The Flight of Swallows (29 page)

‘I come ter ’elp. Kizzie sent me.’ It was one of them trollops from the Dower House but Nellie didn’t care if it was old Mother Carey herself if only someone would give her a hand. Tell her to scrub a floor or scour out an oven and though it was not her job she’d do it willingly but she was lost when it came to babies, especially when she didn’t know what was happening downstairs.

‘Haven’t I brung some baby milk so—’

‘Thank God . . . er . . . I don’t know what tha’ name is . . .’

‘Aisling. I’ve not one o’ me own but I know what ter do.’ Her Irish brogue was so thick Nellie had a job to understand her but she managed to decipher it.

‘Thanks, lass. I’ll be off then. Is there any news o’t master?’

‘To be sure, ’e’s doin’ nicely an’ so’s missis.’

Nellie stopped at the door, her face dropping. ‘Missis?’

‘Wasn’t she bleedin’ something terrible, poor thing, to be sure, but it’s seen to an’—’

But Nellie was out of the room and down the stairs like a bullet from a gun while Aisling looked down into the petulant face of the new baby, then, sitting in the comfortable chair by the fire, cradled her expertly before thrusting the teat into the rosy mouth. For a moment Miss Lucy Jean Armstrong wasn’t sure whether she liked the teat but in her baby wisdom must have decided it was better than nothing, so began to suck contentedly on it.

‘Now aren’t you as lovely as the day?’ Aisling murmured, not knowing that at last she had found her proper place in this strange household.

Brooke Armstrong slowly came back to consciousness drifting a little, his eyes cloudy and then clearing a bit, seeing nothing much at first but then with a great sigh of relief recognised the canopy of the bed he shared with Charlotte. So he wasn’t dead then, or if he was some benign being had kindly placed him in his own room. He was flat on his back and felt so weak he could barely turn his head, wondering what the hell was the matter with him. Why was he trussed up like a mummy from the museum? He did his best to move but then was devoured by a pain so excruciating he screamed, though for some reason no sound emerged from his mouth and surely he would have heard it, wouldn’t he? It splayed up from his penis through his belly and chest and was so agonising even his bloody teeth hurt. His leg was on fire and his foot twitched and again he cried out or thought he did and this time someone heard, for a soft hand cupped his cheek and soft lips rested on his and a gentle voice murmured words of comfort. Something pricked his arm and he thought he heard Doctor Chapman’s voice, then, sighing thankfully, he fell away into a dark and comforting hole where nothing hurt but he would like to have had another chance of those lips, by God!

The next time he was aware of himself, again in the same bed but with candles glowing about the place, he managed to turn his head, just enough to see her and there she was, sitting right next to his bed with her breast uncovered and in her arms lay a baby whose milky mouth was attached to her nipple. The most beautiful sight he had ever seen! His Charlotte . . . and a baby, his baby . . . what was her name? A lovely child, a little girl, and his . . . his . . . with his dearest . . . dearest . . . his love.

‘My love . . .,’ he sighed, the first time he had ever called her that out loud and even now barely above a whisper, and at once she rose to her feet and came to him, her smile dazzling, the baby still in her arms and bent over him and nothing was ever the same for them again.

‘Oh, my love’ she answered, the first time she had ever said those words. She began to weep. ‘My darling . . . Oh, Brooke, I thought I had lost you.’ Then she leaned over and kissed him and her tears fell on his face. The baby grizzled between them, her mouth searching for the friendly nipple but her mother was absorbed with her father and rather impatiently turned and put her down somewhere then, with the greatest delicacy, lay down next to him.

‘I’ve been waiting for you, darling, and for this.’ Her breath was sweet and warm against his neck though she hardly touched him lest she hurt some damaged part of him.

‘How long?’ he asked hoarsely.

‘All my life, I think, but I didn’t know it. I needed to love someone; a man, and it turned out to be you.’ She sounded surprised and her voice was still choked with those amazing tears.

‘My love . . .’

‘Yes, I am and you are mine . . .’

‘Dear God, I’ve waited . . . and now I can’t damn well touch you. But I meant how . . . how long have I been . . .’ He was very weak and his voice was beginning to fade.

She thought he might be drifting off again into that morphine-induced sleep Doctor Chapman had so miraculously achieved. ‘A week; the bull at Jack Emmerson’s . . .’

