The Gates of Rutherford (31 page)

“Hal-looo!” Albert shouted again.

“They've heard you,” Jenny said. “Be quiet.” And, sure enough, she saw the sergeant turn his head, and hold up his hand by way of acknowledgment. She waited a moment longer, heart in her mouth, willing and
willing
that they would send Frederick up to get the food. She'd be able to see him again just for a moment, and he might say something to her. But no one down in the field moved again; and, after a while, disappointed, Jenny turned back for the house.

•   •   •

S
he trailed through the yard and into the cool corridors that led through the laundry rooms.

As she got close to the kitchen, she could hear voices; and was surprised to see that the room was crowded with Mrs. Carlisle, Miss Dodd, and Mrs. Nicholson standing around Mary, who was seated at the table.

“Mrs. March has got children,” Mrs. Carlisle was saying. “She'll know what to do.”

“I don't want the old crone,” Mary snapped. “She was no use when . . .” She stopped herself. “No use with Emily.” And she put her face in her hands.

“What's the matter?” Jenny asked.

Mrs. Carlisle looked up at her, hands on hips. “Mary thinks the baby is coming.”

“What!” Jenny rushed to Mary's side.

“Don't fuss,” Mary muttered.

Jenny looked up at the three women, and realied that none of
them there had ever had children themselves. “What shall we do?” she asked them.

“I'll ask his lordship if we may send for the doctor,” said Mrs. Nicholson, moving towards the door.

“I don't know if we should,” Mary said, from behind her hands. “It might only be a false alarm.”

“It's no false alarm if . . .” Miss Dodd blushed. “If your waters have broke,” she added.

“And that's the case, is it?” Mrs. Nicholson asked.

“Yes,” mumbled Mary, still with her face in her hands. And she gave a low, hitched groan.

“There's a proper state-registered midwife that the doctor uses,” Mrs. Carlisle offered. “But I think she's in Richmond.” She spread her hands. “Well, they all used Mrs. Mercer in the village once. She's still allowed to practice. Doctor Evans gave her a proper certificate when the law changed a couple of years back. But she isn't a trained nurse or anything.”

Mrs. Nicholson hesitated a second, then seemed to make up her mind. “Better safe than sorry. I'll get one of the garden lads to run down to the village, or at least to the land steward's cottage at the bottom of the drive. He has a motor car. Perhaps he'll go for us.”

Miss Dodd put her hand to her mouth. “The whole family's gone to Scarborough, Mrs. Nicholson,” she whispered. “It's their summer holiday. One week, every year. His sister is there.” She dropped her eyes. “If you don't mind me saying, ma'am.”

Mrs. Nicholson sighed in exasperation. “Mary, who has been looking after you through the pregnancy?”

“Doctor Evans saw me twice. When he came to see his lordship about his heart.”

“I see. Twice in eight months? Well.” Mrs. Nicholson stood hands
on hips. “Roll on the day when women are treated better than dogs,” she exclaimed. “The veterinarian has been twice to my knowledge to his lordship's spaniel in the last week.” They all looked at her, astounded. It had been said without anger, but with absolute conviction. “Proper Bolshevik, it was,” Mrs. Carlisle would confide to her cousin when she next saw her. Then the housekeeper came to a decision. She patted Mary's shoulder. “I'll ask Mr. Bradfield to send the boy. And I'll ask his lordship at once if we may telephone the doctor. Jenny, help Mary into my own room while we're waiting.”

She went briskly out of the door, and immediately she had done so, Mary dropped her hands and stared wildly at them all. “Don't take me to her room,” she said. “I don't want to be there.”

“But it has a nice little bed,” Mrs. Carlisle pointed out kindly. “And a chaise longue, unless Mrs. Nicholson's got rid of it.”

“No,” Mary cried, wild-eyed. “Not there.”

Mrs. Carlisle came round the table, and gently began to lift Mary up. “Now now,” she murmured. “You must lie down.”

“Not there, please not there,” Mary moaned. But she was unable to resist the women as they led her out of the kitchen and along the corridor to Mrs. Nicholson's room.

