Rosemerryn
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
The Kilgarthen Sagas
Copyright
Rosemerryn
Gloria Cook
This book is dedicated to the memory of my friend Linda
and love to Peter and the children
Chapter 1
Laura Jennings opened a bedroom window of Tregorlan Farm and looked anxiously down the muddy track that led to Rosemerryn Lane. With a heavy mist spreading gaunt fingers all the way down to the black moorland earth, she could see no sign of the midwife heading for the old and solid farmhouse on her bicycle.
‘Hold on a little longer, Tressa, for goodness sake,’ Laura implored, returning to the young woman nearing the last stages of labour on the huge double bed. She forced a confident smile. ‘The midwife shouldn’t be much longer now.’
‘Are you sure Andrew’s coming home?’ Tressa Macarthur gasped between deep pants as a strong contraction subsided slowly.
‘We’ve told you over ’n’ over,’ Joan Davey, on the other side of the bed holding her hand, said chidingly. ‘We phoned Andrew’s office and he left at once. If you hadn’t been such a silly girl and told me or your father you were having pains at dinner time we would have got Andrew and the midwife here by now. ’Tis a good job Andrew had a phone put in and I was able to ring Laura at the shop.’
Tressa smiled at her aunt. She knew how nervous Joan was of the telephone, a ‘new-fangled contraption’, to her, and she had shaken visibly when she’d dialled the number of the village shop, which Laura partly owned, to alert her of what was happening.
‘Thanks for coming straight away, Laura. I didn’t want to cause a fuss. First babies are supposed to take hours to arrive,’ Tressa grunted, gritting her teeth as the next contraction racked her body. ‘I was hoping Andrew would be home before anything really hap— ohhh!’
Laura grasped her other hand. ‘Breathe deeply, Tressa, like the midwife told you. Don’t tense your body. That’s it. Good girl. Breathe out on the count of five.’
The contraction seemed endless and when it was over, as Laura wiped the perspiration from Tressa’s face with a damp flannel, she caught her own reflection in the dressing-table mirror. She was flushed, her deep blue eyes were sparkling brighter than usual with excitement, and although she was getting more nervous by the moment and there was an uncomfortable quivering in her lower stomach, she looked as steady as a rock. She hoped her confident manner would give Tressa all the reassurance she needed at this critical time.
When Tressa was comfortable again, Laura switched on the light and lit the bedside oil lamps to dispel the gloom the mist was casting on what otherwise would have been a fine spring afternoon. It added cosiness and warmth to the pleasant surroundings for Tressa to give birth in. Andrew, her devoted husband, had completely refurbished the bedroom, one of the largest in the farmhouse, when they had married nearly a year ago. The floor was carpeted from wall to wall in a plush pink and dotted with Turkish rugs. Pretty chintz curtains contrasted well with rosebud patterned wallpaper. With a wealth of nursery equipment, a padded rocking chair waited by the fireside for the new mother to nurse her baby in. Another addition was a sink on a pedestal, and fluffy new white towels were there in readiness to be used after today’s occasion.
‘I want to push!’ Tressa shouted, instinctively drawing up her knees.
‘You can’t!’ Joan screamed in panic. ‘Laura and I don’t know how to deliver a baby.’
‘Calm down, Joan,’ Laura ordered sternly, although her own heart was racing at twice its normal speed. ‘We’ll manage. We’ll have to.’ She pulled back the bedsheet and looked between Tressa’s legs. She was electrified at what she saw but forced herself to speak normally. ‘I can see the baby’s head. Let this pain go gently if you can, Tressa, then on the next one you’d better start pushing, but not with all your might.’ Laura had read a lot of books on childbirth since Tressa had become pregnant and she knew each stage of labour was better taken gently at first.
There was a sudden loud rap on the bedroom door and Joan shrieked in fright.
‘Is everything all right in there?’ It was Jacka Davey, Tressa’s father. Before coming upstairs he had been anxiously pacing the kitchen floor of his and Joan’s share of the accommodation on the farm.
