Nanny opened the cupboard and took out crib bedding and frilled white drapery, which every spring had been laundered, wrapped in tissue paper and put away again, waiting for the first Campbell baby since Gordon to use them. She held them to her cheek and buried her nose in the folds of linen. ‘I’m sure I can still trace the scent of Gordon, dear,’ she said.
Ruth turned her back and went to the window, raising alarm signals in Nanny, who had been trying for weeks to get Ruth involved in the preparations. It was not the first time that Ruth had turned her back, and Nanny was becoming worried. Ruth had not yet been to see Flora. Now she said sharply, ‘I’m worried about your commitment to the adoption, Ruth. I do wish you would show more interest.’
Ruth still had her back to Nanny as she replied in a bored voice, ‘I am interested. I have started to mention heartburn and sickness to everyone. I’ve seen a knowing look on Lucy Hamilton’s face. It’s a wonder she hasn’t said anything to you.’ She stood on tiptoe, the better to see something outside.
She obviously wanted to leave to Nanny all the counting and sorting of the mounting piles of small garments. Ruth had not done a single stitch whereas Nanny, in such spare moments as she had, cut out, sewed and embroidered Viyella nightdresses and fine linen pillowcases and sleep suits. It was as if Ruth found the whole business of motherhood a bore.
Ruth continued, ‘Everyone will have guessed by now. In fact I intend to announce it very soon. We can’t hide these preparations from servants. But when – what exactly shall I say? When is the baby due?’
Nanny was losing patience. She said, ‘We can’t be sure of the birth date. Babies come when they please.’
‘All right,’ Ruth drawled. ‘I’ll try to contain myself until I have the child in my possession.’
Now Nanny warned her: ‘You are expecting a lot of Flora. Many girls change their minds at the last minute.’
Ruth turned round, her face pale with fury. ‘Is this what she says? How dare she threaten me …?’
Nanny would not be intimidated. ‘It’s not what she says. But I know young mothers well enough to say that Flora may change her mind.’ Nanny had seen in Flora nothing but gratitude, but she had a growing sense of the wrongness of the arrangement that had seemed expedient a few weeks before. Now she said, ‘Why don’t you visit her? Assure her that her child will be better off as a Campbell.’
Ruth changed her tone, softened and said, ‘you know I can’t risk that. And I can’t have her here. It would be impossible.’ She picked up a small heap of vests and, handling them carefully, took them to the nursery cupboard. ‘I’m so overwrought, Nanny. I’ll probably go into labour before Flora does.’
Nanny said gently, ‘I think we should have a contingency plan for when the baby is born.’
But Ruth was not going to give an inch. ‘The contingency plan is that Flora will be given a hundred pounds and told to leave the area. What more could she expect?’
‘Adoption societies by law must give a mother six weeks to decide.’
‘Once the baby is mine, there is no proof that Flora ever had a child and I did not,’ Ruth said. ‘I would deny everything, Nanny.’
‘There are certain physical changes,’ Nanny reminded her.
‘All right! I don’t want to listen to the gory details of childbearing. How soon after the birth would a woman be fit to travel?’
When Ruth was in this mood, there was no point in talking things over. Nanny said, ‘Two weeks if everything runs smoothly.’
‘Tch! Chinese women have them in the paddy fields and carry on working,’ Ruth said. ‘I’ll give her two days.’
‘What?’
‘Or there will be no money. And I will have her turned off the estate.’
‘I hope you are joking,’ Nanny said.
‘Then make sure she goes far, far away, Nanny,’ Ruth said as she walked out of the little attic room.
Nanny put on the nursery table the little heap of clothes she would inspect carefully for any broken threads or missing ribbons or buttons. She prayed that Ruth was behaving in this manner because she was in a high state of nerves about the whole business. She tried to convince herself that many a mother did not experience the deep bond between herself and her baby until it was born.
