panting. She stared down at Judy and reached out one hand. ‘My baby? Is it all right? Is it a girl?’
‘Yes.’ Judy gave a quick look to make sure. ‘Yes, it is. Oh,
Jean, you’ve got a little girl. But there’s this thing, this sort of rope …’
‘It’s the cord. Let me hold her.’ Jean reached out her
arms and Judy, a little doubtful as to whether the cord
would reach, laid the baby on her mother’s breast. She
dragged the cushions from where they had been flung and
heaped them behind Jean’s back, and Jean rested against
them, smiling. For a moment they stayed there, recovering
their breath, gazing in wonder at the baby, so small and so
new, already turning its face into its mother’s breast, seeking the nipple.
‘She’s beautiful,’ Jean whispered. ‘Oh Judy, she’s so
beautiful.’
Judy, looking at the crumpled red face, peaceful now, at
the hair plastered wetly against the little skull, at the naked body that was grey with slime and flecked with blood,
thought that beautiful was perhaps an odd word to use. And
yet it was the right word. It was exactly the right word. And
then she caught her breath as she realised what else had
happened.
‘Jean,’ she whispered disbelievingly.
Jean turned her head and met her eyes enquiringly. Judy
went on, with a voice that trembled, ‘Jean, I can hear. I heard the baby cry. I can hear what you’re saying to me. I can hear
birds singing - and the leaves rustling - and people calling
to each other in the hayfield. Jean - / can hear again.’
Chapter Thirty-One It was only a few moments after that when help began to
arrive. Someone had heard Jean’s final scream and was
hurrying down the lane. Mrs Hazelwood had come back
from the Women’s Institute meeting. In seconds it seemed
that Jean was surrounded by people, people who knew what
to do. The midwife was called. There was a flurry of activity
as the afterbirth was expelled, and then the midwife arrived,
clucking as she saw what had happened, and the cord was
cut and tied. Jean was lifted and carried into the house,
where she and the baby were both bathed, and by the time
Judy saw her again an hour or two later she was in bed, the
baby dressed in a fresh white nightgown and cradled in the
crook of one arm.
‘Thanks, Judy,’ she said, smiling sleepily. ‘I don’t know
what I’d have done without you.’
‘I didn’t do much. I didn’t know what to do.’ The miracle
of her hearing seemed almost as great to Judy as the miracle
of new life before her. ‘Oh Jean, I’m glad I was there. I’m so
glad. It was awful - but it was wonderful too. She’s a lovely
baby.’ She smiled. ‘You were right. It is a girl.’
‘And I’m calling her Hope, just like I said.’ Jean was quiet
for a moment, gazing at her baby and stroking her head
gently. ‘You’ll let everyone know, won’t you? Mum and
Dad, and your family. They’ll be surprised she’s so early.’
‘But she’s all right, isn’t she? It doesn’t matter about her
coming so soon?’
‘Well, she’s very small. I’ll have to take a lot of care of
her. But the midwife says she’ll be all right. And Mrs
Hazelwood is going to get the doctor to come and make sure.’ Jean looked at her. ‘And you really can hear, Judy?’
Judy nodded. ‘I can hear just as well as I ever could. I
think Dad was right, you know - it was a shock that stopped
me hearing, and it’s a shock that’s brought it back again. A
nice one, though.’ She smiled and touched the baby gently
with one finger. ‘And I wanted to hear again so much - just
to hear her cry.’
Jean was almost asleep and Judy tiptoed out of the room.
She went into the garden and sat down on the old bench,
and began to think of all the people she must telegraph
about the new arrival.
The warm late-summer sky was deepening into evening.
The sun was going down beyond the wall and the woods,
casting an apricot glow on the old stones and lighting the
first few golden tints of autumn in the trees. A blackbird was
singing at the top of the tree, and Judy tilted her head,
listening to it. Next to the baby’s cry that had been her first realisation that she could hear again, and she thought it
must be the most beautiful sound in the world.
I’ll have to go back to the farm soon, she thought. And I’ll
have to decide what to do next. Everything’s different now the
baby’s here and Jean’s so happy with her, and I can hear
again, I can do all the things I did before. But - will there
still be a place for me, back in Portsmouth? I’ve been happy
here in the country, as happy as I could be while I was
locked away in that silent world. Will I be able to go back?
She listened again to the blackbird’s song and decided to
put away all her worries until tomorrow. Just for now, she would be content to sit here, watching the sun set and listening to the sounds she had thought never to hear again.
Just for now, there was no better place to be than here under
the apple tree, where Hope had been born.
For a few days, all was quiet at Ashdown. Judy had sent off
telegrams to both families and her mother had written back
at once to both her and Jean. Cissie had never been much of a letter-writer and these must have been awkward letters for
her to write, Judy thought, reading the rather stilted
congratulations to Jean. However pleased she must be to
have a grandchild, you couldn’t get around the fact that
Hope was illegitimate and that life was never going to be
easy for her or her mother. And nobody could forget that
Terry, the baby’s father, Cissie’s only son, was dead, had
died even before he knew she was on the way. I expect they
hoped the baby would be a boy, she thought, a boy who’d be
like Terry, and they haven’t even got that.
Polly wrote too, rather more warmly. She had set aside
her own feelings about the rights and wrongs of it all, and
poured out all her sympathy to Jean, the sympathy that
came from having lost her own husband and knowing what
it was like to be a woman alone with a child to bring up. But
you have a family who will help you through this, she wrote, and we’ll always stand by you and your baby. She added that she would be coming out to see them all as soon as possible she and Joe.
