‘No, that won’t be necessary, but thank you for offering. I’ll walk down to my brother’s farm in Woolard and get him to take me home,’ she said.
Mr Tremble had barely helped her down from the cart before Rufus came haring down the drive to meet her. ‘Hope! How good to see you!’ he exclaimed, arms outstretched to hug her as he always did as a small boy. But he stopped short just a few feet from her, looking faintly embarrassed.
Hope understood. The last time she’d seen him he had been just a small boy several inches shorter than her. Now he towered over her, a grown man with a deep voice and broad shoulders.
‘I know there’s an awful lot of me to hug,’ she laughed. ‘Or are you shy because we’re all grown-up?’
He laughed and hugged her anyway, but the mere size of her belly made it difficult.
Hope took both his hands. ‘Let me look at you, Sir Rufus Harvey. My, but you’ve grown into a handsome chap.’
He still had the best of his parents’ blond, blue-eyed looks, but there was strength in his features that had been lacking in theirs. In plain workingmen’s clothes, he looked more like a farmer than a knight.
‘And you’ve grown from the prettiest girl in the village to the most beautiful woman in the county,’ he said.
‘You’ve spent too long on the farm,’ she joked. ‘Have you ever seen anyone other than a sow quite so huge?’
‘I think I have spent too long on a farm,’ he laughed. ‘Mother would be appalled that a gentleman even noticed such a “condition”.’
‘We’d better go in and see her,’ Hope said, glancing nervously at the small cottage that held so many bad memories. It looked less stark now, for Virginia creeper had grown all over it, and its leaves were just starting to turn red.
‘A word of warning,’ Rufus said, his face tensing. ‘Mother isn’t the way she used to be. At times she’s distinctly odd. If you feel uncomfortable with her, just make the excuse that you’ve got to go and I’ll walk you down to Matt’s. I sawhim last night; he told me he would be taking you home.’
‘Does that mean we can play hide-and-seek in the woods?’ she grinned.
‘You couldn’t hide from me now,’ he laughed. ‘Remember what good times we had?’
‘Some of the very best,’ she sighed. ‘I haven’t forgotten any of them.’ She could feel that time hadn’t weakened the old bond between them, and even if Lady Harvey should prove difficult, she was very glad she’d come today.
Yet everything else was different. The drive was full of weeds now, and rutted by farm carts. At the end, where the big house once stood, was nothing but a flat ploughed field. Almost all trace of the beautiful garden was gone, apart from a few lovely old trees.
The stables were still intact, but as the arch which connected them to the house was gone, they looked like farm buildings.
‘Does it shock you?’ Rufus said.
Hope nodded, remembering how often she’d sat at the back door of the gatehouse looking up at the house and thinking it was the finest in all England.
‘Does it hurt you? I mean, that it’s gone?’
He smiled wryly. ‘No, not really. Of course I still feel savage that Albert could do such a thing, and if he ever came here I think I’d tear him apart with my bare hands. But my sorrowis about not being able to say goodbye to Father, and of course what it’s done to Mother, not about the house. In a strange way I often feel that it never belonged there. That this was meant to be farmland. Do you know what I mean?’
Hope looked thoughtfully over the land. It didn’t look as if anything was missing at all. ‘Yes, I think I do,’ she agreed. ‘And Nell says you are happier farming than you were studying. Is that true?’
His wide smile came back. ‘Yes, Nell’s right, I am much happier. I feel a sense of purpose, a belonging that I never felt before.’
‘Then you are lucky.’ She reached out and touched his cheek affectionately. ‘I felt that way when I was nursing. It’s a good feeling.’
‘I want to know everything about the Crimea,’ he said eagerly. ‘But we’d better go and see Mother first.’
It was the strangest sensation to go into the gatehouse again. Hope glanced up the stairs, remembering in a flash what she’d seen there. She could almost feel Albert’s blows raining down on her, and her terror that he would kill her.
But it didn’t look the same now. The rough old table and chairs were gone; it seemed bigger, softer and warmer, almost gracious, with a carpet on the floor, comfortable armchairs and a polished wood table. It was a minute or two before she realized that part of the reason for this was because another room had been added, presumably a new kitchen, beyond where the back door used to be.
