The first full day after their arrival back in Brackenbeck was taken up almost entirely with callers at Kendrick House. The first of these, and, from Katharine’s point of view, the most welcome, were the Gifford family. As soon as they entered the house Katharine could hear the excited chatter of the children and the quiet tones of Mary trying to quieten her lively offspring. Tom came in first, his grin stretching from ear to ear, and without a glance at the bathchair, he clasped her hands warmly, but not before Katharine’s professional interest had noted that his injured leg was stiff and that it still caused him to limp.
‘Reet glad we are to see thee back, lass.’
The children sidled in, pushed by their mother, shy now that they were to meet their new aunt. The little girl, Katharine, spotted her favourite person.
‘Uncle Jim, Uncle Jim,’ and her round little arms stretched out to Jim and she trotted towards him with a cherubic beam. Jim swung the small girl high above his head and perched her upon his broad shoulder, whilst the child gurgled happily. There were certainly none of the restrictions imposed upon these children by which most children were ruled.
Little Tommy, now a sturdy boy of seven, was not to be left out of his uncle’s attentions and noisily clamoured to be lifted on to his other shoulder.
‘Children, children, what will your Aunt Katharine think of you?’ remonstrated Mary in her soft voice.
But the children merely beamed delightedly at their aunt and then turned their attention back to their uncle. Katharine watched them, feeling, for the moment, left out of their family. Could they ever really accept her as one of themselves? But Mary’s welcome was warmth itself. Her pleasure was genuine, Katharine was sure. And she gave no indication that she disapproved of her crippled sister-in-law. Perhaps, Katharine though she had had some notion that this was what Jim had in mind when he had left for London and consequently the news was no great surprise to her.
As Katherine watched Jim with his nephew and niece, it became apparent to her that he adored children. There was nothing, she supposed, to prevent her having children, but if not impossible, it would certainly be difficult.
She sighed to herself. There were going to be many things which were difficult, she could see that.
The days slid by forming a pattern. Jim stayed with her as much as possible, but he was obliged, at times, to visit his various farmlands and even the quarries, where he was often needed to give Tom advice. He tried frequently to persuade Katharine to go with him.
‘You would be quite comfortable in the motor car, Katharine. It would do you good to come out.’
But Katharine would shake her head and avoid his eyes. She clung to the safe confines of Kendrick House. She went out into the garden, either with Jim’s help or with Arthur – but no further.
It was from Arthur that she learnt more about Jim’s family, for she hesitated to broach the subject with her husband and yet she was curious. As Arthur pushed her chair round the garden one comparatively warm autumn afternoon, Katharine said,
‘Arthur, Mr. Kendrick tells me that you were with his father for a number of years. Tell me, what was he like?’
Arthur cleared his throat self-consciously.
‘I don’t think it my place, ma’am, to give my opinions on Mr. Kendrick’s family.’
‘Oh please, Arthur. I promise you this conversation will go no further. I shall not take offence at anything you say, and I certainly shall not repeat it, least of all to my husband.’
There was a moment’s pause before Arthur said softly. ‘There were never two more different people, ma’am, than Mr. Kendrick and master Jim. I first went into Mr. Kendrick’s employ when master Jim was twelve years old, and Mary a pretty little lass of four. They were sweet children, ma’am, but sad. They had everything material anyone could wish for, the parents were quite well off then. But they lacked affection. Little Mary clung to her brother and he to her. Two years after I went there, ma’am, Mrs. Kendrick took off and we never saw her again. They was always rowing, you know. I’ve seen them poor children sat on the stairs, Mary clinging to her brother, weeping, and him, master Jim, with his face set and his eyes dark with anger, and that at twelve or thirteen. Just the time when a lad should be carefree and happy.
‘Things were a bit easier, I think, after she went, but their father took to drink. Jim was sent away to school eventually and Mary lived with an aunt for some time. When Jim left school and came home at about eighteen, everyone thought he’d go into farming wi’ his father, anyway, seems the cussed old devil, begging your pardon, ma’am, but it’s no more than he deserves.’