Hearing his strong, caring voice gave Laura another boost of confidence. ‘Tressa’s about to have the baby, Jacka,’ she called out while swiftly tying back her shoulder-length blonde hair. ‘Could you bring up some hot water so we can wash her afterwards?’
‘Oh, my goodness!’ Jacka opened the door and peeped round it, taking off his floppy hat. He was holding a bunch of daffodil buds he had picked for Tressa. He was built like an ox but had a gentle disposition and a heart of tenderness for his only child; tears were misting his eyes. ‘Yes, yes, of course.’ He didn’t look at his daughter, but asked her, ‘You all right, my handsome?’
‘I’m doing fine, Dad.’ Then Tressa screwed up her face and bore down on the next contraction. Jacka beat a hasty retreat.
Laura had already put out on the bedside cabinet the things the midwife had left during a routine visit. She rolled up the sleeves of her silk blouse then tossed Joan a dry cloth to wipe Tressa’s brow. It would be wise to keep Joan occupied; she may have helped many a calf into the world, but being a quiet, unmarried, middle-aged woman, she was nervous about childbirth.
The contraction eased and Tressa allowed her heaving body to fall back onto the pillows. Breathlessly, she uttered, ‘I could do this much easier if I was standing up.’
‘Don’t you dare, Tressa! Whoever heard of such a thing?’ Joan wailed. She was trembling and pulled the hairnet she always wore over her grey hair more firmly in place.
‘I can manage by myself if you want to leave the room, Joan,’ Laura offered in a firm voice. The arrival of the baby was imminent, but her nerves felt as strong as cold steel. She stroked the bare bump that stuck out almost grotesquely from Tressa’s skimpy body, feeling for the start of the next contraction.
‘No, no,’ Joan muttered belatedly as Laura’s words finally sank into her confusion. She willed herself to be calmer. ‘Don’t worry. I won’t let you down.’
Tressa grinned at her aunt encouragingly. Despite the pain and effort, and the niggle of worry felt by every mother that her baby would not be born strong and healthy, she was enjoying the process of giving birth. Her only regret was not informing Andrew earlier so he could be in the house with her father.
The next contraction started, and as if she had delivered many a baby, Laura moved to a position where she could more easily assist this one to be born.
A few minutes later, after much granting and h
eaving on Tressa’s part, the baby’s head slid into Laura’s eager hands.
‘One more push, Tressa, and it will all be over,’ Laura stated with authority, her eyes rooted on the little wet human roundness in her hands.
Tressa’s small face was filled with determination. She reached for Joan’s hand, took in a long lusty breath, then pushed down with all her might.
Laura pulled very gently on the baby’s head, easing the final part of its journey into the world. In moments she was exclaiming, ‘It’s here, it’s born!’ and had to control the urge to shout in exhilaration. She carefully raised the baby for Tressa to see and it let out an almighty bawl.
‘It’s a boy,’ Laura breathed in awe.
Then all three women burst into tears of elation.
Tressa held out her hands for her son. Laura tied the cord in two places with lengths of sterilised string and cut the cord cleanly between the string. Wrapping a soft towel round the baby she reluctantly handed him over to his mother.
‘He’s just like Andrew,’ Tressa said softly, gazing at him tenderly, a new love, deep and strong, welling up inside her.
Joan agreed with her. ‘Aye, he’s got the same blue eyes and sandy hair, even his stubborn-looking chin.’
