The little clock on the mantelpiece chimed eight. Blissfully tired out by his long busy day and the building of ‘Richard Snowman’, Beth’s son made no protest when she took him up to bed: he fell sound asleep as soon as his head touched the pillow. ‘Goodnight, sleep tight,’ Beth whispered, before tiptoeing out of the back room which the boy was privileged to have to himself. Cissie and Beth shared the other room at the front of the house.
‘I think I’ll go to bed an’ all,’ Cissie told her, soon after Beth had come downstairs. ‘I’m that tired.’ She gave a huge yawn, stretching her arms above her head. ‘I’ve a mind to do a bit o’ singing outside o’ the Railway Station tomorrow.’
‘You’ll do no such thing, my girl,’ Beth told her. ‘We’re not that destitute yet.’
‘Yes, but there ain’t much money left, is there, Beth?’ Cissie reminded her. ‘And what good is the piffling few pennies I’ve brought in these past weeks, eh? Fourpence on me best day… an’ only the dead flowers that’s left over on me worst!’ Her vivid blue eyes grew depressed. ‘What we gonna do when the money’s all gone… what we gonna do, Beth?’
‘We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it, shall we?’ Coming across the room with the intention of hugging the girl, Beth was seized by a sudden vicious pain that made her cry out. Clinging to the table edge, she bent forward, breathing easy, the way Maisie had taught her when Richard was on his way.
‘Is the babby coming, Beth?’ Cissie cried, scrambling out of her chair. ‘Is it? Is it?’
Deliberately straightening her aching body, Beth made her voice sound matter-of-fact, ‘Goodness me, Cissie… don’t panic,’ she smiled, but all the time her body felt like a tram had run over it. In her heart, she had dreaded this moment. What with the neighbours turning their backs on her, and no one else but Cissie to help, Beth knew it was not going to be easy. The last thing she wanted was for the girl to share her fears. ‘Yes, Cissie,’ she admitted, ‘I think the babby’s on its way.’ She watched those big blue eyes widen with fear and excitement, and knew she would have to coach the girl in a calm organised manner. She prayed it would be an easy birth. ‘The second baby is always the easiest, so your mammy always told me,’ she said, and was glad when Cissie also remembered Maisie’s words.
‘Happen it’ll be here afore morning then.’ Cissie was greatly excited. ‘Happen it’ll be a girl.’ She helped Beth up the stairs, chattering all the while. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said in a voice that made Beth smile, for it was very like Maisie’s, ‘you’ll be all right, Beth. The babby’ll be here afore you know it.’
‘Well now, aren’t I the lucky one to have such a lady of experience looking after me?’ she asked, forcing a laugh; but the laughter was choked back when another pain gripped her with particular savagery.
* * *
The night had been long and hard since Beth felt the first pang of labour. Even in these past hours, winter had set in with a new vengeance. The snow had been falling steadily, and the whole of Larkhill was covered in a glittering soft down. Even the houses that were damaged by fire seemed clean and whole beneath their cloak of white. It was four a.m. The snow was still gently tumbling from the skies, covering all traces of human life, hiding the previous day’s footprints, and bringing with it a chill that settled over the rooftops and lingered in every doorway. There was no sound save for the hush of snow as it sped its way downwards.
Only one light could be seen in the row of windows that flanked either side of the road; a small flickering light emanating from one of the bedrooms. A solitary shadow moved behind the curtains, slow, then hurrying; now it was frantic, and in a moment it was gone. Suddenly the morning hush was shattered by the sound of a door being thrown back on its hinges. Running feet, noiseless on the carpet of snow beneath, yet urgent as they sped along the street.
‘Wake up!’ Cissie banged her fists on a door, her frantic eyes staring upward towards the bedroom window. ‘Can you help me? Please… Beth needs someone to help!’
Almost at once, the window was flung open to reveal a sour-faced man. Leaning out over the sill, he shouted, ‘Clear off. There’s nobody here as’ll help yer!’ Like many of the people along Larkhill, he had not forgotten the rumours that if it hadn’t been for Maisie Armstrong’s lodger, that fire would never have happened, and they wouldn’t have had the heart of the street ripped out of it. More than that, there was much resentment at Beth’s having married the landlord’s son. ‘Get away!’ he yelled. ‘Get back where yer bloody come from, why don’t yer? Back ter the landlord’s house. Tell him how we’re made to live in a rat-infested hovel.’ He knew that old man Reynolds had been killed, and knew that David had gone with him, but it made no difference. Folks such as himself still had to cough up an exorbitant rent. One landlord or another, they were all the same. And round here, folks had little truck with them as mixed in such circles. ‘Go on,’ he shouted pushing the snow from the sill on to Cissie’s small figure. ‘Bugger off, I tell yer!’