In the middle of her reverie, before she could begin to inspect the baby clothes, there came the now-familiar sounds of the aeroplanes from the 602 Spitfire squadron at RAF Drem, flying overhead. There must be another German attack on shipping and the docks on the Forth. Nanny was not blasé, but the attacks were a daily occurrence and her heart no longer came up into her throat at the sound. These were much louder than usual, though – lower and fast approaching. She went to the window and now her heart did leap into her throat.
In that freezing February weather a German Heinkel 111 was coming towards the house, roaring above the park, the sunlight flashing off the windscreen, thick smoke pouring from a port engine. It was only a few yards above the winter-bare branches of the elms, heading straight for Ingersley. The noise was deafening. Above and behind it, pursuing it to the death, shooting flaming tracers of fire, came a Spitfire, its powerful engine whine as familiar now to everyone in the area as the sounds of the Brent geese that were taking to the air in a clumsy panic ahead of the fighter planes. Nanny instinctively ducked and put her arms over her head. The Heinkel cleared the roof. Nanny ran across to her own bedroom and saw the enemy plane going down in the direction of Ivy Lodge on the farthest reach of Ingersley land. Then both hunter and hunted disappeared from view. There was no explosion.
The nursery preparations could wait. Flora’s baby was not due until mid-May. But she was a child of sixteen who had to live in hiding, and it was not right. Nanny flew like a youngster down the stairs to their living floor, put on her outdoor things and went down to the hospital’s casualty area. She was needed.
A nursing sister said, ‘The ambulance has gone. A doctor and two nurses are with them. There’s no need for you to turn out.’
Nanny said, ‘Thank you. But I’m going that way anyway. If they need extra help, I’ll offer.’ Flora needed her. Though she was improving under Nanny’s supervision, she still suffered pain in her back from the pressure of her enlarging abdomen. Nanny would have called in a doctor but Ruth said, ‘No! Not unless she is really ill. Then I’ll have her sent to one of the big maternity hospitals in Edinburgh.’
Nanny hurried to the front of the house, where the Armstrong Siddeley stood. The frozen gravel crunched like broken glass under her sensible Gibson shoes. She reached the car, pushed down the icy door handle and climbed in. Then she surprised herself by calling out ‘Dash it!’ when the motor coughed wearily and refused to turn. ‘Dash again!’ she said as she got out and dragged the starting handle from behind the seat. She rammed it into place under the radiator. She was used to it now – a hard down-stroke, keeping her thumb curled alongside her fingers, then let go as the handle swung up. The engine started at once. Nanny withdrew the handle and climbed back in, slammed the door and headed off towards the north entrance.
Lucy Hamilton was at the farmhouse gate, staring down the road. She was carrying her pregnancy well. Only a slight thickening at her waist and a widening of her hips and bottom showed her five months. Looking neat and fit in her maternity wear, she waved Nanny down and called out, ‘I want to see what’s going on. Can I come with you, Nanny?’
Nanny had not realised when this secret adoption was first put to her just how many lies she would have to tell, but Lucy was not to know – nobody was to know – anything at all about the connection between the Campbells and Flora.
Nanny was always out and about in the area, with ten expectant mothers to attend to. Professional etiquette and a patient’s confidentiality forbade her from talking about her patients so she wound down the window, said to Lucy, ‘I’m afraid not, dear …’ and with a quick wave of her hand drove off at speed through the gates, to the road and the four-mile journey to Ivy Lodge.
A
mile further on, two cars were stopped at a police post. Nanny crept slowly forward until she was level with the official – a man she had not seen before. An army of new officials had been brought in since East Lothian was designated an exclusion zone because of the number of operational airfields, camps and military installations.
‘Identity card?’ the officer said. She handed it over.
He scrutinised it. ‘Where are you going?’
‘I’m a nurse,’ she said. ‘I have patients to see. Do you need any more details?’
He said, ‘No. We’re only stopping people from crowding into the area. The police are up there already, and the air force are on their way.’
She covered the last two miles quickly while pondering the problem of whisking the baby up to Ingersley if the country lanes as well as main roads were to have road blocks and inquisitive officials. So far they had been allowed to move around freely within the zone. Leaving the area was no problem – it was the incoming people who were checked.