‘It’s all right, Arthur, do go on.’
‘Well, ma’am, Mr. Kendrick and master Jim had a blazing row, no one knew what about, but off went master Jim to live on his own. And him not a penny to ’is name, mark you.’
‘Where was Mary then?’ Katharine asked.
‘She was still with her aunt, a sister of Mr. Kendrick’s, severe and strait-laced as they come. Poor little girl got no affection from that sour faced old bird either.’
Katharine could not resist a smile but was pleased that Arthur, pushing her chair, could not see her smiling at his tirade against her husband’s family.
‘Anyway, master Jim was not one to be beaten. He worked for Mr. Johnson at the quarry. He started work for him when he was eighteen, and seven years later, old Johnson died and Jim bought the quarry. In the meantime Mary had come to live with Jim in his little cottage and had met Tom Gifford. They wanted to be married but as she was under age, they had to get the old man’s permission. They had another big quarrel, old Kendrick and Mary this time. Although she’s a quiet little thing, ma’am, she’s got a will of iron if she really wants something, and she wanted to marry Tom Gifford all right. Well, in the end the old man gave his consent, but more or less disowned her. Left her none of his money in his will, but, of course, master Jim put that right and Mary’s well taken care of now.’
‘How did old Mr. Kendrick come to own the other three quarries?’
‘The old devil bought them as soon as he heard Jim had bought the Brackenbeck quarry, just so his son couldn’t buy them and get on. It’s a wonder, really, that he left his money to Jim, when all’s done and said, but they seemed to patch up their quarrel just before the old man died.’
‘And Jim’s mother, what of her?’
‘We heard she died about two years ago. Jim and Mary never saw her again from when she left them years before.’
‘How terrible!’
‘It is, ma’am, but they’re both all right now. Mary’s happy as can be, and so’s master Jim – now, ma’am, if you don’t mind me saying so.’
Katharine didn’t mind him saying so and yet, she felt guilty. I must try to pull myself together and regain my old cheerfulness, she told herself sternly, but she knew that she could never recapture her full measure of vivacity unless she could walk again.
The days grew into weeks, each a replica of the last. The monotony would normally have driven Katharine, the old Katharine, to distraction, but now she lived in a kind of apathetic stupor.
Christmas was fast approaching and Katharine found, against her will almost, that she was drawn into the festivities. Cook and Mrs. Johnson were constantly asking for her orders and advice as regards their preparations, so much so that Katharine began to wonder if there were not an ulterior motive in their persistence.
It was as if they were trying to force her, however gently and unobtrusively, to take an interest. Jim too was full of enthusiastic plans for Christmas.
‘We’ll have Mary, Tom and the children here for the day. And Anthony, too, if he likes. I’ll get a big tree for the hall. Oh, and by the way I shall get a little present for each of the village children. Will you think of gifts for them, Katharine my love.’
‘I’ll try, Jim. But how shall I know what they’d like? I don’t know them.’
‘Children are all the same. You’ll think of something they’ll love, I’m sure.’
But Katharine was not so sure. She made half-hearted attempts to make out a list and soon small scraps of paper with half-finished lists of suggested gifts were to be found in all parts of the house. In the end, Mary came to her rescue. It seemed that Jim had bestowed the task upon his sister the previous year and she confided to Katharine that she had experienced much the same difficulty.
Gifts for the family were easily settled between Jim and Katharine, but on her gift for him, she could not decide. Again she sought Mary’s guidance.
‘Oh, dear, I really don’t know. I’ll have to think about it, Katharine. I’ll ask Tom what he thinks.’ She giggled. ‘Isn’t it fun, all this present buying? But it’s a worry when you can’t think what to get.’