Joe was at St George’s Barracks by now, and he and Polly
had been down to Devon to see the boys. They were living
in a small cottage with the widow who ‘looked after them as
if they were her own’. Polly was secretly relieved to find that she was a comfortable woman in her fifties who was friendly
with a local farmer - he was there when she and Joe arrived and that she clearly took the view that the boys had been loaned to her for an indefinite period but would one day be
going back to their father. She had set a tea such as Polly
had not seen for years - salad with thick slices of real ham,
hard-boiled eggs, a mound of potatoes, a loaf of bread fresh
from the oven and stewed plums with rich, yellow clotted
cream.
// seems awful to think of all those poor people in Leningrad,
starving to death, Polly wrote to Judy, when we had all that
put in front of us. But it doesn’t do them any good for us not to
eat it, does it? And there are people in our own cities who aren’t a lot better off-not starving, but not well-fed either. I feel a bit guilty about them too.
Mrs Ellacombe had given her some eggs and a jam jar full
of clotted cream to take back to the family, but it wasn’t the
food that interested Polly, most about the visit. She’d been
nervous about meeting Joe’s sons, she didn’t mind admitting
it to Judy, but thank goodness there hadn’t been any
problem at all. They’d been out playing on the moor when
she arrived and came in muddy and dirty, carrying baskets
of blackberries, their shirts hanging out of their shorts and
their socks down round their ankles just like any other little
boys, and had flung themselves at their father, obviously
thrilled to hits to see him again.
They’d been a bit shy with Polly at first, but once they’d
found out she drove an ambulance during the raids and had
seen lots of bombs falling, they had pelted her with
questions and obviously thought her a fitting friend for their
father. / don’t suppose they think any further than that, she
wrote, and there’s no need to for a long time yet. Me and Joe
want to take things slowly. We ‘re not in any hurry. But it was clear to Judy that they both knew perfectly well where they
wanted their relationship to go, and she folded her letter
wistfully, thinking sadly of the young Observer she had sent
away and wondering what would have happened, had she let
him stay.
There was a strange feeling of expectation in the air
Everyone was waiting for America to decide to come into
the war. Japan seemed to be making preparations, and
American patrol ships were being attacked off Iceland
Britain was bombing major cities such as Hamburg while
German troops were invading Russia. There was a shared
belief that, however bad it was now and however much was
happening, there was worse to come.
Yet nothing could take away the joy that Hope had
brought with her. She was well-named, Mrs Hazelwood said
as she wheeled out the old pram and set it under the apple tree. You could swear she was smiling, even at two weeks
old - surely such a lovely, happy expression couldn’t be just
wind! - and she hardly ever cried. When Jean was allowed
out of bed to come and sit with her in the garden, it was like
the beginning of the world itself - a woman who had given
birth, at peace with her child.
Judy was with her one afternoon at the beginning of
September, the month when Hope should have been born.
She had been making scrim all morning. She’d scrubbed her
hands and face but there were still traces of dark green and
brown dye on them and even though she’d been wearing a
turban there was still dust in her hair.
‘I sometimes think I’ll never be clean again,’ she said
ruefully. ‘I’d much rather collect sphagnum moss, or even
acorns - it’ll be time for them again soon.’
‘I ought to be doing something too,’ Jean said, stirring
restlessly. ‘I’m sick of being treated like an invalid.
Honestly, I feel better than I ever have in all my life - just
getting rid of that huge bump and not getting backache or
heartburn any more is wonderful, but the midwife says I
mustn’t do too much. And of course Hope needs a lot of
attention. She’s so tiny.’ She touched the blanket that had
been spread over the baby to keep her warm, even though
there wasn’t a chill in the air. For the first few days of her
life, Hope’s smallness and premature birth had caused a
little anxiety, but she had made up her birthweight again
and was obviously thriving. ‘But I don’t know what I should be doing. I can’t put upon the Hazelwoods for ever. And I’m not doing any real war work.’
‘You could always make scrim!’ Judy joked. The charm of
weaving camouflage had quickly worn off and she now
loathed the job as much as the other women did. ‘But you’ll
be helping Mrs Hazelwood again, like you did before, won’t
you? Didn’t they say you could stay on after the baby was
born?’
‘Yes, but it’s not fair to expect them to keep me and Hope.’ Jean sighed. ‘I don’t know where else I could go, though. Not back to Pompey, that’s for sure!’
‘You still haven’t heard from your mum or dad, then?’
Jean shook her head. ‘Nor likely to, I reckon. They’ve
washed their hands of me, just like Mum said they would.’
She paused, then said, ‘Judy, there’s something I want to
ask you.’
She sounded a little diffident and Judy looked at her in
surprise.
‘What is it?’ she asked.
‘I’d like you to be Hope’s godmother. Mr Hazelwood says
she ought to be christened in a few weeks. I want it done
here at Ashwood and I’d like you and Polly to be
godmothers. You can’t be related to her in any other way,’
she went on sadly, ‘and you’d have been her aunts if Terry
and me had been married. So - will you?’
‘Oh Jean, I’d love to.’ Judy’s eyes filled with tears. ‘But
we still are her aunts, Jean.’ She grinned suddenly. ‘And
Polly’s her great-aunt! I wonder if she’s thought of that? It
sounds so old, doesn’t it! Who will you ask to be godfather?’
‘I thought I’d ask Ben.’ Jean blushed a little. ‘You know he
came home last weekend and he seemed to just fall in love
with her. And we got on well too,’ the blush deepened, ‘and
as the Hazelwoods have been so kind to me - well, it seemed
a good idea …’ She floundered to a stop and Judy laughed.
‘It is a good idea! And Ben’ll be a good friend to you
both.’ She eyed Jean, wondering about that blush, but
before she could say any more she heard voices and they
both looked up to see Mrs Hazelwood coming through the
French doors and into the garden. There were two other
people with her, and at the sight of them Judy gasped and
Jean turned pale; but before either of them could say
anything, one of the newcomers came forward, speaking in a