Time Shall Reap (16 page)

‘Elspeth.’

She wouldn’t answer. Why couldn’t she die in peace?

‘Come on, lass. You must keep pushing.’

Her body responded to the insistent order in spite of her. Pushing ... pushing down. Pushing as hard as she was able.

‘That’s it, Elspeth. Now, just one more, that’s all.’

Just one more? If it would end this purgatory, she would force herself to try. ‘Yaagh!!’ Who was crying out like a beast in mortal agony? ‘Yaagh!!’

With excruciating speed, all her innards forced their way out of her and it was over. She was floating like a feather ... up and up in blessed freedom. Death was a great relief after the heavy burden, whatever it was, that had weighed her down for so long. It would be sheer tranquillity now, for all eternity.

But ... a hand was rubbing her tender belly, she realized, with some irritation – an urgent hand, making the pain return, if not quite as bad as before. She had thought she was done with it. Must she suffer more?

‘I’m sorry, Elspeth, lass, but it’ll be a lot worse for you if I don’t get the afterbirth off you.’

Afterbirth? Once, years ago, she had seen a calf being born, and her father had told her that the horrible bloody bag of waste which came out of the cow behind the calf was called the afterbirth – or placenta. She couldn’t have just given birth, surely? It would explain the pains and the aching void in her insides, but it couldn’t be possible, and she didn’t want to think about it – not with her father fresh in her mind.

Something slipped out from between her legs, guided down by the disembodied, firm, pressing hand, and at last there was no more pain.

‘Good lassie.’

It was a familiar voice, but she was too exhausted to make any effort to place it. She had to die, to get away from the shame she had brought on her father and mother. Shame? Now she remembered. That was why she would be turned away from the gates of Heaven. After the sin she had committed, she would be sent to Hell, to be burned in the ever-lasting flames. She fought now against the consuming lassitude. She didn’t want to die. She didn’t want to go to Hell. She longed for her mother’s comforting arms, but it wasn’t Lizzie’s voice that had talked her through the terrible ordeal. It was one she had known and trusted ... but whose?

‘Elspeth. Come on, lassie. You’ve got a bonnie, bonnie son. Open your eyes and look at him.’

The intruding voice was gentle, but she had no desire to see the cause of her disgrace and agony.

‘Look at him, the wee angel. Thick dark hair, and all.’

Thankful that she wasn’t being allowed to die, she forced her eyes open and saw a plump, smiling woman, her eyebrows raised in entreaty, holding something out. Mrs Watson. It came back to her now. This wasn’t just any woman. This was Mrs Watson, her landlady, her friend, her saviour.

‘Take your son, Elspeth, and feel his sturdy little body.’ Mrs Watson placed the bundle on the bed, making sure that the new mother had taken a firm grip of it.

An unexpected tenderness surging up inside her made the girl look down on the tiny face, the eyes tightly screwed up and the rosebud mouth opening and closing like a new-born kitten. But it was no kitten. This small scrap of humanity had made its painful way out of her body, had been the cause of all the suffering she had endured. ‘A son, did you say?’ Her voice was weak, but she could feel herself drawing back from the yawning pit, the dark mouth she had so nearly allowed to swallow her.

‘Aye, lassie, he’s perfect, and we did it ourselves two.’ There was great pride in Mrs Watson’s voice as she lifted the tightly-wrapped infant out of his mother’s arms. ‘It’s all past, and you’ll be on your feet again before you ken. You’ll feel tired the now, and it’s little wonder, for you’d a hard time.’

‘Aye, I’m awful tired.’ Elspeth closed her eyes again, but her heart was lighter – a thousand times lighter – for Mrs Watson always knew what to do.

When she learned that the midwife couldn’t come, Elspeth had panicked, imagining that the child would keep growing inside her until she burst, or until they both perished. It was all over now, though, and it was God’s blessing that she’d had this kind, caring woman to look after her. It was lucky that she had met Mrs Watson on the train to Aberdeen that day, but maybe that had been arranged by God as well, and He hadn’t forsaken her, as she had feared in her darkest moments. She had someone to advise her, whatever else she might have to face – whatever else she and her son might have to face. This comforting thought was gradually edged out of her mind by a dread of the unknown future – the punishment which had yet to come for what she had already done – and she drifted into an uneasy sleep.

