The Promise

by Michelle Vernal

  It was her mother who wondered out loud as to Constance’s baby being handed to a stranger after it was born and wouldn’t it be lovely if the wee one could somehow stay in the family? Ginny’s intake of breath was sharp as the hope Constance had seen flickering suddenly flared. ‘I’d love the baby as my own,’ she whispered, squeezing Constance’s hand so tightly that Constance would have cried out had she not been numb. ‘Perhaps we could say my cousin was pregnant, but she died in childbirth and there was no one else but me to care for the baby?’

  The air itself seemed to sigh with Ginny’s sentiment. It was then that Constance understood that this had been the plan all along. They were all acting out their parts in an elaborate charade. She looked to each parent and saw their faces unknot. She read their expressions. They’d have their grandchild after all, and young Ginny would get to be the mother she deserved to be. It was a white lie they would all tell for the greater good. As for Constance, well, she’d return home, and it would be as it was before. All their lives would carry on without the blight of scandal marring the future because nobody except the five people seated at the table need ever know of the circumstances that had befallen Constance.

  A solution amenable to all had been found, and the reverend coughed before glancing at his watch. Mrs Chubb would have his sherry poured by the time he got home to the vicarage. Mother nudged Constance with her foot under the table.

  ‘Thank you, Reverend,’ she said quietly.

  His smile was kindly as he assured her that God still loved her and that she was not the first to slip but that she should learn from the error of her ways.

  Constance nodded then dropped her gaze to the lacy cloth once more as her parents left the room with him, their hushed voices floating up the stairs as they finalised the arrangement. They were good people, mum and dad but their lifeblood was the shop, and its business had already suffered from the effects of the war. The shame of an unwed pregnant daughter would destroy their standing in the community. They’d had so much to cope with already. This, she knew was the right thing to do. There was a part of her too that was relieved to have matters taken out of her hands. She felt Ginny’s questioning gaze seeking reassurance.

  ‘It’s for the best Ginny, it’s the right thing to do,’ she said verbalising her thoughts, ‘and you’ll be a wonderful mother. There’s nobody else I’d rather—’ her voice threatened to crack, ‘Thank you,’ she managed to whisper before her throat closed over with unshed tears.

  Ginny let out a sob and pushed her chair back. She leaned over and pulled Constance to her, kissing the top of her head. Constance couldn’t stop the tears from spilling over, and as they traced their way down her cheeks, she felt a part of herself close down.

  ͠

  Constance was dragging her heels, her brown suitcase banging against her thigh as Ginny urged her on. They were making their way up the long driveway to Saint Augustine House. ‘We’re expected at eleven, Constance so do come on we don’t want to be late. That would get things off to a bad start.’

  The Mother and Baby Home was set well back from the road and hidden away from prying eyes as the driveway curved around it loomed in front of them. It was a sprawling manor house shrouded by trees with a curtain of ivy clinging to the bricks around the front entrance. Its abundance of chimney stacks gave a clue as to the many rooms tucked away inside. It would have been rather grand in its day, but now it looked as though it were sagging under the weight of time. Tiles were missing from the roof, and the paint on the gables had all but flaked off. Its myriad of windows made Constance feel as though they were being watched and she was assailed with an urge to turn on her heel and run. But where would she go? She couldn’t go home not until after the baby was born. Her hand rested protectively against her belly as she reluctantly followed Ginny’s lead up the stairs to the imposing entrance.

  The front door swung open before Ginny had a chance to rap the lion’s head knocker. A woman of indeterminable age whose austerity was not softened by her drab grey matron’s uniform stood before them and taking in her pinched features, Constance felt her knees beginning to tremble.

  ‘Constance Downer?’ she asked in an accent Constance couldn’t pinpoint other than it was northern. She gave Constance and Ginny a tight-lipped smile, which did nothing to soften her severity, as Constance managed a nod. ‘I’m Matron Holt; I’ve been expecting you. Reverend Hayles’ church has been a generous benefactor of ours in the past which was why I’ve made room for you. We have twelve girls here at any given time, but we found an extra bed when he wrote and informed me of the situation you find yourself in. And you must be Mrs Virginia Downer?’ She looked down her long nose at Ginny.