Nanny drove down the rough road to Ivy Lodge, a two-storey house built of local sandstone, set well back from a road so narrow and deeply rutted it was impossible to travel by horse and cart. It was even difficult on foot, for it was a mile from the nearest paved road. Nanny knew every inch of it, though, and her wheels went spinning over the frozen puddles without once skidding off the track.
She found the house unusually quiet. Often she would hear Flora singing now that her difficult pregnancy was being carefully managed. She had a beautiful voice and would sit at the piano for hours, singing and trying to learn the accompaniment. Flora was a sweet and good girl.
In the kitchen the fire was lit in the cottage range, a spark guard was in place and a kettle simmered at the back of the stove. Nanny went out again and, shading her eyes against the glare as she scanned the fields, saw Flora being guided painfully slowly down the hillside by a man who was himself leaning on a stick. Flora raised her arm in recognition but so feebly that Nanny ran towards them and was out of breath when she reached them.
The old man was Davey Hamilton, Mike Hamilton’s father, an outspoken, blunt countryman of Nanny’s age, a man wrapped well for the weather in boots and gaiters, tweeds and a hat. ‘Yon lass needs medical attention, Nurse!’ he said. ‘Winter clothes. A warm bed. Hot food. She cannae stand.’ He was supporting Flora, who, wearing a lightweight coat that would not fasten round her, no hat and thin leather shoes, was obviously all-in, too weak and cold to talk.
No doubt Davey Hamilton had spotted her as, unknowingly, she trespassed on his land. There was no law of trespass but this farmer investigated every roaming pair of feet that crossed his land. He was well known for pointing out to any walker whom he found there the nearest public footpaths, and for exaggerating the dangers of not sticking to them.
He made no mention of Flora’s condition, nor did he ask any questions on the last few yards to the cottage. He had no need to ask. He was as shrewd a judge of human and animal behaviour as could be found in a week’s march of his farm. He was a man who had never been known to gossip, but all the same, Nanny would not tell Ruth. She thanked him and said, ‘Will you stay for a cup of tea?’ because she could not think of anything else she might do.
‘No,’ he answered dourly. Then, to Flora, whom they had laid on the chintz cushions of the drop-end settee. ‘Next time the Luftwaffe falls oot the sky, don’t try climbing yon hill to watch ’em, lassie.’
When he’d gone, though Flora protested that she only wanted to sleep, Nanny made her drink steaming tea. There was a bathroom upstairs but it took for ever to heat enough water to fill the tub, and today there was no time. While Flora took her tea, Nanny fetched the zinc bath and placed it before the fire, then filled it with jugs of hot water from the tap over the range and cold from the kitchen. ‘You are chilled through,’ she said, ‘and I’m not leaving until I see you fed and warmed.’
She had not seen Flora undressed for a few weeks and now she hid her alarm at the network of stretch marks that streaked down the girl’s body. They went from below her heavy breasts almost to Flora’s knees. Her upper arms, too, from armpit to elbow were stretched – purple striae, which would never fade completely.
Flora stepped into the tub and sat down. ‘I didn’t want to see the crashed aeroplane. I was making for the main road.’
‘What?’ Nanny said, shocked.
‘I want to get away from here,’ she said quietly and firmly.
‘Why?’
‘I’m trapped. I’m here because I have nowhere else to go.’
‘You’re not a prisoner.’ Nanny was hurt at being likened to a jailer.
Flora picked up a flannel and held it to her face with shaking fingers, through which she whispered, ‘It’s not your fault. But if I told Lady Campbell, I couldn’t stay here. My baby is kicking. I’ve started to love it and think I’m doing the wrong thing.’
Nanny was right. Mother love was coming into the equation. She said, ‘But how could you keep a baby, lass? You’ve no home.’
‘It’s wrong, Nanny. Don’t you see? This choice shouldn’t be forced on people.’
‘Flora, dear, what choice have you?’
