Whisper on the Wind (70 page)

‘It’s a fine, thankful sight, that final load,’ Mat smiled. ‘Come on, everybody. Throw up your last sheaf!’

And everyone, even Grace who had come to see the end of the harvest, just as she had been there to watch the first cut, took a pitchfork and, laughing, threw her sheaf high to Jonty, standing precariously on top of the load.

‘And there goes mine!’ Roz sent her sheaf upwards. She knew how to handle a weighty sheaf on the end of a long fork; unlike Kath whose arms had ached something awful until she’d got the hang of it. ‘And another, for good luck!’

The pain hit her low in her back without warning, and she winced, silently. Stupid of her, really, to have thrown the sheaf with such panache. She had been careful all through the harvest, wearing loose-fitting dungarees to hide her swelling stomach and breasts. Soon, when the weather grew colder, a thick, too-large sweater and jacket would take her, disguised, into the seventh month of her pregnancy – by which time the whole village would know. But this far she had been lucky. The heavy work of the harvest had not been the problem she had feared, for Jonty and Kath had watched her like hawks for any signs of stress, and contrived to be there when there was lifting to do. She felt so well, now, with the early nausea long forgotten, and her appetite back.

‘Lost your appetite and found a donkey’s,’ Kath had taken to complaining. ‘The baby book says you aren’t supposed to eat for two!’

Roz rubbed away the pain in her back and laid aside her fork. She would enjoy the celebration supper at Home Farm, tonight. Not one of Grace’s grander feasts – the rationing of food had seen to that – but a young cock had already disappeared from the farmyard and there would be a piece of cold, boiled bacon, Grace said, and clove-scented apple pie. Afterwards, they would toast the harvest with a glass of carefully-hoarded parsnip wine. Made at the start of the war, it had been, just before sugar was rationed, and no more home-made wine till sugar was free for all to buy, more was the pity.

There would be seven of them around Grace’s table, counting Polly and Arnie, Roz considered as she stood beside the gate for Duke’s triumphant passing. No Gran, though, she yearned, and no Paul. Paul, my love …

‘I’m absolutely shattered!’ Kath sank into the kitchen rocking chair. ‘Who’s first for the bathroom?’

She looked at her hands, calloused and scratched, with dispassion. Every bone in her body ached; every muscle felt as if it had been pulled torturously on the rack. The thin red weals left by the barley horns on her arms would take ages to heal and, what was more, they hurt. It would all have been so much easier had Marco been there; but Marco would be working on some other farmer’s corn harvest, in some other place. Scotland, even, or Devon.

‘You go first, Kath. I think Grace would like it if we smartened ourselves up – just this once. I’ll have a look through my dresses – see if there’s one that doesn’t fit too tightly.’

‘You’re all right, Roz? Sure you’re not too tired to go?’

‘Sure. And Sprog is ravenous. I’m all right, Kath. Only a bit of backache and the baby book said I might have that.’

‘Mm.’ Kath had great faith in the baby book. ‘Why don’t you put your feet up till I’m finished – have a rest?’

Roz smiled. Fuss, fuss, fuss. But Sprog was important to Kath, too. And Kath would always be around, now. That divorce was just about the best thing that could happen, she thought, with never a scrap of remorse.

The pain came again, stabbing, as she began to undress and she cried out in surprise. A vicious pain, starting in the small of her back, grinding through to her abdomen.

‘Kath?’ she called over the noise of the running taps. ‘I – I think something’s the matter. When I threw up that second sheaf, I felt one then.’

‘Felt what? Where?’ Kath came at once, a strange crawling under her skin. ‘And what’s
this
?’ She picked up a piece of discarded underwear from the floor. ‘Roz – didn’t you know? When did
this
start? Didn’t you feel it?’ There was no mistaking it. Roz had started to bleed.

‘Oh,
no
! I didn’t realize, Kath – I
didn’t
!’

‘That pain – what was it like?’

‘It came suddenly. I thought – in the field – that it was because I’d overreached myself, sort of. But it happened again, just now; ended with a sort of grind.’

‘What do you mean –
grind
?’ Fear sharpened Kath’s voice.

‘Achy. Like just before the curse starts.’

