by Nancy Carson
‘Grab the towel off the wash-stand and dry your eyes. There’s no need for all these tears.’
She stood up deferentially and reached over, taking the towel, then buried her face in it, still weeping, as she sat down again.
‘Have you heard from him since Christmas?’
She looked up at him apprehensively, her eyes dry for a second or two after wiping them, but red from her tears. Just how much had he deduced?
‘Not a word. Nor do I want to.’
‘Well, perhaps that’s because it takes such a while for the mail to come from Southern Rhodesia.’ There was a hint of cynicism in his voice. ‘On the other hand, perhaps he didn’t intend to write to you any more, for fear of hearing for certain what he already assumed.’
Lizzie broke down in tears again, her shame greater than ever because he’d evidently known about her condition for some time; even known who her lover was. Her deceit clearly had not worked, and she felt contemptible, humiliated at having tried to fool him. Her covering of tracks had been remarkably unsuccessful and, even if it had worked, she still had this lump of irrefutable evidence growing inside her to give her away.
‘I told him not to write. There was no point in him writing. Anyway, how did you find out about him?’ Her tears were abating now it was all in the open. It was assuming the shape of a reasonable, but serious discussion.
‘I asked you a minute ago not to take me for a fool, Lizzie. It was obvious from the outset. Every time he came home on leave you were like a cat on hot bricks till he went back, and you were always making excuses about going shopping of a Saturday afternoon, but never coming back with anything; or saying you were off to see Daisy.’
‘But you never said anything. You never questioned me.’
‘Well, wouldn’t I be a bloody hypocrite if I had? It was me that told you to get your leg over somewhere if you felt the need. If I said that much, then I have to take the consequences. As I see it, I’m as much to blame as you. But I wish to God now as I’d never said such a thing.’
‘It wouldn’t have made any difference, Ben.’
‘Well, that’s as maybe. The fact is, you’re carrying another man’s child and we’re both lumbered with it.’
‘You don’t have to be lumbered with it, Ben. You don’t have to be lumbered with it if you don’t want to be. I could always go away. If you want me to, I’ll go away. It’s no more than I deserve.’
‘D’you want to go?’
She shook her head. ‘No, even if it’s what I deserve. Even though I’ve been wicked my children still love me. They don’t know I’ve been such a wicked woman. They need me. And I need them.’
Neither spoke for a minute. She stood up and went to the window again, feeling sick no longer. In the back yard Ben had lifted a small circular area of paving bricks – before he’d joined the army, when he was fit and well – and there he’d made a flower bed and bordered it with coping stones, the same ones that Henzey and, later, Eve, had fallen over. It was infested with weeds and long grass now, neglected for years, but every spring a few daffodils obstinately remained, forcing their way through, brightening the whole yard with their yellow flowers. So it was now, and Lizzie gazed at their fresh, bright trumpets absently, preoccupied with the moment.
Then Ben spoke. ‘The kids need never know anything about your little fling.’
She turned to look at him, daring to hope what he meant.
‘Did you love him?’
She took her time answering, measuring her words. If she said she didn’t love him she would appear cheaper than she already did. ‘I suppose I must have loved him to let it go so far. I must have loved him because I always longed for him to come home on leave.’
He closed his eyes momentarily and sighed. ‘And do you still love him?’
‘Oh, Ben, I don’t know … I honestly don’t know … Maybe that tells me that I don’t. If I did still love him, I suppose I’d feel it. But I don’t feel anything now. Just shame … regret.’
Lizzie’s red, watery eyes scanned his face for a clue as to his innermost feelings. This had hurt him so much, and yet he took it, with all the rest of his ailments, without complaint, with unfailing dignity. What kind of man had she married? What other man could be so tolerant and so forgiving over something as devastating as this? Why had she not appreciated him more? Why had she felt the need to betray such a good and honest man?
