‘Come now, there’s many a lass found herself between a rock and a hard place these past years. The war hasn’t helped. It puts that much strain on even the best of families. There’s no point, to my mind, getting on your high horse and coming over all “holier than thou”. There, there … you’re amongst friends here, dearie.’
Mrs. Hoskins had enough experience to know that some in Miss Simmonds’ condition, however great their need, could be unpredictably volatile. If she was to get anywhere with this young woman, she would have to go carefully, building up the picture until Miss Simmonds could see herself there, big with child, standing in the bay window. She began by wondering if Delia knew why Holm View had been selected for her mother’s confinement. She let the story unfold in gentle detail so Delia, however shocked she might be, could both follow it and come to understand that its teller could be trusted.
‘You see, I’m known to your Uncle Horace Minton at Kidderminster. Some years ago now, he was obliged to send a young woman from his works to the seaside. She was in the family way. (It’s not every man who’d take responsibility for his actions, I have to say. Your uncle’s all the more a gentleman for doing the decent thing, in my opinion.) And, do you know, I recognised his handwriting on the envelope straightaway when he wrote again, even though it had been years. This was quite a different problem he had. He told me it concerned his sister (and, I’m sorry to say, at first I took that with a pinch of salt) who fancied herself ill, with swelling about the belly and they couldn’t believe it but thought she was expecting. It was your father who had alerted your Uncle Horace. They’d rather she didn’t see a local doctor (for reasons as I hope you’ll understand) but your father thought Horace Minton could help. He knew, or guessed, I suppose, that your uncle was a man of the world: a modern man who could manage things.
‘And so Horace wrote to me and I arranged for Dr. Spode to see your mother just as he sees the other poor women who stay at Holm View from time to time. It can happen, so Dr. Spode told me, that a woman thinking herself past childbearing, who hasn’t had her monthlies for a while, falls pregnant. We call it The Fall. For some, it’s a blessing. For most it’s a curse. They’re usually married women but, at their time of life, they cannot bear the thought of another pregnancy. That’s another reason why its called The Fall, to my way of thinking, though it’s also because something inside has fallen at just the wrong time and started a baby.
‘They didn’t want you distressed, my dear. They thought the fewer who knew, the better. Your father and uncle arranged for your mother to have this break by the seaside (and Weston’s a lovely spot, as I hope you’ll come to realise) so Dr. Spode could sort her out.
‘You’ll be thinking that it wasn’t right that I, a stranger you don’t know from Eve, should be let in on your family secrets and you still kept in the dark. And I don’t say you haven’t got a point. Your uncle first told me how things lay because he knew I’d find out soon enough, it being my line of business so to speak and it all going on under my roof. He said I wasn’t to speak of it to you, dearie. He said your parents would decide what to do but he led me to think your mother would not go full-term. It might all be managed and no one the wiser. So there was no need to distress you needlessly.
‘Then last week Dr. Spode told me that your mother was going to have the baby. It wasn’t so much as a decision as that she had refused to make her mind up and now really was too far gone. To interfere would be too dangerous. He’d warned her and had been pressing for a decision but she’d refused to say. He thinks she now understands what’s what but, as we know, your mother can be hard to fathom at the best of times (you’ll not mind me saying).
‘Well, I thought, if that’s the case and she’s staying here to have it, I can’t be over delicate. If they won’t tell me theirselves, and they’ve had the week to do so, I’ll have to tackle the subject direct. And then, of course, I’d guessed that you were in the same predicament. I’ve got my instincts, you see, and they’re never wrong. Have I got two of them expecting? I asked myself. If so, there’s a deal of business to sort out. I’m sorry, though, to have caught you unawares, my dear, but, when Dr. Spode told me your mother was going to have it, I thought she must have already explained it all to you.’
‘“Going to have it”.’ Delia still hung on that phrase. She repeated it as she grappled with the enormous implications of Mrs. Hoskins’ casual allusions. There were courses of action, apparently considered by her parents, which fell leagues beyond Delia’s own moral scope. This decision ‘to keep the baby’ was not about whether to rear the child themselves or surrender it for adoption; it was about allowing it to live. A door had been thrown wide and biting winds, blown across endless tracts of barren wilderness, swirled around Delia.
Something of the terrible bleakness she suddenly found herself exposed to registered in Delia’s expression; it prompted Mrs. Hoskins hastily to justify the way things were. She knew it was imperative that Miss Simmonds did not leave her in a state of nervous confusion. Women who did not fully understand the way the world had to rub along were apt to blunder into some careless course, accidentally letting things slip or even deliberately passing information on to people in authority or other bigots. A girl in a muddle invariably led to trouble. Mrs. Hoskins’ motives were essentially generous. She had cared for innumerable women for whom having a baby was a personal catastrophe. For most, she would contrive that they gave birth discreetly and then, with Dr. Spode’s help, surrendered the newborn infant to be cared for in a Children’s Home. For a few (and these were often married women already half-dead from childrearing or whose husbands, returning from war, could never have been the father) Mrs. Hoskins recognised the necessity of flushing it away before anyone was the wiser.