Laura couldn’t speak. As Tressa cradled her son to her breast, Laura stroked his damp, downy head. This day, the fifteenth of March, 1949, would never have come about if Laura hadn’t brought her late husband’s body back home to be buried in the village of Kilgarthen, nearly a mile away from the farm. On that fateful day, her solicitor, Andrew, had informed her that Bill Jennings had bankrupted her father’s building company, and Laura had decided to stay on in her only remaining property, the cottage where Bill had been born and bred. A few days later, Andrew had travelled down from London with papers for her to sign and to check on her welfare. He had got hopelessly lost in fog and had come across Tressa in the muddy potholed track that led up to Tregorlan Farm. He had instantly fallen in love with Tressa, then an unapproachable tomboy who’d lived in a private little world of her own, spurning all contact with reality, her family so poor she’d worn her dead brothers’ clothing as she’d worked the moorland farm with her father and aunt. It had taken a lot of determination on Andrew’s part, and a near tragedy, before he had overcome the differences in their backgrounds and broken into Tressa’s heart and won her for his own.
Laura was proud to have delivered their first baby safely. She couldn’t control her tears. Neither could she stop the intense feelings which often gripped her, that filled her whole being and threatened to overwhelm her – the longing to have a child of her own.
Andrew and the midwife burst into the room together and Laura found herself being shunted out of the way as the midwife took over from her.
Much to the annoyance of the midwife, Andrew hugged his proud, radiant wife. ‘Oh, darling. Was it awful? Are you all right? Are you sure? You should have called me sooner.’ Tressa smiled triumphantly and moved the towel aside so he could see they had a son. ‘He’s beautiful! You’re beautiful! Oh, well done, you’ve given me a wonderful little boy.’
The strident tones of the midwife broke into Andrew’s bliss. ‘Move back from the bed, Mr Macarthur! In fact you should leave the room altogether. I don’t like having fathers in the way. It is not good for mother or baby. Perhaps Miss Davey and Mrs Jennings would like to take you downstairs and make us all a nice cup of tea.’
Laura was peeved that she should be dismissed too; after all, she had successfully dealt with the most important part of the delivery, but she obediently took hold of Andrew and, with Joan’s help, pulled him away from Tressa and their baby and out of the room. Jacka was lurking outside on the landing, on tenterhooks to be told about his first grandchild.
The group made their way downstairs to Jacka and Joan’s kitchen. Because of Jacka’s past financial difficulties, and an unsuccessful underhand deed by Harry Lean, the village womaniser, Andrew now owned Tregorlan Farm which had been the Daveys’ home for generations, and although an extension had been added to provide the young couple with their own kitchen, bathroom and sitting room, they automatically made their way to what was the hub of the house. It was a dark and dull room but everything in it was comfortingly familiar, the old furniture, the faded checkered oilcloth on the huge square table, the ragged rush mats on the flagstoned floor; the only concession to modern living that Jacka and Joan had allowed in their part of the farmhouse was electric lights when Andrew had installed a generator.
‘Never mind tea for a minute,’ Jacka said, his voice heavy with emotion. ‘I have a bottle of wine put by for this very day.’
They raised their glasses, all odd ones, to the new mother and arrival.
‘To my first grandchild,’ Jacka toasted with pride.
‘To my great-nephew,’ Joan chirruped, her voice thick with tears. ‘I’ve never seen anything so marvellous in all my born days. And to think I was half scared out of my wits at what was going to happen.’
‘To Guy Andrew Macarthur,’ Andrew said, shining with happiness and feeling somewhat stunned now. ‘And to my beautiful, wonderful Tressa.’ He suddenly hugged Laura and kissed both her cheeks. ‘And all my grateful thanks to you, Laura.’
‘To the Macarthurs and the Daveys,’ Laura said in a small voice, pulling herself away from the others. It was the most momentous event to happen on the farm for many years, but while she shared the others’ joy, she felt deeply lonely, an aching sense of melancholy, and she knew that she was desperately jealous of Tressa’s motherhood.
‘That makes two new babies in the village in one week in time for Easter,’ Joan remarked dreamily.
‘What other new baby?’ Laura asked sharply, so sharply the others looked at her curiously.
‘The one in the young family that moved into the village next to the Millers the other day. Uren, they’re called, Dolores and Gerald Uren. They have five boys, the youngest a two-year-old called Rodney, and one little maid of four months called Emily.’