Katharine tried to smile. For years she had had no one for whom to buy a Christmas gift and now here she was surrounded by a loving husband and his affectionate family and still she could not call forth any enthusiasm. Where usually she felt shame and guilt sweep over her, for the first time she felt angry with herself and vowed that she would not let her misery spoil the Kendrick family’s Christmas.
And so it was only through the strength of that resolve that she was able, for once, to put on an act during the festivities. Christmas Day was bleak and cold, but devoid of the snow for which the children had hoped.
After breakfast, whilst they waited for their guests, Jim said,
‘Katharine, I want to give you my gift now, before the others arrive.’
And before she could protest he left the room returning seconds later with a huge box. In it she found a beautiful coat, of simple lines, but trimmed with sable.
‘I thought it would keep you warm in the motor,’ his eyes searching her face hopefully.
‘I don’t deserve such a gift, I don’t deserve …’ Tears filled her eyes.
‘Katharine, my love, I didn’t mean to upset you, what is it?’
‘Nothing – nothing it’s such a lovely coat and you’ve bought it because you want me to come out with you, don’t you?’
Jim nodded.
‘So much,’ he clasped her hand, ‘ so much …’
At that minute the front door bell pealed, heralding the arrival of the Gifford family and the moment when Katharine felt she was reaching out towards her husband, feeling really close to him for the first time, was lost.
The day passed in noisy gaiety. The children loved every moment and even the adult members of the family were joyously uninhibited – laughing and joking as if they had not a worry in the world.
Katharine too, surrounded by an aura of love and warmth, felt some of the cold bitterness in her heart melt away and her act at last became the truth. She enjoyed that Christmas Day, and was happy for the first time in five years.
But her new found contentment was shortlived. It seemed that her Christmas Day happiness was superficial and therefore soon to wither and die.
For most people the aftermath of Christmas leaves them feeling deflated, the festivity and joviality at an end with only the first harsh winter months of the New Year as a bleak prospect. But for Katharine the dejection was exaggerated and she sank back into the deep melancholia from which she had suffered for so long – if anything, she sank deeper than ever into the black abyss of misery.
It seemed, however, that plans were afoot to try to draw her out of this and Anthony’s arrival at Kendrick House, one cold February day, when Jim was out, seemed to confirm this.
‘Kate,’ he said coming straight to the point as was his habit. ‘I want you to give talks to the mothers of Brackenbeck on the care of their children.’
There was a silence in the drawing-room.
‘I couldn’t, Anthony.’
‘Why not?’
‘Well, I can’t move about and do things. Besides, I don’t want to.’
‘Katharine Kendrick – what in heaven’s name has got into you, woman?’ Anthony slapped his thigh and rose from the arm chair where he had been sitting and began to pace the room.
‘I’ll tell you what you need, my girl, a darned good hiding.’
Since Katharine made no reply, he continued.
‘You sit there, wallowing in self-pity instead of using your talents and leading a normal life.’
Another silence.
‘Kate,’ he said softly now, his anger dying. ‘What’s wrong? In the old days you’d have flown at me, claws at the ready, after that little lecture. Have you lost all interest in life?’
‘Of course not,’ she said, twisting her idle hands in her lap. ‘I’m needed here at home – with Jim, that’s all.’
‘I see.’
‘No, you don’t see. I’m finished with medicine.’
‘No, Kate, you’re not. A doctor has never “finished” with medicine.’
‘I’m not a doctor any longer. They didn’t want me any more, remember? I’m just Jim’s wife.’
‘But that’s not enough, is it, for someone like you? Jim wouldn’t be against you doing this – to help his own people. It needn’t interfere with your home life at all.’
‘I – couldn’t.’
‘I think you’re using Jim as an excuse because I’ve talked to him and he has no objections.’
‘Then you’d no right to discuss such things with him before telling me.’
‘Kate, I need your help. There’s a lot of ignorance amongst these women as regards the upbringing of their children. They’re either over-anxious or neglectful. You could teach them so much, Kate.’
‘What?’
