Although Harriet talked about it at length with Annie and Matilda. But that was at Christmas time and for another reason.
Chapter Twenty-One
The Easter family were celebrating Christmas at Bury that year, so that Annie and James could be together at the Christmas dinner. It was the first time that John and Harriet had been back to the town since the day they were married, and, rather to her surprise, Harriet was actually quite pleased to be there.
It was pleasant to see the pale frontage of the Athenaeum again shining on the north side of the square, and the carved post of the chemist’s on the corner, and the long winter shadows darkening the cobbles before the Angel Inn as the coach clanked and clattered into the yard. But it was the smell of the place that made her realize how much she had missed it, the dank familiar earth and the hedgerows full of winter dust and the warm rank reek of stabled horses steaming from behind Mr Kent’s long flint wall. Oh it was lovely to be back. And besides, she had something rather important to talk to Annie about.
However it was the sort of Christmas she had come to expect from her new family, being noisy, cheerful, extravagant and very crowded. So it wasn’t until the afternoon of the third day that she finally got a chance to talk to Annie alone.
Jimmy and Beau had both had colds and fevers that winter and they were still pale and easily tired, so when dinner was done Annie settled them for a nap on the chaise longue before the parlour fire, and she and Harriet took their sewing into the room and sat with them. Nan and Mr Brougham were out riding, Thiss and John and Mr Teshmaker were busy examining the books in the office, James had driven over to Rattlesden, and Billy and Matilda were out visiting their friends. Suddenly the house was blessedly quiet.
‘We have so much to talk about,’ Annie said, beaming at Harriet as they settled themselves on either side of the fire. ‘I am so glad they have left us alone. I am breeding again, my dear, and I wanted to tell ’ee myself.’
‘Oh Annie!’ Harriet said, with transparent delight. ‘When is it to be?’
‘June, I think,’ Annie said. ‘I shall know more when I’ve quickened. ’Tis three months now, if I am any judge. I have seen nothing since before the poor Princess died.’
‘Nor I since the very day,’ Harriet confessed, just as she’d planned to. ‘But I do not dare to hope yet.’
‘Oh my dear, whyever not?’ Annie said, leaning forward to take her hand. ‘When was the last time? Tell me, do.’
So notes were compared, and symptoms discussed, and after a most informative half-hour, Annie announced herself convinced that she and her sister-in-law were ‘carrying together’.
‘Have you told John?’ she asked.
‘I thought I would wait until three months were past.’
‘Uncommon good sense,’ Annie approved, ‘and just what I would have expected of ’ee. Won’t Matilda be peeved. We shall steal her thunder.’
‘But she means to have a boy,’ Harriet said wryly. ‘The first of a new line of Easters. Oh Annie, you cannot imagine how glad I am that you will keep me company. I could not face such a trial alone.’
And at that moment Matilda herself strode into the room, bringing a stream of cold air in with her and sharp with curiosity.
‘What trial is this?’ she said at once. ‘Do tell, Harriet, for I love a scandal.’ And she settled herself beside the fire, her plump face eager.
Annie and Harriet looked at one another quickly, both asking the same question with their eyes. Then Annie decided to answer it.
‘You ain’t the only one a-breeding this season,’ she said. ‘Harriet and I are both….’
‘But my dears,’ Matilda said, clapping her hands. ‘How thrilling! Three new Easters at once. What could be better?’ And to Harriet’s surprise, she kissed them both most warmly. ‘Now I know what trial it is you speak of, Harriet. If the heir to the throne can die giving birth, what help is there for such as us? Ain’t that so? I read every single word about it, and I tell ’ee I was fairly sick with fear.’
Harriet was most surprised to hear such things, for she’d never imagined that her light-hearted sister-in-law would ever be afraid of anything.
‘We are all in God’s hands,’ Annie said gently. ‘Remember that. From the highest princess in the land to the poorest beggar at the gate.’
‘But who will He help?’ Matilda said. ‘That’s the great question. It ain’t a bit of use you saying that when the Princess Charlotte was allowed to die.’
‘And is now in heaven,’ Annie said mildly. ‘She and her infant son. And what greater joy could there be for them than that?’
