A Mother's Shame

by Rosie Goodwin

  ‘I . . . I want you to promise me something,’ Isabelle said. ‘I want you to promise me that when the child is born, you will take her home to Mama in England. Josh will accompany you.’

  ‘But I thought that your uncle was going to find a home for the child when it is born?’ Maria said, confused. ‘We agreed that we would wait until after the birth before you made your decision.’

  Isabelle smiled weakly. ‘Ah, but things have changed now.’ She stroked her swollen abdomen. ‘I have changed since I felt this little being moving inside me. I realise now that she deserves the best chance that we can give her, and Mama will ensure that she gets that, if you can only get her home.’

  Maria chewed on her lip as her brows puckered.

  ‘But if you feel so strongly about this, why don’t you take her home yourself? And what about your father?’ Maria rushed on. ‘What will he do if you turn up back at home with a child that has been born out of wedlock? He would never countenance it.’

  ‘He will,’ Isabelle assured her. ‘Once Mama has met the child she will persuade him to accept her.’

  ‘You seem so sure that the child will be a girl.’

  Isabelle nodded. ‘She will be, but will you promise me this one thing, Maria?’

  Seeing no alternative without upsetting her, Maria nodded. After all, once the birth was over, Isabelle might have yet another change of heart or decide to take the child back herself.

  ‘Very well,’ she said reluctantly. ‘I promise. But stop fretting now and concentrate on the birth ahead.’

  Above them, the rain was drumming relentlessly down on the roof. Maria had never experienced anything like it. The rain seemed to come down in a solid sheet, drenching everything in seconds and turning the roads into muddy rivers. As Binda had already pointed out, the roads into Hobart might already be impassable; there would be no way of getting a doctor to Isabelle should there prove to be complications. All they could do now was pray that the birth went smoothly.

  It was then that they heard the door into the passage open and then someone tapped on Isabelle’s door. It was Josh, soaked through and tormented with worry.

  Maria’s heart jerked as he moved quickly towards the bed. ‘How are you, my darling?’ he asked his sister tenderly. ‘Have the pains started yet, my dear?’

  She smiled wearily up at him. ‘No, not yet. I am quite comfortable.’

  Seizing her chance, Maria slipped away, leaving the brother and sister to speak in private.

  ‘Anythin’ happenin’ yet?’ Kitty enquired, the second she set foot back in the kitchen. She was answered by the look on Maria’s face.

  Binda was at the table grinding up leaves and all manner of strange-looking plants and roots with a mortar and pestle.

  ‘It will hurry the birth along,’ she informed Maria when she felt the girl watching her. Maria was becoming accustomed to Binda’s strange customs now and nodded absently.

  Minutes later, Esperanza also appeared and Maria wondered how she still managed to look so beautiful when she was soaked to the skin. She was wearing a dark green cord velvet riding dress that dragged wetly across the floor, and her hat was flattened to her head, but she merely tore it off and tossed it aside as she asked, ‘Isabelle’s baby – it is coming, yes?’

  Binda pursed her lips as she stared back at her mistress, ‘She should be well on the way now, but as yet there is no sign.’

  ‘But surely this is normal with a first birthing?’ Esperanza raised a fine brow questioningly as Binda shook her head.

  ‘The birth waters have broken. There should be signs of the birth pains by now. But I am mixing her something that will help her along. We must do what we can but the spirits will decide.’ She then strained the juice from the mixture into a cup and padded off towards Isabelle’s room, while a silence settled on the room, beneath the drumming of the rain on the roof.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  The storms intensified over the next twenty-four hours and soon the road to the ranch was impassable. And still Isabelle lay with no sign of her contractions starting.

  Robbie took food into the barn at regular intervals for Lennie and led him outside to do his toilet on the rope that bound him to one of the wide beams. Each time, Robbie’s appearance was met by a stream of abuse, but the Scotsman simply ignored it.

  ‘Why can’t that fuckin’ bitch bring me food?’ Lennie stormed. ‘It’s her fault I’m here in the first place. She’s nothin’ but a whore.’

