The Fleethaven Trilogy (97 page)

Peggy’s expression softened. ‘You’ll see – she’ll make the world’s best doting grandmother – oh no, wait a bit,
great-
grandmother.’

How kind they were to her, Kate thought, she was very lucky, but she was saddened by the thought that the coming child’s true grandmother wanted nothing to do with it.

‘Peggy! Peggy!’

Kate knocked on the bedroom door. From inside she heard the squeak of bedsprings and the door opened.

‘What is it?’

‘Pains. I’ve got pains, Peg. Here . . .’ Kate clutched her groin and gasped, doubling over as another spasm gripped her.

‘How often are they coming?’

‘I – don’t know.’

‘Right – back to bed and I’ll . . .’

At that moment the siren began to wail.

‘I
’ll phone for the midwife from next door. Joe’s an ARP Warden so they’ve got a telephone.’ As she spoke, Peggy was already stripping off her nightdress and struggling back into her clothes.

‘What about getting your mother into the shelter?’ Kate shouted above the noise.

Peggy laughed. ‘If I were to get her in, Kate, it would be the first time. She never goes.’

‘Oooh—’ Kate let out a yowl and thought, now I know why Rosie was squealing so much.

‘Is it bad? They’re coming a bit close together for my liking.’

‘No – no – not that bad,’ Kate lied bravely. ‘I just squeaked because they take you by surprise a bit.’

Peggy ran lightly downstairs while Kate staggered back to the big bedroom and heaved herself back on to the bed. She lay there propped up against the pillows, her knees drawn up, her legs apart, trying to remember all the things her mother had instructed Rosie to do.

And all the while the siren wailed.

By the time Peggy’s footsteps came pounding back up the stairs, Kate’s pains had increased in intensity and frequency.

‘About every three and a half minutes,’ Kate told her calmly.

‘Oh dear.’ Peggy ran her hand distractedly through her hair. ‘Kate – I can’t get through. The lines must be down and Joe’s out because of the raid . . . ‘

‘Don’t worry,’ Kate said. Despite the pain, a strange calm seemed to spread through her. ‘It can’t be very different to calves and piglets being born and I’ve seen enough of those.’

‘But I haven’t,’ Peggy wailed. ‘I don’t know what to do . . . ‘

‘I was there when Rosie had . . . ‘ Kate gasped as another pain clenched her abdomen, ‘her – her son. I think I can remember what me mam did.’ For a moment a feeling of intense longing swept over her; oh, how she would love it to be Esther standing beside the bed at this very moment! Dearly as she loved Peggy, she was not at this moment inspiring Kate with confidence and composure. Indeed, it was the patient who was having to calm the nurse.

As the wave of pain subsided, trying to lighten the situation, Kate smiled and said, ‘Shouldn’t you be boiling water or something, Peg?’

Peggy stood at the end of her bed, her eyes wild, wringing her hands. ‘Oh Kate . . .’

‘Peg – Peg! What’s happening?’ Mrs Godfrey’s anxious voice drifted up from the room below.

Peggy hurried to the door and shouted down the stairs. ‘It’s coming – and I don’t know what to do, Mother . . . ‘

Kate heard the older woman’s voice. ‘Just calm down, Peg. Rita’s here, she’s coming up . . . ‘

Footsteps sounded on the stairs and as Rita, their next-door neighbour, came into the bedroom, Kate panted hard as a spasm of pain began and swelled, until she was gripping the mattress beneath her.

‘Well, you’re well on, by the look of you,’ Rita smiled down at Kate. ‘I’m just off on me bike to find our Joe. He’ll get the midwife for you.’ She turned to Peggy. ‘Don’t worry, Peg, just keep mopping her brow and try to get her to relax when the pains come. And pant hard, Kate, don’t push yet, else you might tear yourself.’

‘Oh, Rita,’ Peg began again. ‘Can’t you stay? I’ll go and find Joe.’

‘No, Peg. I know all the places he might be better’n you.’

‘Do be quick, won’t you?’

Rita laughed as she left the room and ran lightly down the stairs. ‘I’ll do me best, if Hitler’ll let me . . .’

‘I wish I could get you to the Maternity Home, but I don’t know anyone with any petrol.’

‘It’s not fair to – to ask anyone – in an air raid, Peg.’ Kate panted.

‘Oh, they wouldn’t mind that . . .’

As if to refute Peggy’s statement about the generosity of their neighbours and their brave disregard for safety if called upon, they heard the whine of a bomb and then there was a terrific blast. The house shuddered and the windows rattled.

‘I think,’ Kate said with wry humour, ‘I’d rather stay here, if you don’t mind, Peg.’

