The Lemon Tree (28 page)

His wife brought in a glass of hot milk and put it silently on his desk for him. He accepted it with an absent nod; he was very tired. But the woman in front of him was most unusually interesting, so he carefully drew out of her
the story of the massacre, of which he made a special note, of the flight to the United States, the awful journey to western Canada, and the subsequent loss of her mother and her stepfather.

‘You have had a most eventful life, Miss Harding. And now you expect to begin yet another life in England?’

‘All being well, I do.’

‘May I ask whether your lawyer had something stressful to impart to you, that you should faint?’

‘On the contrary, it was all good news. But I am very tired, as you can imagine, with such a long journey and profound change in life; in fact, I feel it may have precipitated the change of life in me.’

‘What made you think the latter?’

‘Well – er – my flowers have not come these past three months.’

‘I see. And you are thirty-eight years old?’

‘Yes.’

‘It is possible.’ He considered her for a moment, and then he said, ‘I would like to listen to your chest and look down your throat, to see what is causing the cough. And, if you are agreeable, I would like to check you generally. Sometimes a cough is only a symptom of a deeper disorder.’

‘Certainly. I am anxious not to be ill.’

‘Well, well. We’ll ask Mrs Biggs to come in.’ He got up slowly and shuffled to a side door to call, ‘Sarah, my dear. Could you spare a minute?’

Mrs Biggs put down her knitting and rose from her favourite basket chair. As she came into the surgery, she looked towards Wallace Helena, and inquired, ‘Yes, dear?’ of her husband.

Dr Biggs explained the examination he wanted to do, and Mrs Biggs turned briskly towards Wallace Helena, to help her remove her bodice. She was surprised to find that
Wallace Helena wore no stays under it; only a chemise and a camisole. Wallace Helena unbuttoned the fronts of both garments and slipped them down to her waist, to reveal a creamy body and firm small breasts with dark nipples. The doctor knocked with his knuckles, first down her back and then her front. When he had finished, he continued to look at her breasts through tired eyes, half-closed. Then, as she lifted her camisole to cover herself a little, he asked, ‘Have you noticed any other symptom of ill-health – a change in your normal weight, for example – during the last few months?’

‘Not really. The change to city life, after being outdoors all the time, has been quite profound. I don’t seem to be quite as energetic as I usually am. I’ve not lost weight; I’ve gained – probably because I’m confined – not out on horseback all day!’

He lifted one of the small lamps from his desk and handed it to his wife to hold, while he depressed Wallace Helena’s tongue and looked down her throat. ‘A little sore,’ he told her, ‘probably from coughing. It’s not putrid in any way.’ He stepped back and put down the spoon. He smiled gently down at his patient, and then said, ‘Miss Harding, I would like to examine you thoroughly all over, if you wouldn’t mind, to satisfy myself that all is well. I would not like you to walk out of here without help if you need it.’

Fear of the unknown shot into Wallace Helena’s eyes. ‘Are you looking for tuberculosis?’

‘I doubt if you have such an infection.’ He laughed quietly, and added. ‘There are, however, so many woes that afflict the human race that I would like to make sure while you are here that everything is all right’

Wallace Helena shrugged. ‘O.K.,’ she agreed reluctantly.

While the doctor went back to his desk and added some
notes to his record of her, Mrs Biggs took her behind a screen where she divested herself of the remainder of her clothes. The doctor’s wife wrapped a sheet round her, and then told her to lie on her back on a narrow, high bed against the wall. ‘Nothing to be afraid of. Doctor is being thorough, that’s all.’

Mrs Biggs hovered in the background, as the old physician went slowly and carefully down her body, uncovering only that part of her which he was immediately examining. He prodded round her stomach, turned her over and ran his fingers down her straight backbone, noting the firmness of her muscles. Then he turned her on her back again, and said, ‘Spread your legs, please. This will feel a little odd to you, but it won’t hurt.’ He checked that she was not a virgin; then she felt his fingers probing carefully within. She lay perfectly still, gripped with fear. That was where cancers sometimes grew; she had heard about them. He said gravely, ‘You may dress now,’ and went to a washstand on the other side of the room, to wash his hands.

Mrs Biggs helped her off the bed and handed her garments to her, one by one. When she was dressed, she escorted her back to the chair in front of her husband’s desk. Then, smiling sweetly, she slipped out of the room.

