Arian (16 page)

‘Don’t encourage that sort of talk, Bella.’ Arian’s voice was sharper than she’d intended and Bella looked at her askance.

‘They was only joking, mind,’ she said. ‘Good boys they are, known some of them for years. It’s only the foreigners you have to watch.’

‘I’m sorry, Bella.’ Arian sank into her chair and accepted a cup of tea. ‘I’m a bit on edge this morning.’

‘Aye, I can see that.’ Bella looked at her from under her eyelashes. ‘Don’t know what to make of you working by here mind,’ she ventured. ‘Not a job for a girl, is it? You could have his lordship like a shot, be his … what do you say, mistress?’ She sat in the chair opposite Arian – familiarity that would never have arisen had Arian not once been a servant just like Bella herself.

‘He got an itch for you, mind,’ Bella continued. ‘Anyone can see that. Take you to bed like a shot he would and be good to you, mind.’

Arian drank her tea without replying. How wrong could Bella be? Calvin was not interested in Arian as a woman; he had told her that once in plain English. He wanted to help her, that was all.

‘Then there’s Mr Simples,’ Bella went on remorselessly. ‘He’s daft on you. He would like to put a ring on your finger, make you his wife. What more could any girl ask than the love of a fine upright man like him?’

Arian sighed. ‘Bella, you make a lovely cup of tea but I can do without the advice, thank you.’

‘Oh, right, be like that then,’ Bella said, ‘but there’s tears when a woman takes on a man’s job, you mark my words. No good will come of all this business stuff.’

It seemed that Bella’s words were to be prophetic. Gerald Simples returned to the office with a frown creasing his forehead and Arian stared up from her empty order book with fear breathing a cold breath over her.

‘What’s wrong?’ she asked. ‘Hasn’t the
Marie Clare
docked yet?’

Gerald Simples closed the door and approached the desk. ‘Oh, yes,’ he said, ‘it’s docked all right.’

‘Well then?’ Arian urged, her eyes wide as she tried to read something from Simples’ expression. He shrugged.

‘It’s just that the load of calf is not aboard,’ he said bleakly. ‘Something has gone very wrong.’

Arian sank back in her chair and a sense of despair swept through her. She put her hands over her face and tried to hold back the fear that beat with dark wings against her temples.

‘Don’t worry, Miss Smale,’ Simples’s voice reached her as though from a long way off. ‘I’ll sort it all out, don’t you worry now. Just you leave everything to me.’

She looked up at him with fresh hope. ‘Do you mean it? Do you think you can find out what’s happened?’

‘I would do anything for you, Miss Smale,’ Gerald Simples looked at her gravely, ‘anything.’

Why was it then, that when he left the room Arian was not reassured? Why did the fear still lie like a heavy burden inside her? She rose from her desk and stared through the window, seeing the sailors strolling along the pier or the cold pewter waters of the docks. All she could see was Calvin’s face in her mind’s eye and hear his voice as he told her that he had lost his touch as a businessman. Perhaps he was right and she was just another one of his mistakes. Perhaps she should get out now before she lost him any more money. But no, she would wait for Simples to return. He would do his best for her, she felt that in her bones, and for the first time, she knew the faint stirrings of gratitude to the man.

She returned to her desk. All her resolve and sense of purpose seemed to have vanished. Hope had been short-lived. Her optimism had withered on the vine. She was defeated by the first hurdle. Where was her spirit, her sense of adventure, her longing for achievement? It had all gone, lost somewhere in a sea of uncertainty and Arian Smale no longer knew which direction she must take.

Fon O’Conner contemplated the sky above Honey’s Farm with the attitude of a woman seeing the clouds for the last time. She trembled with fear as she stared through the window and bit her lip to keep from crying out in panic.

‘Can I fetch you something, Fon?’ April Jones’s voice was tremulous. She chewed her nails and regarded Fon with fearful eyes. Fon made an effort to control herself.

‘It’s all right, April. Jamie’s gone for the doctor. I’m going to be just fine, I’m only having another baby so don’t you worry.’

‘You’re not going to die like my mammy, are you?’ April asked biting her lip, her eyes large and luminous, her little-girl figure blossoming into an early womanhood. The child was far too old for her years in many ways, Fon thought distractedly. How on earth was she going to cope with April’s growing up, when she didn’t feel in the least equipped for it?

