And when Agnes examined her, she realised why.
‘Is everything all right, Nurse?’ Agnes hadn’t realised Mrs Kettle was watching her closely until she turned round and found herself staring into the other woman’s eyes.
She took a deep breath, trying to quell her rising panic. Whatever she did, she must not cause any alarm.
‘I think we should send for the doctor,’ she said.
Mrs Kettle looked dismayed. ‘The doctor? But why? She in’t in any danger, is she?’
Agnes took the woman’s arm, steering her away from the bed and out of Ellen’s earshot. ‘I’m afraid the baby is facing the wrong way,’ she said. ‘Its back is against the mother’s back, and the head is not flexed, which would explain the weak contractions.’
Mrs Kettle’s eyes widened. ‘Can’t tha do summat?’ she whispered.
I might if I’d been allowed to visit her earlier, Agnes thought. But this was no time for bitterness or recriminations.
‘Not on my own. I need to call the doctor,’ she repeated firmly.
‘Ma?’ Ellen whimpered from the bed. ‘What’s going on, Ma? What’s t’nurse saying? Is my baby all right?’
‘Everything’s fine, pet,’ Mrs Kettle called back. Then she turned to Agnes. ‘Just do what tha must,’ she hissed. ‘We don’t want another death in this house.’
Agnes found young Stephen in the kitchen, and was just passing on the message to give to Dr Rutherford when the door opened and Hannah Arkwright came in. She wore a shawl over her shabby man’s overcoat in spite of the warm day, a carpet bag hooked over her arm.
‘Now then.’ She set her bag down on the stone-flagged floor and pulled her shawl off her head to reveal her thick red hair. ‘Sorry I’m late, I—’ She stopped dead when she saw Agnes. ‘What are you doing here?’
Before Agnes could reply, Mrs Kettle appeared in the room. ‘Oh, Hannah! Thank the Lord you’ve come. It’s our Ellen. She’s in a terrible way.’
‘She’s started, has she? I’ll go and have a look at her.’ She picked up her basket, but Agnes stepped in.
‘I’m sending for the doctor,’ she said, fighting to regain control of the situation. ‘The baby is in the occipito-posterior presentation, and Mrs Kettle needs medical help.’
‘Aye, well, let’s have a look at her first.’ Hannah went to move past her, but Agnes barred in her way.
‘I don’t think that’s wise,’ she said. ‘You’ve just come from another delivery, there may be a risk of cross-infection.’
‘I know what I’m doing.’ Hannah laid her large hands on Agnes’ arms and moved her out of the way, as easily as she might lift a child.
‘But I must insist …’ Agnes gave a squeak of protest, but Hannah and Mrs Kettle were already making their way through to the bedroom, and all she could do was follow.
The sight of Hannah Arkwright seemed to have a miraculously calming effect on Ellen Kettle. The tension left her body and she relaxed against the pillows.
‘Hello, love.’ Hannah set her bag on the table, ignoring the instruments Agnes had so carefully set out. ‘How are you? Worn out, I expect.’
‘A bit.’ Ellen smiled up at her, her round eyes as trusting as a child’s.
‘Well now, let’s have a look at you and see if we can’t get this bairn born, eh?’
Her presence seemed to have a remarkable effect on everyone. Even Mrs Kettle was smiling as Hannah carried out her examination.
Meanwhile, Agnes twitched with irritation. This was all wrong. Hannah did not have the first idea what she was dealing with. And she had barely even washed her hands. Agnes shuddered to think what terrible germs she might be spreading …
Finally, Hannah straightened up and said, ‘Yes, the bairn is a bit twisted round. But it’s nothing we can’t sort out.’ She smiled reassuringly at Ellen.
Agnes stared at her. Was she quite mad? ‘She needs a doctor,’ she hissed.
‘Then you go off and fetch him, if tha wants,’ Hannah replied mildly. ‘I’ll just stay here and deliver this baby.’ She turned to Mrs Kettle. ‘Right now, we’re going to need some thick towels. And summat to use as a binding.’
‘I could tear up an old sheet?’ Mrs Kettle suggested.
‘Aye, that’ll do nicely.’
All the while, Agnes stared from one to the other. ‘You’re not going to try to turn it yourself?’
