Eve and Her Sisters

by Rita Bradshaw

  Eve would have liked to say that the prejudice she met from these two women and others did not bother her, but in all truthfulness she could not. It was hurtful. Not that she let them see when they wounded her. She would rather walk through Newcastle stark naked. Most of the time, and certainly within these four walls, she felt fulfilled and content, but there was the odd moment when she longed to throw off the mantle of sedateness that went with being Howard’s wife and tell Annabelle and Verity and one or two others exactly what she thought of them. They might have been born with silver spoons in their mouths but they were the sort of upper-crust women Nell would have described as being up their own backsides.

  ‘What are you thinking about to put that look on your face?’

  She realised Howard was still looking at her and said hastily, ‘Nothing, just how Annabelle and Verity have gone on about their new hats all week. They are desperate to outdo each other.’ She had never revealed to her husband how she felt. In the early days of their engagement she had told Nell she didn’t intend to have any secrets from Howard, but it had not taken her very long to understand that that was naive. Only then had she fully understood why Nell had not burdened Toby with the knowledge of the money she gave her sister each month. If she told Howard of the numerous but subtle slights that came her way, he would be both angry and upset. He would cut himself off from his friends and in doing so not only deprive himself of companionship and social acceptance, but probably endanger his business too. Because, say what you like, it wasn’t what you knew but who you knew that counted in this town. Probably every town. Their circle included shipyard owners and mine owners as well as a Sir or two. Oh yes, it wasn’t what you knew but who, she thought grimly.

  ‘Those two.’ Howard’s voice was scathing. ‘Flibbertigibbets, the pair of them. They haven’t got a brain cell between them. Do you remember that last dinner party at the Alridge’s, when they were discussing the Zinoviev letter? How they imagine a letter from the Communist International to British Communists just happened to mysteriously fall into the hands of the Tories so they could publish it just before polling day beats me. Of course the Tories romped home after that. And if that letter’s not a forgery, I’ll eat my hat. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when Verity said Tory politicians wouldn’t dream of showing such bad form as to sabotage the Labour Party.’

  ‘If I remember rightly you neither laughed nor cried but were somewhat rude.’

  ‘Believe me, I could have been a lot ruder.’

  Eve smiled.‘I’m sure you could,’ she said soothingly.

  ‘Mammy, can I have all my hair cut off ?’ Oliver brought his parents eyes to him as he dunked a soldier into the yolk of his egg.

  ‘Why on earth would you want to do that?’ Eve asked helplessly. Since he had been able to talk Oliver had had the knack of completely disconcerting any adult he was with. He asked the most perturbing questions for a five-year-old.

  ‘Because then it wouldn’t get tangly.’

  ‘I see.’ She glanced at Howard. ‘But you wouldn’t look so nice then, would you?’

  ‘Those children at the church have their hair cut off.’ He dug into his egg with his spoon. ‘You let them so why can’t I? Don’t you think they look nice?’

  Oh dear. Howard’s mouth was twitching but he said not a word to help her out. ‘Well, those children have to have their hair cut because . . .’ She wondered how to phrase it. She had learnt the hard way to be very careful what she said to her son who had a habit of repeating her words at just the wrong moment.

  ‘Because the nurse who comes to the church thinks it is necessary,’ Howard said, straight-faced. ‘When it isn’t necessary, it is not done.’

  ‘And she wouldn’t think it was necessary with me?’

  ‘Definitely not.’

  Oliver made a face. ‘I don’t like that nurse.’

  ‘Now, now, we don’t say things like that, do we?’ Eve said quickly as Howard turned away to hide his smile. ‘The nurse is a very kind lady.’

  ‘To some children but not to me.’

  She wasn’t going to win this one.‘If you’ve finished your breakfast, go and wash your hands and get ready to go out with Daddy.’ She looked at Howard. ‘Are you taking Alexander too?’

  Alexander had been following the conversation and now piped up, ‘Stay with Mammy.’

