The Favourite Child (44 page)

It was one morning a few weeks later that Bella found another parcel on her doorstep. This one contained baby clothes and a scribbled, ill-spelled note. The writer stated that word had got about that Bella Ashton took in babies now and had taken on a nursemaid to care for them. It told her that if she searched around she might find something of interest and finished with a stark warning: ‘Don’t leave it too long.’

Bella searched frantically everywhere she could think of and finally ran to the ash pit at the bottom of the shared back yard, pushed open the small wooden door and searched in the filthy, murky gloom within. Only when she heard a thin, mewing cry were her worst fears confirmed. Pinned to the baby’s grubby shawl was a second note. ‘Don’t try to find me cos I don’t want her back. I’ve more’n enough already.’

Bella did not dare to tell Dan. He was only just getting used to the idea of keeping one baby. Two, he would never accept. It was too much to ask of any man. She went instead to her sister-in-law.

Jinnie said she would love to take the new baby, a fine healthy boy, but Edward would never agree. ‘He’s quite certain that we’ll have our own one day, despite everything that happened - you know - with me. I can’t get him to see… I daren’t push him too hard.’ Jinnie blinked back tears as she held this tiny scrap of humanity in her arms, touching its frail cheeks, its tiny mouth hopefully sucking her finger. ‘I would take him. You know I would, only it’d be like forcing Edward to admit there was no hope for us to have our own.’

‘Would you like me to ask him?’

Jinnie gazed up at her out of eyes grown dark with sadness. ‘He’s your brother. You decide.’

Bella did speak to Edward and in the most tactful, gentle way suggested that it might be a good idea for them to take this child, just in case Jinnie couldn’t have any of her own. The idea was greeted with complete and blank refusal. Jinnie would be fine, he told her, she was young yet. There was plenty of time and if Bella had got herself into a mess by having a stream of babies left on her doorstep the fault was entirely her own. She should have taken the first baby to the orphanage as Dan had suggested, and have done with the matter.

‘Two babies is hardly a stream.’

‘I don’t wish to sound harsh, Bella, but someone in this family has to be practical. Your head is constantly in some dreamy, socially do-gooding world. No wonder you and Dan are so often at odds. It drives him to distraction, as it would me in similar circumstances. It really is time you came down to earth and saw things as they really are.’

‘I dare say you’re right,’ Bella dolefully agreed, and took the baby back home since it was time for his feed.

When the third child was left in a shopping basket beside her wash tub, Bella realised that perhaps everyone was right after all, and she was indeed being foolish. If she wasn’t careful she would soon have an orphanage of her own.

It always surprised Bella how quickly word got about. In no time at all, it seemed, Dan was knocking at her door asking if it was true that she’d found another baby.

Sighing with resignation, Bella agreed that it was and let him into the house to see for himself.

He stood fidgeting at the door, cap in hand and nodded at Tilly, happily feeding one baby, while behind her in the crib he could see a hump of bedclothes, indicating a second. He didn’t approach to examine it. Didn’t need to. He’d seen all he wanted to see. Deep in his belly, Dan felt a nub of fear. Matters were escalating out of control and there didn’t seem to be any way to stop them. He had to get through to Bella what she’d got landed with; the years of toil and scrimping ahead, the effect these children had on their own plans. ‘You weren’t thinking of keeping this one an’ all, were you?’

‘No decisions of any sort have been made yet.’

‘I thought I said that I didn’t want any childer for a year or two, let alone take on anyone else’s. That happen I’d think about keeping little Holly but two is stretching it a bit, don’t you reckon?’

‘Three actually.’

Dan’s eyes grew wide with shock. ‘Three? Nay lass. I’m stumped for words. Bloody hell. Who do you reckon I am? Rockefeller?’ It seemed to be the final straw.

Bella glanced at Tilly’s anxious face and suggested that perhaps they should take a walk. At least they could then exchange their views in private. They walked through the court and out onto Liverpool Street, both aware of the curious gaze of neighbours, rumour being rife in these quarters.

‘Don’t worry, I’ve put Mrs Blundell on the job. She’s like a bloodhound and will soon sniff out these two mothers, make no mistake.’

Dan very reasonably pointed out that she’d had little success in finding Holly’s mother.

‘Perhaps, but this time I mean to try harder. I won’t name these children, or allow myself to grow fond of them, I promise. Once their mothers are found and, assuming they are fit and proper persons to have care of a child, which will all have to be gone into of course, the babies will at once be returned.’

‘And what if they aren’t: fit and proper persons?’

Bella frowned. ‘That
is
a problem, yes, I do agree. Or what if they are sick or dying, or simply won’t have the babies back. Or if I never find the mothers at all? What then?’

‘Take them to the orphanage now, love. What else can you do? It’s not your job to find mothers or check them out. Don’t listen to me mam. There’s nowt wrong with Ignatius House, even if one or two of the nuns are a bit sour-faced. They look after children well enough. Some of them even get sent to live in the country. You’d like that for them. Best you hand them over now rather than risk getting too attached.’

As so many times before when someone told Bella what she must do, she perversely wished to do the very opposite.

‘Once we get the Board of Guardians involved, they might take Holly as well though, mightn’t they?’

‘Why shouldn’t they take her? It’d happen be for the best.’

