‘That don’t sound legal to me.’
‘Nobody queried it when we arrived so I shouldn’t think anyone is going to bother about that now.’ Bette tried to sound unconcerned, but could have kicked herself for this carelessness. She wouldn’t put it past the woman to try to have her thrown out of the country.
‘And why would Barney help?’
‘I’ve told you, he was a friend.’
Peggy considered her with a shrewd, calculating gaze, lips pressed firmly together. ‘You and he must’ve got mighty cosy around that time.’
More chillingly, on another occasion, Peggy suddenly, and quite casually remarked, ‘They do say that a child most resembles it’s father at the moment of it’s birth.’
Bette’s heart skipped a beat but even as she struggled to find some sort of answer to this weighted comment, Peggy blithely changed the subject and began talking about bottling peaches and stocking up the wood store before winter set in. Bette said that it was still only July so there was plenty of time for such things, but Peggy insisted that winter came early in these parts, and in any case she’d be wanting the house warm for the baby, wouldn’t she, and food to eat? ‘We all do know how you like your grits.’
Nothing Bette said seemed to be right.
A wedding was hastily arranged the very next week, the parson coming up to the farm specially to conduct the ceremony in peace and quiet. No friends or neighbours were invited, as Peggy insisted that Bette was too far gone in her pregnancy to display herself as an object for folk to gawp at, just as if she’d been the one putting off the wedding all this time.
Chad, while being thankful that he’d been relieved of the task of breaking this difficult news to his mother, apologised to his young bride for the paucity of the ceremony. ‘I meant for us to have a fine, grand affair with you in a fancy frock and a big cake an’ all.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Bette insisted. ‘We’re married at last, man and wife. That’s all I care about.’
Bette wore her one good dress, the blue crêpe de chine and carried a posy of marguerites which Chad picked for her. The entire family took a day off from working the land, drank a good deal and ate mounds of food, laughing and shouting and being generally raucous and loud. Only Bette sat at the table feeling like a stranger at her own wedding.
Never had she missed her own family more than she did at this moment. What she wouldn’t give to have Sara act as bridesmaid, Cory to give her away and even Sadie around to tell her how things should be done. She felt so alone without them.
That night, she tried again to persuade her new husband to make love to her, but he patted her shoulder kindly and set her away from him. ‘Wait till the baby is born, hon, maybe I’ll feel more comfortable then. We don’t want no problems.’
Bette turned over, curled up in a ball and by sheer will power, managed not to cry. What would happen when the baby was born, she dreaded to think. She didn’t even know where the nearest hospital was, should anything go wrong. She felt so lonely and afraid, so desperate for affection, for her mam and dad, for Sara, it was a wonder she wasn’t howling into her pillow. And how could she ever love this baby, when it had got her into this mess?
Bette went into labour on the thirteenth of October. The pains were shocking but thankfully short lived and a golden dawn was breaking over the Appalachian Mountains when Jackson Junior slipped quietly into the world, making no fuss and crying on cue when his new grandmother picked him up by the heels and smacked his bottom.
Bette, in a daze of exhaustion and relief, was simply thankful that the birth had been relatively straightforward, and that it was all over.
‘Is he all right? Let me see him. I want to hold him.’
Peggy seemed to be examining the child with a scrupulous intensity, holding the squirming infant close to the light while she studied its features. Once she was done, she plonked the child unceremoniously into it’s mother’s arms. ‘That ain’t no Jackson. That’s a Willert, as I live and breathe. You married my son under false pretences, girl, just as I always suspected.’
Bette could hear voices at the other side of the bedroom door: a mix of Chad’s, Mary-Lou’s and Peggy’s, and every now and then the resonant notes of Pop Jackson, but she caught only the odd word. Willert being the one which most rang in her head, hammered in it like a drum beat. In her worst nightmares, she had never imagined such a moment. But no matter how carefully she studied the baby’s features, she could see no obvious evidence of Barney in his features.
