Closing the door on him, she stood with her back to it looking towards the bed and the wide, pale blue gaze of Florence; then she glanced at the small mound near the fireplace.
Moving quickly and without words, she went to a cupboard and took from it a dark cloak with a hood, which she put on; then going to the bureau standing between the two long windows, curtained in heavy green brocade, she pulled open a drawer, took out five sovereigns, placed them in her pocket—the girl might not want her child but nevertheless, being what she was, she wouldn’t give it away. Moving swiftly to the fire now she bent down, pulling a towel from a wooden rack to the side of the fireplace as she did so, and taking the dead child from the white comfort of the rug she unceremoniously put it into the middle of the towel which she tied into a bundle. Gripping the knot, she stood up and looked towards the bed.
Florence was sitting bolt upright, her lips moving but without sound, and Bella, going to her, said, ‘Rest, remain quiet. Should anybody come say nothing, nothing at all. You understand? You can be unconscious, anything, but say nothing. But then, no-one will come.’ She paused here. ‘The only one who would get through tonight would be him, and even he couldn’t cross the river with the bridge under; so don’t worry, I won’t be long.’ She took one step nearer and, in a lower but softer voice, she repeated, ‘I won’t be long. Don’t worry.’ Then she went out, one arm beneath the cloak holding the bundle tightly, the other arm, through the slit in the cloak, moving in time with her determined step.
She went down a corridor, past a long gallery, across a big square landing, dim now, for most of the candles were guttered as they hadn’t been attended to for hours, then down the gently curving staircase to the hall. And there, as Dixon had said, she saw that the water was about to enter. Indeed it had entered and was flowing in small rivulets over the marble floor; in one place it had already soaked a thin Persian rug.
The front door was unbarred but when she pulled it back she was surprised at the weight of it. Her mind registered the fact that she had hardly opened a door for herself except that of the bedroom since she had been in this house. She liked doors being opened for her, and if it lay with her they were going on being opened for her.
She had always had a place in Florence’s life, but their place in society had been penny-pinching until they had met Konrad Knutsson. Knutsson was the type of man she herself had dreamed about as a young girl. Even now, when she was forty years old, such a man could still make her stomach tremble and the sweat come out of her oxters, but such men did not turn to women like herself, even when they were young, they went for women like Florence, flower-like, ineffectual, lovable little playthings. But as she had said just a little earlier, what Konrad Knutsson wanted from his little plaything was a son and if he didn’t have a son he could, she felt, throw off his plaything, he could divorce her. Oh yes, she wouldn’t put it past him. A man such as he did not fear social censure; he might suffer from it, but he did not fear it. His first wife had died in childbirth, his second wife, a self-willed frivolous creature, had not given him even the satisfaction of a miscarriage. He might have forgiven her this and her taking a lover, if she had not run off with that lover. He would have killed her, killed them both, if he had caught them, but the fates had been kind and she and her lover had died of the fever during their stay in London.
He was in his third year of widowhood when they met him in the house of a distant relative. She and Florence had spent a great deal of their time in the houses of relatives, and she knew that much of her abrupt manner and lack of presence was forgiven for the simple reason that she had taken under her wing the orphan child of her cousin. Konrad Knutsson had come into their lives when she was fearing that Florence was forming a more than light attachment for her own full cousin, Gerald Cartwright, a fourth son and a young man with no prospects whatever but a great taste for gambling. It was, in fact, in the home of Gerald Cartwright that she had first spoken to Konrad Knutsson, and from the moment she learned who he was, and what his position was, she saw him as their future means of subsistence.
It was strange, but from the first she knew that he and she understood each other, and he claimed her allegiance—if divided in itself—because he recognised that she, lacking in so many necessary feminine charms, possessed a mind, a mind, he once said, that would have made her into a commercial power had she been a man.
It had been one of the trials of her life to subordinate her quick thinking, for women, especially relatives on whom one depended for those elegant trifles and comforts that her inner self appreciated, did not in their turn appreciate a woman who had the wit of a man; it put them out of countenance.
