‘I hear you are to be made grandparents again,’ Miss Pettie said, blinking as she stepped from the darkness of the Unitarian Church into the bright May sunshine of Churchgate Street. ‘What a joy that must be to ’ee!’
Mr Sowerby was surprised and looked it, but his wife recovered quickly, frowning at him to alter his expression. ‘Why yes indeed,’ she said smoothly, ‘although I wonder you have heard of it, Miss Pettie. We gave our word it would be kept secret, you see. Her father and I have known for …’ she was going to say months but thought better of it in case the pregnancy had only just begun … ‘as long as our dear Harriet, of course.’
‘Of course,’ Miss Pettie agreed, but she narrowed her eyes, and looked positively sharp.
Really, Mrs Sowerby thought, if I weren’t an excessively charitable woman, I would think Miss Pettie was going out of her way to make mischief.
‘Does she keep well?’ the old lady asked artlessly.
‘Oh yes, indeed.’ Wretched girl. Why couldn’t she have warned us?
‘How you must be longing to see her again,’ Miss Pettie went on, patting her curls. ‘Miss Turnkey and I were so pleased to hear of her return. We were just remarking what a very long time it has been since we last saw her in town. But I daresay she has visited you already.’
‘No, no,’ Mrs Sowerby said, adopting a carefree expression and a rather vague tone. ‘We’ve been uncommon busy these last few days, have we not, Father?’
‘Oh yes indeed,’ Mr Sowerby said, glad to be able to make amends for his initial mistake by supporting her now. ‘Uncommon busy! So many commitments, you know, dear Miss Pettie.’
‘Well, well,’ Miss Pettie said, stepping towards her carriage. ‘Pray give her my fond regards when she does arrive to visit you. Are you travelling my way, Miss Turnkey?’
Mrs Sowerby extricated herself from the rest of the congregation and went stomping off downhill with Mr Sowerby straight-faced and stiff-legged beside her.
‘Wretched creature!’ she said.
‘Yes indeed,’ her husband agreed, although he wasn’t sure which of the two troublesome women she was castigating.
‘She should have told us.’
Ah! It was Harriet. ‘She should indeed.’
‘I shall write to her directly after supper.’
But her letter, furious and immediate though it was, brought no response other than the usual vague greetings they’d been receiving ever since her last visit to them, which as Mrs Sowerby had pointed out in her opening attack, she knew only too well was as long ago as last August. There was no mention of a further visit.
‘We are all well,’ Harriet wrote, ‘and have been here for a little less than a week. Will is most attentive to his lessons, which I give him every morning, you will be pleased to hear. John will join us here in a day or two, having been in the Midlands to attend to business there. It will be a great joy to have him home again. I will visit you as soon as may be, I do assure you.
‘Yr obednt daughter,
‘Harriet.’
‘Obedient, my eye!’ her mother shouted. ‘Not a word about the baby, you notice. Is this the sort of letter a mother should expect? I ask you, Mr Sowerby, as a man of great good heart and Christian charity.’
‘Very definitely not!’ Mr Sowerby said stoutly, seeing that an answer was expected of him.
‘Very well,’ Mrs Sowerby said with tight-lipped determination. ‘If the mountain will not go to Mahomet, Mahomet shall go to the mountain. That is all there is to that. We will hire a carriage – from Mr Kent, perhaps – he en’t too costly – and we will set out first thing on Monday and we will go and see her. High time this was out!’
‘A capital idea, Mother,’ Mr Sowerby said, but adding, because he was a man of great good heart and Christian charity, ‘Providing we don’t anger Mr Easter, or old Mrs Easter, being she’s such a dreadful woman.’
‘I am so vexed, Mr Sowerby, I declare I don’t care who I anger. Are we to endure neglect and say nothing? Are we to be ignored and not protest? Ho, no! That en’t the size of it at all. Give me my umbrella, pray. I mean to hire the carriage here and now, so I do. Our daughter has gone to the bad, Mr Sowerby. We must seek her out at once and work upon her until she can see the error of her ways.’
And so the carriage was hired and the crusade undertaken.
Harriet was in the kitchen making apple comfits for dinner that night. She had planned a celebratory meal to greet John’s homecoming, and apple comfits were his favourite dish. Her pregnancy was very far advanced now and she was slow and cumbersome and easily wearied, but she worked on doggedly, encouraging herself by thinking how delighted he would be when the comfits were served.
When Rosie came into the kitchen to tell her there were ‘a lady and gent’mum in the hall’, she tucked the last three comfits into their little dish before she wiped her hands and went off to attend to her visitors. Whoever they might be, they weren’t as important as John’s special dinner.
They filled the hall with their blackness, her father’s stern trousers so long and his jacket so wide and dust-smeared, her mother’s formidable black bonnet touching the beams. And their faces as black as their clothes. Harriet’s heart contracted at the sight of them.
‘Well, miss,’ her mother said, snorting like a horse, ‘we would appear to be just in time. Another day, Father, and this child would have been born and we none the wiser that it was even on the way. Not that I judge you, Harriet. No, no, I am too full of Christian charity to judge anybody. If you wish to keep your very own parents in the darkness of ignorance then that is your affair. You must consult your conscience about it. I cannot advise you, nor would I presume to do so. Although it is only right to tell ’ee that I do mark that Miss Pettie is informed of all your doings. I do mark it.’
