‘I don’t know what’s happening, Jack,’ she said. ‘But there are complications.’
Rosie dashed back in again and he waited until the parlour door was closed behind her before he said, ‘What sort o’ complications?’
‘I don’t know.’ She wasn’t going to tell him what she feared, but then came an anguished cry from upstairs, followed by another, and they both got to their feet as they heard the parlour door open again. Peggy dashed out to warn the children to stay where they were.
It was Robin who stood in the hall. ‘Is something wrong?’ he asked, his face anxious and alarmed.
‘No, it’s all right,’ Peggy told him. ‘Nothing to worry about.’
‘I said I’d come to ask,’ he said bravely. ‘The girls were frightened.’
She tapped her mouth. ‘I’ll explain later,’ she whispered. ‘Tell them it’s all right.’
Jack stood at the bottom of the stairs as she went up again. ‘Should I come up?’
‘Not if you value your life,’ his mother said grimly. ‘You’re likely to have something aimed at your head.’
When she went in the bedroom, there was a smell of blood and urine and Susan was stretched out on the bed, covered from the waist down by a bloodstained sheet.
‘I don’t want you here,’ she snapped. ‘Where’s Jack?’
‘Downstairs keeping out of ’way. What’s happened?’ Peggy’s question was to Mrs Glover.
‘Stillborn,’ the midwife answered. ‘Poor little mite was brought too early for him to tek a breath.’
‘A boy! Oh, I’m sorry, Susan. I know it was what you and Jack wanted.’
Susan turned her head away. Rather oddly, Peggy thought, Mrs Glover turned her head too and concentrated on what she was doing.
Peggy put her hand on the midwife’s arm and mouthed, Where is he?
Mrs Glover looked up and shook her head and indicated the dry bowl, which now had a towel over it, and then put her hand up to indicate that Peggy shouldn’t look.
‘I’ll just clean up the patient,’ she muttered, ‘and then her husband can come up.’
‘I want him here now.’ Susan turned towards them. ‘Men should see what women have to go through, ’stead o’ strutting about and boasting that they’ve had a child.’
‘Well, he’s not coming up whilst I’m in charge,’ Mrs Glover retorted. ‘And if you want him here when, or if, you have another bairn, then you can find somebody else to deliver it. In fact,’ her face was red with anger, ‘you can find somebody else anyway cos I’ll not be coming back.’
Peggy crept out of the room. She wasn’t wanted, Susan had said, although she was only going to offer to help clear up; she would have liked to see her grandson, but she was fairly sure that he had been very early, so maybe that was why he hadn’t lived and not because of her imaginings that Susan had in some way ushered the proceedings along. That, she thought, was far too dreadful a deed to contemplate.
‘I’m sorry, Jack,’ she told him. ‘The bairn came too soon. Too early for him to tek a breath, the midwife said.’
‘A lad! Oh, and I was banking on its being a son this time.’
‘If you don’t mind me giving you some advice, Jack,’ his mother said carefully, ‘I wouldn’t say to Susan that mebbe next time …’ She paused a second before adding, ‘You might need to be a bit more careful for a while, let Susan recover.’
Jack stared at her. ‘A bit more careful!’ he burst out bitterly. ‘Rosie’s six, isn’t she? How careful do I have to be, for God’s sake? Am I to be completely celibate, or go off and be a blasted hermit?’
‘I wouldn’t know, Jack, and neither do I want to.’ More than ever Peggy determined that they must find their own place and leave. ‘You’re to go up when ’midwife’s finished, and then will you tek her home?’
Jack spent no more than a few minutes with his wife whilst Mrs Glover waited silently in the kitchen, refusing a cup of tea or a chair. When he came down, she simply nodded to Peggy and murmured ‘Goodnight’ as she followed him out of the door.
Whilst the kitchen was quiet, Peggy made up Robin’s bed on the sofa, then collected the girls’ nightgowns from upstairs and brought them down. She called them from the parlour and sat them down in the kitchen and told them that sadly they would not be having a little brother or sister after all, as the baby had been called to heaven.
‘Your ma and da will be very sad for a while and your ma especially will want some peace and quiet, so I’m expecting that you will all be very good and not disturb her too much until she’s recovered.’
‘We heard a big shout,’ Rosie said, and Molly interrupted to say she had heard it too. ‘We’ll be good and give her a big piece of quiet,’ Rosie went on, ‘and mebbe you could make her a big piece of chocolate cake as well, Gran, cos that will make her very happy.’
‘She likes your chocolate cake, Gran,’ Molly said. ‘But she said we hadn’t to tell you.’
Peggy controlled a sigh; she hated to think that her daughter-in-law might be trying to turn the children against her.
‘Robin,’ she said, ‘be a good lad and tidy up in ’parlour; put ’books and everything away whilst ’girls are getting into their nightgowns, and then you can all have a cup o’ cocoa afore you go to bed.’
‘Ooh, lovely,’ he said. ‘Thank you. It does seem to have been a long day, doesn’t it? And do you know what, Granny Robinson? It feels as if I’ve been living here for ages.’
‘So it does,’ she murmured. ‘But tomorrow, Robin, I think we must go back to Hedon to find out if there’s any news about your mother.’
Aaron and Jack were still
