‘I have no idea,’ Oliver said dourly. ‘Would you?’
‘Shall we say…’ Clem trained his eyes on Kerensa’s back ‘…at the least I was sorely tempted.’
* * *
A week later Alice decided it was time for her to go home. She had woken up nearly three hours later after her ordeal in the sea to find herself in a big cosy bed in a room at Pengarron Manor.
Beatrice declared there was no harm caused to the baby and the only effect from her icy minutes in the water was a sniffly cold that lasted for forty-eight hours.
Clem was banned by mutual agreement of his father and Oliver from visiting Alice for the length of her stay. Morley was relieved at the prospect of a temporary parting for the young couple, hoping there would be an improvement in their shaky marriage on Alice’s return to the farm. Oliver knew if Clem called at the Manor, it would be not Alice he was hoping to see.
She was sitting up in bed when Polly knocked and brought in her breakfast.
‘I’ve got a feast for you this morning, Mrs Trenchard,’ Polly said cheerfully. ‘Her ladyship wants you well set up against the cold for your journey home. Word’s been sent for your husband to collect you this afternoon.’
‘I feel so much better since my stay here, the rest has done me the world of good. I can’t thank her ladyship enough for all she’s done for me,’ Alice said, surveying the delicacies on the breakfast tray. ‘She’s fussed over me all week. Nothing’s been too much trouble for her.’
‘You gave her quite a fright falling off the rocks like that, and now it’s up to you to take good care of yourself,’ Polly counselled. ‘It will mean a lot to her ladyship to see you with a happy and healthy baby.’
‘Don’t worry, Polly,’ Alice said, as she began her breakfast, ‘I won’t let her down. I’ll never do such a stupid thing again. What’s the weather like today?’
Polly peered out of the window at the grey misty sky. ‘Should clear up and be crisp and dry most of the day,’ she said, giving a small wave to someone below.
‘That Nat you’re waving to?’ asked Alice.
‘Yes, he’s been busy of late and I haven’t seen much of him.’
‘When are you getting married, Polly? If you don’t mind me asking.’
‘A week before Christmas, Mrs Trenchard. The same day as the big fisherman known as the Barvah Giant.’
‘That’ll be Matthew King and Lowenna Angove, Jake’s niece,’ Alice informed the Manor’s housekeeper.
‘Oh, is that who they are? Nathan goes with him on all his wrestling matches, you know, not that I approve of that sort of thing. It was Nathan’s and this Matthew King’s idea to have our weddings on the same day.’
Turning back from the window Polly saw that Alice was toying with her food. ‘Oh, come on, Mrs Trenchard, eat up. You need to build up all the strength you can.’
There was an odd look on Alice’s face. She said. ‘Polly, would you take this tray away and tell her ladyship I would like to see her as soon as possible?’
‘Are you all right, Mrs Trenchard?’ Polly frowned, coming to stand at the foot of the bed.
‘I’m perfectly well. Just get her for me, please.’
Kerensa’s light step was heard almost at once running down the first-floor corridor. She rushed into the room.
‘Alice, is something wrong?’
‘Close the door, Kerensa, and come over here.’ Alice spoke in a whisper. ‘I don’t want anyone to overhear.’
Kerensa did as she was asked. ‘What is it?’ she whispered too, alarm on her small face. ‘The baby?’
‘No,’ said Alice, squirming about in the bed. ‘I didn’t want to tell Polly this. I couldn’t help it, it just happened, but I’ve… wet the bed. I don’t know how, I only used the chamber pot a few minutes before she brought my breakfast in. I’m awful sorry, Kerensa.’
Relief was sketched all over Kerensa’s face and she laughed at Alice’s embarrassment.
‘Shush,’ Alice hissed, ‘I don’t want anyone else to know about it. Help me get the linen out of the bed, will you? I’ll scrub the mattress and it can air out before the bed’s used again.’
‘No need for you to do anything, Alice. I’ll get you a clean nightshift and you can finish your breakfast in my sitting room. I’ve got a good blaze going down there, you’ll be nice and warm.’
‘There’s a nightshift: on that chair there,’ Alice said, pointing across the room to the pile of clean laundry beside a growing number of gifts of baby clothes that the females of the Manor had been industriously employed in making during her week’s stay.
Picking up the garment Kerensa laid it on the bed, pulling back the covers to help Alice out and on to her feet. She gasped loudly. ‘Alice, there’s blood in the bed!’
