‘Come and see, Constance!’ Edmond shouted to her, beckoning. He had never called her Shelton as his parents did. ‘We’ve plenty for dinner tonight. Cook will be pleased.’
‘I’m coming.’ She began to walk down the steps, the tumult that had arisen in her mind when Sir Henry had first spoken to her quietened. She had made her decision.
Chapter 17
Tilly felt sick with fear. She had felt sick for weeks, and not just because of the physical effects of the child growing in her belly. When her monthlies had stopped she hadn’t been able to believe what her body was telling her at first. Rupert had said he’d be careful, he
was
careful, so how could this have happened to her? She’d prayed for a while that it was an early onset of the change – she was in her late thirties, after all, and her mother had told her once that she’d stopped having her monthlies before she was forty. But then the sickness had begun, not much at first but now she felt ill every time she ate and the weight had dropped off her – everywhere except her belly, that is.
She put her hand to her stomach and Rupert, who was sitting at the side of her, said, ‘All right, lass?’
All right? No, she wasn’t all right. How could she be all right knowing what she was about to do? But she had no choice. When she’d told Rupert about the baby he had said he’d make arrangements for her to see someone who could get rid of it. It had been cut and dried as far as he was concerned. And now here they were in this squalid little house in Chester Le Street, five miles from the village. There was a midwife, Rupert had told her. She was well-known. For the right price she would see to things and no questions asked. She hadn’t asked how he knew about the woman; she didn’t care.
‘It’ll soon be over.’ Rupert put his hand over hers but she jerked it away.
He didn’t care about her, not really. Everyone and everything came before her, she thought bitterly. His wife, his bairns, his position as postmaster and his comfortable going-on; she was bottom of the list. When she looked back, Rupert had ruined her life and yet she’d still started up with him again. She must have been mad. But she had been lonely. She’d wanted to be loved.
‘I hope she’s not much longer, I told Mrs Clark I’d be back before eleven,’ Rupert said after another two or three minutes had ticked by. He’d arranged for one of the neighbours to come in and sit with his wife while he took care of some ‘post-office business’ with the postmaster in Chester Le Street, using that as the excuse to borrow Miss Newton’s horse and trap for the evening. Tilly had told Matt she had to work late, and Rupert had picked her up some distance down Edmondsley Lane north of the pit once he’d closed up the post office for the night.
As though on cue, the door to the front room where they had been shown by a slovenly-looking girl opened, and a big, stoutly built woman bustled in. ‘Sorry to have kept you waitin’, dear,’ she said to Tilly, her gaze encompassing Rupert for a moment. ‘One of my ladies had her baby a mite early. I’m Mrs Hammond, Ethel Hammond. Nice to meet you both.’
‘Mr and Mrs Irvin,’ Rupert responded, holding out his hand. ‘How do you do?’
Ethel’s keen sharp eyes surveyed the man in front of her for a moment. If he was this woman’s husband, she was a monkey’s uncle. Still, it was no business of hers. ‘Well enough,’ she said, shaking his hand briefly. ‘Now I understand you have a problem, dear?’ she added, turning back to Tilly. ‘A health problem if this pregnancy continues?’
Not knowing what Rupert had led the midwife to believe, Tilly said simply, ‘I can’t have this bairn.’
‘I see, dear.’ Ethel nodded slowly. ‘Well, you come upstairs with me and I’ll see what’s what, all right? Your husband can wait here. My lass’ll get you a cup of tea shortly,’ she added to Rupert.
As the woman disappeared into the dark hall Tilly glanced helplessly at Rupert. She didn’t want to do this but the prospect of telling Matt she was expecting again was more frightening than anything waiting for her upstairs. Rupert inclined his head at the doorway in a gesture which said, Get on with it.
On leaden feet she followed the midwife up the narrow wooden stairs. There was a strong smell of cabbage and unwashed bodies permeating the air and she was struggling with all her might not to retch. Once on the tiny landing that held two doors, one of which was closed, she stepped into the room the midwife had entered. To her surprise it was cleaner than the rest of the house. The bare floorboards had been scrubbed and bleached until they were a light brown and the walls were whitewashed. A long trestle table stood against one wall with a straw mattress and folded grey blankets on it, and in a corner of the room another much smaller table held a wooden bucket, a wash-bowl, strips of towelling and carbolic soap.
