The Jarrow Lass (9 page)

‘So what do we do now?' Rose asked.

William hesitated. ‘I suppose we get to it,' he suggested. ‘If I can find me way past all this nightwear.' They both laughed.

Rose looked at him fondly. ‘Kiss me first, will you?' she whispered, beginning to shake with nervous excitement.

William smiled and, leaning over, began kissing her tentatively on the lips. Rose shuffled closer and they spent several minutes kissing and stroking each other's hair and faces. Then William began to fumble with her clothing and with his buttons, but took so long that Rose began to help him. Eventually he straddled her, but got caught up in a maze of twisted petticoats. It was all taking a lot longer than Rose had anticipated. Suddenly he found a way through and what Rose assumed was the consummation began. At first it was uncomfortable, even painful, but then they settled into the same rhythm she had observed in the animals at home.

Shortly afterwards it was inexplicably over. William sighed and rolled to the side. Rose lay still a while longer in case there was something else she was supposed to do. But that appeared to be it. She felt triumphant. It had not been too unpleasant and it had warmed her up twice as quickly as Granny's bed warmer could have done. Best of all, she was now truly William's wife.

In the days that followed, Rose began to look forward to the time she and William could escape to their room in the evening. It was a haven away from the strictures of Mrs Fawcett's downstairs domain and William's gruelling work at the rolling mills. Once Rose had washed up the tea dishes and banked the fires, she was free to go upstairs.

Sometimes they would lie on top of the bed with the evening breeze of early summer fluttering in under the lace curtain, while William read to her. He would smuggle in mildewed books and torn periodicals that he had picked up from second-hand bookstalls and kept in the bottom of the wardrobe. They were not the serious, improving works that Mr Fawcett read in the Mechanics' Institute, but sensational stories by Charles Dickens or mysteries by Wilkie Collins. Whatever William read, Rose loved to hear his voice and marvel at the words that poured from his mouth. Later, they would pull up the covers and make love quietly, Rose trying not to imagine her mother-in-law sitting below doing needlework or polishing her already gleaming fire brasses.

Within a month, Rose felt the difference in her body, the tender swelling of her breasts and a queasiness in her stomach. When she went early to bed, her tiredness was no longer an excuse. By June, she realised that she had not had a monthly bleed since just before she was married.

One evening, while William was reading to her, she lurched over and was sick into the chamber pot.

‘What's wrong?' he asked in alarm. ‘Is it something you've eaten? Shall I get me mother?'

Rose grimaced and shook her head. ‘No, it'll pass in a minute.'

‘Has this happened before?' William demanded, reaching over to rub her back. Rose nodded. ‘Then I'm going to get Mother. She'll know what to do.'

‘There's nothing to be done,' Rose answered, trying to smile in reassurance. ‘William, I think I'm expectin'.'

He gaped at her. ‘Expectin'? A bairn?' Rose nodded again. ‘But how can you tell? You've never been . . .'

‘Aye, I know. It's just some'at I feel.'

Suddenly he was hugging her to him. ‘Our first bairn already! By, that was quick work, Rose Fawcett,' he crowed. ‘Father O'Brien will be pleased with us.'

‘Forget Father O'Brien,' Rose laughed. ‘What about you?'

He kissed her tenderly. ‘I'm over the moon!' he declared.

Rose kissed him back. ‘Aye, so am I.' Then she frowned. ‘But what about your mother? She'll not want all the mess of a baby around this house.'

William defended her. ‘She's had bairns of her own, remember. She'll be pleased to have her first grandbairn and show him off to the neighbours.'

Rose slid him a look. ‘Maybes by then we'll have a home of our own. I know it's more sudden than we thought, but isn't it a good time to be looking for our own place?'

William frowned. ‘We'll have to see.' He must have caught the look of disappointment on her face, because he added, ‘If the work's good and regular through the autumn and winter, we'll move out, rent somewhere small.'

Rose kissed him in delight, thinking how life was growing better with each day.

