Obsession (9 page)

At first, all went as well for them as could be expected, considering that Michael Lawson had been disinherited by his own family when he’d eloped, and the only money the pair had to live on had come from his earnings as a musician employed irregularly by an orchestra. After the birth of the first two children, she told Harriet, the young man was obliged by his desperate need for more money to find extra work playing for a quintet employed at the Assembly Rooms in Bath whilst afternoon tea was served to the well-to-do residents and visitors to the spa.

Two more children had arrived and, shortly after, disaster struck once again when the orchestra was disbanded. It was the constant worry about their desperate need of money which had brought on his heart problems, his widow Joan now repeated, as it was when she’d told him that yet another baby was on the way that the worry had proved too much for him. Sinking their pride, the couple had each written to their families asking for assistance, as they were now close to starvation. Michael Lawson’s family did not even reply: Joan’s mother had written to say she was doing her best to persuade her husband to relent, and agree to allow Joan and the children to return home.

‘I dared not tell my mother how many children we’d had,’ she concluded her sad story. ‘As if four was not enough, now there is the new baby …’ Tears started once more to roll down her cheeks, much to the consternation of her two eldest girls. Managing to control her emotions, she whispered: ‘My father will say that it is God’s punishment for marrying out of our Faith! Perhaps he is right to say so, as I put my love for my husband before anything else.’

‘So your father has relented and you have a home to go to!’ Harriet said, but the woman shook her head.

‘I had no further letter from my mother so I do not know if I am to be allowed back. I am praying he will take pity if not on me at least on my children. My husband had no savings, you see. All I had after paring for his funeral and our debts was the money for our fares today. If …’ Her voice broke. ‘… If my father will not allow me home, we will have to go to the workhouse.’

Before Harriet could exclaim she paused and lowered her voice to a whisper that the children could not hear. ‘You will think me wicked – unworthy of God’s pity,’ she said, ‘but when I gave birth to this baby a month after Michael’s death, I wished it would die, too. Michael loved his children, but we had agreed we must control our love for one another and have no more. This baby … may God forgive me … neither he nor I wanted. Now I can no longer feed it and my children have eaten only some stale bread since we left our lodgings. If my father will not take pity on us, we will have no choice but to go to the workhouse,’ she repeated.

‘Oh, no, not that!’ Harriet said. Her father had given her a book for her sixteenth birthday by the popular author Charles Dickens which had described the dreadful life of those destitutes who ended up in a workhouse. It was inconceivable that a woman of gentle birth like this young mother should be forced to go to one with her innocent children.

‘I have a little money – not very much, I’m afraid, but I can spare a little,’ she said. ‘Perhaps your eldest girl could go to the galley and see if there is something for you all to eat. As for the baby – did you tell me you cannot feed it yourself?’

Her companion shook her head. ‘I give it what I can,’ she said, ‘but it is not enough. He should have a wet nurse but …’ Momentarily her voice trailed away. Then she said, ‘I found a bottle for him but …’ she pointed to the infant now fast asleep in her arms, ‘… now I do not have enough milk with me to last until we reach Dublin.’

She was trembling, and quickly Harriet took the baby from her. When the eldest girl, who had managed to reach the galley, returned with half a loaf of bread which she had begged from another passenger, she proceeded to distribute amongst the younger ones. She offered some to her mother, but the woman shook her head. She was, Harriet realized, very close to collapse as her daughter confessed she had not been able to get milk for the baby.

The infant had woken and was staring up at Harriet from blue eyes which looked huge in its tiny, pinched face. Her heart melted. His mother, she thought, had wished he’d never been born, and it now looked likely that he would not survive the journey and starve to death. With the loss of her own baby coming to mind, Harriet felt close to tears herself.

She reached quickly into the small purse the nuns had given her containing the last of the coins retrieved from the hem of her dress. Sister Mary Frances had declared them enough to pay for her fare, and the hansom cab she would need to take her to her sister’s.