‘You need to know, dearie, that some women (poor things), “in the family way” take steps so that there is no baby. In these circumstances, it’s best for all. And it’s before what’s inside has ever grown into anything like a human being. I think your father, dearie, wanted to spare your mother another birth. It’s a grisly business at the best of times and her age, you see, doesn’t help.’
‘She’s fifty-three.’
‘It’s not as if she’s had a baby every other year as these women, who are martyrs to their menfolk, do. If she had, she’d no doubt take this one in her stride, so to speak. Your father and your Uncle Horace knew that if you leave it too late, there’s nothing to be done but let nature take its course; the alternative’s too dangerous. But your mother’s refusal to see a doctor before she came to us at Weston meant she’d very little time to decide what was for the best. Once Dr. Spode had seen her, he told her straight. She had to decide. He wouldn’t listen to anyone else. Dr. Spode will only heed the mother; no one else, he says, has got the right. But your mother wouldn’t state her mind and now it really is too late.’
‘She’s going to keep the baby.’
‘She’ll give birth when her time’s right and I’ve no doubt, once she sees the little mite, she’ll take to it directly. It’s just the awkwardness and discomfort of being with child again that’s turned her against it, meanwhile.
‘Well, there you are. Dr. Spode’s written to your father. He’s ready to assist your mother up to and during her confinement. He’ll be thinking of her health first and foremost.
‘When your Uncle Horace wrote to me, he said, “It’s a rum business and the old girl should not have to go through with it.” Those were his very words, near enough. He’s a gentleman, your Uncle Horace. “I’m prepared to pay Spode for what it takes”, he said. And I’ve no doubts he’ll pay the doctor’s charges without squinting over them in any detail. Which, I have an inkling, may be to someone else’s advantage.’
Delia nodded. She was beginning to see how everything might be arranged. Mrs. Hoskins made sure she clarified the critical issue.
‘But it’s right and proper that we keep everything private. There must be no tittle-tattle or gossip. No long letters pouring out y
our heart.’
Delia nodded again. Who was there, anyway, to whom she might write?
‘Good,’ said Mrs. Hoskins. ‘So now we understand each other, I think you ought to tell me all about your own difficulty. I have a feeling (am I right, my dear?) that this has been your secret all the while. That’s not good. You need to share your trouble and Mother Hoskins is hear to listen.’
The invitation could not be ignored. Delia was aware of that. She knew that, despite her resolution to depend on no one else, she was in a predicament which required others’ help. She told her story in such a way as to convince Mrs. Hoskins that she was no wanton Jezebel but a naïve miss who had been badly used.
‘I can speak to Dr. Spode in all good conscience now, dearie. You’re not so far gone you can still make up your mind what’s for the best but, until you do, slip this ring on your finger and call yourself “Mrs. Simmonds” when you’re out and about. If anyone asks, say you haven’t been able to wear your wedding ring because your finger all swelled up. That often happens. You’re in mourning anyway so no one’s going to enquire too far. Anybody’ll assume you’re just another widow.’
Delia recognised Mrs. Hoskins’ authority. Clearly, there were practised subterfuges which she could just adopt, with the help of a prop or too. Mrs. Hoskins began to regale her with a fund of anecdotes of girls she had known or heard about who illustrated every permutation Delia’s own fate might take. The landlady only sought to make it clear that Delia was not alone in her predicament. As she rounded off with her own philosophy, Delia’s found it chimed with her own outlook.
‘It’s always best to take control of events, you see. Nothing good ever came of walking away from a problem, of washing your hands of it. Whatever happens, you don’t forget you’re amongst friends. As for Dr. Spode, I know he’ll make out any bill for your mother to cover his time with you. No one that you don’t want to tell need know.’
An hour later, Delia left the boardinghouse for a walk. She needed time and space to absorb her situation. Now, the ubiquitous fringed chenille curtains and drapes of lace, which adorned the windows of every front room of every villa, did not denote respectability so much as discretion. Unimpeachable uneventfulness was the message the streets wanted to convey, while they absorbed all sorts of private crises.
This is a town, Delia felt, where anything can happen and no one will interfere. Of course, it makes commercial sense: a holiday resort depends on a transient population who do not want their frivolous aberrations recorded. My anonymity, here at Weston-super-Mare, will be sacrosanct.
The thought, though reassuring in one sense, left her bleakly aware of her loneliness.
Delia walked the length of the pier, toward the bandstand where a brass ensemble was playing lugubriously. The plangent tunes with their military resonance pulled cruelly on the emotions. She looked around at the crowd: elderly couples without grandchildren, young women walking arm in arm, flat-footed emasculated clerks. They were all haunted by something akin to despair for a lost future which the past once promised. Delia sat on a bench and stared out over the Bristol Channel.
Over the following weeks, Delia took to lingering in Mrs. Hoskins’ back parlour before or after her customary walk. She took more comfort than she had expected from the other woman’s sturdy acceptance of the way things were.
‘You know, Mrs. Hoskins,’ Delia said one afternoon. ‘I am quite clear that I have to give birth to this baby. It’s not that I have truly thought it all through but I know I cannot add another death to the toll already exacted. There have been too many needless deaths. I am sure that is how my mother must also feel.’
