Fourpenny Flyer (67 page)

‘I cannot say,' John told him sadly. Then, in an attempt to persuade his solemn child out of the room, ‘Would you like to see your new sister?'

‘Not very much,' Will said. ‘She's a baby, ain't she? I don't much care for babies.'

So Rosie was called for to put him to bed. He kissed his mother's clammy forehead and stroked her long hair with his fingertips.' She will be better by morning,' he said. And he sounded so determined about it that his father quite took hope from him.

But the next morning was the beginning of the third day and Harriet was very much worse, with high fever and pain in her limbs and her belly so horribly distended she couldn't bear to be touched. And to add to her misery she had no milk and the baby had found her appetite, crying for food with lusty insistence, ‘A-la, a-la, a-la,' on and on and on, no matter what the midwife did to placate her.

John was so distressed by it all he retreated into the parlour and covered his ears with his hands in a vain attempt to shut out the noise. Which was how Nan found him when, true to her promise, she came back to Rattlesden at a little after seven o'clock.

‘Leave this to me,' she said at once. Getting a baby fed could be dealt with. And she went upstairs to deal with it.

‘She needs a wet nurse,' she said to Mrs Babcock.

‘Early days yet, Mrs Easter, mum,' the midwife said. ‘'Tis a matter of a-waiting for the milk to come in. Tha's all 'tis.'

‘Waiting be blowed,' Nan said. ‘Do 'ee know of a woman suitable?'

‘Not hereabouts,' Mrs Babcock said firmly. Really the way this woman behaved you'd think she owned the earth and not just a newsagents. ‘No, I don't.'

‘Then I will find one,' Nan said equally firmly, dusting the palms of her hands against each other. Annie would be sure to know of someone somewhere.

Annie was in the rectory kitchen, helping Pollyanna and Mrs Chiddum with the breakfast. ‘Mrs Barnes maybe …' she said.

‘Or me, mum,' Pollyanna offered. ‘I've milk a-plenty an' 'tis high time my Hannah was weaned. I could take the poor little mite for a day or two.'

‘It could be for a deal more than a day or two,' Nan warned. ‘You could be taking her 'til
she's
weaned too.'

‘Is Mrs Harriet as bad as that, poor lady?' Pollyanna said.

‘I fear so. And getting worse.'

‘I'll ask my John,' Pollyanna said. ‘If he's agreeable to it, I'll take her, no matter how long.'

And being as warm-hearted as his wife, he was agreeable to it, so the matter was settled. Baby Caroline was bundled into shawls and carried across to Mr Jones's house to be
fed with such abundance that she slept for five hours afterwards, her little belly as round as a drum.

But helping her mother was a great deal more difficult. Towards noon Matilda and Bessie arrived, shocked by the news that a second surgeon had been called for and bearing a basket of dainties, calves' foot jelly, a baked egg custard and little cakes made of honey and almonds, because they were the only things they could think of to show their concern.

Ill though she was, Harriet was touched by their affection and did her best to eat a little of the custard, but after two mouthfuls she felt so sick she had to stop.

‘I am sorry,' she said weakly to Matilda, ‘when you are so good to me.'

‘Hush, hush, my dear,' Matilda said, patting her hot hand. ‘You ain't obliged to eat it, for pity's sake.'

‘Where is baby?' Harriet worried.

‘With Pollyanna being nursed. And you ain't to go a-fretting yourself. She's fine and fair and full of health.' Oh, if only you were too, poor Harriet.

‘Yes,' Harriet said, glad of the information. ‘Thank 'ee. Thank 'ee kindly.'

Matilda and Bessie and Annie and Nan took it in turns to sit with her from then on, sponging her face and hands when she stirred from sleep, offering her sips of water or the juice of lemons or raspberry leaf tea, standing aside when Mr Brownjohn made his daily visit, and all of them anguished by the fear that whatever they did to try to help her, she was gradually slipping away from them.

Now that the baby was gone and the room was peaceful, John sat by the bedside, too, and watched with haggard eyes, and said nothing. What was there to say?

And Rosie brought Will in twice a day to see his mother. ‘There she is poor soul. Yes. There she is.'