Tears were streaming down Flora’s face now. ‘Animals don’t have to pay for their dens or nests like we do. They defend their homes and their young to the death. They don’t give up their babies because they can’t afford a roof over their heads and food to eat. All God’s creatures have a right to forage for food and build a shelter. Why isn’t it my right? It shouldn’t be in any government’s power to deny them to anyone. Why am I less important than a fox or a bird?’
‘It’s the way things are organised, I suppose.’ There was a hard lump in Nanny’s throat. ‘What were you going to do if you found a way out of here?’
‘Stay with my friend Jessie. She’ll have me and the baby till I got on my feet.’ Flora’s confidence was returning as warmth seeped into her.
‘Think of the bairn. It will have a better life at Ingersley.’ Nanny believed this to be true, otherwise she would never have gone along with this illegal adoption. Even now, she could take Flora to her friend Jessie’s home. Ruth would lose face, of course, and Gordon would have to be told that the adoption had fallen through. But what kind of life would that be for this precious unborn baby? What sort of life would they have if Flora, penniless, had only temporary shelter in Leith, the city dock area? Nanny said gently, ‘Your child will have the best of everything at Ingersley. You could never give it all that.’
‘I know,’ Flora cried softly as she squeezed the flannel and watched the water run over her swollen abdomen. ‘I’d be cheating Lady Campbell if I take all her kindness and then refuse to hand the baby over …’ She raised pleading eyes and said, ‘But it doesn’t stop me wanting to keep it. Can I come and visit?’
‘No, Flora.’ It came as a sudden cold certainty to Nanny that Ruth would stop at nothing if Flora ever came looking for her child. It sent a shiver down her arms, though she was up to her elbows in warm water as she soaped Flora. ‘You must go far away. Never come back.’
‘Where could I go?’
‘How would you like to go to my sister in Canada?’ Nanny asked. Since the beginning of the war, from the Dominions and the USA, offers to take children had come pouring in. Nanny had received three letters from her younger sister in Canada, each more urgent than the last, in which Dorothy begged her to return, saying, ‘We are registered as your host family. Secure a passage. No need to write. Telephone when you arrive. We are waiting for you.’
Nanny saw a look of hope on Flora’s face, then watched it fade as she said, ‘I’d need a lot of money.’
‘A hundred pounds is enough. I have a little as well.’
Nanny knew it would be the best solution for them all if Flora went far, far away. ‘I’ll see the emigration people in Glasgow and set the wheels in motion.’
‘If I take the money, accept the passage – what will happen to me?’
‘You
have to put it behind you,’ Nanny said with a shake of her head. ‘There’s no other way. You are young. You can make a fresh start.’
‘And then I marry – and my husband need never be told?’ Flora looked down at the purple stretch marks, then up at Nanny, who need not voice what they both knew. It would be impossible for Flora ever to hide from a future husband that she had already been through the mill of childbearing. Flora gave her a bleak smile. ‘I want my baby. I don’t want another man.’
Nanny said, ‘You still love Andrew?’
Flora drew herself up in the water, her eyes flashing. ‘I can’t stop loving him. You can’t help your feelings, Nanny,’ she said, ‘but I despise what he’s done. He deserted me – disowned me and my …’ she spread her hands across her swollen body, ‘… and his baby!’ Then, shaken by her own vehemence, she said more softly, ‘I put my trust in Andrew and he’s broken his promises. He wanted promotion and success more than he wanted me.’ She looked down at her swollen body again. ‘I’m sixteen! That’s all. I feel like a woman of thirty-six.’ Then, anxiously, ‘I’m going to be all right, aren’t I? My mother died having me. I was a very big baby.’
Nanny went on soaping and sponging until the warmth of the water seeped into Flora, warming her through. She said, ‘You’ll be all right. You are a big, strong girl, you know. And I’ll be with you.’ But she was worried. Women who carried as much water as Flora was carrying – for her ankles and fingers were twice their normal size – were in danger of heart failure, soaring blood pressure and thrombosis. ‘From now on, lass, you will have to spend the rest of your time in bed. You must not put your feet to the floor.’
Flora's War Page 20