Looking down at the red-stained wetness spreading out across the bottom sheet, Alice instinctively clutched her bulging stomach. ‘Oh, dear Lord!’ she cried out. ‘My baby!’
Tossing back the covers Kerensa said more calmly than she felt, ‘Stay there, Alice, I’ll get Beatrice at once. Don’t worry now, she’ll know what’s happened and what to do.’
‘I hope you’re right, Kerensa. Don’t be long, will you?’
Alone, she prayed silently. If she lost the baby now there would be little chance left of her hopes of building something worthwhile out of her marriage to Clem. Please Lord, please. Let my baby be all right. I promise I’ll be a better wife to Clem. I won’t sulk any more. I won’t keep pestering him with questions or try to make him feel guilty when he goes off to be alone. Please Lord, please… I won’t even mind that he’ll always love Kerensa.
Beatrice flapped into the bedroom seemingly moments later, breathless from the pace at which Kerensa had pushed her up the stairs. Folding back the bedcovers, Kerensa stood wringing her hands as they waited for the old woman’s deliberations.
‘Yourn lucky to find me ’ere, maid,’ she rasped, wiping her nose on the back of her hand. ‘Jus’ off to Pain’ed Bessie’s I wus. Now lemme see what’s up with ’ee.’ She peered shortsightedly at the wet bedsheet and Alice’s nightshift for only a second. ‘Thought as much,’ she said, giving the anxious mother-to-be her lopsided grin.
‘What’s wrong with me?’ asked Alice meekly.
‘Nothin’. Tes nothin’ but yer show, maid.’
‘What does that mean?’ Kerensa said, gripping Alice’s shaking hand in both of hers.
‘It means, m’dear, ’er babe’s comin’. Tole ’ee it would be an early ’n’ didn’t I?’
Chapter 27
‘My baby can’t be coming!’ Alice shrieked. ‘I’ve had no pain, just a bit of wind.’
Beatrice snorted and prodded all over Alice’s extended abdomen, looked into her eyes, and pulled open her mouth to examine her tongue. The girl gagged on the old woman’s vile body odours and waved a hand in front of her nose.
‘S’on the way, right ’nough. Not every woman gets a lot of pain. We’re all different. Course, could get a mite painful fer ’ee later on at the end, or even not till tes all over. Some do git the pains after the birth.’
‘What do we do now, Beatrice?’ asked Kerensa.
‘Change they bedclothes,’ she said, beginning to shuffle out of the room.
The two girls exchanged worried glances.
‘Surely that’s not all?’ Kerensa called sharply. ‘Come back in here.’
‘What shall I do?’ Alice was praying Beatrice really did know all about childbirth.
‘Git up ’n’ walk around,’ the old woman said at the door. ‘It’ll ’elp ’ee fer later on. Better ’n’ jus’ lyin’ there.’
‘How long do you think it’ll be before the baby’s born?’ Alice asked nervously.
‘’ours yet, I d’reckon. There’s nothin’ fer ’ee to worry ’bout. Enjoy yer las’ bit of rest, tes sleepless nights a’ead fer ’ee, maid.’
‘Don’t you dare leave the house,’ Kerensa ordered Beatrice.
‘Should we send for Clem?’ Alic
e wanted to know.
‘What fer? ’E’s done ’is part innit, an’ a man’s no blamed use at a birthin’.’
Clem arrived for Alice soon after lunch. The labour was not yet far advanced and Beatrice ordered him to be packed off home until late at night, and as Alice was dozing comfortably in the warm bedroom, she was not to be disturbed. He was not asked to leave the Manor immediately, however, but to step into Kerensa’s sitting room.
The neat and tidy room was empty, but looking around his surroundings he nodded, satisfied. It bore her mark and fragrance. Scrubbed shining clean in his Sunday best clothes, his hair tied back with a new strip of silk, he smiled to dazzle as Kerensa entered the room and quietly closed the door. Joining him at his station by the window, she kept her face serious.
‘Hello, Clem, it was good of you to stay to see me.’
‘You make it sound as though I’ve answered a summons. Your husband wouldn’t approve of me being here so he’s obviously out somewhere, kicking up his heels no doubt.’
Clem glanced out of the window. It was not particularly cold outside, but Kerensa’s attitude was.