  Robbie would just stare at him coldly before fastening him to the beam again, but despite his brave words, Lennie did not try to fight him. One brush with Robbie was quite enough; his strength was no match for the red-haired giant.

  ‘Shouldn’t we allow him to come into the homestead?’ Maria questioned nervously at one stage as she gazed towards the streaming windows.

  ‘He’s fine where he is,’ Robbie snapped. ‘It’s dry in there, and he has blankets and food. He’s lucky I haven’t tied him up outside in the storm after what he tried to do to you.’

  Maria was still jittery and almost jumping at her own shadow, so she nodded feebly. She was also desperately worried about Isabelle, so when on the second night Binda stood up and made a decision, she was relieved.

  ‘It is time to help nature along,’ the woman told them solemnly.

  ‘What are yer goin’ to do?’ Kitty asked.

  Binda merely stared at her before ordering, ‘Take hot water and towels to the missy’s room.’ She rolled up her sleeves, washed her hands thoroughly then disappeared off into Isabelle’s room as Kitty rushed to do as she was told.

  Joshua was sitting at the side of her bed holding Isabelle’s hand and Binda told him, ‘This is woman’s work now. Go and wait in the kitchen.’ Esperanza had returned to her own home the evening before, but Josh had stayed on, napping in the chair in his sister’s room.

  Bending to plant a gentle kiss on her forehead, he nodded then rose and left the room.

  When Maria carried the water into the room, Binda said immediately, ‘We need to raise the missy’s knees.’

  ‘Very well.’ Maria whispered to Isabelle, ‘Binda is going to try and hurry things along now, dear.’

  Isabelle smiled weakly. Then Binda bent over her and began to knead her stomach.

  Isabelle screamed out in pain, but worse was to come.

  ‘I am going to try and feel the baby’s head,’ Binda told them as she peered between Isabelle’s legs – at which the screams intensified. At last Binda stood back with sweat on her brow. ‘That should do it,’ she stated – and she was right, for within half an hour the contractions started.

  Isabelle’s baby was born late in the afternoon of the following day as the light was fading. Maria had not left her side and was nearly dropping with exhaustion, but even so when she caught sight of the newborn she cried out with delight.

  ‘Oh, Isabelle, you were right. It’s a dear little girl,’ she told her as she bent to kiss her feverish forehead, then to Binda, ‘Is the child all right?’

  A tiny wail was echoing around the room now as Binda cut the cord and handed the bloody little bundle to Maria.

  ‘She seems to be. Very small though – she will need careful tending.’

  She was bending to Isabelle again now and the smile died on Maria’s face as she noted her expression.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked with a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.

  ‘Missy is bleeding badly.’ Binda tutted. ‘We must deliver the afterbirth and try to stem it, otherwise . . .’

  ‘Otherwise what?’

  Binda did not answer as she waved Maria away, telling her, ‘Take the child and bathe her. There is nothing more you can do here now. Just tell Kitty I shall need more towels.’

  Maria rushed away with the precious bundle wrapped in a linen sheet she had had all ready.

  Josh cried openly at the first sight of his niece and watched in amazement as Maria gently washed her in a tin bowl in the kitchen. M
aria then dressed her and wrapped her in a shawl before handing her to him, touched at the look of awe on his face.

  ‘She looks more like you than Isabelle with her fair hair,’ he smiled as he cradled the child against his broad chest. She stared up at him and his heart was lost, while Maria looked on with a lump in her throat.

  ‘I believe the colour of a baby’s hair and eyes are prone to change as they grow,’ she told him softly as he stared down at the tiny miracle in his arms.

  Meanwhile, Kitty was dashing back and forth fetching towels and yet more hot water.

  Robbie came in soon after, shaking the rain from him like a dog, and he too was instantly bowled over by the new arrival.

  ‘Och, will ye look at the wee bairn,’ he cooed. ‘Isn’t she just the prettiest little thing you ever did set eyes on?’

  Kitty smiled at him affectionately before scuttling off to help Binda again.

  Time passed slowly. Everyone was tense, and Josh commented, ‘They’re rather a long time in there, aren’t they? Is Isabelle all right?’ The words had barely left his mouth when Binda appeared, looking infinitely weary.

