Family Drama 4 E-Book Bundle (149 page)

Why was he so hostile? What she did was none of his business. They used to be friends but now they snapped and snarled at each other and she didn’t know why. Sometimes she couldn’t look him straight in the face for fear he would see how angry and hurt she was by his attitude. It was all to do with Jack somehow. He was making it plain he didn’t rate him much as a husband and that got her all worked up.

‘There’ll be plenty of nights by the fire when winter sets in and I’ve a bairn at my breast so I’m
letting myself run in the meadows while I can. It’s only one night,’ she snapped.

‘We’ll be that worried,’ Uncle Tom added, supping tea at the kitchen table, and she loved him for it. ‘Do as Ben says and stay overnight.’

‘Then I’ll take a pigeon in a basket and let it out with a message in the morning, if that’ll set yer mind at rest,’ she said, patting her bump. ‘This one’s in no hurry to come, I tell you. It’s a lazy lump and doesn’t kick much.’

There was no answering that one since they had no telephone and it was their usual way of communicating when someone left the dale. Pigeon post, they called it.

Messiah
night was the one time she could be assured of a bit of female company, a bit of a crack along the line of altos as they waited for the others to arrive. Hilda Thursby, as she now was, and Lorna would both be there. It was a combined choir of all the village chapels in the district, much famed in the area for its rendition of the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’.

Why was it that
Messiah
was never sung, it was always rendered, she mused, like plaster on walls? Every year, Handel’s oratorio made its appearance in the first weeks of December and somewhere throughout Yorkshire there must be a rendering of
Messiah
every night of the week. Most of the singers knew it off by heart for they went from chapel to chapel to help out.

As she sat in the pew waiting for the choirmaster to gather up his baton, the soloists to limber up, she felt the wooden seat digging into her back. She had brought a cushion but that didn’t seem to be doing the trick. They stood to sing, and what a blessed relief. It had been a jostling ride down into Windebank that night and now she was paying for it.

It was one of those stop-start rehearsals that never seem to get going. Everything was wrong: the basses were late with their entry, the sopranos were out of tune, but looking at the ages of some of them it was not surprising. They kept parting company spectacularly with the male parts.

‘Talk about “All we like sheep have gone astray”. Ladies, please, watch my beat,’ shouted the choirmaster, the veins of his temples bursting with exertion. It was not going well but they weren’t the Huddersfield Choral Society, just a bunch of mill workers, farmers’ wives and teachers, quarry-men and a few Land Girls and soldiers padding them out. All were wrapped up against the draughts, and ancient village worthies, willing to have a go, had brought hot-water bottles for their feet.

Somehow they struggled together, sang themselves hoarse, letting the power of the music raise their meagre voices to dizzy heights. The B flats were cracking and there was the odd screech in
the wrong place, but Mirren was putting her heart into the rehearsal with gusto.

In that moment, in that music, she could forget all her worries and let rip, but the ache in her back got no better. She was feeling so uncomfortable by half-time that she went for a stroll across the green just to straighten up. Perhaps she should have stayed at home after all and put her feet up as Ben suggested but she was desperate to get away for a few hours’ change of scene.

Sitting in the chapel only reminded her of that Sunday a year ago and the dancing goose, the Christmas dinner and the look of bemusement on Grandpa Joe’s face. She felt like bursting into tears at the sweet memories of Jack’s kisses but swallowed her nostalgia and made for her pew, trying not to grimace during the great rumbling ‘Amen’ chorus, but a huge contraction gripped her by the belly and made her sit down.

Now that wasn’t wind or the fish pie, that was for real, so she took some deep breaths and thought about the latest craze for mind over matter. I’m going to sing ‘Worthy is the Lamb’ if it kills me, she decided, standing to give the chorus some passion.

By the end of the chorus, she was limp with emotion and sweat, and the sickening realisation that this bairn was not going to wait for the end of the rehearsal to make its appearance. Birth was
supposed to take hours. Was this one just protesting wildly at her singing efforts, preferring to shove its way out rather than hear her screeching?