‘How good of you to call, Hope.’ Lady Harvey rose rather stiffly from a velvet armchair by the fireplace to greet her. ‘You look well, and the happy event will be soon, I understand?’
Lady Harvey had aged dramatically. Her hair was white now, her face was almost skeletal, and the flesh appeared so thin that it was as if her sharp cheekbones could pierce through it at any time. Her mouth was sunken too, and Hope guessed she’d lost a good many teeth. Her black dress drained any colour there might have been in her face; even her blue eyes seemed to have faded.
Hope realized this change must have come about gradually over a long period or Nell would have warned her, but coming upon it so unexpectedly, she felt suddenly tongue-tied.
‘I am so very sorry about Sir William,’ she said in a rush. ‘I didn’t hear of it because I had just got married.’
‘Don’t let’s dwell on that,’ Lady Harvey said, and smiled, which brought back a glimmer of the beautiful woman she’d once been. ‘I was so pleased when Nell told me you were found, and that you’d married a doctor. And now a baby!’
‘Yes,’ Hope said. ‘Only a couple more weeks now, but I’m hoping it will wait until Bennett arrives home.’
She’d had a letter soon after she got home saying he thought he would be allowed to go on the next ship. That letter had arrived with nearly a dozen he’d written prior to it, and it was dated 1 August. As no more had come since, she was sure that meant he had got on the ship almost immediately, and that he would be home any day now.
‘I do hope you won’t have to have the child alone,’ Lady Harvey said, and to Hope’s astonishment she began to cry.
‘I won’t be alone, I’ll have Nell with me,’ Hope said, touched by this extraordinary display of concern. She moved forward and took the older woman’s hand. ‘Don’t cry,’ she said. ‘I’ll be fine.’
‘Just make sure she doesn’t whisk the baby away,’ Lady Harvey said.
Her words were strange enough, but her expression was even stranger, for it was as though she was baring her teeth, except there were only a couple of brown stumps left.
Hope looked round at Rufus for an explanation, but he only shook his head and indicated the door.
It seemed incredibly rude to leave so quickly, but she really couldn’t bear to stay. Not just because Lady Harvey was so strange, but the cottage itself was making her feel tense and anxious. ‘I’m sorry this was such a brief visit, but I have to go now,’ she said. ‘I’ll come and see you again soon.’
‘You haven’t even had any tea with me.’ The older woman’s voice was shrill and pleading. ‘I was just going to ring for some.’
Rufus ushered Hope out.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said once they were outside, wearing a hangdog expression. ‘She says some very odd things sometimes. As for ringing for tea! Perhaps she thinks Baines will pop out of the churchyard and bring her some.’
Hope giggled nervously. ‘I shouldn’t laugh at that. Poor old Baines. He was such a nice man.’
‘One of the best,’ Rufus said. ‘I sawhim before he died, and he told me he wanted to go. He said it had been a privilege working for my folks, but he was tired now. He died the next day, and I was glad, really. I mean, if he had lived on where would he have gone?’
Hope knew as R
ufus did that it would have been the workhouse. She was glad to see her childhood friend hadn’t lost his social conscience.
‘How do you manage with your mother?’ she asked as they walked along the old drive.
‘You mean when she’s mad?’ he said with disarming frankness. ‘She isn’t a danger to herself or anyone else. She only says strange things. She told me one day I had a sister!’
‘Really?’ Hope giggled. ‘And what happened to this sister? Did Nell whisk her away?’
They both laughed, and then moved on to talk about more cheerful things.
They walked down to the lake for old times’ sake, and were pleased to see that the old boat was still there. They sat on a log in a patch of sunshine and talked about anything and everything. Hope even told Rufus about Gussie and Betsy and the time she stole the pie when they were starving.
It was what she had needed, without knowing it: to be able to talk truthfully about the past, for she’d only glossed over her time in Lewins Mead to Nell for fear of putting ugly pictures into her sister’s mind.
