The Flood-Tide (31 page)

‘She's lovely. What shall we call her?'

‘I hadn't begun to think of names. I thought I had two weeks more at least.'

‘I rather like the idea of Lucy,' Allen said. Jemima thought a moment, and then nodded.

‘Lucy it shall be. I'm sorry about your enclosure meeting.'

‘Oh, that doesn't matter. It can wait a few more weeks. I'm sorry about the Hallowe'en feast.'

‘But you will go on with it all the same? I don't want Edward to be disappointed. And after my hard work to persuade Flora to come down—'

‘Oh, we'll go on with it, as you insist, but I'm sorry you won't be there.'

‘I shall probably be able to hear the fun, if you leave the long gallery doors open.’

He stooped to kiss her. 'I will. And I'll come in to see you every quarter of an hour.’

She kissed him back. 'I love you,' she said.

‘I love you, too. I'll leave you to sleep now.'

‘Yes. Don't forget to talk to Alison, though, about the wet nurse. I want her to come up here to the house. I don't want Lucy sent away to suck.’

*

Madeleine gave birth to a son in October 1778, and Henri, in an effort to make amends for last time, was in the house at the time she went into labour. He left for an hour or two to get something to eat when the midwife told him it would be a long job, and when he came back he found Madeleine's parents in the house. It was an embarrassing meeting with Monsieur Homard - Madame Homard was upstairs in the bedchamber. The old man grew scarlet in the face, hemmed a good deal, walked about the room with his hands behind his back, and then came up to Henri with the evident intention of tackling him man to man.

‘Now, sir,' he began.

Henri interrupted him smoothly with a bow, and said, ‘I am glad to give you meeting, sir. Our differences, I hope, are now at an end. You must forgive me for stealing your daughter away in the beginning, but it was my love for her that prompted it. And now we have given you a fine grandchild - two grandchildren very soon. Will you give me your hand, sir?’

Homard opened and shut his mouth once or twice as he tried to find the fault in Henri's reasoning. Then he coughed again, shook hands awkwardly, gave a little bow, and said, 'Well sir, well sir, I daresay you are right, sir. Ahem. A thirsty business this, don't you think? Women's business, eh? What do you say we slip out round the corner for a glass of brandy, until it's all over?’

Henri suppressed a smile of triumph and said, 'I think I had better stay, for she must be near her time now. But don't let me keep you.'

‘Oh, no, no, no,' Homard said hastily, 'I'll stay, by all means. I only thought - we'll both stay, of course.’

But in the end he had to go to open his café, for the labour went on, hour after hour. Henri grew restless, then bored, then alarmed, and quite forgot supper. It was dark, and he had been sitting in the fireglow without noticing it for a long time, when Madame Homard came downstairs with a candle.

‘Oh, it's you,' she said but was evidently too weary to feel much resentment.

‘Your husband went away to his business. How is she? Is the baby born yet?'

‘It's a boy child, but very weak. I do not know if it will live.’

That explained why he had not heard it cry. 'And Madeleine?' he asked.

‘She has had a very hard time of it,' Madame Homard answered. 'I have come down to get her some wine. Have you any in the house?'

‘Yes - I'll get it at once. Can I go and see her?' Madame Homard looked doubtful, but having won over the father, Henri thought he knew how to fix the mother. 'I have been so worried about her,' he said. 'Let me take up the wine to her. I must see her, to ease my mind.'

‘Very well,' she said at last, her expression not softening in the least. 'But you had better not stay long.’

Henri fetched the wine and climbed the stairs in the dark, and pushed open the bedroom door cautiously. The candlelight left dark shadowy places in the corners and on the sloping ceiling. The midwife was standing by the bed feeling Madeleine's pulse. The smell in the room was dreadful, like a butcher's shop, he thought, but there was, thank God, nothing bad to be seen. The bedsheets were clean, Madeleine had been tidied up, and there was a well-swaddled bundle in the little crib in the corner.