It now crossed her mind that were she to give some of this last money to the eldest girl in the hope that the girl could find someone to sell her some milk, she would be taking a risk of being stranded penniless in the city of Dublin were her sister, unexpectedly, to be away from home. Dismissing the thought and with no further hesitation, Harriet told the girl to go in search of milk for the baby that, if possible, would be sufficient to last for the whole crossing. Someone might be willing to forgo their own need if the child offered more than the half penny the milk would cost.

The distraught widow dissolved into steady soft weeping, her self-control undermined by her gratitude to Harriet, the unknown stranger who had taken pity on her. For the moment at least, she and her children were surviving, and she tried not to think of the approaching time when she would have to face her father. He was a deeply religious man who had not minced his words when he’d warned her that she would never be allowed in his house again if she married her English suitor. Even if he were to soften his stance and accept her back if she resumed her religious dictates, she feared he might not accept the children of her Protestant husband.

Most worrying of all was the advent of her last baby, born posthumously but whose conception had occurred while she was living ‘in sin’, as her father would declare it. Were he to refuse to accept the baby, she might have to put him in an orphanage.

It was now clear to Harriet that the mother’s self-control had been undermined by her story as, trembling, she gave way once more to tears. When the eldest girl returned with a pitcher of milk Harriet could see that the shaking woman was in no state to fill the baby’s bottle, still less to feed it. Despite having never done such a thing before, instinctively Harriet fulfilled both tasks and within minutes the infant was sucking hungrily.

When at last the bottle was empty, unexpectedly he opened his eyes again and looked directly up at her. Harriet’s heart lurched with a jolt that was as intense as any emotion she had ever felt before. She could feel the warmth of the tiny body against her arms and, instinctively, she clasped the baby closer to her breast.

The child’s mother had stopped crying and the hint of a surprised smile lit up her face as she said, ‘You have a way with babies, don’t you? This one has hardly stopped crying since I gave birth to him. Maybe the poor little thing has somehow sensed the grief I felt when my husband died: or have you already learned how to nurse them? How many children do you have?’

Harriet caught her breath. When she could speak, she related as briefly as she could her ongoing history of the miscarriages, and confessed she had lost her last baby only two months previously. With tears in her eyes, she said, ‘Perhaps your baby senses how greatly I longed to hold one in my arms.’

The mother’s face was questioning as she sighed, saying, ‘Life can be unjustifiably cruel at times, can it not? Here am I wishing this last one had never happened, and you – you so sad because you do not have one of your own.’

She turned to look at her daughter standing silently in the doorway, and drew a long, tremulous sigh. ‘The children have been so good – so very good since their father died! So many nights they have gone to bed hungry. There was simply no money for wholesome meals once Michael’s funeral expenses were paid. He had kept from me the fact that he’d had to delve into our savings after the end of his employment in the orchestra. To tell you the truth, neither of us were very experienced where our finances were concerned. We had both been brought up in affluent households where money simply wasn’t discussed unless it was about the price of a new horse, or the demands for better wages for the workers.’

She paused briefly before asking, ‘Would it be impertinent of me to enquire if you, too, have suffered some financial mishap? I noticed when you came on board that you had no luggage. You were standing with a wealthy-looking lady and her maid, but did not accompany her when she disappeared below deck.’

‘No, I am on my own,’ Harriet admitted. ‘I am going to stay with my sister who has an Irish husband and lives in Dublin. My personal belongings and money were stolen by thieves the night I arrived in Liverpool, and the nuns very kindly took me in and nursed me. I was in a coma for some time, during which I suffered a miscarriage.’

‘That is very sad,’ her companion said, ‘but you will be well looked after, I’m sure, with your sister.’

Harriet looked at her anxiously. ‘I do very much hope you will be safely reunited with your family.’

The woman nodded. ‘I am praying they will give me sanctuary, but if my father refuses to have Michael’s Protestant children …’

She sounded close to tears, and Harriet said quickly, ‘I’m sure you are worrying unduly. From all I learned from the nuns when I was in the convent, the Catholic religion requires their followers to be charitable.’