She whispered to Hilda and they shuffled out, collapsing through the chairs and into the vestry followed by half the married females as rumours spread of something interesting going on, all wanting to give advice and not a midwife among them.

Someone went to the kiosk to phone the doctor while someone else ran for Nelly Fothergill, who had had thirteen children and lived by the green.

‘I don’t think Mr Handel quite expected such spectacular effects from his “Hallelujah”,’ she gasped between contractions, knowing any second something bloody and messy was going to shoot out onto the polished vestry floor.

There was a plaque on the wall to focus on until she saw old Josiah Yewell’s name, one of the trustees, one of the founders of the chapel. Can’t get away from flaming Yewells, she cursed at him. Men, what do they know?

Was he the rascal who had two wives but became so religious in his old age that one of his missus had thrown a pillow down the farm stairs one night, telling him to go and sleep in the blessed chapel if it was more important than her, or was it someone else? She was too tired now to think, getting fuzzy with pain.

She was taken over by strange grunts and primitive noises, not in the least musical, groanings rendered on the floor among the cushions and army blankets and newspapers scattered as the impatient baby shoved its greasy head into the world for its first breath. It was a girl, a dark-haired little beauty.

Nelly made sure that the baby was breathing, and from the stunned choir in the chapel came cheers and clapping, and a stirring rendition of ‘For unto us a child is born’.

Never had Windebank chapel seen such drama since the vicar of St Peter’s had thrown a piss pot out of his window over the chapel band processions on Christmas morning for disturbing his slumbers, singing carols right under his window, annoying his lady wife.

The Irish midwife arrived after it was almost over, tidied the baby up and shoved her in Mirren’s arms. Mirren looked down at the screwed-up purple face. She thought she could see Jack in her daughter but this child looked like all new-born babes, wrinkled and swollen, and she felt numb and exhausted.

‘And what will you be calling this little princess?’ the midwife asked. ‘Handel?’

‘Georgina Fredericka?’ laughed Lorna, who was musical.

Mirren was so exhausted and shocked that she could hardly think.

‘Now as I recall, December the sixth is the feast of Saint Nicholas, so it is. Nicola or Carol?’ said the midwife, determined to have a name at hand.

‘It’ll be another Miriam, won’t it, your ancestor who saved the children of the dale?’ suggested Lizzy Potts, the minister’s wife.

Mirren looked down on the little face, recalling Jack’s wish for something fresh. The name was already decided for a girl. ‘She’s called Sylvia…Sylvia Adeline.’ She was determined to give the child at least one family name too.

What a shock but what joy in this urgent delivery. Their own Christmas baby was born, a sign of hope in a dark world. Mirren would never be alone again with this little companion at her breast to love.

Love flooded over her for this tiny mite born in a rush. It all felt as if she was in a dream as she waited for the ambulance to carry them across the village to stay the night under the midwife’s roof. They mustn’t take any chances with this precious cargo. Cragside could wait. She thought of the messenger waiting in its cage.

Poor Ben and Uncle Tom, she sighed. They were going to get one hell of a surprise when the pigeon landed on their roof tomorrow morning.

Cragside went into raptures at the new arrival and Ben couldn’t take his eyes off the tiny thing in her
bassinet cot, draped in net. Her flannel nightdress and knitted jackets smelled of talc and lavender water. He thought Sylvia was the most perfect thing he’d ever seen. She was a potted version of Mirren except for her dark hair and olive skin, and when her eyes stared up at him they were like jet buttons.

Auntie Florrie couldn’t keep away and decided to decamp down to Cragside for the duration to give the new mother a hand. The arrangement suited them all fine. They took on a young Italian POW called Umberto at Scar Head, who worshipped the baby and sang tenor arias to ‘Bambina Sylvia’ in a loud voice.

New birth was giving hope for the future–new lambs and calves and stock–but Sylvia was different. Ben’d never been close to a baby before and he cradled her nervously at first until he got used to the size of her. Her hands curled like fronds, her lashes grew and when she gave him her first smile, he was her slave.

He was glad to be out of the way at Scar Head when she squealed all night with colic and it was the women who did the floor pacing, but he stood proud as one of her godparents when she was baptised in the chapel, draped in the ancient lace robe that had served the Yewells for over a hundred years.

