Hope - Lesley Pearse [241]
Rufus hung on her every word as she described the hospital and the endless procession of wounded and sick arriving daily. ‘But now they’ve taken Sebastopol, it must all be over bar the shouting,’ he said. ‘They’ll surely all be home for Christmas?’
‘I hope Bennett gets home long before that, and warns me when it will be,’ Hope said with a grin. ‘It will be just like him to walk in the one day I’m in a mess. But enough of war and me. What about you, Rufus? Have you got a sweetheart?’
He grinned bashfully. ‘I have indeed. Lily Freeman, she’s the rector in Chelwood’s daughter.’
‘I’m very happy for you,’ Hope said. ‘Is she beautiful?’
‘She is to me,’ he said looking all dreamy-eyed. ‘I love her and want to marry her. But I can’t while Mother’s this way. I can only just about keep us, let alone a wife, at the moment.’
It seemed incredible to Hope that Rufus’s life had changed so dramatically. Whenever she’d imagined him in the past it was always in some kind of grand setting – balls, parties, out hunting on a horse like Merlin. She could never have pictured him in worn rough clothes with dirt beneath his fingernails, ploughing a field or feeding chickens.
‘You are still a very young man,’ she reminded him. ‘Lily will wait if she loves you. I had to wait a long time for Bennett, but it was worth it in the end.’
‘It’s so good to have you back,’ he said, slinging an arm around her shoulder. ‘And even better to find that we can still talk about everything, just the way we used to. We’ll always be friends, won’t we?’
She kissed his cheek then. ‘Always. For ever and ever. But now I must go on to Matt’s, I’ve taken up too much of your day already. But come and see me at Nell’s very soon?’
On 29 September Hope woke in the early hours with a twinge of pain in her stomach. It disappeared, but some ten minutes later there was another. By the fifth one, now nearly an hour later, she knew the baby was coming and went to wake Nell.
Uncle Abel had arranged for a midwife in Brislington village, who he considered to be the best, to attend the birth, and he’d already given his instructions that when the time came Nell was to send for her, and notify him.
Nell was very calm. She got dressed, stirred up the stove and made them both tea, then slipped out to see a neighbour who had a pony and trap and had already promised to fetch the midwife when the time came.
Hope had no intention of going back to bed until she absolutely had to. One of the sisters at St Peter’s had always claimed that she’d noted babies came easier and quicker when the mother walked around.
Nell had everything ready for the baby; she’d made a whole drawerful of flannel nightgowns, jackets, bonnets and bootees. She’d got a wooden crib from somewhere, and knitted blankets and a shawl. Hope had glanced at them all before, but now that the event was so close she decided to take a better look.
She felt a surge of love for her sister as she saw the care that had gone into making the tiny garments. The little flannel nightgowns had delicate embroidery on the yoke, and she had trimmed the bonnets with lace.
At the bottom of the pile there was an older shawl, and Hope pulled it out to look at it. It was yellowing with age, but as soft and delicate as a cobweb. She wondered where it had come from, for it was clearly handed down, but she couldn’t imagine anyone Nell knew having such a fine shawl.
She was holding it to her face when Nell came in, flushed from rushing up the road. ‘Where did this come from, Nell?’ Hope asked. ‘It’s so lovely.’
‘It was yours,’ Nell said.
‘Mine! How could our family afford such a thing?’
‘Someone gave it to Mother.