Josie cheeks flamed. ‘I . . . that is to say . . .’ she started, then her father returned.
‘This way,’ he said, ushering them all forward.
Patrick strolled over, holding his children’s hands with Sarah walking alongside them.
Robert opened the cab door. ‘You, Josie and Sarah ride in this one, my dear,’ he said to Ellen. Patrick, Gus and I will follow on with the children.’
‘Ah, well, Patrick, why don’t you and Josie take the first one and we’ll all squeeze in the next one,’ Ellen said, giving Robert a telling look as she ushered Patrick forward.
Sarah took the children from Patrick, who then held out his hand to Josie. She took it and his fingers closed around hers.
Their eyes met and Patrick’s intense gaze sent a shiver through her. He squeezed her hand and she squeezed his back before climbing in to the cab. He got in beside her and closed the door then, under the cover of her billowing skirts, took her hand again.
Outside, Mickey and Annie held Sarah’s hand while they jumped up and down on the spot, happy to see their father free and unharmed, Robert’s brows knitted together.
‘I don’t know, Mrs Munroe,’ he said to his wife. ‘Is it right to let our daughter go home alone in a cab with a man?’
Ellen slipped her hand around his arm. ‘Go away with you, Dr Munroe. It’s no more than three miles and we’ll be right behind them.’
Robert nodded. ‘Very well. After all, they are to be married soon.’
Ellen smiled happily. ‘That they will, and the sooner the better.’
Chapter Thirty-One
Patrick strolled past the shops in Stepney High Street and turned right in front of St Dunstan’s, where he and Josie, surrounded by their family, had been married five months before. The front door of number four sat opposite the alms house at the back of the churchyard in the grand sounding Belgrade Road. He had called on Superintendent Jackson as instructed and the something to his advantage had proved to be a two-hundred pound reward for the recovery of the Pettit silver, so in one stride the new Mr and Mrs Nolan had stepped up in the world.
The reward, and the dowry Dr Munroe had settled on Josie, meant they could afford one of the smart new houses surrounding the churchyard. Their new home had a parlour and a sitting room as well as the kitchen and scullery on the ground floor. It also had its own privy at the bottom of the garden, four good-sized upstairs rooms and all in all a far cry from number twenty Walburgh Street.
He could also afford to purchase his own barge, and now the newly launched
Smiling Girl
had Nolan and Son proudly painted on its side.
Pushing open his freshly painted front door, Patrick was greeted by his mother-in-law at the bottom of the stairs.
‘The baby’s coming,’ she said, walking past him and heading for the kitchen at the back.
‘Now?’
‘In about an hour, I’d say. Josie started just after you left this morning. She sent Annie to fetch me.’
He followed her down the hallway. ‘Is she all right?’ he asked anxiously, as they entered the kitchen.
Mattie stood at the kitchen table peeling potatoes. She looked up and for an instant Patrick glimpsed her ever-present sadness.
‘Well, she’s not too fond of you at the moment,’ she told him.
He went over and hugged his sister. Mattie leant into him and he kissed her forehead. She looked up and gave him a too-bright smile.
‘And how’s my best nephew today?’ he asked, as he hunkered down beside the basket at her feet.
Young Brian hiccupped then went back to chewing his knuckles as he stared up at Patrick from out of his father’s blue eyes. Patrick felt a lump in his throat as he ran his hands gently over the infant’s light brown hair.
‘He’s had me up half the night teething,’ Mattie replied, as Patrick stood up.
Ellen draped clean linen over her one arm and took hold of the pail of hot water in the other.
‘But don’t you worry none,’ she said, as Patrick opened the door to the hall for her. ‘Dr Pym visited earlier and is satisfied with how things are going on. He said to call him at the hospital if he’s needed but I think your Mam and I will manage fine. ’
Patrick took the bucket and walked beside her to the end of the passage. She went to take it back but Patrick started up the stairs.
‘And where do you think you’re going?’ she asked.
‘To see my wife.’
Ever since Josie had told him on their wedding night that she was carrying his child, so many conflicting emotions went through his mind that he thought his brain would turn to mush. He was furious when he realised that Josie was already with child when Ma had shot her. But fury gave way to gratitude for his freedom to marry Josie now, meaning also that their child could be born in wedlock. His mind then went into a state of anxiety for six months as he worried about the perils of childbirth while he watched her stomach swell.
Patrick mounted the stairs two at a time and stepped through the open door of his and Josie’s bedroom. His wife stood in her nightdress, gripping the iron frame at the bottom of their bed. Sarah was beside her with one arm around her shoulders and her other hand resting lightly on Josie’s stomach.
He had expected to see Josie lying down, but was reassured that, apart from her flushed face and tightly pressed lips, she looked much as she had when he’d kissed her goodbye that morning. She let out a deep breath and relaxed her shoulders.
‘That’s another good one,’ Sarah said as Josie gave her an unreadable look, then turned to her son. ‘This is no place for you, Pat.’
Patrick, ignoring his mother, crossed the room and put his arm around Josie. ‘Is it very painful, sweetheart?’
‘Oh, no more than slamming the same finger in the door every five minutes,’ she replied in a sharp tone.
‘Oh!’
Josie’s hands relaxed. ‘It just hurts like billy-o when the pains start, but it’s not so bad in between.’
