It was on the first day of December, when the snow flurries of the previous month attacked the north-east in earnest, that Sophy woke up from an uneasy doze. It was just after midnight and she felt distinctly unwell. The griping backache which had been making itself felt for the last forty-eight hours had worsened and spread to her abdomen, on top of which she felt nauseous.
She lay in bed, trying to persuade herself that if she went back to sleep she’d feel better, but after half an hour or so the pains seemed to be strengthening. She was wondering whether she should wake Kane and ask him to get Ralph to fetch Dr Palmer when her whole stomach seemed to be gripped in a vice. She arched in the bed, gasping, and when Kane’s voice murmured, ‘Sophy? Is everything all right, sweetheart?’ she couldn’t speak for a few moments.
Kane shot up in bed. ‘Is it the babies?’
‘I think so.’ Mercifully the pain was receding. She could now smile and say, ‘I think very shortly you are going to be a father, my darling.’
Within a short while, controlled panic reigned.
Ralph was dispatched to fetch Dr Palmer in the midst of the first real snow blizzard of the year. Sadie was roused and told to boil lots of hot water, and Bridget joined Sophy and Kane in the master bedroom. Harriet was fully occupied for the present seeing to little Josephine who had been awoken by the hustle and bustle and had decided it was morning, protesting vigorously at being put back to bed and crying for her daddy. Ralph spoiled the little girl shamelessly and Josephine had soon learned that if she wanted something, Daddy was the person to ask. Probably the calmest person in the whole mêlée was Sophy.
The spasms of pain were excruciating at their peak, but in
between the contractions she tried to reassure Kane who was as white as a sheet and visibly shaking. She would never have dreamed in a million years that her calm, unflappable husband could fall to pieces, but his distress at her pain was obvious. He recovered his aplomb after a while but she loved him all the more for his brief lapse.
By the time Ralph returned with Dr Palmer, Sophy’s pains were coming every four minutes. After ascertaining a few facts, Dr Palmer told them that he was sure Sophy had been in mild labour since she’d experienced the strong backache. There was nothing to worry about, he assured Kane. All was normal.
The contractions continued fairly regularly until five o’clock in the morning when the time between pains changed with some rapidity. Now it seemed to Sophy that one contraction hadn’t ended before another began.
At this point, Dr Palmer tried to send Kane out of the room, telling him he would be better served waiting downstairs. Kane’s reply to the good doctor was not repeatable, and as Sophy was gripping her husband’s hand for dear life, the doctor didn’t argue further. He muttered something about never having had a husband present at a birth in all his days as a physician, but no one was listening.
Bridget was holding Sophy’s other hand and proved a tower of strength, as did Harriet who had also come to help, along with Sadie, once Ralph had returned.
The first baby was born at seven o’clock. It was a strong-limbed male child who yelled for all he was worth and caused his mother to smile when she heard him. A good weight for a twin at six and a half pounds, Bridget had just cleaned his face and wrapped him in a warm blanket and placed him in the crib waiting by the fire, when his brother made his appearance into the world. At just under six pounds his cry was no less lusty. Kane, the tears running down his face, showed him to Sophy before handing the baby to Harriet who began to do what Bridget had done.
‘By, lass, they’re bonny.’ Bridget was bending over an exhausted Sophy, gently wiping her face with a warm flannel. ‘You rest now, you deserve it. I’ll bring them to you in a minute.’
‘They’re beautiful, my love.’ Kane had come to the bedhead, and now he bent and kissed her. ‘Our two sons, sweetheart – can you believe it?’
Sophy had been about to say yes, she could believe it after what she had just been through, when a familiar pain made her groan.
‘What’s wrong?’ Kane looked to Dr Palmer. ‘Is this normal?’
‘After-pains, Mr Gregory.’ And then the doctor’s face changed as Sophy let out another long groan and pushed with all her might. ‘Good grief, I do believe there’s another one.’
There
was
another one – a little girl, smaller than her two brothers but still able to make her presence known as she cried loudly, her tiny wrinkled prune of a face screwed up in protest at being expelled from her nice warm place beside her siblings. Pandemonium reined for a few moments, but once the cord was cut, Bridget wrapped the baby in a blanket and placed her in her mother’s outstretched arms. ‘Is she all right?’ Sophy whispered dazedly to the doctor.
‘She’s quite wonderful.’ He was clearly as surprised as they were. ‘She’ll need to be kept very warm for a few weeks and fed more often than the boys, but she’s breathing well and there’s nothing to worry about, nothing at all. She must have been lying behind the other two. Triplets. Good grief. This is a first for me.’
‘And me,’ said Sophy with a weak giggle.
Bridget looked at her and then began to laugh, and Harriet and Sadie who had been too shocked to say a word, grinned at each other. Even Dr Palmer, in between saying several times, ‘Triplets. Good grief. Triplets,’ was chuckling. It was only Kane who was quiet, but the look on his face as he gazed down wonderingly at her and his baby daughter made Sophy reach out her hand to him.
‘We’ll need another crib,’ she murmured, smiling.
‘She can have anything she needs,’ he said huskily. ‘Anything at all. She’s exquisite, like you.’
After a minute or two Dr Palmer checked Sophy and the babies over and then went downstairs with Sadie who had offered him bacon and eggs and a warm drink before he left. Harriet changed the bed while Bridget helped Sophy wash and put on a clean
nightdress, and then they too left the room so Sophy and Kane could have some time together.
Kane opened the curtains as Sophy sat back against the pillows, her daughter cradled in her arms. It was eight o’clock on a cold winter’s morning and dawn was breaking, the mother-of-pearl sky streaked with charcoal and rivulets of pink, and the fresh white world beneath quiet and still after the storm of the night before.
Kane brought his sons over to the bed, little cocoons in the crook of each arm, and the proud parents examined their children’s minute faces. They were the most beautiful things Sophy had ever seen. The boys were identical and ridiculously like their father, her daughter tinier, more feminine.
This was what she had been waiting for all her life. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from the little downy foreheads, the small snub noses, the tiny mouths and chins. They were hers, her family, hers and Kane’s. She felt a truth being pressed upon her from somewhere outside herself, and as she did so the root of aloneness, the feeling of being on the outside looking in, of not belonging, melted away. She knew who she was, she recognised these little people, she had known them from the beginning of time and loved them for as long.
She glanced again at the window. Dawn had broken. It was a new day.