All of this was inevitable, and quite bearable. But what was almost unbearable and had really turned Emily’s world upside down had been the total transformation of her mother’s bedroom. Nothing else in the house had been altered, or redecorated or repainted, but the big double room that faced out over the garden and the blue waters of the creek had been stripped of furniture, gutted, rebuilt, and made totally new and unfamiliar.
In all fairness to her father, he had told Emily that this was going to be done.
He had written her at school. “A bedroom is a personal thing,” his letter had said. “It wouldn’t be fair to Stephanie to ask her to use your mother’s bedroom, any more than it would be fair to your mother if Stephanie were simply to take over all her most treasured possessions. So we are going to change it all, and when you come back for the holidays, it will be unrecognisable. Don’t be upset about this. Try to understand. It is the only thing we are changing. The rest of the house remains the way you have always known it.”
She thought of the room. In the old days, before her mother died, it had been shabby and comfortable, with nothing actually matching anything else but everything living happily together, like the random sowing of flowers in a border. The curtains and the rug were faded. The huge brass bed, which had belonged to Emily’s grandmother, wore a bedspread of crocheted white lace, and there were a great number of photographs about the place and old-fashioned water colours upon the walls.
But that had all gone. Now everything was eggshell blue, with a fitted pale blue carpet, and beautiful satin curtains lined with the palest yellow. The old brass bed had gone, and in its place was a luxurious king-size divan, frilled in the same material as the curtains, and draped in a white muslin canopy that was suspended from a gilded coronet, high on the wall. There were a lot of white furry rugs, and the bathroom was lined in mirror glass and glittering with enticing bottles and jars. And everything smelt of lilies-of-the-valley. It was Stephanie’s own scent. But Emily’s mother had always smelt of Eau-de-Cologne and face powder.
Standing there in the evening sunlight, with her hair wet from swimming and sand encrusting her bare brown legs, Emily suddenly ached for things to be the way they had been. To be able to run in through the front door, calling for her mother, and to have her mother’s voice answer from upstairs. To go to her, curling up on the big hospitable bed, and to watch while her mother, at her dressing table, brushed her short, wayward hair, or dusted her nose with a swans-down puff that had been dipped into the crystal bowl of fragrant face powder.
* * *
She could never feel close to Stephanie. It wasn’t that she didn’t love her. Stephanie was beautiful and youthful and loving and had tried her hardest to find some niche in Emily’s heart. But they were both, basically, shy. Both wary of intruding on the other’s privacy. Perhaps it might have been easier for both of them if the baby had not happened. In a month the baby would be here, sleeping in the new cot in Emily’s old nursery. An entity to be reckoned with, bringing with it more claims on Emily’s father’s affections.
Emily did not want the baby. She did not much like babies. Once she had seen a television film of some person bathing a newborn baby and had been horrified. It looked like trying to bathe a tadpole.
She longed to be able to go back in time. To be twelve years old again and have none of these disturbing things happen to her. She was always longing to go back in time, which was why she had done badly in her lessons, had failed so miserably at games, had been kept back a year in the same form. Next term she must keep company with a gang of younger girls with whom she had nothing in common. Her confidence had been hopelessly eroded, like the face of a cliff too long pounded by the sea and scoured by the winds, so that at times she felt she would never be able to make a decision, or achieve something, successfully, ever again.
But brooding did no good. The evening stretched ahead and had to be faced. She went on up the drive, and when she had pegged her bathing things out on the line, let herself into the house through the back door. The kitchen was spotlessly neat and orderly. The round, wooden-framed clock over the dresser ticked away at the minutes, making a sound like a pair of snipping shears. Emily dumped the remains of her picnic onto the table and went through the door, and into the hall. Evening sunshine lay in a long yellow beam through the open front door. Emily stood in its warmth and listened. There was no sound. She looked into the sitting room, but it was empty.
“Stephanie.”
She had probably gone out for a walk. She liked to walk in the evenings when it was cooler. Emily started upstairs. On the landing, she saw that the door to the big, pale blue bedroom stood open. She hesitated. From within a voice spoke her name.