Hannah didn’t glance her way as she busied herself taking items out of her basket. ‘Nay, I’m going to let nature take its course.’
‘And how do you plan to do that?’
Hannah sighed. ‘Honestly, didn’t they teach you owt in that fancy nursing school of yours?’ She said it with such exaggerated patience, even Ellen managed to laugh. ‘If you bind a thick pad around the back, it’ll push the bairn round to the front.’
‘What?’ Agnes was horrified. ‘But – you can’t. It will never work. It’s just an old wives’ tale.’
‘We’ll see, won’t we?’
‘But an occipito-posterior presentation—’
Hannah turned on her impatiently. ‘You just keep on using them fancy words of yours, but stay out of my way if tha can’t make thysen useful.’ Once again, her large hands clamped down on Agnes’ shoulders, shifting her into a corner of the room.
Agnes watched in stunned fascination as Mrs Kettle returned with the towel and the strips of sheet, and Hannah started to bind the pad around Ellen’s slender flanks. It would never work. It couldn’t. The baby would die, and poor Ellen too, if she didn’t do something …
‘I’m going to fetch Dr Rutherford,’ she said. But no one paid any attention to her.
At the doctor’s surgery, she threw her bicycle down on the front step and jumped over it, dashing into the house.
Once again, Mrs Bannister was in the hall. If she hadn’t known better, Agnes could have sworn the housekeeper was lying in wait for her.
‘Rushing about again, Miss Sheridan?’ She lifted a disapproving eyebrow. ‘And is that your bicycle abandoned on the step? You can’t leave it there, you know.’
‘Where is the doctor?’ Agnes cut across her.
Mrs Bannister’s lips thinned, furious at the interruption. ‘He’s in morning surgery, of course – where are you going?’ she said, as Agnes rushed past her. ‘You can’t just barge into—’
Fortunately the doctor was alone in his office, writing up his notes from the last patient. He peered over his spectacles as Agnes rushed in.
‘Miss Sheridan? Good heavens, what is it? You seem in rather a fluster.’
‘You have to come with me!’ Agnes fought to get the words out, her chest rising and falling.
‘I’m sorry, Doctor. I told her you weren’t to be interrupted.’ Mrs Bannister appeared behind Agnes.
‘It’s quite all right, Mrs B.’ Dr Rutherford turned back to Agnes. ‘What is going on?’
‘Mrs Kettle … Ellen … she’s in labour and it’s in the wrong position.’ Even as she gasped out the words Agnes was aware that she was being far less professional than she should in her report. ‘You need to come!’ she finished.
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake!’ Mrs Bannister exclaimed. ‘You can’t expect the doctor to drop everything in the middle of morning surgery, just because you decide—’
‘No, Mrs Bannister, the nurse is quite right. This is an emergency.’ Dr Rutherford rose, picking up his bag. ‘Send everyone else home, if you please. Take their names and tell them I’ll call on them later.’
As Dr Rutherford drove them down to the rows, Agnes was able to explain more clearly about poor Ellen Kettle and her prolonged labour, and the appearance of Hannah Arkwright.
‘You should have seen her. What she was doing was quite monstrous.’ Agnes’ hands shook in her lap. She was almost too afraid to return to Ellen Kettle’s cottage, she was so worried about what they might find.
But what she didn’t expect was to find Hannah Arkwright calmly sipping a cup of tea in the kitchen.
‘Morni
ng, Doctor,’ she greeted him with a nod, her black eyes giving nothing away.
‘Good morning, Miss Arkwright. I understand Mrs Kettle is in labour?’
‘Was, Doctor. It’s all over now.’ Hannah glanced past him to Agnes, and once again her face was implacable.
‘What’s happened? What have you done to her?’ Agnes demanded.
Hannah shrugged. ‘Go and see for thysen.’
Ellen Kettle was sitting up in bed, nursing her baby, her mother-in-law at her side.
Ellen looked up at them, her face shining. ‘It’s a boy,’ she said proudly. ‘I’m naming him Harry, after his dad.’
Agnes looked from mother to baby and back again. ‘But I don’t understand. How did you—’
‘Nature took its course, the way I said it would,’ Hannah said smugly.
