A Time for Courage (21 page)

Harry nodded, looking at the oil paintings as they passed, knowing that in order to keep Esther he would have to supply her with all this.

‘I just hope you’re right, Arthur,’ he replied.

Hannah and Esther spoke in whispers in the landau. Aunt Camilla was asleep, her head moving in tune with the carriage as it rolled round corners and bounced on rough, mud-heaped roads.

‘Such wealth, Hannah,’ Esther said, her eyes bright, her hair flattened by the cloak which Harry had pulled up to protect her from the rain.

Hannah nodded, thinking of the music, the feel of Arthur so close to her, the strangeness of it all, the light, the glitter, the laughter.

‘It’s all from mining and railways, you know,’ Esther continued. ‘And property of course. Big landowners too. We must try and arrange an invitation to the family seat.’ She gripped Hannah’s arm. ‘That is something you must encourage and I will organise Harry to do the same.’

Hannah sighed at the intrusion into her thoughts, then laughed. ‘For heaven’s sake, Esther, I might not see him again.’

‘Oh yes you will.’ Esther’s voice was determined and Hannah looked at her, seeing the tilt of her chin and the set of her mouth.

‘For my sake or for yours?’ she asked, watching her friend carefully. ‘If it’s that important why not chase him yourself?’ She felt the stirring of anger suddenly and wondered where it had leapt from and why.

Esther slumped back against the seat. ‘I don’t want to marry a second son, darling. There’s no future in that.’

Hannah laughed, relieved that Esther was merely joking, for she was, wasn’t she? Camilla stirred.

‘Well, I’m not sure that Father would have much to leave Harry,’ Hannah said, her eyes intent.

Esther looked round at her, her eyebrows raised. ‘Arthur said Harry will do very well in South Africa. He introduced us to his neighbour, the gold mine owner. He has more money than Arthur’s family will ever have.’ And though she was smiling Hannah saw that the blue wide eyes were, for a moment, devoid of humour and a silence hung between them, disturbed only as the carriage turned into her crescent and lurched on mud, the horses losing their nerve and shying, throwing Hannah on to Esther and causing Camilla to wake and shout at the driver to be more careful, foolish man.

Hannah looked from the window and saw that the lights were on throughout her house. She could not understand why and turned to Esther and then back again to the house and now she saw the black of the doctor’s trap standing stark outside the house, and there was nothing in her head now but her mother.

She leapt from the carriage before it had stopped; tearing from Camilla’s hands, which tried to hold her back; running in through the door, which was unlocked, and up the stairs, her skirt grasped in her hand so that she could take two at a time. There was no one there at the top of the stairs and she was shouting now. ‘Mother, Mother.’ And the noise was so loud that she wondered if she would ever stop hearing it inside her head.

Across the landing it was dark and she rushed to her mother’s door but it would not open. She turned the handle, hearing Camilla come up the stairs now, feeling her hands on her arms, pulling her back.

‘Mother,’ she called again and now the door opened and Beaky pushed her back and Hannah fought free from Camilla, hearing but not listening as she soothed and stroked, but Beaky still stood in front of the door, large and black and sour, saying nothing.

‘Get away from that door,’ Hannah said, suddenly quiet. ‘Get away from that door at once.’

Beaky did not move.

‘I said, get away from my mother’s door.’ And now she was not quiet but shouting.

‘Stop that noise, you silly child,’ Beaky said, her voice whiplike in its whisper.

But Hannah was tired of not shouting. ‘I will shout until you open that door.’ And her throat was sore and her hands were gripped into fists which beat the air. ‘I want to be with my mother.’ She would not ask if the baby was dead, if her mother was dead. She could not stand that pain. But now Beaky moved to one side and stood large with her arms crossed.

‘The baby died. Your mother is still alive, but only just. You were not here.’ With that she turned, walked to the chair under the high small window and sat, dark and brooding.

Camilla dropped her hands because Hannah stood still now and Esther, who was waiting at the head of the stairs, moved towards her, but she brushed her away and walked slowly into the room.

The nurse and the doctor were standing either side of the bed, not moving but just looking at the still form, which, in the lowered light of the oil lamp, was pale again, as pale as the sheets which were drawn up tight across her shoulders.

