by Jess Foley
‘Yes – not long now.’
‘I wish I could be there to see ’im.’
‘Him?’
‘Well – whatever.’
Lily said after a moment, ‘I’ve thought about you so much, Tom, since you went off that morning.’
‘I’m sorry I went off without even a word,’ he said, ‘but you ’ad so much on your plate. If I’d known the situation I’d never have called in the first place. Then, seein’ you like that – with you expecting a baby – I had to leave – I couldn’t add to your troubles.’
‘I worried about you so – not knowing.’
Suddenly a bell rang out, briefly bringing a temporary halt to the conversations, then a man’s voice bellowed: ‘Five minutes. Just five minutes.’ The bustle started up again. Lily was aware of the seconds, the minutes, passing.
‘So,’ said Tom, ‘Father knows I’m here.’
‘Yes, they wrote and told him.’
He nodded. ‘I ’ad to give my next of kin.’ He paused then asked, ‘D’you think – d’you think he’ll come and see me?’
Lily did not know how to reply. When she said nothing, Tom gave a little nod of understanding. ‘It don’t matter,’ he said.
Another bell rang out, jangling harshly against the sound of the voices, signalling the end of the allotted hour. At once the waiting guards straightened at their posts while the voices in the cavernous room changed their tone, as their owners protested against the passing time and the ending of their visit with their loved ones. One of the guards behind Tom stepped forward and touched him on the shoulder.
‘Goodbye, Tom,’ Lily said, leaning forward. ‘I don’t know whether I’ll be able to come and visit you again before you’re out.’
‘That’s all right. It don’t matter. You look after yourself.’
The guard behind Tom had stepped back, allowing them a few final moments. Lily could see a glistening in Tom’s eyes, and felt tears threatening her own once more. All around, the other visitors were getting to their feet, while murmurs and cries of ‘Goodbye,’ and ‘God bless you,’ were heard from all corners of the room.
Tom looked at Lily for one last time then turned away and joined the other prisoners who, watched by the guards, had begun to file out of the room. Lily stood there, watching until he had gone out of sight, and then made her way towards the exit. Minutes later, along with all the other visitors, she was outside the prison walls, back in the bright May sun.
She was anxious to get away from the scene of so much unhappiness and stepped out briskly into the street. As she walked, a couple came hurrying by, a burly young man and a young woman, laughing and talking loudly. As they came past Lily in their rough eagerness to get ahead the woman stumbled, and, staggering on her cheap, flimsy heels, she gave a shriek and reached out wildly as she fell. In another second her desperate hands were snatching violently at Lily’s arm and Lily was thrown headlong onto the cobbles.
She did not cry out loudly as she fell, emitting nothing more than a little gasped ‘Oh.’ Then she lay there, the breath knocked from her body. For a few moments she remained quite stunned and hardly able to take in what had happened. She was vaguely aware of a dull ache starting up somewhere on her right hip, and another on her right elbow. Her reticule lay on the cobbles a couple of feet away.
As she tried to catch her breath she was aware of voices erupting all around her, with expressions of sympathy and concern as people gathered about. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, dear,’ said the young woman who had brought her down. Having herself recovered, she helped Lily up into a sitting position on the cobbles while someone picked up Lily’s reticule and set it down at her side. Lily’s hat had fallen so far over her eyes that she could hardly see, and she reached up and pushed it further back on her head. She realised that she was being supported by a tall, stoutly built woman. Briefly leaning back against the woman’s body, Lily put a hand to her swelled belly. The fall had jolted her so badly she could feel the wrench of it even now.
‘How are you feeling, love?’ asked the young woman who now bent over her. ‘Are you gunna be all right?’
Lily nodded. ‘I – I think so.’ In her belly the baby kicked, and she nodded again and said, ‘Give me a minute to catch my breath. I’ll be all right.’
‘You went down with such a wallop,’ another woman said, and the one supporting Lily at her back, agreed, ‘Ah, you did that an’ all.
One of the uniformed guards had come over and stood looking down at her. ‘You want to come back inside, ma’am?’ he asked. ‘We got a chair if you wants.’
