by Wendy James
Then – a rush, a slither – and the doctor is holding it up for me to see. ‘Well,’ he says. ‘It’s a boy, my dear, there can be no mistake about that!’ and then I can hear the sound of sobbing and I turn to Harry, who is still beside me, to tell him to be quiet, to hush, that the baby has come, but he is round-eyed and silent, and it is me who is crying.
And when they ask me later what name I will give him, I do not even have to consider it for a moment. He is Jack, my little Jack.
The doctor gives me a ticket for the Women’s Hospital. ‘It would have been better if you’d delivered there, my girl,’ he says, ‘but it can’t be helped – don’t s’pose you’d have made it in time, anyway.’ And after I have rested a bit, Harry and Mrs Ralph take me and my little Jack in a hansom cab – me covered with rugs, though it is as hot as anything, and Mrs Ralph holding my little Jacky. ‘You’ll be too worn out, miss, you’d best let me nurse him,’ she says. I am sore and exhausted, but at the same time, watching Mrs Ralph fuss and coo over my wee lad, who we have had to dress in an odd assortment of remnants, as content as I have ever been, which is a remarkable thing considering my circumstances.
‘I have to say,’ huffs Mrs Ralph when we’re on our way, ‘you certainly know how to keep a secret, Maggie Heffernan. I got the shock of my life. I’m just glad Lily knew Doctor Wilkinson was out front – what we would have done without him, I can’t imagine. I just don’t know how you managed to keep the thing a secret. Or why, come to that.’
‘It wasn’t … I just didn’t think the baby would be coming for another few months. I didn’t think I’d need to tell you, and it was easier to forget if I kept it to myself.’
‘Harry tells me he guessed that there was something of the sort, but I don’t see how. You didn’t look as if you were about to have a baby! Though he’s certainly not a runt …’ She looks down at Jack and smiles, ‘No, you’re a sturdy little fellow aren’t you? Even if your mother’s a deceitful puss.’
‘I suppose you thought we’d of put you off if we’d known,’ she says, after a moment, not looking at me, but still at the baby.
‘I really thought I had months to go, and I hadn’t made up my mind about what I was going to do.’
‘Well,’ says Harry, ‘I know what it is you should be doing.’
‘And what might that be, Mr Harry know-it-all Harrison? If you’d like my opinion, what she should be doing is going home to her mother and father and getting this little darling the best start in life she can! I know that there’s no parents in the world that are going to take a thing like this easy – there’s no one in their right minds’d wish this on their daughter – but true as that is, I know too that there’d be no parent in the world – not unless they had a heart as hard as stone (I am too tired to tell her that that is just what my mother’s heart is, a great hard lump of granite) – that could take one look at this dear little fellow and not want to pick him up and cover him with kisses.’ Which is just what she does. Then she glares up at me. ‘So, my girl, you should be writing them straight away and getting all this settled. They’re good respectable people, your folk, I’ve no doubt of that.’
‘She could be doing that,’ says Harry, ‘and I’m not saying that would be a bad thing, but I’ve got an even better idea. She should take up the offer I’ve made.’
‘And what offer would that be?’ asks his sister, her eyebrows raised. I know what it is he is about to say, and though I would rather he did not, cannot summon up the energy to interrupt.
‘An offer of marriage.’ Harry’s voice is quiet, but very certain. ‘It still stands, Maggie. The baby doesn’t make a bit of difference, you know that. It just means we’ll have a bit of a head start with our family.’
‘Oh, Harry! But it’s not your baby is it? You’re not the father? Surely there hasn’t been time …?’ Poor Mrs Ralph! She looks from Harry to me and back again, bewildered. The expression on her face, the shock in her voice, the very idea, it’s all so comical, that I cannot help it, I burst out laughing. Then Harry starts up and, suddenly realising her foolishness, Mrs Ralph is chuckling too. By the time we’re all calm again, Harry’s offer has been forgotten and there’s no need for me to reply.