“Emily. Emily, is that you?”
“Yes.” She crossed the landing and went in through the open door.
“Emily.”
Stephanie lay on the beautiful bed. She was still dressed, in her loose cotton maternity smock, but she had kicked off her sandals and her feet were bare. Her red-gold hair spread its tangle over the white pillowcase, and her face, innocent of make-up and freckled as a child’s, was very pale and shone with sweat.
She stretched out a hand. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
“I was on the beach with Portia. I thought you were out for a walk.” Emily approached the bed, but she did not take Stephanie’s outstretched hand. Stephanie’s eyes closed. She turned her head away from Emily, and her breathing was suddenly long and laboured.
“Is something wrong?”
But she knew that there was. And she knew what it was. Even before Stephanie relaxed at last and opened her eyes again. She and Emily gazed at one another. Stephanie said, “The baby’s started.”
“But it’s not due for a month.”
“Well, I think it’s coming now. I know it is. I’ve been feeling odd all day, and I tried to go out for a bit of fresh air after tea, and I had this pain. So I came home to lie down. I thought it might just go away. But it hasn’t, it’s got worse.”
Emily swallowed. She tried to remember everything she had ever known about having babies, which was not much. She said, “How often are the pains coming?”
Stephanie reached out for her gold wristwatch which lay on the bedside table. “That was only five minutes.”
Five minutes. Emily could feel her heart pounding. She looked down at the swollen, ludicrous mound that was Stephanie’s abdomen, taut with incipient life beneath the sprigged cotton of her voluminous dress. Without thinking, she laid her hand, gently, upon it.
She said, “I thought first babies took ages to arrive.”
“I don’t think there’s any hard and fast rule.”
“Have you rung the hospital? Have you rung the doctor?”
“I haven’t done anything. I was frightened to move in case something happened.”
“I’ll ring,” said Emily. “I’ll ring now.” She tried to remember what had happened when Mrs. Wattis’s Daphne had had her baby. “They’ll send an ambulance.” Mrs. Wattis’s Daphne had cut things a bit too fine and very nearly had her child on the way to hospital.
“Gerald was going to take me,” said Stephanie. Gerald was Emily’s father. “I don’t want to have it without him here…” Her voice broke, and there were tears in her eyes.
“You may have to,” said Emily. Stephanie started to weep in earnest, and then suddenly stopped. “Oh … there’s another one!” She grabbed for Emily’s hand, and for a minute or so there was nothing in existence except the frenzied clasp of her fingers, the slow, determined breathing, the escaping gasps of pain. It seemed to go on for eternity, but at last, gradually, it passed. It was over. Exhausted, Stephanie lay there. Her grasp on Emily’s hand loosened. Emily took her hand away. She went across the room and into Stephanie’s bathroom. She found a clean washcloth, wrung it out in cold water, and took it back to the bedside. She wiped Stephanie’s face, then made the cloth into a pad and laid it on her forehead.
She said, “I have
to leave you for a moment. I’ll go downstairs and telephone. But I’ll be listening, and you only have to yell…”
There was a phone in the study, on her father’s desk. She hated using the telephone, so she sat in his big chair for confidence, and because it was the nearest she could get to him. The number of the hospital was written in her father’s desk directory. She dialled it carefully and waited. When a man’s voice answered the call, she asked, making her voice as calm as she could, for the Maternity Ward. There was another delay, that seemed to last forever. Emily felt sick with anxiety and impatience.
“Maternity Ward.”
Relief made her incoherent. “Oh … this … I mean…” She swallowed and started again, more slowly. “This is Emily Bradley. My stepmother’s meant to be having a baby in a month’s time, but she’s having it now. I mean, she’s having pains.”
“Oh, yes,” said the voice, cool and blessedly businesslike. Emily imagined somebody starched and neat, drawing a notepad towards her, unscrewing her pen, all set to take down lists of statistics. “What is your stepmother’s name?”
