A Carriage for the Midwife (31 page)

He sat up in bed and spoke slowly and quietly.

‘Do not be afraid, Susan. I am your husband, and I love you. I shall not harm you. Come to me, Susan, there is nothing to fear.’

It was too dark for them to see each other’s face, but she could see him holding out his arms to her; his eyes reflected what little light there was from the curtained window.

‘Trust me, Susan. I shall not hurt you, I promise. Come back to bed, dearest.’

Her ears heard his words, and her heart heard the love in them. Slowly, very slowly and keeping her eyes fixed upon the faint gleam of his own, she straightened up and stood against the window. Then she moved towards the bed and his outstretched arms. Taking hold of his right hand, she climbed gingerly back into bed beside him and lay down on her right side, still watching him. He pulled the sheet up over her and laid himself down again, carefully avoiding any contact apart from their clasped hands.

They lay in silence for a long minute while he waited to hear if she would give him an explanation, some reason for the violence with which she had rejected him.

‘’Twas a dream, Edward. Aye, it must ha’ been a dream,’ she murmured at last, pleading with him to reassure her that this was so. With a heavy heart he gave her that assurance.

‘All right, my love, ’twas but a dream.’ He entwined his fingers with hers. ‘Go to sleep again, dear Susan, you are safe with me.’

‘I know, Edward, I know.’ She heaved a long sigh, and he continued to soothe her with gentle words, stroking her forehead and imagining the trustful smile that he could not see.

‘Sleep now, sweet Susan – go to sleep again.’

Under his loving touch she obeyed, drifting back into peaceful slumber after the terror of nightmare.

But Edward lay awake in a turmoil. An idea that had been lurking on the edge of his consciousness for days now began to take dreadful shape, turning from a suspicion to a near certainty. He thought he had probably found the reason for his wife’s strange behaviour.

The words she had uttered in terror were practically the same as those she had used to the red-haired stable-lad who had pestered her on the night of the ball, when he had rescued her.

Stop it, I won’t have ’ee, no, no, never!

So unlike the Susan he knew, yet now she had spat the same words at himself.

But had she? Had they really been meant for him? Edward did not believe so; he could not.

No, he was by now fairly sure that he had found out the truth. He knew that female workers were sometimes at risk in the fields at the end of the day when there was nobody around to witness wicked deeds against them. Some scoundrel, some black-hearted rogue must have laid his filthy hands on Susan and attempted to ravish her.

Attempted to ravish?

Had she in fact been ravished and robbed of her maidenhead? Was she afraid of him discovering her shame?

Edward could have groaned aloud to think of such violation of her innocence – even of her childhood, perhaps, for he recalled seeing a shadow in her eyes when she was only about twelve years old. Only then he had been too young to understand it, and had put it down to the hardships of poverty and the loss of her young brothers. That such an evil should befall his sweet Susan was beyond imagining.

And this was their last night together; only a few short hours remained before they had to part, perhaps for ever. He could not spoil that time by asking her distressing questions about such a memory. One day, if he was spared to return to her when the war was over, they would have all the time in the world to lay the ghosts of the past. He would ask her in love to tell him everything, and he would absolve her from all blame. Then they would be free to be man and wife in the deepest, truest sense.

But now was not the time. The first light of dawn was already streaking the eastern sky, and the must soon rise and prepare for the journey, leaving his beloved wife alone.

With infinite tenderness he cradled her sleeping form and put his lips to her forehead, as lightly as the touch of a moth’s wing.

She did not stir.

SUSAN HAD TAKEN
to walking out with the orphans in the afternoons. There had been a series of warm, mellow autumn days, and she loved to see the children chasing each other across the springy turf of the common where harebells danced in profusion among the heather. The fresh air brought colour to wan cheeks and a sparkle to eyes used only to drab surroundings, though by four o’clock the smaller ones were beginning to tire, and Susan led them back to the House for tea in her room.

For her life had changed since her marriage, more than she had ever imagined it would. Her new title exacted deference from the likes of the Crokers and Mrs Jarvis, who knew that the heir to the Bever estate was a one-legged cripple, so far without lawful issue; and who could tell whether the younger brother might one day lord it over Beversley with his wife at his side? This Mrs Calthorpe might then be in a position to grant them favours – or, putting it another way, she might remember slights and take her revenge.

