by Maggie Ford
“Well, if you feel like that,” he said and took her gently in his arms.
But she needed more to take away the dull ache of Hugh having got married. Edwin, finding himself overwhelmed by her hunger, was guilty of taking full advantage of it, taking no time even to seek the protection which they had agreed was needed. Angela was too young to have a baby brother or sister yet, and with her hearing impaired as it was, she would need their full attention for some years to come. Another baby, they had agreed, would only interfere with that and wouldn’t be fair on her. But that night all good intentions flew out of the window, leaving Helen wondering next morning if she had conceived.
The continuation of her periods told her that she hadn’t. But just prior to Christmas the period she’d expected did not appear. Wondering if she was right in what she was thinking, she counted the months. If she were correct, the baby would be due next September. There would be nearly two years’ difference between this one and Angela: ideal, she began telling herself before long, and by January she had missed another period and was already beginning to look forward to the event.
Ten
It was late February by the time Helen felt certain enough of her condition to tell Edwin, her doctor having confirmed it. She told him that same Monday evening when he came up from the restaurant.
Mondays were usually quiet around this time of year, people preferring to stay indoors during the winter, gathered round their electric fires and televisions.
“Damned television will be the death of the restaurant business,” Edwin had said more than once, though he’d admitted that Easter and the approaching summer months would see the place becoming busy again.
This Monday, however, he was able to devote his time to her. She told him of her pregnancy and his reaction was one of happiness, with just a hint of relief, or so it seemed to her.
“It’s just what you need, Helen, my darling. Another little one.”
“Don’t you mean ‘we’?” she asked, her own happiness abating a little. “Just what we need?”
“Of course – just what we need. But it’s you I’m thinking about. I’m sorry I have to leave you up here on your own so often. It’s difficult at times to fill the place in the winter months, and we do need to entice our regulars as well as casuals away from the damned television taking over lately. I don’t like leaving you here alone. I’d sooner be here with you. But a baby will be a companion for you as well as for Angel. And I shan’t feel so guilty not being here all the time.”
She nodded, understandingly. Understanding that he would not have to feel so guilty. A baby would make it all right for him. But he was right – a baby might make her feel less lonely here. Being wanted, being at someone’s beck and call would give her no time to dwell on Edwin’s absences, her isolation.
That had been her trouble as time had gone on, too little to do but dwell on that. Angela had never been hard work. At fifteen months she remained the placid child she’d always been. But it was a placidness that had become painful to see.
In everything else Angela was perfect; bright, happy, always smiling, people pointing her out as perfectly beautiful. She’d begun crawling earlier than normal and by nine months she was pulling herself up on to her feet by hanging on to furniture. Now she was toddling well, and her ready smile revealed the right complement of milk teeth.
In all things she was healthy. But she wasn’t talking. The expected “Mama” and “Dada” had not appeared. When she wanted something she would point, make sounds, but it wasn’t talking.
Helen found that speaking close to her ear would reap an instant response, but rather than be glad that Angela wasn’t totally deaf, it constantly broke her heart. She had been told that an operation could be had but that it was far too soon to contemplate as yet.
Slowly, however, by speaking loudly to her, Helen could see Angela beginning to make sense of her world. But it was hard work and she had to dedicate herself to playing with her daughter more than some mothers did, comforting her more, mouthing her words carefully, making sure Angela was watching her as she did so. She was determined that her daughter would not be deprived of all the things other children took for granted, would not have to suffer being in a world where she’d be pointed out as an idiot. She was a bright child and no one was ever going to look on her as a fool.
The next morning Helen bent towards Angela, sitting in her high chair, and put the little red feeding mug on the tray as usual. Angela picked it up and put the spout to her lips.
“DRINK,” Helen said slowly and loudly, repeating the word several times. Angela’s grey eyes watched her from behind the cover of the mug.
Taking the mug away as she had done so many times before, Helen saw the child’s face change as she was deprived of her favourite orange juice. As Angela held out her little hands to reclaim it, Helen gave it back. “DRINK,” she said again. Weeks of this had always produced the same frustrating results: a wide-eyed stare, a perplexed frown, followed by a flashing smile as the mug was returned. She was sure Angela must hear her, if only in a muffled way. If she could cotton on just this once, it would be such a start.
Her heart gave a small leap as, taking the mug away and repeating the word yet again while resisting the small hands reaching out for the mug, she saw the lips begin to purse, following the movement her own lips were making. Moments later came a sound that made her almost want to burst into song. “Rrr… ing.”
How tiny the voice was. How wonderful to hear – soft, high-pitched and beautiful. Helen felt as though she had climbed heights hitherto out of reach, was looking down at all the world and seeing that it was lovely.
It took another half an hour to end up with “Dwink”, uttered in that adorable soft tone, and almost a further hour of repeatedly indicating herself to finally produce “Mama” from Angela. It was like a miracle. Helen could hardly wait for Edwin to come up from the restaurant to tell him. But by the time he did, weary and ready only to fall into bed, Helen and Angela were fast asleep.
