The Edge of Dark

by Pamela Hartshorne

  ‘I have seen a child born,’ said Jane quietly. ‘I will do as you tell me. I will not leave my sister to endure this alone.’

  ‘Help her back to the bed,’ the midwife instructed at last, and together they lifted and half-carried Juliana.

  ‘Make it stop, Jane,’ she wept piteously. ‘It is tearing me apart.’

  ‘It will not be long now,’ Jane said, as if she would know.

  ‘You’ve been saying that since my waters broke.’ The pain eased for a moment and Juliana let Jane lift her head and give her a little ale to drink. ‘What time is it?’ she asked, falling weakly back on the pillow. ‘Is it morning yet?’

  ‘Morning? No, you have not been in travail so long,’ Jane reassured her in a bright voice, although it felt as if they had been shut in this sweltering chamber for a week at least. She glanced at Annis. ‘Is it even night yet, Annis?’

  Annis opened the shutters a chink. ‘The edge of dark,’ she informed them over her shoulder. ‘The chickens will be coming home to roost and you’ll have your babe before the night,’ she told Juliana kindly.

  ‘I do not want it!’ A tear rolled down Juliana’s cheek. ‘It is killing me!’

  ‘Lie still now,’ tsked the midwife. She nodded at Jane. ‘Hold her down.’

  So Jane climbed onto the bed behind her sister, and held on to her tightly as the midwife rolled up her sleeve and groped for the baby, while Juliana screamed and tried to writhe.

  ‘Ahh . . .’ The midwife straightened. ‘It’s coming now. Almost there. One more push.’

  ‘Do you hear that? It will soon be over,’ Jane encouraged Juliana.

  ‘I don’t want to . . . I don’t want to . . .’ Juliana thrashed from side to side but they managed to haul her up and back to the birthing chair.

  ‘See, the head!’ Jane was filled with emotion and she smiled at her sister through her tears. ‘Oh Juliana, here it comes!’

  A few moments later, the baby slithered into the midwife’s callused hands, just as a loud crack overhead announced that the long-awaited storm had arrived, and foreboding raced across the midwife’s face. She looked up, crossing herself surreptitiously. Another crack, a boom of thunder and then the rain came: crashing onto the roof, thundering past the windows, drumming on the ground.

  ‘At last,’ said Annis, taking advantage of the midwife’s preoccupation with the baby to open the shutters and let a thread of cool air into the room.

  Jane barely noticed. Her gaze was fixed on the midwife, who wiped the baby down in practised movements, before turning it over her hand and delivering a brisk slap that had it drawing breath for a wail of outrage.

  ‘A boy,’ she said, offering the baby to Juliana, who turned her face away.

  Jane was there to take him, though. ‘A boy!’ she said and her eyes met Annis’s. ‘Thank God, a boy! Oh, he is beautiful!’

  Giddy with elation and emotion, she cradled the baby while the midwife and Annis tidied Juliana and disposed of the afterbirth. Her eyes were stinging with emotion. ‘There now,’ she cooed to the baby, wiping blood from the creases in his neck and the crooks of his limbs, ‘who is my precious?’

  But after that first outraged cry, the baby lapsed into silence. His eyes were dark and furious as they stared blindly up at Jane and his tiny face was set in a scowl.

  ‘Try and get your sister to let him suck,’ said the midwife in a low voice. ‘Else you must send for a nurse.’

  ‘I’ll go,’ said Annis, edging towards the door. ‘There’ll be a woman in the village with milk.’

  ‘Shut that window before you go,’ advised the midwife tartly, and Annis rolled her eyes and closed the shutter before slipping gratefully out of the chamber into the cooler air.

  Jane gave the baby to the midwife to swaddle, and went to smooth the sweaty hair back from Juliana’s forehead.

  ‘You did well, little sister,’ she said, smiling down at her. ‘He is a fine boy. What will you call him?’

  ‘I do not care,’ said Juliana listlessly.

  ‘Come now, we must name him.’ Jane cast her mind over Robert’s ancestors. She couldn’t bear to name the babe after her husband. ‘What about Geoffrey?’

  ‘If you wish.’

  ‘Well, then, Geoffrey he will be. Do you not wish to see your son?’

  Juliana’s expression was blank, uncaring. ‘I don’t want him.’