She paused, remembering Sister Mary Frances’ stern face and bitter disapproval of what she had called Harriet’s ‘fall from God’s grace’. If the father of this unfortunate young woman applied her attitude to his daughter rather than the kind, sympathetic attitude of Sister Brigitte, he might indeed feel he could not accept the offspring of a Protestant father.

The baby stirred in her arms, once again opening his eyes to gaze up at her, and her heart melted. How could any mother be expected to hand over a tiny baby like this one to be brought up in an orphanage? Or, indeed, any of the children who, until now, had been remarkably quiet and well behaved.

As it was nearing the evening Mrs Lawson and her children went down to steerage to make sure they had suitable bunks for them all to sleep in. When she returned, she held out her arms to take the sleeping baby from Harriet. Without warning, the infant’s face screwed up and he started to cry – a long, unhappy wail that tore at Harriet’s heart. Although she knew it was stupid to imagine the baby did not want to be parted from her, the realization did not lessen her anxiety.

His mother drew a long, unhappy sigh. ‘I know I am to blame for this!’ she said in a near whisper. ‘I think the poor child somehow knows that I wished – may God forgive me – that he’d never been born …’ Her voice dropped almost to a whisper. ‘I can never love him; he will always be a reminder of my dear husband’s death.’ She drew in her breath and added: ‘You will think me wicked – and I may well be so – but if my father insists, I will place this baby in an orphanage.’

Harriet remained silent, her heart twisting in unexpected grief at the cruelty of Fate. Here was this unfortunate, unhappy woman prepared to give her baby son away, and she, herself, bereft because she had lost the baby she and her beloved Brook had so much wanted.

The following morning, when Harriet awoke, she looked for the mother and children when she went on deck to one of the two galleys. She needed to heat water to make the porridge Sister Brigitte had given her. There would be enough, she decided, for her to spare some for Mrs Lawson and her children, but there was no sign of them. From the open hatchway to the steerage deck came a foul stench of unwashed bodies and vomit, doubtless due to the lack of toilet facilities down there. She was still trying to bring herself to descend to the steerage deck when the eldest girl appeared with the baby in her arms. They were approaching the Irish coast and one or two of the passengers were watching from the rail for sight of Baily lighthouse at the entrance to Dublin Bay.

The little girl looked anxiously at Harriet. ‘Mama asked me to ask you if you could carry the baby when we disembark,’ she said. ‘Jimmy, our littlest, is too weak to stand having been sick so often and she says she will have to carry him and I am to hold on to Peggy and Jack.’ The words continued to come out in a rush as if they had been carefully memorized. ‘Mama said to tell you she wouldn’t have asked the favour ’cepting she knows you don’t have any luggage so could you hold the baby for her?’

Harriet smiled. ‘Of course I will!’ she said unhesitatingly, holding out her arms for the baby. ‘Doesn’t he have a name?’ she enquired.

The child shook her head. ‘Mama said we would have him christened when we reached our grandparents. She was too busy, you see, after Papa died and she had to sort out all his papers and such.’ Her eyes filled with unshed tears when she added huskily: ‘I loved my papa very much. He used to sing to us, and before we had to sell the piano he played lovely music and we danced and he promised when he was rich that we would have lessons on how to dance for the ballet. He …’

She broke off to wipe the tears now falling down her pale cheeks.

‘I’m so sorry about your papa!’ Harriet said quickly. ‘But I’m sure you will be very happy with your grandparents. Now please assure your mama I will take great care of her baby. I expect I will probably disembark before the steerage passengers, so I will wait for her where she will see me when you all arrive. If I can find a waiting room, I will remain where I am whilst you search for me.’ She smiled at the young girl and told her to look in the pocket of her cloak, which was draped over the edge of the seat on which she had been sitting.

‘You may take one of those pennies,’ she said gently, ‘for being such a help to your poor mama.’

A smile replacing the tears on her face, the little girl departed and Harriet sat down once more on the seat, her arms cradling the baby. He was no longer whimpering, and seeing his wizened little face she rocked him gently and wondered how so young an infant could survive the journey with all its discomforts.