by Anne Bennett
‘A nurse?’
‘Oh dear. Didn’t he tell you? Me and my big mouth,’ Elizabeth said. ‘It was probably meant to be a surprise.’
‘Well, it’s a surprise all right.’
‘I worried that he wouldn’t be able to afford it, but Reg has given him a sizeable increase and of course the house is all paid for. He’s become a different man since his marriage, you know, my dear, more dynamic and forceful. Reg has come to rely on him a great deal. Arthur has a great future ahead of him. He’s determined that his child will want for nothing and you can understand it for she’s quite the sweetest thing.’
Hannah asked Arthur about the nurse that evening. He was surprised she knew, but not unduly worried, and he sat and told her what he knew about Mrs Lawson. For the first time, Hannah looked forward to going home where someone else was at hand to care for her daughter.
Chapter Ten
Pauline Lawson saw straight away that she’d have no trouble with Hannah. She wasn’t at one with the child and it was apparent in one glance. The baby was in a basket and Hannah couldn’t seem to wait to hand it over to the nanny, as soon as introductions were over. ‘Go and get the child settled and come down to the kitchen where you can have a proper chat,’ Arthur advised Pauline.
But when Pauline took Angela upstairs, she didn’t put her straight in the cot, but held her instead to her breast. She felt strangely drawn to this child. ‘I’m going to love you like you were my own flesh and blood,’ she told the baby who looked at her with baby blue eyes. ‘In fact, I’m going to love you so much, you won’t even miss your mother,’ and she kissed Angela’s chubby little cheek.
Josie galloped home from school, ecstatic that Hannah and baby Angela were coming home that day. Arthur hadn’t let her get back before Hannah did, so she knew nothing about the nurse installed in the house. She ran down the entry and in through the kitchen door to see Hannah at the sink, peeling vegetables, and Arthur sitting at the table, reading a paper. ‘Can’t you ever learn to come in through the door properly?’ he said irritably, but Josie ignored him. ‘Where is she?’ she demanded of Hannah.
Hannah didn’t even turn around to greet her and it was Arthur who answered, ‘In the nursery, with the nanny we’ve engaged for her care.’
‘A nanny?’ Josie repeated. ‘What do we need a nanny for?’
‘We need a nanny because I say so,’ Arthur answered. ‘Her name is Mrs Lawson and her word is law in all matters regarding the child. You may not go and see Angela unless she says so.’
Josie felt suddenly deflated. She’d carried pictures around in her head of how it would be. Her and Hannah tending Angela, feeding her, bathing her, loving her and playing with her. And now this! Hannah continued peeling vegetables as if her life depended on it, taking no part in the conversation. In fact, she carried on as if she’d not even heard it.
Arthur had gone up to help this Mrs Lawson bath the baby, when Josie had been in about half an hour. She thought that very odd. She would have thought Hannah would have gone, but she’d made no comment when Arthur said where he was going, but just carried on setting the table.
Josie was terribly confused. Was she not to get a glimpse of this baby at all that night? ‘Hannah, why have we the need of a nurse for just one wee baby?’
Hannah’s eyes were expressionless. ‘Arthur wanted it that way.’
‘But why?’
‘It’s best, Josie, believe me,’ Hannah said. ‘I … I was ill after having the baby.’
‘I know that,’ Josie said. ‘But you’re all right now, aren’t you?’
‘No, Josie, not really,’ Hannah said. ‘It’s best Mrs Lawson takes over till I’m on my feet again.’
Hannah could see that Josie was still confused and unhappy, but she couldn’t think of anything to say to help the situation. She was tired, so terribly tired.
‘When can I see the baby?’ Josie asked, her voice mutinous, but Hannah heard the tremble and knew her to be upset.
‘Ask Mrs Lawson,’ Hannah suggested. ‘She’ll be eating with us when she gets Angela settled.’
‘Oh.’ That information took Josie’s breath away. She hadn’t expected that.
‘She’ll eat with us all the time,’ explained Hannah. ‘We’re not a large household.’
Josie was all set to heartily dislike the nanny. She felt she had taken Hannah’s place – pushing her out and in doing so, pushing Josie out too. She hoped no one expected her to be nice to this woman who she just knew would be awful.