‘General hygiene in the home, a basic knowledge of first-aid – simple dressings and such, besides special help with ante-natal care. There’s so much being done in other parts of the country now, Kate, with regard to personal hygiene instruction,’ continued Anthony, warming to his subject. ‘There’s been health visitors visiting mothers in their homes for a few years now. We haven’t got one here. I’d like you to do that work, Kate.’
‘How can I like this?’
‘You could if you wanted to do it. Nothing would have beaten the old Kate. Don’t you see, it would save lives?’
Katharine made no reply.
Anthony sighed and went towards the door. He turned back briefly.
‘You’ve disappointed me, Kate. I thought you had more spirit than this.’
And he left, slamming the door behind him so that the china in the glass cabinet clattered in protest.
Katharine thought about Anthony’s proposition a good deal during the next few days. But in the end she still decided that she could not go out amongst the people of Brackenbeck. She could not bear to be pitied and to know that they were pitying Jim for being tied to a crippled wife.
Jim never mentioned Anthony’s idea to her, nor she to him. But he was no longer content to let her hide herself away in Kendrick House.
‘Katharine, you’re coming out with me on Sunday if it’s fine and not too cold.’
‘No, Jim, I’d rather not, please.’
The frown returned to his eyes.
‘Katharine, you’re coming.’
She looked up at him and read the determination in his face. She sighed and said no more. Argument was useless and besides she could not be bothered to argue. She hoped for rain, but the afternoon of the following Sunday was fine and as warm as one could expect on a late February day on the moors. Jim carried her out to the car and solicitously wrapped a warm rug round her.
‘It’s sometimes rather chilly in this contraption up on the moors,’ he joked.
This was the first time Katharine had seen the motor car at close quarters. She found herself sitting high up on the front seat. It was comfortable but as Jim had said, a little draughty, but in her new coat, Katharine was warm enough. The only protection was given by the windscreen.
‘I thought we’d drive up on the moors rather than through the village,’ Jim said, climbing up beside her. Katharine was grateful for his thoughtfulness.
This was also her first ride in a motor car and for the first time since the accident, she found herself captivated by the experience. They chugged along the road, shouting to each other above the noise.
‘Jim, it’s marvellous. I had no idea.’
‘See what you’ve been missing. You should have come weeks ago.’
Katharine nodded.
Up on the moors it was cold, but still pleasant. Jim stopped the car on the roadside, right at the edge of the moorland.
Katharine could not help but notice and be amused at the change which came over Jim as they sat in the car gazing at the scene. He was usually rather quiet and reserved, even though he was obviously so much happier, but here on the moors it was as if a spring were released in him and all his love for the moorlands and hills was unleashed and came rushing out like the bubbling beck itself. He knew the moorlands in every season, knew their every mood – the bitter cruelty of their savage winter, the unwilling spring and then the summer, never warm, but always retaining that austerity, and still he loved them and never seemed to tire of talking of them or visiting them. His eyes would roam over the dark, craggy hills rising from the moors covered with heather or springy bracken. The long rough grass waved in the breeze and always, not far distant, there seemed to be the sound of rushing water, for everywhere there seemed to be streams tumbling over the rough rocks hurtling down, twisting and gurgling.
The whole effect was of sombre, massive beauty, but Katharine felt it was a man’s country, the only delicate beauty seeming to be the white-boiled cotton grass on the moors and the blue harebells. The curlew, with its melancholy cry as if he too mourned the bleakness of the place, wheeled above them. Only the acrobatic lapwing, the bird Katharine had seen on her first arrival, but whose name she only learnt now from Jim, seemed incongruous in the sorrowful, desolate surroundings. Even the grouse with its ‘go-back, go-back’ cry, seemed to reject visitors to its domain.
The moors and hills were home to Jim and the car rides to the moors became more frequent in the spring and summer. But Katharine hardly enjoyed them, her first interest in his motor having waned, and she would long to return home. All the time she remained silent, listening to Jim, but still taking no really active part, no lively, questioning interest.