‘You’re in a very fortunate position, Miss Simmonds. There’s not many girls who find themselves with the escape you’re presented with. You can come out of all this with your respectability in tact. Your mother’s condition is the means. You must see, though, that she understands what has to be done. Appearances must be kept up come what may. Do that, and everything will turn out as right as rain.’
Delia’s subsequent conversation with her mother was not easy. Although Delia tackled her when her spirits did not seem unduly dejected, Muriel Simmonds responded with cold unconcern. Delia’s troubles counted for nothing, it would seem, compared to her own terrible predicament. Delia was deeply hurt by the implication that her mother was not surprised, that she all but expected her daughter to fail her in this way. With weary resignation, she agreed to Delia’s plan. She gave no indication of relief that, at least through this means, her daughter might be spared disgrace.
There would be two babies with, presumably, a mere difference of a month or two — easily lost—in their ages. Muriel Simmonds was to do no more than let the world know that she had given birth to twins and that Delia was helping her by ‘playing the mother’ to her unexpected siblings.
‘You will have to write to your father,’ Muriel Simmonds said one morning. ‘I shall not. I shall not do it. Tell him. See what reaction you get from him.’ There was a twisted bitterness to her tone which Delia did not like. It suggested some relish in the storm that was likely to erupt.
Delia put off writing that letter and, gradually, she came to realise that her father’s reaction, might not be as unaccommodating as she had first feared.
‘Why should he get on his high horse?’ Mrs. Hoskins said, when Delia expressed her concern over his possible reaction to her news. ‘Don’t forget he was perfectly happy to communicate with your Uncle Horace. He has already shown the steps he was prepared to take to manage your mother’s situation.’
It was true. Even though there was nothing shameful in any pregnancy conceived in wedlock, her father had been prepared to countenance its termination and connive in a terrible act which, if detected, would have destroyed him; he had schemed to this end. Given this, Delia believed she could reasonably expect him to contrive similarly to save her reputation and spare himself ignominy by association.
Mrs. Hoskins thought it would be grossly unjust of him if Mr. Simmonds refused to support his daughter.
‘I’ve no time for men who always blame their womenfolk for accidents of this nature. It takes two to start a life. To my way of thinking then, you can’t expect the woman to sort out any muddle all on her own. Or if she does, blame her for whatever course she needs to take.’
Delia reasoned that, in fact, she ought to be able to wield considerable influence over her father. How could he assume any moral authority without exposing himself to charges of appalling hypocrisy? In addition, he had to be made to realise how despicably he had behaved by being prepared to make her, his daughter, an ignorant accomplice to the crime—the law would call it murder— he had contemplated. No: he had already surrendered the moral advantage to her. Delia took comfort and confidence from that.
She sat down to compose a letter to her father and plan a strategy for the future. It helped her avoid confronting the only issue she sought to ignore: how her mother had conceived.
Friday, 18 April 1919
Dunchurch
Good Friday, 1919
Dear Delia
You must be grateful that I have waited several days before replying to your letter and acknowledging the information you had to impart. You will, I hope, appreciate how difficult I have found it to write this letter.
I received your news as another personal blow, all the more terrible because I had thought we had put your episode behind us. Then, just as I had come to rely on you for support, helping with your mother, you declare yourself unfit for anything. I feel appalled and very badly used. I had much rather you had told me or your mother the truth after that ill-conceived flight of yours to Ipswich. I gave you the opportunity to confess to what had occurred but you chose to let me believe that there was nothing I need concern myself with. I am still unaware of the extent of your culpability—your connivance, if you wish, in your disgrace—but that is now your affair. I doubt there is any influence I can have on Cordingley or his mother to effect any appearance of
respectability. You will remember that, following your glib protestations of innocence, I wrote to Lady Margery refuting, on my honour, any wrongdoing on your part.
You have deceived me, Delia. I wonder if you have any idea how deeply it cuts me to write that fact. I can no longer trust you. Trust has gone. That is a terrible thing. It will never return.
If that were not bad enough, now you seek to foist on your mother your own disgrace. You seem to imagine you simply have to state that something is so for it indeed to be so. You have duped me, and now you seek to dupe the world and give out a lie to salvage a wasted reputation. And what of the child? How long do you intend to conceal from the child its true parentage? Have you considered Cordingley at all? Is he not to be made aware of his responsibilities?
I resent, absolutely, your attempt to secure some advantage by accusing me of taking advantage of your willing acquiescence in your mother’s plans for rest and recuperation by not telling you of her true condition. I did not know her condition. It was a supposition. To have it confirmed (I have had a communication from Dr. Spode) is a shock. That you chose to take advantage of this situation would have surprised me in the past; now, I am aware that you will stoop at nothing to serve your own ends.
I feel sickened by the advantage you want to take over your poor mother’s condition. Make no mistake: I shall play no active part in this business. I wish to hear nothing further about it. Your mother, as you know, never writes; I only want to hear from you with news of how she does, of your own situation I wish to remain ignorant. In that way, I shall not be obliged to practise any subterfuge or dishonesty. I have already burnt your last letter; it was never written.
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