She didn’t linger on that part of her life, though; it was enough to give him a brief glimpse of it and move on. Rufus wanted to know about the battles in the Crimea, particularly the Charge of the Light Brigade which had been reported on in great depth in every English newspaper.
Hope gave him her own scathing views on the so-called hero, Cardigan, and told him she felt it was appalling that back here everyone had cast Lord Lucan as the villain of the piece.
‘My very favourite battle was the one they dubbed “The Thin Red Line”,’ Rufus said.
‘Bennett watched that one,’ Hope responded eagerly. ‘He thought the Highlanders were the bravest men in history.’
‘Russell of The Times wrote about it so passionately, I almost felt I was there,’ Rufus said. ‘He described them as “The Thin Red Line tipped with steel”. Isn’t that a marvellous description?’
‘I just hope when they come home they are truly rewarded for their valour,’ Hope sighed. ‘There were so many heroic incidents out there, many of which will never be reported. Angus was badly wounded in the cavalry charge, but he still hauled an unseated trooper on to his horse with him and rode back with him through the blazing guns. As for Bennett, he might not have led charges or killed any Russians, but to the men whose lives he saved, he was, and still is, a hero.’
Rufus hung on her every word as she described the hospital and the endless procession of wounded and sick arriving daily. ‘But now they’ve taken Sebastopol, it must all be over bar the shouting,’ he said. ‘They’ll surely all be home for Christmas?’
‘I hope Bennett gets home long before that, and warns me when it will be,’ Hope said with a grin. ‘It will be just like him to walk in the one day I’m in a mess. But enough of war and me. What about you, Rufus? Have you got a sweetheart?’
He grinned bashfully. ‘I have indeed. Lily Freeman, she’s the rector in Chelwood’s daughter.’
‘I’m very happy for you,’ Hope said. ‘Is she beautiful?’
‘She is to me,’ he said looking all dreamy-eyed. ‘I love her and want to marry her. But I can’t while Mother’s this way. I can only just about keep us, let alone a wife, at the moment.’
It seemed incredible to Hope that Rufus’s life had changed so dramatically. Whenever she’d imagined him in the past it was always in some kind of grand setting – balls, parties, out hunting on a horse like Merlin. She could never have pictured him in worn rough clothes with dirt beneath his fingernails, ploughing a field or feeding chickens.
‘You are still a very young man,’ she reminded him. ‘Lily will wait if she loves you. I had to wait a long time for Bennett, but it was worth it in the end.’
‘It’s so good to have you back,’ he said, slinging an arm around her shoulder. ‘And even better to find that we can still talk about everything, just the way we used to. We’ll always be friends, won’t we?’
She kissed his cheek then. ‘Always. For ever and ever. But now I must go on to Matt’s, I’ve taken up too much of your day already. But come and see me at Nell’s very soon?’
On 29 September Hope woke in the early hours with a twinge of pain in her stomach. It disappeared, but some ten minutes later there was another. By the fifth one, now nearly an hour later, she knew the baby was coming and went to wake Nell.
Uncle Abel had arranged for a midwife in Brislington village, who he considered to be the best, to attend the birth, and he’d already given his instructions that when the time came Nell was to send for her, and notify him.
Nell was very calm. She got dressed, stirred up the stove and made them both tea, then slipped out to see a neighbour who had a pony and trap and had already promised to fetch the midwife when the time came.
Hope had no intention of going back to bed until she absolutely had to. One of the sisters at St Peter’s had always claimed that she’d noted babies came easier and quicker when the mother walked around.
Nell had everything ready for the baby; she’d made a whole drawerful of flannel nightgowns, jackets, bonnets and bootees. She’d got a wooden crib from somewhere, and knitted blankets and a shawl. Hope had glanced at them all before, but now that the event was so close she decided to take a better look.
She felt a surge of love for her sister as she saw the care that had gone into making the tiny garments. The little flannel nightgowns had delicate embroidery on the yoke, and she had trimmed the bonnets with lace.
At the bottom of the pile there was an older shawl, and Hope pulled it out to look at it. It was yellowing with age, but as soft and delicate as a cobweb. She wondered where it had come from, for it was clearly handed down, but she couldn’t imagine anyone Nell knew having such a fine shawl.