‘Lizzie,’ he said decisively, ‘as far as anybody else is concerned the child you’re carrying is mine. Nobody knows what goes on between our sheets except us two, so even the way I am, nobody could gainsay it. Not even Stanley Dando. Is that true?’
‘Yes, it’s true, Ben. I’ve never led anybody to think any different.’
‘There you are then.’ He put his hand out to her, and she took it, sitting down by him. ‘Now stop your werriting and let’s get on with our lives. So we’ll have another mouth to feed. What’s an extra mouth when there’s already six of us?’
*
It was in May that Ben broke the news to Jesse Clancey that he was going to be a father for the fifth time. Jesse forced a smile and congratulated him, shaking him by the hand. It came as no surprise, and Jesse was not fooled. He perceived that Ben’s apparent enthusiasm was laboured. After he’d witnessed Lizzie and Stanley together last Christmas, the thought of her being pregnant as a consequence frequently plagued him, and almost daily he scrutinised her for clues. He’d noticed Lizzie had put weight on round the middle, when she was normally so small-waisted. He saw her preoccupied, touchy and looking distinctly wan. This child she was expecting had to be Stanley’s, and he pondered whether Ben had been forced to accept it.
He would mention to Sylvia tomorrow night that Lizzie was expecting another child. Sylvia, he was certain, had absolutely no knowledge of Stanley’s recent affair with Lizzie, and he did not intend enlightening her, but if she had any inkling at all she would express it at this news.
The pleasantness of Sylvia’s home, the mouth-watering smells of sumptuous home cooking, her fussing him and making him comfortable and, not least, the affection her son Kenneth gave him, all contrived to weaken Jesse into submission. From the outset he was afraid he might eventually have to submit. He did not love Sylvia, but perhaps deep, emotional, fulfilled love was something that would always elude him. He was getting no younger, his ageing mother wouldn’t always be around to cook for him and iron his shirts. So courting Sylvia made sense. It made a lot of sense.
Marriage would make even more sense. Lizzie Kite was no nearer him, nor ever likely to be. He’d spent too many long years yearning for her, wondering if she might ever be free. Of course, he hadn’t actually waited for her; that would have been stupid in the extreme; but he couldn’t help feeling the way he did about her. She was his femme fatale, yet he was destined never to be with her, and at last he felt he could accept it. At forty-two, what women would be attracted to him, despite the nest egg he’d accumulated? At his time of life the proverbial bird in the hand, Sylvia, was surely worth two in the bush. It was sensible to settle for what was on offer. It might be his only chance.
Sylvia, too, was satisfied that the dreams she’d so fancifully woven, the devices she’d so diligently exploited to make those dreams a possibility, were at last yielding results. Jesse was not rushing into this reconstituted affair headlong, and she had not expected him to, but the signs were positive. He’d spent many long evenings with her since Easter, and they’d talked easily, even of the old days. But Jesse was right about one thing: they were worlds apart when it came down to refinement and social grace. Sylvia realised that whilst he might have a successful dairy business with scores of loyal customers who thought the world of him, those very customers were keeping him down at their level, with their low ideals, their commonness and their awful broad speech. At least James had succeeded in lifting her a rung or two up the ladder of refinement, whereas Jesse would only drag her back where she started. Therefore, she had some serious remedial
work to do on him. She was determined that he could and should raise himself above the level of the folk he was used to.
*
Lizzie’s illegitimate daughter was born, on Saturday 29th September 1923. Although she carried it full term, in a pregnancy that was singularly unlike any of her others, the baby was born dead. Its unusually long umbilical cord had been strangulated by a fatal twist created when the baby turned, the doctor later explained. She told Donald Clark, who attended her, that she hadn’t felt the child move for more than two weeks before the birth, and he feared the worst, forewarning her that it might be still-born. She didn’t have such an easy time of it, either, unlike all the previous occasions. Rather, she had an awful time of it. Labour was protracted and Lizzie was poorly and weak for days afterwards.
