Lily's Story (30 page)

When the third contraction gripped and held,
Lily reached over to pull the bell-cord.

In the blackness of her pain, Lily was aware
that she was surrounded by women. Their faces, their detached,
consoling hands floated intermittently above her: Mrs. Edgeworth
disguising her anguish, Mrs. Crampton too busy to register feeling,
Lucille agog with fright and devotion, Maureen impassively
efficient, Maryanne (the new chambermaid) pale and chattering. Lily
felt like one of those fish Papa used to catch in Brown Creek,
floundering on the grassy bank, its muscles jerking without purpose
or hope. Just after sunrise her body, now totally outside her own
control, gave one last convulsive heave and banished the little
beast forever to the far outports of air, space, time and
consanguinity. The pain was now bearable; she released her grip on
Lucille’s hand. She could feel the midwife’s fingers stretching,
pulling, yielding.

There was a smack like the crack of a rifle,
followed by a stuttering wawl that rose to a series of well-defined
shrieks and settled into the universal enunciation of the newborn
struck by breath, by the fuel of its own blood.

“
It’s a girl,” said Mrs.
Crampton between commands.

“
How wonderful!” said Mrs.
Edgeworth, hiding her disappointment excessively.

“
An’ it come real quick an’
easy, eh Maureen?”

“
Like a squaw’s in a corn
patch,” said the Irish girl, swabbing up blood and
afterbirth.

Moments later as her pain ebbed, the baby –
wiped clean, its umbilical cord neatly knotted – was laid beside
Lily on the linen sheet. On the canopy overhead she noted the
cherubs and the lambs and the crenellated walls in the distance.
Then she gazed across at the child curling in the arch of her
shoulder and breast. The eyes peering back were her own.

You’ve given me great pain, she thought, as
its miniature mouth nudged towards the expectant nipple, but you
needed the pain to separate yourself from me, to put something
between us, to be yourself. Now I can hold you, love you, and give
you your name. And she did, saying the syllables in a low murmur
over and over as sleep closed in, and she did not feel her daughter
being gently extracted from a mother’s grip.

3

When Lily woke it was afternoon. Of what day
she really didn’t know. She was fevered and ached all over. She
reached for the baby. It wasn’t there. Her breasts throbbed, the
milk pulsing inside like the Guernsey when Uncle Chester ‘fell
asleep’ before milking her. In the hazy light allowed by the
curtain she could make out across the room the form of Maureen
seated in the armchair. Her blouse was open with one puffed breast
shining and stiff-nippled and the other hidden behind the head of
the suckling child. The noise of its feeding filled the room.
Maureen’s eyes were slitted, glazed with contentment; her thick
pelvis was rocking back and forth in an unconscious parody of
intercourse.

“
Now don’t you worry,
dear-heart,” Mrs. Edgeworth soothed a few minutes later, her brow
creased with worry. “Everything’s going to be fine. Dr. Hackney
says you’ve got a slight infection. I must say he wasn’t too happy
arriving late and finding Mrs. Crampton on her way out, but he’s
been a dear anyway. He’s left this medicine for you and –” At last
she noticed Lily’s nod towards the baby and its nurse. “Oh,
that
. Dr. Hackney says
with your fever and all, you wouldn’t have enough milk, so Maureen,
who God be thanked has more than enough for her own and yours, is
helping out,
aren’t you,
dear
?”

Maureen responded by changing breasts and
sighing with satisfaction.

“
Believe me, love, it’s all
for the best.”

“
What day is
it?”

“
You’ve been in and out of
a doze for three days now. But you
are
looking real good today. Shall I
get you something to eat?”

“
Could I hold the babe,
afterwards?”

L
ily
was
feeling better. She ate some soup spooned lovingly in by
Lucille. Then her daughter was laid beside her, and when the women
left for a moment, she eased a nipple into the nuzzling lips. She
felt their pull upon her, amazed by the strength and depth of the
need there, the compulsion of bonding it brought. Together they
drifted to their separate sleep.