Several times during the course of the past few hours, Mrs Watson had been on the point of rousing her husband, but something always held her back, and even when Elspeth lapsed into semi-consciousness she struggled to bring her out of it and made her keep pushing. At last, with the one final effort that she’d been asked for, Elspeth screamed like a banshee, but the woman was able to separate the infant from its mother and cut and tie the umbilical cord. Then she turned to the girl again to guide out the afterbirth.

When she had held the swaddled child out to the girl and urged her to hold it, Mrs Watson had been afraid that Elspeth was slipping into a coma, and getting no response, her heart had almost stopped. She had persisted, however, and after another moment of suspense, Elspeth’s eyes had fluttered open, though she had seemed bewildered when the infant was placed in her arms. Then her face had been slowly transformed by a radiant smile as she realized that she was holding her son and everything was over. She relinquished him in seconds, and Mrs Watson laid him in the blanket-lined drawer she had made ready.

After doing everything she could, she took one last glance at the sleeping girl before she left the room, smiling a little as she realized that Jimmy had slept through noises that would have awakened the dead, then walked unsteadily through to the kitchen. She was ready for a cup of tea, and nobody could deny that she deserved it.

The bairn would be born by this time, Lizzie Gray reflected, and even if Elspeth hadn’t written again, she should realize her mother would want to know how the confinement had gone. Her first grandchild, and she would never know if it was a boy or a girl. She couldn’t even speak about it to Geordie, for he was a changed man these days, bitter and unforgiving, and his daughter’s name never crossed his lips.

She had thought, after learning that Elspeth and Janet had fallen out, that her sister would write or come to tell her what had happened, for she thrived on making trouble and wouldn’t be able to resist letting Geordie know what-ever it was that Elspeth had done to annoy her. She had never forgiven him for choosing her sister instead of her.

It came as no surprise to Lizzie, therefore, when the Bains turned up one Sunday, and Janet started on Geordie as soon as she came in. ‘A fine man you are,’ she sneered, ‘letting your daughter make herself free with any man that came to the house.’

He kept his temper. ‘I ken’t nothing about it.’

‘Pleading ignorance doesn’t excuse anything, Geordie.’

‘The lad took advantage o’ her in an empty house,’ he said, excusing Elspeth as much as himself, ‘but he’d have wed her if he hadna been killed.’

‘So he said,’ Janet taunted, shaking off her husband’s warning hand on her arm. ‘Easy for him to make promises like that when he was away on the battlefield. He’d never have put a ring on her finger, not a farmer’s son out for a quick thrill wi’ an untouched lassie.’ She had slipped into her natural tongue without noticing. ‘Of course, Elspeth should have ken’t better than let him have what he wanted, but maybe she’d wanted it as much as him.’

‘Janet!’ Harry Bain tried to stem her flow, but his wife was never in the habit of paying any attention to him. She had taken her own way all their married life.

She was glorying in the effect her words were having on the tall, white-haired man standing in front of her with his head bowed. ‘It was Lizzie that arranged for her to come to me, so your name wouldna be shamed in Auchlonie.’

‘It was good o’ you to take her in,’ Geordie mumbled.

‘Aye, it was good o’ me.’ Janet’s voice was heavy with sarcasm. ‘But Miss High and Mighty Elspeth Gray didna condescend to accept my hospitality for long.’

Lizzie shuddered at the sight of her husband’s face now. ‘What’s that you say?’ he thundered, his eyes standing out of their sockets, his face almost purple. ‘Is she not biding wi’ you still?’

‘I couldna have her in my house any longer. You should have heard the things she said to me, the names she called me. I’d to tell her to leave, and I was that upset I’ve been in my bed ever since. But I had to come and let you ken the kind o’ besom she is, Geordie, so I forced myself out of my sick bed and got Harry to take me here.’

Not caring one whit about Janet Bain’s ills, Geordie snapped, ‘Where in God’s name did she go, then?’

‘I wouldna ken the answer to that,’ Janet said, sharply. ‘Has she not been in touch wi’ you?’

‘I didna want to hear from her.’ Geordie’s eyes swivelled suspiciously to his wife. ‘Did she write to you?’

‘No, Geordie, there’s been no letter. I’d have tell’t you if anything had come.’ Lizzie’s blood ran cold as she voiced the barefaced lie, uttered in sheer desperation.

Her husband’s eyebrows were practically meeting in the middle now. ‘She’ll have to fend for herself, wherever she is, for I finished wi’ her the day she left this house.’

Harry Bain made himself be heard then. ‘If you ask me, you were a bit too hard on her, Geordie. She was only a bairn herself, and if she loved the laddie ...’