So when Pauline came into the room, Josie scowled at her. She disliked everything about her; the grey hair she had scooped into a bun, the lines on her plump face, the high old-fashioned dress she had fastened to the neck, her thick, dumpy shoes and her woollen stockings.
But Pauline Lawson had had years of caring for children and she was instinctively drawn to Josie because she resembled her elder daughter who’d died years before. And so, as she took her place at the table, she said, ‘You must be Josie?’
Josie just nodded. ‘And how old are you, Josie?’
‘Ten,’ she answered briefly.
‘A fine age,’ Pauline pronounced. ‘I bet you’ll be a great help to me in the nursery.’
‘You do?’ Josie cried, incredulous and interested in spite of herself.
‘Certainly I do,’ Pauline said. ‘We’ll go and have a little peep at the baby after tea and then tomorrow, when you come home from school, you can help bath her if you like.’
Like! Of course Josie would like, but she wondered whether it was being disloyal to Hannah. She glanced at her, but though she was picking at her dinner, it was if she was someplace else, as if she’d erected a glass wall and she was behind it. ‘Would you mind, Hannah?’ Josie asked.
Hannah looked at her vaguely as if she could scarcely remember who she was. ‘Mind what?’
‘Me helping with the baby?’
‘Why should I mind?’ Hannah said and her tone indicated that the child was nothing to do with her. ‘If Mrs Lawson said it’s all right and your uncle, then I won’t object.’
Arthur was irritated, in fact, at Pauline’s suggestion for he felt that it was his place to help bath the baby in the evening and yet he had no wish to argue with her so soon and so said, ‘If you wish to and you don’t get in Mrs Lawson’s way, I don’t see the harm.’
And over the next couple of days, Josie enjoyed helping Pauline and she adored the baby. Pauline was patient and kind, showing her how to bath Angela safely and put a nappy on and dress her in her little flannelette nightgowns before tucking her snugly into her cot.
Despite herself, Josie felt herself thawing towards the woman. In fact, she was glad to have someone to talk to for there was little conversation or anything else to be got from Hannah. Josie didn’t know what was wrong with her, but she was unnerved by the change and was relieved that she had the nursery to escape to.
The neighbours came bearing gifts, some of whom Hannah had barely spoken to. It was overwhelming and wearying for Hannah and she could see their puzzled looks when she directed them to the nursery, where they viewed the baby under the watchful eye of Pauline Lawson.
The general consensus amongst them later was that Hannah Bradley was getting above herself. ‘After all, she’s only an ordinary person like us,’ said one. ‘First, it was a private nursing home, I ask you, when she had a perfectly good home for a baby to be born in and now a nurse.’
‘I think it’s her doing though,’ another put in. ‘I mean her husband is such a pleasant man, always passes the time of day. You can barely get a word out her, though. Sat there today like a stook.’
There was a murmur of agreement. Even Mrs Byrne, Mary’s mother, who’d looked after Josie while Hannah had been having Angela, had had something to say about it. ‘Hannah’s certainly nothing like Josie,’ she said to her husband one evening. ‘Josie’s a pleasant wee thing, even if she is a trifle plain. Her aunt now is beautiful to look at, but she has no personality, no spark
somehow. I’ve noticed it before with beautiful people. They don’t feel they have to make an effort. I mean, I tried to make conversation today. I thought I’d make the effort, you know, with Josie and Mary being such good friends. She obviously doesn’t do much with that poor wee baby with that nurse there so I asked what she thought of the Royal Wedding and you won’t believe it! Do you know she asked me which wedding I meant?’
John Byrne smiled at his wife who’d been agog, like most of the country, at the impending wedding of Princess Elizabeth to Philip Mountbatten, on 20th November, which had been just three days before. ‘Not everyone is as ardent a royalist as you, my dear,’ he said, but even he thought it odd that not only had Hannah expressed no opinion whatsoever, but that she didn’t even seem to be aware that it had taken place.
