Читать книгу Yes, Mama - Helen Forrester - Страница 13

Upstairs, Mrs Macdonald was deferentially solicitous and wondered privately who would pay her bill. She said, as she fussed round her patient, ‘Miss Webb wondered if you would like a bite to eat, Ma’am?’

Sarah Webb, being a spinster, would not visit her friend until the morning; not having been married, she was supposed, officially, not to know how babies arrived. The following day seemed to her to be a polite time to come up. She had, meanwhile, taken over the housekeeping, and Mrs Tibbs had had a long, uncomfortable evening as Sarah began to cope with a kitchen unused to being visited by its mistress.

Florence reinforced the suggestion of food. She said, ‘Yes, Mama, you should take something to eat. You have to keep up your strength.’ Florence was deadly tired, her bundly body aching in every direction, but she spoke brightly to her mother.

‘Very well, dear,’ Elizabeth responded wearily. ‘Tell Mrs Tibbs to make me a plain omelette and toast – and some Madeira to drink.’

Mrs Macdonald pulled at the bell rope.

Elizabeth continued to talk to her daughter. ‘I have a wet-nurse for the child,’ she told her with a wan smile. ‘I don’t propose to feed her myself. At my age …’

Florence nodded understandingly. She had not been informed of her mother’s pregnancy until a week before the birth. Elizabeth had not felt able to tell a pregnant daughter that she was expecting an infant. At forty, it was indecent to be in such a situation; she herself had not expected it to happen.

As her mother’s figure burgeoned under the flounces and heavy drapery of her elaborate dresses, the situation had been clear to Florence for some time. She was, however, much too well brought up to mention the subject until her mother cared to bring the matter up and she expressed suitable surprise when Elizabeth suddenly blurted out that she would be brought to bed within the month. She had been much alarmed that her mother would not survive and had prayed earnestly each night that she be safely delivered. Now, she thought, she must pray for herself.

As if the midwife divined her thoughts, she turned towards her and smiled faintly, ‘You look very well, if I may say so, Ma’am. You’ll soon know the joy of your own wee babe in your arms.’ There was oily comfort in every word.

‘Thank you, Mrs Macdonald,’ responded Florence graciously, ‘With your help, I’m sure I will.’

In answer to the bell, Maisie, the elderly parlour-maid, arrived and was instructed regarding a meal.

‘Tell Mrs Ford she may now come to remove the baby,’ Elizabeth told the maid. ‘I trust a fire has been made in the nursery – and in baby’s bedroom?’

‘Oh, yes, Ma’am. Fanny’s bin watching both fires ever since atternoon.’

Up in the nursery, Polly, lulled by the heat, had gone to sleep in an old easy chair set by the fireplace. In the glow of the coals, she looked softly pretty, tidier, more clean than she had ever been in her life.

When Fanny clumped in with yet another hod of coal, she woke up with a start.

‘Coom on, now,’ Fanny commanded her. ‘The Missus wants you to take the baby.’ She dumped the heavy coal hod into the fireplace, picked up a pair of tongs and lifted a couple of lumps of coal on to the blaze. ‘Maisie and Rosie’ll bring the cot up.’ She yawned enormously, her stunted little body stretching as she did so. ‘Aye, I’m that tired. Seems to me as if none of us is goin’ to get to bed tonight. And I got to be up at five, ’cos ould Tibbs raises Cain if she don’t have a hot oven by six o’clock, ready to put the bread in.’

Polly got up and stretched. Then she peeked into the mirror over the dresser, to check that her hair was still neat and her cap on straight. ‘Fancy having a mirror,’ she thought to herself gleefully. She picked up the candle from the table.

‘Aye, don’t leave me in the dark,’ protested Fanny. She hastily tipped the rest of the coal into a brass coal scuttle at the side of the hearth. ‘It’s proper ghosty up here, what with Mr Charles and Mr Edward gone away and not usin’ the rooms on the other side o’ the passage.’