Desperate and disillusioned, she watched as he closed the window. Wondering what to do next, she went at a run out of the gate, standing there a while and wondering which house to knock up next. The fact was folks believed it was Beth’s fault when the fire started and they had to lay the blame at somebody’s door, so why not at hers? Beth Ward, the turncoat who had married the landlord. That was the real reason they could not tolerate her, because she had betrayed the working class by throwing her lot in with the very people who held out their hand and took good money from folk as worked blood and sweat for their pitiful wages. Landlords and them as employed ordinary folk; there was nothing to choose between them. And anybody who took their side had to be every bit as bad as them.
Cissie realised there was only one person in Larkhill who just might help. Old Lou Bolton and Maisie Armstrong went back over many years. Cissie remembered how Lou used to come into their front parlour and sit and chat with her mammy until late at night. Once Beth came to live in the house though Lou didn’t come so often, and soon she didn’t come at all. Cissie always wondered whether Maisie’s old friend had grown jealous because of her love for Beth. In fact, Cissie had asked her mammy that very thing, and Maisie had told her, ‘If folks want to be childish, darlin’, there ain’t nothing in the world yer mammy can do about it. Lou Bolton knows where I live. If she wants me, she only has to come through that front door.’ But Lou never did. Yet, strangely enough, she was the only one who had spoken to Beth on the street since. Only the other day it was, when Beth was coming home from the market. Lou had passed her on the way and said, ‘Mornin’.’ Just that, but it was a word of greeting, and Beth was cheered by it. Unfortunately, Lou had passed them on several occasions since, but she was either with her husband or with one of the neighbourhood women and, like them, had remained stonily silent until Beth had gone by.
Cissie had no choice. Beth was in deep labour, and she had need of someone who knew what they were doing. Cissie realised how little she knew about these things, but old Lou had birthed and raised twelve strapping lads of her own. If anybody should know what to do, it was her! Lou’s house was down at the very far end of Larkhill. Running as though the wind was at her heels, Cissie was soon banging on the door. ‘Lou!’ Her voice echoed the length and breadth of the street. ‘Lou Bolton… it’s Cissie Armstrong. Open the door… please.’
In a minute, a flickering light appeared in the bedroom window; the curtains were shifted to one side and a large sleepy face peered out. The curtains dropped and, afraid that whoever it was had gone back to bed on seeing her, Cissie shouted again. Suddenly the door was inched open and Lou appeared. ‘What the devil’s going on?’ she demanded.
‘It’s Beth.’ Cissie was still breathless from running. ‘The babby’s coming and Beth’s in terrible pain and I don’t know what to do and she says I’m to fetch somebody and I can’t get nobody to come and…’
‘Woah! Get yer breath, young ’un, afore yer drops dead on me doorstep with a bloody ’eart attack,’
the woman told her, clutching her night-shift about her sizeable form and glancing nervously up the stairs. ‘It’s lucky fer you that me old feller sleeps through every kind of noise there is,’ she whispered. ‘Beth’s having the babby, yer say?’
Cissie nodded. ‘Please, Lou,’ she pleaded, ‘I’ve done all Beth told me to, but it ain’t no good. Beth said I was to get help.’
The woman shook her head. ‘I can’t help yer. I’m sorry,’ she said, glancing up and down the street, looking to see whether Cissie’s yelling had alerted the neighbours. ‘Me life wouldn’t be worth living.’
Desperate, Cissie turned away, saying, ‘I thought you might help us because you know all about birthing, what with having all them lads, but you’re all the same! Folks in Larkhill should be ashamed o’ theirselves. If my mammy were here, she’d tell you an’ all.’
‘Wait on, young ’un,’ the woman called quietly. Cissie had touched her conscience. This was Maisie’s little gal. Somehow, in their blindness, folks had forgotten that. In her time, Maisie had been a good, kind soul to folk up and down this street. ‘I’ve never known a time when your mammy turned anybody away,’ she murmured, and Cissie was surprised to see tears glistening in old Lou’s eyes. ‘Sometimes we’re us own worst enemies. Give me a minute, an’ I’ll get some’at warm over me old bones.’ In that moment, a man’s voice called down. ‘What’s going on, Lou?’