Admittedly the fuzz of hair on his head was darker than Chad’s, and slightly curly, but then they said a baby’s hair rubbed off in the first few weeks and came back a different colour, so how could she be certain? His eyes were dark, neither grey nor brown, which surely proved nothing. They too might change. Barney’s eyes had been clear grey with a rim of violet around the iris, nothing like this child’s, and Chad’s were a deep, warm brown. What could Peggy possibly have seen which so convinced her that the child was not Chad’s? Or had she simply made up her mind from the start that she had no wish to accept the child as a Jackson.
All seemed to have gone strangely quiet beyond the door, perhaps because they had moved downstairs to the kitchen to continue their frantic chatter, and still Chad had made no appearance to welcome his son into the world. Bette felt bitterly disappointed, cheated of his presence and desperately close to tears. Why didn’t he come?
The baby began to cry and not knowing what else to do, she put it to her breast. At first he refused to suck and Bette was nearly in tears. ‘Oh please, someone help me. How do I feed this baby? Why won’t he suckle?’ As the baby became increasingly distressed, Bette began to sob. ‘Hello, is anyone there? Can someone help me, please!’
Nobody can have heard her because nobody responded to her cries and her chest felt tight with fear, sheer panic overwhelming her. Had they all gone out and left her alone? How would she manage? The baby would starve and fade away. So would she? Oh why had she come to this wild place in the middle of nowhere; why had she stayed? She could have been home in Cornwall with her family around her, and Barney, oh Barney, whose child is this?
She stared at the baby in her arms as if he were a stranger, his tiny, wrinkled face red with fury, his small mouth open wide in desperate, heartrending cries.
The child was hers, that’s who he was. What was she thinking of, giving way to panic? Slapping away the tears, Bette steadied her nerves and began to massage and tug at her breasts, trying to encourage the milk to flow, to demonstrate to the baby what he must do. Thankfully, a tiny drop of clear liquid emerged and he suddenly got the idea, gripping the teat with his tiny, birdlike mouth and holding fast with single-minded tenacity.
Bette felt a surge of love flood through her, a huge swell of emotion and she knew it was going to be all right. Everything would be fine. She lay back on a sigh of relief and actually laughed, smoothing a hand gently over her child’s head, seeing the pulse of life beating on his crown and it suddenly no longer mattered whether Barney or Chad was the father. He was her child, a part of her that she’d created. He was sucking stronger and stronger, a fine, healthy baby. She was so very lucky.
All she needed now was for Chad to come and see him. Once he clapped eyes on this tiny scrap of humanity, this fine little boy who was his son, Bette felt quite certain that he would fall in love with him, just as surely as she had done.
All day she waited but Chad did not come. Sometime around noon, Mary-Lou brought her a bowl of tomato soup and a crust of bread. She peered closely at the baby, now asleep in the crib they’d prepared for him. ‘What you going to call him? Barnaby?’
‘Your sarcasm won’t work today, Mary-Lou. I’m far too happy. Isn’t he wonderful? Where is Chad? Is he out? When will he be back? I’m longing to show him his son.’
‘Mom says he isn’t Chad’s, that he’s not a Jackson.’
‘Well your mom is wrong. Tell her I want to see Chad, please.’
But still he d
id not come. As the day wore on, Bette’s newly bolstered courage began to fail. Not even Peggy came in to see her again. Mary-Lou brought her more food, around supper-time, barely glancing in the baby’s direction this time. When Bette asked where Chad was, if someone had told him that the baby had arrived, she merely shrugged her shoulders and left.
Bette called after her. ‘You will tell him, Mary-Lou. I’m counting on you.’
No reply.
Getting herself to the bathroom when she needed to go, took all her effort. Bette managed to get out of bed and pull on her dressing gown, gingerly making her way to the bedroom door she called for help, but there was no response. She felt so sore, and worried about leaving the baby unattended. What if he smothered himself, or stopped breathing when she wasn’t looking?
