‘Oh, they’ve always got things to do, women. Mine’s the same. And if she’s not doing with her hands, she’s talking the hind leg off a donkey. Recites the shopping list in her sleep. Used to drive me mad, she did. Mind, I wouldn’t be without her and she’s been good about this lot.’ He waved his hand at his scarred face. Caleb knew the burns extended over large parts of his torso and one hand had contracted into a claw. ‘Me poor old mam fainted clean away when she first came in to see me. I said to her, I never was what you’d call good-looking so what you’ve never had, you don’t miss.’
He grinned at Caleb and Caleb smiled back. ‘You look all right to me,’ he said quietly.
‘Aye, but that’s because you’re an ugly blighter yourself, mate.’
They continued with the banter which spread to neighbouring beds, but at the back of his mind Caleb was thinking about both Mary’s return and the way Eve had been that afternoon. He didn’t know which end of him was up, he admitted silently. One minute everything had been straightforward and now he was in turmoil. Why did life always seem to rear up and bite you on the backside when you least expected it?
Chapter 16
When Eve brought Mary to the hospital the next day and watched her sister with Caleb, she knew nothing had changed. And it was clear Mary’s power over the male sex extended beyond Caleb; most of the men in the ward couldn’t take their eyes off her but Mary only had eyes for Caleb. She cried a little but prettily, told Caleb what she thought he wanted to hear and parried any probing with a tremulous mouth and fluttering hands. By the end of the visit she had him eating out of her hands.
As they left the hospital, Mary said thoughtfully, ‘He took it very well, didn’t he, me and Bernard and everything. And if anything, he’s more attractive than he was before the war. I was worried he might be, well, scarred or something. Like that man in the next bed. But you’d never know there was anything wrong with Caleb.’
‘I think if you saw his legs you wouldn’t say that.’
‘Oh, his legs.’ Mary waved her hand. ‘They don’t matter, it’s not like his face, is it? You have to look at someone’s face all the time if you’re living with them.’
Eve stared hard at her sister but Mary was looking straight ahead. ‘Even if he was scarred as badly as that poor man you spoke of, he would still be Caleb, wouldn’t he?’
Mary shrugged. ‘I might have known you’d look at it like that. You’re so nice, our Eve.’ She made it sound like a failing. ‘But anyway, he’s not scarred or anything so that’s all right.’
Eve felt sick. Would she be able to stand it? The thought had kept her awake all night. When Caleb was home and she had to endure seeing them together, would she be able to stand it? Well, she’d have to, at least until Mary’s baby was born and she knew her sister was all right. After that, once everything had settled down and a routine had been established, there would be no need for her to stay if she didn’t want to. And she suspected she would not want to.
Six weeks later at the end of September, Caleb came home.
He had made quite remarkable progress, the doctor at the hospital told Eve on the day of Caleb’s departure. Quite remarkable. But that happened sometimes when patients were moved closer to their families and loved ones. It gave them the spur they needed to push themselves, you see, and of course he hadn’t seen his mother for a long time, had he? With her being bedridden and unable to visit him. Likely that had motivated him more than a little.
Eve smiled and nodded her head. She knew who had been the spur the doctor spoke of and it certainly wasn’t Mildred. After that one visit to Caleb, Mary had announced she felt too embarrassed in her condition to go into a ward full of men again and would prefer to stay at home when Eve visited. Staying at home consisted of staying in bed most of the time, eating chocolates, reading Mildred’s magazines and only coming downstairs for her meals, when she invariably managed to upset Ada and Winnie with her high-handed manner. Things improved a little once Caleb was home. Mary was on her best behaviour for one thing, and Eve was spared the visits back and forth to the hospital. Caleb had to rest in the afternoons and he often spent these talking to Mary in her room.
The child was born ten days after Caleb returned. Whether this was early or not was debatable, Mary had not seen a doctor and seemed unsure of her dates.What was certain was that the baby, a little boy, was sickly. He did not cry when he was born and when the doctor, a portly, kindly man whom Eve had called in when Mary’s labour had become protracted and the midwife had been unable to cope, told Eve to put him to Mary’s breast, he would not suckle.
