A Time Like No Other (18 page)

‘Where do you intend to ride?’ Biddy asked her anxiously as they passed on the landing, running her eye approvingly over Lally’s outfit.

‘Oh, not far.’ Lally’s voice floated airily up the stairs.

She found she needed a helping hand to get on Merry’s back, which surprised Carly, for normally she leaped into the saddle as lightly as thistledown.

At last she was away galloping and for several minutes she went at full pelt up the grassy slope, past Cowslip Farm through Moor Wood and out on to the wild, open moorland beyond. She found the dogs had slipped through the gate as Carly opened it, two black and white streaks racing one on either side of her mare who was so used to them she took no notice.

‘Keep up, Fred, and watch out for Merry’s hooves, Ally. I do wish you wouldn’t run so close to us, you rascals,’ but she knew from past rides that the dogs were well used to keeping their distance.

She kept going but at a canter now, up and up above the deep, tree-covered valley below her. There were several isolated farmhouses down there, smoke from their chimneys going straight up into the sky, while huddled against the skyline a small village was almost hidden beneath the pall of smoke that told her there were woollen mills nearby. Dry-stone walls cobwebbed the swathes of green and brown, grey and the purple of the dying heather and against the wall to her left was a splash of white where cotton sedge still bloomed. She could hear the singing tumble of many mountain streams falling from a dozen hidden places and was just about to dismount and hitch Merry to a stone at the top of the wall when a small, running figure came over a dip in the track. He did not see her for a minute but when he did he recognised her at once, almost tumbling over his own clogged feet in an effort to reach her. His face was scarlet and she thought there were tearstains on his thin cheeks. She could tell at once that there was something badly wrong. The boy was Sam whose mother was to have a baby.

‘Oh, miss . . . miss . . . it’s me mam. ’Er time’s come an’ theer’s only me ter ’elp ’er. Ah sed ah’d run fer t’maister but me mam sed no but ah don’t know what ter do. Theer’s no one ter ’elp ’er an’ she’s in a right pickle. Oh, miss, ah can’t stop . . . ah must get on . . .’ and he began to run in the direction in which he had been heading.

For a moment she was taken aback then she ran after him, calling his name.

‘Wait, Sam, wait. You run back to your mother and stay with her. I’ll ride to High Clough . . . No, no . . .
you
run on and tell Mr Sinclair what is happening while I ride to your mother and see if I can help her. Tell Mr Sinclair where I am and that he is to send for a doctor to come to your home.’ She took his anguished face between her hands, resisting the desire to plant a comforting kiss on his cheek as she would her own boys. ‘Don’t worry, Sam. Your mother will be fine. I shall ride as fast as I can and you
run
as fast as you can. Mr Sinclair will help you.’ And as she spoke she knew it to be true. Harry Sinclair, beneath his present stiff exterior, was one of the kindest men she had ever met. He was keen to hide the fact but she was well aware that he would go out of his way to make life easier for anyone who asked for his help.

Without another word, though relief shone in his eyes, the boy set off at a run and with help from no one she clambered on to Merry’s back and put her to the gallop. She remembered the row of tottering houses in which Sam and his mother had a room and within five minutes she was reining in before the one at the end where a broken wooden fence provided somewhere to tether Merry. The smell about the place was as bad as she remembered and she averted her gaze from the channel that ran down between the cobbles in front of the houses. Several children were splashing in the sluggish water running down the channel, their bare feet and legs coated with dirt and some nasty substance which she was loth to inspect more closely. Several women, slatternly, thin, some with scabby faces and who stood in rotting open doorways, stared at her open-mouthed and she wondered at the advisability of leaving her gentle mare out in the open where any of these appalling creatures might not only go near her but damage her, but she could hardly take the animal inside, could she. Tying the nervous mare to the fence she walked up what passed for a pathway and, knocking on the door, walked inside. There was another door to her left which she remembered from the last time and again knocking she gently opened it and ventured inside.

The woman on the bed lifted her head. ‘Sam?’ she enquired weakly.