Gloria saw another example of Hannah’s strange behaviour at Angela’s christening a couple of days later and it annoyed her. ‘What’s up with you, girl?’ she demanded of Hannah. ‘Go up now and tell that bloody woman to sling her hook and take charge of your own baby and look after the guests in your own house.”
‘Oh, Gloria, I can’t. I feel so tired all the time.’
‘Tired! At your age! Stuff and bloody nonsense! You’re run down, that’s all. It’s natural enough after having a baby. Get yourself down the doctor and get a tonic. That’ll fix you.’
Gloria, Amy and Tom Parry nearly didn’t get an invitation to the christening party at all. Arthur had arranged it all and though Hannah was aware of it, it didn’t seem to matter. Everything seemed to float over her head.
As soon as Josie found out that Gloria, Amy and Tom had been left off the list however, she enlisted the help of Pauline after getting no joy from Hannah, who could not summon the energy to fight with Arthur over anything anymore. ‘Hannah doesn’t seem to care,’ she said. ‘Yet she knows that Gloria will be destroyed if she’s not asked. You talk to Arthur, Pauline, he’ll listen to you.’
And Pauline did ask him, pointing out how important they were to Hannah and then because she knew he cared about the neighbours’ opinion, said people would think him very mean-spirited if he didn’t ask them. Arthur knew what Pauline said was right and reluctantly an invitation was issued.
Arthur would have liked Reg and Elizabeth to be godparents, but they were non-Catholics, so he asked a colleague from work to be the godfather and, after much prompting by Pauline, he chose Josie to be Angela’s godmother, a duty the child took very seriously indeed. Arthur took it seriously, too, and had engaged caterers to provide a stupendous buffet for all the friends, neighbours and people from work that he’d invited after the ceremony.
Hannah knew she was cutting a poor figure and Arthur a magnificent one, the beam of pride plastered to his face as he cuddled his baby daughter dressed in the long silk christening robe he’d bought for her. Everyone commented on the fine father he made and Hannah knew it would be noted and discussed that she hardly glanced at the child and never held her. Nobody but Gloria ever said anything to Hannah openly, but she knew that she’d be the subject of gossip again, but was too weary to care.
Hannah never went near the doctor’s as Gloria had advised; she’d have felt ashamed. But she viewed Christmas approaching fast with dread. She wanted none of it and was thrown into panic when Pauline said she wanted a week off over the festive season. Arthur said of course she must, it was only fair, and Hannah knew it was. Pauline was supposed to have her weekends free, but in practice it seldom happened, for she said she had nowhere to go just for the weekend, so she was on hand most of the time.
So it was more than fair but, ‘How will we manage?’ she asked that night, when she, Arthur and Josie were alone in the breakfast room. Arthur looked up from his paper, a frown puckering his brow at being disturbed. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘When Mrs Lawson … I mean, Pauline goes away for a week?’
‘Well, I’m off for most of it,’ Arthur said. ‘And Josie will be here too.’
At first, Arthur had resented Josie’s incursions into the nursery, but Pauline was not a woman to be trifled with, nor one easily bullied. ‘Don’t be silly, Mr Bradley. It doesn’t become you being jealous of a child,’ she’d said. ‘Josie is a great help to me and we’ve become friends, and it will do the girl good to know how to look after children. With God’s help, she’ll have her own to see to one day.’
So Arthur had been put in his place and now he knew he would be glad of Josie’s help in caring for his daughter, for he knew he’d get little help from his wife. Half the time, Hannah didn’t seem totally with it and he wondered if she was losing her mind.
Well, whatever it was, he felt it had to be kept within the family. That was why he’d refused a dinner invitation to the Banks’, claiming that Hannah’s nerves were bad after Angela’s birth, and he gave the same reason for refusing the tickets for the New Year’s Ball.
Pauline took on the bulk of the shopping. Armed with a list and pushing the pram, she’d put the order and ration books in at the regular shopkeepers’ for delivering later and gone on into Erdington Village to shop for presents and more Christmas goodies.
She’d also decorated the house and tree with Josie’s help – more lavishly than Hannah would ever have done, while Hannah slept the afternoon away. And that evening, over dinner, far from grumbling at the waste of money, Arthur was expansive in his praise. ‘We have a baby in the house,’ he said, explaining his change of heart. ‘We must get in the mood.’