A long silence, with only the click of Dan’s toe caps on the setts, tapping out her thoughts. To lose Holly now seemed unthinkable. Bella loved her as though she were her own child, after nearly three months caring for her, it felt as if she were. ‘I haven’t made any decisions about Holly yet. She’s a living, breathing person with a right to a good life and I shall do my utmost to see that she gets one. I can’t bear to think of her in an institution with no one of her own to love. She’s so bright and full of fun. She’s already sitting up and taking notice. She’ll be walking in no time, I can tell.’

Recognising the maternal pride in her voice, Dan’s heart sank still further. ‘You have to face facts, Bella love. You can’t afford to keep her. Aren’t your hands full enough, with your work at the clinic?’

Bella desperately sought another solution. ‘Well, surely there must be any number of women who would be glad to have such a lovely child for their own.’

They both knew the answer to this one. If it might have been true once, it certainly wasn’t an option now, with the slump biting hard.

Dan pulled her into his arms, eyes bright with desire, hands smoothing her back and shoulders as if he cherished every part of her. ‘You know how fond I am of you, Bella. I love you. I’d do owt for you, you know I would - except I’ve had me fill o’minding childer over the years. When you and me wed, as I hope and pray that we will one day, soon as I’ve saved up enough brass, then I want us to start off proper. I’ve a good job, a regular wage coming in. Let’s hope I can keep it. When times get better, I want to find us a decent house to live in, give us a few years on our own before we start a family and not have them raining down on us year after year as they did with me mam and dad. I’ve seen the toll childer take, how tired and weary me mam gets, despite her cheeriness. Underneath all that banter she’s exhausted, near wore out with worry and hard work. I’ll not risk putting that on you. So, if taking on another woman’s child means we’d have one more mouth to feed, or would have to have one less of us own one day, then I’d say no, we’re not having it. I want to marry you Bella, because I do love you, with all my heart. But not that child.’

Bella was staring at him in a state of disbelief. ‘Are you saying that you’ve changed your mind, that you won’t take Holly, even if I found homes for the other two?’

‘I said I’d think about it. Now I’ve decided. I couldn’t agree to taking on another mouth to feed, not permanent like.’

A small stunned silence. ‘And if I refuse to give her up?’

‘I’d hope that it wouldn’t come to that.’

‘But if it did?’

He took a step back from her, his eyes as full of hurt as a wounded animal. ‘I can’t see me changing my mind.’

A breathless, agonising pause. ‘Well - at least I know where I stand.’

‘Aye. Happen we both do.’

That night, as she and Tilly were both fully employed feeding, changing and bathing babies, Bella explained that first thing the next morning she intended to take all three to the Guardians. Tilly went quite pale and her usually capable hands grew clumsy so that she accidentally pricked the baby she was tending with a nappy pin, making him cry out. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, love. There, there, don’t cry.’ She picked up the baby and began to nurse it, the gaze she fixed upon Bella filled with desperate appeal. ‘You can’t mean that. What, not our Holly an’ all?’

‘Yes. Even Holly. If I don’t, I could be inundated with abandoned babies and … and … there could be other - repercussions.’ She’d thought hard about what Dan had said and saw now that he was right. It would put too much of a strain on them. The Board of Guardians would never allow her, a single woman, to take on a child and she couldn’t force Dan to agree. It was asking too much of any man, and she really couldn’t bear to lose him.

‘It simply won’t do, Tilly. How would I ever manage to feed and keep them all? That’s why their mothers abandoned them in the first place, because they’ve proved to be one child too many to keep. The clinic was supposed to stop all of that but now things seem to be getting worse, not better.’

‘It’s the slump. That’s what it is. Happen the baby’s ma’s will turn up one day, when it’s all over and everyone’s got jobs again.’

‘And if that doesn’t happen?’

‘I don’t know, do I? But you can’t send these lovely children to be brought up by hard hearted nuns.’

‘They aren’t all hard hearted. Some are terribly kind and sweet. Violet is wrong about that. She feels that way because she’s such a strict Methodist.’

‘But she’s right in one respect. What sort of a life is it for a child? To grow up in an orphanage, an institution with no mam or dad. I’ve heard about them places. Thin porridge every morning for yer breakfast, nobody to kiss you good night or give you a bit of a cuddle. Bad as the workhouse. Would you like it?’

Bella could bear to hear no more. However calm and sensible she might appear on the outside, inside she was crying with the pain of it all. The decision was made and there was an end to it. ‘If I don’t take action now then I could lose everything that matters to me, including Dan, and I can’t risk that, Tilly. It’s time to accept the inevitable and face reality.’

She got briskly to her feet and went to lay Holly in her crib, tenderly tucking in the blankets and kissing her sweet smelling cheek. First thing in the morning, the babies would all be taken to the Board of Guardians, come what may.

The woman at the Board of Guardians’ office appeared devastated by the deposit of three babies on her desk, as well she might. It seemed that they had been inundated in recent weeks, either by children they’d had to remove from family care because of near starvation, or their not being able to cope, or else a parent starting to take out their frustration on their nearest and dearest. Sometimes they’d simply been abandoned, as these had. Whatever the cause of the slump, whatever misery and hardships it created; the children were the real victims, the ones who were suffering most.

‘These babies appear to be reasonably well fed and contented,’ she said, gazing upon them as if they were specimens in a laboratory. Holly chose that moment to kick aside her shawl and beam delightedly at the nice lady.