‘Like a period pain?’

‘Yes, it was. But don’t fuss, Kath?’ She was afraid, now. ‘Maybe I did it when I threw the sheaf up.’

‘And maybe you didn’t! Look – get into bed, and stay there. Don’t get up. Just try to be calm. It’s maybe nothing at all, but I’m going to ring the doctor. Won’t be a minute,’ she called as she clattered down the stairs.

‘Please,
please,
’ she pleaded silently as she stood, fingers drumming on the dresser top. ‘I’ll never, ever, ask you for anything again if you let it be all right, God. Don’t let anything be happening to the baby? And God – why doesn’t he answer the phone?’

The doctor inclined his head in the direction of the bedroom door and Kath followed him out, and downstairs.

‘Do you have a car, here?’

‘Afraid we don’t. Nor at Home Farm – only tractors.’

‘Pity. I want her admitted right away, and I’ve just sent the Helpsley ambulance to York with an accident case.’

‘She isn’t going to lose the baby?’ Sudden fear slapped hard at the pit of Kath’s stomach.

‘Not if I can help it, but I want her in hospital –
now.
Pack her a few things, will you? I’ll take her in myself.’

‘Yes. Of course.’ Why was she shaking so? And why, when she had had just about as much as she could take, was this happening to Roz? ‘Shall I come with you?’

‘No, thanks. There’d be no point. Just get her things into a case, will you, then ring the surgery if you don’t mind; tell them where I am.’

He carried Roz carefully down the stairs. Her eyes were wide with fear; her face paper white.

Kath held open the car door. ‘Don’t worry. You’re going to be fine.’ She smiled, tucking a blanket around her knees.

‘What about Grace?’ Roz whispered. ‘What will you tell her tonight?’ Her eyes met those of the young doctor. ‘No one knows, you see, about the baby …’

‘Stop your worrying. I’ll think of something – your appendix –’ Kath looked at the doctor, her eyes asking help. He gave a small smile and nodded and she knew that Roz’s secret was safe – for a little while longer.

Briefly she kissed her cheek then watched the small black car as it bumped across the cobbles and out through the yard gates, then burying her face in her hands she let go a long, shuddering sigh. The ill-luck of the Fairchilds, again. Not even a tiny unborn baby was safe from it.

She walked slowly upstairs. She didn’t want a bath, now, but she had run it and it was unpatriotic to waste water – especially hot water. And, she thought, as she eased herself into the comforting warmth of it, she was only doing this to kill time. The truth of it was that she didn’t want to go to Home Farm and lie to Mat and Grace. They were good, dear people and they didn’t deserve untruths.

But Jonty would understand. When she was able to tell Jonty the truth of it, she would feel a lot better. That was something to be thankful for at least, because right now, speeding to hospital, Roz would be feeling anything but that.

She made a lather of soap and rubbed it on her arms, wincing as the hot water set the pricks and scratches tingling.

Oh, damn the barley horns and damn the war and damn
everything
!

‘Ward four,’ Kath murmured. ‘That’s what they told me when I rang.’

‘And nothing else?’ Jonty frowned.

‘Do they ever? Not even that she’d had a good night.’

The rosebuds she carried were still moist with dew. She had picked them early, before she did the milk-round, so that Roz could be reminded of Ridings – and perhaps cheered up a little.

‘When do you think she’ll be out?’ Their footsteps echoed loudly in the long, bare corridor, their eyes searching doors for the ward number.

‘Haven’t a clue, Jonty. They’ll keep her here till they’re sure the baby is safe. I miss her. I think even the house misses her.’ It was a relief to be able to talk openly to Jonty; not to have to watch every word she said. ‘I feel bad about not telling Grace – well, telling her a lie,’ she murmured, ‘but I suppose it can’t be helped. Polly looked at me a bit old-fashioned last night, and she was at the house early this morning, wanting to know what had really happened. She knows about the baby, you see. She guessed …’

‘And Mother will know, soon enough.’ Jonty knew how she worried and what she didn’t know, he considered, she couldn’t fret over. ‘Maybe, whilst Roz is here, they’ll give her those blood tests she ought to have. Will you talk to her about it, Kath? She’ll listen to you …’

‘About the haemophilia, you mean?’