  Howard shrugged. ‘I’ll take him if you want but you remember the last time I did that when he said he didn’t want to go.’

  She did. It had been a disaster. Looking at her two-year-old’s pretty little face, Eve smiled. Alexander might not be an extrovert like Oliver but he was just as determined in his own way. She knew one or two of their friends blamed the child’s fear of being parted from her on her refusal to have a nanny for the boys. It had caused eyebrows to be raised when Oliver had been born and she had said she was going to take care of her baby herself. It just wasn’t done, several of their so-called friends had murmured. She had replied it was done because she was doing it and that was the end of that. It had been the first time she had really shown her mettle since her marriage and Howard had backed her one hundred per cent. Dear Howard. Her smile included him.‘He can come with me, it will be all right. I’ll take Daisy with me and she can keep an eye on him.’

  Once Oliver was ready and stood clutching his boat which had been his birthday present that year, Eve kissed him. ‘Be a good boy for Daddy, won’t you?’

  ‘He’s always a good boy, aren’t you, son?’ Howard ruffled Oliver’s curls as he spoke. They were waiting for the taxi cab Howard had ordered. Due to his disability they did not have a motor car as most of their social circle did, but this did not hinder them at all.

  Eve knew where Howard was making for, it was one of their favourite picnic spots in the summer when they took the boys out for the day. The Tyne curled and wound its way past Newcastle’s industrial factories and shipbuilding yards and chemical works to emerge westwards near Ovingham and Harlow Hill as a far more gentle and picturesque river, with many streams and small natural lakes. There the boys could run to their heart’s content in the meadows thick with wild flowers, climb trees and sail their toy boats in tiny rivulets.

  ‘I wish you were coming too, Mammy.’

  It wasn’t often Oliver said such a thing, he was the antithesis of his brother in that respect, and for a moment Eve was tempted not to go to the church. But they really were terribly short-handed, and so she bent down, took his face in her hands and kissed him again as she said, ‘We’ll all go together next week, I promise. All right? And for the whole day with a picnic. Would you like that?’

  He nodded, smiling, and as she did every day of her life, Eve counted her blessings. She hadn’t known what love was until she had her boys, she reflected. The maternal love that had sprung into being the first time she had seen Oliver’s little face had outdone any feeling she had felt before then for anyone. Apart from William perhaps. But she hadn’t borne him, hadn’t had the wonder of carrying him inside herself for nine months, feeling him move, kick. It was such a different kind of love to what she had felt for Caleb and which she felt for Howard. But then that was natural, she supposed. The feeling one had for one’s parents, sisters, brothers was different too.

  ‘Here’s the taxi.’ Howard kissed her and Alexander who was clinging to her skirt.

  On impulse she went into the dining room once the door had closed behind them and from the window watched the taxi draw away. It was a beautiful day, she thought wistfully. Probably one of the last really warm days they would have before autumn’s chill made itself felt. She hoped Howard wouldn’t let Oliver eat too many wild blackberries. Of course part of the thrill for Oliver was picking the ripe fruit himself. He thought himself such a big boy.

  ‘Come on.’ Eve whisked Alexander up into her arms, making him squeal with delight. ‘Let’s get you ready. And once we are finished at the church, we might have time for a walk in Leazes Park to see the ducks. Would you like that?’ />
  When she arrived at the church hall with Alexander and Daisy, the other women were busy putting up the trestle tables on which they would serve the thick meat and vegetable soup and shives of bread, followed by treacle pudding, which was the meal that day. The doors of the hall were opened to the public at eleven o’clock, and Eve knew a long queue would have formed by then. A round table at the back of the hall held a collection of second-hand clothes, boots and blankets, along with a pile of baby clothes, and the same woman was in charge of that most days. Although most of the folk who took advantage of the soup kitchen were what Eve mentally termed respectable poor, a few from the worst area down by the quayside wouldn’t be averse to taking the items to sell on in return for drink and tobacco. They’d found if the same person kept charge of the stall each day, they recognised the opportunists.