  ‘He needs milk, Juliana. Look.’ She beckoned the midwife over, and took the baby from her. His mouth was opening and closing, although his expression was as empty as his mother’s. ‘He is hungry.’

  If Juliana would just put the baby to her breast, she would love him, Jane was sure. But perhaps then she would want to keep him after all? Jane was ashamed of herself for even thinking it.

  She did her best to cajole Juliana into nursing, but Juliana would have none of it. She just turned her face away from the baby and in the end Annis brought in a plump, placid woman from the village who had a babe strapped to one breast, and who let Geoffrey suck at the other.

  ‘Don’t go.’ Juliana’s eyes filled with tears when Jane made to fetch a bag of coins for the midwife. ‘Don’t leave me, Jane.’ She clutched at Jane’s hand and grew so distressed that Jane sent Annis for the money and settled by her sister, stroking her hair.

  ‘I won’t leave you,’ she said. ‘I promise.’

  Juliana ran a tongue over her cracked lips. ‘Promise me you won’t tell anyone about my disgrace.’

  ‘Of course I won’t,’ Jane soothed her. ‘No one else need know. Annis will not tell, and the midwife does not care.’

  ‘I don’t want anyone to know.’ Juliana tossed her head fretfully. ‘If I die . . . tell our father it was a fever. Don’t tell him the truth.’

  ‘You’re not going to die, Juliana.’

  ‘Swear you won’t tell!’

  Jane sighed. ‘I won’t tell, I swear it.’

  ‘Whatever happens?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Jane.

  ‘Swear it!’ Juliana’s voice rose frantically.

  ‘I will never tell anyone the babe was yours,’ Jane reassured her. ‘Never. I promise.’

  ‘Now what?’ asked Annis, when Juliana was sleeping at last, the midwife had gone and Geoffrey lay in the cradle, staring silently up at the ceiling.

  Jane took a breath. ‘You get some sleep. I will stay with Juliana and the babe, and tomorrow I will write to my husband and tell him that he has a son.’

  Be careful what you wish for. Sybil Dent’s words seemed to reverberate in Jane’s head as she watched her sister. Juliana’s pretty face was grey and sunken, and she tossed her head from side to side on the pillow, muttering to herself. She had sunk into a fretful fever two days after the birth, and none of Jane’s remedies could bring her fever down. The midwife had come back, but she just shook her head and pulled down the corners of her mouth.

  ‘Prepare yourself and look to the infant,’ was all she had said.

  Tell me what you really want, Sybil had said, and Jane had told her the truth. I want a child, she had said. But she hadn’t meant for Juliana to die so that she could have her babe.

  Annis laid a hand on Jane’s shoulder. ‘How is she?’

  ‘She’s dying.’ Jane’s voice was cracked and dry as she acknowledged the truth. She had told Juliana that she wouldn’t die, but she had been wrong. ‘She’s dying and I can’t save her.’

  Annis didn’t try to deny it. ‘I’ll sit with her for a while,’ she offered. ‘You need to rest.’

  ‘I can’t. I promised I would stay with her.’

  ‘You won’t be any good to the babe if you fall sick too,’ said Annis bluntly.

  Jane bit her lip. ‘Is this my punishment? Did I want a child too much?’ she asked Annis.

  At first she had thought all would be well. She had sent word to Robert that he had a son, but added a warning that there was sickness in the village. She would keep the baby safe before risking the journey back to the city.

  Th
e wet nurse was feeding the babe, who suckled with an odd expression of distaste. Annis and the midwife had taken him to the church and told the priest that he was Jane’s child, and he had been baptized. He was a silent child. Annis shook her head over him. ‘Tisn’t natural for a baby not to cry,’ she’d said, but Jane refused to accept any criticism.

  ‘He is a good baby, that is all.’

  But even Jane noticed how the wet nurse avoided picking Geoffrey up unless she had to. Annis made excuses to bypass his cradle. Jane tried to compensate by cuddling him, but the baby was oddly unresponsive. He had dark, knowing eyes that seemed to look inside her. Jane wouldn’t admit that there was a repellent quality to him. How could there be? He was just a baby.

  ‘You can’t think like that,’ Annis said with rough affection. ‘It wasn’t you got her with child, was it?’

  ‘I should have taken better care of her. I should have taken her to live with me.’

  ‘Oh yes? And how were you supposed to do that?’ Annis wasn’t having any of it.