Janet’s glare halted him in his bid to champion Elspeth. ‘She was old enough to ken what she was doing, any road,’ she spat out. ‘You can’t get away from that, Geordie Gray, and old enough to take her own road – shouting at me like it was me that was in the wrong.’

‘Well,’ Geordie said firmly, ‘that’s an end o’ it. I’m sorry you were put to so much trouble, Janet, but she’s a wicked lassie, an’ I want to hear no more about her.’

Satisfied that she had wounded him enough, Janet started on her favourite subject – discussing her ill health – and when she said it was time they left, Geordie offered, rather ungraciously, to walk with them to the station.

‘I’m sorry for you, Lizzie,’ Janet remarked, her gleeful expression belying the sentiment. ‘Bringing a bairn into the world and having her be as thankless as Elspeth’s been.’

She followed Geordie out with a smirk on her thin, sour face, but Harry Bain hung back. ‘I’m sure she’ll be all right, Lizzie, don’t worry. The row was Janet’s fault, for she couldn’t stop sneering, but Elspeth’s a sensible lassie, and she’s able to fend for herself.’ Giving her shoulder a brief squeeze, he went out.

She felt a warmth in her heart for him. Janet didn’t deserve such a good husband, doing everything for her with-out complaining. He must really love her, Lizzie thought, in some astonishment, and he was a considerate, gentle man, who would have shielded Elspeth from her aunt’s tempers if only she had knuckled down. Oh, God! What had happened to her? Was she still with that folk she’d gone to, or had they put her out, and all? Was she lying dead somewhere, after losing her life in the struggle to give birth? No! No! No! Her letter had said she was happy, and that the folk were very kind, so there was no need for her mother to worry ... though she wished she knew.

Lizzie gave a sigh which made the lamp on the table flicker. She should never have made the girl go to Janet’s, for she should have known there would be trouble. Her sister had never been able to hold her tongue, and neither, it appeared now, could Elspeth, though she had been docile enough when she was at home. But Geordie would be more against her than ever now, with Janet rubbing salt into his wounds.

Elspeth named her baby John – it was the only way to prove to the world that she had truly loved John Forrest. Her recovery was slow and poor, and the Watsons worried about her lack of spirit. Jimmy had collected the pram on the evening after the birth, explaining who he was and why Elspeth was living at Quarry Street, and Mrs Robb had asked to be kept informed about the girl’s well-being, so he paid another visit, a week later, to tell her that the girl was still very feeble. Ann was so upset that she told her husband to call on their ex-maid the next day.

‘I’m Doctor Robb,’ he informed Helen Watson when she answered his knock. ‘I’ve come to see Elspeth.’

‘Oh ... aye ... come in, Doctor.’ She was flustered by the unexpected visit, but led him through to the small room where the pale-faced girl lay sleeping. ‘She hardly takes notice o’ anything, and I’ve whiles to force her even to feed the bairn, let alone feed herself.’

He stepped forward and said, with forced cheerfulness, ‘Hello, there, Elspeth. Why aren’t you up and about yet?’

Her eyes flew open in alarm as she struggled to raise her head, her lank hair flopping over her face. ‘Doctor Robb! Mrs Watson didn’t tell me she’d sent for you ... I can’t afford ... I’m sorry if your journey’s been wasted.’

‘No nonsense. I’ll inspect the young man first.’ Lifting the infant out of the pram, he felt the arms and legs, then ran his hand over the crown of the head. ‘His fontanelle’s all right you’ve produced a fine healthy specimen. I’d say he weighed ... have you got a set of scales, Mrs Watson?’

‘Aye, just a minute and I’ll get them.’

She returned from the kitchen in a few seconds, carrying a small spring balance. ‘I use it for weighing berries when I’m making jam,’ she explained, as she handed it over.

Making a sling from a towel, Doctor Robb placed the baby inside and slipped the hook of the balance through the knot.

‘Eight pounds, three ounces,’ he said, as he held the bundle up to the light, then gave it to Mrs Watson and turned to the bed. ‘Now, what about you?’ He prodded Elspeth’s flat stomach, looked under her eyelids then took her pulse. ‘You’ll be pleased to know that you’re not about to waste away, young woman.’ He laughed and winked to Mrs Watson. ‘It’s just a touch of bloodlessness and fatigue. He’s a big, hefty lad, you know. I’ll write out a prescription for an iron tonic, and I suggest that you stop feeding the baby yourself. It’s sapping your strength when you need every ounce of it to help you back on your feet. He’ll do fine on Glaxo or Allenbury’s.’