‘I've brought the wine,' he said, almost in a whisper, and walked over to the bed. The midwife took the bottle and glass without comment, and Henri leaned over the bed, his face fixed in a tender smile. 'Madeleine,' he said.

But at once all his play-acting was stripped away from him when he saw how ill she really was. She opened her eyes and looked at him, but he could see she was too exhausted even to smile. Her skin had a cheesy pallor, her eyes seemed sunken in her face. He had never seen anyone look so utterly done in.

‘Madeleine,' he said again, in quite a different voice. ‘Henri,' she said, her lips hardly moving. 'I am so glad you came.'

‘I have been below all the time. I have been so worried about you,' he said, and now that he really was worried, he felt it had been so all the time. 'Are you all right?'

‘She has lost a lot of blood,' the midwife said. 'Here, Madame, you must have some wine. It will give you strength.'

‘I'll do it,' he said, taking the glass from her. It took him a moment to work out how to lift her head and support it and tilt the glass, but he managed it neatly.

‘Thank you,' she whispered as he eased her head onto the pillow again. 'I shall be better by and by, when I have slept.’

He took her hand and pressed it between his, and there was no answering pressure. It was limp and cold, like a corpse's.

‘You must rest and get well, and not worry about anything,' he said.

‘Have you seen the baby?' she said, trying to raise her head.

The midwife said sharply, 'Don't you move, Madame. You must not move. I'll bring the baby.’

Henri stared unwillingly at the tiny crumpled face revealed when the midwife drew back the shawl. It seemed hardly human. So much effort, for so little. But it was a boy, his son. He tried to feel pleased about it.

‘A boy,' Madeleine said, echoing his thoughts.

‘Yes,' he said, and roused himself to make an effort. ‘He's very small.' Her lips twitched, acknowledging the reminder of the last time. 'And very red.'

‘Give her some more wine,' the midwife ordered, taking the baby away again.

‘Henri—' Madeleine said, when he laid her down again, ‘the baby—'

‘He's lovely, my darling,' Henri said dutifully. ‘He must be christened,' she said.

She looked at him searchingly, and he understood what she was saying. That mute and wizened little creature, too weak even to cry, might not have the strength to cling to life. He must be christened as a matter of urgency, lest he die unbaptized and go into limbo for ever.

‘I'll see to it,' he said.

‘Now,' she said.

‘Yes,' he said. 'I'll go at once.’

She closed her eyes with relief, and a tear - only one, all she had strength for - caught the light under her eyelashes.

‘I'm sorry, Henri,' she whispered, and he pressed her hand tighter, not knowing what she was sorry for, too afraid to ask.

‘Madeleine, I love you. Rest, my darling, get well,' he said, and it sounded like a plea.

The priest came and christened the baby that evening -Henri Jean Clement Maria. He did not move or cry when the water touched his face, and Henri, in giving him so many and such resounding names was acknowledging that they might be all the child would ever have of life. Madeleine seemed easier when it had been done, and sank into a deep sleep, which her mother said was the best healer. She remained in the house that night, and Henri made up a bed for her on the sofa downstairs. He sat in a chair by the bedside, dozing sometimes, waking with a start, wondering where he was. Early in the morning he woke, chilled to the bone, stiff and confused, to find Madame Homard beside him.

‘Go and take my bed,' she said. 'I will watch with her until morning. You have done what you should.’

It was the kindest thing anyone had ever said to him.

In a day or two Madeleine seemed better. She was still very weak, and had little appetite, but she was cheerful and rational, and Henri, who sat beside her bed for most of each day, held her hand and talked to her and felt happier about her. The baby, on the other hand, had not improved. Madame Homard had decreed that Madeleine must not suckle it herself, for it would drain her strength, and she had taken it away and found a wet-nurse for it, but it fed poorly, and still slept too much and cried not enough. Madeleine, to Henri's surprise, did not object to it being taken away, and afterwards never asked after it. He thought sometimes that she had forgotten she had given birth at all, and though at first he was relieved that she was spared the distress he had expected for her, after a while he began to worry that it was not right.