  ‘Yes, good morning Matron Holt. Thank you for being here to greet us. It’s very good of you.’ Ginny was bright and breezy, determined not to be intimidated least Constance pick up on it.

  ‘Very good. Right well, don’t just stand on the doorstep girls, come in. We have some paperwork to do, and then I shall give you a tour of Saint Augustine’s.’

  The door shut behind them and Constance felt trapped as she stood in the gloom of the foyer. Her sense of foreboding intensified as she followed matron’s clicking shoes. Matron Holt bypassed the sweeping staircase with a nod in its direction. ‘The front staircase is for our nursing staff and visitors only. There is a back entrance and staircase the girls use. I shall show you where it is once the necessary forms have been filled in.’ She ushered them into her office. ‘Have a seat please.’

  Ginny and Constance quickly sat down in the empty seats in front of matron’s desk while she took herself around to the other side and settled herself before opening her desk drawer. She produced a pair of glasses, which she slid on to the end of her nose before opening the file that sat on the top of a pile of identical ones stacked on the desk. She took a sheet of paper from it and handed it and a pen to Constance. ‘I need you to sign this please. And you too, Mrs Downer, in your capacity as Constance’s guardian while she is staying with us here at Saint Augustine’s.’

  Constance wasn’t sure what it was she was signing, but she obliged by putting her signature to the form. She had no wish to experience the sharp end of matron’s tongue by questioning her as to what it was for. Ginny took the time to read over the document before doing the same and sliding it back across the table. Matron Holt gave it a cursory glance. ‘That’s all in order,’ she said, placing the form back in the file and closing it. ‘If you’d like to follow me please.’ She got to her feet and smoothed the creases in her skirt before marching forth.

  Constance’s eyes were wide as she looked around at what would be her home for the next four months as matron led them further down the hallway to where what once would have been the servants’ entrance and staircase were located. There was a sense of sadness about the house, she decided, and the weary furnishings and peeling wallpaper did not help it.

  ‘We’re very fortunate to have a maternity wing here at Saint Augustine’s for when baby arrives, Constance. It’s on the Southside, for the sunshine.’

  Constance wasn’t sure if a reply was expected from her or not, but before she could decide whether she should voice her agreement that yes they were fortunate when she felt anything but, matron spoke again.

  ‘We’re all about routines here at St Augustine’s; we find it makes the time pass quickly for our girls if they know what is expected of them each day. The girls rise at seven o’clock and then we have prayers at seven-fifteen followed by breakfast, after which the girls commence their daily chores. There’s no substitute for hard work, don’t you agree, Mrs Downer?’

  ‘Quite right, Matron Holt,’ Ginny replied, and Constance glimpsed the matron’s mean little smile once more as she came to a halt outside a room. The door was shut, but the sounds of laughter drifted under the gap beneath it. That was heartening, Constance thought, her eyes meeting Ginny’s reassuring gaze as she wondered who was on the other side of the door.

  ‘This is the r
ecreation room. The girls are having their morning break, so it’s a good time to introduce you to them, Constance.’ She opened the door into a high ceilinged room flooded with light which was a relief after the gloom of the stairwell and hallway. The room was scantily furnished with a trestle table in the middle of it. Girls who weren’t much older than Constance were seated around it. A few of them were engaged in a game of cards while others were just sitting talking, cigarettes dangling from their fingers. A haze of smoke was trapped in the rays of sunlight streaming in through the windows; it had settled over the top of their heads. The chatter died as Matron Holt appeared. One of the girls reminded Constance of Myrtle from the factory, and she looked away as she met her gaze with a hardened, and defiant stare. She would not fit in here, Constance thought. These girls might be of a similar age to her, but she could tell they had a toughness about them that she lacked.

  ‘Girls, this is Constance. She’s from Wight.’

  One or two of the girls smiled over, but most just eyed her warily.