  Once the doors were open, Eve made sure Daisy was in charge of Alexander and began to help serve the food to those who shuffled in. The queue was orderly, it always was.There were usually lots of elderly couples and young mothers with children, and most of them were too thin and tired looking to do more than stand and patiently wait their turn.The church’s privy, situated outside the hall’s back door in the small yard, always had a long queue too. The communal lavatories in the teeming filthy tenements where most of their customers lived were often shared by twenty or more families. They were so nauseating that many women suffered constipation rather than use them. And Eve knew that some of the women she saw each day only ate the meal they provided and customarily went hungry the rest of the time for the benefit of their children.

  As the numbers began to dwindle near two o’clock when they shut the doors and began to clear up, Eve glanced at a group of children playing with the colouring books and crayons she had brought in that day. They were sitting with Daisy in a corner of the room and it was with a pang to her heart that she realised only Alexander had shoes on his feet. They would have to obtain some boots for the children for the winter, she thought, making a mental note to bring the matter up at the next committee meeting. There were several pairs of adult boots and shoes on the table at the back of the hall, but the children’s sizes were always gone in a flash, probably because mothers who were too proud to take boots for themselves would receive them for their bairns.

  At half past two the hall was restored to its usual neatness and everything was washed up and cleared away in the kitchen leading off the front door. After sending Daisy home to assist Elsie, Eve took Alexander to the park as she had promised.

  They had a lovely afternoon in the late September sunshine. They sat by the ornamental fountain and Alexander had a nap on her lap while she watched other mothers stroll by with little ones in baby carriages and older children running here and there. She would like another baby, she thought drowsily, as one rosy-faced little cherub under a parasol was wheeled by. Maybe a little girl this time. She would call her Angeline, that was a pretty name. Or perhaps Rebecca. Nell had had another little girl three years ago and Betsy was a poppet.

  It was just as Alexander woke up that she saw Daisy coming towards her, and something in the little maid’s face alerted her to the fact that all was not well. A long time afterwards she realised that that moment in time would forever be crystallised in her memory.The warm gentle breeze, the sound of children’s laughter, the young mothers in their summer dresses and her feeling of well-being.And then everything changed in one second of time. For ever.

  ‘What is it?’ She stood up at Daisy’s approach, holding a sleepy Alexander in her arms.‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Oh, Miss Eve . . .’ Daisy was so worked up she had reverted to addressing Eve as she’d done before Eve had married Howard. ‘There’s two policemen at the house. They want to talk to you.’

  ‘What about?’ She was already walking swiftly, holding Alexander to her and causing Daisy to trot at her side.

  ‘I don’t know, they wouldn’t say. Only that they had to talk to you and it was imperative they speak to you straightaway. I said I thought you’d be somewhere here and they said to fetch you but not to worry you,’ Daisy gabbled.

  ‘They gave you no indication what it was about?’

  ‘No, miss - ma’am - they just said they’d wait till I come back. I looked over by the aviary first but you weren’t there, and then I thought that master Alexander likes seeing the water in the fountain so I come here.’

  ‘It’s all right, Daisy.’

  ‘Elsie, Elsie’s made them a cup of tea,’ Daisy panted.

  ‘Good, good.’

  Eve was on the verge of collapse by the time she reached the house although it was only a short walk from the park. But Alexander was heavy and the afternoon was very warm. Her mind had been screaming all the way home but even her worst fears could not have prepared her for what she was about to hear.

  One of the constables sat her down and the other saw to it that Daisy took Alexander to the nursery and Elsie was sitting beside her, holding her hand, before he said, ‘There has been an accident, Mrs Ingram.’

  Eve stared at him, her eyes dry and wide. ‘My son?’

  ‘It appears from witnesses at the scene that your son was sailing his boat when it got caught by the current and was swept away and out into the main swell of the river. They said your husband called to the boy to stop but the youngster overbalanced and fell into the water.Your . . . your husband jumped in after him.’

