The Carpenter's Children (28 page)

Another new year dawned on a grey, war-weary nation, stunned by the horrific losses of its sons, the bright and hopeful boys cut down in their hundreds of thousands, and without bringing victory any nearer; in fact the end of the war seemed like a mirage, fading into the distance, again and again. At home there were serious shortages, long queues for meagre rations, and families went hungry, especially in poor areas like St Barnabas’, where pale, undernourished children shivered in draughty rooms. There was a deep desire for peace, but no great hope of seeing it, and the stirring patriotic songs of 1914 now had a hollow ring.

At 47 Pretoria Road in North Camp, Tom Munday was having to come to terms with another deep anxiety, and this time it was not for Ernest or his daughters.
He now bitterly reproached himself for not recognising his wife’s declining health, and Dr Stringer’s failure to diagnose anything more sinister than melancholy. Now the truth was staring him in the face, though he still feared to give it a name. An appointment had been made for a reluctant Violet Munday to see a specialist at Everham General Hospital on January the seventh, and until then he had to hide his fears under a false optimism, something that had become second nature to him over the last few years, and he confided in no one, not even his old friend Eddie Cooper, until the specialist’s opinion and recommendations had been given.

At St Barnabas’ vicarage there were mixed emotions. Isabel and her father-in-law waited daily for news of Mark, lying wounded in a requisitioned chateau near Béthune; and Grace clasped her baby to her breast as the time for parting drew near.

On the eleventh of January, a Friday, two letters arrived at the vicarage where the family sat at breakfast. One was addressed to the Reverend Richard Storey, and the other was from Tom Munday to his daughters. Isabel hastily slit this envelope open, anxious for news of their mother. It was not good. Isabel read aloud that Violet had seen a specialist, a surgeon who had looked grave after examining her. An X-ray had been ordered, and blood samples tested, and now an urgent operation on the stomach was recommended, something Mrs Munday had
always dreaded, and had at first refused to agree to it.

The sisters stared at each other in alarm, and Isabel continued to read aloud.

‘I’ve had to be firm with your poor mother,’ Tom had written. ‘I saw the look on that man’s face, and I blame myself for not pressing Stringer earlier for a referral. She is going into Everham Hospital next week, and I have to tell you girls to be brave. She’ll need looking after when she comes home, and I’m hoping that Grace will be able to help us out for a while, seeing that Isabel has Paul to look after.’

Isabel whispered the last few words because of the irony of the situation, for Grace also had a baby to care for, though not for much longer, as she was to see the representative of the adoption society in two days’ time, when she would sign the papers agreeing to the adoption of Rebecca Munday.

‘Grace, dear – perhaps this is providential,’ said Isabel softly. ‘If you go home to help Mum and Dad, you’ll be doing good work, and away from here, which will be best for you.’

Grace swallowed and moistened her lips. ‘Yes. I’ll write and tell them I’m coming home, and they’ll never know what I’ve left behind.’

‘That’s very good of you, Grace, and so brave,’ said her sister. ‘It’s a terrible wrench for you, but you know that Becky will go to a Christian couple who really want a baby…’

‘I know, I know, for once in my life I’ll be doing some good.’

‘Bless you, Grace dear,’ said Isabel, kissing her. ‘Now, I wonder what’s in that letter to Pa. It had a foreign stamp and a word in blue letters across the envelope. It may be something important, and I’m going to ask him about it.’

As she rose to go to Mr Storey’s study, he appeared at the door and beckoned to her. She followed him, her heart pounding.

‘What is it, Pa? It’s Mark, isn’t it? Tell me what it says!’

‘My dear Isabel, sit down here and I’ll tell you. Mark’s very ill, but expected to recover. The letter’s from another chaplain who’s been talking to him. He feels that you…that we ought to be warned of my son’s condition before he’s put on a Red Cross ship for home.’

‘Oh, Pa, what is it? Give it to me – let me see!’ she cried, putting out a hand to take the letter from him, but he held it away from her, and told her again to sit down and listen to what this padre had to say.

‘He’s written to me rather than to you, my dear, so that I can talk to you quietly, and you must listen. I’ll let you read the letter yourself after I’ve given you the gist of it.’

‘Yes, Pa, I’m listening, only tell me quickly! Has he lost a limb?’