When she woke the next
morning, feeling ravenous and fully alert, the room was empty.
Moments later the door opened and Mrs. Edgeworth entered in the
wake of a strange man who strode to her bedside and sat down on
Lucille’s chair as if it had been set out there especially for
him.

“
This is Mr.
Clayton Thackeray, M.P.P.,” she said to Lily with a tremor in her
voice. “He’s come all the way from Toronto to see you,
if
you’re feeling up to it.”

“
I’m feelin’
all right,” Lily said, staring at the intruder from the city. He
was formally attired in spats and morning coat and stiff collar;
his face was obsessively whiskered with a pair of hooded eyes like
two chips of anthracite. No amount of girdling could control the
overbite of his belly.

“
I’m glad to
hear it, child,” said the M.P.P. to the opposition benches. “We
have important business to discuss,
vital
business.”

Mrs. Edgeworth closed the door
to mute as best as possible the booming rhetoric of his delivery,
then stood leaning against it and watching.

“
I would like
you to listen carefully to what I have to say. While you may find
parts of it distasteful, I want you to remember that my
communication to you comes from the highest authority in the land,
that the decisions which have been taken have been thoroughly and
humanely considered, and that the best interests of all concerned
will be served by ready obedience.” He paused but no ‘hear! hear!’
was to be heard, not even a heartening assent from the
back-benches.

Lily stared right at him –
conceding nothing, offering nothing. She recognized the official
timbre of the voice and braced herself. When he turned slightly to
Mrs. Edgeworth for support, she was staring at the carpet.

“
Well, then,”
he began again, glaring at the eternal opposition, “I’ve been asked
by the Honourable Charles Gunther Murchison to convey to you the
following information. We have it from the
highest authority
,” and here he glanced at Mrs. Edgeworth and then back at
Lily with an absurd wink, “that the father of your babe, a man of
pre-eminence as you know, wishes to have his child raised in the
most congenial and appropriate circumstances. With the welfare of
the child uppermost in mind, certain investigations, shall we say,
were carried out in Port Sarnia. Alas, the results were not
favourable. I’m sure I do not need to tell you that the financial
and particularly the, ah,
moral
circumstances of
the Ramsbottom household leave much to be desired.”

Lily looked straight ahead.

“
What the
gentleman means, dear-heart, is that your Uncle and Aunt don’t go
to church regularly,” said Mrs. Edgeworth.

“
What the
gentleman means, child, is that the
mother
of the babe’s
father insists that it be raised in the Church of England, a not
unreasonable request, you will agree.”

Only Mrs. Edgeworth, faintly,
agreed.

“
And in this
instance the
grandmother’s
wishes
are paramount, as only you know,” he said to Lily with another wink
that came down with the clank of a coal-shute. “Hence these
decisions have been taken in the best interests of all concerned.
The child will go to Toronto with its nurse to be adopted by a
prominent family there who know
generally
about the
circumstances of its conception and birth and, in spite of such,
have, in the most magnanimous and humanitarian of gestures, offered
to give this poor creature life and hope.”

Lily flinched, and recovered.
In the silence the breeze worried the curtains, a robin in the
garden gargled its breath and ripped a worm from its burrow.

“
It is all for
the best, Lily. I believe that,” said Mrs. Edgeworth near
tears.

“
Indeed so,”
said the M.P.P., as the thunderous clapping of colleagues rang in
his ears. “The wet-nurse is delighted to be relieved of the burden
of her overnumerous family; she is packed and ready to go, as is
the infant itself. Mrs. Edgeworth will have the satisfaction of
knowing that she not only saved the reputation of a wayward girl
but that the illegitimate offspring of the unfortunate union will
also be given a second chance at life. You, my child, will suffer
briefly at the loss of an infant not yet dear to you, but may
return to your own family purified and renewed. As a bonus for any
inconvenience, I am also authorized to tell you that a cash
settlement in compensation has already been deposited in your
Aunt’s account in a Port Sarnia bank.”

Clayton Thackeray sat back
waiting for some response – tears, rage, thanks. He got nothing.
Finally rising, he said to Mrs. Edgeworth, “Not a soul in Port
Sarnia has gained a whiff of this. It’s been handled with the
utmost discretion and concern for the feelings of those involved.
The girl will return with not a single blot upon her
character.”