I am reluctant to be in the hospital, having heard only bad reports about such places, where it is mainly charity cases that are taken in, but in the end it is a most comfortable place to be. For the first few days I am treated as a complete invalid (even though, apart from being a bit sore down there – which is hardly to be wondered at considering Master Pumpkinhead’s sudden entry into the world – I am feeling fit as a fiddle). I am waited on hand and foot, which is something of a treat, with the nurses bringing the baby to me for feeds, then taking him while I sleep, and meals arriving whenever I am hungry. And though Mrs Ralph and Harry visit, for these first days I feel as if I am in some other world, a pleasant, sleepy world where only me and my boy exist, a world where I can just drift and dream, and where no decisions (other than which side of my chemise to unbutton, or whether I prefer custard or pudding) ever have to be made.
My little Jack is the dearest, sweetest thing imaginable. He is a wide-eyed, wild-haired boy and the nurses cluck and coo and sigh over him, and laugh that he is already a charmer and that the girls will have to watch out for this one, which is something I do not have to be told, the resemblance to his father being unmistakable. Unlike his father he is no trouble: he sucks easily and sleeps contentedly, and does not cry when his face is wiped or flannel changed, for which I am thankful, knowing how trying some new babies can be. The girl who is in the bed next to me is having a terrible time of it. Her babe – a little girl she has called Joan – is a tiny thing. She has come a few weeks early and seems like a mouse compared to my big fat lad. She squalls all day and all through the night and it is the most miserable cry I have heard, and though the sisters are at the poor girl – twisting and tugging and pulling at both the mother and the poor little babe – they cannot seem to get her to latch on to feed properly. They are as kind as they can be about it, but the poor girl is at her wits’ end and there is barely a moment in the day where there is not some pitiful wailing coming from one or other of them. She is young – only seventeen, poor thing – and of course like most of us here has no husband. But she is still at home with her mother who is, I think, not quite respectable, but good-natured enough and fond of the girl, which makes her circumstances not so bad. She has a home to go to, after all.
The other women in the ward are pleasant enough. We all keep to ourselves as much as we can, which is hard, being in such close circumstances. There are eight of us and our babies, so we hear every sound: every cry, every snore, every fart, which at least makes for some laughs. There is one woman, older than the rest of us, who doesn’t say a word – only lies all day with her eyes closed and refuses to hold the baby when she is not nursing and seems to want nothing to do with it. The youngest nursing sister, Sister Farrington, who is a bit of a gossip, tells me that it is no wonder, for this is her eleventh child and she believes that the woman has asked the doctor to sew her up as she’s had enough and does not care whether her husband has to find his pleasure elsewhere, for it’s no pleasure to her anymore.
One visiting hour Harry and Mrs Ralph arrive carting Harry’s photographic equipment. ‘I begged him to leave it behind,’ Mrs R. says, shaking her head as Harry starts setting up in front of my bed. ‘Matron’ll send us home, and with a flea in our ear – make no mistake.’ She looks anxiously down the ward and sure enough, Matron is hurrying toward us, frowning. ‘Miss Heffernan,’ she huffs, ‘what on earth is going on here? What is this—’ she gestures angrily, ‘this paraphernalia cluttering my ward?’
I am overcome by giggles and leave it to Harry to answer. ‘Why ma’am,’ he says, with a slight bow, ‘I thought it would be a fine thing for Maggie to have a photograph of the boy, and perhaps any other of the mothers who would like a picture of their little ones as a keepsake—’
‘Are you mad, yo
ung man? Leaving aside the question of hygiene – who knows where this contraption has been and what diseases it may be carrying – you cannot seriously think that I would allow you to risk your son’s eyesight for a keepsake?’
‘Well, ma’am,’ Harry’s face is red, his voice low, ‘I’m afraid it didn’t occur to me that there would be any risk—’
‘Exposure to that bright light, when the infant’s eyes are not fully developed … Who knows what harm it might do!’
Harry is looking terribly dejected and her tone becomes a little more kindly, ‘Now, there’ll be plenty of time for keepsakes when you take the boy home, though I would advise against any photographs until your son has become accustomed to sunlight.’ She pauses suddenly, looks hard at Harry, then at me and Mrs Ralph, who is gazing steadily down at the floor. She turns back to Harry, ‘The boy is yours, isn’t he?’