“Stephanie Bradley. Mrs. Gerald Bradley. She’s booked in at the hospital in a month, but I think she’s going to have the baby today. Now.”
“Has she timed her pains?”
“Yes. They’re every five minutes.”
“You’d better bring her in.”
“I can’t. I haven’t got a car, and I can’t drive, and my father’s away from home and there’s nobody but me.”
The blatant urgency of the situation finally got through.
“In that case,” said the voice, wasting no more time, “we’ll send an ambulance.”
“I think,” said Emily, remembering Mrs. Wattis’s Daphne, “you’d better send a nurse as well.”
“What is the address?”
“The Wheal House, Carnton. We’re past the church and down the lane.”
“And who is Mrs. Bradley’s doctor?”
“Dr. Meredith. But I’ll ring him, if you’ll get the ambulance here and a bed ready at the hospital.”
“There’ll be an ambulance with you in about fifteen minutes.”
“Thank you. Thank you very much.”
She put down the receiver. Sat for a moment, biting her lip. Thought about calling the doctor, and then remembered Stephanie and went back upstairs, two at a time, urgency and responsibility and importance lending wings to her feet.
Stephanie lay with her eyes still shut. She did not appear to have moved. Emily said her name, and she opened her eyes. Emily smiled, trying to reassure her. “All right?”
“I’ve had another pain. That’s four minutes now. Oh, Emily, I’m so frightened.”
“You mustn’t be frightened. I’ve phoned the hospital and they’re sending an ambulance and a nurse … they’ll be here in about a quarter of an hour.”
“I feel so hot. I feel such a mess.”
“I could help you out of your dress. Put on a clean nightie. That would make you feel more comfortable.”
“Oh, could you? There’s one in the drawer.”
She opened the drawer and found the white lawn nightdress, scented and lacy. Gently, she eased Stephanie out of the crumpled maternity dress, helped her off with her bra and pants. Naked, the huge bulge of her abdomen was revealed. Emily had never seen such a sight before, but rather to her own surprise, she did not find it horrifying. Instead, it seemed a sort of miracle; a safe, dark nest containing a living child, which already was making its presence felt and announcing to the world that it was time to make its appearance. Suddenly it was not alarming anymore but rather exciting. She slipped the nightdress over Stephanie’s head, and helped her put her arms into the lacy sleeves. She fetched a hairbrush from the dressing table and a length of velvet ribbon, and Stephanie took the brush and smoothed back her tangled hair, then tied it with the ribbon and lay back once more to await the next onslaught of pain. It was not long in coming. When it was over, Emily, feeling as exhausted as Stephanie looked, checked once more on the watch. Four minutes again.
Four minutes. Emily did a few panic-stricken calculations. It looked as though there was every chance that the baby would not wait for that drive to the hospital. In which case, it would be born right here, in this house, in the blue bedroom, in the immaculate bed. Having a baby was a messy business. Emily knew that much from books she had read, to say nothing of having once watched a pet tabby cat produce a litter of striped kittens. Precautions must be taken, and Emily knew what they were. She went to the linen cupboard and found a rubber sheet, newly purchased for the baby, and a pile of thick white bathtowels.
“You’re brilliant,” said Stephanie, as Emily, with some difficulty, remade the bed with her stepmother still in it. “You’ve thought of everything.”
“Well, your waters might break.”
Stephanie, despite everything, dissolved into weak laughter. “How do you know so much?”
“I don’t know. I just do. Mummy told me all about having babies when she told me about the facts of life. She was peeling Brussels sprouts at the time, and I can remember standing by the sink and watching her, and thinking there must be an easier way to have children.” She added, “But of course there isn’t.”
“No, there isn’t.”
“My mother only had me, but I know other people say that once it’s all over, you forget about the pain, you just think how marvellous it was. Having the baby, I mean. And then when you have another you remember the same old pain, and you think, ‘I must have been out of my mind to do it a second time,’ only then, of course, it’s too late. Now if you’re all right, I’ll go and ring the doctor.”