Sylvia Sowerby tripped off the tongue but how he wished she had a proper Yewell name. He tried
not to watch Mirren nursing the baby in a corner out of sight, her breast full of milk, the baby nuzzling with contentment, and he was envious of Jack all over again.

How mean it was to be relieved that Sylvia’s father was far away and it was him who got the hugs and kisses of the little infant when he carried her around the fields at lambing, who picnicked with her at hay timing and pushed her pram proudly to show her progress. No one called him a girl’s blouse to his face and he knew he was being unusual in making such a fuss of a girl, but he wanted her to love the farm as much as he did, to pick flowers and know their names, to treat stock with respect, to have an eye for good form and line in a beast but all in good time, he mused; Sylvia was only a baby.

He talked to her sometimes as if she was grown up, and when she could crawl on all fours she followed him around like a faithful puppy in trousers cut from Grandpa’s old fustians with patches at the knees.

The activities of the secret Auxiliary Unit began to scale down and there was hope that the invasion was no longer a priority. He could begin to think there would be a future for him, but his rucksack was never far away and they still did exercises in the woods and kept the operational bunker well stocked.

News from the real front was slow but getting better, and they all plotted Jack’s progress in the newspaper from victory at El Alamein in November ’42.

On Sylvia’s first birthday, she stood up and staggered across the hall. ‘Ben…Ben…’ were her first words, her mouth covered in precious cocoa icing from her little cake. Everyone roared with laughter and he blushed.

At Christmas he played Santa and filled her stocking with knitted toys and a wooden horse on a trolley. He had to watch where she was after that, for she followed him around at his chores and he made her a little brush to help.

Mirren seemed happy to let him take Jack’s place. Sometimes he felt guilty that he was getting the pleasure of the baby but at the back of his mind he knew a time of reckoning would come and he’d have to take a back seat once more.

Jack’s unit was bogged down through the fall of Tunisia to the invasion of Italy in the summer of ’43. Still, the news was good and the best of all news was their entry into the South of France. Jack sent postcards from France to Sylvia. Surely the end was near.

Mirren kept pointing to his picture but the little girl had no idea who the strange man in uniform was. ‘Daddy,’ Mirren kept saying, pointing but Sylvia turned one morning and pointed, ‘Daddy Ben!’

He blushed both at the compliment and with embarrassment. There was nothing he’d have liked more but it was never to be. Four years is a long time in the life of a child. The months and seasons had rushed by so quickly. Then the letters stopped after the agony of Arnhem in September ’44 and everyone but Mirren feared the worst.

She stuck out her chin like a warrior and carried on gathering the sheep across the fells, lost in her thoughts. Ben knew better than to challenge her when she was in such a mood.

When the war news was at its grimmest and there was no word from Jack, Mirren took Sylvia up the well-trodden path to World’s End, first in her arms, then on her back in a sling when she grew heavy. Now she could walk unaided, with sturdy little legs in wooden clogs, her body wrapped up in scarves and her head in a woolly hat. Florrie was her devoted slave and kept her supplied with knitted outfits. Her dark hair had grown into natural ringlets, her face round as a ball, with a beaming smile that allowed her to wind Daisy, Ben and the farm hands around her finger.

They would stand on the crest of the ridge and shout into the wind, telling Jack all their news and calling him home.

‘Daddy, home!’ Sylvia mimicked, not understanding as they wandered round the ruins, playing
houses. No one knew of their secret visits and if they did they said nothing. It was none of their business. Mirren had to be strong for all her family now, and she drew that strength from the wind in her face and the rocks beneath her feet. There was comfort in this refuge and she wanted Sylvia to share in the joy of the place. One day she would make a home for them up here, safe from all the troubles of the world. When the war was over this would be their hidy-hole.

11

October 1944

It was the morning of the Harvest Supper and the village was trying to raise a thousand pounds to add to their big War Savings campaign so the hall was being decorated ready for the evening’s concert and everyone was baking treats from their hoarded rations of eggs, butter and treacle, to be auctioned off.