‘No I am not going to die!’ Fon said firmly. ‘I’m a young healthy woman and giving birth to a child is the most natural thing in the world.’ She wished she believed it but she had once had an inbuilt fear of childbirth that she believed she’d overcome. At the side of the bed, in the roughly made wooden cot, slept Catherine, her daughter, not yet a year old. It was too soon for another baby, much too soon, she thought in panic.

Catherine’s birth had not been easy. Fon had been tense, her body struggling against what was an act of nature but to Fon it had all been just as bad as she had feared. The tearing, burning pain seemed to go on and on and when at last her child had come into the world, Fon had been so exhausted that she scarcely felt anything for the red-faced scrap that was her daughter.

Patrick came into the room and plumped himself on the bed, his face grave. ‘Are you sick, Fon?’ he asked in a sombre voice. Fon’s face softened.

Her stepson was grave with concern, like an old man, and yet his face still held the rounded contours of childhood. ‘No, of course I’m not sick. I don’t know what all the fuss is about,’ she said in as easy a tone as she could manage. ‘I’m going to have a baby, that’s all Patrick. A little brother or sister for you.’

‘I don’t want a brother and I’ve got a sister,’ Patrick said firmly. ‘And I’ve got April, haven’t I?’

‘Aye, you got me, Pat,’ April said rubbing his hair across his eyes playfully, ‘but I’m not your real sister, mind. Cathie here is your real sister.’

‘Well you live with us,’ Patrick said with implacable reason. ‘You’re
like
a sister and Cathie’s too little to play with me.’

Fon bit her lip as a pain spread insidiously around her stomach, like iron fingers gripping her body, squeezing painfully and centring in her back. She sucked in her breath, feeling as though her bones were being pulled apart. She turned her face to the pillow so that the children would not see her distressed. Why didn’t Jamie come back? Why didn’t he
hurry
?

‘Take Patrick and the baby downstairs, April,’ Fon said when the pain had subsided. ‘I feel like a little bit of a rest.’

‘All right then,’ April said eagerly. She took Cathie carefully out of the cot and held her gently. ‘I don’t mind having this one, she’s good as gold, but you, Patrick, I bet you’ll plague me to make you a bit of toast or some bread and jam.’

‘Butty and jam.’ Patrick, taking the bait, leapt off the bed, his eyes alight. ‘I’m starving.’

‘You look starved,’ April said with heavy irony. ‘Come on, brat, I suppose I’d better make some tea while I’m at it.’

When Fon was alone, she stared up at the sky outside and watched the clouds loiter along above the hills like sheep. There was a hint of rain in the air and at any moment, the clouds threatened to turn into heavy mist and drown the fields of Honey’s Farm.

Another pain wound cords of tautness about Fon’s body. She gasped and clung to the sheet, biting her lip to prevent herself from crying out. Soon now, the doctor would come and give her something to ease the pain. For God’s sake, she needed it. Why was she so prolific, she who didn’t want to bring children into the world? It really was ironic.

She could hear the children arguing downstairs; April, who would soon enter her teenage years, was feeling her superiority over the much younger Patrick and was obviously insisting on the boy doing something that he was not too happy about. Fon grimaced, guessing it was something simple like washing his hands before he came to the table. To her relief, the door downstairs opened and she heard Jamie’s voice.

‘Be quiet!’ he commanded and immediately there was silence. Fon heard footsteps on the stairs with a mingled sense of relief and apprehension. She knew that she would be acutely embarrassed to have the doctor examine her which was foolishness – he was probably so used to watching mothers give birth that it meant nothing to him.

The door opened and Jamie immediately seemed to fill the room. He was a big handsome man, rugged and with the look of the open air about him. His very presence gave Fon confidence and she managed a smile.

‘How are you doing then, Mrs O’Conner?’ The doctor appeared from behind her husband’s shoulder. He was dwarfed by the larger man. ‘Nice to see you again. I hope you recognize me, I’m doctor Eddie Carpenter and I’m here to see that this baby is safely delivered.’

‘Eddie!’ Fon’s surprise was quickly followed by a feeling of relief. Eddie, she had faith in, she’d seen him at work on the farm before he’d even qualified as a doctor.

‘Eddie,’ she took his hand, ‘you’ve grown a beard,
duw
you’re looking so well, so smart.’

He was gently feeling her stomach, his hands gentle yet searching. ‘You seem to be doing all this very well, Fon. You’ll be just fine, nothing to worry about.’