  ‘Five minutes and back to your posts please. The laundry won’t wash itself, and the sandwiches won’t get cut on their own.’ She turned away, and Constance spotted several of the girls rolling their eyes.

  ‘Constance, I’ll show you up to your room in order for you to settle yourself in before lunch.’

  Ginny and Constance dutifully followed behind her.

  Her room had an iron bedstead in each corner. All the beds were neatly made, and there was a wardrobe at either end.

  ‘I’ll leave you now to unpack your things, Constance. Mrs Downer, perhaps you’d like to say your goodbyes and let young Constance unpack her things. Now, now, no tears.’

  Constance gulped and swiped at her cheeks. Ginny pulled her into a hug. ‘You’ll be all right Constance. I’ll be back to visit you on Wednesday. The time will whizz by, and you’ll make friends of the girls you’ll see.’ The girls were allowed visitors on a Wednesday and Saturday afternoon.

  ‘Quite right,” Matron said. ‘Mrs Downer?’ She waited for Ginny to follow her lead and as they left the room, Constance heard matron say, ‘I find drawn out goodbyes don’t do anyone any good.’

  Constance perched on the edge of her bed with her little brown case beside her and sobbed.

  Chapter 41

  ‘Saint Augustine’s was a horrible place, Isabel. It was damp and draughty, and the nurses weren’t kind,’ Constance lamented her voice etched with tiredness, as the shadows from the ruins began to stretch long. ‘I did make friends though despite my initial misgivings. That you should never judge a book by its cover is one thing I learned during my time there too. Those girls who’d seemed so worldly compared to me were nothing more than heartbroken children once you cracked their hardened veneers. We were all in the same boat, and we were all terrified of what was to come with our babies birth. Nobody told us anything, and the only knowledge I had was from listening to Ginny’s labour. Oh yes, we were scared all right. Funnily enough, it was the girl who’d reminded me of Myrtle from the factory where I worked in Cowes that I grew closest to.’

  Isabel picked another daisy to add to her lengthening chain and stayed silent not wishing to interrupt until Constance’s story had reached its conclusion.

  ‘Her name was Francis, and she had a baby girl a month or two before I had Teddy. The bonniest little thing she was too and born with a full head of hair. Francis called her Mary, and then one day Matron Holt came to the nursery and said it was time for baby to go. That was that; she took Mary away, and we watched from the nursery window as a smartly dressed couple arrived in a shiny Rover and drove off with her. It broke Franciss’ heart. Teddy arrived with a roar and a lot of bother on my behalf a few days after that, but by then Francis was gone too.

  ‘We didn’t keep in touch after we left the home. Neither of us wanted to be reminded of our time there. Sometimes, I can still hear the girls I shared my room with crying when I close my eyes because not a single night passed at Saint Augustine’s without one of us crying ourselves to sleep.’ Constance shook her head still lost in another time. ‘Come Sunday we’d be marched in an alligator line to church, so as all and sundry knew us as the girls from the local home. They worked us to the bone too. One of the girls said it helped keep us flexible, made the birth easier but I think that place would have fallen down around our ears if it weren’t for us girls keeping things running.’

  Constance’s body trembled even now with indignation at the memory of it, and her words faltered while she regained a modicum of equilibrium. ‘I made Teddy a baby box when I was waiting for him to arrive. I covered the box with the prettiest of yellow wrapping paper and put a blanket I made for him along with a little white cardigan and booties I knitted for him in it. He wouldn’t have wanted for much in the way of a layette, not with all the work mum and Ginny had put into preparing for her poor little babe, but I wanted to give him something from me. The other girls stayed on at Saint Augustine’s for six weeks after their babies were born, but given my circumstances, Teddy only stayed with me a week before I handed him to Ginny. I was to go home, and I thought she would come with me, but she said she wanted to stay on at her cousin's for a few days longer and get him settled into a routine. She’d follow before the week was out she assured me.