‘No, Mrs Harper. Sam has gone for help. It’s Mrs Fraser . . . Sinclair, I mean. I came to see you a few weeks ago, with Sam and I’m here to help you. Sam has gone for Mr Sinclair but I said I would help . . . stay with you until help came. I’ve had two babies of my own and you have had Sam so I’m sure between us we can manage. What d’you say?’ She moved over to the bed and looked down at the pain-racked face on the stained pillow.

Susan Harper did her best but water was not always available from the standpipe at the end of the row of houses, which meant she could not always keep up the standard of cleanliness that was bred in her. Sam did his best too but he was a growing lad and since the death of her Jack she had not been able to feed him as she liked. She went hungry herself to keep his belly filled which, in her condition, was not good for her or the child she carried. She was weakening fast as her pains became more intense and her labour continued and now here was this ladylike being cheerfully informing her that now that she was here everything would be all right.

Lally, firmly believing she could, if pushed, deliver the baby herself, since she had been through it twice, forgot that she had had Biddy and a doctor, clean water, hot and constant, towels, nourishing broth, cups of tea and was a healthy, well-fed young woman at both her confinements. You pushed when told to, gave birth, the cord was cut and a child was placed in your arms. That was all there was to it and if Lally Fraser . . . Sinclair could not manage that then God help her.

Susan Harper did her best not to cry out in the presence of this well-bred lady who, before very long, began to look as dishevelled and soiled as the women who had stared at her in the lane. She held Mrs Harper’s hand until her fingers were swollen and clumsy; she wiped her face and even attempted to give her a kind of bed-bath, for the woman began to smell. She ran to the end of the street as Mrs Harper directed her, her skirts trailing in the muck that abounded, and filled an old bucket which seemed in danger of springing a leak and when Mrs Harper shouted at her that the child was coming, stuck her head between the labouring woman’s legs and watched the crown of the baby begin its journey, followed by a screwed-up face and then, with a suddenness that startled her, the rest of the infant sprang forth and, with it, a wave of blood.

‘Dear God,’ she whispered, terrified, appalled and delighted all at the same time, then, under Mrs Harper’s directions, packed a wad of old cloth to the place from where the child had come. The child wailed, still attached to his mother, but in the disordered confusion Lally had seen that it was a boy and at that moment the room seemed to be filled with people. Harry was there, drawing her away from the bed and with him the doctor, it seemed, who Harry had forced to come with him, for Doctor Channing was not accustomed to tending to patients at this end of town. Sam was there, struggling to get to his mam, and with surprising ease it was all done. The cord cut, the child placed in Susan Harper’s right arm, the left about Sam, and Harry was positively dragging his bedraggled wife out into the open air.

She struggled with him, doing her best to get back to the woman who she considered to be
her
responsibility, but Harry continued to drag her towards an open carriage which apparently belonged to Doctor Channing.

‘There is nothing more you can do for her, darling,’ he was saying, the endearment slipping out in his fear for her. She did not appear to hear it. God only knew what fevers hung about in this godawful place and, but for the lad, for Sam whom he had made a pledge to help when his father had died in one of Harry’s machines, he would probably have sent one of the women from the weaving shed. But for Sam and Lally! His beloved wife was helping to deliver the child of one of the hands from his own sheds and must be brought away at once and he was doing just that even though she was making it just as plain that she was not about to be brought away!

‘Leave go of me, Harry,’ she shrieked. ‘I must make sure Sam’s mother is all right. She has just had a little boy and . . .’

‘I am aware of that, Lally, but the doctor will do all that is necessary and—’

‘And then what, Harry? Who is to care for her while she is confined to her bed, and what about Sam? He is—’

‘I will send someone to see that—’

‘Oh, no.’ She managed to get her arms free. ‘Who does that carriage belong to?’

‘It’s Doctor Channing’s. I left my horse at—’

‘Right, you take Merry and then ride to the Priory and bring our carriage. Carly can ride over and fetch your horse. Mrs Harper and Sam cannot stay in this frightful place,’ looking about her in lip-curling disdain. ‘They and the baby must be brought back with us until they are all well. I will not have them left here in this . . . this muck-heap where there is no clean water unless brought from the standpipe which I am told is turned off for most of the day. I am amazed that anyone can survive . . .’