‘Why to be alive and well,’ Matilda said, opening her grey eyes wide. ‘And safely delivered. That is the greatest joy I could imagine.’
Harriet tried to think of the compassionate God in the church at Rattlesden, but the image of the God of retribution she’d worshipped for so long in Churchgate Street frowned into her mind too, ugly and unbidden. Oh please, she prayed, whichever God You are, be kind to me and Annie and Matilda. You’ve had one awful death. Be satisfied with that. ‘Are you not afraid?’ she said to Annie.
‘I was the first time,’ Annie admitted, glancing at the chaise longue to make sure her two boys were still asleep. ‘But not now. Not now I know how ’tis done.’
‘Is there much pain, Annie?’ Matilda asked. ‘Tell us true, for we need to know.’
‘Yes,’ Annie said honestly. ‘There is. But it soon passes. You forget it the moment you hold your own dear baby in your arms. Think of that. Your own dear baby. That is what makes it all worthwhile.’
‘Oh I do hope so,’ Harriet said. But fear was still scratching away inside her.
‘I’ll tell ’ee what, my dears,’ Matilda said. ‘I mean to enjoy every single day of this pregnancy, just in case. And I’d advise you to do the same.’
So that’s why she makes Billy pet her so, Harriet thought, and she suddenly felt quite fond of her. ‘I’m so glad we carry together,’ she said.
That night she recorded the entire conversation in her diary, almost word for word. ‘I never thought I should like Matilda so much,’ she wrote. ‘She is not at all as I first thought her. Annie is so dear to me, so dear to us both. Better than any sister could ever be, I do believe. Pray God she is proved right in what she says and that we shall all come safely through together. Should I tell John now, I wonder, or wait as I planned?’
She told him two days later, when they were back in their nice red bedroom in Fitzroy Square, and to her delight he began to make preparations for the child as soon as the news was out of her mouth.
‘We must hire another cook,’ he said, ‘for you will need special foods now, will you not? And a new carriage with better springing. Our present one is far too uncomfortable for a mother with child. A mother with child, my dearest! Oh how happy you make me! What else will you need? You have only to say the word and you shall have it at once.’
‘With you to love me, I have everything I could possibly need,’ she said, kissing him.
‘A nursemaid,’ he said. ‘We will need a nursemaid.’
She remembered Rosie who worked in the laundry in Churchgate Street, fat, comfortable, dependable, loving Rosie, who came from the same part of the town as she did, and was as poor as she’d been, and was so easy to get along with. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘and I know just the person, if she’ll agree to it.’
If he was surprised by her choice, he didn’t say so. ‘I will write to her this very evening,’ he said. ‘And at the same time I shall write to Mr Thistlethwaite. His young Tom can run your errands.’ Tom and Rosie had worked together once before on the night of the rescue. What could be more appropriate?
*
Young Tom Thistlethwaite said he was ‘chucked all of a heap’ to be asked to enter Mr John Easter’s service. ‘Who’d ha’ thought it? he said over and over again on the day John’s letter arrived. ‘Who’d ha’ thought it? ’Tis the first step to becomin’ a gentleman’s gentleman, ain�
�t it, Ma?’
He was still grinning with delight several months later on the morning of his departure. ‘Who’d ha’ thought it, Ma?’
‘Never mind “who’d ha’ thought it”,’ Bessie said, brushing his blue jacket with the stiff clothesbrush, ‘you jest do as you’re a-told an’ no larkin’ about. I know the way you go on.’
‘If’e grins any wider,’ Thiss said, grinning himself, ‘’e’ll bust ’is chops.’
‘There’s yer bag all packed and yer coat all lovely,’ Bessie said, putting the clothesbrush back on its rack. ‘All nice time fer the coach. Give yer ol’ ma a kiss then.’ And was seized in a bear hug and kissed until she protested she couldn’t breathe.
‘Onny one thing,’ Tom complained. ‘I can’t see why they ’ad ter go an’ take that ol’ Rosie from the laundry an’ all.’ The two of them were to travel to London together and he felt rather aggrieved to be put in charge of her.