At times she would see him watching her, the frown deep on his forehead and his eyes full of untold misery.
And she would feel ashamed.
July brought a letter from Elizabeth.
‘I have two weeks’ holiday, next month,’ she wrote, ‘though how I’ve managed it I don’t know. We’re so short of staff at the moment. I wonder if I might come north to see you? The coolness of those moors of Jim’s are calling me from these sun-baked streets. Oh Katharine, it’s unbearably hot here …’
Katharine was delighted. At last a contact with her hospital – only it was no longer hers.
But she awaited Elizabeth’s arrival with pleasurable anticipation – eager for news of the world she had left behind and for which she still hungered. She voiced none of this to her husband, but, although he too seemed pleased at the prospect of a visit from Elizabeth, she wondered whether the puzzled look so often in his eyes now included surprise at the change in Katharine. She knew herself to be looking forward to her friend’s visit and she could not hide it. Her eyes were brighter and she made plans and preparations – more so than she had done for the family at Christmas.
Jim seemed quiet and withdrawn and grew more so as Katharine’s pleasure in Elizabeth’s visit increased. She feared he guessed the underlying reason for her interest, but still he said nothing.
Elizabeth would bring back medicine into her life – more so than could Anthony for through Elizabeth, Katharine could recapture and conjure up the feel of the hospital. She could not understand herself why, even though she shrank from undertaking any work here in Brackenbeck, as Anthony had suggested, still, against her better judgement, she thirsted for news of her child patients in London. If it had done nothing else, she realised, Brackenbeck had helped sweep away much of the bitterness in her heart that she had fostered in her lonely room in London against her own colleagues in the medical profession – an unreasonable bitterness she realised now.
But Katharine was somewhat thwarted in her intentions, for when Elizabeth had been welcomed to Kendrick House, she soon made it quite clear that she considered herself on holiday.
‘Katharine, my dear, I want to forget all about that place for two heavenly weeks,’ Elizabeth said in reply to Katharine’s questions. Katharine could not prevent the disappointment from showing on her face.
‘I think,’ Jim said quietly, his eyes never leaving Katharine’s face, ‘that she has been counting on your visit, Elizabeth, to recapture her life at the hospital.’
‘How very perceptive of you,’ Katharine said bitterly and saw Elizabeth’s eyebrows rise in astonishment. Katharine’s remark – totally unlike her – had obviously shocked her friend and indeed, had surprised her husband. But her anger at Elizabeth’s refusal to discuss the hospital life with her and finally at Jim having guessed the truth had caused her to vent her chagrin upon her husband.
‘I’ll have to be going,’ he said. ‘I’ll see you at dinner, Elizabeth.’
And he strode from the room without a backward glance at his wife.
‘Kate, dear. I’m sorry if I’ve disappointed you. But to tell the truth, we’ve been so short-staffed just lately that I’m so weary with it all. Perhaps,’ she added placatingly, ‘after a week or so I’ll feel more like it, but please,’ she raised her hands in mock despair, ‘spare me for the moment.’
Katharine sighed.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said with contrition. ‘And I’m even sorrier that Jim saw through me. I didn’t want to hurt him.’
‘Well, I think you have done,’ said the forthright Elizabeth. ‘I don’t know about you, Kate. A fine man like Jim for a husband and you still hanker after practising as a doctor. And here I am dying to meet some handsome young man with a small fortune.’
Katharine smiled, cheered even against her will by Elizabeth’s buoyant good humour.
Katharine had invited Anthony to dinner again in the hope that his presence would increase the possibility of the conversation turning to medicine. But because of the incident earlier in the day, at dinner she wished to avoid the topic.
The atmosphere between Katharine and Jim was decidedly strained, though he gave no indication to his guests that anything was wrong. He was courteous and polite towards his wife and helped her as usual whenever necessary. But the tender solicitude was missing. Katharine realised that not only had she hurt Jim because he loved her, but she had also insulted his pride before Elizabeth. And that she knew was unforgivable.