But as the baby formed inside her and Florrie had to help her let out her skirts to ease the discomfort on her spreading waist, Nature acted to thwart Rose's plans of escape. The blustery autumnal weather of October turned to harsh winter by November. A terrible frost gripped the area, turning the earth to stone and the iron on the docksides to ice. Trade stagnated while men were once more laid off from the shipyards. The iron could not be touched without it ripping off the skin from the men's bare hands. Never could Rose recall such a cold autumn. The Fawcetts huddled round the kitchen range, trying to keep warm. They went to bed with as much clothing on as they could wear, and no one protested when Rose filled her antiquated warming pan with coals to take the icy chill from their bed.

Rose's father and sister could not till the frozen ground or bring out the winter vegetables. They lost a pig, and several hens were carried off by starving foxes. Rose went up with food parcels until she was too advanced in pregnancy to manage the toil uphill in the cold. For the first time ever, McConnell and Maggie came into the relief soup kitchens in the town for food.

When William and his father went on short time at the rolling mill, Rose abandoned any hope of moving out of James Terrace before her baby was born. Now she began to fret about how her baby would survive in such a cold world. When it kicked, she put protective hands over her womb and willed it to stay there as long as possible. William forbade her to go out in case she caught cold.

Their first Christmas together was an anxious one. Rose insisted that her father and Maggie should be invited for Christmas dinner, but on Christmas Eve Maggie came with a message that their father had taken to bed with a fever.

‘He'd been over to see the McMullens,' Maggie exlained, ‘worried how they were managing. Old McMullen's been at the stone-breaking - there's so little work at the docks. I think he picked up some'at from there.'

Rose felt breathless, her pulse racing uncomfortably. ‘What can I do?' she asked helplessly.

Mrs Fawcett interrupted. ‘You can't do anything. You'll not go gallivanting up there in your condition, catching the fever. You've my grandchild to consider.'

‘That's right. Stay here and keep warm,' Maggie insisted. ‘I can look after Da, and Lizzie will be back on Boxing Day. So don't you worry.'

‘I'll make us some tea,' Rose said, dragging herself to her feet.

But Maggie said quickly, ‘I can't stay - I just wanted you to know.'

Rose knew her sister did not intend to cause trouble with Mrs Fawcett, but she was not going to let Maggie go empty-handed. ‘You must take half the ham to keep you going and some of these sweet mince pies.'

‘We've nothing to spare!' her mother-in-law protested.

Rose defied her. ‘Maggie and me da would have eaten it here if they'd been well enough - I'll not see them go without at Christmas time.'

Before she could argue back, William came stamping in from the frozen back lane and as soon as he heard Maggie's predicament he intervened.

‘Of course you must take some food. I'll walk back up the hill with you,' he insisted, ‘make sure you've enough fuel in to keep the fire going.'

‘But, William, you've a weak chest,' his mother fussed. ‘You mustn't go near Mr McConnell if he's poorly!'

‘I'll not stay long,' William said, ‘just make sure he's all right.'

Rose gave him a grateful look as she parcelled up the food for her sister. When they went to the door they discovered it had started to snow. The dark afternoon sky was heavy with fluttering snowflakes that sank to the ground and stayed.

‘Hurry,' she urged William as she waved them away, but even that brief minute on the doorstep left her feeling chilled. She sat huddled by the hearth trying to warm up, but felt increasingly unwell. Neither the decorations that she and Florrie had hung up nor the thought of the next day's festivities could lift her spirits. She worried about Maggie and William out in the snow, and watched the time creep by on the black clock on the mantelpiece. As they sat on in the darkened kitchen, Rose felt sharp pains in her belly.

‘He should never have gone!' Mrs Fawcett grumbled, making Rose feel irresponsible and wretched.

