The Lorimer Legacy (19 page)

As soon as she had seen who it was, Ralph drew her quietly away. Neither of them spoke until they were back on the verandah of the pastor's house.

‘It comes straight from the jungle,' said Margaret at last.

‘It comes straight from their hearts,' Ralph countered.

His sister nodded. ‘The same thing, perhaps,' she said.

‘I ought to have brought it to an end when I first came here. No doubt you think it weak of me to have given in.' He had struggled long with his conscience before deciding that the best solution was to insist that a ceremony which clearly would survive whether he countenanced it or not should be brought, if only by name, into the Christian observance.

‘I respect all the more the success you have had here,' she said quietly. ‘To overcome even partially an old culture of such strength seems to me a most impressvie achievement.'

Ralph was pleased by her approval. He was not as unaware as his wife believed of the disproportionate amount of time and energy which he devoted to the running of the Bristow estate. He had never confessed to Lydia that the plantation had once belonged to his great-great-uncle Matthew, and even more carefully had he concealed from the whole world the lie which had resulted in it becoming his personal property; but perhaps the pricking in his conscience increased his determination that the congregation should profit from its fertility. His nature was that of a man who needed to see results, to reap the harvest of his sowing. It was difficult always to feel confident that his Sunday sermons fell on receptive ground, and without the successful organization of the farm lands he would often have been depressed. From his observation of Margaret's reluctance to discuss her own religious beliefs with him, he deduced that she was not in sympathy with his opinions – but this very fact made her praise more welcome.

By now the time of Lydia's confinement was approaching. As she grew heavier, so did the atmosphere. The torrential outbursts of rain continued for longer and were then replaced by a sun which burned with a fierce,
debilitating heat out of a cloudless sky. Ralph could see that even Margaret, who prided herself on her good health, was having to struggle against lethargy and tiredness, and Lydia's exhaustion was more conspicuous still. The smallest exertion out of the shade was enough to make the sweat run off her forehead to cloud her eyes, while the humidity made her gasp for breath. She could only take a few steps at a time before needing to stop for a moment and rest.

Remembering the lively way in which she had continued to work throughout all her previous pregnancies, Ralph could not help but worry. But he said nothing, because Margaret without fuss or complaint was already taking over all Lydia's activities. She was running the morning surgery by now, and visiting the sick in their homes. Kate and Brinsley were old enough to look after themselves – and Kate, in fact, chose to accompany her aunt to the surgery, producing from memory the past history of the patients who came there. Margaret even spontaneously continued the campaign towards community hygiene which had been one of Lydia's chief enthusiasms ever since they arrived. Ralph watched with affectionate amusement as his sister followed the course of sewage channels to trace a blockage, chased cattle away from the drinking stretch of the stream, lectured the mothers of children who squatted in the middle of paths, and paid surprise visits to the Bristow slaughterhouse to see that her instructions on keeping flies away from the meat were being observed. Whoever had trained the two women in the principles of public health had achieved a lasting success.

At times he worried, seeing that Margaret was almost as worn out as his wife at the end of each enervating day. But his first anxiety was for Lydia, and he knew that his sister shared it. That was why she had come, and she was
not a woman to do things by halves. So he said nothing, even when – two weeks before the baby was due – she insisted that Lydia from now on must remain at home all day, and for most of the time in bed. His wife accepted the edict with a lack of protest which worried Ralph as much as anything else. Although it brought his anxieties to a head, it was a relief when in the early hours of one morning he felt Lydia's hand on his shoulder, waking him to say that her labour had begun.

They had agreed in advance that when the time came Ralph should take the children down to the coast, to leave them with another minister who was a friend. Kate and Brinsley were both excited by the prospect of swimming in the sea, and Brinsley confessed to hopes that he might also be taken on a crocodile hunt in the mangrove swamps, so both children said goodbye to their mother cheerfully.

Margaret had ordered Ralph to spend the night with his friend, since otherwise the double journey would have occupied fourteen hours. She made no secret of the fact that she would rather have him out of the house when the baby arrived. But when he returned to Hope Valley the next day there had been no change in the situation. One of the two village girls who had been chosen by Margaret to take turns in helping was sitting by Lydia's bedside, keeping her forehead cool, and a small boy on the verandah was tugging on a rope whenever he remembered it. This operated a makeshift
punkah
to fan the air into movement during those times of the day when the breeze dropped altogether. But there was not yet any sign of the baby.

Ralph spent ten minutes with Lydia, holding her hand and talking of the children and their journey. Then he took Margaret outside, where they could not be heard.

‘Why is it taking so long?' he demanded. ‘Even her
first labour lasted only eighteen hours, and the others were all so quick that we scarcely had time to send for help.'

‘The baby is not very active; and Lydia herself was tired even before her labour began,' Margaret said. ‘I prefer not to interfere with a natural birth if it can be helped, but the time has certainly come now when I must do so. I suggest you go away, Ralph. Make your usual visits. I'll send a messenger as soon as there is anything to say.'

Reluctantly he accepted his sister's instructions. All the doors and jalousies were open to catch whatever breeze might come, and if he stayed in the house he would not be able to escape from the sound of Lydia's breathing, half panting and half moan.

No message came, but after an hour he could stay away no longer. He returned to the house to find Margaret just coming out of Lydia's room with a baby in her arms.

‘A little boy, just this moment born,' she said. ‘Ralph, will you bring the cradle out of Lydia's room? She's very tired. As soon as you have had a word with her, she must be allowed to sleep without disturbance.'