‘Mary-Lou, Peggy, can you mind the baby while I go and use the John.’ Taking care to use an expression they would understand.
She could hear a distant buzz of voices downstairs in the kitchen but nobody heard her, or if they did, paid her no heed. There was nothing else for it but to take Matthew, as she now called her son, with her. She’d chosen the name partly because she felt sure Chad and his family would want a biblical name, and because she’d always liked it.
Gathering him gently in her arms, Bette made her way slowly along the landing to the bathroom, lay Matthew carefully on his blanket on the floor and did what she had to do, taking the opportunity to wash herself all over while she was there, since her mother-in-law had barely done more than wipe her with a damp flannel after the birth. She felt much refreshed afterwards.
Back in her room she put Matthew in his crib and, realising he was wet, took a clean nappy from the cupboard where she’d stored them and struggled to pin it on him. It took her a long time because he was so very tiny and she was terrified of sticking the pin into him. After all of that, she climbed back into bed, exhausted, and was asleep in seconds. When she woke, it was quite dark and the baby was crying to be fed again.
So began the longest night Bette could ever recollect.
Matthew would wake at regular, and all too frequent, intervals for his feed, take a little milk from her and generally fall asleep in the middle of it, only to wake again two hours later, crying for more.
Bette was in despair, at the end of her tether. She’d never been so tired in her life. Could there be something wrong? Had she run out of milk? Wasn’t it coming through as it should? Could that be because she was so fearful of the future, so afraid, quite certain that even now the family were plotting against her, planning a way to rid themselves of this interloper who was trying to foist another man’s child on their son.
It was around mid-afternoon of the following day when the door creaked open and instead of a sour-faced Mary-Lou bearing fresh food or more cold tea, Chad himself walked into the room. Bette sat up quickly in the bed, wishing she’d had warning so that she could have tidied her hair or put on some lipstick, but what did it matter, he was here, at last.
‘Chad, I’m so glad to see you. I thought you’d never come. Didn’t they tell you that he’d been born? Just look at him. Isn’t he marvellous?’
Chad made no move to approach the baby. He stood at the bottom of the big bed, grasping the iron rail tightly with his one hand as he stared down at her. ‘Mom told me everything. You lied to me, Bette. I can see now why you were in such a hurry to marry a one-armed, clapped out marine. He’s Barney’s child, isn’t he? Did Barney turn you down? He would, of course. Barney doesn’t go in for commitment. He takes a girl and leaves her, that’s his style.’
‘Oh, Chad, it wasn’t like that, really it wasn’t. It’s you I love. I don’t want Barney.’ Bette was kneeling on the bed now, putting her hands out, trying to reach him.
‘Are you telling me that you never slept with him?’
He waited in silence for her denial, and when it didn’t come, when he saw the rising tide of colour in her pale cheeks, he knew the answer to his question. He blinked as if she’d struck him, then clenched his fist into a tight ball of fury and on a sharp, indrawn breath, walked away.
‘Chad, don’t go. Don’t leave me like this. I need to explain. I want to talk about this.’
His last words were like a knife through her heart. ‘There’s nothing left to say. You’ve got what you wanted, much good may it do you.’
Bette’s lying-in lasted no longer than six days and throughout that time, Chad never came again. She spent it largely alone and unattended, and by the end of the week she was near screaming with frustration and boredom, wanting to get up and go out. Bette felt desperate to find him so they could talk it all through and she could attempt to make reparation.
She needed to explain that she and Barney had both believed Chad to be dead, that they’d been overwhelmed by emotion, a moment of weakness, partly brought on by grief. She told herself this story so often that she almost began to believe it; resolutely putting from her mind the passion she’d felt for Barney, how much fun they’d had together, how she’d wanted to marry him only a short while ago.
That was a fact Chad must never discover: that the wedding had been called off only because they’d heard he was still alive. He’d been hurt enough. Besides, he was right in a way. Barney had taken advantage of her, and been eager enough to escape the penalty of marrying her.