‘No, Isabel, he has not. He’s wounded in the
lower abdomen,’ said the old clergyman, trying to find the right words. ‘He’s damaged in the…the genital area. He’ll need a lot of care, and patience too, when he—’

‘
Where
in the genital area, Pa? Do you mean his penis?’

He nodded, relieved at her directness which made it easier for him.

‘Yes, my dear, it is the penis that’s been, er, damaged. The shaft of it has been reduced to a mere stump, this padre says, and it’s sufficiently healed for him to pass urine through it, though he has to sit down, like a woman, but he will be unable to have normal marital relations with you. That’s what it says here, my dear Isabel, and that isn’t all, because Mark has become embittered by his experiences, and has lost his faith. He actually told this padre that he fears meeting you again because of the wreck he’s become.’ The old man’s voice shook as he added, ‘That’s the actual word he uses – a
wreck
– oh, my poor boy.’

He brushed away tears with the back of his hand, and looked at Isabel. She was smiling, and reached out to take that hand in her own.

‘Thank you, dear Pa. It must have cost you a lot to tell me this. But we’ll help him, Pa, we’ll help him through it, we’ll show him what love can do. We haven’t lost
our
faith, and we’ll lead him back again, don’t you see?’

‘But my dear, this terrible injury,’ he quavered.

‘That doesn’t worry me at all on
my
account, only on his. I don’t need that sort of relationship, in fact he refrained from it all the time we were married, except for that last time, and our dear little Paul was the result of it, but I shan’t need it again.’ She smiled into his face. ‘There are other ways, Pa, and we’ll still be close and loving. All I want is to see him home again, here where he belongs.’

‘Bless you, my daughter,’ he answered, getting up and coming to her side, embracing her like a father. ‘My son is fortunate in having such a wife!’

‘And such a lovely little son,’ she added, as if she didn’t mind that Paul would be an only child.

When the day came for baby Rebecca to be taken from her natural mother and given up for adoption, the atmosphere in the vicarage was tense. Isabel showed the pleasant-faced, grey-haired lady into the study where Mr Storey sat, and they watched her open her briefcase and put the papers on the table. Grace was called in, and on seeing the documents she began to moan softly, a keening sound like a lament; it made the old clergyman think of a cat whose newborn kittens have been taken from her, or a cow parted from its calf.

What were Grace Munday’s thoughts? She had been refused an abortion, and had accepted that this unwanted child would have to be adopted, right up to the moment of its birth when
it
became
she
, the
daughter she had fed and nursed for more than six weeks. The shameful circumstances of the conception were overruled in Grace’s heart by the love she now felt for this child of her flesh; and now they were to be parted for ever. She wept for her baby, resisting all efforts to calm and comfort her.

‘Now, Grace, we can’t have this,’ said the lady, not unkindly. ‘You know that this is all for the best, especially for Rebecca.’

‘You must be brave, my child, for the sake of
your
child,’ said Mr Storey. ‘You’re soon going home to do your duty, looking after your mother and father. Put your trust in the Almighty, and do this other duty for the child.’

Suddenly Isabel spoke, having stood silently beside her sister up until now. ‘This must stop!’ she said firmly and clearly. ‘I can’t let it happen.
I’ll
take Becky and bring her up as my own, and my husband’s. She’s not going to a stranger.’

There was a momentary silence, and Sally Tanner, hearing Isabel’s upraised voice, left her washing of sheets and towels to come to the study door. Mr Storey breathed a long, deep sigh, and Grace swayed as if about to faint, but Isabel caught her and sat her down on a chair, keeping an arm around her. The lady with the briefcase, hearing the voice of authority, gathered up her papers and left, leaving an address where she could be contacted. Sally went to put the kettle on.

‘Try not to be too upset, Grace, in front of your mother,’ said Tom Munday on meeting her at Everham Station, and noticing how pale and wan she looked. ‘She’s coming home at the weekend, so we must get the house looking decent for her. I’ll take her armchair up to the bedroom, and the little table, so’s she can sit at the window if she feels like it.’

‘Yes, Dad. I’ll help you all I can.’

‘It’s a comfort to have you home, my girl. It’s not going to be an easy time for any of us. If only Ernest could be here to say g—’ He covered his face with his hands before continuing. ‘I’m sorry, Grace, but I can’t get used to it. You’ll come with me to visit her tomorrow, and that’ll make it a lot easier. And she’ll be glad to see you.’