It was her quick thinking now that had presented her with a plan that would ensure for all time her sojourn in this house, for God alone knew if Florence would ever conceive again, even the act itself petrified her. She liked playing at love with notes, both in writing and on the spinet, and exchanging rhymes like any fourteen-year-old. But that was all she would ever be, a fourteen-year-old, and like a fourteen-year-old she had shown off to her no-good cousin and gone riding with him and had a fall—only a soft fall she had said, more of a slide from the saddle. A soft fall. A slide from the saddle. A slide that had brought the child out of her almost two months before its time! Florence had need to be afraid of her husband and his wrath.
From the top of the steps, her body shivering, her ankles covered in water, she peered into the blackness of the night. There were no lanterns at hand. She must take a candle, she would need light.
She turned swiftly back into the hall and took two unlit candles from their sconces, and a flint and a box of powdered heads from the table, and, thrusting them into her inner pocket she went outside again. With one hand gripping the balustrade she moved down the shallow steps, and when the water swirled up over her knees she gasped and clung on to the round stone ball that headed the pillar at the foot of the steps. After a moment while she stood gasping, she groped blindly along the wall that supported the steps until she came to the house wall, and from there she moved on until she reached the four steps that led up to the terrace flanking the drawing room. As she mounted the steps the water receded to her ankles again and when, feeling her way, she passed the fourth window and cautiously descended once more, the water was again above her knees.
Now she had to cross the open drive to where the curved wall shut off the courtyard. When she reached it she lay against it, face forward, gasping and shivering. The bundle was under her arm now, and she imagined that it moved and almost dropped it. Her body swinging from side to side she reached the horseboxes. They were all open.
The hayloft, he’d said. Which hayloft? There were two, one on this side of the yard, one on the other. She must try this side first. Her hand groping, she came to an opening and a bobbing bale of hay told her where she was. Her teeth were now chattering and she was shivering from head to foot and almost unable to hold the child to her side. When her hand came in contact with a slatted rack inside the doorway she took the towelled bundle from under her cloak and thrust it on to the rack.
She did not know the layout of the barn, she had no memory of the barns, she only knew their situation. If the girl was in the hayloft there must be a ladder.
It was as she stared upwards that she realised she could see the outlines of objects, and one object was the top of a ladder sticking up above a platform. A lantern! There was a lantern up there. She lifted the child from the rack again and made her way towards the ladder and the light, but when she dragged herself heavily from the water and attempted to mount the ladder she found it an almost impossible task. She needed both hands; what was more she had never climbed a ladder in her life. But she paused only for a moment before gathering the knot of the towel into her mouth and gripping it with her strong blunt teeth, and, her head held back like a dog carrying its young, she slowly drew herself up. Having reached the platform, she sat down gasping, then looked toward the light of the lantern in the far corner o
f the loft, underneath the sloping roof, and saw outlined in its dim gleam the inert figure.
Dragging herself to her feet, she moved slowly forward; then she was kneeling by the straw bed looking down, not onto a dead or unconscious face, but into two eyes, one in shadow because the girl was lying on her side, but the other was open and heavy with weariness.
Bella Cartwright and Kirsten exchanged a fixed stare as if neither were surprised by the other’s presence.
Bella spoke first. ‘Your…your name?’ she asked.
‘Kirsten MacGregor.’ The voice was weak, just above a whisper.
‘Your husband?’
Her husband. That meant Hop Fuller. But he hadn’t been her husband, just her master. She said in the same weak whisper, ‘Dead.’
‘Your people? Where do you hail from?’
Kirsten shook her head. She was too tired to say she had no people, that she hailed from nowhere.
Again they were staring at each other and again it was Bella who put the question. ‘Your…your baby, is it alive?’
Kirsten slowly turned her head farther to the side and downwards, and her hand with a heavy motion pushed back the horse blanket that covered her and showed the face of a breathing infant.