  ‘Take the child through to her mother,’ she said. ‘She wishes to see her.’

  ‘But she’s all right, isn’t she?’ pleaded Josh. ‘Surely the worst is over now?’

  ‘I cannot stop the missy’s bleeding,’ Binda informed him. ‘I have done what I can, Master Joshua, but the rest is up to the spirits now.’ She then sat down on the settle at the side of the fire, her chin drooped onto her chest and she slipped instantly into an exhausted sleep.

  Josh headed for the door with the child in his arms and a look of dread on his face.

  Isabelle had been washed, and as he entered the room she turned her head towards him. He was shocked at the sight of her. Her eyes seemed to have sunk deep into their sockets and on her face was a look of suffering. She was ghastly pale but she managed a smile and looked expectantly towards the precious bundle he was carrying.

  ‘F-Faith,’ she murmured as she struggled to lift her hands. She was obviously very weak and Josh’s heart broke as he laid the baby gently in her arms.

  Isabelle sighed with delight as she kissed her daughter’s downy hair. ‘She is beautiful, isn’t she?’

  Josh nodded. ‘Yes, just like her mother. Now you must get strong again so that you can watch her grow. If you still wish to keep her, that is.’

  Isabelle looked at him strangely for a moment before saying, ‘Maria must remember her promise. I want Faith to go home to Mama.’

  Josh could only begin to imagine the scandal that this would cause; his sister turning up with an illegitimate baby. But now that he had seen her and held her, he could understand why Isabelle did not wish to part with the child.

  ‘Why don’t you just concentrate on getting well and then we can discuss everything?’ he suggested tactfully.

  Again Isabelle looked at him strangely but then her attention returned to her daughter and as she lay there with her hair fanned out on the pillow and a smile of pure joy on her face, Josh thought that she looked like an angel.

  ‘Take her now – I must sleep,’ Isabelle said some moments later. ‘And Josh, remember – I wish her to be called Faith.’

  Josh was feeling more emotional by the second; it was almost as if Isabelle was saying goodbye. He made a conscious effort to clear such thoughts from his mind. The birth was over now; surely she would soon start to recover?

  With Faith back in his arms he gazed down at his sister, whose eyes had already fluttered shut, and then softly he crept from the room.

  Kitty had concocted some sort of feeding utensil with a teat and filled it with warm goat’s milk, and from the second she placed it in Faith’s tiny mouth she fastened onto it and began to suck greedily.

  ‘Well, she may only be a little mite but she knows how to feed,’ Kitty chuckled as she rocked the baby to and fro. The rest of them apart from Binda were seated at the table eating the salt pork and beans that Kitty had cooked for them, although none of them had much of an appetite.

  Josh joined them after a while, but he too merely pushed the food about his plate. A sense of foreboding had invaded him and he couldn’t seem to shift it.

  ‘It would have been nice if we could have got word to my uncle and Esperanza about the birth,’ he commented eventually, and they all nodded in agreement. Now that the weather conditions had worsened yet again, they were now virtually cut off until the roads improved.

  ‘I’ll take some grub out to Lennie,’ Robbie said after a while and Kitty immediately hurried away to fill a plate with food for him whilst Robbie shrugged his huge frame into his outdoor clothes.

  Maria sat back and watched the interaction between the two of them and suddenly felt sad. It was quite obvious that Kitty loved him, and Robbie’s eyes seemed to soften whenever he looked at the girl – and yet he had still not shown any sign of wishing to be more than a friend. Now that the baby had been born their days at the ranch were numbered and they would be returning to England, but she wondered how Kitty would cope with leaving Robbie behind. She had blossomed in the time they had spent here, and now there was barely a sign of the timid girl who had left Hatter’s Hall. It was all very sad. She could only hope that Isabelle’s mother would find a position for Kitty at Willow Park when they returned to England – otherwise what was the girl to do? What was she herself to do, for that matter? Her job at the post office was long gone, so once they returned she too would have to look for a new position. She shrugged the sombre thoughts aside as she thought of Isabelle lying so ill. For now she would just concentrate all her efforts on trying to make the girl well and worry about her own future when the time came.