* * *
Easter was spent quietly, on their own. There had been an invitation from Aunt Victoria but Edwin wanted to stay at home.
“I do enough socialising at the restaurant,” he said, and Helen appeared quite content with that – said that she needed to keep on with Angela’s tuition, now going well with Angela proving herself an even brighter child than they had imagined. Spending the weekend at someone else’s home with all its distractions would set back all her hard work, she said.
He was proud of her efforts with Angel. He looked at her, so happy with her daughter, and smiled.
Helen returned the smile. “It’s so good having you home, darling. I wish you could be here more often so you could take more part in sharing in the way Angel is coming along.” She began to frown in an attempt to back up the admonition, mild though it was.
“I wish I could too,” he responded lamely. “But I do need to be down there.”
Of course she’d be happier if he stayed at home. But all the comforts she reaped, the nice clothes, the good living, a good private school for Angel one day, came only from the success he made of Letts. If only she would try to understand that, to be more content.
She never said as much but he could sense that feeling she had of him being more at home down there in his beloved restaurant than up here with her. Perhaps it was the restrictions of this penthouse meant only for two. She’d mentioned from time to time that she was bored with him always working, but whenever he’d suggested the theatre or the cinema, she’d be loath to leave Angela. Suggesting getting someone in to look after her for an evening made no difference. If she had somewhere roomier to live, she might not feel so cooped up. He’d even broached the idea of buying a house.
“Out of London,” he said. “Lots of fresh air. With so many cars about these days, the London fog’s full of carbon dioxide as well as smoke. It’s bad for Angela. A fine big house in the suburbs, not too far from London: it would be perfect for her.
”
And perfect for him, thought Helen – perhaps a little unkindly, for he was thinking of Angela’s welfare. But he was right. It would benefit her. The problem was that Angela saw little enough of him as it was without his having to travel to come home.
Living here, on the premises as it were, he was at least within calling distance, but moving away would isolate her even more. Helen thought of her own father. There would be no more popping in to see him; it would be a travel thing, again emphasising the sense of isolation. As for a fine big house; as Edwin put it, what did they want with a large place except to show off with it? She wasn’t one for entertaining anyway.
* * *
As the weeks passed following Helen’s announcement of her pregnancy, Edwin had begun to feel the insidious pricking of anxiety. That night as they lay in bed, Helen fast asleep but he wide awake, staring up at the ceiling, he spelled out his fear to himself: What if this baby should also prove to be impaired in some way? Angela’s hearing difficulty didn’t seem to bother her, being slight, but as she grew older would it grow more noticeable? Would she be teased or, worse, bullied by other children at school? Thank God she hadn’t been born profoundly deaf, but could this next baby be afflicted even more, or by something even worse?
Sleeplessness always emphasised his worries and he had to tell himself that night, as he would for many to come, that he was being silly, that if the law allowed cousins to marry then repercussions from such close blood ties had to be rare and surely Angela’s trouble was purely coincidental. Such things could happen to any child, yet it plagued him. It plagued him worse that he dare not share his fears with Helen. All he could think was that if this new baby were perfect there’d be no need to send her world crashing about her with revelations as to her real father. And he would see to it that they remained a two-child family, so side-stepping the need for her to know the truth.
Next morning he turned a serene face to her and, glancing around the penthouse, spoke again of finding a house, something really grand. In its way it helped blanket the apprehension he felt.
“This place will be far too cramped for all four of us. I’ll get the ball rolling and we’ll do some viewing.”
“Can’t it wait until better weather?” she pleaded. “Perhaps in summer?”
“You won’t want to go traipsing around when you’re big as a barge. We’ll start now, looking for something really worth buying – lots of room and large grounds for our little Angel and her brother or sister to play in.”
“Nothing too big,” she pleaded.
He stared at her, stunned a little by the sharpness of her tone.
“We want something worthwhile. Something similar to Swift House, my Uncle Henry’s home, where we can invite people and not have them look down their noses at it. It’s a pity I had to sell my parents’ house. If I’d known what a success Letts would become I’d never have let it go.”
“The bank wasn’t prepared to let you keep it, if I remember,” said Helen, searching back into her memory of what he’d once told her. “You had to sell it to make up the money to pay back your loan.” She came to where he stood by the ornate fireplace with its electric coal-effect fire. “If only that trust of mine had come to me earlier, it would have saved having to sell your family home.”
His arm came around her shoulders. “I wouldn’t have asked that of you, darling. It’s your money, for you to do with as you please.”
“It’s for you too,” she told him. “What’s mine is yours.”
“And what’s yours is mine,” he quipped, but she didn’t laugh.
“I mean it, Edwin. If you ever need it…”
He too had sobered. His arm tightened about her. “I can afford to keep us, and quite decently, thanks to Letts. But we will need a bigger place to live and I don’t want to see the children brought up in London. I’d like to go back to that area I was brought up in. High Ongar – it’s lovely there. Lots of woods, lots of space.” He surveyed her face. “What do you think?”