‘Well, no,’ says Harry, ‘I’m afraid he isn’t.’ Then, with a rueful smile he adds, ‘But you’ll never meet a fellow more willing, ma’am.’
On the sixth day Lily comes to visit. When she has admired Jack, who is sleeping away in his little rush cradle, she sits down beside me. Being Lil, she doesn’t beat about the bush. ‘I’ve heard,’ she says, ‘that Harry J. wants to marry you.’
‘You have, have you?’ I say. ‘And where did you hear that?’
‘Well, it’s all about the place,’ she says. ‘The missus and Mr Ralph and Harry have been arguing over it ever since you came here. There hasn’t been one minute’s peace in that place.’
‘Mr and Mrs Ralph!’ I can feel my face hotting up. ‘How is it their business?’
‘That’s exactly what the missus says to Ralph, but he’s been telling Harry that he’s a fool to be taking on somebody else’s brat – him with his grand plans – and that you’ll only pull him down.’
‘I’ve got no intention of marrying Harry, but even if I did, it’s not Mr Ralph’s business. What right—’
‘God, Maggie, I’d be taking him up on that offer if I were you. What else are you going to do? Harry’s not … well, he’s not a fellow I’d personally be wanting to hitch to, but he’s a good man. He’s that generous he’d give you the shirt off his back. It wouldn’t be a bad life with him – he’d be kind to you and your boy, treat him like he was his own. And it’s not like you can afford to be choosy. You’re not the catch of the season, love. Not anymore.’
What she is saying is neither more nor less than the truth. But it’s not a truth I want to think about.
‘Lil,’ I say. ‘I can’t marry Harry. I just can’t. We’re chums, Harry and me, but he’s like a brother, not a husband.’
I am thinking of what there has been between Jack and me, and that I can’t imagine I would ever have any of that feeling for Harry. However much I might wish it.
‘You should think about it – maybe being married to someone you think of as your brother might be better than what’s ahead of you.’
‘It’s something I’ll have to manage. You managed, didn’t you? You raised a son on your own. And I know plenty of others … I’m sure it can be done.’
‘But at a price, my darling. My Thomas was a good boy, and he’s grown to be a good man, and I’m proud of the job that I done, but I was a widow and that’s another thing altogether to what you’re facing. And I had me ma and me brothers to help me out. And let me tell you, if any decent man had been foolish enough to ask for me, I’d a taken him up on the offer without a second’s thought.’
‘But you never know,’ I say, ‘something might happen. It might all work out for the best yet.’
Lil is silent a moment. Then, she says, ‘You’re thinking he’ll save you, aren’t you? The baby’s father. You’re thinking he’ll come for you. That everything’ll be all right. You read too many of them romances, Maggie. It don’t work out like that, real life. It’s not like that at all.’
I look away from her sharp eyes.
‘Aaah, darling,’ she says, ‘he won’t be back, don’t think it. He’s as dead to you as my Bill has been these past thirty years, God rest his soul. Don’t think it – you can’t afford to.’
In my heart I know she’s right. I can’t afford to think of Jack. But somehow I can’t afford not to, either.
I have avoided thinking about what I am to do, and where I am to go as long as I can, but it is a decision that has to be made. Mrs Ralph is at me each time she visits to write to my parents. She threatens to write herself if I don’t; in the meantime, she says, I should come back to the hotel. I can have my old room back and she would be happy to give me that and my meals in exchange for a few hours’ work each day, so it wouldn’t be charity. She never mentions Harry and his offer, but I know the question is there, in the way she tells me that her brother would be more than happy with this arrangement. And perhaps if it wasn’t for Harry I would consider going back, even though I know very well that it would be charity. Charity I could bear, but what I could not stomach is the talk: with one half of the world saying that I’m a fool for not taking up Harry’s offer, and the other that I’m leading him on, which I know very well (being as most of us are more eager to mind everyone else’s business than their own) they would.