‘Yes, the bloody bull . . . I remember now . . .’ then he slipped away again. Carefully she eased herself from him and turned to the baby who was ready to let her know that it was her turn now. Moving slowly, mopping her eyes, for she was frail herself, she pulled the bell and almost at once Kizzie was there, bending over the master’s bed then turning to her and the baby, whose full-throated yell was getting under way.

‘’Od thi’ ’osses, Miss Charlotte, an’ give yon baby ter me. Aisling’s got some babby milk ter ’elp out so I’ll tekk ’er up. Now see, I’m ringin’t doctor an’ ’e’ll be over as soon as that gig can get ’im ’ere. Oh, my lass, my lass, what a worry the pair o’ thi’ ’ave bin. See, get thi’ ter bed; no, I know tha’ don’t want ter leave ’im but tha’ own little bed’s right ’ere next to ’is an’ when ’e wakes there yer’ll be.’

Charlotte allowed herself to be tucked up in the truckle bed that had been brought to lie next to the one Brooke occupied, turning on to her right side so that she could see him but she began to doze and within minutes was asleep so that when Doctor Chapman arrived both his patients were out for the count. Kizzie helped him to pull back the covers on the injured man and gently remove the dressings on his wound. He sniffed at it and apparently seemed satisfied.

‘No smell of bad cheese,’ he murmured as though talking to himself.

‘Bad cheese?’

‘Aye, gangrene. Let’s hope there’s no infection, though this is a strong, healthy man and should recover.’

Looking at the absolutely dreadful injury in Brooke Armstrong’s groin, Kizzie found it hard to believe, but if any man could mend her master it was this one.

‘Now Mrs Armstrong. I’m afraid we’ll have to wake her so that I can examine her stitches, which I might remove.’

Charlotte sat up abruptly when Kizzie gently shook her, then, seeing the doctor smiling down at her, turned at once to Brooke.

‘No, Mrs Armstrong, your husband is doing well as far as I can see. It is you I wish to examine.’

‘He is . . . Doctor, make him better, please. I cannot bear it if . . . I love him so, you see, and . . .’

Kizzie put her hand to her face, since if anybody knew how Miss Charlotte had felt about her husband it was she. Miss Charlotte had married him for the sake of others, her brothers and at the insistence of her bullying father. Now, it seemed, he had become dear to her and Kizzie felt the emotion well up in her, for did this mean her young mistress was to find the happiness and fulfilment she had previously lacked?

‘He will need careful nursing.’

‘I will nurse him,’ Charlotte said eagerly.

‘No, my dear, a professional nurse.’

‘That one for the baby was—’

‘I know, but I do believe the young woman – Aisling? – is doing a good job which will give you more time to . . . to cosset your husband. Your love is his best medicine, but now let me look at you and see if those stitches can come out; then, when your husband is himself again you and he will be able to . . . to . . . resume . . .’

Kizzie turned away and was ready to weep as she had seen Miss Charlotte do only an hour or so ago because it seemed there was to be a happy household again and with Jenny as her deputy at the Dower House her mistress and master could be the husband and wife, the friends, the lovers Kizzie had always wanted for them.

In an untidy and none too clean bedroom in the home that had once been Charlotte’s and her five brothers’ a woman bled slowly to death, almost drowning her newborn child before the slovenly midwife in attendance noticed the infant was born.

‘Oh bugger,’ she groaned, heaving herself from the chair before the good fire she herself had built up. She hastily lifted the baby from between the thighs of what she could see was a dead woman, cut the cord and placed the child, still smeared with the detritus of birth, in the cradle that awaited it. Hastily she rang a bell and when, five minutes later, a young maid appeared, she told her to run for the master.

‘’E ain’t in. Gone off on ’is ’orse, Cook ses. There’s only me an’ Tilly. Cook’s restin’ her legs, she ses, an’ can’t get off ’er bum, no, not for nobody. What’s up?’

The midwife’s voice dropped to a whisper. ‘She’s gone.’

‘Gone where, fer God’s sake?’ The maid’s voice was impatient. How could a woman in labour have gone anywhere?

‘Dead, that’s where.’

The maid moved slowly across the room and looked at the poor bedraggled figure on the bed. ‘Jesus wept. An’ babby an’ all?’

‘No, it’s in cradle but—’

‘Girl or boy?’

‘Nay, I never noticed.’

‘Poor little sod. Livin’ in this ’ouse wi’out a mam . . .’

‘Or a pa, most like!’

‘What shall us do?’

‘Send fer’t doctor.’

