‘Seems like you do now, right enough,’ the young man said.
‘I think this is a problem for Mr Jenks to deal with,’ Mrs Fitch said. ‘Go and find him, John, he’ll be finished serving the port soon to the gentlemen in the library.’
Kate was given a hot cup of tea and some fruit cake, which she ate with relish. She hadn’t tasted anything so good since she’d left Vanburgh House. Mr Jenks was a serious looking manwith deep-set eyes and heavy brows that gave him a forbidding look, but when he sat down next to Kate and spoke to her, his voice tenderly belied his appearance.
‘Now, my dear, John here tells me that you wish to see Mr Edward,’ he said.
‘Well, he’s home but he’s not well enough for visitors as yet,’ Mr Jenks explained. ‘Come back in a few weeks and I’m sure he’ll be able to talk to you. The family are hoping he’ll be well enough to join his sister’s wedding party. That’s what’s going on upstairs, the pre-nuptial celebrations.’
Kate was devastated. It had been difficult enough for her to get here this time. In a few weeks the baby could be here. She felt in her pocket for the letter and entrusted it to Mr Jenks, hoping that Carnforth would soon reply. If Carnforth was a man of his word, he would help her, if not for her sake, then for Philip’s.
If she could have witnessed what happened an hour later in the Carnforth household, that hope would have died in her breast. As Kate returned to the workhouse, Mr Jenks carried the note through to Mr Carnforth Senior. Mr Jenks might have shown Kate some kindness but when he weighed up the repercussions of delivering the letter to Mr Edward in his current condition and incurring the potential wrath of his employer, he decided upon an entirely different course of action.
After bidding his guests goodnight, Cecil Carnforth sat and smoked for a while in the library. When Jenks entered with the letter, he listened to the explanation of how it had arrived and who it was intended for with only partial attention. Two glasses of port after a full meal with liberal glasses of wine had made him sleepy and clouded his thoughts.
‘A young serving woman, you say?’ he asked Jenks.
‘Yes, sir. She insisted she and Mr Edward know one another,’ Jenks replied.
Cecil Carnforth placed the note on the side table.
‘Thank you, Jenks, that will be all,’ he said.
After finishing his cigar, he stood and picked up the note. Without even opening it, he screwed it into a ball and threw it into the dying embers of the fire.
Chapter Thirty-Two
June 1917
Kate’s waters broke on the laundry floor on 28 June, 1917. She was emptying the dirty water away for the next rinse, when there was as much water gushing between her legs as she was tipping down the drain. One of the other workers noticed the wet patch on the back of her skirt and said, ‘Best you get yourself off to the infirmary. Looks like your time’s come.’
Kate staggered up the staircase, stopping every few steps to gather her strength. She hadn’t been sleeping well the last few weeks, what with the baby moving and her mind churning. Despite all her best efforts, this baby would be born in the workhouse after all.
She eventually made it to the top floor when the first pains started. She held her arms under her belly as if to stop the baby falling out. She could feel her stomach muscles hardening, preparing for the arrival of her child. She knew that babies often took a long time to come into the world. She’d heard her own mother’s moans often enough. Very soon now they would both be mothers, for at the end of May, Ida had brought a letter to the workhouse announcing the birth of Tilly, a new baby sister for Kate. How could she go to them now? If she arrived at their door with her child and no money there would be two more mouths to feed. She couldn’t do it to them.
‘Ah, I wondered when you’d be coming to us,’ a grey-haired old woman said as she saw Kate enter the ward. ‘So, he’s ready to join us then, is he?’
Kate hoped it would be a boy, a part of Philip to be with her always.
The woman hobbled towards Kate on ulcerated legs, her two crooked teeth visible through cracked lips. Kate instinctively drew back from her.
‘She might not look pretty but she knows how to birth a babe,’ a voice called behind her.
Kate turned. A younger woman with her sleeves rolled up and wispy, pale hair falling across her face was changing sheets.
‘Been seeing nippers into the world since you were in your own cot,’ the young woman said, standing upright. ‘I’m Sara and that’s Old Alice. We’ll be by your side when you push yours out, don’t fret.’
Kate looked around her. The infirmary was just one ward, with beds lined up on either side of the room. No screens or curtains, no privacy. She’d be in labour in full view of all the other inmates.
Her thoughts must have been etched on her face, for Sara came to her and whispered, ‘Don’t worry, we’ll put you in that end bed, so that when the final stage comes, you’re as far away from the rest of them as possible. You’re lucky that no one else is ready to pop today!’
Kate didn’t feel lucky. She prayed silently to herself that the labour would be quick.
Ronald Philip Truscott was born six hours after Kate felt the first birth pangs. Old Alice placed his little form gently in her arms and said, ‘Welcome to the world, little man, though what a world it is!’
Kate looked down at his screwed-up face and held his tiny hand in hers, looking at each perfect pink fingernail. She raised his hand to her lips and kissed it. He began to whimper and she stroked him tenderly on the forehead smoothing his puckered brow, her fingers holding memories of Philip’s scars.
‘Sssh, sssh my little one,’ she whispered. ‘It’s all right; everything’s going to be all right.’