  Binda roused from her doze shortly after. The light was gone by then and Kitty was flitting about like a busy little bird lighting the oil lamps.

  Without a word the woman hurried away to check on her patient but she had been gone for no more than a few seconds when she shouted, ‘Maria, Kitty!’

  In their haste to get to her the two girls almost collided in the doorway then they were racing down the corridor.

  They both stopped abruptly as they saw Isabelle lying in a pool of blood. She had haemorrhaged.

  ‘More towels!’ Binda shouted and Kitty shot away to fetch them as Maria hurried into the room.

  Binda swished the blankets aside and instantly began to press yet more towels between Isabelle’s legs in a desperate attempt to stem the flow of blood, but all too soon it was clear that her efforts were in vain.

  Maria clasped Isabelle’s hand tightly and willed the blood to stop, and it was as she was silently praying that Isabelle’s eyes fluttered open.

  ‘Y-you have been so good to me,’ she murmured and her voice was so faint that Maria had to lean towards her to hear her.

  ‘Don’t talk,’ Maria urged tearfully. ‘Just save your energy.’

  Isabelle smiled weakly – and then her eyes closed.

  After another twenty minutes Binda threw a clean blanket across the girl before telling Maria, ‘Go and fetch her brother. He may wish to sit with her before she goes to the other side.’

  ‘No!’ Maria sobbed. ‘She can’t die, Binda. She is so young. There must be something more you can do?’

  Binda shook her head resignedly. ‘The spirits have decided – it is her time.’

  Isabelle passed away in the early hours of the following morning, with Josh and Maria at either side of her.

  Her ending was so peaceful that she looked as if she was merely asleep, and as Josh wept, Maria held him to her chest and uttered words of comfort. They were just two people grieving the loss of a loved one. And it came as a shock to Maria to realise that she had come to love Isabelle.

  ‘She had her whole life in front of her,’ Josh raged. ‘It’s all just so unfair.’

  ‘I know.’ Maria stroked his hair back from his damp face. ‘But now we must do what we can for baby Faith. It was what Isabelle wanted.’

  �
��But my father will never accept her if we take her home,’ he wavered.

  ‘I understand that. But could you really leave her here to be brought up by strangers now that you have seen her and held her?’

  He thought for a moment. ‘No, I don’t suppose I could,’ he admitted brokenly. ‘It’s bad enough losing Isabelle but to lose Faith too would be beyond endurance.’

  ‘Then we shall take her home and face whatever comes.’

  They stood with arms entwined looking down on the beautiful girl on the bed.

  Shortly afterwards Binda entered the room and after laying two shiny pennies on Isabelle’s closed eyelids, she ushered the others from the room, telling them, ‘I must prepare her for her last journey now.’

  They found Kitty crying in Robbie’s arms and once again it struck Maria how right the couple looked together.

  ‘Poor love,’ Kitty choked. ‘It ain’t fair, is it?’

  ‘There are many things that aren’t fair in this life,’ Robbie said, and then they all looked towards the child who was sleeping soundly in the little crib that Esperanza had sent over from the ranch some time before. ‘But just look at the legacy yon Isabelle has left behind. While you have that bonnie wee bairn, Isabelle will never be far away. She’ll live on in her little girl.’

  Realising the wisdom of his words, they all nodded in agreement.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  During the next two days the rain continued to pour down, and Maria and Kitty began to wonder if it was ever going to stop.

  Binda spent much of that time locked away in Isabelle’s room, chanting.

  ‘She is asking the spirits to accept her and guide her safely over to the other side,’ Robbie informed them. And then on the third morning Binda left the room to tell Robbie, ‘She is ready now for burial.’

  He took up his coat. ‘I’ll go and make a coffin up from the wood that’s stored in the barn.’

  Maria was horrified. ‘But we can’t bury her without a proper Christian service.’

  Robbie frowned. ‘An’ how are we supposed to arrange that when we’re cut off from everyone? The nearest church is in Hobart an’ there’s no way we could get her there.’ Noting Maria’s distress, he explained to her more gently, ‘We need to do it now, as quick as we can. The body is beginnin’ to . . . well!’