  ‘I could have spoken to my father.’

  ‘Would’ve, should’ve, could’ve . . . you did what you could,’ said Annis.

  Outside, the trees still drooped forlornly after the storm. The rain had turned the tracks to mud, and left the garden behind the house battered and bedraggled. Water still dropped slowly, drearily, from the eaves.

  Jane sighed. ‘Why is it never enough?’ she said.

  Juliana died that night, so quietly that Jane couldn’t believe it. Her sister had always been extreme in everything. It seemed all wrong that she should just slip away without making a fuss.

  Look after your sister, her mother had said as she died. Keep her safe. Promise me. Another promise Jane hadn’t been able to keep.

  Her throat ached as she lifted Juliana’s limp hand to her lips. ‘Forgive me, Juliana,’ she whispered. Guilt and grief pressed down on her, weighing on her shoulders so heavily that she leant forward and rested her forehead on the bed next to her sister’s body. ‘I will keep your son safe,’ she vowed. ‘I will keep him close. I will be a mother to him as if I had borne him myself. I will care for him and love him, and I will never abandon him, not while breath is in my body. This I promise you, sister. I swear it on my life.’

  ‘How will I find the words to tell him?’ she asked wretchedly.

  ‘Hmm? What? Tell who?’ a sleepy voice mumbled.

  ‘My father.’

  There was a pause. ‘Your father’s been dead for years.’

  ‘Dead? No, he is in York, and his heart will break. Juliana was his pet, and now she is dead.’ Her voice caught on a sob. ‘Now I must write and tell him the news, and he will never forgive me.’

  Firm hands took hold of her. Why did Annis shake her so? ‘Wake up,’ a voice said. ‘Wake up, Roz.’

  Ah, if only she could! If only she were asleep, she could open her eyes and this would all be a dream. She would still be walking with Juliana in the garden, feeling the heat damp on her neck, longing for the storm to break. But alas, it was all too real. The weave of the coverlet pressing into her forehead. The rank smell of sweat. The steady drip, drip of raindrops on the windowsill. The flaccid chill of Juliana’s hand in hers.

  But then the dimness of the chamber exploded with a brilliant light that made her gasp and shrink back in terror, as a figure loomed over her. ‘Come on, Roz, wake up now. You’re having a nightmare.’

  Roz stared up at Nick, her eyes huge and terrified. ‘Oh . . . Nick!’ she stuttered, unable to catch her breath properly. Struggling up onto the pillow, she dropped her head onto her knees, heaving in air, while Nick rubbed her back and cursed under his breath.

  ‘Shit, I’m sorry. Maybe I shouldn’t have woken you, but I was worried. You were crying.’

  ‘Juliana’s dead,’ Roz managed unevenly, still leaden with sadness for her spoilt sister, only to shake her head on her knees at her own confusion. Of course Juliana was dead. Over four hundred years had passed since she had waddled awkwardly through the garden, her belly swollen, complaining about the heat and the boredom. They were all dead: Juliana, Annis, Robert, Margaret.

  Jane.

  Jane was dead too, remember? Roz shuddered. It was too easy to forget that when Jane’s life felt so real, so vivid, so now.

  Nick’s hand circled warm and comforting on her bare back. ‘Can you tell me about it?’

  So she told him about those long, desperate days and how hard she had fought to save her sister. She told him about the baby, with his flinty, black stare. She told him about the promise she had made to care for Geoffrey always.

  ‘I think he’s going to grow up to be Sir Geoffrey, who built this house,’ she said to Nick when her breathing had steadied and she could hug her knees to her chest. ‘I don’t really understand how, but he seems to be at the centre of all this. Do you remember his portrait in the long gallery? Did you notice anything odd about it?’

  ‘It was just a painting,’ said Nick, handing her a glass of water. For a moment Roz stared at it dubiously. Water was so often unwholesome. Ale would be better, she thought, and then she remembered who she was, when she was, and she took a sip. It tasted strange, as if she had never drunk water before, but it was cool and clear.

  Nick climbed back into bed beside her. They’d been given a guest room in the east wing. It had a low ceiling and a charming lead-paned window overlooking the gardens, but unlike the rooms in the main part of the house, it was decorated in a contemporary style. The walls were papered with a stylish chintz, the carpet was soft, the sleigh bed firm and comfortable. Roz had been relieved to find that the air didn’t hum with the past there, unlike the house in Micklegate. She felt safe there – or she had done until she had dreamt of Juliana’s death. Now Jane felt very close again.