‘Nay.’ The maid reared back. ‘I ain’t using that there machine.’

‘Well, we’ve got ter do summat. ’Appen send the lad from’t stable.’

‘Aye,’ the maid said eagerly, ‘but what about babby?’

‘’Appen yer’d best ask lad ter fetch master’s lass. ’Er what lives at . . . where is it? Married that feller . . .’

The maid looked relieved, speeding from the room as though being chased by the devil, leaving the midwife shaking her head in total disbelief.

19

‘Mrs Armstrong, you cannot possibly leave your bed, not for a while. You are still not healed completely and I cannot answer for the consequences if—’

‘Doctor Chapman, my stepmother has died giving birth to a child and I must go to . . . to my old home to see if there is anything I can do for my father and the baby. There is no one else to . . . we have no family, only myself and my brothers and I feel—’

‘Mrs Armstrong, I know it is none of my business but your father . . . people are talking; and there is your husband to consider. He needs you here.’

‘I shall leave Nellie to look after him and Aisling can manage Lucy for an hour or so. It’s not very far, Doctor. I shall take Kizzie with me; she is reliable and kind and will make sure I come to no harm.’

‘But it is only just over a week since you were delivered. I cannot allow—’

‘Doctor, please, I must go and I beg you not to tell my husband. He is asleep and need not even know I have gone. Nellie will stay with him and I shall be back before he wakes.’

And so it was that eighteen months after she had left to marry Brooke, Charlotte was driven in the carriage by Todd, the coachman, through the gates of the Mount, her old home, Kizzie beside her, stalwart, sensible and her head filled with instructions from the doctor and dire warnings if she should allow her mistress to become upset. Kizzie was not sure exactly what the doctor meant by that, for Kizzie had no influence over Mr Drummond nor indeed any of the servants at Mr Drummond’s home, but as they drew up in front of the house, she took Miss Charlotte’s cold hand in hers. They were both wrapped up against the raw winter cold, the mistress in a fur-lined cloak and Kizzie in her own warm winter coat, as was Todd in a huge, many collared cloak and it was clear from the expression on the face of the maidservant who opened the door that she was amazed to see them. She had been kitchen-maid when Miss Charlotte lived there but now, it seemed, she had been elevated to parlour-maid, and where, Charlotte wondered, was Nancy who had once opened the door to visitors.

‘Miss Charlotte,’ Dolly stuttered, ‘us wasn’t expectin’ visitors.’ She wiped her hands down her soiled apron and hastily stood to one side as Charlotte stepped into the hall.

‘I can see that. Where is your master, if you please?’ From the corner of her eye she could see Kizzie glancing round the hallway which, when Charlotte and Kizzie lived there, shone with cleanliness but now, though not noticeably dirty, was hazed with a general air of dust, of somewhere that was not given a great deal of attention and Charlotte remembered that her father’s second wife had not been domesticated.

‘’E’s not in, miss . . . ma’am. Gone off on ’is ’orse, if tha’ please, ma’am.’

‘
His horse!
Do you mean to tell me he is out hunting?’

‘Nay, miss, I don’t know.’

‘Where is Mrs Banks?’ who had been housekeeper when Charlotte lived there.

‘In’t kitchen, if tha’ please, ma’am,’ and for good measure she bobbed a curtsey.

‘Send her to me at once. I will wait in the drawing room. Come, Kizzie.’

The drawing room was as neglected as the hallway and there was no fire. The chill was numbing and their breath hung on the air as though they were in the garden! Charlotte reflected that if this was the general standard here in the main hallway and drawing room what might the conditions in the nursery be?

It took Mrs Banks five minutes to arrive and she had clearly been taking her ease in the kitchen, for her dress was somewhat dishevelled. ‘Miss Charlotte . . . Mrs Armstrong, ma’am. We weren’t expecting . . . the master said . . . well, visitors weren’t expected.’

‘Clearly! And visitors is hardly the word I would use. There has been a death in the family and surely . . . surely Mrs Drummond’s family are . . . should be . . . here.’

‘No, ma’am, at least not yet. Sir Clive has been informed but it is believed he is infirm and . . . well . . . her mam died a few months ago so . . .’

Mrs Banks’s expression faltered but it clearly said that this was nothing to do with her. It was up to the master to attend to such things. The body of their mistress had been laid out carefully by some woman the midwife had recommended and was lying in one of the spare bedrooms. The baby was in the nursery and Mrs Banks was awaiting further orders.