  Eve continued to stare into the constable’s face. It was a sad face.Was it normally sad? She asked herself, or was it sad because of the news he had to impart? And then a voice she didn’t recognise as hers, said again, ‘My son?’

  ‘I’m afraid your son and husband were recovered too late, Mrs Ingram. It was the current.Their rescuers were keen swimmers and even they had a battle to stay afloat. I am very sorry.’

  She heard Elsie make a kind of whimpering noise at her side but it didn’t penetrate the void in her head. ‘No, you’re wrong. My son and husband will be home shortly.’

  When John Wynford appeared in the room, she didn’t realise for a moment that the policemen must have arranged it so. She looked up into the familiar face. ‘John, they are saying . . .’

  ‘I know.’ He knelt down in front of her. ‘And you must be very brave.’

  ‘No.’ It wasn’t true. Oliver couldn’t be dead. He was just a little boy. ‘No, they will be home in time for tea.’

  ‘Eve, it was an accident.’

  ‘No.’ It couldn’t be true. Just a few hours ago she had stood in the hall and kissed them both. They had been warm and alive and breathing, they couldn’t be dead. It wasn’t possible. She thought she heard John say, ‘She’s going, give me my bag quick,’ but then the rushing darkness surrounded her and she let herself fall into it.

  When she came to, she was lying on the couch in front of the fire in the drawing room where she had spoken to the constables, only they weren’t there. John was sitting by her side, holding her hand, and immediately she opened her eyes, he said, ‘I want you to swallow this, Eve. It will help you sleep.’

  ‘I don’t want to sleep.’

  ‘Yes, you do. Drink it down, it won’t hurt you.’

  She swallowed the draught rather than argue with him. ‘It’s not true, John. They’re mistaken.’

  ‘Lie back and shut your eyes.’

  ‘I don’t want to shut my eyes. I have to sort this out.’

  ‘In a little while.’

  ‘No, now.’

  She made to move from the couch but he took her hands, his voice firm as he said, ‘Eve, listen to me. They are gone, there is nothing you can do. Howard died trying to save his son which is the way he would have wanted it. It was an accident, a tragic accident.’

  ‘No.’ There was a feeling rising up in her which had no expression, so violent was it. She felt her body wasn’t strong enough to contain the grief and rage and horror, that she would break into a hundred pieces. ‘No, I have to get to them.’

  ‘Howard would have
wanted you to be strong for Alexander.’

  What was he talking about? Eve snatched her hands away. ‘I want to see my son. I have to see Oliver, he needs me.’

  She swung her feet off the couch but as she tried to stand up she fell and would have pitched into the fire but for John catching her. ‘Sit down, that’s a strong sedative. Just relax, that’s all you have to do.’

  Was he mad? She had to sort out this terrible mistake first, she couldn’t sleep. Her voice a moan, she said, ‘I want my baby, my Oliver. You have to help me.’

  ‘I’ll help you. Of course I’ll help you. But first you must rest, all right?’

  ‘You promise? I have to see them, John. Now.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I know.’

  A heaviness was blanketing her limbs, a weight on them she couldn’t fight. Through the incredible feeling of exhaustion she heard Elsie’s voice say, ‘Oh, Dr Wynford, how is she?’ and John reply, ‘I’ve given her enough to knock out a horse, she should sleep until tomorrow morning.’ And then the whirling in her head took over and she was spun away.

  When she next opened her eyes she was in her own bed and the room was in semi-darkness, the blinds drawn. She turned her head and looked to the side of her. Nell was sitting on a chair. Her sister’s eyes were shut.

  It was true. The terrible dreams she’d had. Oliver had drowned in the river. Howard too.That was why Nell was here. They must have sent for her. Now, far from fighting the sleeping draught, she let herself fall back into the heavy softness, knowing she wanted to sleep forever.