Hannah pushed past the white-draped cradle, knowing it was empty, ignoring the rocking which she had set in motion. It was heavy with heat in the room, heavy with the scent of lilac and illness. The curtains were drawn across the window, the fire was raging in the grate, the blankets were heavy on her mother’s body. She undid her cloak with one hand and let it fall to the floor behind her.

She did not acknowledge the doctor as he stepped back to allow her passage, but looked only at her mother, taking her hot limp hand, talking all the time, gently, quietly.

‘I’m sorry I wasn’t here. I shall never leave you again.’ The words kept coming, the same each time but there was no answer, no movement at all, only beads of sweat on her mother’s white forehead and Hannah threw to the floor the beaded net which covered the jug of water on the bedside table and tore strips off the white linen sheet, so immaculate, so orderly, pushing aside the doctor’s protests, tipping water over the linen which she now held, jagged with loose thread hanging.

As she placed it on her mother’s forehead she turned. ‘Open that window immediately.’

Neither nurse nor doctor moved. ‘Open that window immediately. I am responsible now that my mother is ill. Open it at once.’ She was not shouting. She would not shout in this room where her mother lay.

‘If you value the custom of this road, of Uncle Thomas, of any of this neighbourhood you will open that window.’

She was stripping back the blankets now, hurling them to the floor, and the doctor looked at her with eyes narrowed in affront. Hannah lifted the cloth from her mother’s forehead. The coolness was gone from it. She poured more water from the jug, too much this time so that it soaked her gloves, fell on to the bed. She sponged her mother’s hair, her neck, gently unbuttoning the heavy cotton bodice to the waist, sponging her breasts which were full and blue-veined with milk that would not be needed. There could be milk fever. She must keep them cool. And all the time she talked and soothed and nodded as she heard the curtains draw back.

‘Now open that window and leave it open until I tell you to close it.’ And the nurse looked at her, then at the doctor, who nodded. Hannah could hear the wind and the rain now, could feel the air dampen down the heat, and suck the lilac out into the dark night.

‘I shall be speaking to your father, Miss Hannah.’ The doctor’s voice was crisp and hard.

She did not turn, her eyes too busy with her mother. ‘No doubt you will but he is not here now, is he? At his club, is he? Away from all unpleasantness, all failure?’

She heard the gasp of the nurse, the rustle of offended cloth as the doctor turned sharply towards the door.

‘I will be waiting outside,’ he said, his voice cold.

‘Yes. I think that would be best.’ Hannah looked up, but not at him, at the nurse. ‘And would you please go and fetch cool water from the scullery and thank my aunt and cousin. Tell them that I am grateful for their kindness but that I will send to their house if I need them.’

As the nurse turned, she called her back. ‘And you are to allow the fire to die down, to go out. Do I make myself clear?’ She smiled now, as the nurse nodded. ‘And then perhaps you should sit in the chair over by the dresser and get some rest. There will be much for you to do tomorrow.’

For her mother was not going to die. She would not let that happen, would not allow all this love to be wasted. It couldn’t be allowed to just disappear.

The night was long. The storm reached its height before dawn, the thunder cracking and slashing and then her mother moved her lips and Hannah squeezed water from a clean cloth and watched it trickle into that parched mouth. She watched the pale lids open and her mother turn her head slightly, looking first at the hand which held hers and then up into Hannah’s face.

‘He said it was a girl and so death was a blessing.’ The words were a broken whisper, the eyes dark with grief and pain, and Hannah knew she spoke of her father.

When dawn had broken and her mother was asleep and the nurse sat where Hannah had been throughout the night, she took the vase which held the lush, heavy lilac, carried it down the stairs and into the sitting-room, where she lit the fire which Polly always laid, and burnt it, bloom by bloom.

She rose then, easing off her white kid dancing shoes, her silk stockings, before opening the French windows and walking on to the paved terrace which was still wet, out into the early morning sun. It was not dew which soaked her bare feet but the ravages of the night.

It was cool and she felt the grass between her toes and saw again the running stream and the trout that she had tickled and Joe’s hand outstretched for hers.