‘Now come on, Tom,’ Bessie said. ‘There’s no harm in ol’ Rosie. She’s jest a bit simple, that’s all. She’s a good gel.’
‘Gel, Ma!’ Tom said, eyebrows raised. ‘She’s no gel. Why she’s thirty if she’s a day. Thirty an’ enough ter drive a saint wild the way she will keep on repeatin’ every word you say. I can’t see what they wants ’er for.’
‘She won’t be no trouble, son,’ Thiss said. ‘Pick up yer bag. It’s time you was off, as the guillotine said ter the of king’s ’ead.’
‘Oh Thiss,’ Bessie rebuked, ‘the things you say!’ Now that the time had come to say goodbye to this tall son of hers she was very close to tears, so her husband’s awful joke was something of a relief to her. Letting Pollyanna go to service had been bad enough, and she’d only travelled a few miles up the road to Miss Annie’s, but letting Tom go was worse. Oh much, much worse. London was such a very long way away, that was the trouble, and Mr John rarely came up to Bury these days, and besides, now that her Tom was twelve and nearly fully grown, he reminded her so much of Thiss when he was young, because he was skinny and slender-necked and quick-moving, and his dark hair was never tidy, and his brown eyes were full of devilment, and his grin was like a slice of melon, and he was always so gentle and kind and full of jokes. It made parting with him uncommon painful. ‘The things you say!’
‘I was there,’ Thiss said, brown eyes glinting at the memory. ‘I seen it.’
‘You never!’ his son said, thrilled at the idea.
‘Straight up! Me an’ Mrs Easter, we both seen it. That ol’ guillotine come a-whistlin’ down, an’ whosh! That was the end a’ the king. Pick up yer bag, son, an’ you shall ’ave all the gory details on the way across the square.’
‘What a picture ter leave in a boy’s mind!’ Bessie scolded mildly. ‘Shame on yer, Thiss.’
‘None better, Goosie,’ her husband said. ‘They were great days. Liberty, Equality an’ Fraternity, they was, which the Prince Regent would do well ter remember when ’e’s a-feedin’ ’is fat face at our expense. Him an’ them great fat overpaid brothers of ’is. Oh yes, they was great days! If they ’adn’t gone a-killin’ one another afterwards. Come on, Tom, an’ I’ll tell you all about it.’
Rosie was waiting in the coach yard of the Angel Inn, sitting in a plump sagging heap on top of her bundle, with all four laundry maids standing about her ready to give her ‘a good send off’. When she saw Tom she began to grin.
‘Ready fer the off?’ Tom asked, grinning back, for he could see that it wouldn’t be long before the coach was ready to start.
‘Ready fer the off,’ she echoed happily, wriggling until her little stumpy legs were touching the ground. ‘Fer the off. Yes. I’m a-goin’ to look after the babba, Tom. Look after the babba. Yes.’
And all the laundry maids kissed her and bounced her and told her to be sure to be a good gel, and Miss Pettie, who was walking past the Angel Inn on her way to visit her dear friends, the two Miss Callbecks in Whiting Street, ducked her head in at the entrance to wish her Godspeed. Oh it was exciting!
And Mr Easter welcomed them both so warmly when they finally got to Fitzroy Square. ‘This is the life, Ma,’ Tom wrote to Bessie two days later. ‘A capital job in a Capital place. Rosie ain’t so dusty, even if she do poll-parrot. She’s uncommon fond of Mrs Harriet, who is in the pink, as you said I was to tell you.’
Pregnancy suited Harriet Easter, and with Rosie to wait upon her and John to dote upon her the months passed pleasantly enough. And the few worries that surfaced from time to time could be written away into her diary.
In April she recorded the safe arrival of Matilda’s infant, which, despite the services of two midwives and an accoucheur, turned out to be a girl, and a very odd-looking one, as Harriet reported secretly, ‘with such a big head, such an odd shape, and such a deal of scruffy-looking hair, neither fair nor dark, and little piggy eyes quite sunk into her face, poor child. I do hope my baby is prettier than that. Matilda says she is the dearest baby alive and positively dotes upon her and John says beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The most important thing is that she is safely delivered. Praise God.’