Taking Eve by the arm, the doctor led her from the bedroom and once they were standing on the landing with the door closed, he said,‘Has your sister been seriously unwell at any time in her pregnancy? There is a school of thought that this can effect the child in the womb.’
Eve stared at the doctor. She was remembering the first morning after Mary had come home when she had admitted she had taken some brew or other to rid herself of the baby and had been ill for a week.‘She might have been but she only came home some weeks ago so I wouldn’t really know.’
He nodded. ‘Well, it’s by the by now. In such cases I’ve found the only answer is mother’s milk and warmth.’
‘He-he won’t die?’ The doctor’s voice had been sombre.
‘Only God knows that, m’dear. Just do all you can. If he persists in refusing the breast then try spooning a weak broth into him which you’ve strained through muslin.’
‘My other sister has recently had a baby and has milk to spare. Would he be able to have that?’
‘Yes, yes, ideal. But again, if he won’t suckle, you may have to spoon it into his mouth, a drop at a time. And frequently.Very frequently. Day and night. Do you think you could do that? It will be tiring.’
‘Of course.’ She would do anything. He had looked such a sweet little baby in the brief glimpse she’d had of him before the doctor had handed him to the midwife but very different to Nell’s strong, lusty boy.
After paying the doctor his ten shillings she saw him downstairs and left him talking to Caleb in the kitchen. She sent Winnie to fetch Nell and then flew back upstairs.The midwife was seeing to Mary when she entered the bedroom and the baby was lying quietly in his small crib. Eve had purchased this along with some baby clothes and blankets a few weeks ago when Mary had admitted she had nothing for the baby. She picked him up in the snug cocoon the midwife had made of the blanket and as she did so one little hand became free and the tiny fingers wrapped round her thumb.
‘Hello,’ she murmured into the milky blue eyes looking up at her. ‘I’m your aunty.’ He was beautiful, she thought wonderingly. Not like most newborn babies she had seen who were invariably red and blotchy and squashed looking. He was perfect, like a porcelain doll, with his tiny features and miniature face.‘You’re going to be all right,’ she whispered softly. ‘I’ll make sure of it. We’re going to feed you up and keep you warm and in a few months you’ll be playing with your cousins. How about that?’ He was so small and so needy and the surge of love which overwhelmed her for this little scrap of humanity was like nothing she had experienced before.
Nell arrived as the midwife left and when she had expressed some milk Eve sat and fed it to the baby a few drops at a time. He had only had a tablespoonful by the time he wouldn’t swallow anymore and it had taken her half an hour to get that down him. Mary was fast asleep after her long labour and Nell sat watching Eve cradle the baby until he was asleep. ‘You can’t keep this up by yourself day in, day out,’ she said worriedly. ‘Everyone will have to take a turn. You’ve got to be sensible, our Eve.’
‘We’ll sort something out.’ Eve smiled mistily at her sister, knowing she was going to take sole care of the baby until Mary was well enough to have him and he was feeding properly. She wouldn’t dare trust him to anyone else, he was already too precious.
When Mary awoke, Caleb and Ada and Winnie came in to see her and the baby but o
nly stayed for a few minutes. Nell left enough milk to tide the baby over until she could return later that evening and went to collect her children from her mother-in-law. Eve had just persuaded the baby to take another tablespoonful of milk and had settled him among his blankets, when Mary said, ‘Would you take it downstairs, Eve? I want to go to sleep.’
Eve glanced at her sister in surprise. The child hadn’t cried since he was born and had barely made a sound. ‘Go to sleep then, I’ll be here in case he needs feeding.’
‘I don’t want it in here. I can’t relax.’
‘But we need to keep trying him to the breast before I feed him just in case he suckles.Your milk would be best for him, I told you what the doctor said. It’s important we keep trying.’
‘I don’t want it.’
‘What’s the matter?’ Eve asked flatly.
‘What do you think the matter is? I’ve just had a baby, haven’t I? I’m entitled to some rest.’