‘No, thank you.’ Lily shook her head. ‘I just need to get my breath. I’ll be all right.’
‘D’you think you can stand, dear?’ asked the woman supporting her back.
‘I – I think so.’ The soreness on her hip was sharper now, the numbness from the impact wearing off and letting the pain come through. She shifted around, and with help from two of the women, got to her feet. The stout, motherly woman put a hand under her elbow. ‘Where are you going to, dear?’ she asked.
‘To the station,’ Lily said. Her reticule was in her hand now. ‘If I can just get a cab . . .’
With Lily on her feet, the sensation of the moment was over, and the people began to drift away. Lily walked with the stout woman’s hand under her elbow. She could feel her heart beating from the shock of the fall.
There were three cabs waiting outside the gates and the woman saw Lily safely installed in one of them. Lily thanked her and sat back with a sigh of relief as the fly started away.
At Redbury station she caught the train to Corster where she changed for Sherrell. She was nearing Sherrell station when she felt the first contractions.
Chapter Twelve
By the time Lily got back to Rowanleigh she was near collapse. With assistance from the driver she somehow got out of the fly and went inside, the pains stabbing at her so that she staggered, clutching at her belly and catching at her breath. Miss Elsie met her as she entered, took one look at her and went off calling for Mr Shad to go and fetch the midwife. He went as soon as he had hitched up the trap, and returned half-an-hour later with Mrs Toomley on board. Ten minutes after her arrival, with Mary on hand to fetch and carry, Lily’s son was born.
The baby came into the world the frailest-looking creature with a head of wispy fair hair and tiny hands stretching out as if reaching for a life that lay almost beyond him. At first he made no sound, but then Mrs Toomley, holding him by his ankles, gave him a sharp little slap on the buttocks and he gave a sudden twist in her grasp and began to squall.
The midwife clucked concernedly over him and said, ‘Well, he’s the tiniest little mite, there’s no getting away from it. I doubt he weighs more than five pound, but he’s absolutely perfect for all that.’ Then she added, a note of conviction in her voice, ‘And he’ll pick up, you’ll see.’
Lily, lying back exhausted, looked at the baby’s glistening, scrunched-up face and could only feel relief that the birth was over. Miss Elsie, who had also been present at the baby’s coming, pressed Lily’s hand and said, ‘Well done. You’ve come through it.’
The baby was quickly and efficiently bathed, then wrapped in a warm blanket and laid on Lily’s breast. She was not prepared for the sudden closeness, and for a moment felt at a loss. But then her arm came up and wrapped around the tiny form and held him to her. The midwife was tidying the room, putting away her things, straightening the bedclothes, humming as she worked. Miss Elsie, standing close to the bed, said to Lily, ‘I’ll go and make you some tea. I daresay you could do with it.’
As Miss Elsie left the room, Mrs Toomley looked over at the baby who had now started to cry again with a thin, pathetic, wailing sound. ‘He’s the one who needs somethin’, dear,’ she said. ‘The poor mite’s hungry.’
The baby’s head was lying on Lily’s breast. Almost without thinking of it, she put up her hand and untied the ribbon that held closed the neck of her nightgown. She pulled it down,
her soft breast and nipple exposed, feeling the air upon her skin. And then the baby’s lips were there, and the crying stopped as his mouth closed over her nipple. She felt the drawing of her milk into him and gave a sigh.
The midwife, glancing over in the course of her busyness, nodded her approval. ‘He might be small but he’s big enough to know what he wants,’ she said. ‘Thank God, they knows it even when you don’t.’
Lily lay back while the child suckled at her breast, milk from the side of his mouth dribbling out and running down on her skin. As he fed, she studied him. She had never seen an infant so small and so vulnerable-looking. She had clear memories of her half-sister as a small baby, but Dora had been born at full term and had been lusty and a good size. How different from this little creature. She looked at the tiny fingers, the minute fingernails, the perfect, flawless skin. Her gaze moved to his head and took in the fine hair and the features of his face. She looked at the button of his nose, at his rosy lips around her engorged nipple. There was a tiny dark mark on his cheek, shaped like a crescent moon, lying close to his left ear. She touched it softly with her fingertip as if she would wipe it away, and then realised that it was a birthmark.