He moved the cradle as she asked, and then sat by his wife's side for a few moments. But Lydia could hardly keep her eyes open. She was extremely pale and her energy as well as her blood seemed to have drained away completely. She managed a wan smile, but could not speak. Ralph's heart chilled as he held her limp hand in his own. If she should die, he thought to himself, and his spirit groaned with a fear which he must not express. No new baby would ever be able to console him for the loss of his wife. But it would not, surely it would not come to that. Lydia was exhausted, that was all, and it was natural enough. He told himself to be sensible, but in his imagination he saw her slipping away from him, and his
true feelings burst out in an agony of guilt. ‘I'm sorry, my dearest,' he cried, knowing that she would understand what he meant. ‘Oh Lydia, Lydia, I'm so sorry.'

She was too tired to reassure him, too tired even to squeeze his hand. He realized very soon that his presence was no kindness to her, and went quietly from the room.

He found Margaret looking down at the cradle with an expression that he did not understand. There were times in the past when he had seen her unhappy, but never before had he caught such a look of startled uncertainty on her face, as though she were unsure of some decision she had made, and might even have been on the point of changing it. But his own anxiety left no room for him to consider his sister's.

‘Margaret, is Lydia in any danger?'

Her quickness to recognize his fear suggested to him that perhaps she shared it, but she moved at once to embrace and reassure him.

‘No, I'm sure she isn't. She's not a young woman any longer, of course. You mustn't expect her to recover as quickly from this birth as from the others. We shall both need to look after her for quite a long time.'

‘Of course.' He was so anxious to believe her that his relief did not admit of any doubts and now at last he felt able to look for the first time at the child.

All his other children, after their first birth cries, had lain placidly in their cradles, as though feeling even in their first moments the security of the family into which they were born. This one was different. His face was screwed up in an expression of pain or fury, and what little hair he had was so fair as to appear white. He looked like an angry old man, and his father could feel no warmth towards him. Ralph stood in silence, trying to force the correct emotions into his heart. Then, slowly
and compassionately, Margaret drew away the blanket which covered the little boy's body.

At first it seemed to Ralph that the baby was lying in an awkward position. Only when he looked more carefully was he able to see the deformity of the hip and the unnatural angle at which a stunted left leg grew from it. His earlier terror repeated itself. If Lydia should die for
this
, he thought. He said nothing as Margaret replaced the covering.

‘Does Lydia know?' he asked.

‘Not yet. She was too tired to ask, and I thought it best not to break the news until she was stronger.'

Ralph nodded his agreement to that, and summoned all his emotional strength to accept what he had seen.

‘It's God's will,' he said. ‘We will call the boy Grant. Because God has granted him the gift of life, and one day we shall learn why. Even his misfortune must have some purpose. And none of us was sent into the world to be happy all the time.'

‘It seems to me that some from the beginning have less chance of happiness than others.' Margaret was still looking at the baby as she spoke, but now she raised her eyes to her brother. ‘You're fortunate in your faith, Ralph. Those of us who don't entirely share it have no such certainty that everything is for the best. We feel ourselves to be faced with choices. And we can't always be sure that we have made the right decision. If your son had not lived, would that also have been God's will?'

‘Of course. Everything.' Understanding suddenly what she meant, he stared at her with a horror undiminished by any of the doubts which he himself had felt a few moments earlier. ‘The soul of a new-born child is perfect, however imperfect the body may be. You could not have killed a living creature, Margaret.'

‘No,' she agreed. ‘There was a moment in which I
thought the baby might never draw his first breath, and I wasted that moment in asking myself whether I should take any steps to help him. But, for all his deformity, his constitution is strong. He struggled with his own body and pulled himself into life. And then, as you say, I could not have killed him. Because it is my instinct and my profession to preserve life, because I would never have been able to face you and Lydia either with a lie or with the truth, and because I should never have been able to live with my own conscience. At the moment when you came in I was asking myself whether, when he grows to be a man, he will ever be able to forgive me. I'm grateful that you are able to bring me reassurance. The choice was never my own. The will of God had already determined what should happen.'

As a preacher Ralph knew that he ought to argue with his sister and banish the bitterness from her voice. But as a father and a husband he was too anxious and unhappy. Ignoring the cries of the baby in the cradle, he opened his arms to embrace Margaret, and they clung together for consolation.

When a great fear proves to be groundless, lesser worries expand to take its place. Lydia did not die, and Ralph ought to have been happy. But even after Margaret assured him that the moment of danger had passed, he fretted at the slowness of his wife's recovery, wondering whether she would ever regain her normal energy and resentful of the demands of the new baby who sapped whatever strength she had with his constant demands to be put to the breast and disturbance of her sleep with his
cries. There was little he could do about it, for Lydia refused to surrender her responsibilities to any of those members of the community who would willingly have helped her. Ralph could feel grateful only that Margaret agreed to stay longer than had at first been arranged, continuing to care for the health of the village while Lydia devoted herself to Grant.

But as the weeks passed, he realized that his sister was beginning to feel her absence from Robert. Ashamed that he had extended his demands on her time by so long, he sent to Kingston to discover the dates on which William's banana boats would be leaving the harbour.

The answer had not yet arrived in Hope Valley when Margaret, joining Ralph in a stroll through the orange groves of Pastor's Vineyard, suggested quietly to him that Lydia ought not to risk another pregnancy.

‘Do you think we intended this one!' he exclaimed. He was silent for a moment. But his feeling of guilt was so strong that he could not resist the opportunity to abase himself.

‘After the deaths of the younger children, of course we were both very unhappy. It affected us in different ways. I wanted to be reassured by love. But Lydia's reaction to the tragedy was different. She was upset by the wastefulness of bringing children into the world if they were to be stolen from her, and was determined to have no more. And it was worse than that – as though she hardly dared to allow herself to love anyone for a little while, lest he too should be suddenly snatched away from her. She withdrew from me in a way – although not, I think, because she loved me any less.'