Mrs. Meredith answered the call, and said that the doctor was out on his rounds, but she would leave a message at the surgery, as he frequently rang in to see if there were any extra calls to be made.
“It’s terribly urgent,” said Emily, and explained what was happening, and Mrs. Meredith said in that case, she would try to find him herself. “You’ve rung the hospital, Emily?”
“Yes, and they’re sending an ambulance and a nurse. It should be here in a little while.”
“Is Mrs. Wattis with you?”
“No. She’s gone to Fourbourne.”
“And your father?”
“He’s in Bristol. He doesn’t know what’s happening. There’s just Stephanie and me.”
There was a little pause. “I’ll find the doctor,” said Mrs. Meredith, and rang off.
* * *
“Now,” said Emily, “we just have to get hold of Daddy.”
“No,” said Stephanie. “Let’s wait, until it’s all safely over. Otherwise he’ll be panic-stricken, and there’s nothing he can do. We’ll wait until the baby’s arrived, and then we’ll tell him.”
They smiled at each other, a conspiracy of two women who both loved, and wished to protect, the same man. The next instant Stephanie’s eyes widened, her mouth opened in a gasp of agony. “Oh, Emily…”
“It’s all right…” Emily took her hand. “It’s all right. I’m here. I won’t go away. I’m here. I’ll stay with you…”
* * *
Five minutes later, the village was astounded by the blare of sirens. The ambulance, everything ringing, came thundering down the rutted lane, turned in at the gate, and shot up the drive. Emily scarcely had time to get downstairs before they were into the house, two burly men with a stretcher and a nurse with a bag. Emily met them in the hall. “I don’t think there’s time to take her to the hospital…”
“We’ll see,” said the nurse. “Where is she?”
“Upstairs. The first door on the left. There are towels and a rubber sheet on the bed.”
“Good girl,” said the nurse briskly, and disappeared up the stairs with the ambulance men behind her. Almost at once another car appeared, hard on the heels of the ambulance, stopped with a screech of brakes on gravel, and discharged, like a bullet, the doctor.
Dr. Meredith was an old friend of Emily’s.
He said, “What’s happening?”
She told him. “It’s a month early. I think it must be the heat.” He allowed himself a small, private smile. “Is that bad, or is it going to be all right?”
“We’ll see.” He headed for the stairs.
“What shall I do now?” Emily asked him.
He stopped and turned to look back at her. There was an expression on his face that Emily had never seen before. He said, “It seems to me that you’ve done just about everything already. Your mother would be proud of you. Why don’t you take yourself off. Go out in the garden and sit in the sun. I’ll let you know everything, just as soon as there’s anything to tell.”
* * *
Your mother would be proud of you. She went through the sitting room, the open French windows, and onto the terrace. She sat on the top step of the little flight of steps that led down to the lawn. All at once, she felt very tired. She put her elbows on her knees and rested her chin in her hands. Your mother would be proud of you. She thought about her mother. It was funny, but it didn’t make her miserable any longer. The aching need for a person no longer there had gone. She pondered on this. Perhaps you only needed people if other people didn’t need you.
She was still sitting there, mulling all this over, when, half an hour later, Dr. Meredith came to find her. She heard his step on the flags as he came out through the French windows and twisted around to face him. He had taken off his jacket and his shirt sleeves were rolled up. He came, slowly, to sit beside her. He said, “You’ve got a little sister. Six and a half pounds and quite perfect.”
“And Stephanie?”
“A bit weary, but blooming. A copybook mother.”
Emily felt a smile creeping up into her face, and at the same time a lump grew in her throat and her eyes started to fill with tears. Dr. Meredith, with no words, handed over a large white cotton handkerchief, and Emily took off her spectacles and wiped her eyes and blew her nose.
“Does Daddy know?”
“Yes. I’ve just been speaking to him on the phone. He’s coming home right away. He’ll be here by midnight. The ambulance has gone back to the hospital, but nurse is going to stay the night.”