‘Hmm, so it has.’ Dr Rutherford looked grim. ‘Well, it seems as if you called me away from my morning surgery for nothing, Miss Sheridan.’
Agnes stared down at the colourful proddy rug on the bedroom floor, unable to meet anyone’s eye. ‘Yes, Doctor.’
‘In future perhaps you should think before you act.’ Dr Rutherford turned to the young woman sitting up in bed, her baby clamped to her breast. ‘Your son appears to be thriving, Mrs Kettle. I wish you both well.’
‘Thank you, Doctor.’
He turned back to Agnes. ‘I’ll give you a lift back to the surgery, Miss Sheridan. It doesn’t appear as if either of us is needed here.’
‘No, Doctor.’ Agnes couldn’t look at Hannah’s face as she followed him. She could only imagine the expression of triumph she would see written there.
‘You should have seen her,’ Hannah told her mother later. ‘She kept looking at me and then the bairn and back again, like she couldn’t believe her eyes! And the way the doctor spoke to her … Well, I hardly knew where to put myself!’ She laughed at the memory of it. This morning couldn’t have gone better if she had planned it.
Her mother’s face was unsmiling as she rocked back and forth in her chair. ‘I daresay you’re very pleased with thysen?’ she said.
Hannah’s own smile faltered. She had been looking forward to telling her mother all about it, certain that Nella would enjoy the moment as much as she had.
‘Why wouldn’t I be?’ she answered defiantly. ‘It was one in the eye for Nurse Sheridan. And she thought she was so clever, with all her shiny instruments laid out like soldiers in a line! I soon showed her what was what.’
‘So tha reckons tha’ve got the best of her, do you? You think she’ll just pack up and go home?’
Hannah stared at her mother, trying to fathom out what was going on behind those narrowed, almost blind eyes of hers. ‘Why not? I spoke to Mrs Kettle this morning, and she says she’s going to let everyone know what happened with her Ellen. I shouldn’t think Miss Sheridan will be asked to deliver any more babies in Bowden. She’ll soon get the message that no one wants her here. ‘
‘That won’t do it!’ her mother snapped. ‘I told you, she’s got some spirit. The more you try and push her away, the more she’ll fight back.’
‘She didn’t look like she was fighting back this morning,’ Hannah said. ‘Slunk away with her tail between her legs, she did.’
‘But she’ll be back. And it won’t be long before she finds a way to win people over. There are already folk in the village who think she should be given a fair chance. People who you might consider loyal to you.’
Hannah’s head went up. ‘What people? Who are you talking about?’
‘I in’t saying.’ Nella’s mouth clammed up. ‘Now fetch me a cup of willow bark tea, will you? My arthritis is playing up.’ She stretched her thin arms, wincing.
Hannah went to put the kettle on, feeling defeated. She had felt so elated this morning, when she had managed to deliver Ellen Kettle’s baby safely. Two bairns born one after the other had more than made up for her missing a night’s sleep. She had come home jubilant, brimming with triumph, but as usual her mother had crushed her happiness and ruined her moment.
She stared at her reflection in the spotted fragment of mirror over the sink as she washed her mother’s cup. A plain, tired face stared back at her, the spark gone from her dark eyes.
But she knew her mother was not right. Not this time. She had seen Agnes’ face that morning. She was utterly humiliated. It wouldn’t be long before the nurse left Bowden, and never came back.
Chapter Sixteen
As soon as Carrie woke up, she knew something wasn’t right.
Dawn was breaking, a crack of pale light through the gap in the curtains. She lay for a moment, trying to work out what had woken her. Then she saw James, sitting at the foot of the bed, with Henry in his arms.
Instantly she had snapped fully awake, sitting bolt upright, pushing her tangled hair off her face. ‘What is it? What’s wrong? I didn’t hear him cry.’
‘He didn’t. I woke him. I wanted to see him before I left.’
Her dazed mind registered that he was dressed for work in his suit and tie. ‘What time is it?’
‘Just after five.’
‘But why are you up so early on a Saturday morning—’ she started to say, then remembered. ‘You’re going to the pit.’
He nodded.
‘So you’re really going to lock the men out?’
It was 1 May, the deadline for the miners to accept the government’s ultimatum. But the Miners’ Federation had stood firm, and now it was the mine owners’ turn to carry out their threat.