•   •   •

A
s luck would have it, as Mrs. Nicholson emerged into the main house from the stairs, William Cavendish was standing in the hall. He had evidently stopped while reading the morning newspaper, and glanced up as she opened the green baize door.

“Oh . . . your lordship. Good morning.” William nodded, raising his eyebrows at her in inquiry. “I wonder if it might be possible to have Dr. Evans to the house, sir?”

“Are you ill?”

“Not at all. But Mary Nash, the maid . . .” She smiled. He
apparently had no idea whom she might mean. “Mary Nash, who was married two years ago . . .”

“Ah, yes.”

“I think at the very least we shall need a midwife.”

He lowered the newspaper. “I'm sorry, Mrs. Nicholson,” he said slowly. “But is this my business?”

“Might I use the telephone to call the doctor? Affairs seem already to be too far on to have just the village woman here.”

William waved his hand, frowning. “Do whatever is necessary.”

“Thank you, sir.” She half turned to go.

“And . . . Mrs. Nicholson.”

“Yes?”

“In the event of Lady Cavendish or Miss Louisa not being in the house, such matters should be settled between Mr. Bradfield and yourself. I expect to meet the doctor's bill, but I don't expect chapter and verse for the reason he's required.”

She paused a moment, then bowed her head to acknowledge him, and walked quickly again to the door.

•   •   •

T
he room was exactly as Mary remembered it.

Except for the picture of
Elisha Raising the Shunammite's Son
. That horrible thing was gone. Mary laid on the chaise longue, feeling the cretonne edging with superstitious horror. Emily Maitland had been lying here just under three years ago. It had been Christmastime. There had been snow outside. Oh dear God, it was a picture that she would never get out of her head. The coal fire roaring too hot in the grate; the picture above the mantelpiece; the clock that ticked so loudly.

Her eye ran around the room as if she were looking for somewhere to escape. Mrs. Nicholson had not only taken down the
picture, but all the embroidered cloths from the chair back. The antimacassars that Mrs. Jocelyn had kept starched as hard as boards. That had never had a guest laying his head on them. But she hadn't made enough difference to dispel the ghost that lay here, frightened and hollow-eyed—Sessy's mother. Just a young girl; the housemaid that Master Harry had seen fit to seduce. Poor Emily.

“I must get up,” she said.

Jenny sprang to her feet. “Oh no,” she whispered. “Mrs. Carlisle has gone for tea. They're sending for the lady in the village. You mustn't move.”

Something terrible washed through Mary then. It was as if time was replaying itself. Three years ago, she had been where Jenny was now: it had been her who had been pleading for Emily to keep still. It had been her who had grasped Emily's hand just like this, and Emily had told her about a box that had been left in the greenhouse, a present that Master Harry had given her. It was a little bracelet of sapphires, and Mary still had it, a guilty secret tainted with grief that she had not dared to show anyone, hidden in a locked box where she kept David's letters and pressed flowers from her wedding day.

“I must get up,” she repeated. And seeing Jenny's panic-stricken face, she managed a smile. “I'm all right,” she reassured her. “I just want air. I want to walk outside.”

Fretting at her movement, nevertheless Jenny helped her. They passed the kitchen, but Mrs. Carlisle was nowhere to be seen. They got to the laundry, and then through to the yard. Sunlight splashed the stones, and the heat baked up.

“It's too hot for you,” Jenny protested.

“No it isn't,” Mary told her. She couldn't put into words what a relief it was to be away from the housekeeper's room. All kinds of random images were playing through her mind. David on their
wedding day, and David as they had shaken Mr. Gould's hand. The sight of him walking briskly up the drive to the main house, while the two of them gripped each other in astonishment. “Come back from the dead,” David had muttered.

Oh, Jesus Christ. There it was again. The dead, the dying. Her own sister in the diphtheria ward. Her own father weeping. The news of Harrison, and pushing away the imaginings of what might be happening in France. She felt both hot and cold. The air seemed brittle with both sun and frost. Sun and ice, snow and the yellow blindness of the moors scorched dry by the summer. She'd ridden behind Jack Armitage once on a little pony, going over those moors to see her sister. Memories fought in her head for purchase in a slippery, shifting consciousness.