‘What’s happening?’ came Mrs Godfrey’s voice from below. ‘Is she all right?’

‘Tell her I’m fine. I think the pains are not as bad at the moment.’

Peggy relayed the message and then came back to stand nervously at the side of the bed. ‘I am sorry I’m not being much use, Kate,’ she said. Kate reached out and clasped Peggy’s hand. ‘Of course you are, Peg . . . We – we’ll do it together. We’ll manage – bombs or no bombs.’

For a while Kate’s labour eased. ‘I think it’s taking a rest before the final push,’ she joked, and Peggy smiled thinly.

When the pains began again, strongly and more frequently, Peggy seemed calmer, although she kept casting anxious glances towards the open bedroom door and straining to hear the sound of footsteps above the noise of the raid going on all over the city.

‘They’re here,’ came Mrs Godfrey’s voice at last. ‘Rita’s found the midwife.’

Tears of relief streamed down Peggy’s face. ‘Oh, thank goodness – we’ll be all right now, Kate.’

Kate did not reply. For the moment, her eyes screwed up with effort and her face growing redder by the second, she was too busy . . .

Peggy, happy now under the midwife’s guidance, bustled up and downstairs, fetching and carrying whatever was needed. Rita was dispatched to the kitchen to make a cup of tea and Mrs Godfrey sat on her sofa downstairs, her hands folded placidly in her lap, waiting to hear the first cry of the newborn baby from the bedroom above her.

Outside the bombs continued to whistle down. They heard another one quite close and as it landed the ground shook and the glass in the bedroom window cracked. But the midwife just stood at the side of the bed, her hand resting lightly on Kate’s stomach. She didn’t even flinch.

Fancy bringing a child into a world like this, Kate thought. I should have been more careful, I should have . . . ‘Aaah . . .’

‘You’re doing fine. Not much longer now,’ came the soothing voice.

Kate’s daughter was born just as the all-clear sounded. It seemed like a good omen.

‘Oh, she’s lovely, Mrs Hilton – just perfect,’ said the midwife as she laid the child in Kate’s arms.

Kate’s eyes roamed over the tiny form, counting fingers and toes and drinking in the look of her child.

‘What’s that mark on her left cheek?’

‘Oh, just a little birth-pressure mark – it will soon fade,’ the nurse said casually, used to reassuring worried mothers.

Kate wasn’t so sure.

On the left side of the baby’s face, just on the line of the jaw, were marks in the shape of two tiny fingers.

Remembering, Kate could almost feel again the stinging slap Esther had dealt her on the side of her face in exactly the same place as the marks on her baby’s.

‘Oh, she’s beautiful,’ Peggy cooed as she bent over the cradle the following day. ‘Isn’t she good? I quite expected her to be bawling loudly.’

Kate lay back against the pillows. The first euphoria of the birth had deserted her and now she felt rather tired and strangely lonely, even though Peggy and Mrs Godfrey were ecstatic in their delight in the newest member of their household.

‘What are you going to call her?’

Kate hesitated and then she began to laugh, a little hysterically, so that Peggy patted her hand in alarm. ‘Don’t, Kate, don’t,’ she beseeched.

Tears poured down Kate’s face. ‘I’m sorry, I’m not usually so emotional. I don’t know what’s the matter with me.’

‘It’s just all the excitement,’ Peggy soothed.

Calmer now, Kate watched the baby sleeping placidly in the cradle. If only Peggy knew how she had agonized over the naming of her baby.

Peggy, misreading Kate’s silence, said, ‘Well, you’ll have to think of one now. You have to register her soon, you know.’

‘Yes,’ Kate whispered, still staring at her daughter. She would love to call her daughter Philippa, but how could she? So far she had managed to keep the father’s identity secret, although she felt that Isobel and Mavis had guessed the truth. But she knew her two loyal friends would keep silent, and that was the way she wanted it. She loved Philip enough to want to protect him and spare him any further distress.

And if she could not call her daughter after him, then there was really only one other name she would consider.

The interview with the Registrar was a little embarrassing, as he went through the questions.

‘ . . . And what is the surname by which the child is to be known?’ the man asked, writing with meticulous care as Kate answered each question.

‘Hilton.’

‘Name and surname of mother?’

‘Katharine Hilton.’

‘No, Mrs Hilton, I need your maiden name.’

When she did not answer immediately, he looked up over his steel-rimmed spectacles.

She returned his gaze steadfastly and said quietly, ‘Hilton is my only name. I’m not married, Mr Forbes.’