He kissed her hot, damp forehead and she looked up at him. ‘Mam said it won’t be long now.’
Ellen entered the room and poured the hot water into the wash basin.
‘I told Pat this was no place for him,’ Sarah said to her.
‘Oh, Sarah, he’s grand,’ Ellen replied, smiling at him and Josie.
Patrick gave his mother-in-law a grateful look then, suddenly, Josie dug her nails painfully into his hand as beads of perspiration sprang out on her forehead. Sarah placed her hand on Josie’s stomach again.
‘Another strong one, Ellen,’ she said as Josie gritted her teeth and twisted Patrick’s hand until his knuckles cracked.
He held her firmly as the contraction gripped her, then she pivoted forward and grunted.
Panic and fear shot through him. ‘Josie!’
She lifted her head. ‘It’s all right.’
‘Don’t you worry, Josie’ll be fine,’ Sarah shooed him toward the door. ‘Now we have work to do, so away with you.’
Patrick relinquished Josie to Ellen, who walked her daughter carefully to the bed. ‘We’ll call you when it’s all over.’
As he reached the door he turned and Josie looked across at him. ‘I love you,’ he said.
She opened her mouth as if to reply then another pain caught hold of her. Patrick closed the door and went back downstairs.
Her mother slipped the fresh nightdress over Josie’s head and she enjoyed the crisp starchiness of it against her clean skin. Ellen and Sarah had already washed the sweat and blood of her labour off her body and legs and changed the sheet underneath her. Feeling fresh and clean, Josie lay back on the pile of plumped pillows while her mother gently brushed her hair and tied it back in a ribbon, as she used to do when Josie was a child.
Ellen straightened the sheet and kissed Josie gently on the forehead. ‘Well done, my love.’
She went over to the basket and picked up her first grandchild, awake and niggling for his mother. She handed the baby to Josie, who smiled up at her mother through a haze of tiredness; then her half-closed eyes drifted down to the not-so-small bundle in her arms and joy swept over her.
Ellen tilted her head to look at her grandson. ‘He’s just like his father.’
Josie traced her fingers over her son’s damp hair. ‘You mean with his grand curly hair?’ She studied the small fingers curled around hers, the damp eyelashes, and budded mouth.
Her mother laughed. ‘He’s looking for his dinner. Now support him at the back of the head and hold him on. After a moment, he’ll do the rest.’
Everything below waist level seemed to groan as Josie wriggled up and unbuttoned her nightdress. She offered the baby her breast and after a couple of rubs over he clamped his mouth on the nipple, his little chin working hard for his food. Her breast tingled and a lethargic haze settled over her.
‘You won’t have proper milk for a couple of days, sweetheart, what he’s having now is only the cream,’ Ellen told. ‘But put him on each time he niggles and it will encourage the flow.’
Josie did as her mother said and gazed down at Patrick’s son, hardly believing that he was actually here at last. All the hard work of the last few hours evaporated and, in truth, even though it was less than an hour ago that she was pushing him into the world, she couldn’t recall the pain. The door opened and Patrick entered the room. Josie’s gaze left her son and rested on his father, standing anxiously in the doorway still in his work clothes.
She smiled at him and he was at her side in an instant. Ellen collected the last soiled linen sheet and left the new family alone.
He edged up the bed next to her and slid his arm around her. She rested her head on his shoulder and he pressed his lips to her forehead. ‘He’s a handsome lad.’ He ran his finger gently over the baby’s head. ‘And such a mass of hair.’
‘Just like his father, then,’ Josie replied, changing the baby onto her other breast. This time young Nolan knew what was required and latched on straight away. The warm languid feeling stole over Josie again.
Patrick grinned. ‘Mam said he’s a big baby for a first one, but he looks tiny to me.’
‘He certainly felt large enough squeezing himself out,’ Josie said, fighting off the weariness that suddenly swept over her. ‘What shall we name him?’
Patrick held his finger out and his new son curled his tiny hand around it. ‘If you have no objections, I’d like to call him Robert.’
‘Pa will be pleased,’ Josie replied, feeling her eyelids starting to droop.
Patrick bent forward and kissed his new son on the head.
‘Thank you,’ he said with a crack in his voice.
Young Robert’s head rolled back and a small trickle of milk rolled down his cheek. Josie wiped it with her finger then handed him to his father. Patrick scooped him up in his large hands and held him in the crook of his arm as Josie rebuttoned her nightdress.
‘Why don’t you call Annie and Mickey up?’ she said, suppressing a yawn.
Patrick pulled open the door and called down. The children clattered up the stairs, burst into the room, then skidded to a stop.
‘Give your mother a kiss, then come and see your new brother, Robert,’ Patrick said as he sat down on the chair next to the bed.
Annie and Mickey gave Josie a quick peck on the cheek then dashed around to their father. Mickey scrambled up and sat on his leg while Annie stood next to him.
Josie’s eyelids felt weighted down but she forced them open to look at Patrick, the man she’d fallen in love with as a young girl and whom she lost for a while, before the blessed angels brought them together again, never to be parted now. So, as sleep stole over her, Josie let it have its way. Who knew what tomorrow would bring, but that was the way of things. All she knew was that with Patrick by her side she could meet whatever life threw at them.