It was the middle of September and I was moving more slowly now my womb had risen. Ben knelt on the bed with his ear low down on my belly, listening for the child’s heartbeat. I stroked his hair and laughed at the excitement on his face. He reached for his book. ‘Best guinea I ever spent – let’s see if I can hear this blowing sound at side.’ He put his head down again. ‘I think I can, but I’m not sure – I’ll have to ask doctor.’
He sat up and took hold of the olive oil; tipping the bottle over his fingertips he began to gently massage my swollen belly. At the feel of his hands I began to move a little. He smiled. ‘You’ll have to wait lass, till I’ve done your nipples.’ His oiled fingers caressed my breasts.
I whispered, ‘Ben,’ and he put the stopper back in the neck of the bottle and set it down before turning back to me. As he lay down I slid my legs over his strong thighs and felt him curl underneath, and the gentle pressure as he entered me. I pulled his head down and kissed his mouth as he began to push. My body flowed around him.
Later, as he held me close to his side he told me, ‘Book says, on no account in t’last month. So you’ll ’ave to behave yourself then.’
Murmuring, ‘Yes, Ben,’ I fell asleep on his shoulder.
The arrangements had been made for our visit to Hatton: I was to go first, then Ben would follow me four days later when his holiday began. Guy and Pansy were arriving with their family the week before, Alice was coming on the same day as myself and Conan soon after – I was longing to see them all.
So during the first week in October Ben took me down to the station to put me on the train. As I clung to him on the platform he said, ‘People are looking, lass.’ But I did not care; I kissed him again and again. He hugged me, laughing. ‘Lass, I’m not going back to France – only to shed! Come on, behave yourself.’ He was still smiling as he bundled me on to the train.
As the stocky figure on the platform finally vanished from sight I sank back on to the seat. Four days, four whole days without seeing Ben; I felt the tears fill my eyes. Already I was remembering the small incidents of the previous day which I had not had time to tell him this morning – I would write, as soon as I got to Hatton. The child moved and I jumped a little, then the tears dried; I had left Ben behind, but I carried his child with me. My thoughts turned to Guy and to Pansy who had carried my brother’s sons through the long years of war – and had been always loyal and loving to Guy – to Guy who had, in his despair, used and humiliated her. Just as Ben had steadfastly loved me, even though I had used and humiliated him. Guy and I had both been luckier than we deserved: much, much luckier.
Guy was waiting for me on the platform at Hareford. He stepped forward, arms outstretched, and I threw myself awkwardly into them. He hugged me tightly, yet carefully – like a man who was used to holding a woman heavy with child. We drew back and looked at each other – my brother, my brother. My only brother now. My eyes filled with tears and he said, ‘Poor old Robbie – what rotten luck. And after going right through like that – to have it happen afterwards.’ Then he added, ‘Still, Mother told me that at least it was pretty quick at the end, thank God. And you were with him.’
I put my head on his shoulder and echoed, ‘Yes, I was with him – thank God.’ I would never distress Guy by telling him the truth.
We drove up the long road from the Hareford gate, through the green rolling parkland – and I remembered how I had seen Ben’s lonely figure, tramping up the empty slope as I galloped towards him. Poor, overawed Ben – ready to turn and flee, so he had told me – but he had not. I smiled a little and eased my back against the seat; I would not be going to meet him on horseback this time.
Guy told me, ‘Tansy’s expecting again – it’s early days, but she seems pretty certain.’
I smiled at him. ‘She should know.’
He laughed. ‘Yes – I suppose she should. You’ve not seen our Helena, have you? Our little Canadian? This will be number six – I’m not sure it’s good for Pansy, but I can’t seem to stop her.’
‘Oh, Guy!’
‘Well, you know how it is, Hellie – I tell her she should say “no” sometimes, but she never does – and then the damn sheep’s gut slipped and that was that. She’s so pretty, my daughter – just like her mother.’ But when Pansy came out to greet me in the hall I saw that she was no longer pretty; her hair was dull and lifeless and there were small red veins on her cheeks – but as she turned from welcoming me her blue eyes smiled adoringly up at my brother, and as she clung to his arm Guy bent and kissed her on the cheek. I felt a sharp pang of longing for Ben.
Before lunch Pansy took me up to the nursery. Nanny swam forward out of a sea of small dark heads. ‘My chick, my darling – how are you keeping?’