The feeling of tension was somewhat lessened by the fact, which became more obvious as the evening progressed, that Anthony and Elizabeth were immediately mutually attracted. Indeed, so absorbed in each other did they become that had Jim’s attitude been at all noticeable to either of them, they would have been far too engrossed in each other to realise it.
The conversation, centred upon general topics, touched lightly here and there, as might be expected, on the subject of medicine, but it certainly did not monopolise the talk. And because, more and more now, Katharine was ashamed of her behaviour, she hated the very sound of the subject and shuddered every time the conversation turned in that direction. She tried to emulate Jim’s attitude and play the charming hostess, but as time passed and it was obvious that Anthony and Elizabeth needed little help from anyone else to keep their conversation going, she fell silent. Jim too spoke little, but he seemed to Katharine to be listening intently to what his guests had to say, occasionally adding a comment of his own. And whilst she frequently glanced at him, trying to read his expression, he, on the other hand, never once looked at her directly. His face, usually so easy to read, was a mask of indifference. Only the deep frown between his heavy eyebrows gave any indication of his inner conflict.
‘I am longing to see these famous moors of yours,’ Elizabeth was saying. Her blue eyes twinkled merrily at Anthony and her dark curls, which she tried to smooth into an elegant style, escaped and curled becomingly round her face. She was wearing a cream-coloured silk chiffon dress covered with tulle and guipure lace, and looked, Katharine thought, utterly charming. Anthony, smiling back at Elizabeth, seemed completely captivated.
‘And may I make so bold as to offer to show them to you?’
‘Why, I’d be delighted,’ she replied in mock surprise, though no one in the room was in much doubt that they both wished to meet again and soon.
And so it was arranged that on the following afternoon Anthony would escort Elizabeth up the hills and on to the moors.
‘Of course, I don’t expect you will like them,’ Anthony said. ‘City girls don’t you know. Kate doesn’t, do you Kate?’
And Anthony and Elizabeth both looked towards her, but not Jim. There was a slight pause as they waited for her answer. And she knew that, though he was not looking at her, Jim too was waiting for her reply.
‘In my case, it’s rather difficult. I’m one of these stupid people who never value anything until they have lost it. Most likely if I had to leave Brackenbeck now, and the moorland, I should miss it.’
Her remark had deeper meaning than any of the other three could guess. She had left Brackenbeck once and only she would ever know how much she had missed the place, and its people, during her five years away from it. She had lost her ability to be a doctor, and a woman doctor at that. In the process losing her personal fight for the emancipation of women. And she had, at first, bitterly resented the loss. Now, if she were not careful, she could in her own foolishness lose her husband’s love. And in so doing, would she, she asked herself, only then find out how much this man really meant to her?
She sighed. It was time she came to terms with life and sorted out her feelings.
The evening ended. And as Jim carried her upstairs later, Katharine put her arms round his neck and buried her face against his shoulder.
‘I’m sorry, Jim,’ she whispered. ‘ Please forgive me.’
He laid her gently on the bed and stroked her hair. She saw he was smiling, though his smile was tinged with sadness.
‘Forget it, my dear. I try to understand, but sometimes, it is difficult …’
Katharine shook her head.
‘It’s all my fault, Jim. But I do so hate being like this. If only I could walk again, everything would be all right, I know it would.’
‘Katharine, please don’t … oh, never mind,’ he sighed distractedly and walked from the room.
Obviously she had said the wrong thing once more. But here she felt that it was Jim who was being unreasonable. Why should he not want her to walk again?
But this was a question she could not answer.
Elizabeth’s visit passed all too quickly. And it seemed that Katharine saw little of her, for she spent most of her holiday in Anthony’s company, whenever the two could contrive it.
‘Oh Kate,’ she said on her last morning in Brackenbeck. ‘I have been so discourteous to you. Can you forgive me?’