And James administered the last rites and prayed with her and for her until she slept again.

And fifty-nine hours toiled past.

Towards evening on the fifth day of her fever, Harriet struggled out from a confusion of pain and foul dreams and knew where she was. Rattlesden, of course, dear
gentle Rattlesden, where she belonged. Here in her bedroom, with the curtains drawn and the candles lit and dear John beside her, asleep in his chair. I must wake him, she thought, and tell him how much I love him. For she remembered that James had given her the last rites and she knew she was dying. Her mother had predicted it, here in this house. ‘The wager of sin is death.' she'd said. Harriet could still hear her voice, but it was a distant sound now, and drained of all malice and all power to harm.

Death is painful, she thought. Pray God it may get no worse. But that was a foolish prayer, as she realized even while she was thinking it. Whatever was to come, she could not avoid it. It would have to be endured, whether she would or no. And she offered up another prayer more suitable even if it was only half formed: for the grace to endure. Then a merciful sleep washed her away from all thought into blackness.

When she woke for a second time the candles had burnt a great deal lower and John was gone. There was a quiet figure in his place writing in a black notebook set close to the candles. For a few seconds she couldn't think who it was. Her mind was stuck, unmoving and incapable of thought. Then with a sudden rush she knew a great many things and all at once. That the figure was Nan, that her diary was still under the mattress, that it would have to be destroyed, and quickly before it was too late.

‘Nan! she said and the word was almost too hard to speak, her lips and tongue were so swollen. ‘Nan!'

‘What is it, lovey?' Brown eyes very close to her, full of tender concern.

‘Under … mattress …' Then words so slurred and inadequate. Her right hand fumbling the sheet.

‘Do 'ee want to sit up?'

‘No, no.' Shaking her head.

‘Do the bedclothes trouble 'ee?'

‘No, no.' Clawing at the mattress.

‘Under here? Is that it?'

Nodding.

And the mattress being lifted. How hard it is! Like a plank of wood.

‘Is this what you want, lovey?' The diary, mottled red as though it were streaked with blood, and heavy as sin, held in the candlelight before her eyes.

Nodding. Struggling for words again. ‘Burn it … please burn … John … not … John mustn't see it … please.'

Complete understanding in those brown eyes. ‘Yes, my dear. Don't 'ee fret. John shan't see it. I give 'ee my word. I'll burn it directly if that's what 'ee wish.'

Hot tears, scalding her cheeks. Dear, quick, loving Nan. Does she know why? Doesn't matter now. Little matters now. John is protected. ‘John?' she said.

‘I'll fetch him for 'ee. He'll not be far, depend on it.'

Feet thudding like drums. Why is everything so loud? The door clicking. Feet on the stairs. Slipping into blackness again. Ah! Ah! I must stay awake for him. More feet drumming, drumming. Or is it my heart? Drumming. Drumming.

After she'd called John from the parlour, Nan took the red notebook down to the kitchen to burn it as she'd promised. The kitchen fire was little more than a pile of glowing embers, and certainly too low to burn through such a thickness of paper, so she would have to tear it to pieces first. She opened it idly, glancing at the first page before she stripped it from the book, and was intrigued by what she saw.

‘Monday 10th November 1817. Dear Diary …' Well of course, a diary. That would account for why she wanted it burnt. ‘There is so much I want to tell you I hardly know where to begin. Such a tragedy has occurred. The Princess Charlotte is dead and my husband John has put such a dreadful advertisement in
The Times,
but I must not criticize him. I will tell you about it.'

En't that just our Harriet all over, she thought, dropping the loose sheet into the embers. She was afraid of her own shadow in those days, so she was. You should have told him straight out, my dear. I know I would have done. It don't help to hide things.

And she wondered what else her pale, quiet daughter-in-law had been hiding, and read on as she pulled the
pages from the spine one after the other and fed them into the flames. It wasn't long before she came to the trip to Manchester and Caleb Rawson appeared on the pages. Then she realized why the diary had to be hidden from John, for it would never have done for him to know that his wife had been paying so much unnecessary attention to another man. What folly, she thought. And yet there's more good than folly in our Harriet. Her heart's in the right place, even if she do make mistakes. And she pulled three more pages from the book, and decided to read no further. If this was the matter the poor girl wanted hidden, then so be it.

