Justice Is a Woman (24 page)

breathless, by the side of the cot she had no recollection of having opened the door.

She did not immediately look into the cot, but peered through the dim light shed by the red-globed night

light standing on a side table and towards where her son lay in his bed near the far wall.

She could just

make out that he was lying on his side, and it appeared that he had one hand, the fingers spread wide,

across his face.

For a matter of seconds she stood perfectly still, her head turned, watching him; then she looked down

on her daughter. Even as she did this her hands were gently lifting the side of the cot out of its sockets

and, as if her body were floating, she glided round to the other side of the cot and, putting her hands

through the rails, gripped the mattress . Then she put her hands to her head to shut out the sound of the soft thud as the child’s body hit the floor. As if in a dream she found herself back in her

room again and standing near the bedroom window. Nellie was still under the elm tree, clasped in the

man’s arms. She stood and watched them for almost two minutes before she turned from

the window.

She felt no sense of guilt; in fact, at this moment she assured herself she had done a very good and brave

thing, she had done what the doctor or Joe or someone should have done before the child had had time

to breathe.

But what about Martin ? Well, no-one would ever blame a child for wanting to play with his sister. She

had heard Nellie telling Jane that Betty had had them on the rug together again today.

No-one would

hold the ‘accident’ against Martin.

Once more she turned to the window. There was now no sign of the girl and the man. She walked into

the sitting-room again and stood looking towards the door. When she heard that girl come on to the

landing she would open it and confront her.

She was amazed at her own coolness. Then her coolness vanished and she put her hands

to her throat

as she heard an ear-splitting scream, and she knew it hadn’t come from the girl but from her son.

In response to Joe’s frantic telephone call Betty arrived back in the house at ten o’clock the next

morning. Lady Ambers, true to her word,

had bought a car and engaged a chauffeur;

and after Betty had directed him towards the kitchen, saying, “Make yourself known; I’ll come and see

you in a moment or two,” she ran up the steps and into the hall.

Ella was coming down the stairs and, on the sight of Betty, she exclaimed, “Oh! miss.

Eeh! it’s been

awful.” Doubtless she would have enjoyed giving Betty first-hand details, but at that moment Joe

emerged from the dining-room. He didn’t speak but moved hastily towards Betty and,

taking her by the

arm, led her into the drawing-room.

“How did it happen?” she asked, as she took off her hat and threw it onto a chair and turned to let him

help her off with her coat.

“Martin,” he said.

“He must have dropped the side of the cot down. How he managed it, the Lord only

knows; he

couldn’t have stood on the crack et for that was still in Nellie’s room. We’ve always kept it out of his

way, you know.”

“Where was Nellie?”

“Having her supper. She said Martin was fast asleep when she left him.

Apparently she was on her way back when she heard his screams from the landing, and

when she got

into the room there he was on the floor, the child in his arms, and screaming as you’ve never heard a

child scream.

He was still screaming when I got home. He must have been trying to lift her from the cot, and when

that wasn’t possible he tugged at the mattress and, of course, she rolled on to the floor.

There was a big

bruise on the side of her face. “

“How long did she live?” Betty sat down now on the edge of the couch, staring at her

hands, which

were gripped together on her knees.

“She went at half-past three.”

“What did you tell the doctor?”

“What could I tell him? There was Nellie’s version. She would have talked anyway. And Elaine had

seen the whole thing. She had rushed in with Nellie and picked up the boy, but she

couldn’t pacify him.

It was as if he were in a nightmare: he fought and struggled and screamed until the doctor gave him a

sedative.”

“How is he now?”

“Strangely/he’s all right this morning. As I said, it was just like a nightmare. When I told him the little girl

had gone to heaven that’s the only thing I could think of to say he didn’t seem at all perturbed, but he

asked for you.

“I want Aunty Bett,” he said. “

“And Elaine?”

“I’m worried in that quarter. She’s quiet; I think she’s blaming herself now for her

attitude to the child.

Last night she seemed to take it calmly, too calmly for normality.”

“It’s likely the shock.”

“Yes, I suppose so. Dr. Pearce said it’s the best thing that could have happened. And perhaps I might

have agreed with him, but it’s the way it’s happened, because even if the picture is

obliterated from

Martin’s mind, which it appears to be now, some ignorant biddy is bound to bring it up in later life: Nellie

will tell her mother, and her mother will

tell the neighbours, and a child will hear it, and that could be it. “

“Oh, you’re exaggerating, Joe. Anyway, it was an accident; it could have happened with any two

children.”

There was silence between them for a moment;

then Betty got to her feet, saying, “I’ll go up and see her.”

Without another word, he opened the door for her, and she went up the stairs to Elaine’s room.

She was surprised to find Elaine dressed. They stared at each other across the width of the room, and it

was Elaine who spoke first.

“I’m not going to say I’m sorry it’s gone,” she said.

“I wouldn’t expect you to.” Betty looked from her sister’s white face to her twitching fingers and she felt

a moment of deep compassion for her. She might say that she wasn’t sorry her child had gone, but

nevertheless she was deeply affected, so she went and put her arms around her, and

immediately she was

amazed at the result, for Elaine, her body trembling from head to foot, burst into a torrent of weeping and

lay against her like a child searching for comfort from its mother.

“There, there. It’s all over. Come on, now; don’t cry like that.” And yet even as she said the words she

was thinking that the outburst was the best thing that could happen to Elaine, it would release the tension

in her.

“Come along, dear, and sit down,” she said, leading her to a chair.

But when she was seated Elaine still clung to Betty, who now pressed her sister’s head into her

waist and stroked her hair and was murmuring gently to her when Elaine burst out,

“Everybody hates

me.”

“Don’t be silly.”

“You do at times.”