Helen felt coldness creep inside her, the cold of impending loneliness. “What am I going to do all on my own out in the country while you’re here with the restaurant?”
Edwin’s smile was infuriating. “You’ll have the children. And we’ll get domestic staff: a nanny – you’ll need all the help you can get – and someone to clean and cook, and a general handyman and gardener.”
“That all costs money.”
She hated that indulgent smile. “Helen, I can afford it. My parents had domestic staff, a head gardener, and a farm manager when my father turned part of their grounds into an arable farm for a while during the war when home-produced food was needed. We had a butler too.”
“That was then,” cut in Helen. “People don’t have butlers now.”
“Titled people still do.”
“We’re not titled people, Edwin!”
His expression was impish. “You never know!”
But she couldn’t return the smile. “Edwin, this is serious. I’m not sure I want to go off and live miles away. I like it here.”
The impish look faded, replaced by a perplexed frown. “Why are you being so grumpy, darling?” he began. “I’m trying to do what’s best for you, for us, for Angel and for the new baby when it comes, yet you’re behaving as though I’m being thoroughly rotten to you.”
Helen felt her chagrin fade. It was she who was being rotten. He didn’t deserve this. “I’m sorry. I just feel I won’t see so much of you, that’s all.”
Relieved he pulled her to him and held her close. “Darling, is that all? Then I’ll make doubly sure to spend every bit of time I have with you and the children, I promise.”
Which to her meant she’d see roughly about as much as she was seeing of him now.
* * *
It was a lovely house, she had to admit. He’d taken such care choosing it, had taken her out to view it, and she could have fallen in love with it had she not been plagued by the old doubts of no longer being on the doorstep so to speak. The knowledge that Edwin would no longer be able to pop upstairs to see her persisted in invading her thoughts.
The house, called Small Hill Hall, had a large garden of over an acre which meant employing someone to look after it. Being spring, the secluded walled part which had been lovingly tended by the previous owners was a delight to one who’d never before had a garden – spring bulbs in glorious bloom, flowering cherry trees, tidy crazy-paving paths weaving between masses of early flowering shrubs. Elsewhere were beautifully kept lawns for Angela to play on, and a large fish pond that Helen immediately began planning to fence in for her daughter’s safety.
“And you can learn to drive,” Edwin told her, encouraged by the look on her face. “Go up to London any time you like in your own car or have a chauffeur. Or there’s a very good train service these days. I’ll be coming home every night anyway, I’ll make doubly sure of that. This being a village, you’ll make friends much faster than in town. People get together more in a village.”
Slowly Helen found herself being won over even though a faint anxiety regarding possible loneliness still persisted.
She’d spurned the idea of a nanny for Angela, and the baby when it arrived. But she did welcome the presence of a woman to cook and give an eye to the house in general, and who over those first few weeks in the new house proved herself a good companion. Hilda Cotterell was her name. Around forty-five, thick-set and motherly, she had a daughter, Muriel, who helped with the cleaning of the five bedrooms, three reception rooms, study, conservatory, large basement kitchen, servants’ hall and pantry.
In the old days there must have been a mass of staff judging by the size of the place, but with modem appliances such an army was no longer needed. Helen was glad. She’d had ancient and alarming visions of giving orders, going through accounts, planning meals, but Hilda was of a placid nature, content at being virtually given a free hand. In fact she was almost becoming like a mother in Helen’s eyes and would tut quite criticall
y on her behalf when Edwin failed to come home some nights.
“We’re going to like it here,” Edwin had said as furniture was moved in after the decorators had finished. “It isn’t that far out of London. Probably take me just under fifty minutes by car so I’ll be here more or less all the time.” It would probably take longer than that, but Helen let it go.
For the first month he’d been true to his word, except for Saturdays, when he was obliged to play host into the small hours just as his uncle had done years before. Sometimes it was Friday night as well, though while he made sure of being at home on Sunday, Helen felt she must make one or two allowances. But she missed him when he slept overnight in the penthouse, “to save coming home at three in the morning and disturbing you.”
“I don’t mind being disturbed,” she insisted, but he’d say that with her time being so near she needed all the rest she could get without him creeping in at all hours.
So determined was he and so mindful of her peace of mind that she gave in, at least for the time being. But it wasn’t going to become a habit, if she had her way; as soon as the baby was born, things would change, she’d make sure of that.
* * *
“Hugh!”
He stood there in the hall, eyeing her bulge as she came to greet him, she with three months to go. He grinned at her.
“Your maid let me in.”
“She isn’t my maid,” said Helen as she came forward, smiling. “She keeps the place clean, that’s all. She said you were here.”
“Nice little thing,” he remarked, then took her hands. “Well, how are you, Helen? You look blooming, if I may say so.”
“I feel very well.”