Children of the Tide (58 page)

Gilbert gratefully conceded that it would be as well to remain above ground, that he would not be of use anyway as it was Billy that Betsy wanted to see.

Billy could hear the sound of crying and the murmur of voices as he approached the furthest reaches of the cellars, and he followed the sound by instinct rather than sight, for he had no light, and trod carefully with arms outstretched until he saw the pinprick of lamplight from Doctor Sheppard’s lantern.

He wanted to weep when he saw her. Betsy’s hair was matted and her face grey, her eyes creased with pain. He put his arms out to her and held her as he would a child, and she clung to him, sobbing that she was so sorry for the trouble she had brought.

‘The doctor says I’m having a baby, Billy.’ She took a deep shuddering breath. ‘I am, I know. I’ve not
wanted to admit it, not even to myself. I’ve said all along it was dropsy, hoping that it wasn’t true. It wasn’t Luke’s fault,’ she said defiantly. ‘It was mine just as much as his.’

‘Luke?’ he said. ‘Luke Reedbarrow?’

She nodded and then grimaced in pain. ‘He doesn’t know. I never told him. I just kept on hoping that it would go away.’

‘He’ll have to know, Betsy, you can’t hide a baby. He’s all right, is Luke,’ he added. ‘He won’t shy from his responsibilities. If you still want him, that is.’

‘Want him?’ She gave a weak laugh. ‘It was wanting him that got me into this trouble! There, I’ve shocked you now, haven’t I, Billy? You didn’t know how sinful and immoral your cousin Betsy was?’

‘Let’s have no talk of morals,’ Stephen Sheppard interrupted. ‘We must get you to a hospital bed straight away, otherwise you’ll give birth down here, and that would be scandalous.’

‘Will you attend her at Gilbert’s house?’ Billy murmured as together they lifted Betsy and followed old Peg who held the lamp up high. ‘He lives only ten minutes away and a bed will be ready; it will be quicker than the hospital.’

The doctor agreed, and with some difficulty they eased themselves and Betsy up the cellar steps out into the street, and felt fresh flakes of snow on their faces.

Betsy screwed up her eyes against the light and they saw now how ill she looked, how pain-wracked her face, how gaunt her cheeks and her dark-ringed, sunken eyes. Her clothes were dirty with soot from the cellars, and her swollen feet were bare.

Gilbert’s eyes filled with tears as he helped them lift her into the carriage, and he offered to ride with her and the doctor to show them the way to his home. He was beset with grief as he thought of another girl who had given birth to a child not so very long ago,
and perhaps in similar impoverished surroundings as the ones from which Betsy had been rescued.

She was lying quietly now as they drove along; Doctor Sheppard took hold of her hand, his fingers on her wrist. ‘Ask the driver to hurry,’ he said softly.

‘We’re here,’ Gilbert said and called to the driver to pull up.

‘It wasn’t Luke’s fault,’ Betsy murmured as she was lifted out. ‘He would have married me, if I’d wanted.’ She turned her head towards Gilbert. ‘Billy? Where’s Billy? Tell him. Tell him that he must say to my da and to Tom that it wasn’t only Luke that was to blame.’ She clutched Gilbert’s hand. ‘You’ll tell him?’

‘Yes, yes. Don’t upset yourself, Betsy. You’ll be able to tell them yourself.’

Gilbert didn’t know what to say. He had no words of comfort to offer, and was glad to see Harriet at the door, her expression anxious as she ushered them in.

They got her onto the bed where she lay very still and Doctor Sheppard urged Harriet to send the maid for a midwife to come in all haste. ‘She’s very ill,’ he whispered to her. ‘She hasn’t been eating and she has no strength in her to deliver the child.’

She gazed wide-eyed at him. ‘But she’s going to be all right, isn’t she?’

He didn’t answer and she hurried down the stairs to call the maid, then went into the kitchen herself to fill the kettle for boiling water as the doctor directed.

Billy had run all the way from the cellars; his hair was tangled with the wind and wet with the snow which was gusting down in a bitter white flurry. He stood outside the bedroom door, not wanting to enter, until the doctor came to him from the side of the bed where Betsy lay.

‘You must send for her family, Billy.’ He spoke in an undertone so that Betsy couldn’t hear. ‘It doesn’t look good. The baby is alive, but Betsy – she has poisons in her body. Her feet and hands are swollen
and she appears anaemic; if she loses much blood then I can’t save her.’ He hesitated for a moment. ‘Besides which, from what she has told me, I don’t think she has the will or the want to live.’