Katharine laughed.
‘There is nothing to forgive, Elizabeth. I am only too happy that you have enjoyed your stay. You have, haven’t you?’
‘Oh Kate, I can’t tell you just how much. Kate,’ she added in a confidential tone. ‘Please don’t say anything, not even to Jim, for I don’t know how Anthony feels, but as far as I’m concerned, I’ve found my handsome young man.’
‘But he doesn’t have a small fortune,’ Katharine smiled at the happy face of her friend.
‘Oh that! I shan’t give that a second thought,’ she said, blushing prettily.
‘When shall you be seeing him again?’
‘I don’t know. He hasn’t said anything. You see, I may be imagining it all. Perhaps it’s nothing more to him than just a casual acquaintanceship.’
‘He’s taking you to the station this morning, isn’t he?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then I’ve no doubt he’ll make his intentions clear when you have to part. And I want to know, and as Anthony is not likely to tell me, I want a letter from you immediately you get home.’
Elizabeth laughed.
But evidently their expectations were not forthcoming, for when Elizabeth’s letters arrived, it told of no ‘declaration’ from Anthony. In fact, she only casually referred to him in passing. Katharine was disappointed. She had hoped that it was the beginning of a romance, which could culminate in her friend coming to live in Brackenbeck.
The weeks passed and during the summer days, Jim still took Katharine on excursions to the moors. She began to enjoy these outings a little more than she had done previously. And because Jim seemed so much happier here, in the open countryside, she chose their last visit to the moors before winter closed in, on a cool autumn day, to tell him.
‘Jim,’ she said suddenly as they moved slowly along a rough path, the car jogging up and down. ‘Stop the car. I want to tell you something.’
He did so immediately and turned to face her.
‘What is it, my dear?’ he said as the noisy engine died away.
‘Jim, I’ve something to tell you.’
‘Yes?’ he prompted gently.
‘We – I’m going to have a child,’ she heard her voice say in curiously flat tones. She watched his face as the realisation and joy spread over it. He took her hand in his and raised it to his lips.
‘My dearest,’ his voice was husky.
‘You’re – you’re pleased?’
‘Of course, of course. It will be a son. Or a girl like you. Just like you.’
She made no reply.
‘You’re – you’re not pleased?’ he asked, bewilderment in his tone.
She shrugged and looked away over the flatness of the moor to the rugged outline of the hills, clear-cut against the grey sky.
‘I – just don’t feel anything.’
He made no reply, but she knew she had hurt him deeply now, and once more she felt ashamed. He had given her his all and she could not even bear his child with joy.
They said little after that and soon Jim turned the motor car towards home.
Their secret remained such for some time. Perhaps because she was seated so much and went out little, none of the usual speculation concerning a young woman married a short time ran amongst the women. Anthony, of course, was told and he attended her. Mary and Tom were taken into their confidence when Katharine reached her fifth month. Mary was overwhelmed and blushed pink with pleasure.
‘Oh, how grand it’ll be, Katharine. I should like – another, you know,’ she confided hesitantly. Katharine still felt that Mary, in her shyness, held her in some awe.
‘Perhaps, perhaps, before long … And then they’d grow up together, wouldn’t they? And of course, Kate’s not all that much older. Oh, how lovely it will be.’
Katharine nodded and tried to smile, tried to show some interest.
But when the child began to move within her she felt the stirrings of other feelings until now alien to her. It was as if the new life within her was giving Katharine herself new life too. For the first time since she had known of her pregnancy she began to think of the child as a living being with a will and personality of its own. But over-riding all her other thoughts now grew the fervent desire that by the time her child was born she would be able to walk again. What sort of mother could she hope to be confined to a bathchair, she asked herself?
Katharine had visited the very depths of despair and depression. The only way for her lay upwards and though the way was long and hard at last a glimmer of light lay ahead in the form of her unborn child. Though she began to improve within herself, within her own private thoughts, it was some time before she began, hesitantly, as if feeling her way in the dark, to reach out towards Jim.