She now had her own comfortable little sitting room with a fire to boil a kettle over, and her pony had a stable at the back where the trap was kept. A modest monthly income paid to her by Mr Calthorpe’s agent enabled her to buy tea, sugar and muffins to toast and spread with butter when she and the children got in from their walks. She drove herself into Belhampton to purchase linen to make nightgowns, shirts and smocks in place of coarse woven calico for the children; the newly born were protected by soft flannel, which was made up into vests for the older children by female inmates who could sew. Stories had begun to circulate about the pampered lives of the paupers, and Dr Gravett preached indignant sermons from the pulpit about the lax state of affairs, though Mr Calthorpe, also on the Board of Guardians, remained silent.

All this brought Susan a measure of satisfaction, and the children’s affection was precious to her, taking her mind off other matters, like her secret shame about the way she had treated her husband during their short time together. There was one memory – had it really been only a dream? – that especially troubled her: what exactly had happened during their last night at the inn, when she had found herself cowering beneath the window in the grip of a frightful nightmare? She recoiled from reliving the incident, for fear that it might not have been a dream at all . . . Edward, as always, had been so good and kind.

Edward. Her husband. He wanted children one day, and she wanted to bear them, and therefore she would have to do her obedient duty as a Christian wife. But when would she be free from that unreasoning terror? Somewhere deep inside her she knew that one day Edward would have to know the truth. Yet that was unthinkable. Impossible.

So while Susan Calthorpe worried about her husband’s safety and prayed that he might be saved from the many dangers that surrounded him, there was a part of her that feared his return.

And Mad Doll’s haunted eyes still made her blood run cold, a constant reminder of the shadowed years.

‘Missus Calthorpe! Doctor be here to see ’ee!’ called Mag. ‘Do ’ee want they childer took off ’ee?’

Susan rose at once, her eyes alight with pleasure.

‘No, no, Mag, they can stay. Good day to ye, sir!’

‘Good afternoon, Madam Trotula. I looked for you and your brood of chicks on the common, but you were not to be found, so I have pursued you to the Palace of Ease.’

‘’Tis good to see ye, sir. There’re no muffins left, but will ye take a cup o’ tea?’

‘Gladly. So these young people have been stuffing themselves with muffins! Good heavens, whatever is the world coming to?’

His beaming face belied the irony of his words, and Toby, Dorcas and Nan grinned back at him with a boldness they would never have shown a few months ago. He hung his hat on the back of a chair, and drew it up beside Susan, taking the cup she handed to him.

‘And how is everybody in the House of Hope? How are the ladies-in-waiting? And Hannah’s child, is it still thriving?’

‘
She
feeds well, sir, and holds up
her
head,’ Susan corrected him. It was a joke between them that he never gave babies a gender. ‘Hannah’s milk is still good, and she ha’ hopes o’ finding a place as nurse to some newborn child. D’ye know o’ any mother in Belhampton or around who might take her in, sir?’

‘Ah, Mrs Calthorpe, you are always sending me off on nursemaid’s errands. ’Tis no wonder I am often late for my classes, and keep my students waiting!’

The children giggled at the woeful face he put on, his good-humoured pretence that Mrs Calthorpe ill-used him. Susan realised that they enjoyed the warm and easy understanding between herself and Parnham, in which they caught a glimpse of the family life they had never known: a father’s indulgence, a mother’s tender care, a sense of belonging.

Charles felt it also, watching Susan as she boiled the kettle again, her face flushed by the small fire. Keeping the children with them was a way of stopping gossiping tongues, he surmised; all very well, but it made it hard for him to find out how she really did. Two months after her wedding, Parnham was uneasy about his Trotula. He knew of course that she lived in constant anxiety for her husband, and yet . . . he still felt that something was not quite right, and it troubled him. Although his own foolish dreams had come to nothing, he still enjoyed his privileged position as her trusted friend and champion.

Meanwhile he drank the tea she had poured for him, and sitting there in the stuffy little room, inhaling the steam from the kettle, the odour of undersized bodies and the lingering aroma of toasted muffins, Charles Parham wished himself nowhere else on earth.

