When Fate Dictates (14 page)

I was distracted from our conversation by the
sight of a small woven basket, tucked under the eaves of one of the
warehouses on our right.

“Simon, do you see that basket?” I asked, my
slightly raised tone betraying my concern.

He turned his head to where I was pointing.
“Aye, I see it. What of it?”

“I don’t know, but something doesn’t feel
right,” I replied, squinting my eyes in an effort to sharpen my
view.

“Do you want to take a look?”

“I do,” I replied, already moving in the
direction of the basket. As we got closer I realized with horror
what the basket held and gasped out loud.

“Simon, look, it’s a baby! Oh dear God it
looks close to death. Simon, do something,” I rambled, lifting the
baby from the basket and clutching it to my breast.

“Let me see the child, Corran.”

I did not hear him at first. “Let it go,” he
said, raising his voice in a firm tone, whilst attempting to remove
the baby from my grip.

Shaking, I slowly released my hold on the
baby, letting him take it gently from me. He held it in his arms,
his eyes scanning its tiny body for signs of life.

“I don’t know if it will live lass, I think
it’s starved. It has need of its mother’s breast and you can’t give
it that.”

Suddenly, the baby choked and a tiny meow of
a cry escaped its lips.

“Get me some goat’s milk and a rag,” I
demanded, taking the baby off Simon and turning toward the steps to
the bridge.

“I am taking it home; I will not let it die.
Do you hear me Simon? I will not let it.”

“I hear you Corran,” he said, already at the
stone steps.

“Take the little mite home and I will see you
there,” he ordered, and with that he was gone, up the steps, over
the bridge and back into the crowded city.

“Hello sweetheart,” I whispered, pulling the
limp frame tightly against me. “You have got to hold on little one,
do you understand me? You have got to try.”

Gently, as if I held the most precious bundle
in the world, I cradled the baby in my arms, whispering desperate
words of encouragement as I carried it home.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, my
hand closed around the cold handle of our door. Simon was already
inside, the round wooden bowl on the table and a piece of torn
linen beside it. He had found some milk, and as impressed as I was
by his resourcefulness, I did not think to ask how he had come by
it so quickly. My only thought was for the tiny, listless child in
my arms.

“Tie a knot in the end of the cloth.”

He did as I had asked, pulling a chair out
from under the table for me to sit on. I took it gratefully and
loosened the baby from the square blanket in which it was wrapped.
“Dip the knot in the milk,” I said, gently rocking the baby in my
arms.

Supporting the child in the crook of my left
arm, I reached across the table and took the sodden piece of linen.
Lightly, I ran the knot over the baby’s lips, willing it to accept
the milk, to open its little mouth and suck fervently. Simon got up
from the table and poured two large glasses of whisky, gently
placing one on the table in front of me. “Here, take this. I think
you will have need of it before this night is out.”

I looked up from the baby. “Where do you
think its mother is?”

“I have no idea, but wherever she is, it’s
not where she should be,” he said.

We both looked down at the baby together, the
same sadness filling both our hearts.

“Drink, damn you child,” he said, banging his
fist on the table.

The baby’s eyes flew open, its little chest
expanded and an almighty wail bellowed from its lips. Shaken, we
stared at the howling baby, smiles expanding rapidly on our faces
as the tiny mouth found the linen cloth and started to suck.

“Oh dear God, thank you,” I said, my pulse
quickening with every drop of milk the baby sucked off the
cloth.

“How did you know to do that?” he asked.

“Do what?” I replied.

“Dip the cloth in goat’s milk for the
child.”

“It’s from a story my grandmother used to
tell me. Of a baby boy whose mother abandoned him at birth and how
he was found by a stranger who brought him back to life by dipping
a linen cloth in goat’s milk. I had no idea if it would work or not
when I did it. I just remembered the story at the right time and in
the right place.”

“What happened to this child after the
stranger saved him?” he asked.

“Well they couldn’t find his real mother and
father, so the stranger kept the baby, but Grandmother would never
finish the story, so I don’t know what happened in the end.”

“You do know that we can’t keep this child,
don’t you?” Simon asked, a frown furrowing his brow. I frowned
back, not having a thought about what would happen to the baby
next.

“What if we don’t find its mother?” I
asked.

“Then Corran, it must go to the Parish and
they must take care of it.”

“But why could we not just keep it?” I said,
feeling the panic rise inside me.

“We just can’t,” Simon said simply.

“What do you mean, we can’t?” I cried angrily
at him.

“I mean just that. This child is not our
responsibility.”

“No Simon. We can’t just hand it over to the
Parish. I will not do it.”

“We can’t care for it Corran. How will we
feed it? It can’t live by drops of milk off a linen cloth. That may
have saved its life but it won’t make it grow.”

“I don’t know yet but I will not hand it over
to a life as a pauper. I will not do it Simon, I just will not.” I
pulled the child tightly against my chest.

“Listen to me Corran. People die all the
time, especially in places like this and children are left with no
parents to care for them. We cannot save the world. This child is
not our responsibility.”

I shot him a look of defiance even though I
knew he probably would not be able to see it in the dim light of
the candle in the room.

“I don’t care if it is our responsibility or
not. God has brought this child to us and I will not let it
go.”

“Alright,” he said, clearly becoming
exasperated and reaching for his coat.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“I am going to find out what to do about this
child.”

Cradling the baby to my breast, I watched him
go through the door.

“I will keep you safe, little one,” I
whispered lovingly. I closed my eyes and called my grandmother’s
face to my mind, asking her to help me, willing her to finish the
story and tell me how to look after this child. I sighed deeply,
looking down at the baby whose eyelids hung heavily over the pale
blue eyes with impending sleep.

“How old are you sweetheart?” I whispered,
wishing there were some way it could tell me.