I hugged her familiar carbolic-soap-scented body – dearest Nanny. She drew back from me and looked me over, then shook her head regretfully. ‘I shan’t be able to come to you, my chick, when you need me.’ She glanced complacently at Pansy. ‘My lady here keeps me busy – but the eldest nursemaid, Clara, I’ve trained her well’ – nodding towards a smart, pink-cheeked brunette potting the small girl – ‘I’ll send her –’
I broke in quickly, ‘Thank you Nanny – but we won’t have a separate nursery at Ainsclough – there’s no room.’ Nanny’s jaw dropped. ‘No room! but – my lady –’
‘The woman who comes in each day, she’ll give me a hand, but otherwise I shall be caring for my child myself.’
‘Well – I never did! Well I never!’ Nanny sank down into a chair, looking at me as if I’d suddenly sprouted two heads. ‘All my mothers have nursed their babies themselves, as long as they were able – even with the twins, Lady Pickering was in no hurry to wean – but – my lady –’ She bent forward, her face grave, and hissed. ‘Napkins! Dirty napkins!’
I patted her round plump shoulder. ‘We’ll manage, Nanny, we’ll manage.’ I had a sudden sharp vision of myself at Étaples, taking handfuls of tow and wiping clean the whimpering, incontinent Lennie; Ben by my side, helping me. I said simply, ‘My husband will expect me to care for my own children.’ We had never discussed it, but I knew it was true.
As we went back down the stairs Pansy said wistfully, ‘You are lucky, Helena – fancy being able to have your babies with you all day. Guy’s very good with them when they come down after tea – and he often pops into the nursery in the morning – not many fathers would do that’ – her voice was proud – ‘but, well – once the first dressing bell rings they’re packed off upstairs, and by the time I go to say goodnight they’re already asleep. But Nanny’s quite right – I couldn’t change a dirty nappy – I just couldn’t.’ She shuddered.
As we both stepped carefully down the wide staircase I knew that I certainly could – so I had gained something from the war. Then, with a little jolt, I remembered that if it had not been for the war, Nanny would have been presiding over my nursery, at Bessingdon. Gerald’s sleek blond head swam before my eyes, and I tightened my grip on the bannister.
Alice arrived just in time for luncheon. Afterwards Pansy went upstairs to rest, and the others disappeared to their own pursuits – I had forgotten how very impersonal Hatton could be – people appeared and disappeared as if in a hotel; not like at home, where I always knew exactly where Ben was and what he was doing. So now I sat in the small drawing room with Alice as she smoked a cigarette. She glanced at me, then said abruptly, ‘Has Mother told you I’m divorcing Fred?’
‘No – no she hasn’t.’
She blew a smoke ring before telling me, ‘It was all too sordid, Helena – he was going to divorce me! Apparently he’d hired a private detective to watch me.’ Her eyes hardened. ‘And he was going to cite John Thornton as one of the co-respondents – John! We’ve known each other for years.’
‘But surely, if you hadn’t actually –’
‘Oh, be your age, Helena – of course we had. I told you, we’re old friends, but think of poor Dora – how embarrassing it would have been for her. Anyway, he grudgingly said he’d drop that one and just name Jimmy Danesford – luckily Iris divorced him last year, so there was no problem there – but I was still furious – you can imagine. I should never have married Fred, he just doesn’t understand the rules. Anyway, I could see I’d get no further with him, so I went to Mother, and she was marvellous. She put me on to this lawyer, terribly discreet, and he said: “Stall for a month, Lady Alice, and meanwhile we’ll see what we can come up with.” And what they came up with was a little love nest in Fulham – Fulham of all places! Fred had installed this shop-girl there, and she was actually enceinte! I can’t think how she managed it, I had to get the doctor to him on our honeymoon – nervous prostration he said – I tell you, I was the one with nervous prostration, I’ve never been so bored in my whole life. So of course I confronted him with this, and it was checkmate. But I soon realized I had him over a barrel, because, believe it or not, he wants to marry this female – Gladys she’s called, I ask you whereas I’m not particularly bothered about getting my freedom; so finally he had to agree to do the decent thing and go off to a hotel in Brighton with one of these women you can hire for the purpose. Of course, he’s got to keep away from Fulham in the meantime, or we’ll both have the King’s Proctor on our tail.’ She smiled rather smugly. ‘Mother’s invited Jimmy down next week – the King’s Proctor won’t get past her. But Fred’s had Fulham for the time being.’ Her voice was edged with malice, then she said, ‘I still can’t get over it, you know, he was so… In fact, I’d always assumed that basically he must be one of those who preferred other men – like your Gerald.’ I felt myself stiffen. Alice glanced at me from under her long dark lashes. ‘Conan told me he’d spilled the beans. Does it still rankle, Hellie?’