‘Your garden is—’
Kerensa interrupted him. ‘I didn’t ask you here to talk about the garden, Clem.’
‘If you’re cross with me for not visiting Alice all week, I wasn’t allowed to, remember?’
‘Were you pleased about that, Clem?’
‘Pleased?’ He looked genuinely perplexed.
Kerensa’s resolve to chastise him over his treatment of Alice wavered. She found herself in a role that didn’t come easily to her and felt a measure of the responsibility for the change in Clem’s character must lay on her own shoulders. But the memory of Alice’s distress and feeling of hopelessness in the cove the week before made her continue.
‘At not having to see Alice,’ she said coolly, lifting her chin.
Clem knew what that last subtle movement meant. He moved closer to look directly down into her eyes. ‘I don’t know what you’re getting at, Kerensa, but I suppose it hasn’t been a bad thing for us to have a breathing space from each other.’
‘Alice was very upset before she fell off those rocks. It has crossed my mind more than once that she might have jumped, rather than fallen.’
‘And why should she do that?’ he asked, his voice dropping to match her own tone.
‘Perhaps because of you. Because of the way things have been between you. Alice is a girl who needs love, Clem. She needs to have her affection returned, to feel wanted and needed. She can’t cope with your moods, with the way you cut yourself off from her. I asked you once not to hurt Alice—’
‘Don’t you play Lady of the Manor with me,’ he angrily cut in. ‘I’m not one of Pengarron’s servants.’
‘Clem, I only want to help you both, you and Alice,’ Kerensa pleaded for his understanding.
‘Help!’ he snapped, then lowering his voice and looking at her full red mouth rather than her eyes, said, ‘You’re forgetting who you are, Kerensa Trelynne… and you’ve certainly forgotten who I am.’
Striding to the door, he threw it wide open. ‘Tell my dear wife I’ll be back to see her later tonight,’ he said acidly. ‘Tell her also to make the most of her stay – it will be her last.’
‘Clem,’ Kerensa rushed over to him, ‘you are being unfair.’
‘Am I?’ He raised his eyes ceilingwards. ‘I didn’t want my child born under this roof, that is certain.’
When he had gone she shut the door of her sitting room and sat down, closing her eyes. How could Clem be so inconsiderate, so difficult? She pictured Alice lying in the big bed upstairs, about to become a mother, with all her hopes for the future. She had not spoken of Clem all week, but Kerensa knew she had been planning how to mend the broken bridges of her marriage. Kerensa put her face into her hands. What had she just done? She had broken one of her own golden rules and meddled between a man and his wife. What now?
* * *
Alice’s contractions became painful, twenty minutes apart, as darkness fell. The sense of excitement that had been growing steadily in the Manor as the day progressed, reached a point that clashed with Beatrice’s level of tolerance. She insisted Ruth and Esther go to their Bible meeting.
‘What use is a coupla ole maids, anyway?’ she grumbled to Kerensa. ‘They went never find themselves in childbed. Went never know a man, come to that,’ she snorted maliciously, digging the girl in the ribs with a cruel elbow.
The contractions were down to ten minutes apart when the King sisters returned. Beatrice wouldn’t allow them into the bedroom so they retired to the kitchen to await the call for hot water.
Alice was nervous and begged Kerensa not to leave her alone with the old crone. She was convinced Beatrice was about to do something unthinkable to her body and her baby, and feverishly wished that she was back in the lean-to at Trecath-en, with Florrie Trenchard and Gran Donald in attendance. Kerensa asked Polly to search for books in the library with pictures in and bring them up to the bedroom to help pass the time. Polly could only find two.
One was the book of pictures Oliver had painted as a child; the other, illustrated verses of Heaven and Hell from the Bible.
Alice looked at the pages, Kerensa sitting on the bed beside her, with only a flickering interest for a short period of time before pushing them away and lying back on the pillows. She concentrated on her breathing according to Beatrice’s instructions, unaware that Kerensa, holding her hand and murmuring encouraging phrases, was more nervous than she was herself.
Another hour slipped by, and as Alice felt the need to push her child into the world, Polly put her head round the door to inform them Clem had returned and was asking for news.
‘Tell un to ’old on a bit longer,’ Beatrice rasped across the room, ‘us went be long now, the Good Lord willin’. Then git yerself back ’ere, us may ’ave need of ’ee.’