  ‘The story would be put about that Ginny’s cousin had died in childbirth and that she had been named as his guardian. She’d raise my boy at Pier View House as her own but she never came back to Wight, and when Mum and Dad tried to find her, she and Teddy had vanished. I wanted them to go to the police and report them missing, but they wouldn’t because that would have meant telling them the truth behind Teddy’s birth. I went to the station once. I sat outside for an hour trying to find the courage to go inside, but in the end, I couldn’t do it. There were times I thought I saw them, but they always turned out to be strangers, and for a long time I’d think I could see Teddy’s face every time I spied a child who looked to be of a similar age.

  ‘I light a candle for him on his birthday; I’ve never missed not once in all these years.’ She paused exhausted from all those words and watched a seagull as it dipped and soared over the Solent. ‘All those years we never knew where they went or even if they were still alive. The first news I’ve had of her and what happened to my boy since I said goodbye to her at Saint Augustine’s was when you came, Isabel. I left Pier View House with a little brown case, and I returned to it with that same brown case, and it was as though the whole thing had been a dream. It was if Henry, my getting pregnant, Teddy’s birth, none of it ever happened. Then, when I turned seventeen mum and dad gave me a pair of pink satin dancing shoes and told me that whenever I wore them, I was to look to my future, not my past. And that’s what I did.’

  Isabel gasped. ‘Oh Constance, I’m so, so sorry. How could Ginny do that to you and your parents?’

  Constance looked at her, her eyes weary with the telling of her tale. ‘Ah, looking back now there were signs that she wasn’t well after her baby died. There’s a name for it now, postnatal depression, but back then there were no labels for things like that. I think she was frightened that I wouldn’t be able to let go of Teddy if she brought him back to Wight, that I’d always be hovering in the background trying to take him off her. She was probably right. In some ways, it would have been worse to have him close and not be his mother. Perhaps she convinced herself initially that Teddy was her biological child, and then with the passing of time as her mind cleared she felt it was too late to go back. I’ll never know, but at least I know she was sorry for what she did.’

  Isabel pushed her daisy chain from her lap and got to her feet. There were times, she thought, that gesture could mean as much as any words and sometimes there simply were no words, and so she’d embraced Constance as tightly as she could without hurting her. Beneath her words, buried deep in the subtext she’d caught the lingering shame instilled in Constance all those years ago, and she tried to vanquish it in that hug.

  A
burst of laughter sounded behind them, and to her ears, it sounded obscene. She turned her head to see who the culprits were. Two women giggling over something or other had appeared at the edge of the woodland path. She shot them daggers willing them to shut up, but Constance was unperturbed her mind still foggy with the past. Before they set off Constance took hold of Isabel’s hand and patted it. ‘Thank you for listening, Isabel.’

  Isabel fought back the tears. This lady whom she’d thought so formidable initially had become a special person in her life. She rested her other hand on top of Constance’s as though they were about to engage in a game of paper, scissors, rock feeling humbled that she had confided in her.

  ‘I’m so sorry for all that you’ve been through, Constance. It was all so very unfair.’

  ‘It was a very long time ago, but it never got easier losing Teddy. There’s not a single day that’s gone by since I put him in Ginny’s arms that I haven’t thought of him, but I’ve done what I came here to do. I wanted to tell Henry I was sorry I couldn’t keep our boy. I forgive Ginny for what she did too, you know Isabel, because you can’t look back in life, that’s something you learn with each year that passes by. You have to keep putting one pink satin shoe in front of the other, and that’s what I did.’ She sighed, and the larger than life Constance Downer suddenly looked frail as she said, ‘I think it’s time we went home now, Isabel. I’m eighty-nine, you know.’

  ͠

  Rhodri was waiting at a table, seats saved for them in the packed courtyard of the abbey proper’s tea garden when Isabel pushed Constance back over the lawn toward the outdoor dining area. It was a perfect afternoon for tea and cake in the sun, and it looked as though half of Ryde had agreed with the sentiment, Isabel thought. She and Constance hadn’t spoken on the way back from the ruins. They were both spent with the emotion of what had been revealed.