‘I think I'll go and lie down,' she said breathlessly, but her mother-in-law did not seem to notice her discomfort. The bedroom was arctic and she lay under the covers fully dressed, alternately shivering with cold and clammy from hot flushes. She could not get comfortable, and all the while the pains inside grew sharper and more frequent. Rose cried out in distress, but no one came. Florrie was still at the shop and Mr Fawcett was keeping warm in the reading room of the Institute. Only her mother-in-law was there to help and she did not seem to hear her cries.

Rose lay tossing in the bed, frightened at what might be happening to her and longing for William to return. She could not possibly be having the baby yet; Mrs Fawcett had told her it would be at least another month when she had complained of recent twinges.

‘Please come back,' she whimpered in the dark damp room, the inside of the window frozen with ice. ‘William, I need you!' she sobbed.

Then Rose thought she heard voices in the street below and she struggled to sit up. If she could get out of bed and knock on the window, someone might come and help her. She heaved herself to the side of the bed and swung her legs over, feeling dizzy at the sudden movement. A spasm of pain made her double up in agony. Then all at once she felt a rush of liquid between her legs that soaked her underskirts. Rose tried to scream, but the air seemed trapped in her throat and all she could do was gasp. Gripped by fear that it might be blood pouring out of her, she crawled towards the window.

‘I'm going to die!' she sobbed, as her insides were seized in a vice-like pain. ‘Oh, my baby!'

At that moment, singing rose from the street below, the clear joyful voices of carollers. ‘Good KingWenceslas looked out, on the feast of Stephen ...'

Rose, panting in agony, tried to raise herself to knock on the window, but could not. She sank back, crouching on the bare floorboards like a wounded animal. The pain ripped down her body. It felt as if she was being stabbed with hot needles between her legs. Terrified, she squatted on the floor, waiting to die. She felt too winded to cry out any more.

But as she struggled to catch her breath, she became more aware of the singing from the unseen carollers. The mix of voices, young and old, was comforting, giving promise of new life. They were singing now of the Virgin Mary giving birth in the stable. It suddenly dawned on Rose that that was what must be happening to her. Her baby was coming. She felt it now, pushing hard between her legs, forcing its way out. She began to weep with both fear and relief.

Instinct made her scream. She yelled so loudly that the singing below halted. Rose screamed again. Within a minute, William's mother was rushing in.

‘What's all the noise about?' she demanded, brandishing a candle in the dark. ‘Where are you?'

‘Help! Me baby's coming!' Rose cried, almost fainting with pain.

‘Not there on the floor!' Mrs Fawcett squealed in disgust. But Rose was past caring where she had it. All she wanted was to push and scream and for the agony to be over. ‘And stop making such a fuss!' She bustled to the door.

‘Don't go,' Rose panted. ‘Please don't leave me—'

‘I'm going for brown paper and to get out of this dress,' she replied, and plunged Rose into the blackness once more. Outside was complete silence. The carollers must have moved on, their footsteps muffled in the newly fallen snow. Rose fixed her mind on the image of the street, wrapped in a glistening white blanket of clean snow, glowing under a bright moon. She imagined William hurrying through the snow towards home, unaware of what was happening. He would soon be here. Rose took deep breaths, calming herself with the comforting thought. She must stay strong for her baby and William.

By the time her mother-in-law returned, protected in a large apron and bearing brown paper and a bowl of water, Rose's baby was already thrusting its head between her legs. She howled in pain as Mrs Fawcett yanked her on to the brown paper that she laid out on the floor and pulled her skirts out of the way. The older woman squeezed water on to her face, but it was icy cold and Rose gasped in shock.

‘That'll stop your noise,' Mrs Fawcett said grimly. ‘Now show a bit of breeding and get on with it quietly.'

Rose gritted her teeth to hold back the screams that wanted to tear out of her throat. She panted and pushed, sank back and started again. If she had known how much torture this was going to be, Rose thought, she would never have let William anywhere near her. At that moment, Rose wished she had become a nun. Being stuck in this cold room being scolded and splashed with cold water by Mrs Fawcett was worse than any nightmare she had ever had as a child.