Shocked to the core, Billy went to Betsy’s side. She opened her eyes and gave a small smile when she saw him. ‘Hello, Billy. Did I ever tell you that you were always my favourite?’ A tear trickled from the corner of her eye. ‘Except for Sammi. I loved Sammi best of all, but of all my male cousins, you were the best.’

He knelt down and took her hand. ‘No, I never guessed. Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘I don’t know,’ she murmured. ‘Why don’t we tell people we care for them?’ She screwed up her eyes and bit her lips as a spasm wracked her and she squeezed his hand in a painful grip.

She began to breathe heavily and Stephen Sheppard came back to the bed. ‘I think you’d better leave now, Billy. It won’t be long.’

‘No. No. Please don’t leave me, Billy.’ Panic showed on her face. ‘Not yet, not until the last minute. I must have someone here, someone who cares a little for me.’

‘I’m going to send for Tom,’ Billy said gently. ‘He’ll come to fetch you home; home where everyone cares for you. They’ve all missed you, Betsy, they’ve worried about you.’

The tears coursed down her cheeks. ‘I know. I shouldn’t have treated them so. My poor da.’ She gave a sob. ‘He deserved a better daughter than me. But I couldn’t tell them, Billy. I couldn’t tell them where I’d been.’

She suddenly arched her back and screamed. Billy cast an alarmed glance at Stephen Sheppard. ‘Can’t you give her something? How can they stand it?’

Stephen poured a few drops of liquid onto a spoon and tipped it into Betsy’s half-open mouth. He shook his head. ‘I don’t know, but they do, and then they
go on and have more. Men have a lot to answer for,’ he said, grim-faced. ‘There should be more men at their wives’ bedsides at a time like this.’

Billy hurried downstairs and spoke to Gilbert and then came back again, following the midwife who had just arrived, unbuttoning her coat as she climbed the stairs and handing it to him without a word. ‘Gilbert will go to Tillington,’ he whispered to Stephen, ‘but if you think the birth won’t be long, then we decided that he should wait so that he can tell them – tell them about the baby. What it is, I mean,’ he faltered, ‘and how Betsy is.’ He looked appealingly at his friend for encouragement, but Doctor Sheppard had donned his professional demeanour and wouldn’t be drawn.

‘Billy!’ Betsy’s voice was low but the appeal reached him and he glanced at the midwife who was drawing the curtains and turning up a lamp.

She nodded and he went to the bed. ‘Tell Luke I’m sorry.’ Betsy was calm now from the result of opium. ‘Tell him I know he would have stood by me, only – only I didn’t want to get married and stay for ever in Tillington. Like Mark, I wanted to see something of life.’ She gave a hint of a grimace. ‘I hope he fares better than me, but at least he won’t be having a baby. He warned me, you know,’ she muttered, and Billy thought that her mind was wandering. ‘But he needn’t have warned me about poor Luke. He should have warned me about the other sort of man. Luke wouldn’t have abandoned me the way he did.’

‘Who, Betsy? Who are you talking about?’ Billy bent his head towards her. ‘Where did you go after you left home?’

‘Craddock!’ Her hair and face were wet with pain. She closed her eyes and moaned. ‘Dear God, I can’t stand this. Billy, tell him to do something.’

The midwife motioned him away. ‘You’ll have to go, sir. Your wife is about to deliver.’

Betsy half screamed, half laughed. ‘I’m not his wife! I’m nobody’s wife. Never wanted to be.’

‘Betsy!’ Billy hesitated at the foot of the bed. ‘What has Craddock to do with this?’

She took deep shuddering breaths and drew her legs up beneath the sheets. ‘I went to live with him,’ she gasped. ‘He promised me so many things. Then when he saw I was pregnant he turned me out. I daren’t go home. Daren’t tell anybody.’ She fell back weeping. ‘I kept hoping it would go away.’

The midwife’s mouth set in a thin line. ‘Babbies don’t go away,’ she muttered. ‘And there’s no changing tha mind once they’ve started,’ and she ushered Billy out of the room and firmly closed the door behind him.

Billy, Gilbert and Harriet all sat silently in the sitting-room. From time to time, first Billy and then Gilbert shivered, even though a fire was lit.

‘She’s been living with Craddock,’ Billy said in a low voice. ‘She’s just told me. He turned her out when he realized she was pregnant.’

Gilbert gaped. ‘It’s not his child?’

Billy shook his head. ‘No. She said that it’s Luke Reedbarrow’s. She must have known even before she – she joined up with Craddock. She said she didn’t want to admit that she was pregnant.’

‘Poor Betsy,’ Harriet murmured. ‘How troubled she must have been to have carried the secret all alone for so long.’