‘Offer Mr Trenchard food and drink in the parlour, Polly,’ Kerensa said, before the housekeeper shut the door.
Alice cried out as pain gripped her heaving body. Beatrice tied two strips of cloth to the bedhead, and forcing the girl’s hands away from their tightening grip on Kerensa’s, guided them to clutch the cloth.
‘’ang on to they, maid, or ’ee’ll crush the missus,’ she told the girl. ‘You come ’ere,’ she ordered Kerensa next. ‘You the faintin’ sort?’
‘No, I don’t think so,’ she replied.
‘Good, roll up they sleeves an’ les git to work.’
With the bedcovers removed and old draw-sheets under her exposed lower half, Alice pushed down hard at the beginning of the next contraction.
Beatrice slapped her bare buttocks. ‘Push from ’ere, maid, not yer throat, or we’ll be ’ere all the blessed night.’
Dabbing a wet cloth to wipe perspiration from Alice’s face and body, Kerensa urged her to push as Beatrice instructed. Minutes ticked by as Alice screwed up her face, grunting in the effort to bring to an end the most strenuous task of her young life. Polly had returned, and after attending the fire to keep the room warm, made up the cradle brought down from the nursery in readiness for its newest occupant.
‘How… much… longer?’ Alice gasped.
‘Yourn almost there,’ Beatrice told her.
‘’ere, missus,’ she said to Kerensa, ‘kneel yerself up on the bed and take the maid’s arm. Git yerself on the other side,’ she shouted to Polly, who was standing away at a discreet distance. ‘’old ’er up in a nigh sittin’ position,’ Beatrice ordered them. She then took Alice’s hands and placed them under her knees. ‘I can see the ’ead, maid. Pull on yer legs, push like Hell on yer next pain, and altogether we’ll ’ave un out.’
Alice pushed, grunted and groaned for twenty minutes. Kerensa and Polly had to work hard, with their arms linked together behind her back and under her armpits, to hold her upright and stop her throwing herself off the bed.
‘Is… it… nearly over?’ Alice whimpered, her head falling back
on Kerensa’s shoulder.
‘The next push, if it’s a good un.’
Beatrice was right. Three and a half minutes later, Clem Trenchard’s first child lustily bawled its way out of its mother’s body, and into Beatrice’s waiting capable hands. Alice had thrown back her head with the last tremendous effort and together Kerensa and Polly lowered her back on the pillows.
Rapidly cleaning round the baby’s nose and mouth, Beatrice wrapped the bawling infant in a piece of linen, held it up to Alice, and triumphantly croaked, ‘’ere ’ee are, Mother, ’old out yer arms. No need to smack its little arse.’
Alice blinked hard as Kerensa wiped perspiration away from her tired face.
‘Look, Alice,’ she said, her voice choked with emotion. ‘You’ve got a little boy.’
Alice took her son into her arms and cuddled him against her breast. She touched the fine wet hair on the top of his tiny round head. ‘Oh, Kerensa, did you ever see such fair hair on a baby?’ she breathed in awe.
‘He’s just like his father,’ said Polly, her face full of wonder, the same as the others.
Gently, very gently, Kerensa stroked a fingertip over the baby’s cheek. ‘He is like Clem,’ she whispered.
‘Gis on with ’ee all,’ Beatrice scoffed. ‘Tes too soon for the babe to look like anything but a babe yet. He’s a mite small, but a thriver, I d’reckon.’
Kerensa got slowly and very carefully off the bed, not taking her eyes away from Alice’s son for a moment. She walked to the door.
‘An’ where do ’ee think yourn off to?’ Beatrice demanded of her.
‘To tell Clem he has a son.’
‘You git yerself back, me ’an’some. We got more work to do ’ere yet.’
* * *
It was three-quarters of a hour before Kerensa joined Clem in the parlour. He was lounging back in an armchair by the fireplace, his long legs stretched out with one foot on the fender of the hearth. He was staring into the flames, his elbow on the chair’s plump arm, the backs of his fingers held to his mouth. He didn’t know she was there, and all the anger and frustration she’d felt at his behaviour melted like snow held up to a flame. His coat lay at the side of the chair, his shirt was pulled open at the neck and she could sense how things would have been if she could walk in on him relaxing like this every night after a hard day’s work. He looked young and vulnerable and handsome in the flickering firelight that painted his hair a deeper gold.
Pengarron Land Page 46