And should his Trotula find herself a young widow when all the carnage was over, she need not fear poverty or the rejection of Bever House, because . . .

He frowned, and ordered such forbidden thoughts, like Satan’s whispers, to depart from him.

Both Mrs Bennett’s older daughters were with child, and while Mrs Marianne Smart looked a picture of health at four months, Mrs Sally Twydell was full of apprehension; she was due to give birth at Christmas, and greeted her mother and sister with sighs and groans when they visited her.

‘I’m getting the dropsy in my ankles again, Mother, and have to sit on the pot every half-hour – and oh, the palpitating of my heart!’ she groaned, making Marianne feel quite guilty for keeping so well.

‘How is the young Lucket maid getting on?’ asked Mrs Bennett, simply to change the subject.

‘Oh, don’t talk to me about the stupid girl,’ answered Sally fretfully. ‘She has not half the sense of her sister, and slouches around in a dream. It was too bad o’ Miss Glover to pass her off on to me in my state of health, and she’ll be sent away soon if she doesn’t mend her ways.’

‘Oh, please try to keep her, Sally, for Susan’s sake!’ pleaded Mrs Bennett. ‘She has trouble enough, with Edward away at the war, and his mother bearing such spite against her. That’s why they threw Polly out, y’know, after five years o’ service at Bever House.’

Mrs Marianne stayed silent but looked knowing, having heard quite a different story.

‘But the girl’s bone idle, and so
silly
, mother! She has not the least idea how to behave in front of company. And the other day Percy found her fast asleep in his study, if you please, snoring her head off. He was furious, I can tell you.’

‘Good heavens, is the girl not well, Sally?’ asked Mrs Bennett as a thought struck her. ‘Can you not send for her and let me see how she looks?’

Mrs Twydell rang the bell for tea, which was brought in by a smart maidservant who smiled and curtsied.

‘My mother wishes to see Polly, so send her in to us,’ said Sally languidly.

One look at the bloated features and thickened waist was enough for Mrs Bennett, and in the ensuing babble of raised voices and recriminations, she felt obliged to take the Lucket girl back to Beversley in the three-seater.

As soon as Mrs Bennett was shown into the parlour with a tear-stained Polly in tow, Miss Glover feared the worst. She ordered Tess to take the girl into the kitchen while Mrs Bennett sat on the same cane-bottomed chair used by Edward on his last visit to his cousin, when Polly had been turned out of Bever House. Now Sophia heard the sorry sequel.

‘And when my Sally sent for her, the little baggage tried to deny it, Miss Glover, though she shows plainly enough, and must be four months gone if she’s a day.’

‘Yet Mrs Twydell had not noticed?’

‘My daughter is much taken up with her own expected child, and doesn’t see as much as I’d ha’ done,’ admitted Mrs Bennett. ‘There was an upset, such sobbings and sighings that I said I’d bring her back with me – and ’tis my belief she’d better go to the House o’ Industry and let poor Susan – Mrs Calthorpe – take care o’ her.’

Sophia frowned. ‘I shall talk with Mrs Susan first, and see how she feels. Meanwhile I’ll keep the girl here and send word straightway to Osmond Calthorpe at Winchester, to ask what he intends to do about his child.’

Mrs Bennett’s eyes narrowed. ‘I doubt ye’ll gain much from that quarter, Miss Glover.’

‘I may surprise you, goodwife,’ replied Sophia, her blue eyes flashing. ‘If he tries to deny his part in the business, I shall apply to my cousin his father to pay for her board here, and let the shame of it be told all over Beversley, that she is with child by Osmond. Let Bever House deny it if they can!’

Mrs Bennett allowed herself the glimmer of a smile at this declaration, though she shook her head. ‘But what grief for my Susan, so soon after her marriage!’ she sighed.

Sophia sent for Polly, who came in eyeing them warily.

‘Well, Polly Lucket, what have you to say for yourself now?’ asked Miss Glover. ‘You must have known about this when I sent you to Mrs Twydell as maidservant.’

‘No, Miss Glover, Oi di’n’t ha’ no idea then!’ protested Polly. ‘Oi had me flow at the end o’ June, same as usual, so Oi be not yet three months.’

‘You don’t deny it, then, Polly? You are certainly bigger. And have you the sickness?’