Ethel placed the black bag she had been carrying on this table as she said, ‘Take off your bloomers and hop up over there, lass, then we’ll take a look at you. You’ve had bairns before, I take it?’
‘One. She – she’s coming up for seventeen.’
‘Just the one?’
Tilly nodded as she scrambled up on to the long table by means of a three-legged stool standing beside it.
‘Was that by choice or because it simply didn’t happen?’
‘My – my husband didn’t want any more bairns.’
‘And you? What did you want?’
Tilly was sitting up and now she looked at the midwife who was busy scrubbing at her hands with a nailbrush and the soap. ‘That didn’t really come into it, what I wanted. It’s – it’s a long story.’
‘Lass, if I had a bob for every time I’ve heard that I’d be a rich woman,’ Ethel said quietly. ‘The bloke downstairs isn’t your husband, is he?’
Tilly shook her head. ‘No, he isn’t.’
‘Is the bairn his? The bloke who brought you here?’
‘Aye, yes.’
‘An’ there’s no chance you could pass it off as your husband’s?’
A tear seeped out and down Tilly’s cheek. ‘If there was I wouldn’t be here,’ she whispered. ‘My husband and I, we haven’t – I mean for years he hasn’t wanted . . .’
‘Don’t upset yourself, lass. I get your drift. And this other one, he’s married an’ all, I take it?’
‘Aye.’ Tilly’s head had drooped but now she raised it as she said, ‘I’m not a bad woman, I’m not. I’ve only ever been with the two of them, my husband and – and Mr Irvin.’
Again Ethel said,‘Don’t upset yourself, lass,’ even as she thought, And if that’s his real name I’ll eat my hat. She smiled kindly at Tilly. ‘Lie down now, lass. I need to examine you and see how far gone you are for meself, to make sure. It’ll be uncomfortable, I warn you now.’
It was uncomfortable and it seemed to go on for ever. Tilly was sweating with the pain by the time the midwife walked over to the smaller table and washed her hands. She pulled up her bloomers under the blanket Ethel had thrown over her, but her legs were trembling so much she didn’t attempt to get down from the trestle table.
The midwife seemed to take a long time drying her hands. When she eventually came to stand by the makeshift bed, she stared down at Tilly for some moments before she said softly, ‘Lass, you’re not expecting a bairn.’
Tilly struggled into a sitting position, wincing as she did so. ‘What? I must be. My monthlies have stopped and everything.’
‘There’s no bairn in there. How long has it been since your monthlies have stopped?’
‘They – they haven’t been right for a long time, maybe a couple of years. That’s why I didn’t worry when they stopped altogether, not at first anyway. Then I started to feel bad.’
‘And when was that? That they stopped completely?’
‘Four months ago, nearly five now.’ Tilly stared into Ethel’s face and something in the midwife’s expression made her breath catch in her throat. ‘What’s the matter with me?’
‘Go and see a doctor, lass. I’m only a midwife.’
‘No.’ As Ethel made to turn away, Tilly clutched at her arm. ‘Please, tell me. There’s something wrong, isn’t there?’
‘Lass, I know everything there is to know about delivering babies but like I said, I’m no doctor.’
‘Please.’ The blood had drained from Tilly’s face, leaving it chalk-white. ‘If I’m not having a bairn, what’s wrong with me? You know, don’t you? Please tell me.’
Ethel stared at her, chewing on her lower lip. Then she seemed to come to a decision. ‘You’ve lost weight?’
‘Aye, but that’s because of the sickness.’
‘And that started when?’
‘I’ve been having queasy spells for months, years even, but the last five months I haven’t been able to keep much down. And – and that’s when my belly got bigger. So I thought. . .’
‘I think you’ve got some kind of growth in there, lass, but it’s not a bairn.’
‘A growth?’ Tilly was staring at the midwife but not seeing her. For the moment she was only capable of listening to her words and repeating them.
‘Aye, but a doctor’ll tell you better than I can.’
‘It’s – it’s serious?’ And then Tilly shook her head as she said, ‘Of course it’s serious. It is, isn’t it?’