When she was well enough again to think properly she took its loss with mixed feelings. After Ben had accepted her pregnancy she had regarded the forthcoming child as less of an evil, and more of a just punishment upon her; a punishment she would have to endure every time she set eyes on it. Yet she knew deep in her heart that she would grow to love it as much as she loved the others, so the loss of it saddened her, especially when she thought of how it might have grown up, and the joy it might ultimately have brought. Certainly Henzey, Herbert, Alice and Maxine were all excited at the prospect of a new baby in the house, and made all sorts of plans. They looked forward to it with such excitement. It was pitiful to witness their grief now, especially the girls. On the other hand, it meant that neither Lizzie nor Ben would be tied to a child conceived out of wedlock. Ben had agreed to pretend the child was his to protect her reputation and their children from malicious gossip, but he would never be able to countenance the child as if it were his own, and Lizzie knew it. He might even have grown to resent it. The child would have perceived such negative feelings, and maybe even have turned against him eventually.
On a more practical level, Lizzie could try to get her job back, so they could at least have some comfort in their lives from the money she earned. Without that job they would barely exist. At best they would exist in poverty.
The passage of time healed the wounds of that traumatic year. Lizzie and Ben resumed their lives with more accord, closer in spirit than they’d been for years. She decided that she’d strayed enough for one lifetime and concentrated on the well-being of her family, cleansing her mind of all thoughts of infidelity and Stanley Dando absolutely. She and Ben conversed more than they had done for a long time, getting to know each other all over again. She grew to admire him all the more for his forthrightness, his honesty, his tolerance of his worsening condition and his surprising intellect. Yet her reborn reverence brought her no greater contentment. Oh, she would remain faithful, for she dare not ever think of straying again. The humility her wantonness had brought upon her would haunt her for ever more, and she never wished to experience it again.
But contentment would elude her for the rest of her life, and she must bear it. She was stuck in a marriage that offered spiritual love in abundance; love she could talk about if she wished to; but not physical love that could caress her where it had that magical explosive impact she’d always craved.
Four entities managed to sustain her: her children. She would die for her children. They were growing up at an alarming rate, relieving her of much of the hard work, and for that she was thankful. And the faster they grew, the faster the months and the seasons flew by.
At thirteen Henzey still showed enormous promise as an artist, and both Ben and Lizzie encouraged her. The prospect of earning a living from drawing and painting, though, was very limited, they told her, so it wasn’t a talent that could be taken seriously. The only possibilities for employment in that line were as a commercial artist in Birmingham, and Ben was never likely to encourage her to work there with all the travelling. So Henzey was to resign herself to a more mundane occupation when she left school.
Herbert’s sole talent was talking. He was aware that he could charm anyone with humour and affability. Sometimes, to his father, he appeared flippant, but Ben realised that this was a ready wit in course of development. He had a different best friend every week and, at twelve years old, already had an eye for a pretty female face – except his sisters’, of course, who were a constant source of embarrassment to him. He was always working on some project or idea, sometimes two at a time, but seldom did he have the patience to see any of them through. He wanted once to build a pigeon loft like his Uncle Joe’s, but only got as far as collecting half the wood he needed. But he was popular and there was a constant stream of friends, both male and female, tapping on the back door, asking if he was coming outside to join them.
Alice relished her books, but only saucy ones. Lizzie picked up one from under her pillow one day, called Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence. She’d never heard of it, and put it back where she had found it, shaking her head, and none the wiser, unaware of the images it was fixing inside her daughter’s impressionable mind. Alice was a quiet girl. She would sit and marvel at Henzey’s ability to draw whatever was in front of her, or at Maxine’s piano playing. But in some ways, Alice was like her mother: she needed to feel loved, to feel wanted, to feel a part of the family. If she was ever scolded she would sink into depression and sulk for hours. She seemed to react strongly to atmospheres within the home, and had been particularly depressed and touchy the whole time her mother was carrying that last child.
