She came back, some time later, pale and shaken and sat down, looking at William very directly. ‘I think I ought to tell you,’ she said, ‘that I’m pregnant.’
‘I thought you were,’ he said.
She told him everything: about Brendan, about their enchanted time together, about how she had written not once but twice and he had not replied, about the doctor’s hostility, about how she didn’t know how she was going to cope, didn’t even know where she was going to have the baby. William sat calmly listening to her, occasionally taking a sip of his brandy; when she had finished she looked at him defiantly and said, ‘Well, go on, aren’t you going to tell me what a bad girl I am?’
‘Of course not,’ he said. ‘There’s a war on.’
He was even more helpful after that; his shyness prevented him from actually accompanying her to the doctor or the hospital, but he made sure she went for check-ups, discussed which hospital would be best (a private room at Ipswich they finally decided), helped her write to adoption agencies. Quite early on, she said to him, ‘You don’t think, do you . . .’ and he had said very firmly, ‘No I don’t,’ and that was as far as they went in any discussion that the baby might be kept. Caroline regarded its loss with apparent total equanimity. She agreed with William that there was no possible way she could offer it a satisfactory home, however much money she had (and she had a great deal), and she would be doing the best possible thing for it in giving it away. The baby would be taken away at birth, before she had time to become involved with it, and first fostered and then adopted; it would be placed with a nice suitable family who would love it and give it a safe secure home. It was all very neat and tidy and was clearly the very best thing for everybody. Any doubts or conflicting emotions she experienced on the subject she crushed mercilessly; if Brendan had written, showed himself even halfway prepared to support her, then things might have been different; but as he had abandoned them both, then she had to do the best she could. William told her it would be far better for the baby to be with a family, to have a proper status in the world and, more and more these days, she did what William told her.
Three months after Stanley’s death, news came from London: Jacqueline and the squadron leader were dead; his flat, in Kensington, had received a direct hit from a German bomber. Caroline’s only real emotion, to her own great surprise, was a purely unselfish pleasure that her mother should have had at least three months of happiness at the end of a sad, conspicuously joyless life.
She did not know what she would have done without William after that: he became father, husband, mother and friend to her. His weekly visits became almost daily, and he never arrived at the Moat House without some sort of small present for her: a book he had bought at a sale, a few tomatoes from his greenhouse, a bunch of wild flowers he had picked on the way. The baby was due in January; by October he was fussing over her, telephoning her twice a day to make sure she was resting, making sure that the doctor had been for her check-ups. He had put by two gallons of petrol, he told her, just in case of emergencies; she was to phone him at the shop if she ever needed him, if the promised ambulance was unable to come. Caroline was touched, warmed, comforted by his devotion; she looked forward to his visits, had Cook save up the rations for when he was coming to supper, made her increasingly hazardous journey down the steep cellar steps to fetch a bottle of wine for him, even began to read the books she knew he would like to discuss. It was agony, the reading; but when she saw his pale, rather mournful eyes sparkle as she said she had quite fallen in love with Phineas Finn, or that she considered Marianne Dashwood the most interesting of Miss Austen’s heroines, she felt she had repaid him just a little for his kindness.
She felt increasingly fond of him, and she knew he was very fond of her; but never in her wildest dreams did she imagine he was planning to ask her to marry him.
When he did, when he finally managed, over a New Year’s Eve dinner, after asking for a second brandy after a second bottle of wine, and he had paced the room, looking at her anguishedly at each turn, and she had sat, her hands folded neatly on her huge stomach, watching him amusedly, imagining he was perhaps going to ask her some kind of favour, some money loaned perhaps, or the use of one of the greenhouses, when he said suddenly, desperately, all in a rush, ‘Caroline, I would like you to marry me,’ she felt physically faint with shock, she closed her eyes and leant her head on her hands.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said quickly, ‘I shouldn’t have, not now, I should have waited. I’ve upset you, forgive me.’
And no, no, she said, not at all, she was not in the least upset, it was nice of him, so very nice of him to ask her, under the circumstances, and she was very honoured and flattered, but . . .
And he had said, yes, no doubt, but, he imagined, she did not want to marry him, she did not love him, he had been a fool to think she might, to have embarrassed both of them by asking her, and poured himself yet another brandy; and Caroline had stood up and put her hand on his arm, and said, ‘William, I can’t tell you how glad I am you asked me. And how fond of you I am, but . . .’
And before she could voice the next phrase she felt a sudden rush of water between her legs, and she looked down at the small pool on the floor and said, with no embarrassment whatsoever, ‘Oh, God, I’ve wet myself.’
‘No’, he said, suddenly surprisingly in command. ‘I think your waters have broken. Now we must phone the hospital at once; there is a danger of infection from now on.’
‘William,’ said Caroline, staring at him in as much astonishment as if he had declared himself a secret transvestite, or had an ambition to be a high-wire artist, ‘how on earth do you know that?’
‘Well,’ he said, hurrying out to the hall, ‘I’ve been mugging up on it all. Just in case, you know. The first stage of labour will follow quite quickly now. You may begin to feel contractions any moment. But they shouldn’t be too severe for a while.’