But the very next page she revealed, was so smudged and tear-stained and full of corrections she read it despite her vow. And it was the story of John's sudden impotence and Harriet's bewildered pity for him, which she found so upsetting that she read on, until she reached the account of Caleb's seduction.

‘My heart alive!' she said under her breath. ‘Then the child en't John's.' And she wondered what he would do about it, and read on again, through Caleb's arrest and the daily anguish of Harriet's guilt to the sudden and rapturous account of her reunion with John and her decision to renounce her lover: ‘The moment he is free. However painful it might be to him, be must be told that I mean to stay faithful to my dear John from henceforth. But I cannot send such a letter to him now. That would be too cruel. Time enough when the trial is over and he is free again. It will be easier for him to accept such tidings then.'

And how will it be for my John to accept your bastard child? Nan thought angrily. You en't thought of that. But then she remembered where she was and what was happening in that darkened room above her, and she was ashamed of her anger and ashamed of her curiosity and wished she had the power to ‘put all right', as poor Harriet had yearned to do so often.

The book was dismantled now and most of it burnt and gone. Only the red marbled cover was left in her hands. She turned it over, looking at it sadly. And a small,
much-folded sheet of paper fell out of it into her lap. It was a letter, written in a dark scrawling hand. Even before she read it she knew it was from Caleb Rawson.

‘My dearest Harriet,

‘I am sentenced to transportation for seven years. This in great haste for we've nobbut an hour afore they take us to t' hulks, and we've paper for one letter apiece, no more.

‘Be of good cheer. Come what may, I'll not heed it. I shall serve out term, and come back to England, depend on it. Then we'll make light of all and our enemies shall be confounded.

‘Thine, who will return,

‘Caleb.'

God help us all, what a tangled web! Nan thought, burning the letter and the cover together. And as she stirred the mound of grey ashes with the poker, a terrible wailing pierced the silence of the house, an unearthly endless shriek that made her heart pound and the hair stand on the nape of her neck.

She threw the poker into the hearth, snatched up her candle and ran to see what it was.

Feet were pattering along the landing above her head and as she climbed the stairs she could see the flicker of carried candles darting like will-o'-the wisps ahead of her. She arrived in Harriet's room immediately after Will and Rosie, who stood in the darkness just inside the door with Tom and Peg Mullins behind them, gazing round-eyed and open-mouthed at the candlelit bed. It was John who was howling, kneeling at the side of the bed with his head in Harriet's lap and his hands clutching her waist. ‘Oh, my darling, darling,' he cried. ‘Come back to me. You mustn't die. How can I live without you?'

But Harriet could not answer him. Her struggle was over and now she lay still and peaceful, her face marble-pale, her blue eyes glazed and one dead hand still resting on his hair.

They buried Harriet Easter in Rattlesden churchyard on an idyllic summer afternoon, while the young corn ruffled like green fur in the fields below the village and skylarks rose in rapturous spirals of song into the clear blue sky above their heads.

To Nan's surprise Matilda had taken full charge of the event, inviting their friends and relations, organizing a supper, arranging flowers and even dealing with Mrs Babcock and the undertakers. ‘'Tis little enough for me to do in all conscience,' she said to Nan, ‘and it helps make amends, so it does. I was uncommon cruel to her once, to tell 'ee true, when we were all first wed, and I regret it sorely now.'

So Nan handed over the entire affair and was thankful to do it. After that first terrible sorrow had kept them all awake and weeping until long after daybreak, and frightened poor little Will so much that he'd been sleeping in her bed ever since, she'd been torn with concern for her poor John.

His grief was so extreme it made all the others she'd ever seen or experienced seem mild by contrast. He had sat by Harriet's bedside for more than twenty-four hours, weeping and groaning and refusing to be comforted, with the curtains drawn and the candles lit and the smell of death growing steadily more and more oppressive all around him. Annie had tried to talk to him, and so had Nan and Bessie, but in the end it was Matilda who had persuaded him out of the room.