She found the axe in the gardener’s shed. It was heavy but not too heavy. She felled the lilac within the hour, its leaves showering her with water with every thudding stroke, her breath heaving in her chest, her arms aching with each swing. She dragged each branch, each leaf, each browned bloom past the blackened daisies to the back of the shed, stacking them into a pile, pouring paraffin over them, and throwing a lighted match into its heart. Soon the lilac was completely gone.

She picked lavender now, sprig after sprig, and carried it back through the sitting-room, up the stairs, feeling the carpet warm now beneath her feet, seeing her dress so soiled and creased.

But that did not matter now; the baby was dead but her mother must live. She dug her nails into the fragrant stems before entering the room. She knew that she had made a choice and that the shouting, the fighting must go on without her, for now. She stood outside the door. Hadn’t Eliza said that everything must be done in the context of her mother’s health? And so where did that leave her now? And she dug her nails into the fragrant stems again.

The wheels of the bath chair had dug furrows from the gravel path to the base of the pear tree. Hannah sat in her own wicker chair, which creaked as she removed a fallen leaf from the green-and-white checked wool blanket which lay around her mother’s legs. Her mother did not stir; her hands lay limp and thin and translucent, their veins too easily seen, too blue.

‘It’s such a beautiful day, Mother, for September; it’s usually such a changeable month but this time it’s been kind to us. Joe says it is called an Indian Summer after the redskins who live on his great plains and have warm autumns too.’

‘Is September autumn, Hannah? Is it soon to be the start of winter?’

Edith Watson’s voice was light and frail and sank almost to a whisper as she finished. Her hands were still motionless, it was only her lips that had moved.

Hannah looked away, up into the tree, to the green leaves and the blue sky beyond. If she put her head right back that was all it was possible to see; just flickering leaves, the faded brown of the branches, the sky streaked with high thin cloud. The pears were few this year after the storm of that June night. Hannah sighed, pushing her hair back with her hand, lowering her head so that she could see her mother again, her head resting against the white cushion that Hannah had sewn and embroidered, stitch by stitch, as she sat day after day, night after night at the bedside. Beaky had smiled and said that her father would be pleased to see such industry. He had need of another antimacassar. Hannah had said nothing but drawn through another strand of silk, pale pink this time and seen a frown form and thicken on the housekeeper’s brow. This is for my mother, Hannah had said at last, as she cut the strand. There had been no answer. Were the needle-grinders still dying, Hannah wondered now, but was too tired to care.

Since the June night when it had all happened the days had been full of sun; she knew, because Esther had told her. Ascot had been brilliant when her cousin had gone with Harry and Arthur and how it had shone at Cowes; and what gaiety there had been at the Coronation which had at last taken place in August. But there seemed to have been such darkness here, such struggle in forcing away the weakness which dragged greedily at her mother, such effort in breaching the cloak of despair which had wrapped tightly round Edith Watson and slowly but steadily drawn the breath from her body and the sense from her mind. It had taken all Hannah’s strength, all her energy to pull her back.

She rose from her chair. Its legs had sunk into the ground and earth coated the bamboo. She walked to the trunk of the tree.

‘Look, Mother, do you remember this?’ And she dug her nails into the bark and peeled a layer back. It broke off in her fingers and she handed it to her mother, watching as the dulled eyes travelled to the bark, then up to Hannah’s face. She was so drawn, this mother who was more like her child, but Hannah did not allow this thought to show but crouched down beside the bath chair, hearing it creak as she placed the bark in the limp hands, then, resting her arms on the side, her dark blue skirt trailing on the grass, ‘Layer after layer, do you remember?’ Hannah took her mother’s hand in hers, the one which held the bark, and she smiled as her mother nodded. She ran her mother’s other hand over the layers, seeing the dust leave its trail against the pale of her skin.

‘Yes, my dear Hannah, I do remember but it seems so long ago.’ And her voice trailed away but Hannah sat down again, pleased that today the improvements continued.

Miss Fletcher had been so kind. The new college year had begun of course and lectures must not be missed, though the work in the classroom, her Headmistress had insisted, could always be curtailed