‘But survive they do, Lally, and your plans for Mrs Harper and her family are absolutely out of the question. She must stay here and—’

‘Then I will stay with them. I am strong and will carry water.’

Harry looked appalled then his face tightened. ‘Damnation, Lally, you will do no such thing. What in God’s name are you thinking of?’

He was white-lipped with anger, a fierce, knife-edged anger that made her take a step away from him but she would not give up. He himself had begun this sequence of events when he had felt compelled to help this small family and no matter what he said, she
had
delivered the baby and she meant to keep an eye on him. There was plenty of room at home and with Dora’s help and even another nursemaid Jamie, Alec, the child born this day and the one to come would be very comfortable in the large nursery. She might have it decorated and perhaps a wall knocked down and a schoolroom added, for Jamie was ready for simple lessons. A . . . a governess, perhaps, and then there was Sam who was not meant to crawl about under those lethal machines in Harry’s mill. A decent education, maybe at the local grammar school where Chris, Harry and Roly had been taught . . .

The two dogs were milling about their feet, alarmed at the raised voices and the tension that strained the air. They were used to Harry but he was still a stranger in their mistress’s home and they were inclined to be somewhat wary of him.

Lally was quite carried away, even excited at the thought of this new project, for there was no doubt in her mind that Harry would take over the management of the estate and the farms, perhaps putting in a steward of some sort and then what would Lally Fraser . . . Sinclair do then with her time? She had taken a great liking even in two short meetings to Sam Harper’s mother, who seemed to Lally to be struggling against all odds to bring up her small family in a decent way and, after all, they had both lost a husband in dreadful accidents. Surely it would be fitting to try to make Mrs Harper’s life more tolerable but first she must get her away from this nasty place.

Harry was standing just outside the doorway. He had a way of wiping all expression from his face when he wished and as she looked at him, her own filled with anticipation, she had not the slightest idea what he was thinking. She soon found out. He had been angry a moment ago but now he was inscrutable.

‘Get on your mare and ride home, Lally,’ he told her quietly. ‘I will accompany Doctor Channing in his carriage and retrieve Piper. I will arrange for a decent woman to come in and look after Mrs Harper and the baby but—’

‘I don’t think so, Harry. I want Mrs Harper to come to
my
home where she will be cared for by my servants. This place is not fit for a dog let alone a woman who has just given birth and Sam needs a good feed by the look of him. I
will
ride back to the Priory but only to bring back the carriage and pick up Mrs Harper and her two sons. I have known you a long time, Harry, not well, perhaps, but I know you for an honourable man with integrity. You are a gentleman in the true sense of the word and though you are about to deny it you cannot. You hate to see people in pain and distress, which has been proved by your kindness and care for Mrs Harper and her son. Please return to your mill and let me deal with this. Let me do it, Harry. Let me do it with your blessing, for you must know me well enough by now to know that I will do it anyway. You have been a true friend to me and recently’ – she glanced away with a bright flush to her cheek – ‘more than that in . . . in our marriage. You have saved me, which is not my only concern, but my children, from disgrace and though I deserve it Jamie and Alec do not, nor the . . . the child to come. I’m sorry . . .’ as he turned away in what seemed to be distress. ‘So let me help this woman and her children. We can give her and Sam work that is not beyond their strength.’

‘Would you save the rest then?’ he asked harshly.

‘The rest?’

‘All the other women and children who work in my mills?’

‘If I could . . .’

‘They would not thank you.’

‘Probably not.’ She sighed and turned away to stare unseeingly across the cobbled lane and the dry-stone wall that edged it to the far, rolling wilds of the moorland. It was a pleasant day, the sky a streaky blue and shades of pale grey. The sun tried to shine, a ray of it catching a tiny group of buildings on the far side of the valley. A white farmhouse and, in the foreground, sheep grazing. An even smaller figure of a man crossed towards the flock and on the clear air a piercing whistle was carried towards them. A dog at his side began to chivvy the sheep towards a gate. Nearer to them was a patch of rough grass, taller than the rest and a sheep suddenly popped its head up and stared at them then disappeared again as though it were hiding from the dog.