Читать книгу Ellie Pride - Annie Groves, Annie Groves - Страница 10

‘And this year I am going to enter Rex in the agricultural show, and –’

‘Oh, do stop going on about your wretched dog,’ Connie commanded her brother impatiently. ‘Have you spoken to Mam yet about my new dress, Ellie? I’m old enough now to have a proper grown-up outfit. All the other girls in my class –’

‘Connie!’ Ellie stopped her sister angrily. ‘You know that Mother does not like us to speak like that. We are to call her Mama or Mother.’

‘That is because she is a snob. That’s what Jimmie Shackleton three doors down says his mam calls her. Oh, look, here is our aunt arriving.’

As Connie made to slide off the piano seat, Ellie informed her firmly, ‘I shall see to our aunt, Connie, whilst you continue with your piano practice.’

‘You cannot tell me what to do, Ellie,’ Connie declared sulkily. ‘Just because you are walking out with Gideon, that does not mean –’

‘I am not doing any such thing,’ Ellie protested, pink-faced.

‘Oh, yes you are,’ Connie insisted. ‘You are sweet on him, and don’t try to pretend that you are not. Your voice goes all gooey and funny whenever you speak about him.’

Ellie could feel her colour deepening.

Since Gideon had declared his feelings for her, they had spent as much time together as they could, but it had not been easy, as her mother was increasingly dependent on Ellie’s help, and increasingly insistent on keeping her close at hand.

Gideon had told Ellie that there was no way he could approach her father to ask for her hand until he had established his business and was able to provide her with a proper home.

‘I know that you can do it, Gideon,’ Ellie had whispered lovingly to him, her eyes warm with pride and dreams. ‘I can see it now. Everyone will want to commission you to make them furniture, including the Earl. All you need is the opportunity to prove to people how good you are.’

‘I hope that you are right,’ Gideon had responded.

By taking on extra work for William Pride he was managing to save some money, but the extra work he was doing meant that he had less free time to visit Preston and see Ellie, never mind look for premises for his business.

Ellie had urged him to seek help from her father. ‘Since he is in business himself he is bound to know if the right kind of shop premises become available,’ she had counselled Gideon practically.

But Gideon had told her stubbornly, ‘No, Ellie, I do not want to go cap in hand to your father for help. I want to show him that I can establish myself, that I am fit to be your husband. And besides, we have plenty of time. You are still only sixteen.’

‘Seventeen soon,’ Ellie had reminded him.

Putting down the nightgown she had been sewing for the expected baby, she checked Connie with a stern frown before going to greet her Aunt Gibson.

‘Ah, Ellie, I am come to see your mother.’

‘She is upstairs in her room,’ Ellie informed her aunt.

There was something about her mother’s eldest sister that Ellie had always found slightly daunting. And now, for no reason at all, she discovered that she was fidgeting slightly as Amelia subjected her to scrutiny.

‘I know the way, Ellie. You do not need to accompany me,’ she informed her niece firmly, as she swept towards the stairs, obliging Ellie to stand to one side.

Ellie waited until she had heard her mother’s bedroom door open and then close again before returning to the back parlour to oversee Connie’s piano practice.

‘Lyddy, my dear, I came as soon as I had your message. What has happened? Is it the baby?’ Amelia demanded anxiously as she hurried to embrace her sister.

Lydia shook her head. ‘No.’ Her pregnancy still had some three or so weeks to run, and the enforced rest Amelia’s husband had insisted she must take was making the time hang heavily. She would much rather have been active, the chatelaine of her home as she had always been, rather than being obliged to leave so many of her duties in the hands of her elder daughter.

Not that Ellie was not fully capable of running a home. No, Lydia had seen to it that both her daughters knew how to maintain and order a household.

‘Then what is amiss?’ Amelia asked her.

In contrast to the obvious swollenness of her belly, Lydia’s face looked alarmingly thin, her eyes sunken in its paleness, her flesh stretched almost painfully over her elegant bones, but it was the look of fear in her eyes that affected her sister the most.