So when Matron (who has never since made any reference to the baby’s father, or to Harry) tells me that there is a place at Mrs Cameron’s house, which is a home for unmarried mothers and their babies, and would I like her to arrange a ticket, I do not hesitate. I have heard about life in these institutions, where it is all work and prayer and penitence but, until I find Jack, there is no other course I can take.
Two days later, when my doctor is doing the afternoon rounds, he brings me a letter signed by the ladies of the hospital committee. This is my ticket to Mrs Cameron’s home. The doctor, Dr Hawkins – who is not so high and mighty as some of the others here, but a youngish, handsome fellow with a twinkle in his eye, who has all the sisters (including Matron) a-twitter – hands over the ticket with a smile, saying that he hopes Mrs Cameron does not work me too hard and that he’s certain that I’ll be fine, being as good a little mother as he has ever met, and no wonder with such a fine fellow as my Jack! At which Matron, who never misses the opportunity to stick in her bib, frowns and is at pains to explain to me that Mrs Cameron’s home is not a Magdalene’s home, like the Carlton Refuge, but a small, select home where girls who come from a respectable background are able to earn their keep – the home takes in laundry – whilst their babies remain with them.
Mrs Cameron takes only fifteen ‘decent’ girls at a time, Matron tells me, and as the good doctor has taken some trouble to get me this ticket, she hopes I will not disappoint or take advantage. ‘There is a great deal to be learnt about child-rearing from Mrs Cameron,’ she goes on. ‘She has trained at the New York Training School for nursery maids with Dr Emmett Holt himself, and is applying scientific principles to the practice of infant care, something that I’m sure you, dear Dr Hawkins, would find very interesting. So everything that you learn from her there, Maggie, will be invaluable, both for you and the child. This, in addition to good respectable employment that might lead to a paid situation later.’
She pauses and Dr Hawkins takes the opportunity to interrupt, ‘I’m quite sure Maggie will be a good girl, Matron. Mrs Cameron will be glad to have such a competent mother, I should think,’ he says with a slight smile. ‘Now, who’s next?’ He gives me a friendly nod and strides off down the ward. Matron has no choice but to follow.
I am grateful, for it does seem the best solution, though from what I hear from Kitty two beds up (she has a friend who was once there) Mrs Cameron is a right old cow who works her girls like slaves in the laundry and her scientific principles of child-rearing are so strict and so completely unnatural that, though you are encouraged to stay a full year, Kitty’s friend did not last more than a month. She decided that she would be better off going home to her ma who, Kitty says, welcomed her and all but took over raising the little one.
The prospec
t of going home (supposing Ma would have me, which is not at all certain) is, for me, the bleakest one. I would spend the rest of my life being tortured in some cunning way and God knows how Ma would manage to take it out on my poor little boy. Needless to say, I would rather risk Mrs Cameron’s scientific principles than find out.
So, I have something definite to tell Harry and Mrs Ralph when they start on at me that afternoon about coming back to the hotel. Mrs R. seems pleased enough. ‘Well, it is something, Maggie, and if Matron says it’s a respectable place then I’m sure it will be. I’ve no doubt you and little Jack will be looked after just as well as you could want, and this Mrs Cameron sounds like a very knowledgeable woman. I’m sure the work won’t be too hard, m’dear – but, as my own dear old mum used to say – hard isn’t necessarily bad, is it?’
‘Your own dear old mum who was never hard on you a day in your life, Flo,’ says Harry, who is jiggling a peacefully sleeping Jack back and forth in a manner that is sure to have him awake and crying any moment. ‘I don’t see why Maggie slaveying for some cranky old biddy for no pay, and who knows what sort of roof over her head, is any solution at all. And how do we know,’ he adds, frowning down in such a fierce way at my poor boy that I’m certain it would set him screaming if he were to open his eyes, ‘how do we know that this Mrs Cameron is a respectable woman at all and that they’ll be safe there and not—’
‘Not what, Harry?’ I interrupt, holding my arms out for Jack, who is stirring as expected. ‘What could happen? Mrs Cameron’s well-known here and the worst I have heard is that she makes her girls work hard and that there are prayers twice a day. I don’t say I’m all that shook on it, but what can I expect? I’m only getting my just desserts – and not even that, some would say.’