‘It’s Maisie’s lass… yon Beth’s gone into labour.’
‘That’s none o’ your business. Come and get yourself back in this ’ere bed!’
‘Well now, I’m mekking it my business,’ she retorted at the top of her voice, and Cissie was amused to see lights going on all over the street. ‘Get back to sleep, yer silly old bugger,’ Lou told him. ‘I’ll be back when I’m ready, an’ not afore.’ Telling Cissie to run home and assure Beth that help was on the way, old Lou went back indoors to get dressed. ‘I’ll be after yer soon as ever I can,’ she told Cissie, and the girl went on her way at full speed, to tell Beth she wasn’t to worry because Lou Bolton was coming.
* * *
‘Aw, that’s good, Cissie, bless your heart.’ Beth raised her head from the pillow. The sweat was running down her face, welding her hair to the pale expanse of her forehead and running into her eyes so she was made to blink through a haze at the girl. ‘Watch for her, Cissie,’ she urged now. ‘Go to the door and watch for her, but be careful not to wake Richard.’ Exhausted, she fell back on to the bed. Maisie was wrong, she thought wryly… the second one didn’t come any easier! For some time now, she had felt the baby desperately trying to make its way, but there was something wrong. She was certain there was something wrong.
* * *
‘No, lass, there’s nothing wrong,’ Lou assured her. Having made a short examination, she straightened up, smiling at Beth and conveying encouragement. ‘It’s just that you’re small made, that’s all. The babby’s finding it difficult to make its way out, but it’ll be all right, don’t you worry none. Old Lou’s seen the like afore.’ She gave swift instructions to Cissie, who began hurrying back and forth with hot water, and fetching the clean sheets and towels which Beth had prepared in the days prior to going into labour. ‘We’ve some hard work ahead on us,’ Lou told them both, ‘but there’ll be a healthy babby at the end of it all, I promise yer.’
Lou was as good as her promise. Two hours later, the cry of a newborn echoed through the house. Beth had been delivered of a girl-child, a tiny perfect being that was the image of herself, with a small heart-shaped face and melting dark eyes though these were presently marbled with slivers of blue.
The cry brought Beth’s son running and for a while he simply stood before the bed, his green eyes staring at that tiny bundle in his mammy’s arms, and his fascinated gaze going from the babby to her and then to Cissie, who was standing beside Beth, tears in her eyes.
‘There y’are then… you’ve got yer little angel,’ Lou said with a broad smile. ‘Everything’s washed and ship-shape, so I’d best be getting home.’ She glanced at the little clock by the bedside. ‘God love an’ bless us… it’s quarter past nine of a morning!’ she declared with horror. ‘Me old man’ll have me guts fer garters.’ With one last look round, and a kind word for Beth, she unrolled her sleeves, took off her soiled pinnie, which she then rolled into a sausage small enough to squash into her skirt pocket, and went quickly from the room. ‘Cissie Armstrong,’ she called on her way down the stairs, ‘keep yer eye on Beth and the young ’un. If yer worried about owt, just you come and fetch me.’
Cissie went to the bottom of the stairs with her. ‘I reckon I’ll be just fine now, thank you, Lou,’ she said with a broad smile. ‘Oh, ain’t the baby lovely?’
‘All babbies is lovely,’ Lou retorted. ‘It’s when the buggers grow up they’re trouble!’ Two of her lads had been a real heartache in their growing up, but they were all right now, thank God. All the same, she regretted dampening the girl’s enthusiasm. ‘Aye, yer right, lass,’ she said laughingly. ‘It’s a real bonny bundle.’ She sighed. ‘All the years I longed fer a little lass… an’ all I ever got were three-legged ’uns.’ She went on her way roaring with laughter, leaving Cissie to think about her words at length. It was a few minutes later when she realised what old Lou meant, and she too laughed out loud. ‘Yer a bad ’un, Lou Bolton,’ she said out loud. ‘But I love yer for what you’ve done, bless yer heart.’