‘I suppose Ada Prisk told you all this,’ Andrew smiled, referring affectionately to the village gossip.
Joan nodded. She did not add that Ada Prisk had also said the Urens were dirty and scruffy and ‘like ruddy gypsies’ and Gerald Uren was a ‘lazy so-and-so who’s never known an honest day’s work and shirked his national service’.
Andrew sipped his wine and looked at Laura sympathetically. She had gone quiet and looked as if all the spirit and energy had left her, rather like the way she had become in the five disastrous years of marriage she had endured with the cruel, amoral Bill Jennings, a man whose true nature hadn’t been known to the villagers who had hero-worshipped him as their ‘local boy made good’. Andrew knew about the dream that Jennings had denied Laura.
‘You knew the Urens were moving into Kilgarthen, didn’t you, Laura?’
His question broke through her pensive mood. ‘What? Oh, yes. I served Mrs Uren in the shop only this morning, but I didn’t know she had a baby girl as well as the five boys who trooped in with her. She must have left her at home with her husband.’
‘Well, you’re too busy with young Vicki to take in everything that goes on in the village,’ Joan said, taking the battered tin kettle off the ageing black wrought-iron range and pouring boiling water into a huge brown teapot.
Mention of Vicki Jeffries brought a smile back to Laura’s classically beautiful face. Her vitality returned, and with it the proud bearing with which she carried her tall, shapely figure. Her moment of self-pity evaporated and she was filled with joy at Guy’s birth. She couldn’t wait to cycle on to Rosemerryn Farm and tell the little girl whom she adored all about the baby.
When the midwife had gone, Laura slipped upstairs to say goodbye to Tressa.
‘I’ve phoned Aunty Daisy in the shop and told her the good news. It will soon be all round the village.’ Laura glanced at her watch. ‘It’s a good thing Spencer was collecting Vicki off the school bus today and not me. I was due there over an
hour ago.’
Going to the cradle beside the bed she gazed down at Guy’s pink face peeping out of the white shawl she had knitted for him herself. ‘You coped exceedingly well, Tressa. Are you sure you’re feeling all right?’
‘Nothing to it really,’ Tressa replied breezily. ‘I don’t even feel tired. Andrew reckons it’s all the moor air I’ve consumed from childhood.’ Laura thought that was probably true. Tressa was sitting upright in a new pink silk nightdress and fluffy bedjacket, the complexion of her pretty round face glowing, her long brown hair brushed glossily over her slender shoulders. ‘I was very lucky. You can pick Guy up if you like.’
‘Are you sure you don’t mind?’
‘Of course I don’t. You delivered him, Laura. You held him first. If anyone deserves to hold him, it’s you. I doubt that things would have gone so smoothly if I’d been here alone with Aunty Joan, bless her.’
Putting her hands gently under his little warm body, Laura lifted Guy out of his cradle as if he was as fragile as thistledown. She held him tenderly to her body. ‘He feels a lot heavier with clothes on,’ she said.
‘Well, he’s a big baby. He weighs eight pounds, twelve and a half ounces,’ Tressa said proudly. She watched with feeling as the wistful expression on Laura’s face turned to tears. ‘Andrew’s asked you to be his godmother, hasn’t he?’
‘Yes. You’ve both made me feel very proud.’ Laura lowered her face and brushed it lightly against the baby’s cheek.
Tressa wasn’t an emotional woman but she felt she was about to cry for the second time that day. ‘There’s plenty of time for you to have a baby of your own, Laura,’ she whispered softly.
‘It’s what I want so very much.’ Laura smiled wanly, placing a tiny peck on Guy’s forehead.
Tressa wasn’t given to handing out advice, at twenty-one years old she was four years younger than Laura who was sophisticated and much more worldly-wise than she was, but she felt this was one time when she should speak her mind. ‘Well, I’d have thought the answer to that was obvious.’
Laura took her eyes off the baby and looked at the young woman, frowning. ‘What do you mean?’
Rosemerryn Page 1