She did not ask after Henriette-Louise, either. The child had been taken to a neighbour when her mother began labour, and was still there, being cared for and fed. Henri asked Madeleine on the third day if she wished the little girl to be brought to her, but she only looked blank, and said no.

On the fifth day Madeleine was feverish and weak, and the midwife came back to examine her, shook her head and muttered, and gave her a dose. All day the fever mounted, but in the evening it went down again, and Henri, who had been alarmed, congratulated the midwife on her medicines.

‘Don't you know, sir?' the midwife asked, though less sharply than she might have done five days ago, for she was impressed by his devotion. 'That's the way it goes - up and down.'

‘The way what goes?' Henri asked, dry-mouthed.

‘The childbed fever,' she said, shaking her head again in pity at his ignorance. 'It comes and goes, sometimes for weeks. Sometimes they cry out, delirious, and don't know where they are. Other times they are as rational as you or me.'

‘And - in the end?' he hardly dared ask.

‘Some survive, some don't,' she said abruptly. 'One can only pray. Madame is a good, strong, healthy lady. One must pray she fights it off.’

Henri went back into the room a little later, with a bowl of soup, sent over from the neighbour's house, and Madeleine, propped up on her pillows, met his eye, and gave a small, rueful smile.

‘I'm quite hungry now, Henri,' she said. 'I will—'

‘Yes, my darling?' he asked her, controlling his voice.

‘I will try,' she said. He stared, wondering.
'Yes,
I know. I have seen it before. I will try and live, Henri, for your sake, and the children. Give me the soup.'

‘Oh Madeleine,' he said.

‘No, hush, it's all right,' she said, and it did not seem odd that she should comfort him.

For a week she tried, and he watched helplessly as she struggled to win the battle with her sickness, losing a little ground every day. As the midwife had said, at times, when the fever was high, she raved in delirium, and he held her, trying to restrain her from wasting her strength in her wild struggles. Sometimes she would lie, half-conscious, tossing and muttering, unaware of him or her surroundings. But at other times she would wake, clear-eyed though weak, and would talk rationally to him, of the future, of being well, making plans for Henriette Louise. Of the boy baby she never spoke, and it was as well, for he gave up his unequal struggle on the sixth day and died as silently as he had been born.

On the fourteenth day she lay quietly, panting like a spent animal, holding his hand, her face flushed with fever, but her mind clear. Henri was talking to her, unaware of what he was saying, merely trying to keep her with him, awake and aware. Suddenly she gripped his hand tightly, as if a spasm of pain had seized her.

‘What is it?' he asked anxiously.

‘Henri,' she said, 'Henri,' and he saw that she was trying to make sure of his attention.

‘Yes, I am here, I am listening.'

‘Henri, you must get a priest. Bring me a priest. I want - him - to come while I still know it.'

‘Oh, my darling—'

‘It will not be long now.
Please,
Henri.’

Yes -
yes - if it is what you want - but—'

‘One more thing.' She still held his hand, so tightly that it hurt him, and he was amazed that she could have so much strength left. It was the mark of her determination.

‘Anything. What is it?' She turned her head painfully to look at him, held him with her gaze.

‘When he comes - please - will you ask him to marry us?’

He was utterly dumbfounded, and could find no words to answer her. She nodded slowly.

‘Oh yes, I knew,' she said, with the faintest ghost of her old rueful smile. 'I knew your servant, you see. I had seen him waiting for you, outside the café.'

‘But then, why did you—?' he asked in astonishment. She closed her eyes for a moment, and there was pain in her face.

‘I wanted you too. I loved you, and I was weak. But now—' the eyes opened again, 'please, I beg you, let me die your true wife. I will not long be a burden to you. Please, for my sake, and the child's.’