‘Ah – I see,’ he said evenly, giving no indication in his tone as to his feelings on such a matter. ‘Then I presume we cannot fill in the father’s name on the certificate. In these circumstances,’ he went on to inform her, ‘it is necessary for the father to be present at the time of registration to give his consent for his name to be on the certificate.’

Kate nodded. ‘I understand,’ she said huskily. Clearing her throat nervously, she said, more strongly, ‘I’m afraid it’s – not possible.’

He said no more but filled in the other details, and a few moments later, Kate left the room with her daughter’s birth certificate in her hand.

Born on the sixteenth day of January, 1943

Danielle Hilton.

K
ate could imagine the furore her choice of name would cause at Fleethaven Point. She didn’t care. She wanted to call her baby after Danny and she would not apologize to anyone for having done so. How she wished with all her heart that Danny could see the little girl she had named after him. Mindful, however, of the feelings of others, Kate decided that the little girl would be known as Ella.

At home in the little terraced house, Mrs Godfrey fussed over the infant. ‘Leave her with me, Kate. She’ll be right as ninepence here in her crib. Go and have a lie down, dear. You look exhausted. You really didn’t ought to be sewing again yet.’

‘Oh, I’m fine really. I didn’t sleep too well last night.’

‘Really? I didn’t hear her crying.’

‘Oh no, she only woke the once to be fed. She’s a good little thing. No – it was just that – well, after I fed her I couldn’t get off again.’

Mrs Godfrey eyed her sympathetically. Kate knew the older woman understood some of the thoughts going through Kate’s mind. ‘Peg’s written last weekend to tell Jonathan, so – your mother will know.’

Kate nodded, biting her lip. She forced a smile. ‘I didn’t expect to hear anything.’

She bent over the baby, asleep in the cradle. The child was a sweet little thing, with tiny features and downy fair hair. The birthmark along her jawline was fading a little and only deepened in colour when the child screwed up her face and cried. It seemed a cruel twist of fate, Kate thought, that the innocent child should bear the mark of Esther’s wrath.

Mrs Godfrey sniffed disapprovingly and rocked the cradle with her hand as it stood at the side of her sofa. ‘Well, I’d have expected better from our Jonathan.’

Mavis and Isobel arrived on the doorstep bearing gifts for the baby.

‘Sorry we haven’t been before,’ they explained. ‘We wanted to come together and couldn’t seem to organize leave at the same time.’

‘They can’t manange without us, you know,’ Mavis joked.

While Isobel sat and chatted to Mrs Godfrey and nursed Ella, Mavis drew Kate into the front room. She fished a letter out of her bag.

‘This arrived for you at camp last week. I – didn’t want to post it on to you. I wanted to make sure you got it.’

Kate took the letter as Mavis said, ‘It arrived in the mail from a station up north – in Yorkshire.’ When Kate did not answer, Mavis persisted, ‘The CO went up to Yorkshire, didn’t he?’

‘So he did, Mave,’ Kate murmured, and composing her face, she looked up again and smiled. ‘I expect it’s just a friendly letter.’

‘Oh, most probably,’ Mavis said, with more than a hint of sarcasm. Kate felt her friend’s shrewd gaze upon her face. “Spect he doesn’t know you’ve left, does he?’ she remarked pointedly.

Slipping the letter into the pocket of her wrap-around apron, Kate said firmly, ‘No, and I don’t want him to know either.’ She saw Mavis open her mouth to say something more, but before she could do so, Kate linked her arm through hers and pulled her back into the living room. ‘Come on, Auntie Mavis, it’s time you nursed your god-daughter.’

Mavis’s eyes widened. ‘God-daughter? You mean – you mean you want
me
to be her godmother?’ Her face was growing pink with pleasure.

Kate smiled at her. ‘Yes, you and Iso, if you will. And Peggy too.’

‘Oh, I’d love it. I’ve never been a godmother.’ She paused, then asked, ‘Er, aren’t you supposed to have two godmothers and one god
father
for a girl?’

The smile faded from Kate’s face. ‘Yes,’ she nodded, ‘but there’s only one person I would want as her godfather – and – and he’s not here just now.’

‘You – you mean – Danny?’

Kate’s voice was a whisper, ‘Yes.’

‘Oh. Oh, I see,’ Mavis murmured. It was obvious that her friend did not see at all. In fact she was more perplexed than ever. Kate watched Mavis looking down at the child in Isobel’s arms, her forehead creased and chewing the side of her thumb. Kate could almost read the thoughts running through Mavis’s mind. Kate had been in love with Danny Eland, but he had married someone else. They believed Kate and Philip Trent had been lovers, yet when her child was born, Kate had called her Danielle and now she was admitting that the only man she would want as a godfather was Danny Eland. It was all too much for Mavis to take in.