Mrs Toomley came to the bedside and looked down at Lily and the infant as they lay there. ‘All right, my dear?’ she asked. ‘Are you feelin’ all right?’
Lily nodded, and gave a faint smile. ‘Yes, thank you.’
‘Be you in any pain, dear?’
‘Not really. No – it’s not too bad.’
The baby, having suckled for only three or four minutes, released Lily’s nipple and fell asleep. Gently, Mrs Toomley lifted him up and laid him in the cradle. He did not wake. Standing over the infant, the midwife looked down at him and gave a sigh. ‘He’s a poor, nesh little thing,’ she said, ‘and he’s gunna need some real lookin’ after. But as I say, with the right care he’ll pick up.’
She prepared to leave then, saying that she would call back later in the evening. Soon after she had gone, Miss Elsie came in with a tray bearing two cups which she set down at the bedside.
‘Here – drink some tea,’ she said to Lily, ‘and then try to get some sleep. You must be exhausted.’ She helped Lily to sit up against the pillows, and then watched as she took up her cup and drank. ‘I’ll write to your parents now, and tell them of the birth,’ she added, ‘and at some time I’ll have to get in touch with the Society. Let them know the baby’s here. They’re not expecting to be notified yet. Not for several weeks.’
Lily nodded. ‘How soon after – do they come and take the baby?’ she asked.
‘In three or four weeks or so. Providing of course, that the baby’s well enough to go.’
‘So soon.’
‘Oh, as soon as possible. It’s the best way.’
‘But what about feeding them? Don’t they miss their mother’s milk?’
‘Oh, usually they’ve gone on to a bottle by then – and if not, the folks at the Society will often have a wet nurse on hand.’
Mrs Toomley came back later, and while she was there Dr Hanbury called. He murmured satisfaction over Lily’s condition, but said she must not over-exert herself. As for the infant, he said, ‘He’s a poor little thing, but once he puts on a bit of weight he’ll be fine.’
Lily tried to sleep after they had gone, but she was disturbed by the plaintive crying of the baby, which continued on and off during the night. Sitting on the side of her bed, she held him to her breast. He wanted none of it, however, and continued his miserable weeping, his toothless mouth opening wide. It was not until the small hours of the morning that at last his crying ceased and he slept.
Throughout the days and nights that followed, Lily cared for the baby and tried her best to get him to feed. He awoke and cried so often she got no rest. At such times she held him in her arms and put her nipple to his mouth, but then groaned and sighed when he turned his face away. Weary and exhausted, she whispered to him, ‘Please – you must be hungry. You’ve got to have food.’
As she watched the days and nights drag by, her every moment was governed by the baby’s moods and needs. Then, slowly, to her great relief, she began to discern a change in him. He began to take his milk more regularly, and to put on weight. She could feel him heavier in the cradle of her arms. He was getting stronger, there was no doubt of it. His breathing too sounded healthier, and he slept more deeply, and for longer periods.
Lily began to relax a little more and to worry a little less, and as the baby continued to make progress, Dr Hanbury suggested that the breast-milk feed might soon be supplemented with a prepared bottle. This, she knew, would pave the way for the infant’s eventual departure, which could not now be very far off.
Almost six weeks after the birth, on a bright, warm June afternoon, Lily took the baby out in the perambulator for a walk in the fresh air, the hood of the carriage lifted to shield him from the sun. It was good to be out of the house for a while. The last time was when she had gone to the prison to see Tom.
She had thought of her brother many times as she lay in her room with the baby at her side, and she thought of him now as she pushed the perambulator along the hard, rutted road. She had no idea where he was. She had heard nothing from him, though he would have been free to write, for he would have been released from prison two weeks ago. She could only wait, and hope that he would get in touch.
As for her father and stepmother, she had had only the merest contact with them since the baby’s birth. Miss Elsie had written to inform them of it, and some days afterwards Lily had received a brief letter from her father. With no mention of the baby beyond vaguely acknowledging its existence, he had simply expressed the wish that Lily was recovering well. From her stepmother there was no word.