She was holding it to her face when Nell came in, flushed from rushing up the road. ‘Where did this come from, Nell?’ Hope asked. ‘It’s so lovely.’
‘It was yours,’ Nell said.
‘Mine! How could our family afford such a thing?’
‘Someone gave it to Mother. I don’t know who,’ Nell said, and her voice was strangely sharp.
‘I’m going to be just fine,’ Hope said, assuming Nell was worried about her. ‘Women have babies all the time, and I’ve delivered a few too, so I know what it’s all about.’
‘I shall remind you of that if you start screaming,’ Nell said tartly.
The midwife, Mrs Langham, arrived at twelve. She was a big, bossy woman with a large wart on her nose, but Hope was pleased to see she was very clean, and didn’t look as if she swigged gin as so many so-called midwives did. Her husband had despatched a boy to inform Dr Cunningham the baby was on its way.
‘But we’ll have this one ready for him when he gets here,’ Mrs Langham said jovially. ‘You don’t look the kind to hang around for a couple of days.’
She was right. By four in the afternoon the pains were so bad that Hope got into bed, and by six she was bearing down. In less than half an hour Mrs Langham was catching the baby in her hands and announcing it was a girl.
Hope lay back on the pillows and took the baby in her arms. She had expected the birth to be hell, and it had come close. But she had never truly believed that when a baby was put into its mother’s arms she would immediately love it. She had been wrong on that count, however, for the feeling which welled up inside her was so strong that tears flowed down her cheeks. Nothing in her life so far had ever felt so good, so utterly moving as the sight of that tiny little face.
‘Oh, Nell,’ she sighed. ‘Can anything be more perfect, more wonderful?’
‘She looks just like you when you were born,’ Nell said, and she began to cry.
‘Screamers I can deal with,’ Mrs Langham said. ‘But cryers, I need a brandy for those.’
Hope looked up at the big woman and her tears turned to laughter. ‘You shall have a brandy,’ she said. ‘As big as you like. And Nell had better have one too.’
‘So, what are you going to call her?’ Unc
le Abel said. He had arrived an hour after the delivery and seemed quite shaken that his skills were unnecessary. He had examined the baby, pronounced her strong, healthy and quite the most beautiful he’d ever seen. Then he sat down and cradled her in his arms.
‘Betsy,’ Hope said without any hesitation. ‘Betsy Hannah Meg Meadows.’
He looked pleased that the second name was to be his late sister’s and the third that of Hope’s mother. ‘Why Betsy?’ he asked.
‘After someone I loved,’ she said simply. ‘I know Bennett will approve, it was when he came to visit her during the cholera that we met.’
‘Have you had a letter lately?’ he asked.
‘Not since the one he wrote in August,’ she replied. ‘I think that means he’s on his way home.’
‘What a devil of a time it takes for letters from abroad!’ Abel said reflectively. ‘We have the telegraph now and that gives us news of what is happening just a couple of days after the event. But letters still take weeks!’
‘There’s a letter for you from the Captain!’ Nell shouted up the stairs exactly a week after Betsy was born. ‘I’ll bring it up in a minute.’
Hope would have run down the stairs immediately had she not been feeding Betsy. Feeding was the best part of motherhood. She had a comfortable chair by the bedroom window which looked out on to the garden, and she could gaze dreamily out at the fields beyond the garden wall as Betsy suckled greedily at her breast.
Nothing before had come close to the joy of looking down at her small face, or feeling her tiny fingers clench hers; there was a faint smell on her head that Hope would sniff rapturously, and it was bliss after the feed to lie back in the chair cradling her in her arms.
Nell and Dora complained that she didn’t allow them to have much time with her, and sometimes she was aware she was too possessive. But Betsy was her baby, and right now while she was so tiny, all she wanted was her mother.
Nell came up with some tea on a tray. ‘Can I hold her while you read the letter?’ she asked as she put the tray down.
‘She needs changing,’ Hope said as she moved to hand the baby over and sawher dress had a wet patch. ‘I never expected babies to be so leaky.’
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