His words brought Fon a warm glow of reassurance. She felt herself relax as he smiled down at her.

‘You’ve done this before, Fon and the second time is always easier, I promise you.’

As he talked, his hands were busy beneath the sheets. He grunted and nodded and Fon, watching him, felt at once that he was pleased with her progress.

‘Ah, yes, the head is nicely in place. He feels a big lad and you are a small mother but I know you’ll do very well.’

Fon glanced at Jamie. His eyes were anxious and she smiled at him in reassurance. ‘Don’t worry, love,’ she said softly, ‘you just go about your business and leave me to mine.’

‘That’s the way,’ Eddie said winking. ‘Right then, bring some hot water, Jamie and let the midwife up the minute she comes.’ He patted Fon’s arm. ‘She’d better hurry, mind, or we’ll be doing this one all by ourselves.’

His words proved to be prophetic. Fon’s labour moved from stage to stage with very little trouble, perhaps because Eddie was there, talking, soothing, being Eddie, her old friend.

Then the pains changed, she was bearing down, grunting in her throat with the effort of pushing her child into the world.

‘Good girl,’ Eddie said. ‘That’s fine, you’re almost there, Fon, easy now, not too hard. Now bear down!’

The effort took all her strength. She closed her eyes tightly, feeling the sweat beading her brow. Almost with a sense of detachment she pushed as hard as she could, knowing Eddie was helping her.

There was a sudden sense of release, the burning sensation in her body miraculously was gone and into the silence came the sharp cry of a new-born child.

The midwife entered the room, her face red from hurrying, her eyes apologetic as they looked down at Fon.

‘
Duw
, there’s sorry I am,’ she said, gasping a little. ‘I’ve missed the show then, have I? I’m just in time to sweep the stage, so to speak.’

‘Aye, we’ve managed nicely,’ Eddie said pleasantly. ‘We have a good mother here, nurse. The way she’s going she’ll soon have a brood of fine sons just like this one. Yes, Fon, you’ve got a son.’

He put the baby into Fon’s arms and the midwife clucked in exasperation, ‘Just like a man, no blanket for the babbi. Here, let me wrap him up.’

Fon looked down at her son with a sense of amazement – the screwed-up face and the bush of red-gold hair appeared so beautiful to her. The baby began to cry again and Fon felt herself melt with tenderness.

‘It’s all right, my darling,’ she said, ‘it’s all right, mammy is here.’

Jamie was at her side then, staring down at her with pride. ‘You’ve given me a boy this time, Fon, my colleen,’ he said, his voice hoarse. ‘A fine brother for Patrick and Cathie, sure enough.’ His arms, open to receive their son, and his eyes meeting Fon’s, were filled with warmth.

‘He’s a fine, handsome boy,’ Eddie said triumphantly, as if he alone was responsible for the child. ‘Good lungs, fine, sturdy limbs. You’ll have a good farmer there, Jamie.’

‘Right, you lot,’ the nurse said firmly, ‘out of here while I see to the mother and baby. A nice cup of tea wouldn’t go amiss, mind.’

Jamie returned the baby to Fon’s waiting arms. ‘Well done, colleen,’ he said softly, ‘well done.’

Fon’s eyes filled with tears. She had done it, she had safely come through her labour. Her sense of achievement was exhilarating. She had matched Jamie’s first wife – she had produced a fine son. She sighed. She must be the happiest woman in all of Swansea.

Sarah Frogmore was restless. She was a married woman with a fine child, she had a wonderful home and an apparently devoted husband – everything a woman could want, so it would seem to the outside world.

She leaned back in her chair, her needle falling idle. She had come a long way from being the daughter of a cobbler, a woman with a not too innocent past, to this, the lap of luxury. Now she was Mrs Geoffrey Frogmore, respected in a society that once would have shunned her.

She smiled ruefully. Her father too, had done well. John Miller had married Emily Grenfell, a woman from the upper classes, a woman who had made a great deal of money. It was Dad’s good luck that Emily had fallen in love with him and had become his wife, thus raising his standard of living to heights beyond his imaginings. Not that John Miller was an adventurer. He loved Emily as much as she loved him; they made a fine pair and it was clear to everyone that they had a good marriage. Sarah envied them.

She looked up from her needlework lying idle in her lap and watched her son pore over one of his books. Jack was advanced for his years – he was not yet four and could read very well. That skill was due to Geoffrey’s intense interest in his son and his urge to educate the boy.