Time Shall Reap (17 page)

‘But that’s dear stuff, isn’t it, and I ...’

‘We’ll manage,’ Mrs Watson butted in, ‘I’ll buy a tin when I get your tonic at Davidson and Kay’s this afternoon.’

The black bag was snapped shut. ‘Just one more thing. Your breasts will become full and sore when you stop feeding, but Mrs Watson can probably tell you what to do about that.’

Helen nodded. ‘I think I’ve still got the binder I’d to wear when I weaned Donald.’

Elspeth was blushing at his casual reference to the taboo subject of a woman’s breasts, and he laughed at her con-fusion. ‘You’ll be as fit as a fiddle in a few days, I promise.’

‘But what about paying you, doctor?’

‘Don’t insult me by talking about paying. I’m here as an interested party – a friend. I couldn’t allow you to make yourself ill.’

‘Oh, Doctor Robb, thank you very much.’

‘No thanks are necessary. By the way, my wife would like to see you and your offspring as soon as you’re able to walk down the hill, but remember – take it easy when you’re coming back up.’ He turned to the woman hovering in the doorway. ‘I see you’re pregnant, too. I hope you’re looking after yourself properly?’

‘Oh, aye, I’m fine, and it’s not my first. My Donald’s near nineteen now. He’s in the Gordons.’

‘You’re not so young this time, so don’t hesitate to send for me ... unless you’d prefer your own doctor to attend you?’

‘I haven’t got a doctor. I went to one a while back, and it was him that said I was expecting, but I didna ken him from Adam, nor him me.’

‘Remember what I’ve said, then. Good morning.’ Alex Robb breezed out, leaving the two women looking at each other.

‘You’ve got yourself a private physician by the looks o’ it, Elspeth, and me, as well.’ Mrs Watson had been impressed by the man’s efficiency.

‘He said to go and see Mrs Robb at King’s Gate when I’m able to walk down the hill. What did he mean? What hill?’

‘Oh, I’d forgot you’ve never been out since you came here. You ken the bit tarred road in front o’ our tenement? Well, if you’d went right on, you’d have seen it’s just a rough track after that, but it goes on to King’s Gate.’

‘Is that the country road I’ve seen from my window? Wi’ the dykes at each side?’

‘Aye, that’s it, for there’s no houses at this end o’ it, but at the other end there’s a lot o’ big houses – there’s solicitors and accountants and bankers ... and doctors. So you’ll not have that far to go, but it’s a steep hill, and that’s why he said to take it easy. Still, once I get your tonic, you’ll be jumping about like a two-year-old.’

The doctor’s visit itself was a tonic to the girl, and with the help of the iron mixture, and the dried milk, she was up in three days, rather shaky, but determined to improve. In another week, she was perfectly fit, and doing the shopping and most of the housework for her landlady, who was easily tired now. ‘I just can’t think what’s come over me, for I was never like this wi’ Donald,’ she grumbled.

‘It’s like Doctor Robb said, you’re not so young now.’

Helen grinned, ruefully. ‘I suppose that’s it.’

But she continued to feel exhausted, and complained of vague pains, until Elspeth decided to ask Dr Robb to call. She knew that Mrs Watson would object, and made the excuse that she would have to go the shop near the quarry for salt. It was a tiny shop, but the only shop in the vicinity, and she had been there several times since her baby had been born, but she had no intention of going there now. Leaving the infant asleep in the pram, she ran in the opposite direction, up on to King’s Gate and all the way down the hill. Neither the doctor nor his wife was at home, but she left a message with their maid, then hurried back to Quarry Street.

Pale and perspiring, Mrs Watson said, ‘Oh, I’m right pleased you’re back. I feel kind o’ queer and I’ve got terrible pains.’

Elspeth confessed breathlessly. ‘I’ve been to the doctor’s and the maid said she’ll tell him when he comes back.’

‘Oh, you shouldna have done that. He’ll maybe think I’m making a fuss for nothing.’

‘He’ll not think it’s a fuss.’ Elspeth wrung out a cloth in tepid water to sponge her landlady’s face, told her that she should be in bed, then filled a stone hot water bottle and slipped it under the blankets before she lumbered in.

‘Aye, that’s better,’ Mrs Watson gasped, then her face contorted again. ‘You ken, Elspeth, it’s just like labour pains, but the bairn’s not due for another month.’

‘Och, you’ve maybe miscounted.’