Polly waited for the little skivvy and then, carrying the candle, led her down the dark staircase, the coal hod clanking like chains behind her.

On the floor below lay Elizabeth’s bedroom and beside it the dressing-room in which Humphrey had slept for the last year or so. Also on this floor, lay Florence’s old bedroom, a guest room and the main drawing-room; the latter was shrouded in dust sheets, because Elizabeth could not entertain in the last months of her pregnancy; it was not the thing. At the back of the house, on this same floor, was Elizabeth Woodman’s latest status symbol, a brand new water closet and a handsome adjoining bathroom with hot and cold water which belched from shining brass taps.

‘You’re not allowed to use the water closet,’ Fanny warned Polly, as they passed it. ‘You got to come down to the closet outside the back kitchen door – or you can use a chamber-pot and empty it yourself down there. I ’aven’t got no time to be running up and down with a slop pail to clear it for yez. There’s an old slop pail in the nursery cupboard if you want to use it.’

Polly reached Elizabeth’s door at the same time as Maisie was about to enter, so she followed her in. They both stood just inside the doorway, hands folded, eyes down, waiting for orders.

Elizabeth was sitting up in bed, wrapped in a pink shawl, her hair plaited neatly over each shoulder. She was feeling better and, though her eyes were black-ringed, some of her normal high colour had returned to her cheeks; the birth had, in fact, been quite an easy one. She fully expected that, thanks to Mrs Macdonald’s modern ideas of well-scrubbed hands, boiled aprons and sheets, she would be spared that plague of new mothers, childbed fever.

Replete with omelette and half a bottle of Madeira, her breasts bound tightly by Mrs Macdonald to prevent the flow of milk, all she wanted now was that the child be taken away, so that, as much as possible, she could forget it. She hoped, also, when trouble with her husband had blown over, that she could be reunited with Andrew Crossing, only in a more private place than on her drawing-room settee.

‘Polly,’ she snapped at the trim, black-haired wet-nurse. ‘Take the baby upstairs. See that it is fed every three or four hours and has its napkin changed frequently to keep it dry.’ She turned to Maisie. ‘Take the tray away. That will be all for tonight.’

‘Thank you, ma’am,’ Maisie replied, took the tray and fled thankfully to her bed. Polly approached the cradle cautiously and picked up the tiny bundle which was Alicia Beatrix Mary. The infant opened its eyes and whimpered.

‘Polly.’

‘Yes, ’m?’

There is a good supply of clothing in the chest of drawers in the nursery. Fanny will remove any washing including your own. She will also bring up your meals. The washerwoman will come twice a week. See that the dirty clothes and sheets are down in the wash cellar by six o’clock every Monday and Thursday morning.’

Polly bobbed a small curtsey to indicate agreement.

‘I have instructed Mrs Tibbs to feed you well and let you have as much milk as you can drink.’

Having met Mrs Tibbs, Polly did not have any great hope of these instructions being followed properly. She whispered, however, a faint ‘Thank you, ma’am.’ She allowed herself a small shivering sigh – it had been a long and eventful day for her – and then asked, ‘What’s baby’s name, ma’am?’

‘Alicia Beatrix Mary,’ replied Elizabeth, having decided that it was better to name the child herself, rather than ask Humphrey his opinion. Though she would not have liked to admit it, there was the thought in the back of her mind that, like its baby brother, it might die within the month, anyway; and that would solve a lot of her problems.

Andrew had assured her that since she and Humphrey lived together the child was legally his, unless he repudiated it. Nevertheless, she supposed she would have to go herself to register its birth, as soon as she felt well enough; Humphrey was hardly likely to do anything about putting his name on the birth certificate. She must also write a note to Andrew, she reminded herself, telling him of Alicia’s birth; she could say that she wanted to alter her Will slightly to include a small legacy to the new baby. She sighed, and hoped he would come soon.

‘You may go,’ she told Polly, patiently standing in front of her with the baby in her arms.