‘William,’ said Caroline, quite overcome by this as proof of his love for her, as nothing else could have done, and following him, with some difficulty, into the hall, and putting her hand in his as he stood waiting for the operator to answer, ‘William, I think I would like to marry you very much. If you really meant what you said.’
She had not expected it to hurt so much. Somehow she had thought it would be like the abortion and she would wake up and it would all be over. She had not been prepared, and no one had troubled to try to prepare her, for the wrenching, howling agony of the contractions, hour after hour, of the fear that her body would break with the violence of them, that they would grow so much worse that not even screaming would be a release; but somehow, through it all, the quiet, calm face of William Hunterton stayed in her head, and made some sort of a sanity for her to cling to.
They gave her gas, but she hated it, it frightened her even more than the pain, the swimming, swirling suffocation of it, and she begged for something else, anything, to help her; but the midwife, who was kindly, albeit brisk, said it was gas or nothing, and that she really should try to get along with it, as she would certainly need it when she was pushing baby out. No one had told Caroline she would have to push baby out; she had imagined it would simply, eventually find its own way.
She looked at the midwife in terror, panting in between her pains, with fear as much as exhaustion, eighteen hours into her labour, and said, ‘I don’t know what you mean, push. I can’t, I can’t do anything.’
‘You’ll find out,’ said the midwife briskly. ‘You’ll know what to do. Now do try to relax a little bit more, and let’s have another go with the gas with the next pain. You’ve got quite a long way to go yet, and you’re wearing yourself out like this.’
‘A long way to go?’ said Caroline, her voice rising to a scream, as the pain started rising in her once more. ‘How long, how long?’
‘Oh, a good hour or two yet,’ said the midwife. ‘Now come on, there’s a
good girl, and let’s breathe this in, shall we?’
‘I don’t want it, I just want to die,’ moaned Caroline, pushing the mask away. ‘I just want to die, now, before it goes on any longer.’
‘Oh, they all say that,’ said the midwife. ‘You’ll feel differently when baby’s here. You won’t be able to remember any of this.’
She had been born, her daughter, swiftly in the end, in a great rush (too late, they told her severely now, for pain relief), and she had lain there, looking into her great dark blue eyes, stroking her tiny, damp head, kissing her helplessly frond-like fingers, and wept with love.
‘You’re lucky it’s a girl,’ said the midwife, lips pursed, swift to remind her troublesome patient of her punishment to come. ‘Most adoptive parents want a girl.’
And Caroline, aching with the love of her baby, and the dark dread that she must lose her again so soon, put both arms protectively round her, and rested her cheek on the small dark head, and wondered how it was possible to experience such joy and such unhappiness at precisely the same moment.
She was holding the baby when they came; she had sat up sleepless all night, unwilling to waste even a moment of the time she had left with her. She had stroked her silky skin, outlined the small, squashed profile, unfolded the tiny hands a dozen, a hundred times. She had rocked her when she cried, holding her close to her breast, had refused to let them take her away, insisting they brought her the bottle so that she could feed her. She had undressed her, examining, studying every inch of the tiny body, smiling at the little dangling, helpless legs, frowning anxiously at the sore-looking umbilicus. She had changed her nappy, her nightdress, wrapped her again in her shawl. She had managed to get out of the bed and stood at the window, holding the baby, showing her the darkness, the stars; and when she had felt she might sleep, she had walked softly up and down the room, fighting it away, learning how the baby felt in her arms. She knew what she was doing; she was trying to encase a lifetime in one night, storing the feel, the smell, the sound, the warmth of her child away, so that she could have it with her always; and when the morning came, and she knew the lifetime was over, she could hardly bear it. She heard their steps outside, their voices, and a chill took hold of her, a dreadful primitive fear. She would have run if she could, and when they came in, she was shrinking back on the pillows, her eyes wide with fear.
‘Good morning, Mrs Miller.’ It was Matron. ‘And what a nice morning it is too. How are you? I hear you had a little bit of a struggle yesterday. Never mind, all over now. Now then, Mrs Jackson from the Adoption Society is here to take the baby. I’ll leave you together, Mrs Jackson, for a while. You see, it’s a beautiful baby, and a girl too. That was lucky wasn’t it, Mrs Miller?’
‘Yes,’ said Caroline, obediently zombie-like.
‘Right then. Well, just ring if you need me.’
‘All right.’ She lay there and looked at Mrs Jackson; the baby moved slightly in her shawl. ‘I want to know where she’s going,’ she said.
‘Oh, I can’t tell you that,’ said Mrs Jackson. ‘We find it best for the mother not to know.’
‘Really? Best for who?’
‘Why for both of you. Mother and baby. Much better just to let go altogether. It’s sad of course,’ she added brightly, ‘but it’s so much for the best, and you must think of baby.’
‘Yes of course,’ said Caroline. ‘Yes of course. What about the papers?’
‘Well, you have to sign one set now. The baby will be placed with her foster parents. In a few months, when we are satisfied that we have found the right adoptive parents, there will be more legal formalities naturally. I did explain all this to you before,’ she added severely.
‘So until then I can change my mind?’ said Caroline, with a wild stab of hope that was half fear.