With that he swept out,
startling the pages and footmen. A moment later Mrs. Edgeworth
returned. Lily had not moved.

“
Oh, Lily. Mr.
Thackeray asked me to find out something important for him. It
seems the lady in Toronto who’s going to adopt the babe wants to
know, just for herself, the last name of the babe’s mother. I’m to
write it down on this card.”

Apparently Lily didn’t
hear.

“
It will all
work out, dear-heart,” Mrs. Edgeworth said, dropping all pretense.
“We’ll work it out together.” She took Lily’s hand, its calluses
now grown smooth, its flesh pink again. “Can you tell me your name?
Not Ramsbottom but the one you had before you were taken
in.”

“
Fairchild,”
Lily said.

Mrs. Edgeworth wrote it
down.

4

I
t was July 4. If she
were home now Lily would be watching the fireworks display across
the River as the Yankees celebrated the seizing of their liberty.
Many people took the ferry across and stood in the grounds of Fort
Gratiot as the skyrockets soared independently starward, the army
band struck up the victory march and the guns that had driven the
British back where they belonged boomed over the non-partisan blue
of the fresh-water sea to the north.

According to all observers Lily
was “recuperating nicely.” She left her room for daily walks about
the garden. She let Lucille chatter on at will. The colour flowed
back into her cheeks. The freckles reappeared with it.

Lily knew this hurt was
permanent, like so many others before it. Somehow it seems safer,
she thought, to stay inside the ache, to let it be continually
numbing, and build whatever remained of her life around it. But, as
before, the sun rose each day with impudent optimism, the elderly
rosebushes stretched and infected the garden with their ungirded
profligacy. The wind sweetened her chamber each morning. She ate
and grew lithe again. At night she held the talisman in her fist,
and waited for a word of its magic to re-enter the world.

In the meantime, she realized
she must write to Aunt Bridie. In fact, Mrs. Edgeworth helped her
the very next afternoon following the baby’s swift departure by
writing down Lily’s words and mailing off the letter immediately.
It said this: “Dear Aunt Bridie: I love you and Uncle very much. I
am fine. The babe was born dead. I will be coming home as soon as I
get strong enough. Soon. Love, Lily.” Despite her careful
monitoring Mrs. Edgeworth detected Lily crying only once: the
evening after the letter was sent. She was left alone.

Lily was now quite
concerned that she had heard nothing back from Aunt Bridie. She
understood why her Aunt had chosen not to write before the birth of
the child, but fully expected some response by now. Two weeks had
passed with no reply. Lily began to feel that something momentous
was about to happen, though she was uncertain about whether it
would be happy or sad. The talisman was strangely silent, as if it
had already spoken on the subject and was surprised that Lily was
not able to interpret the obvious.

What neither
Lily nor the magic stone knew was that Aunt Bridie had actually
sent a reply to Lily’s letter by return mail. In her haste and
anxiety, however, she had addressed the envelope to “Lily
Ramsbot
tom, North Street,
London, C.W.,” omitting “in care of Mrs. Anthony Edgeworth”, and a
summer-time employee of the post office dropped it into the general
delivery slot where it remained for several months.

Just as Lily – on this
beautiful fourth of July – was about to suggest to Mrs. Edgeworth
that she ought to consider returning home in a few days, she had a
slight haemorrhage and was put back to bed with stern warnings.
However, in the late afternoon she persuaded Lucille to help her
into the wicker wheelchair and push her into the garden, where she
sat alone by the rose arbour in the westering sun, letting the
tears flow and dry on her face. What am I doing here? she thought.
I want only to belong to some place, to someone besides myself. I
reached out blindly to the young man inside the Prince’s suit, and
he reached back. It was an act of faith on both sides. What has it
come to? What did it bring? She thought of her lover, guessing at
the special kind of loneliness he too must be suffering. Her heart
went out to him across the distance between them, in the
dream-memory which was the only mutual thing left to them. Beside
her a hummingbird dipped its beak into the nectar of a
tiger-lily.