily cycles were sneered at by doctors, were regarded as simpleminded, almost, especially if they had pregnancies they didn’t want. Women who behaved as Charlie had -

‘I’m not being stupid,’ she flared, staring at Dr Forester’s mild round-eyed gaze. ‘I just don’t
know!
I’ve always had a very erratic cycle and anyway, I wasn’t - there was no reason to watch it. I wasn’t - there was no regular - I wasn’t - oh, damn it all, it was only once! Just once! How can I be pregnant after just one episode when so many women complain they can’t conceive when they try for month after month, year after year? It’s mad, it can’t be - there has to be some other reason for the symptoms -’

‘Whenever it happens it only takes once. One single cell out of the many millions Nature sends on their way - my dear, I am sorry. I don’t want to pry, of course, but if it will help you to talk about the situation - is your - is the man in this married?
Is that the problem?’

‘No,’ she said and closed her eyes again. ‘No, he’s not married. Nor likely to be’, and she opened them again and looked at him bleakly. ‘Certainly not to me.’

‘But surely, when he knows that there is good cause for marriage and -’

‘It wouldn’t make the slightest difference if he did know,’ Charlie said, angry again. ‘And he bloody well is not to be told! He doesn’t care about me, so why should he care about -’ And she set her hand on her belly, and thought confusedly - there isn’t just me to care about: there are two of us - and then snatched her hand away as though her own skin was red hot and burned her, refusing to pursue that thought any further. ‘I absolutely forbid you to tell him!’

‘Such an injunction is hardly necessary,’ Dr Forester said and smiled so widely that his eyes almost disappeared into the folds of skin around them. ‘I don’t know who the foolish man is, do I?’

‘You think he’s a fool as well as me?’ Charlie said bitterly. ‘But not that he’s as big a fool as I’ve been -’

‘I think he’s a fool for not valuing you more highly than it appears he does,’ Dr Forester said, his smile still lingering at the corners of his mouth. ‘You seem to me to be a very valuable and charming person. I’ve seen you around the hospital and I know your work is well thought of by your seniors, and you are a handsome woman. Any man who doesn’t cleave to a girl like you who clearly cares for him has to be an idiot -’

‘I don’t care a fig for him,’ Charlie said fiercely, and still Dr Forester smiled.

‘No?’ he said gently. ‘You don’t strike me as a woman who would fall into bed with a man she didn’t care for. There are women who do that, who behave like the sort of men I most despise, but in my experience they are few. I certainly don’t think you’re one of them - I think you love the man who has made this baby for you. Don’t you?’

‘Love?’ She laughed again, making that same barking little sound. ‘I don’t know what it is. I’ve been obsessed, I’ll grant you that. I’ve been so stupid and so -’ And then the tears started, slowly at first, trickling down the sides of her nose and then coming faster, wetting her cheeks and filling her nostrils
so that she could hardly breathe, tightening her eyes agonizingly. The sobs grew inside her like heavy greasy bubbles made of thick film that stretched and pushed and heaved against her body and thrust at her ribs painfully until they burst into great retching noises that tore at her throat and felt much the same as last night’s sickness had felt.

For a while he sat there and watched her, benevolent and uncritical, and then as the sobbing grew louder he reached forwards and held her hands, and gradually her control, which had slipped away totally, came back. She was able to draw a few deep breaths and shakily reach for her handkerchief from her bedside table and wipe her face and eyes with harsh stabbing little movements which displayed her self-loathing so clearly it was like a shout echoing in the ugly little room.

‘No,’ Dr Forester said firmly, and pulled her hand away. ‘You’re not to treat yourself so harshly. You are by no means a bad person, and by no means stupid, and by no means all the other accusations you’re obviously throwing at yourself. You’re a woman who’s been betrayed by her own body, and that is a fact that should excite the sympathy of a doctor, not criticism. Think as a doctor for a moment, my dear, and forgive yourself.’

‘How can I?’ she said drearily, her voice husky with the remnants of her tears. ‘I behaved like a - like -’

‘Like a woman who loved. Oh, all right, like a woman obsessed with love if that’s how you prefer it. There’s little difference as far as I can see. You’ve done nothing wicked, nothing wicked at all. Nature has, as she usually does, abandoned your personal welfare to her own imperious demands -’ He smiled again and took back the hand she had pulled from his grasp. ‘As you see, I have a taste for the literary view of life. We little creatures walk under Nature’s huge legs and peep about - that’s roughly how the quote goes, isn’t it? Perhaps not, but you can see what I mean, I hope. That Nature in her wisdom took hold of you and played this trick on you. You’re amazed that you conceived as the result of one experience of coitus? I’m not. I have come across the same phenomenon many times. A woman who has a deep emotional attachment to a man and who is for whatever reason swept into sharing the act of love with him is so overwhelmed by her own hormones that she ovulates in
response to the experience and thus conceives -’

She had been staring at him and now she managed a watery smile. ‘You make me feel like a rabbit,’ she said. ‘I remember learning that they don’t have cycles like the higher animals, like us. They just respond to the stimulus of sex and that’s why there are so many rabbits -’

‘Precisely! Dr Forester beamed at her. ‘You understand perfectly! And in purely biological terms, it makes excellent sense, don’t you think? I fear Nature slipped up a bit giving most women these regular cycles that mean they can only conceive at certain times - much more effective to have women react as you clearly did, and to conceive as a direct reaction to lovemaking instead of almost accidentally, if the times of lovemaking and ovulation happen to coincide -’