Having issued her judgement on the father of the child, Peggy hadn’t set foot through the bedroom door again. Throughout the six days, Mary-Lou had been the one to take away soiled sheets and bring fresh linen, carry in trays of food and drinks, and even she had been resolutely uncommunicative.
It was quite plain to Bette what kind of future she could expect with the Jackson family. Bad as it had been before, it would be ten times worse now.
She didn’t even know where her husband could be sleeping in a house that was supposed to be bursting to the rafters with not an inch of alternative sleeping accommodation to spare.
It was Peggy, in fact, who told her, on the seventh morning when Bette walked into the kitchen, Matthew in her arms, unable to stay in bed another minute. ‘If you’re looking for Chad, he ain’t here.’
‘Where is he then?’
‘Took himself off to the cabin.’
‘You have a cabin?’ Bette was astonished. Why had she never heard about this before? All these months they’d been living cooped up with his family, and yet there’d been an alternative. ‘What sort of cabin? Where is it?’
‘T’aint no palace. But I reckon you’d best join him there.’
‘Does he want me to?’
‘Don’t make no difference whether he do or not. You’re man and wife in the eyes of God, so you’ll just have to knuckle on down and make the best of things, like the rest of us. Mary-Lou will help you pack your things.’
So she was to be banished from the house, after all. Bette felt a surge of relief. She was delighted, although fearful of the reception that awaited her in this so-called cabin. She didn’t, not for one minute, expect Chad to be putting out a welcome mat. He saw her as a cheat and a liar, and probably he was right. She had cheated on him, let him down, flirted with and loved both himself and Barney, and this was the result. It served her right if she was now to pay the price for such foolishness. Hadn’t Sara warned her that it would all end in tears?
In a strange way, the six days of isolation had given her renewed strength, perhaps because of this tiny scrap of life which depended upon her entirely. Matthew deserved a better mother, that was certain, but he also needed a father, and Chad would make a good one. Bette knew this instinctively.
Not only that but through all those long, lonely hours she’d had ample time to realise that she did still care for Chad. Perhaps now the baby was safely delivered they could start again, begin afresh and learn to love each other as they once had. She just needed him to give her a second chance.
Chapter Forty
As it turned out, cabin was a somewhat grand word for what turned out to be little more than an unpainted
, wooden shack. It’s four walls were made of un-sawn logs resting on a few piles of stones. It bore a crooked, tin-can chimney that smoked fitfully on a corrugated iron roof. Bette stared at it, appalled, unable to believe that anyone could actually live in it
Harry had taken her there in the pick-up, not saying a word the entire journey, although his little piggy eyes constantly raked over her, so that she had to keep checking that her knees were well covered with the baby’s blanket.
He deposited her bags, boxes, the crib and the baby’s things on the shabby old porch, got back into the truck and roared away in a cloud of dust without even a goodbye.
Bette cradled the baby in her arms while she stood and watched the truck depart until every speck of dust had settled again and all that remained was a shimmer of latent heat glazing the surface of the unmade road.
The door of the cabin remained firmly closed. No one had come out to greet her. Not only was there no welcome mat but there was a disturbing, unlived in feel to the place, yet Peggy had said quite clearly that Chad was here.
He must be waiting inside, sulking perhaps, unwilling to apologise for his harsh words. Bette knew it would be up to her to take the first step and make amends. All she had to do was to pluck up the courage to go inside and ask his forgiveness. He loved her, surely she could make it right between them?
Bette wished he would come out now, quickly. Then she could sit down and rest and he could hold the baby, see what a handsome little fellow he was.
Left standing out here, all alone, she was beginning to feel nervous, and desperately alone.
There was no sound, other than that of the wind soughing in the branches, a timely warning that summer was passing and autumn, fall, was upon them. A shiver ran down her spine and hoisting Matthew to a more comfortable position in her arms, she turned the handle and went inside.
For All Our Tomorrows Page 30