Laying the baby gently on the wooden floor, I
noticed for the first time that its little body was crusted and
caked with the dried blood of birth and guessed it had probably not
been too long since it had entered this world.

I needed to go to the post house and buy some
fresh water from the well to wash it with. Wrapping the baby
tightly in a blanket, I picked up the wooden bucket and hurried out
into the night air. The post house was a busy place but I managed
to push my way through the crowds of customers and it was not too
long before I had the bucket filled with water. Dragging it and
carrying a small baby proved less simple and I found myself having
to stop every few yards to rearrange either the sloshing bucket’s
position in my hand or the baby in my arm but eventually the baby,
bucket and I returned home intact. Laying the child once more on
the floor, I warmed some water on the fire and removed the little
blanket to discover this little one was no longer just a baby but a
little boy.

“Hello little man,” I said gently, “I wonder
what you want us to call you?” He wriggled as I wiped the marks of
birth off his little body and gently cleaned the sticky mess from
his eyes.

My next thought was for where he would sleep.
Optimistically, I hoped against all hope that Simon would not
return with the authorities from the Parish. I was quite sure the
child’s mother would not be found. To my mind if she were still
alive and wanted the baby, then she would not have abandoned him.
The Parish's mercy was not of benefit to anyone, let alone a small
defenseless child. If I let Simon hand him over to the authorities
I would be all but signing his death warrant, and that was not
something I was prepared to do, not now, not ever.

Pushing thoughts of the authorities to the
back of my mind I set about making up a cot. I eventually opted to
place it next to our bed, for I had seen enough newborn babies to
know that this little chap was going to be demanding a lot of
attention over the next couple of months. I also liked the idea of
having him next to me, where I could not only get to him easily but
also keep a watchful eye on him.

I sat on the bed and waited for the little
boy to wake; watching as he slept and praying with all my heart
that Simon would not have him taken from me.

The baby woke and I lifted him quickly into
my arms, gently pushing a clean rag soaked in milk into his eager
little mouth. He struggled initially, instinct driving his mouth to
my breast, but eventually he found the source of food and sucked
eagerly at the sodden rag. Finally, the little boy settled to sleep
again, his full tummy lying softly against my chest. I moved to
rest my back against the cushion of my bed and wrapped my arms
protectively around him, brushing the top of his head gently with
my lips I whispered: “I will take care of you little one; I will
not let them put you in the poor house.”

Simon returned that night resigned to the
fact that the only moral choice he had was to keep the child with
us. He had searched for its mother and been as unsuccessful as he
had expected to be. He was quite sure she would be from the brothel
that operated out of a street behind the warehouses. Having made a
determined effort to extract the truth from the residents of the
house, he reasoned that the mother was either dead or did not wish
to be found. This result was mostly what he had expected, but for
the sake of the child he had felt the need to put his best efforts
into a search for the mother. Like me, he had no wish to hand the
child over to the authorities. Against most odds, the child had
survived this far and he had no intention of being responsible for
his demise. With this in mind Simon closed the door of our home
that night, with the certain knowledge that he now shared his life
with not only a wife; but a small child, which from this day
forward he would call his son.

******

There is nothing in life that can adequately
prepare you for the gift of a child. To suddenly find oneself
responsible for the survival of another human being is quite the
most daunting of experiences. Despite having watched many a new
mother and her baby in the glen and hearing tales aplenty of the
trials and challenges of raising children, I had not the faintest
idea where to start with my own.

“Should we not name the baby?” Simon said as
I blew the candle out yet again that evening. Sleep had become a
dream of pre-parenthood and candles were costing us a small
fortune. Daytime was an unimaginable whirlwind of activity, where
we flew from one task with the baby to the next and as such small
details like naming the child had remained unattended to.

“Aye, what do you think we should call him?
We don’t know much about his past, so we can’t know what his mother
might have wanted to call him.”

“You are his mother now Corran; it is up to
us to choose his name.”

The baby stirred and I raised my finger to my
lips. “Shh... whisper, or we will wake him again.”

“Okay,” Simon whispered, “Sorry, I know he is
a little nightmare to get back to sleep.”

“So what should we call him?” I asked,
rolling over in bed to face Simon and keeping my voice as low as
possible.

“You know, Corran, he has a look of my uncle
about him. I know it’s a strange thing, but sometimes you see the
people who you were close to in others.”

“What was your uncle’s name?”

“He was called Duncan.”

“My grandfather was also called Duncan. I
think it’s a fine name and it will suit him, so Duncan we shall
name him,” I said, feeling a great sense of accomplishment at
having solved the problem so promptly.

“Thank you, that means a great deal to me
Corran.”

“Tell me about your uncle. What was he
like?”

“He was a good and kind man and when my pa
was at sea, he looked out for me.”

“You say he was a good man – do you mean that
he has died?”

“Aye, he was killed a few years back now by
his son.”

“Oh Simon that is shocking, what happened?” I
asked, horrified.

“It’s a long story, and it’s too late to tell
now, another day perhaps.”

I suddenly realized that I knew very little
of his life, and wondered why he had not talked much of his past
but the hour was late and sleep was a precious commodity.

“Simon, have you time to mix Duncan’s oats
before you leave?” I called, grabbing hold of the child’s tiny feet
as he tried to scramble away from me. “Oh, no you don’t, little
man,” I said, rolling him onto his back and trying to pull the gown
over his head.

He giggled, twisting his body in an attempt
to roll back onto his tummy.

“Do you want some help there?”

I looked up to see Simon smiling down on
us.

“Yes please. If you can hold him still, I’ll
get his gown over his head.”

Simon swung the child into his arms, planting
a loving kiss on the top of his blond head. “Now what are you doing
to your mother?” he asked, moving the baby to arm’s length so I
could slip the gown on.