Maxine was proficient at the piano for a ten year old, and always enjoyed her lessons with Ezme Clancey. One evening, though, she went across to the dairy house for her lesson to find a cello leaning against the pianola. She asked Ezme if she could have a go on it. Ezme said she could, and watched her pupil experiment intelligently with the instrument, putting her arms around it as if it were a long lost pet. There was an instant rapport between Maxine and the cello. It had been in the Clanceys’ attic for more years than anybody cared to remember, and it was Jesse who found it one day whilst having a clear-out. At once he thought of Maxine. If she took to it, there was no reason why she shouldn’t have it. So have it she did and, after she cleaned it thoroughly and polished it, its warm, mellow tones began to take precedence in her life over the tinkling of the piano. The only problem was that whilst she discovered from books how to tune it, they knew of nobody who could teach her to play it, so what she did play was at first self-taught.
With all this going on around her, Lizzie barely noticed the insidious decline in Ben’s health. It was brought home to her after they realised it was necessary to move his bed downstairs into the front room for his convenience. He had been finding it more and more difficult to climb the stairs without feeling utterly exhausted and traumatised by the effort of it. Furthermore, he could not manage to shuffle up the back yard to the privy nowadays, and so weak was he that she even had to clean him after using the chamber pot. That was a job she especially hated; the worst job of all for her. She loathed it so much that she began to feed him eggs and dry cakes to try and make him constipated, even though she was aware it was selfish and callous. Unfortunately for Lizzie, when it seemed to work he would ask for an infusion of sennapods in his tea to loosen his bowels, and she would be back where she started. When she told Henzey what she had done they saw the funny side of it, and both laughed. But despite Lizzie’s resolve to afford Ben all her care and attention, the romance had long since gone from their marriage. Henzey helped her mother whenever she could, and Alice was becoming more useful, but only lately was Herbert able to be of help. Till a year ago he had neither the natural, caring ability of his sisters, nor the strength of a grown man to lift his father when it was needed.
Nearly eight years of looking after Ben had more than taken its toll. Lizzie felt deeply sorry for him. But she felt sorry for herself too. She continued to blame him. If he hadn’t gone off to war everything would have been all right; she would never have dreamed of having an affair; so she would never have given birth to an illegitimate child. It was not all her fault. S
he could not be blamed for everything.
Instinctively aware of all this, and not heartened by it, Ben duly blamed himself. He blamed himself over and over again for his uselessness, and understood Lizzie’s disenchantment. He understood more acutely what had driven her to find a lover in the first place, and feared she might yet be tempted again. And who could blame her?
As far as the children were concerned, their father was a loving man who spent hours talking to them when they were not at school. They loved him and did all they could for him. They accepted his disability without question, since his wisdom and knowledge made up for it. Always they found him interesting and they learned to value his opinions. For hours he would hold them spellbound, telling them amusing, amazing stories about his exploits during the Great War, and Henzey especially saw him as something of a hero.
But, in the last few months, she’d noticed a marked decline in his health. The spark of vitality had left his eyes and he’d become dull and morose. He still read the newspaper every day, but the distressing things he read seemed to have a detrimental effect on him. Henzey believed that the economic and social problems about which he read, and which he witnessed in his own household, depressed him more than he showed. And they all understood how sensitive he was to such things.
Chapter 20
In 1926, January and February between them bestowed nearly three weeks of continuous rain on the land. There was a danger of flooding in many low lying areas but, as February matured and the water and its latent perils subsided, so the weather grew decidedly colder. In the small hours of Sunday the 21st it began to snow in earnest. By ten o’ clock, when the fall ceased, it covered much of the Midlands and the North. The blue slate roofs of Kates Hill were heavy with it.
Henzey slipped gingerly out of bed and shivered as the bitter coldness of the room seemed to claw at her. Snow was lying on the outside window sill. Quickly she swirled her dressing gown about her and tied the cord, her breath rising as steam. Downstairs the others were eating breakfast in front of the warm coal fire. Lizzie placed a slice of crisp fried bread crowned with a fried egg before her.