‘Mary, you know the doctor was worried about him. He’s very small and this is a crucial time.’
‘I don’t care what that old goat said.’ Mary’s lips began to tremble and her eyelids blinked rapidly before tears began to run down her cheeks. ‘I don’t want it in here. I never thought it was going to be so horrible, the . . . the having it. I thought I was going to die, the pain was so bad.’
‘I know and you were very brave, the doctor said so. But it’s over now and you have a bonny baby boy—’
‘Don’t patronise me.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
With tears streaming from her eyes and her face flushed, Mary glared at her. ‘You always think you know best about everything but you don’t. I said I don’t want it in here and I meant it. And . . . and if you leave me alone with it I won’t be responsible for my actions.’
Her face white, Eve stood up with the child in her arms. ‘Don’t talk like that, I won’t have it, but for your information I had no intention of leaving this baby alone with you. He needs someone to look after him and all you are interested in, all you’ve ever been interested in is number one. Has it even crossed that selfish little mind of yours that the reason he’s so weak and poorly might be because of what you took to get rid of him?’
The minute the words had left her lips she regretted them. She didn’t know if that was the case, besides which Mary had just been through a long and difficult labour and here she was making things ten times worse. But in spite of how she was feeling inside, she couldn’t find the words to make amends.
‘I hate you.’ Mary’s voice was in the nature of a hiss. ‘I wish I’d never come back.’
Eve was unable to speak because her throat was blocked. Half choking, she left the room with the baby, only to bump into Caleb on the landing, causing him to stumble and almost drop the stick he used to assist his walking.
‘What’s the matter?’ He stared at her. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘We’ve . . . we’ve had an argument.’ She couldn’t wipe away her tears because she was holding the baby and sniffed inelegantly.
‘Who? You and Mary?’
Eve nodded. Then between gasps, she said, ‘She doesn’t want anything to do with him. The bairn. She told me to take him away and . . . and I lost my temper with her.’
‘You lost your temper?’ His tone was reproachful.
‘She’s just had a baby, Eve. Couldn’t you have let whatever she said go for once? I’m sure she didn’t mean it, she must be exhausted.’
‘She meant it all right.’
‘You don’t know that. Give her time.’
She just checked herself from saying, ‘All the time in the world will make no difference but you’ll never see that, will you?’ Instead she repeated, ‘She meant it, Caleb.’
‘I don’t understand you, Eve.’ His face was stiff.
‘You’re normally the first one to give someone the benefit of the doubt. Can’t you apply that to your own sister? You’ve been different the last weeks.’
It stung. Raising her head, she looked him full in the face. ‘When was I different, Caleb? When I was running back and forth to the hospital visiting you? Or when I was waiting hand and foot on Mary? Or was it when I was taking your mother her trays and seeing to everything in there because she won’t allow Ada or Winnie to see to her? That on top of doing the ordering for the inn and dealing with any problems it throws up. When, exactly?’
‘I had no idea you resented your lot so much.’
Her chin rose. ‘I don’t.’
‘It sounds like it to me.’
Biting back the words hovering on her tongue, she said, ‘I have to see to this baby,’ and left him standing on the landing. In the kitchen she explained her tears to Ada and Winnie as a reaction to the ups and downs of the last hours. It was clear they didn’t believe her weak excuse but they were too polite to press her further. She sent Winnie upstairs to bring down the rest of the milk Nell had expressed into a jug, along with the baby’s crib and some clothes, and then set about the laborious task of getting some milk down him. It was clear the little mite didn’t want to swallow but eventually he took a little through her persistence.
‘He don’t look very well, lass.’ Ada had come to sit with her at the kitchen table as she cradled the now sleeping infant. ‘There’s a blue touch to his lips if I’m not mistaken.’
‘The doctor said if we keep him warm and feed him he’ll be all right.’ He had to be all right.Anything else was unthinkable. ‘And it will be better down here with the range and all, especially tonight. The bedrooms can get chilly.’
‘I take it Mary’s passed him over to you to look after?’