In June, when the roses were in full bloom and the weather was unseasonably cold, Mr Hopkins wrote to tell them that Annie had been safely delivered, too, of a little girl who was to be called Margaret and was every bit as pretty as her brothers. Although she was now heavily pregnant and John was anxious about her travelling at such a time, Harriet insisted on driving to Rattlesden to see the baby for herself. And she was a delicious little creature, with a fluff of fair hair and big blue eyes.
‘If I could have one even half as pretty,’ Harriet confided, ‘I should be the happiest woman alive.’
‘You will, my dear,’ Annie promised, smiling at her from the pillows. ‘You will see.’
But Harriet’s pregnancy was growing at an alarming rate, and now that Annie and Matilda were safely through their’s and into the contentment of motherhood, she felt alone and vulnerable. She wrote in her diary every day, of her present aches and discomforts, of the agony to come, and of the terrifying thought that she might not be alive in another six weeks’ time. ‘How shall I support the anguish,’ she wrote, ‘when I am such a coward? Oh dear, oh dear.’
She was rather surprised when her labour began just after dawn one morning right at the end of July, which was earlier than she’d estimated, and with pains no worse than those she’d endured without comment every month. John had already left the house to go to the Post Office for the stamping, so she was all on her own. She got up and put on the loose gown which was all that would fit her, and began to pace up and down the room. If I am quick, she thought, I could have this baby born before dinner this evening. I will make an excuse that I cannot come down to breakfast because I am fatigued or sleeping or somesuch, and I will wait until he has returned to the Strand before I send for Mrs Young, and then he need know nothing about it. If this is all there is to the pain I may endure it easily. She was quite light-headed with relief.
‘I do believe I shall have this baby safely after all,’ she said to the midwife, as the bells of nearby Holy Trinity struck midday.
‘I should hope so,’ that lady said trenchantly, ‘with a good breakfast inside ’ee and me to attend to ’ee. Come let’s have ’ee in this bed now ’tis all ready.’
And even when the pains took hold and gripped her most cruelly, Harriet was still sustained by her odd, unexpected euphoria. ‘I am nearly there, am I not?’ she asked, over and over again.
And Mrs Young said, yes, she was, very, very nearly, and a fine good girl she was being.
And the afternoon was squeezed away, minute by heaving minute. ‘I am nearly there, am I not? I am a good girl?’
Four o’clock sounded, half-past, three-quarters. But the child wasn’t born. ‘Oh!’ Harriet grieved between the massive pressure of these long, long pains. ‘Why – is it – so – slow?’ And Mrs Young’s rosy face loomed into her line of vision, ‘Nearly there! What a good girl! Nearly there!’
At five o’clock she heard the bells as though they were a long way away, somewhere behind the pain, and she had a moment’s panic at the thought that John would return home and find her with the child unborn and the house uncared for. And what would she say to him then? ‘I must –’ she tried to say, struggling to sit up, ‘I must –’ But she was beyond speech now, and sitting up was impossible. The very next pain gave her such an uncontrollable urge to push that it simply had to be obeyed, and from then on she was out of touch with everything and everybody.
John came home and knocked timidly on the door to beg for information, which was given in urgent whispers, but she didn’t hear him; Mrs Toxteth brought tea in an invalid cup, but she could barely pause to moisten her lips with it. It was true that when Mrs Young gave her instructions she obeyed them instinctively, but her senses were concentrated on the great effort she had to make and her eyes were shut tight against all distractions.
And at long long last the child’s head was born. On the very next push she could feel its slippery body sliding between her legs and its little hands scrabbling against her thighs, and she opened her eyes to see what it was. And fell in love.
Mrs Young had lifted the baby up between her hands so that he was dangling just above Harriet’s belly, trailing his long dark grey cord, with his little fists tucked beneath his chin and his little legs curved towards his chest, pink and entire and perfect and male. And as Harriet gazed at him, spellbound, he opened his eyes and looked at her, a long, profound intelligent look, for all the world as if he’d known her all his life.
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