And she did not find him wanting. Instinctively he helped her in the way she needed it. Encouraging her interest in their child came naturally, for he could talk of little else.
‘It will be a son, or a girl just like you,’ he would say not once but a dozen times a week.
‘Would you prefer a son, Jim?’ Katharine would ask softly.
‘Well – yes and no,’ he would smile. ‘ I should love a daughter just as much and yet …’
‘The old, old, feeling,’ Katharine would smile too, though a little sadly, ‘male superiority.’
‘No, no, Katharine, it’s not …’
‘But it is.’
‘Every man wants a son to carry on the family name.’
‘But why shouldn’t a girl carry on the name? Why is a girl so inferior?’
‘They’re not inferior, just …’
‘Just what?’
‘Well, they are the weaker sex.’
‘Only because tradition says so.’
Jim sighed. Katharine saw the frown form once more on his forehead and knew it was time to change the subject.
But the frown returned again the day she first mentioned the desire to try and walk again, outlining to Jim her plan for exercising her legs to try and strengthen them.
‘You’ll try no such thing, Katharine,’ he said severely. ‘You’ll hurt yourself.’
‘Of course I shan’t. If I’m very careful and take it slowly.’
‘I forbid you to try it,’ he said pacing up and down the drawing-room whilst her eyes followed him.
She looked at him appealingly.
‘Jim, please I …’
‘If you won’t think of yourself, Katharine, please think of our child. Think what harm you could do if you were to fall, apart from further injury you may do to yourself.’
He paused and swung round to face her, his eyes blazing and hostile. Katharine had seen his many and varied moods, but never had she seen him so heatedly angry.
‘You’re a doctor. How can you be so foolish?’
She realised he was right. However careful she was, she might easily fall and injure herself and her baby especially now she had the extra weight to carry, she acknowledged.
‘All right, all right. You win,’ she said bitterly and covered her face with her hands.
He came and knelt beside her chair, his anger dying swiftly.
‘Katharine, my love, I don’t mean to be cruel and hard, but can’t you see how much you mean to me? I couldn’t bear you to hurt yourself further.’
‘But I must walk again, I must,’ her voice was muffled, but she knew he heard her.
When she raised her head, he had left the room swiftly and silently.
She never mentioned the subject again to Jim and though for a few days there was constraint between them, gradually the frown softened and left his forehead and she thought he had forgotten the incident.
Anthony came regularly to see her, as a doctor and also as a friend and he dined with them frequently.
‘I see you’re beginning to look a little more like the old Kate,’ he said one morning on one of his official visits, when Jim was out visiting Tom at the quarry.
She smiled, warmly and genuinely.
‘And have you thought any more about my suggestion as regards giving talks to the women of the village?’ he said.
‘Oh Anthony,’ Katharine said, her face falling. ‘I really couldn’t.’
He shrugged and shook his head.
‘I wish you would, I really do. There’s so much in the way of hygiene you could teach them. And I think it would be one of those cases where they’d take it better from a woman than from a man. These country folk are so goodhearted. You’ll go a long way before you find kinder folk, but they just don’t understand that unhygienic living can cause all sorts of trouble, a regular breeding ground for disease …’
‘Please, Anthony, please,’ her voice became high-pitched.
‘All right, all right. But you’re wasting your time and talents. You’re a trained doctor, remember?’
She could not fail to notice the sarcasm apparent in his tone.
‘I can’t,’ she whispered, and refused to meet his eyes, afraid of the reproach she would read in them.
‘Forget it then,’ he said lightly and with his natural good humour restored he changed the subject abruptly.
But after he had gone, Katharine was left alone with her thoughts before Jim returned, painful and guilty thoughts she found them to be. She couldn’t do it now, really she couldn’t, not with the child coming. But later perhaps, if she got to walk again, then things might be different – she could take up medicine again …