Lydia was ten years Amelia’s junior, the baby of their family, the prettiest of all of them, the spoiled precious youngest child, who had been adored and fêted all her life until she had so foolishly and disastrously married Robert Pride. And now look at her!

‘It’s Ellie, Amelia,’ Lydia told her sister tiredly. ‘I am so concerned about her.’

‘Concerned? In what way?’

‘She has become involved with this Gideon Walker – I have told you about him. Oh, she says nothing to me, but I know what has happened. She thinks herself in love with him. I can see it in her eyes, hear it in her voice every time his name is mentioned. I have tried to talk to Robert about it, but he will not listen. He does not understand – how can he? Melia, Ellie must not do as I have done. She is worthy of so much more. But what is to be done? Robert is allowing Gideon the run of the house as though…as though he were already a member of our family. John worships him, and I am not well enough to keep a check on what is happening.’

‘Ellie must be sent away before any more harm can be done,’ Amelia announced grimly. ‘The best place for her to go would be to our sister in Hoylake. Lavinia and Mr Parkes live a very social life there. Mr Parkes has several wealthy shipowners as clients, and I dare say that after attending a few parties where she may meet some proper young gentlemen, Ellie will soon forget any foolishness over this…this Gideon.’

‘Oh, Amelia, do you think so?’ Lydia’s expression brightened. ‘But Hoylake! I don’t know…I need Ellie here and –’

‘You need do nothing for the present,’ Amelia assured her comfortingly. ‘I shall write to our sister, and just as soon as you have been confined and safely delivered, Ellie may be sent to stay with Lavinia in Hoylake until the danger of her fancying herself in love with Master Gideon is completely over.’

‘When?’ Lydia cried bitterly. ‘Oh, Amelia, I am so –’

Hastily Amelia interrupted her. ‘Alfred says that you may expect to be confined before the end of the month.’

‘Yes. He has said as much to me.’

Lydia’s lips trembled. She had not been able to bring herself to ask her brother-in-law if he still believed her life to be at risk. She had been too afraid of what he might say, and so instead she had allowed herself to believe Robert when he insisted optimistically that she had nothing to worry about. But sometimes in the dead of night, she woke sweating and trembling, her heart racing and her mouth dry, overwhelmed by fear.

Making plans for Ellie’s future, and the ways in which she could thwart Gideon Walker’s intentions of ruining her daughter’s life, gave her a means of escaping those fears.

‘Cecily is to put off her wedding until next year so that you will be able to attend. She is determined to be a June bride,’ Amelia informed her sister.

What she could not tell Lyddy was that she herself had had to suggest discreetly that her daughter plan her wedding more than twelve months hence, just in case they should be overtaken by events. She certainly had no wish to wear mourning at her own daughter’s wedding.

And neither had she any wish to lose her youngest sister, but Alfred had refused to offer her much hope.

‘The damage caused by the birth of her last child is such that I do not believe she can survive this birth. I pray that I may be wrong,’ he had said to his wife when she had questioned him.

‘You must not tax your strength, Lyddy,’ Amelia told her now. ‘Whatever happens, you can trust us, your sisters, to do whatever is necessary for your children. We have already discussed this.’

‘Yes, I know that, Melia, and I am grateful to you all…’ Tears welled in Lydia’s eyes.

Quickly Amelia bent and kissed her cheek. ‘I must go. But remember, Robert is to send for Alfred the moment you need him.’

Wanly, Lydia agreed.

The forthcoming birth of Lydia’s child was also the subject of discussion in Alfred’s handsome consulting room in the Winckley Square house.

‘But if the risk to Mrs Pride is so great,’ Paul Charteris was saying earnestly, ‘then surely there can be nothing to lose and everything to gain by adopting such a procedure.’

‘Have you discussed this with your father?’ Alfred challenged his son-in-law-to-be.

Paul sighed. ‘I have, but he believes there are too many risks involved.’

‘Exactly,’ Alfred pounced. ‘To perform a Caesarean operation to remove the child might seem to be a solution, but in my view it is one that carries far too much risk, not just to mother and child, but also to the reputation of the surgeon who carries it out, to make it a responsible or viable option.’