‘It’s best she should face up to it. Poor little Roz. There are times, Kath, when you could almost believe it – the bad luck of the Fairchilds, I mean.’ He stopped, pointing to an arrow, painted on the wall. ‘That’s it. Ward four. Fingers crossed, Kath?’

Fingers crossed, she echoed silently, that Roz was all right and the baby, too. Her pulse quickened as she pushed open the wide, double doors.

‘It’s Rosalind Fairchild you’ve come to see?’ asked the nurse they met as they walked hesitantly inside. ‘I wonder if you’d mind seeing Sister, first?’

Kath knew, then, without being told; knew before the Sister rose to her feet, hand extended in greeting, that something was very wrong.

‘Are you family?’ The Sister was pretty and dark and looked too young for such responsibility. ‘By rights, Rosalind shouldn’t be here at all. We are right next to the maternity ward and she can hear babies crying, you see. But I’ve put her in the little room at the top of the ward where I can keep an eye on her, though it isn’t always possible – well, we’re so short-staffed, with half the nurses away to the war. She would do better at home if there was someone to look after her.’

‘We’ll take care of her,’ Kath said quickly. ‘She hasn’t any family of her own, but we’re both very near to her. She and I live together – more like sisters, really. She’ll be all right with me.’

‘And there’s my mother, and Miss Appleby, her guardian,’ Jonty urged. ‘But how is Roz?’

‘You don’t know, then? I’m so sorry. She went into premature labour in the night. She lost the baby …’

‘
No!
’ Tears rose to Kath’s eyes. ‘She wanted that baby!’

‘I know she did. But for all that, she seemed to take it calmly. Dr Stewart came, not long after. He sat with her – told her about it, but it was as if she didn’t want to know. He was most concerned.’

‘
He’s
concerned,’ Kath breathed. ‘Then just how’s this for bad luck, Sister? Roz lost her grandmother not long ago – the gran who brought her up. Remember the lady who was killed in June by a fighter? Then that same week her boyfriend was killed, just a few days before they were going to be married and she’s seemed to have been in a kind of limbo ever since. It went deep – you’ve only got to look at her eyes to know that. And now she’s lost the baby, too, and he’s concerned. Well, so am I, Sister. It terrifies me, just to think of it.’

‘It isn’t like her.’ Jonty frowned. ‘She’s usually so – so volatile – such a fire-cracker. I don’t understand it.’

‘Well I do,’ Kath whispered, though for the life of her she couldn’t put it into words. For weeks now, Roz had been on the outside, looking in. She had forsaken Roz Fairchild; stepped out of her body to stand there, watching the grief of some other young girl.

‘You’d better go in, I think. One at a time,’ the Sister said.

‘You first, Jonty?’ Kath choked. ‘Give me time to pull myself together.’

‘All right.’ Jonty rose to his feet. ‘Best it should be me, I suppose.’

‘Fine, then. I’ll take you to her. And ask about the baby, will you? Try to get her to talk about it.’

Dabbing her eyes, Kath watched them go. Jonty was taking the rough of it again; but hadn’t he promised always to be there when Roz needed him? And didn’t she need him, now?

Jonty took a deep breath as the Sister opened the door of the little side ward.
Oh, my poor little love, I’d do anything to make things come right for you, but all I can do is offer a shoulder to cry on.

The room was very small and bare, with cream-painted walls and blackout curtains hanging at the high, narrow window.

Roz lay there, against a pile of pillows, her hands unmoving at either side of her. She looked small and afraid and alone.

‘Roz? How are you, love?’

‘Fine. Just fine.’

He was standing at the foot of the bed, his eyes dark with pain. He ran his fingers through his hair and said, ‘Good. Kath’s come, too. And Mum sent her love, and Polly –’

‘Polly? She knows about the baby.’

‘Yes. Kath told her – later – how it
really
was.’

‘Mm. I’m sorry about your mother, Jonty.’

‘Don’t be. She need never know now.’

‘Oh, Jonty. All that fuss; all the lies we told and it doesn’t matter, now. Because there isn’t a baby – not any more.’