Bella stared at the child. The face was round and wrinkled and topped by hair, fair hair, and its lips were moving in and out as if it were dreaming of being suckled.
She now bent farther down until her own face was within six inches of Kirsten’s and, her own voice a mere thin whisper, she said, ‘You don’t want it?’
‘What?’
‘You don’t want it?’
There was a long pause before Kirsten answered, ‘No.’
‘Is he whole?’
‘Whole? Aw yes. Yes, I think so.’
‘Will you sell him?’
‘What?’
The girl, Bella considered, was playing the road game, bargaining.
The question was stronger now. ‘I said, will you sell him? Look.’ She pushed her hand into an inner pocket and drew out the five sovereigns, and they glinted dully in the light of the lantern. Kirsten turned her eyes and stared at them as if fascinated, and when she didn’t speak the voice above her went on, ‘Come on. Come on. You’re from the road, aren’t you, how will you keep a child without a husband?’
The eyes were lifted from the coins now, the head turned and the face was in the full glow of the light, and Bella saw that the right eye had a cast in it, a deep cast. And after a moment of staring she pointed this out, adding, ‘And it will be difficult for you to find work with your affliction.’ She lifted her forefinger and pointed to the eye.
Kirsten gazed into the face hovering above her. The woman was offering to buy the child, five full sovereigns she was offering. It was as if God had suddenly remembered she was alive and was showering gifts on her; first He had killed Hop Fuller, then He had caused her to be lifted from the water, and now when this hated thing had come out of her body and her dazed mind was wondering what was going to become of them both He sends a woman who offers, not only to take the child, but to give her five golden sovereigns! Perhaps buy a horse and a cart and go away from this part of the world altogether, for there must be people somewhere, there must be a family somewhere who would take her for what she was, for what was inside of her, for her kindliness, the goodness of heart that she knew she possessed, and her love of children—with the exception of this thing by her side. There must be one family like that who would love her. But she would never find them burdened as she was with Hop Fuller’s image clinging to her breast, then walking by her side for years and years right down into life.
She saw the face jerk back from her when she said, ‘You can have him.’
Again there was silence. Bella knew she had been right, she was nearly always right about people; the road trash would sell their souls, and anyone else’s, a child’s for instance, for money. She laid the five sovereigns down on the edge of the horse blanket, placing them slowly one after the other. Then rising from her knees, she went back to the edge of the platform and, picking up the bundle that lay there, she returned to Kirsten’s side and placed it on the floor near the straw, saying, ‘This one’s dead. You can say yours died, you understand?’
Kirsten’s face showed bewilderment for a moment. She hadn’t expected this, but still it made no matter. She stared up at the face as it said to her, ‘When the coachman comes back you can say it died. He won’t know the difference, it has fair hair too. Get him to bury it as soon as possible…and listen.’ Now she was kneeling again, her face close to Kirsten’s. ‘You must never speak of this, do you hear, never. You have sold your child, you have been paid for it. It was a legal sale, you understand? If I hear a murmur of it I’ll have you put in the House of Correction. You understand, this is a legal sale?’
Again that word legal. Ma Bradley had given her to Hop Fuller, saying, ‘It’s all signed and sealed, legal like.’ Now this woman, this lady, for she talked like a lady, she said it was all legal. Well, she needn’t worry, she wouldn’t say anything, ever. She was only too thankful, and she would remain thankful to her dying day that she had been relieved of the burden of it so soon. Her luck was changing; in spite of her eye her luck was changing. She said, ‘I understand. I’ll say nothin’, never. An’ I’ll go from here as soon as I can.’
