for orders.
Elizabeth was sitting up in bed, wrapped in a pink shawl, her hair plaited neatly over each shoulder. She was feeling better and, though her eyes were black-ringed, some of her normal high colour had returned to her cheeks; the birth had, in fact, been quite an easy one. She fully expected that, thanks to Mrs Macdonald’s modern ideas of well-scrubbed hands, boiled aprons and sheets, she would be spared that plague of new mothers, childbed fever.
Replete with omelette and half a bottle of Madeira, her breasts bound tightly by Mrs Macdonald to prevent the flow of milk, all she wanted now was that the child be taken away, so that, as much as possible, she could forget it. She hoped, also, when trouble with her husband had blown over, that she could be reunited with Andrew Crossing, only in a more private place than on her drawing-room settee.
‘Polly,’ she snapped at the trim, black-haired wet-nurse. ‘Take the baby upstairs. See that it is fed every three or four hours and has its napkin changed frequently to keep it dry.’ She turned to Maisie. ‘Take the tray away. That will be all for tonight.’
‘Thank you, ma’am,’ Maisie replied, took the tray and fled thankfully to her bed. Polly approached the cradle cautiously and picked up the tiny bundle which was Alicia Beatrix Mary. The infant opened its eyes and whimpered.
‘Polly.’
‘Yes, ’m?’
There is a good supply of clothing in the chest of drawers in the nursery. Fanny will remove any washing including your own. She will also bring up your meals. The washerwoman will come twice a week. See that the dirty clothes and sheets are down in the wash cellar by six o’clock every Monday and Thursday morning.’
Polly bobbed a small curtsey to indicate agreement.
‘I have instructed Mrs Tibbs to feed you well and let you have as much milk as you can drink.’
Having met Mrs Tibbs, Polly did not have any great hope of these instructions being followed properly. She whispered, however, a faint ‘Thank you, ma’am.’ She allowed herself a small shivering sigh – it had been a long and eventful day for her – and then asked, ‘What’s baby’s name, ma’am?’
‘Alicia Beatrix Mary,’ replied Elizabeth, having decided that it was better to name the child herself, rather than ask Humphrey his opinion. Though she would not have liked to admit it, there was the thought in the back of her mind that, like its baby brother, it might die within the month, anyway; and that would solve a lot of her problems.
Andrew had assured her that since she and Humphrey lived together the child was legally his, unless he repudiated it. Nevertheless, she supposed she would have to go herself to register its birth, as soon as she felt well enough; Humphrey was hardly likely to do anything about putting his name on the birth certificate. She must also write a note to Andrew, she reminded herself, telling him of Alicia’s birth; she could say that she wanted to alter her Will slightly to include a small legacy to the new baby. She sighed, and hoped he would come soon.
‘You may go,’ she told Polly, patiently standing in front of her with the baby in her arms.
III
Unaware of the inconvenience her arrival had caused, Alicia Beatrix Mary was carried up to the attic nurseries. To Polly, the child was sent by the Holy Mother herself to replace the little boy she had lost and to comfort her in her widowhood. For her part, Alicia learned to turn to Polly for mothering; it was Polly’s voice she knew first and Polly’s face that she first recognized.
I
Alicia had barely learned how to suck, when Elizabeth, after ten days’ of lying-in, descended one afternoon to the pleasant, sunny morning-room on the ground floor. She was escorted solicitously down the stairs by her friend, Sarah Webb, and was met by her elder daughter, Florence, in the little sitting-room.
As her own confinement drew near, Florence looked white-faced and drawn. She dreaded the birth of her baby, because she had no idea how it would make its way into the world. There did not seem to be an aperture big enough to give it access! She wondered if she would split down the middle, like a pea pod giving up its peas, and the idea terrified her. She was much too afraid of her stout, dogmatic husband, the Reverend Clarence Browning, to ask him. Having been taught nothing about sex and having been horrified when Clarence took her on her honeymoon, she felt that life was vulgar enough, without giving him further opportunity for lewd remarks and disgusting behaviour. She simply did not believe frustrated Clarence’s assurance that their sex life was normal.
She was relieved to see her mother looking very elegant in a copper-coloured gown with the hint of a train at the back and a velvet collar edged with cream lace. It was comforting to realize that her mother had always survived childbirth, despite whatever ordeals it presented.
With the aid of her friend and her elder daughter, Elizabeth was gently eased into an armless easy chair near her work table in the window. Florence had brought a bunch of fat, pink roses from her own garden and had set them in a silver bowl on the table. She had also thoughtfully placed her mother’s workbasket by her chair. Her mother still followed the old custom of making and embroidering her own petticoats and drawers, though Messrs George Henry Lee, a fashionable shop in the town which made her dresses, cloaks and hats, would have been happy to undertake the work for her.
Florence had already been up to the nursery to see Alicia, and now she asked her mother if she had seen the child that day.
Elizabeth was silent for a moment. Then she said heavily, ‘No. Polly will bring her down at teatime.’
‘She is thriving, isn’t she?’
‘I believe so.’
Though Florence had herself been cared for by a nanny, she was worried about the little mite so summarily handed over to a wet-nurse. The baby seemed contented enough, but her mother showed no interest in it; and the nursery, when Flo had visited, appeared neither clean nor tidy. She had spoken sharply to Mrs Tibbs and to Polly about the need for cleanliness. Mrs Tibbs, all indignation, had promised to order the housemaid to turn the room out immediately.
Now, with Sarah Webb nodding agreement, she strove to awaken her mother’s interest in Alicia. ‘Polly needs supervision,’ she told her.
Her mother merely sighed absently, unable to tell her daughter of the sweating fear within her. She asked Florence to serve each of them with a glass of port from the decanter on the sideboard and to hand round biscuits from the biscuit barrel; when her glass was given to her she drank the contents with unmannerly speed.
‘It’s a pity Papa won’t keep a carriage, isn’t it, Mama? Such a lovely afternoon. We could have gone for a drive round the park.’
Elizabeth replied acidly, ‘You know that your father has money for everything – railways, roads, ships, are all he’s interested in. Never thinks of my needs.’
Sarah Webb, anxious to cheer up her friend, broke in, ‘Dear Elizabeth, if you don’t mind being driven in a governess cart, I should be delighted to take you out. I stabled it in Crown Street during your confinement, so that I would have it close by. As you know, I can handle the reins quite well.’
The idea of being seen in her old friend’s extremely shabby, humble vehicle, made Elizabeth shudder.
‘No, no, Sarah, thank you. If I wished, I could, I suppose, hire a carriage from the stables. Thanks to my own dear Papa, I am not without funds for such things. And Andrew has managed my portion so well that it has increased.’
Elizabeth’s dowry, legally tied up so that Humphrey could not touch it, provided her with a good wardrobe and sufficient pin money for small luxuries, like a hired carriage to take her shopping. But if Humphrey was so mean that