‘But if it is the only means of saving the mother and her child, surely it is better to take that risk than to stand by and –’

‘Paul, Paul, your ardour does you credit,’ Alfred told him sombrely, coming round his desk to place a consoling arm about the younger man’s shoulders, ‘but I fear you are permitting your emotions to overrule your judgement, and that is something no physician should allow to happen.’

Bewildered, Paul watched him. His own father had been as loath to acknowledge the potential benefit of performing a Caesarean delivery as his prospective father-in-law was.

Caesarean deliveries were performed, of course, when the mother’s life was agreed to be of less value than that of the child she was carrying, or where a choice had to be made between mother and child, but to perform one where both mother and child were expected to survive was a dangerous medical procedure. And yet the operation had been done – and successfully. It was Paul’s dream that one day such operations would be a matter of course, and that he would be performing them; that he would be at the forefront of his profession, not content, as his father was, to rest on his reputation and accept a knighthood, but to push back the medical barriers as far as they could possibly go; to conquer the perils of infection, surgical trauma and blood loss.

Reluctant to abandon his dream he burst out, ‘Perhaps if Mrs Pride were to be consulted…If she were told, offered the choice…’

Alfred looked outraged. ‘How can you suggest such a thing? No! Poor woman, she already has enough to bear. She should be left at peace now, to compose herself for what lies ahead. That is our most solemn duty and responsibility to her.’

‘But surely, sir, our first and foremost duty is to try to save her life and that of her child,’ Paul insisted doggedly.

‘Do you think that I am not aware of that? Lydia Pride is not just my patient, she is also my wife’s sister,’ Alfred reminded Paul sternly. ‘And, besides, I am not convinced that such an operation, even if it were successful in saving the child, could save her. She should never have conceived again. It was only by good fortune that she was spared last time.’

Paul took a deep breath before asking, ‘Then would it not perhaps have been better for the pregnancy to be terminated in its early stages?’

The words fell into a heavy silence that suddenly filled the room. Alfred’s face grew stern. ‘I shall pretend that you did not utter that remark, Paul.’ When Paul said nothing, Alfred burst out angrily, ‘You know as well as I do that such a course of action is against the law.’

‘Yes I do, which is why women, poor creatures, are forced to resort to the desperate measure of paying some filthy harridan to maim and murder them.’

‘I will not listen to this, Paul. You are not talking about our own womenfolk here but a class of women you should know better than to discuss. If a woman has a need to resort to…to the solution you have just allowed to soil your lips, then it is because she herself has sinned and is seeking to hide that sin from the world and escape her just punishment for it!’

Paul gritted his teeth. The older man was only echoing the view shared by his own father, he knew, but it was a view that Paul himself did not find either acceptable or honest, never mind worthy of his Hippocratic oath. It was on the tip of his tongue to remind Alfred that, far from sinning, Lydia Pride had been an admirably dutiful wife, but he could see from the florid, bellicose expression on Alfred’s face that such an argument was not likely to find favour.

‘I have done my best for Lydia. I –’ Alfred coughed and looked embarrassed, ‘– I have discussed with Robert the…benefits of, ahem, not completing the…the act…’

‘But there are far more modern and reliable ways of preventing conception than that,’ Paul burst out, unable to contain himself.

Once again his frankness earned him a disapproving look. ‘I have no wish to continue this discussion, Paul.’

Frustrated, Paul turned away to look out of the window.

‘There is a gentleman to see you, ma’am, a Mr Dawson.’

‘Thank you, Fielding. I am expecting him. Please show him into the library,’ Mary instructed.

She had been advised to hire a manservant by the friends who had been so kind to her when she had originally left home to seek employment – and freedom – in London. A woman in her position needed to have the protection of a male retainer, they had insisted.

‘I’m not so sure about giving me protection, but he certainly adds an aura of grandness to the place,’ she had laughed to one of her neighbours, Edith Rigby, when she had invited Mary to take tea with her.

‘Good afternoon, Mr Dawson,’ Mary greeted her visitor as she hurried into the library. ‘Will you take tea? You have had a long journey here, I suspect.’