She stopped, feeling the pain recede. Watching it almost. She gasped, sighed, breathed slowly. That was so much better. “Hold my arm,” she told Jenny. “And come with me.”

They got to the kitchen garden, and the gate in the wall to the stable yard. Just there at the little gate, a wave of pain gripped her again, and the sensation of immense, unbearable pressure. “I've got to get away,” she muttered, through gritted teeth. “Just away for a while.”

She heard Jenny's sharp intake of breath. “But you can't move anywhere, Mary,” she protested. “Oh please. Come back to the house. You can't be out here.”

But she could be out here. She could be anywhere, Mary thought. Anywhere to run from it, to step aside from what was coming. Just for a few hours. She would come back when she was more ready. She felt the irrepressible urgency and her only instinct was to turn away from it. The baby wasn't due for another month, after all. She had plenty of time. She had another month.

“I want to walk,” she said.

And she hauled Jenny with her, despite the pain.

•   •   •

I
t was half past six when the prisoners finished in the field.

Frederick was sorry that it was over; they had cleared four large meadows, and for several days now they had taken the hay to the large medieval barn far behind the house. He had marveled when he had seen it, a huge barrel-roofed affair with a flagstone floor. Looking up into the roof was like looking into the depths of some great ship. At the very far end, there was a fenced-off area, and in it stood a little green two-seater sports car, a Metz.

He supposed that no garages had been built yet for the cars. Perhaps that was something that would come after the war. As they brought in the hay, the barn began to fill with the sweet smell of the summer, and they baled it and stacked it up like a large straw castle. Each night they pulled the huge wooden doors shut, and each morning they opened them again and felt that same sweetness rolling out towards them.

He longed to lie down in the mown grass, and sleep. It would be so much better than sleeping at the camp. He wouldn't mind if there were rats; he had grown used to them at the front. But he couldn't help thinking that it would be so peaceful here. No noise of men. No noise of machines. Just the age-old building—centuries of stone and timber. He wondered if they ever had parties here, harvest dances, or anything at Christmas. He would have liked to see that; it must be very fine.

More than anything else, he had loved this place deep in the green parkland, and yet commanding such a view of distant hills. A city called York was out there somewhere, old as the Vikings. Older. So he had been told. This country reminded him of home with its
open spaces and magnificent buildings, but it was prettier by far. It felt enclosed and secure. Certainly the weather was more temperate. In Germany now the summer would be fiercer, the workmen slumped at midday in the shadows if they could steal a few moments; he remembered how his mother would sweat and curse at her work. And they had a hill or two out on the farm at home, but nothing like the grand sweeps of the hills here.

Frederick was thinking of this as they rode on the back of the cart bringing in a mountainous, swaying load of hay. The younger guard walked behind them, glowering at them as they smiled down at him. He felt the cart coming to a halt, and then he heard the women's voices.

He climbed down, a few of the other prisoners with him, and looked towards the gate. The girl Jenny was there, trying to undo the latch. Behind her he could see another women who wore a white apron, a striped dress, a lace cap. A housemaid, he thought, like Jenny. But much older. Both of them looked distraught.

“Stay there,” the sergeant said. He went striding up the field and the women opened the gate at last. Frederick could see that Jenny was wringing her hands; something had frightened her. She glanced once in his direction, and then she gripped the sergeant's arm. Frederick saw him shake his head; shrug. Jenny gripped him even harder, and with her free hand wiped her eyes.

“What is it?” the man next to him asked. “What are they saying?”

“Nobody in the house,” Frederick murmured. “They need a doctor.”

“For who?”

“I don't know.”

They all waited, straining to hear the conversation. The young guard was uninterested, picking his teeth with a sliver of wood. Then, from inside the stable yard they heard a scream. Jenny clapped her
hands to her ears; the older woman clutched her, and then backed away, towards the sound.

Frederick took a step forward.

“All right, you,” the guard said. “Just try it.”

“I am not running away.”

“And not moving at all,” the boy warned, pleased at this unexpected opportunity for authority. He waved his rifle at them all. “Just see what happens.”