  ‘What am I going to do, Nick?’ she said, and she fumbled the glass onto the bedside table so that she could hug her arms together. ‘What in God’s name am I going to do?’

  Chapter Twelve

  ‘I’ve been thinking.’ Nick stretched out on his side and propped his head on one elbow. ‘I know this dream was distressing for you, but the more you tell me about Jane’s story, the more convinced I am that this is you working through some issues to do with your past.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You woke up crying for a sister who was dead, right? You’ve only just discovered you had two sisters who died. You haven’t had a chance to grieve for them. Jane feels responsible because her mother is dead. Your mother is dead too.’

  Roz had thought of that before. Part of her even wanted to believe it. ‘What about the baby? And her awful marriage?’

  ‘I’ve thought about that too.’ Faint colour crept along Nick’s cheekbones and he sat up. ‘Look, we’ve never really talked about what went wrong, have we?’

  Roz stiffened. ‘We did.’ She remembered too many bitter discussions about Daniel.

  ‘Not properly, and things weren’t good before then, before Sue died. You wanted a baby,’ said Nick deliberately, and she couldn’t help it, she flinched. ‘And I didn’t.’

  ‘What was there to talk about?’ Roz rested her head back on her knees. Her voice was dull. ‘You can’t compromise on a baby. You can’t sort of have one. You’ve either got a child or you haven’t.’ She had wanted a baby so badly, but now Sybil’s words to Jane still rang in her head: Be careful what you wish for.

  ‘I thought we had talked about it,’ said Nick, ‘but we didn’t, not really. You asked what I thought about having kids, and I said I wasn’t ready, and yes, I was relieved that seemed to be the end of the discussion, but neither of us talked about what we felt. I couldn’t tell you that I was terrified at the thought of being a father. That I couldn’t cope with the responsibility.’

  ‘Funny how you seem to be coping fine with fatherhood when it comes to Daniel.’ Roz couldn’t keep the bitterness from her voice and Nick scrubbed a hand wearily over his face.

  ‘I’m not really his father,�
� he said. ‘Ruth’s been happily married since he was a baby and Daniel thinks of her husband as his father. He’s just an adolescent boy, using me as a way to kick out at his parents. Tony understands that. I’m never going to replace the man who bathed him and put him to bed and taught him how to ride a bike. Tony’s Daniel’s father. I’m just a biological coincidence. I didn’t expect to feel anything for him at all but . . .’ Nick’s voice petered out. He sounded almost perplexed.

  ‘I don’t know how to explain how it feels,’ he went on eventually. ‘Daniel’s my son. It doesn’t feel real, and yet there’s a kind of connection, I suppose. I like him,’ he said simply. ‘I like spending time with him and getting to know him.’

  ‘What are you trying to say, Nick?’

  ‘Just that I wish I had listened harder to you,’ he said quietly. ‘The truth is, when you first brought up the question of kids, I felt rejected, like I wasn’t enough for you. I know,’ he said as Roz opened her mouth to speak, ‘I was being selfish. I wanted things to stay as they were. I thought we were great together and we didn’t need anything else. Now . . . well, now I realize that having a child doesn’t necessarily mean that you lose something. You can gain something too, something special. But at the time I felt you resented me for not agreeing straight away, but you wouldn’t come out and say it. And then – since we’re being honest – I resented you for making me feel bad about myself.’

  She had resented him. ‘I resented you more for not telling me that you were a father,’ she said. Her aunt had lied, her husband had lied and Roz’s world had been staggering on its foundations. But Nick was right. She hadn’t wanted to acknowledge it, retreating instead into a silence that grew longer and colder. When Adrian had offered her the job in York, she had taken it without even asking Nick what he thought. She had been desperate to get away from London and the tense atmosphere in the flat.

  Be careful what you wish for.

  ‘I should have told you as soon as Daniel contacted me, I know, but you were in a worse way than you thought,’ Nick said carefully. ‘I knew it would be another knock.’ He blew out a breath and rubbed his hand over his hair. ‘I don’t know what I’m trying to say really. Just . . . I’m sorry. I made a mess of things.’