One look at her mother in the women’s ward of Everham General, and Grace Munday knew that there was no hope of recovery; she also knew that she would have to nurse her mother and comfort her father in the days and weeks ahead. Her father told her what the surgeon had said after the operation.

‘I’m very sorry, Munday, and I wish there was better news. It had started in the pancreas and spread to the liver by the time we opened her. There was nothing useful to be done except to close the incision and let her spend what time she has left in resting and seeing her loved ones around her.’

‘How long d’you think it’ll be, sir?’ Tom had
asked, his voice thin and unfamiliar to his own ears.

‘Not too long, Munday. Once a patient has been opened up, it seems to send the cancer cells spreading quickly throughout the system, and shortens the time. You’ve got a son and two daughters, haven’t you? I suppose your son’s away at the war, but send for the daughters as soon as you can.’

‘And our little grandson, eight months old,’ added Tom.

Violet Munday, a shadow of her former self, came home in an ambulance and was carried upstairs to the bed she shared with Tom. Grace tended her, washing her and changing the bedlinen, helping her on and off the commode and trying to tempt her appetite with Benger’s Food and calf ’s foot jelly sent up from Yeomans’ farm.

‘What’ve they done to my stomach, Tom?’ Violet asked pathetically. ‘What have they done to my poor stomach? Where’s Ernest? Why isn’t my son here?’

Tom sent a letter to the War Office, requesting that Lieutenant Munday be granted leave to visit his mother, but the message never got through to the front, from where the news was confusing and contradictory as fresh casualties arrived at Charing Cross Station and fresh drafts were sent out to take their place, marching in grim silence: no ‘Tipperary’ or ‘Pack up Your Troubles’ was to be heard now.

Isabel came to visit, bringing Paul with her, and
leaving baby Becky in the charge of Sally Tanner. Grace begged for news of her, and was told that she was doing well, taking her bottle feeds and putting on weight.

‘But we mustn’t talk about her, Grace, or our parents will find out, and that’s the last thing we want,’ warned Isabel, who was determined that Becky was to be adopted by Mark and herself, and to grow up as their daughter, regarding Grace as her aunt. All this had to be kept from the Mundays, and Grace’s sorrowful looks were put down to her mother’s illness.

Annie Cooper came to visit the invalid with Freddie, and Mary Cooper with little Dora, as also did Mrs Bird, Mrs Saville and Lady Neville, though her ladyship had her own worries: her daughter Miss Letitia had lost so much weight that it was said she looked like a skeleton, though she still refused to eat and was too weak to leave her room. In vain did her mother and Dr Stringer threaten and harangue her, and tell her that she would die if she did not pull herself together, and that it would be nobody’s fault but her own; she turned her face to the wall of her room, and there she was found by a housemaid on a chill February morning, a gaunt, open-eyed corpse. Lady Neville was thrown into an agony of remorse at seeing her own impatient words fulfilled so exactly, and she refused to speak to Dr Stringer when he came to visit the wounded in Hassett Manor. The
news was given out that Miss Neville had died of a form of consumption, and her funeral was a sad, black-clad affair on a wet afternoon.

When word came from St Barnabas’ vicarage that Mark Storey had arrived in England and was in Charing Cross Hospital, Isabel was almost beside herself with joy. She bid her parents an affectionate farewell, promised to write to them and, taking baby Paul, caught the next train to London.

It was old Mr Storey who suggested that he and she should visit Mark together, leaving the two babies in the care of Sally Tanner.

Mark was in a long ward with a row of twelve beds on either side. When Isabel saw him she almost ran to his side, where he sat propped up on three pillows.

‘Mark! Oh, dearest Mark, God be thanked for bringing you home again!’ She eagerly embraced him, putting her warm face against his cool cheek, while his father looked on, smiling. Mark seemed unmoved.

‘Isabel,’ he said in a dull, flat tone. ‘Poor Isabel.’

‘What d’you mean, Mark? I’m not poor! I’m the happiest of wives,’ she said joyfully. ‘I can’t wait to have you home with us – to show you our beautiful son – oh, he really is the dearest baby boy – isn’t he, Pa?’