‘I don’t have much choice.’ James kept his gaze fixed on the baby, studying his tiny features with such intensity it made Carrie feel uneasy.
‘Here, let me take him.’ She stretched out her arms, but James held the baby closer to him.
‘In a minute. I just want to spend a bit more time with Henry.’
Her husband looked so wretched, Carrie’s heart went out to him. Poor James. She knew he had been worrying about this day coming. He had barely slept at all the past few nights. She could feel him tossing and turning beside her, and twice she had woken up to find the bed beside her empty.
Carrie felt for him, but she felt even more for the men who would be turning up for their shift at six o’clock that morning, only to be met by locked pit gates.
‘Well, I hope you know what you’re doing,’ she said. ‘Those men will have to go home to their wives and tell them there’ll be no money coming in today.’ She knew how that felt. She had witnessed the fear on her own mother’s face when she saw her husband trudging back up the lane on the days there was no work for him at the pit.
‘They should have thought of that and accepted the terms they were offered, shouldn’t they? Then we wouldn’t all be in this mess.’
Carrie stared at her husband, shocked by his tone. James had never spoken to her so sharply before. ‘You really expected them to work longer hours for less pay?’
‘I expected everyone to see sense!’ He stood up and passed the baby to her. Suddenly he seemed like a stranger, towering over her in his smart suit. ‘Anyway, I suppose I have to go and face the consequences.’ He grimaced.
What consequences? Carrie wanted to ask. James wasn’t the one who would be coming home to an unlit fire and no dinner on the table. She bit her tongue to stop the words coming out. Her husband was already tense enough.
As soon as he’d gone, Henry started to wriggle in her arms, his little arms held out imploringly to the closed door.
‘Da!’ he cried, his round brown eyes brimming with tears.
It had been his first proper word, uttered a week ago, and he had been saying it ever since. Carrie kissed Henry’s head, with its fuzzy covering of pale wispy hair. She could smell James’ shaving soap on him. It gave her a pang.
‘Daddy’s gone, my love,’ she murmured.
The house always felt too large and empty without James there. There was usually little to do after Carrie had bathed and dressed and fed the baby. She would have liked to busy her
self around the house, but the maid took offence if she tried to help. As it was, Carrie knew she could have done a better job. The girl was very lackadaisical when it came to dusting and polishing, and Carrie had never seen her beat a rug properly.
She had said as much to James, but all he’d said was that if she wasn’t happy they could get rid of the maid and engage someone else.
‘I’d be better off doing it mysen,’ Carrie had said, but James wouldn’t hear of it.
‘You have better things to do with your time than scrub floors, my love,’ he had said.
What sort of things? Carrie wondered as she stood at the window, staring out at the street. What did fine ladies do to fill their hours? If she didn’t have an excuse to visit her mother, all she did was drift around the house, playing with the baby, getting in the maid’s way and counting the hours until James came home.
She smiled to think how she and her sisters used to complain about the chores they had to do. Who would have imagined she would ever miss kneading bread dough or hanging out a line of washing on a blowy day?
At least today she had something to look forward to. All through the morning, Carrie kept hurrying to the window to look for the Goodman’s van to arrive.
It finally pulled up just as she was giving Henry his lunch. She dropped the spoon and jumped to her feet before she remembered it was unseemly for the lady of the house to open her own front door. Instead she had to wait impatiently, listening to the maid passing the time of day with the delivery man. It seemed a very long time before she tapped on the door and entered with a large, brown paper parcel in her arms.
‘This arrived for you, madam.’
‘Thank you. Put it over there, will you?’ Carrie forced down her excitement. It wasn’t seemly for a lady to show too much of that, either.
After lunch, she settled Henry for his afternoon nap and then finally she could unwrap her package.
It was even better than she could have hoped. Ten yards of white silk brocade, enough to make the most beautiful wedding dress.
She hadn’t heard from Nancy about going shopping, so after waiting nearly two weeks had decided to surprise her friend by ordering some fabric herself. From one of the finest shops in Leeds, no less. Carrie ran her hands over the silky fabric, letting it slide through her fingers. It made her smile to think how thrilled her friend would be when she saw it. It was far nicer than anything Nancy would ever buy for herself.
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