At first Cissie didn’t take any notice when the knock came on the front door. She thought it must be Lou come back for something she’d forgotten. But when the knock sounded a second time with more urgency, she instinctively crept to the scullery door from where she peeped down the passageway. In the fire that had taken her mammy, all the windows in the house had exploded from the heat so Beth had arranged for new panes to be fitted into the rooms which they used. The front door had a glass half-moon shape some two-thirds the way up; Cissie had said they should block it in, but Beth thought different. ‘It’s handy for seeing who’s at the door before we open it,’ she said. Cissie had argued that it really was a waste of precious money, but now she thought different because what Beth said had been right. Through the half-moon, she could see the top of one man’s head and, by the way he was standing to the side, together with the low murmur of voices, she realised there were two men. ‘God above! Who’s after us now?’ she murmured, shrinking away from the door.
The knock came a third time, but now a voice called through the letter-box, ‘Cissie… are you there?’
At first she didn’t recognise the voice, it was so grown up, but then her face went all shades of pink and in her great excitement she careered down the passageway and flung open the door. ‘Matthew!’ She flung herself into his arms and they danced on the step, and laughed and cried, and only when he spun her to a halt did she see the other man: a tall handsome fellow with an abundance of coal black hair and smiling green eyes. Breathless and embarrassed, she waited for Matthew to introduce him. ‘This is Tyler Blacklock,’ he explained. ‘A friend of Beth’s.’
Cissie was speechless for a moment. She stared and stared. This was Tyler Blacklock! This man was Beth’s sweetheart; the man she had told Cissie about with such love and longing. Richard’s father. Everything Beth had told her was true… Tyler Blacklock was the most handsome man Cissie had ever seen. But why was he here? Straightaway, she was protective. ‘Beth ain’t disposed to see no one,’ she said. For all she knew, he was here to cause Beth even more heartache.
‘Cissie!’ Matthew pushed her inside the house. Tyler followed. ‘There’s a lot you should know. Tyler’s here because he loves Beth. We’ve searched high and low for you. We went to Luther Reynolds’ old house… we didn’t know where you were. Nobody knew. It was only instinct that told me you might have come back here. Thank God we found you.’ He closed the front door, lowering his voice to a whisper. ‘Where is Beth?’ he asked with a smile. ‘Everything’s gonna be all right, Cis. Everything’s gonna be just wonderful.’
> Cissie shifted her gaze from her brother to Tyler. ‘Is that right, Mister?’ she wanted to know. ‘You ain’t here to make Beth unhappy no more?’
‘No,’ he said softly, shaking his head. ‘I’m not here to make her unhappy.’ What could this girl know of him and Beth, and their love for each other? Yet she had been a friend to Beth when he was not, and his heart went out to her for that.
Upstairs, Beth had her daughter tucked in one arm, and her son perched on the bed, happily chatting and showing his toy train to his new sister. ‘What’s the babby’s name?’ he asked, never taking his eyes from that tiny little wonder.
‘We’ll have to think about that, sweetheart,’ she said, giving him a hug. She was watching the door, for she had heard someone knocking downstairs and Cissie going along the passageway. There had been so much noise after that, and what with Richard chattering, she was uncertain as to who Cissie had let into the house. Thinking it must have been Moll Sutton, or maybe Lou come back, Beth returned her attention to the boy. ‘What do you think we should call her?’ she asked. She wished Cissie would come up. She wanted to know who had come visiting. When there was a light tap on her own door, Beth glanced down to make sure she was decent, then called,‘It’s all right… come in.’ The handle turned, the door opened, and her heart did a series of somersaults, for there he was… the same tall good-looking man she had never stopped loving. His smile was tender as he gazed on her, and his mop of dark hair tumbled over those beautiful green eyes that were hungry for the sight of her lovely face. ‘Hello, Beth,’ he said; spoken so simply, but with a world of love. ‘I’ve come to take you home, my lovely,’ he murmured, coming across the room towards her.
The shock of seeing Tyler here, in her little house, was too much for Beth. Drowned by the tide of emotion that raged through her, she couldn’t speak. As he came nearer, the tears spilled from her eyes and she made a small sobbing sound that caught in the back of her throat. Biting her lip to stem the tears that threatened to overwhelm her, she was shaking her head slowly from side to side as though she thought it was all a dream… all a dream which could never come true. But then he was holding her, the warmth of his body pressed close to hers, his mouth soft against her face, and his familiar loving voice murmuring in her ear, telling her things she thought she would never hear. ‘Oh, Beth… I was so sure I’d lost you forever. I do love you so,’ he whispered. She was crying now, warm wet tears flowing down her face and smudged by his kisses. She clung to him as though she would never let him go. At last, at long last, all of her prayers were answered.
Don’t Cry Alone Page 44