I whispered, ‘I don’t know.’
‘There’s no point your losing any sleep over it, after all this time – though it certainly cost poor old Hugh some worry.’
‘Then why didn’t he – say something – stop me?’
‘Oh, Hugh wanted to – he was going to speak to Papa – but I persuaded him not to.’
I asked baldly, ‘Why, Alice?’
She shrugged. ‘I have my faults as a sister, Hellie – but I was never jealous of you. I didn’t see why you shouldn’t have it all: the ironstone quarries, the Irish estate, that lovely house – you never saw it, did you? A perfect Palladian mansion – a title…’
I added bitterly, ‘And a husband who preferred choirboys.’
Alice’s mouth curved. ‘Well, you can’t have everything in this world, Helena.’ Then she bent forward and stubbed out her cigarette. ‘No, damn it – it wasn’t that – or not just that – it was you. You were in love, Hellie, you were radiant with it, you were glowing like a candle whenever he was near you – your eyes followed him everywhere. Your whole body seemed to be swaying towards him, you looked like a girl who’d been given the Crown Jewels, the Koh-i-Noor diamond and the Taj Mahal, all in one. How could I let Hugh take that from you? It doesn’t last long, whoever you marry – I’d felt like that about Hugh, but as soon as the morning sickness started the scales fell from my eyes.’
I said, my throat tight, ‘Hugh was a good husband – and he loved you.’
She was impatient. ‘I know that, Hellie – and God knows I missed him, even if I wasn’t always faithful to him. But I’m talking about something else, something that’s nothing to do with marriage or babies, something that only happens once in a lifetime. And it had happened to my little sister, so I wasn’t going to see it trodden underfoot and covered with filth. Besides, Hugh had had a long talk with Gerald – Gerald was a good man, Helena, and he was very fond of you – I think he even loved you, in his fashion. He couldn’t help the way he was, but he intended to play fair by you. He’d been to Edward Summerhays and said goodbye the weekend after he’d proposed to you – it cost him dear, but he’d done it, and he promised Hugh that he’d stick by it. And Hugh asked him outright if he would be able to act as a husband to you – he’d never had a woman, you see, he was quite honest about that – but he said he was sure he could.’
Remembering, I said, ‘I had the figure of a boy then, Alice.’
Alice nodded. ‘I suppose it would have helped. And he wanted children, he wanted them desperately – it could have worked – he would have played fair by you and you need never have known.’
I looked down at my swelling breasts and full hips, and touched my curving belly. ‘And when he had got me with child, Alice – what then? Would he have come to me as a husband, the way I am now?’
Alice looked at me for a long time, then slowly shook her head; her voice was sad. ‘No. I was wrong, Hellie, wasn’t I? He would have made some excuse about not harming the child and it would have sounded reasonable – but pregnant women aren’t reasonable are they? I remember when I was carrying my two – when I wasn’t being sick I was hot for Hugh, all the time. And dear Hugh, he never failed me.’
She watched my face. Ben had said I must be rationed; ‘Not tomorrow’ he said each night – but when tomorrow became today… occasionally we had not come together, through my sickness or his shifts, but otherwise – no, he had never failed me, either.
‘Sorry, Hellie. I still saw you as my little sister, and that thought didn’t cross my mind. You’d have had to find somebody else.’
‘And once I did that – how long would it have been before Gerald cast his eye on a good-looking footman…?’
Alice finished for me, ‘Or went back to Edward, as he did, of course.’
‘I know – I saw them together the last day of his leave.’ Poor Gerald, spending each morning at the hospital, then having to tear himself away from his lover to come to me – a jealous, demanding girl. ‘What happened to him, to Edward?’
‘He went back and was killed that summer in an attack near Festubert. Hugh said the story was that he behaved quite recklessly, as if he wanted to die – Gerald had been everything to him.’
Poor Edward. I said softly, ‘Then I’m glad that at least they had that one last day together.’
I stood up and walked out into the garden by the small door, and went round to the orangery, where the trees were heavy with fruit. I slipped in and sat down on the bench I had sat on while Gerald knelt before me and offered me his hand; Gerald, who had loved me as far as he was able. And now I let him go in peace.
Then I got up and walked out, across the green velvet lawn. As I looked down over the park the child in my womb moved restlessly; I put my hand to my belly and murmured, ‘Patience, little one – your father will be here soon.’ And he quietened.