‘Of course not,’ said Mrs Jackson, looking warily at her, hoping that the brisk sensible young woman she had interviewed before was not going to turn into one of the neurotic difficult ones who made life a nightmare for the adoptive parents. ‘You can’t just wander in one day and take the baby back.’
‘No,’ said Caroline humbly. ‘No, of course not. But . . .’
Mrs Jackson sighed. ‘So, if you would just like to sign here . . .’
Caroline looked at the form, but she could see nothing, it might as well have been written in hieroglyphics for all it meant to her; she took the pen, and held it very still above the line where her signature should go. She looked down at the baby and then up at Mrs Jackson, in an odd, appealing gesture. ‘Please help me,’ she said. Mrs Jackson chose to misunderstand. ‘I’ll hold the baby,’ she said, ‘that will make it easier for you.’
‘No,’ said Caroline sharply. ‘No, I want her.’
Mrs Jackson looked at her warily. ‘I hope you’re not going to change your mind,’ she said.
For a long moment, Caroline hesitated, wondering how she had the strength to do what had to be done, whether if, in spite of everything, she should keep the baby, bring it up alone. She could move away, go and live somewhere else, pretend she had been widowed; the country would be full of women on their own. She had plenty of money, she could give the baby a good life. What she was doing was madness, unnecessary.
‘I don’t think . . .’ she said, summoning her greatly depleted strength. ‘I really don’t think . . .’
And then the door opened and a nurse came in, looking slightly less hostile, almost friendly in fact, with a huge bunch of white roses, and said, ‘These are for you. Sir William Hunterton just brought them in and said he would visit you when you felt ready.’
Caroline looked at the card on the flowers which said, ‘From William, with my love’ and she thought of the promise she had made to William the night before, to marry him, and her assurance that he would not have to accept another man’s baby; she saw his face, William’s face, kind, concerned, loyal, before her blurred eyes, his gentle courage stretched to breaking point as he drove her to the hospital through the total darkness when no ambulance could be found, and she was already groaning with a pain that terrified him more than her; the grip of his hand as they wheeled her down the corridor towards the labour ward, the kiss he gave her on her forehead as he said goodbye, his promise that he would stay and wait for however long it took, and she knew it had to be done, for all their sakes. She thought of all the months of care William had lavished upon her, the daily phone calls, the funny little gifts, the awkwardly careful questions; she thought of his struggle to make his proposal, and the way his whole face exploded in happiness when she had said she would like to accept; and she knew that she could not fail him, that he deserved that she should keep her promise. And she also recognized something else, something which surprised her, almost shocked her: how totally she had come to depend on William, his counsel, his support, his companionship, and how she found it impossible now to contemplate managing on her own. There could be other babies, lots of other babies; she had no trouble having babies, that was one thing she did know about herself; she could have another baby straight away, she could be back here in less than a year with a new baby, one that would make William and her both happy. All she had to do now was be brave and it would soon be over, and then she could begin again. She was always beginning again.
She took a deep breath, and suddenly, almost brutally, as if she were inflicting some physical injury upon herself, handed the baby over to Mrs Jackson. ‘Take her,’ she said, ‘take her quickly. Look, I’ve signed. Now go away.’
‘Thank you, Mrs Miller. I know you’ve made the right decision. Can I do anything for you?’
‘No,’ said Caroline, her teeth clenched in an effort to keep from crying out. ‘Nothing. Just go. Go, go, go.’
The pain she had felt as the baby had been pulled from her body the night before was nothing compared with the wrenching agony of seeing her carried out through the door.
/> In a German hospital near Munich that very same day, after months in coma, surgery and intensive care, Flight-Lieutenant FitzPatrick was finally deemed well enough to be given the unread letter from Caroline Miller that had been in his pocket the day he was shot down.
Interview with Kate FitzPatrick for Two Childhoods chapter of The Tinsel Underneath.
Brendan was more of a pet in this household, I tell you, than a little boy. We all spoilt him, us four girls and our mother. He was always so good-natured and so loving. ‘You have a perfect boy there,’ Father Mitchell used to say to her. He was a good friend to us, Father Mitchell, always in the house after our father died. And for some reason we never felt jealous of Brendan, just adored him. Ridiculous really.
He didn’t do at all well at school. He was just so dreadfully lazy. And he always got bad grades; but when our mother went to the school somehow all the teachers had something good to say about him all the same. That he was kind, thoughtful, helpful, always nice to talk to. He had charm, Brendan did, even when he was just a little boy.
We were very poor, and none of us had much; but Brendan did get more than the rest of us. The second helping of dessert, the new jacket. ‘Well, he’s a growing boy,’ Mother used to say, ‘he needs more food,’ or ‘he can’t wear your hand-me-downs.’ We used to resent that a bit, but then again, I think we thought she was right. We didn’t often argue about it. Like I told you, he was more like a pet than a child in the house.
Of course, he could learn things when he had to. When it was a play he wanted to be in, the words went into that head of his easy as anything. ‘Hear my words,’ he’d say after sitting with the book for half an hour, and we all would say, ‘You can’t know them, not yet,’ but he did, every time, word perfect.
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