‘Would you care to step into the parlour, Mama?’ Harriet said, opening the door. Her face was calm but her thoughts were seething. The child was not due to be born so soon. She would hold on to it for another week, at least. Another week and it could be born in June. Another week and it could be John’s child. Oh, how could they come here, today of all days, saying such things?
‘We have half an hour,’ Mr Sowerby said, as he sat down stiffly in John’s easy chair, ‘so if you mean to serve us tea, miss, I suggest you set about it.’
‘Rosie shall bring the kettle,’ Harriet said, ringing the bell. Then she opened the cabinet and began to set the tea things on the side table, swaying between the chairs, uncomfortably aware of the size of her belly. ‘I trust I see you well,’ she said, using the old formula automatically because she couldn’t think of anything else to say to the two disapproving faces before her.
‘And a lot you care of that,’ Mr Sowerby said, ‘when you leave us unvisited.’
‘I have only just arrived here, Papa,’ Harriet said.
‘Not according to Miss Pettie you en’t,’ her father said, pursing his lips. ‘But I see how it is Mother. We don’t count. we are only her parents.’
‘Yes, mum?’ Rosie said, wandering in without knocking.
‘Could we have a kettle of new boiled water, Rosie.’
‘New-boiled water,’ Rosie agreed and wandered out again.
‘Really!’ Mrs Sowerby sneered. ‘I wonder you still endure that foolish creature. I should have sent her packing long since. Great lummox!’
‘Rosie is a good and faithful servant,’ Harriet said, stung to her defence, ‘and as kind as anyone I have ever known. A deal kinder than some.’
‘A great lummox!’ her mother insisted. ‘Howsomever we en’t come here to talk of fools.’
‘No, indeed,’ Mr Sowerby said, glaring at his daughter. ‘We’ve more important matters in mind, en’t we Mother?’
‘It is our sad duty,’ Mrs Sowerby said with immense satisfaction, ‘to have to hire a carriage – at great expense I might say – and travel all this way to remind you of your simple Christian duty, which you appear to have forgotten.’
‘No, Mama,’ Harriet said, ‘I do not believe I have.’
‘Pardon me!’ her mother said massively. ‘Pardon me. You must allow me to be the judge of that. And if I say you have, then you have indeed, depend upon it. You may think that being married to an Easter puts you above all moral considerations. You may think that your wrong-doing is hidden and will remain so, if you are an Easter. But let me tell you, your sins are scarlet to a mother’s eye!’
‘We know all about your wicked ways, my gel,’ Mr Sowerby said, taking advantage of his wife’s pause for breath. ‘There en’t a thing hid from us. Not a thing. We know about your heartless decision, which you thought to keep hid from us, foolish creature that you are. Oh we know right enough. Don’t ’ee think we don’t.’
Heaven help me, Harriet thought, as their hateful words stabbed into her mind. Do they know about Norwich? Oh surely not! How could they know? And fear of them was a strong pain gripping her low in the belly. What can I say? Her mind was spinning with panic. Found out! Found out!
‘You may think that refusing to visit your own mother was some kind of protection,’ her mother went on. ‘But now you know otherwise. Be sure your sins will find you out, Harriet. Oh yes! Be sure your sins will find you out.’
‘I meant no ill Mama,’ Harriet said, frozen-faced with distress. Found out! ‘You must believe that of me. I meant no ill.’ And she dropped her head because she couldn’t bear to see the ferocity on her mother’s face. How could she possibly explain?
‘Good intentions are worthless without good actions,’ Mrs Sowerby said sternly. ‘Good intentions don’t count. When you meet your Maker, my gel, and who can tell when that will be? – it could be far sooner than you think – you will be judged by the things you did. Depend upon it. Or the things you did not do.’ And she gave Mr Sowerby a satisfied look. Now she knows, the wretched creature.
Pain stabbed again, gripping Harriet most cruelly.
‘How right we were, my dear,’ Mr Sowerby said to his wife, ‘to come here and face her with her faults. We have been lenient with her. Too lenient altogether. I trust you now see the error of your ways, my gel.’
But Harriet was hanging on to the back of her chair, drooping forward and panting with pain.
‘Come now,’ her father said. ‘None of that. Time for apologies I think, not play-acting.’
The pain held, too strong for speech, and too familiar to be denied. Even sight was impossible. It was the child. Coming now. Coming too soon. Coming on the very day her mother was here and she would tell John all about it. She closed her eyes, panting and counting, vaguely aware that her father was clicking his teeth with displeasure and that her mother was snorting. But neither of them were of any consequence now. The child would soon be born and the child would tell its own story. She could not escape her punishment any longer. Her mother was right. Her sin would find her out. Then she heard the rough stomping of Rosie’s feet and the pain receded at last.
‘What’s this, my lamb?’ Rosie was saying, bent forward in a clumsy attempt to see her mistress’s face. ‘What’s this eh?’
‘The baby, Rosie,’ Harriet said. ‘I fear ’tis the baby.’
‘The babba,’ Rosie said with awe and delight. ‘Oh yes, to be sure, the babba,’ And she turned to Mr and Mrs Sowerby. ‘Hassen you off out of it, you two,’ she said cheerfully. ‘We got a babba to ’tend to.’
‘So it would appear,’ Mrs Sowerby said. How very annoying to be stopped in mid-flow like this. How inopportune. ‘Well you just mark my words, Harriet. Baby or no, your sins will find you out.’
‘Get Mrs Easter,’ Harriet said, leaning on the chair again and closing her eyes as the next pain began to bite. ‘Please, Rosie. Quick as you can. Get Nan Easter.’