Dr Biggs did not look at her. He sat chewing his bone pen while he read his notes.

Then he looked up, and sighed, sharp eyes again peering at her over his glasses. Fiddling with his pen, he said, ‘The cough is caused by a trickle of catarrh down your throat, made worse by the cold you have had. Such catarrh is common here and difficult to eradicate. I see from the stains on your fingers and teeth that you smoke, and this is making the catarrh worse. My first advice is to stop smoking. And I’ll give you something to help to clear the catarrh.’

Wallace Helena smiled wryly. ‘I’m not sure that I
can
stop smoking.’

‘It’s difficult, I know.’ He paused, and then added, as if the words were being dragged out of him, ‘I recommend that you stop for another reason.’

A fresh twinge of fear went through Wallace Helena. ‘Why?’ she almost snapped.

‘Well, you must be aware that you are
enceinte
; it’s not good for the child.’

‘I’m what?’

‘With child.’ The doctor was obviously embarrassed, but he went on firmly, ‘You have already mentioned that you’ve observed a cessation of your menses – discharges. During the last three or four months?’

Wallace Helena looked at him, speechless, as the colour ebbed from her face. Finally, she exclaimed, ‘But I’m thirty-eight! I’m too old! It’s surely the change of life?’ She nodded her head unbelievingly. ‘I’ve never been pregnant before – it’s impossible.’

‘I think you know that it is quite possible, Miss Harding.’ The old man’s voice seemed suddenly frigid.

Wallace Helena breathed slowly and shallowly, as the inference sank in. It seemed to her that all her hopes and dreams lay shattered round her feet. A spinster soap mistress, pregnant, facing her employees? Proud, scornful Wallace Harding riding down the main street of Edmonton, round with child? And Joe? What would he think, after all these years of never fathering a child? She shuddered to imagine it.

The doctor was saying, ‘I’m quite sure, Miss Harding; I suspected it when you walked in.’

Wallace Helena licked her lips and stared at him dumbly, while with some bitterness, he added, ‘Women sometimes consult a poor slum doctor, who does not know them, in the hope that he can abort a child for them.
Otherwise, I do not often see middle-class women in my waiting-room. So I watched your walk – and looked at your skin – your complexion, as you came in.’

Wallace Helena was amazed. ’is it that obvious?’

‘Probably not – if you do not expect to observe it People see what they expect to see.’

‘I had no idea. I merely came about the cough and the fainting spell I had. With regard to – to my flowers, I simply thought I was getting old.’

‘Can you expect that the father will marry you, Miss Harding?’

‘He’s in Canada – way out west. It would take months to arrange.’

‘And you mentioned that you want to stay here to look after the Lady Lavender Soap Works?’

‘Yes.’

‘I see.’ He sat considering the implications of all she had told him, and finally said, ‘There’s a nursing home in North Wales, an expensive but very discreet one – they could arrange matters for you, if you don’t want to bear the child. It’s a risky procedure – and time is running out for you; you should make up your mind immediately.’

Wallace Helena made an enormous effort to get a grip on herself again. She bit her white lips and clenched her hands in her lap. Joe’s child. And Joe himself?

No words came to her.

In the distance the marble clock in the waiting-room chimed eleven. It reminded Dr Biggs that he had had a very long day and he might well be called out to a patient during the night. He got slowly up from his chair, and came round the desk to assist the frightened woman who had consulted him.

Realizing that she had kept him very late, Wallace Helena rose and thanked him stiffly. She promised to pick up tomorrow the cough medicine which he would make up for her.

He realized that his diagnosis had shocked her to the core, and his manner towards her softened; it was clear that she had not suspected that a pregnancy was the basis of her fatigue, and, in the back of his mind, he wondered why she had discounted this obvious result of coitus. At her age, surely she knew where babies came from!

She said, ‘I will think about what you have told me, and I will come to see you again, if necessary.’

‘Well, you’re in good health,’ he assured her. ‘But remember that at your age you should have a doctor, preferably a specialist, in attendance when the child is born.’

Wallace Helena laughed shakily. ‘If I go home to have it, there’s only one doctor in the whole of the Territories and I doubt if he would want to come specially to Edmonton for the sake of a normal pregnancy.’

They were walking towards the door, and Dr Biggs suggested, ‘Have the child here, and then go home.’

‘I have yet to decide to have it,’ she reminded him, her eyes large and sad.