Bella now picked up the sleeping baby that was wrapped in a blanket and examined it carefully. Then putting the child down naked on the cover that was over Kirsten she gripped the blanket in both hands, then tugged sharply until it was rent in two. With one piece she wrapped up the now whimpering baby, the other piece she threw over the dead child, having first removed the towel from it. She now gave Kirsten one last long look that in itself was a warning; then, the wet towel over her shoulder, the baby in her arms, she made her way towards the ladder. And she found no difficulty now in letting herself down assisted by only one hand, for she seemed to be possessed of a new strength, a power. She held the child well above the water as she groped her way towards the door, pushing the bales of hay aside, and she crossed the courtyard and the drive in a surprisingly short time. Yet it wasn’t until she entered the hall that she realised that the water had risen rapidly, for it was not just skimming the floor now but lapping the first step of the stairs.
She dragged her sodden body up the stairs and stood for a moment drawing in long, deep shuddering breaths. Then moving towards a guttering candelabra, she pulled the blanket aside and looked at the child. She almost laughed when she saw that although the bottom of the blanket was sodden wet it was sleeping peacefully.
Running now, the water squelching from her wet shoes and dripping from her skirt, she crossed the landing, went down the broad corridor, burst into the bedroom, and going straight to the bed to where Florence was lying, her eyes closed, she whispered hoarsely, ‘Florence! Florence! Wake up.’
Florence, who had been in the sleep of exhaustion, opened her eyes and looked at the small grimacing face that Bella was holding above her; and she couldn’t believe her ears, she thought she must be dreaming when Bella said, ‘Your baby. A live baby, yours.’
‘Where? Where did you? Where?’
‘Never mind where, this is your baby.’
Wet as she was, she now sank down on the feather bed and, pushing the baby into Florence’s arms, commanded. ‘Feed it! Feed it! Go on, feed it.’
‘What are you saying?’
‘You heard what I said.’ Her voice was both muted, yet clear, the words all separated. ‘This-is-your-baby. You-have-a-live-baby-to-show-him. So, do as I say, feed it: make it yours from this minute on.’
‘But Bella!’
‘Never mind “but Bella”, do as I tell you.’
Florence looked down at the child. It had opened its eyes, which looked colourless, devoid of pupils, and she pushed it from her, saying in deep disgust, ‘I can’t, I can’t.’
Bella was on her feet standing over her, towering over her. ‘Look. You’ve been
saved by a miracle. Don’t you understand? You’ve been saved his wrath.’
‘But whose is it? Where did you get it?’
‘Listen.’ Her voice was soft now. ‘A girl was washed down the river, she’s a road girl. Never mind, never mind that!’ She wagged one hand in front of Florence’s face. ‘Environment is everything, silk purses can be made out of sows’ ears. She didn’t want the child, she’s too young, a child herself still; she sold it to me. She’ll be gone tomorrow, or the next day, and she won’t dare say anything. I judged her type; she’s a fearful, timid creature.’ She just stopped herself from adding, ‘With a squint,’ but continued, ‘It wouldn’t avail her anything if she did. She’d be put away as being demented; I’d see to that. This child is yours from now on.’
‘A road woman’s child!’ Florence now put her hand squarely against the child’s head and pushed it from her, only to be brought upright in the bed by Bella’s hands on her shoulders, and Bella’s voice hissing at her, ‘All right, I’ll take it back; and when he comes I won’t intervene. I’ll let him come straight in…Oh, but yes. And I’ll let him get it out of me how it happened that he lost his son. I’ll let it slip that a month ago, when he was in Sweden, you had your dear cousin here and you sported with him. I’ll tell him it’s a pity but it was the horse riding that brought it on…and the fall.’
‘Bella! You’re cruel. You’re cruel.’
‘I’m cruel only to be kind; it’s for your own sake I’m doing this. If he knew about you and Gerald he would throw you out on your face with less compunction than he turns out one of the drabs who hasn’t suited him. Don’t you realise—’ She was shaking the slight, thin body. ‘Don’t you realise that if you were his first wife you might have got away with a second miscarriage—there was always another time—but you are his third wife and he’s a man who believes in luck, bad luck.’…She paused, letting this sink in, then added coaxingly, ‘Now here; put the child to your breast.’
The Slow Awakening Page 7