‘I’m sure all this is very interesting in an academic sort of way,’ Charlie said and sat up more straightly, rubbing her hands over her tousled hair in an effort to restore her tidiness and with it her sense of
amour propre
. ‘But it doesn’t convince me - look, is there any possibility that you could be wrong? I don’t mean to be rude, but you’re a physician and not a gynaecologist and -’

‘I’m not wrong, my dear. I’m the father of four splendid young things, a well as a physician. A man, too, you see, and I’d lay my professional life in any bet that said I was wrong about this pregnancy. But of course you have a definite point. You
do
need the care of a gynaecologist and I’ll arrange this morning for Mr Croxley to come and see you and -’

‘No!’ Charlie said and bit her lip, trying to think. ‘If you’re quite sure -’

‘Of course I am,’ he said kindly. ‘And so are you, aren’t you?’

She ignored the question. ‘If you’re sure, then it’s stupid to try to deny it. I’ve got to think - I can’t let people here know. I can’t. I couldn’t face them and -’

‘You need good care, my dear, and I insist you get it. You may be a little anaemic already - looking at your pallor I can’t be sure, but I suspect it and I’ll arrange for some blood work to be done - so don’t think I’m going to wash my hands of you, just because I’m not a gynaecologist and you’re not married and so worried about your reputation -’

‘Of course I’m worried about my reputation!’ Charlie flared
at him. ‘It’s all I’ve got, isn’t it? A doctor of ill repute is hardly likely to be able to practise anywhere she can do any good and - I’ll have to go on as long as I can. The fewer people who know what’s happening to me the better - so I can’t see Mr Croxley here at Nellie’s - I can’t -’

He reached forwards and took her shoulders between his hands and gave her a little shake. ‘My dear, I am so glad!’ he said and there was very strong emotion in his voice.

‘Glad? What about?’

‘You’re taking it for granted that you will bear this child.’

She stared. ‘What else can I do? If you’re so sure you’re right and that I’m pregnant -’

‘There are those who meddle with Nature,’ he said and leaned back, as though he was ashamed of his momentary display of emotion. ‘Especially some doctors.’

She blinked and now she stared not so much at him as through him as the import of what he was saying sank in.

‘I hadn’t considered that,’ she said slowly, still with her eyes glazed.

‘Then I’m very sorry that I even mentioned the possibility,’ he said and there was a little anxiety in his voice. ‘Though I imagine it would have occurred to you eventually.’

There was a little silence and then she shook her head. ‘No, I couldn’t. I - I may be very angry and hurt and - and a lot of feelings like that, but it’s happened and I don’t think I could - no. It wouldn’t be right, however difficult everything might be. However much easier it might be to do as -. No.’

He took a little breath and it was loud in the small room and then he smiled at her. ‘Now, my dear, to practical problems. You need to be looked after, of course, and to make plans for your confinement. Let’s see if we can work out when this baby might be expected to make an appearance.’

She sat and watched him as he made notes, checking the possible dates of her last period against the date she gave him of that evening in Earlham Street and then he nodded.

‘A spring baby,’ he said with satisfaction and smiled at her, those round eyes mild once more behind his glasses. ‘The second week in April or thereabouts’, and she let her eyes move to the small window behind him where the heavy metallic blue of the sky brooded over Nellie’s.

April next year? That was an eternity away from the hot city
she was living in now: 1948 would never come. She’d be dead by then, and all this would be a sick joke, over and forgotten.

‘April,’ she said.

‘When does your appointment here end?’ He sounded brisk and efficient now.

‘Here? At Nellie’s? At Christmas if I want it to, though it was suggested I could continue for another six months if I wanted to–’

‘But you said you don’t want people here to know of your situation?’ He peered at her through those owlish glasses.‘Then I suggest you seek a new post for next year, and leave here when you’re about twenty weeks pregnant. You’re a well-made girl and if you dress sensibly there is no reason why you shouldn’t conceal your – um, your private concerns till then. Full skirts, you know, and a slightly larger white coat –’

‘You think I should go on working?’

‘I imagine you have to,’ he said a little drily. ‘Mothers have to eat.’

‘I have money,’ she said, almost dismissing that. ‘I inherited a sizeable income – but –’ she shook her head. ‘I couldn’t bear not to work. I’d go mad, I think.’

‘I think so too,’ he said. ‘For the first few months anyway. But after Christmas find yourself somewhere quiet to stay, buy yourself a wedding ring and go away to have your baby quietly. You won’t be the first woman to be widowed before she’s wed, and you won’t be the last. That’s my advice to you, my dear. Stay here as long as you can and then reappear somewhere else as Mrs Lucas. No one will question that, and you can maintain your reputation and eventually, if you choose to, return to your profession.’

‘I’m not leaving it,’ she said vigorously. ‘I’ve – he’s not going to steal that from me too.’

‘Well done,’ Dr Forester said and leaned forwards and once again took her hand, but this time he shook it. ‘You are a splendid young lady, Mrs Lucas,’ he said and smiled. ‘I do congratulate you. I truly expect you will produce a most delightful child who will give you much pleasure. Let’s be happy about Nature’s gift instead of angry, shall we?’