He looked at her with pity, and said kindly, ‘Well, come and see me again, if you need any further advice.’

Her pride in the dust, she walked slowly through the dark streets, empty except for a couple of cats growling at each other. She felt numb, unable to think clearly.

Though it was so late, the lights of the Fitzpatrick house still gleamed softly through the white curtains. She saw a woman’s shadow flit across the window of the small upstairs hall. It jolted her. She had forgotten about Elsie’s struggle to bring her baby into the world.

The panting cries of a mother giving birth and the mumble of other women’s voices hit her ears the moment she opened the door. From the kitchen came the rumble of men’s voices, and she presumed that John had a friend sitting with him to sustain him through the birth. He heard her entry and came out to meet her. Behind him she caught a glimpse of one of the older fishermen who also lived in The Cockle Hole.

Whether it was because he had company or had been drinking fender ale, John looked fairly cheerful as he greeted her.

‘Elsie said as you was to have a fresh cup o’ tea when you come in. Would you like one, Miss? It’d be no trouble – I’m up for the night, anyways.’

She stared at him, as if she had not taken in what he had said. She looked so desolate that he wondered if Ould Biggs had indeed found her tubercular – Elsie had told him where she had gone. She swallowed and responded with an effort, ‘I would, John. I’d be most grateful.’ She hesitated, and then inquired, ‘Do you happen to have any rum? If you do, could I buy a thimbleful from you?’

‘I don’t, Miss. But I bet Ben here has. He can usually find a bit of brandy or rum for any as wants it.’

Even in her misery, Wallace Helena felt a quirk of humour, as she undertook to buy a small bottle of top-quality Jamaica rum from a smuggler. But she needed something to ease her sense of helpless shock. A few minutes of complete abandon had cost her her future. Even if she went home, would Joe believe the child to be his? She had not lain with anyone else, so it was his, conceived during a mad night in a noisy hotel in Calgary, while they waited for the train to take her to Montreal. For the first time, she had ignored the careful count she had always kept of the natural cycle of her menstruation. Like her mother, she had had no desire to bring children into her hard, relentless world. And no amount of importuning had made her break that rigid rule; not until she had been faced with parting from Joe for the first time since she was twelve, she thought. And she sensed again his anxiety at the long journey she was undertaking. Even then he had been afraid that she would not return, she remembered.

And she had promised that she would come back, that all she wanted to do in England was to see that she was not being cheated over the sale of the soap works.

Because of the slowness in obtaining Probate, she had remained in England much longer than she had intended, long enough to realize the comfort that life in Liverpool offered, long enough to make her want Joe to join her there. What a stupid hope! Every letter that Joe wrote asked her when she was coming back; and his jealousy, when she mentioned the men she had met, was clear in every word. He had ignored the letter in which she had first slyly mentioned the possibility of his coming to England; neither had she received a reply to her direct question in a later letter.

And now she feared she was caught in a trap. Would Joe believe the child was his?

As John pushed the door of her sitting-room with his foot, bringing in a tea tray which included a modest-sized bottle of rum, a gasping scream rent the air. John stopped, then hastened to put down the tray. He listened intently. Perhaps the child had come. It had not. Loud moans followed, and the twittering voices of women comforting.

‘Who’s up there?’ asked Wallace Helena, pulling a chair to the table to sit down and pour the tea.

‘Mrs Murphy, the midwife, and Mrs Barnes is helpin’ her.’ He gave a little laugh. ‘Mrs Murphy says as all’s well and not to worry – but you can’t help being wishful that she didn’t have to go through this so that we can have a family.’

John looked quite shaken, so Wallace Helena assured him that, once she had the baby, she would forget about the pain. It was a trite remark, but it seemed to comfort him.

‘Yes, Miss. Thank you, Miss.’ He withdrew, his expression still apprehensive. The baby could be safely born; yet, all too often, the mother could die of childbed fever within a week. He hoped he had been right in putting his faith in Mrs Murphy, the midwife.

Wallace Helena splashed rum into her tea and thought dejectedly that she would have to go through the same ordeal as Elsie, if she kept the child. Alternatively, an abortion often led to a painful death for the woman.

But, above all, she dreaded the calumny she would face, whether in Liverpool or in Edmonton, if she carried the child to fruition and Joe refused to marry her. And the child itself would suffer, like Benji had suffered.

Better to abort it, she decided grimly, as she poured another cup of tea and added rum to it.