Gilbert glanced up at her. His face was ashen. ‘A troubled conscience is a terrible thing, Harriet.’

‘Yes.’ She took hold of his hand. ‘It is. We all know that now.’

‘No, Harriet, you don’t know. How could you?’ Gilbert got up from his chair and started pacing the room. ‘You couldn’t possibly know.’

‘Ssh.’ Billy held up his hand. ‘I thought I heard something.’ His ears had caught the sound of a door opening and closing, and some other sound which
he couldn’t define. Then there was the measured tread of footsteps on the stair.

They all stood up as Stephen Sheppard entered the room.

‘Is it over, Doctor?’ Harriet whispered. ‘Is she delivered?’

He spoke gravely. ‘She is. Betsy has given birth to a girl.’

They all gave a half smile and breath of relief at his words, yet were hesitant of joy as he looked so solemn. ‘I’m afraid there have been complications,’ he said. ‘A very difficult birth, made worse by the mother’s lack of strength; she was debilitated because of lack of food. Seemingly she has been wandering the streets of Hull for some weeks and has had little nourish- ment.’

‘The child?’ Harriet whispered. ‘Will she live?’

‘I think so. She’s small and probably premature, but with care she should pull through.’ He glanced at Gilbert and then towards Billy. ‘I’m sorry, Billy,’ he said quietly. ‘But Betsy is very ill. You must prepare yourself for the worst. Would you like to come up to see her?’

Billy felt the colour drain from his face, his legs were weak and felt as if they didn’t belong to him and he put his hand out to a chair to steady himself. ‘Her father,’ he stammered. ‘And her brothers. We must fetch them.’

Stephen put his hand on his shoulder. ‘There is no time, my friend. You must come now. You too, Mr Rayner,’ he said to Gilbert who had slumped into a chair, whilst Harriet clung to his hand. ‘If you wish to see her.’

Billy hauled himself up the stairs. He couldn’t believe what was happening. His mind couldn’t accept what had been said. Everything had happened too fast. He wanted to wind the clock back and take each moment more slowly so that he could recognize and endure what was to come.

How could the happy laughing girl from their youth be taken from them? It wasn’t right. What would he say to her father? Her brothers? To his mother? To Sammi? He started to shake as he entered the dimly lit room, the curtains drawn against the brightness of the cold day. How could he take on the responsibility of breaking the news?

‘Hello, Billy.’ Betsy lay perfectly still. The midwife had washed her bloodless face and tidied her hair which lay black against the starched white pillowcase. She saw Gilbert behind him and gave him a tired smile. ‘It’s all over. It’s a little girl. Such a tiny baby, and she didn’t want to come into this big bad world.’ She put out a weak hand towards Billy. ‘Hold my hand, Billy.’

He clasped hers and said in a choked voice, ‘I never realized how beautiful you were, Betsy. Motherhood – motherhood suits you.’ He put his head down to hide his weeping.

‘Don’t cry.’ She patted his hand. ‘It’s all right. It has to be this way. I wasn’t meant to be a wife or mother. I wouldn’t have been any good at either.’ She glanced across at the midwife who was standing at the other side of the room with the infant in her arms. ‘Though I would have loved her.’

With a sudden strangled sob, Gilbert knelt down at the side of the bed and, clutching Betsy’s other hand, kissed it, then got up and rushed out of the room.

Her eyes were half closed. ‘Gilbert never was as brave as you, Billy,’ she said softly. ‘Though he means well.’

Billy wiped his eyes. ‘He has a lot of troubles. And I’m not brave, defiant perhaps, but never brave.’

‘I’m going to die, Billy,’ she whispered. ‘You must be brave for my sake, for I’m afraid. And you must be brave for my da and everybody else, and for my poor babby and Luke.’ Her voice dropped low and he put his head close to hers to hear her words. ‘You’ll have to help them as well as those poor souls in the cellars.’

He knelt, cramped, at the side of the bed as her eyes closed in sleep or from the effect of the opium which the doctor had given her, then the nurse brought him a chair to sit on and, taking the baby with her, went out of the room.

Doctor Sheppard touched him gently on his shoulder and he sat up with a start.
I can’t have been asleep! Did my eyes close for a moment? I didn’t hear him come into the room
.

He looked at Betsy sleeping. She looked so peaceful, as if her pain had gone. Surely, surely Stephen must be wrong? She would recover once she had got over the trauma.
We’ll all help her, even if she doesn’t want to marry Luke
.

Stephen tapped him again on the shoulder. ‘Come on, old fellow. No sense in lingering.’

‘What? What do you …?’ He looked again at Betsy. Her eyes were closed, her hands folded in front of her, her breathing so faint you could hardly—