There were many who would describe Ethel Hammond as a tough old bird, and rightly so, but they would have been surprised how tender her voice sounded as she said, ‘Mebbe, lass, but I can’t say for sure. Look, you take a minute or two to rest up and I’ll get you a cup of tea. I’ll send your bloke up, shall I?’
‘
No
.’ And then Tilly moderated her voice as she repeated, ‘No. Thank you, Mrs Hammond, but no.’
The midwife nodded. ‘As you like, lass. I’ll go and get that tea.’
Alone,Tilly lay down again, pulling the thin blankets over her. She was shivering, shaking, but she lay as still as her limbs would let her. There was no bairn. What she had thought was the worst thing that could have happened to her had turned out not to be the worst after all. She was sick. If Mrs Hammond was to be believed, and there was no reason for the midwife to lie, she had been sick for a long time without knowing it. Unconsciously her hand went to the rounded swell of her stomach before she brought it sharply away. There was no baby but a monstrous something feeding off her, and it was growing. She curled into a little ball, too terror-stricken for the relief of tears as she stared dry-eyed at the white-washed wall. She was going to die. She had read it in Mrs Hammond’s eyes.
Matt was bone weary. Another strike was on the cards at the pit, there had been a wave of them all over the Durham coalfield in the last few years. He supported the union – who wouldn’t, when their sole aim was to improve working conditions and safety, along with seeing that their members got a decent wage – but any enforced idleness brought home the fact that his life wasn’t worth living. Not that he wanted to end it like the poor devils who’d been crushed and burned to death at West Stanley last year, or the Glebe Colliery the year before that. Hell, no. But he was tired of what had become merely an existence.
He stretched his legs before standing up and throwing his newspaper on the kitchen table. It had been full of reports that the cotton workers were preparing to strike, in sympathy with the Welsh miners and the dockers who’d been out since the beginning of the month. It was clear to everyone that the Shipbuilding Employers’ Federation were digging in for a long fight after they had taken the step to instigate the national lock-out. Things were already getting nasty in certain areas of the country, with rioting and the ensuing violence. The next thing would be the troops being sent in to help the police, which would inflame the situation like a red rag to a bull. He had seen it all before.
Glancing at the wooden clock on the mantelpiece above the range, Matt saw it was eleven o’clock. Eleven o’clock and Tilly still not home. He could have done with her here tonight, in view of young Larry making a surprise appearance and the resulting scene with Rebecca after he’d given the lad short shrift. It was rare he and Tilly saw eye to eye on anything, but for once they were singing from the same songsheet over this.
Thoughts of Rebecca caused the frown on his face to deepen. For the first time in his life he was at loggerheads with the lass and it didn’t sit well, but the idea of her keeping company with Larry Alridge had made him see red when she had broached the matter at the weekend. Rebecca was fifteen, for crying out loud. She had all the time in the world for that sort of thing, once she was a little older. And Larry coming to see him tonight to request his permission to start courting Rebecca didn’t cut no ice either. She might have been working in the village shop since she’d left school, but she was still nowt but a bairn, whereas Larry at seventeen was ready to start sowing some wild oats. But not with his Rebecca. He had been seventeen once. He knew how it was with lads.
He was standing wondering whether to go up to bed or make himself a cup of tea when the back door opened and Tilly walked in. He glanced fleetingly at his wife and was turning away when his eyes shot back to her face. ‘What is it?’
When she gave no answer but stood looking at him, he was about to shrug and make himself scarce when some inner prompting caused him to remain where he was and say, in a far softer voice than he normally used when talking to her, ‘Tilly, what’s the matter? Has something happened?’
To his amazement she didn’t fire back with one of her caustic retorts. Instead he watched her reach blindly for a chair and pull it out from the table, and it was only when she was seated that she whispered, ‘I have to talk to you.’
‘Yes?’ His brows were drawn together. This was a different woman from the one who had left the house earlier.
‘Sit down. Please,’ she added, when he didn’t move. ‘Please sit down.’
This wasn’t like her usual histrionics. He looked hard at her. Then he slowly walked to the table and sat down on the edge of it, mainly because it had come to him that she didn’t look well.
‘I – I’ve been to Chester Le Street tonight.’
‘Chester Le Street? What are you talking about? You told me you had to work late because Nancy Wood’s mother’s ill and couldn’t see to the bairns.’