Her stroll took her along the road and onto a lane, on either side of which lay fields where the young wheat and barley were reaching up in the warm sun. Walking on, she came to a spot where a little copse grew beside the road, and here in the shade of oaks and silver birches she came to a halt. There was the trunk of a fallen tree close to the roadside, and she brushed the dust from it and sat down, turning the perambulator so that she could see into its interior. The faintest breeze stirred the leaves around her, and the sound of birdsong filled the air. Sunlight streamed through the branches, dappling the foliage. The grass around the tree boles was starred with vetch, buttercups, dandelions and daises. She could smell the scent of all the sweet growing things. Leaning forward, she peered into the perambulator. The baby was awake and his eyes at once latched onto her gaze. ‘Hello, little baby,’ she murmured.
He knew her voice, and he lifted his tiny right arm and stretched out his hand, fingers moving, as if reaching for her. She gave a breathless little laugh. ‘Oh, baby,’ she cooed. ‘Little Georgie.’ Where the name had come from she did not know, but she spoke it again. ‘Georgie,’ she said. ‘Little Georgie.’ As she smiled down at him his mouth opened into a wide grin, while his steady eyes remained fixed on her own. The sight made her catch at her breath, and her own smile grew broader. She studied his face as he lay there – something she was wont to do. It was not always for the simple pleasure that came from looking on his small, handsome features, but to see – with some touch of fear – if she could detect in him any sign of his father. However, to her saturating relief it had never happened. Each time she gazed into the wide eyes with their thick lashes, or took in the neat, perfect nose and the pink little flower of his mouth, she saw only some faint trace of her own father.
Now, bending closer, she cooed to him again, making foolish mother’s sounds, then said, her voice soft and caressing, ‘Are you a darlin’? Are you the most beautiful boy in the whole world?’ And at once, as if she had shared a joke with him, and he had understood it, he gave a little laugh. It was a brief sound, a little breathless chortle, but it seemed to hang in the summer air, so that she felt she could have held it in her hand and kept it always.
She was aware of a kind of peace coming over her, an
d she sat back on the log and briefly closed her eyes. In the perambulator the baby lay, smiling, his tiny hands moving on the coverlet. She did not know what was to become of her, but for this moment she knew no unhappiness. Perhaps, after all, everything would be all right . . . but then, suddenly, like a dark cloud coming over the sun, the knowing came to her that it could not last. This little sense of peace and happiness that she had felt so briefly, it could not continue – not in the face of what was real. She got up from her seat. ‘Come on, Georgie,’ she whispered, ‘it’s time to start back.’
On her return to Rowanleigh, she laid the baby in his cradle and then rocked him as he drifted off to sleep. Not that his sleep would last for long, she knew; he would soon need feeding again. With this in mind, she went downstairs, heading for the kitchen, to prepare his bottle.
As she went through the hall, Miss Elsie, glimpsing her as she passed by, called out her name, and Lily went into the sitting room.
Miss Elsie, holding a piece of paper in her hand, smiled at Lily as she entered. ‘I wanted to have a word with you. Did you enjoy your walk?’
‘Yes, thank you, it was very pleasant,’ Lily replied. ‘Georgie enjoyed it too.’
In the silence that fell, Lily was at once aware of what she had said. It was too late, though, the words were out. She felt herself flush slightly. ‘Oh, ma’am,’ she said, ‘I – I can’t always just think of him as the baby. It doesn’t seem right. I can’t leave him just nameless.’
Miss Elsie’s expression was one of sympathy. She was silent for a moment, then she said, ‘You’ve spent many weeks with your baby, Lily, and it’s not something that can be overlooked. He has been so weak, and so dependent on you. You haven’t had it easy – not by any means. None of the young women who came here in the past cared for her child for such a long period, but even so, it was still a wrench for them, to part with their babes. I do understand what you’re going through.’
Lily said nothing. The past weeks since the baby’s birth had left her increasingly confused and unsure of her role. Now, with her life on the verge of being returned to her, she realised that it would not be the life that she had known.