‘Tea would be very welcome,’ her visitor confirmed, his accent betraying that, unlike Mary herself, he was neither a member of the upper middle class, nor a local. His accent had a distinctly cockney twang to it, which was explained by the fact that Mary had originally recruited him via her contacts in London.

‘So,’ she sat down behind the huge partners’ desk, which had originally been her father’s, indicating to the waiting man that he was to take a seat, ‘what news do you have for me?’

Her heart sank as she saw the expression on his face.

‘I very much regret to have to tell you, Miss Isherwood, that the woman you wanted me to trace – your nurse, I believe you said she was – passed away some time ago. She was predeceased by her husband, and, as you informed me, she was in the employ of Earl Peel of Lancaster.’

‘Yes…yes…I…I understand.’

‘I have brought you bad news, I can see, and I am sorry for it.’

Mary gave him a wan smile. ‘You must think me foolish, Mr Dawson, but Emma was very dear to me. She was my nurse, you see, and my closest companion after the death of my mother. She was less than a dozen years older than I, and had been hired originally as a nursery maid.’

Frank Dawson remained quiet. He had experienced many scenes likes this one in his work as a private investigator, but something about Mary Isherwood’s quiet dignity elicited his highest accolade – his rarely given respect.

‘Emma was everything to me,’ Mary told him simply. ‘But then she…she had to leave. My father decided that I was old enough not to need her services any longer, and so Emma took employment elsewhere, which was how she met her husband. We kept up a correspondence for a while, until…until I quarrelled with my father and…and left home to go and live with friends in London.’

‘I am sorry if my investigations have brought you unhappiness.’ Frank Dawson gave a small cough. ‘There is, of course, the matter of my fees, but –’

‘No, no…I shall pay you now,’ Mary insisted firmly. ‘Do you have your account?’

Relieved, Frank Dawson reached into his pocket for the invoice he had written before coming north. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Mary, it was just that he knew the way that rich folk could take their time about paying bills.

‘Oh…’ she began, and then checked. ‘I had heard that Emma had had a child, Mr Dawson, a son. I don’t know if…?’ Mary’s face had become slightly pink and she sounded a little nervous.

‘Oh, yes, I almost forgot,’ Frank Dawson responded. ‘I was that concerned about telling you that your nurse had passed away that I nearly overlooked the boy. It’s all here.’ He proudly removed a notebook from his pocket and tapped it with one thick forefinger. ‘A son born not a year after they had wed, he was.’

‘I see. And what do you know of this son, Mr Dawson, if anything?’

‘There is not much to know, ma’am, other than that he visits this town in his line of business. Well, not exactly his line of business, since he was apprenticed to a master cabinet-maker in Lancaster, but it seems that Master Wareing could not find work for the young man, having three sons of his own to take into the business, and so currently by all accounts Mr Gideon Walker is working for William Pride, a cattle drover, whilst he tries his luck at setting himself up in business as a cabinet-maker.’

‘A cabinet-maker…and he visits Preston regularly, you say? Goodness, you have been thorough and clever, Mr Dawson,’ Mary complimented him. ‘You wouldn’t happen to have an address where I might find him, would you? I may have come into my inheritance too late to do anything to reward Emma for her care of me, but perhaps I shall be able to benefit her son – for her sake and her kindness to me.’

‘Very worthy sentiments, if I may be so bold as to say, ma’am. As to the young man’s address, I shall do my best to discover it, ma’am, and once I have done so I shall send you a note of it,’ Dawson promised.

‘You are every bit as efficient as my friends promised, Mr Dawson,’ Mary smiled, discreetly adding an extra guinea to the money she was placing on the table in front of her. ‘And I am very grateful for what you have done.’

After Frank Dawson had gone, Mary frowned into the silence of the room.

There had been a time when Emma had been everything to her: mother, sister, friend, protector.

The genteel poverty in which Mary had lived during her father’s lifetime, scraping a living giving private French lessons, had made it impossible for her to do anything to repay Emma for her care of her as a child, but now things were different.

With so much renovation needing to be done on the house she could easily find work for a skilled cabinet-maker. And surely she owed it to Emma to do for her son what she could no longer do for Emma herself.