‘No, no, I’m certain sure.’ She lay back against the pillows wearily, while Elspeth anxiously wondered if she should risk going for the midwife.

At each of the woman’s spasms, the girl glanced at the wag-at-the-wa’ clock, and soon realized that the pains were coming every three minutes. She prayed that the doctor wouldn’t be long, for she couldn’t leave Mrs Watson now.

She had boiled several pans of water on the stove, and had them sitting at the side of the fire, before Alex Robb arrived. Wasting no time in talk, he took off his jacket and rolled up his shirt sleeves, and, as he washed his hands in the near-boiling water Elspeth had made ready in a basin, he asked her, ‘Have you such a thing as a rubber sheet?’

It had been used at the time of her own accouchement, so she knew where it was. ‘It’s in the lobby press.’

Handing it to him, she remembered that she hadn’t checked on John for some time. Poor little mite, he’d been neglected in all this commotion. When she looked in the pram, her son was still sleeping peacefully, but she decided to make up his bottle now, in case there was no time later. When it was ready, she left it sitting in a small saucepan of water by the fire then went to the bedside.

While she carried out Alex Robb’s terse instructions, she shut her ears to the harrowing moans and screams coming from the woman, and would have ignored her own child’s crying if the doctor hadn’t waved her away. ‘Attend to your baby!’

She sat down with her infant on her knee, his tiny mouth fixing hungrily round the teat of the bottle, but in a moment Alex Robb turned round. ‘It’s a girl, but I’m afraid it’s been dead for some weeks,’ he said sadly, then bent to his task again.

Elspeth was shocked. Poor Mrs Watson, to go through all that for nothing. Replacing her son in the pram, she put the kettle on to boil again in order to have a cup of tea ready for the doctor when he had washed his hands, and hot tears pricked her eyes as it crossed her mind that she was doing what her mother would have done in the circumstances.

‘There’s no need for the birth to be registered,’ the man observed, as he crossed to the sink after making a bundle of everything to be disposed. ‘The foetus had not developed far enough. Now, Mrs Watson may be very distressed, so you will have to be careful what you say to her.’

‘Is she all right?’

‘She has had a very bad time, so it’s good that she’s got you here to look after her.’

‘She did the same for me.’

When he left, after refusing the tea she offered, Elspeth approached the bed, but her landlady was asleep, and looked so white that the girl decided it would be best to leave her until she woke. Changing the bed could wait.

Little John was ready for his next feed before the faint voice said, ‘Elspeth?’

She carried the infant to the bed. ‘Would you like a cup of tea now, Mrs Watson?’

‘I’m thinking you could call me Helen now, for we’ve been through an awful lot together, me and you. Give me the bairn, for I’ll need to feed it.’ To Elspeth’s horror, she opened the buttons on her nightdress then held out her arms.

‘But ... but ...’ the girl stuttered, remembering that the doctor had told her to be careful what she said. Obviously the woman didn’t remember that her child had been dead, and she couldn’t upset her now. ‘You’re maybe not fit to be feeding him yet. I can give him a bottle.’

‘Give him a bottle? When my breasts are full o’ milk?’

Very reluctantly, Elspeth handed her baby over, and felt a great tightness in her chest when the woman guided his mouth to her nipple. It wouldn’t do him any harm, she assured herself. It was like in the old days, when women who couldn’t suckle their infants had wet-nurses to do it for them. And surely, by tomorrow, when Helen was back to normal again, she would remember everything.

The kitchen bed had been changed and everything was in place by the time Jimmy came home, but he was alarmed to see his wife in bed. ‘What’s wrong, lass?’

‘Nothing’s wrong. We’ve got another son. He come early.’

Elspeth’s horrified gasp made him look at her in surprise, and when she shook her head vigorously at him, he knew that something was not right. Before he turned away from his wife, however, he took her hand. ‘How are you, Helen?’

‘I’m fine, though I maybe wouldna be, if it hadna been for Doctor Robb.’

‘Thank God he was here, then.’ Jimmy straightened up, and when Elspeth motioned to him, he followed her into the lobby. ‘Is there something I should ken?’ he demanded. ‘Is Helen worse than she’s letting on?’

‘Oh, Jimmy,’ Elspeth gulped, ‘I’m sure she’s lost her senses. Her baby was dead-born, a little girl, but when she wakened up, she saw John and she thought he was hers. She even made me let her feed him, and the doctor said I’d to watch what I said to her, for she’d had a hard time ... oh, God, what’ll I do?’