‘She’s weak after the birth.’
Ada made a sound in her throat that could have meant anything but said no more.
At five o’clock that evening Eve sent for the doctor again. He stood looking down at the child in her arms, his round face troubled. ‘He’s not even managing as much as he was this morning now, doctor.’ Eve didn’t look at the doctor, her eyes were on the baby. ‘All he wants to do is sleep.’
‘You’re doing all you can, lass. Take comfort in that.’
‘But there must be something more we can do. You said food and warmth and he’s got that. Why is he getting worse?’
‘No two babies are the same. They’re individuals, same as we are. And . . . and there could be something wrong with his heart.’
‘But . . .’ She couldn’t go on.
‘I can’t wave a magic wand, m’dear.’ He glanced at Ada and Winnie who were standing by the table looking stricken, then at Caleb sitting in his armchair in front of the range with Jack at his feet. Caleb still tired easily and his right leg was liable to give under his weight if he was on his feet for any length of time. It was to Caleb he said, ‘I think you had better prepare yourselves for the worst.’
‘No.’ Eve was still looking down into the child’s tiny face. He didn’t even have a name yet, she thought brokenly. She would call him William after their brother until Mary decided what she wanted. ‘No, he’ll be all right. I know he will.’
William died just before five o’clock the following morning as a pink and silver dawn bathed the sky. He was in Eve’s arms where he had been all night and she was stroking the small silky forehead with the tip of her finger as he gave a quiet little sigh and didn’t take another breath. He looked as though he was still sleeping and for a while Eve wouldn’t believe he had gone. Caleb had insisted on sitting up with her and was fast asleep in his armchair in front of the range. She looked across at him, so stricken with grief she couldn’t make a sound to alert him to what had happened.
She moved the blanket and William’s little jacket and felt the tiny chest. It was quite still. He was warm but life had gone.Tears creeping down her cheeks, she made him snug again, rocking him back and forth as she whispered sweet nothings against the downy head. She kissed the little eyelids, his mouth, his little hand that he had liked to have free of the blanket, and felt she cou
ldn’t bear it. For long minutes she prayed God would work a miracle, that He would infuse life back into him along with her kisses, but nothing happened.
‘I’m sorry, little man. I’m so sorry.’ He had touched her life so briefly but she would always love him. She hadn’t given birth to him but she felt as though she had. It wasn’t right that he should die before he’d had a chance to live, it was so unfair, wicked. Life was horrible, a monstrous joke.
She sat for the next hour until Ada and Winnie came downstairs, just holding him close to her heart and looking at his sweet little face now and again. She wanted every tiny feature imprinted on her mind for ever. He deserved someone to remember him like that, he was a little person, a little boy. He couldn’t be forgotten.
Just before Ada and Winnie bustled into the kitchen, she looked across at Caleb. He was still fast asleep and he looked tired, even haggard. She had tried to mentally distance herself from him over the last weeks but now with her emotions so raw and tender over the child she knew she hadn’t succeeded. She would never succeed while she stayed within sight and sound of him, she loved him too much. And so she would leave here. There was nothing to hold her now. Maybe if William had lived she would have stayed to take care of him if he had needed her, even if Mary and Caleb had married. But now she was free to go where she would.
‘Oh, William, William.’ She kissed the transparent tiny forehead one last time and then as the door opened and Ada walked into the kitchen, she straightened in her chair and prepared herself to tell them the sad news.
PART FOUR
1918 - To Everything There is a Season
Chapter 17
Howard Ingram’s warm brown eyes twinkled as he surveyed the hot face of his housekeeper across the dinner table, although she could scarcely be termed such these days, he thought to himself. He had employed her as housekeeper eighteen months ago, but Eve had swiftly become his wife’s companion and nurse and a friend to them both. Within two months of her joining their small household, Esther had insisted Eve join them at mealtimes and he had not objected to this. On the contrary, he liked the young woman who had brought a new lease of life to his poor Esther. He liked her very much. She had a keen mind and a ready wit and he appreciated both in a woman.
Eve and Her Sisters Page 19