“No, I don’t. I have never hated you. Get vexed with you, yes, but I’ve never hated you.”

“Joe does.”

“Oh, Elaine, what’s the matter with you? Joe loves you. Not many men would put up

with what Joe’s

had to go through.”

“There you go.” Elaine pulled herself away from Betty’s embrace and, pressing herself back into the

chair, she whimpered, “Nobody sees my side of it; nobody. Do you know something? I

loathe

everybody in this house, apart from Martin ... and you.”

Betty now stared down at her sister and she thought with not a little pain that the ‘and you’ had been

added more by way of diplomacy than truth. Her voice was low when she answered,

“That’s a pity,

then.”

Now Elaine turned on her, crying, “Oh, the way you talk. You’re so smug; you would

never think any

wrong thoughts or do anything bad, would you? Good old Betty. Everybody says, good

old Betty.

You inveigle yourself into people’s good books. You’re two-faced.”

“Be quiet! Elaine.”

“I’ll not be quiet; this is my house. I’ll speak when I want to speak.

I’ll shout if I like; I’ll scream; I’ll scream at old Mike, and the second master. Master 2. 35

Joe, Master Joe, Master Joe, and that dirty filthy black man and his loose-living wife. Oh, I know what

I know .. “

“Elaine! I’ve told you to be quiet.”

“What is it? What’s the matter?” Joe suddenly burst into the room, and Elaine screamed at him now,

“I’m telling your dear Betty that she’s smug, two-faced, like you, like you all.”

When Joe stepped forward her screaming rose to an ear-splitting pitch:

“Don’t you touch me! Don’t you dare touch me!”

He stopped in his stride, glanced at Betty, then was about to speak when Elaine put her hands to her

breasts, gasped and fell forward over the arm of the chair.

A few minutes later, when they had laid her on the bed, Betty whispered hastily, “I’ll phone the doctor.”

“What is it?”

“It looks like a heart attack.”

An hour later, when the doctor had examined Joe’s wife thoroughly he reported that there was nothing

physically wrong with her. His diagnosis was nervous hysteria.

Nervous hysteria. Joe had never heard of it. What was it?

And so the doctor explained it as merely a nervous symptom which made it appear that

the patient had

had a heart attack. It was often the forerunner of a nervous breakdown, and in this case it wasn’t

surprising, for she’d had two severe shocks

in the past year. He had sedated her for the time being, he said, and he’d call again in the morning. In

the meantime rest and freedom from worry and irritations were the best medicine for her.

Joe accompanied the doctor downstairs and as he opened the front door for him he asked tentatively,

“How long will this state last, do you think, doctor; I mean, the hysteria?”

The doctor rubbed his chin, then glanced back over his shoulder and up the stairs as he said, “Oh, the

hysteria will only occur at intervals, and it all depends if the state she’s in now develops into a

breakdown. Then ... well, six months, a year’ he now looked straight into Joe’s eyes ‘two, three, who

can say ? It all depends on the severity and how far the patient is able to help herself to work out of it.

But anyway, it’s early days yet. But I’ll know more tomorrow after I have had a talk with her.”

He was on the top step when he turned to Joe again and said, “She’s inclined to be

pampered, isn’t

she?” and without waiting for any reply to this he ended, “Well, if she’s in for a

breakdown I’d cut down

on that; a little astringency might be more beneficial for her. See you tomorrow.”

Joe watched him get into his car before he closed the front door, and then he kept his hand on the knob

and stared at the grained wood as he said the words to himself: Nervous hysteria.

Breakdown. He had

heard of people having breakdowns but had never come into contact with them, and

people connected

with them didn’t talk about them. It seemed to be a kind of disgrace: people didn’t treat it as an

2-37

ordinary illness but more as a stigma. Poor Elaine.

He turned slowly from the door and made his way towards the stairs.

And he had to be astringent with her. Well, he would have thought that was the last thing a doctor

would advise for anyone in her condition.

Was he at fault? Yes, yes, he supposed he was:

if she had never been made to bear the children she would never have been like this. Of course he was

at fault. Well, he’d have to make it up to her. But certainly not with any astringent treatment; what she

needed now was to be loved, cared for; and that’s the treatment she would get. Between them he and

Betty would bring her back to health again, and it wouldn’t take years; no, not if he had anything to do

with it.

He bounded up the stairs now as if, with his love for her, he was about to create a

miracle.

Joe achieved what he had set out to do in a surprisingly short time.

Within six months of her attack Elaine appeared to be back to normal.

As his father unfeelingly put it: if soft-soaping and coddling had done the trick then she couldn’t have

been all that bad in the first place.

Joe had been more than a little annoyed by his father’s attitude to Elaine’s condition from the very

beginning: women didn’t have breakdowns in his day. They hadn’t time to have

breakdowns in his day;

in his day women had to work for their keep. Just look at the life his own mother had endured without

resorting to a breakdown.

At one point Joe retaliated by saying, “Then why didn’t you choose a pack-horse for your wife? From

what I remember, my mother didn’t even know what a tea towel was used for. And

looking back, I

can’t recall hearing you telling her to knuckle under, or to get off her lazy backside, or other such

colloquial terms to remind her of her duties.”

To this Mike had bawled, “Get the hell out of it afore I knock you down the stairs!” and from his

expression he had looked both capable of and intent upon carrying out his threat.

2. 39

Yet such had been Elaine’s condition at the beginning of her illness that almost four months passed

before Betty was able to have a break and spend a week-end with Lady Ambers. But now

it had been

arranged that she should take a long week-end once a month, and during the time she was away Joe

would make it his business to stay almost continually by Elaine’s side.

Even before the beginning of her breakdown he had for some time slept in the dressingroom. The fact