A frown on his lined face, Jimmy drew in his lips. ‘Oh, my poor Helen. She was built up on having a wee bairn of her own again ... could you not just play along wi’ her for a while, Elspeth? Just till she comes to herself?’

‘I ... I suppose so.’ Elspeth’s feet trailed as she returned to the kitchen. She would ‘play along’ for a wee while, but she couldn’t let it run on too long.

The following morning, when Helen asked to hold baby John to let Elspeth get on with the washing, the girl was quite pleased, but she kept looking across to the bed to make sure that her landlady was not over-tiring herself. Almost an hour later, when she came in from hanging the sheets out to dry in the back green and saw that the woman was suckling the infant again, she couldn’t stop herself shouting, ‘Helen! What do you think you’re doing?’

‘I’m just feeding my dear lambie. What’s the sense in having to buy Glaxo when I’ve plenty milk?’

‘But ... but the doctor tell’t me to bind you.’

‘I took it off. Stop fussing, lass, my milk’s good.’

Remembering how expensive the tins of Glaxo were, and how quickly they went down, Elspeth said nothing more. Breast milk was far better for a baby anyway, she told herself, trying to still the tremor of fear that ran through her. So Helen was allowed to keep feeding baby John, Jimmy’s brows coming down the first time he saw her at it. ‘I some think you shouldna be doing that, lass,’ he told his wife, who just laughed. ‘Donald thrived on my milk.’

Elspeth grew more and more dismayed because she was never allowed to do anything for her son except wash his clothes and napkins, so when she remembered the invitation to King’s Gate, she wondered if the doctor’s wife could advise her on how to deal with her landlady. ‘I think I’ll take John out in the pram for a wee while,’ she said, one afternoon. ‘I could go and let Mrs Robb see him.’

The woman in the bed smiled. ‘I think you’re as proud o’ him as me.’

‘Aye,’ the girl said, slowly, ‘I am proud o’ him.’

When the maid showed Elspeth in, Ann Robb fussed for a few minutes over the chubby woollen bundle, then said, ‘I’m sorry I have to rush, because I’m due at a meeting at three, but I’d love to see you and your son again.’

Walking back up the hill, Elspeth knew that she had lost the opportunity of finding out how to surmount her problem. Mrs Robb would never understand how she could let it run on, when she should have corrected Helen from the first time she suspected what was happening. She had stood up to Janet Bain, but this was different. Janet was a wicked, vile-minded woman, and Helen was a friend, a friend whose mind had been turned by the loss of a longed-for child. She wasn’t wicked, she was to be pitied, and shielded until she could face reality again.

In a little over two weeks, Helen was bustling around the small flat, cheery as ever, but Elspeth was troubled about the wisdom of staying on in Quarry Street when the woman had taken possession of her child. Determined to make a stand at last, she broached the subject one rainy afternoon. ‘I think I should look for other lodgings, Helen. We’re crowded now, wi’ the pram, and all. I could take a live-in job, somewhere they wouldn’t object to John.’

Helen looked aghast. ‘What’s John got to do wi’ it?’

‘Well, he’s ... I thought ...’ Elspeth was floundering now, and felt that it was still too soon to confront her landlady with the brutal truth.

Looking at her with some pity, Helen said, ‘I ken you think the world o’ him, but he’s my little man, so you should just take a day job, and you’d be able to see him when you come home every night. Besides, I’m not wanting to lose you.’

Longing to say that he wasn’t
her
little man, Elspeth could not bring herself to upset the woman who had befriended her in her hour of need. Instead, she said, ‘I’ll need to start paying for my keep, then. I’ve nothing left now except the money you’ll not let me touch, and I can’t expect you to go on paying for everything.’

‘You’ve worked for your keep, lass. I wouldna have managed after John was born without you looking after me, and the house ... and Jimmy.’

Elspeth felt a moment’s panic. Helen really did believe that she had given birth to John. How could she have forgotten the tiny blue infant that had come out of her womb ... lifeless? But maybe it was her way of getting over her tragedy. Maybe she would accept it come time and realize that John didn’t belong to her ... she must realize. ‘You’re back on your feet now, though,’ the girl said, gently, ‘and you don’t need me to look after you.’

‘I can see you’re determined to get a job, and maybe it’s just as well. There’s not much room for the two of us in this kitchen all day.’

Elspeth sighed, but made one last attempt to claim her son. ‘Would you be prepared to look after John when I’m out working?’

‘Who else would look after him?’

‘Will Jimmy not mind?’