Before Pauline left for her holiday, she did much of the seasonal cooking, including the cake, the pudding and mince pies, and left instructions for Josie to do much of the rest. She also suggested Josie write the Christmas cards she’d bought, for she knew Hannah wasn’t up to it.
In fact, Hannah wasn’t up to much and Pauline thought if she hadn’t snapped out of it by the New Year, she’d have to talk her into seeing a doctor.
Hannah viewed her life like a vast void, where she stood alone in a sea of nothingness and those around her carried on with their life, unable to touch her, or affect her in any way. She was convinced she was going mad and afraid of betraying this in her speech, so spoke less than ever, not indeed that there was much opportunity for her to speak at all for she was incredibly lonely. The neighbours had been so put off with her manner when they’d called in to admire the baby, and later at the christening, that they never came again.
Even Josie seemed to have deserted her; from the minute she was home from school, she spent her time in the nursery and often Hannah heard her and Pauline laughing together. Hannah couldn’t blame the child for seeking more cheerful company. There was precious little humour, or even conversation, in her.
Arthur also spent most of his spare time in the nursery. What was wrong with her, she asked herself, that she had to steel herself before walking into that room to see her baby? And what was wrong with her that the slightest thing tired her so much that she dropped off in the chair, or gave in to the fatigue and flung herself on the bed and slept for hours?
When Pauline returned in the New Year, Hannah was still no better and she mentioned to Arthur that perhaps she should see a doctor. He was hesitant to encourage this, because he thought Hannah was suffering some form of mental illness and if she was, he wanted that shameful fact kept hidden. He wanted no doctors involved.
Pauline decided not to push it. As it was, she had a free hand in the nursery and though Arthur was more involved than any father she’d ever met, he was out every weekday from morning until night. She didn’t want Hannah coming up each day finding fault, disrupting her routine and perhaps upsetting the child. In her heart of hearts, she faced the fact that she wanted to be the most important person in little Angela’s life after her father. She thought Hannah unnatural anyway to show no interest in the child at all and someone had to love the little mite. So far, during the day, that person had been her and really she wanted the status quo to remain.
Day after day, week after week passed and Hannah felt
more despondent than ever and even more certain it was all her own fault. She wasn’t a proper person, she decided one day, not lovable, or even likeable. If she had been, her father would not have rejected her. The nuns had recognised this fact straight away. They knew she didn’t deserve to be a mother and that’s why they’d taken her baby from her. Michael, at least, would have a chance of a normal life in a proper family, better than he would have done with her – a mad woman.
In early March, Hannah visited Gloria, desperate to confess to the negative feelings that she had about Angela to someone. Somehow, it all seemed mixed up with her past and it was driving her crazy. She honestly felt that if she wasn’t able to unload some of her problems she would explode.
‘Listen to me,’ Hannah begged her friend. ‘I’ve come to tell you this terrible thing, this shameful thing, because if I don’t speak of it to someone, I feel as if I will go out of my mind.’
‘What is it?’ Gloria asked, watching Hannah biting her bottom lip in agitation.
‘I … I don’t love her, Angela, I mean,’ Hannah confessed. ‘I feel nothing for her.’
Whatever Gloria had expected it wasn’t that. One of the reasons she’d been so happy about Hannah’s pregnancy was that it might help ease the ache of loss she knew she still felt for her first child. But here Hannah was saying that she couldn’t love her own baby. Gloria had known there had been something wrong right from the beginning.
‘Do you think me awful? Wicked?’ Hannah asked. ‘I feel it myself.’
‘No, of course not,’ Gloria said confidently. ‘You’ve had a difficult time. It does happen, I’ve heard of it.’
‘I never have,’ Hannah said emphatically. ‘I feel a failure, Gloria. I couldn’t have had a worse experience than that first time, worked half to death, constantly berated and told how sinful we were and knowing we were to give birth to a child we couldn’t keep. And yet, when I held Michael in my arms for such a short time, I knew I loved him, oh so, so much. I would have laid down my life for him. For Angela, I feel nothing.’