Hope - Lesley Pearse [242]
‘I’m going to be just fine,’ Hope said, assuming Nell was worried about her. ‘Women have babies all the time, and I’ve delivered a few too, so I know what it’s all about.’
‘I shall remind you of that if you start screaming,’ Nell said tartly.
The midwife, Mrs Langham, arrived at twelve. She was a big, bossy woman with a large wart on her nose, but Hope was pleased to see she was very clean, and didn’t look as if she swigged gin as so many so-called midwives did. Her husband had despatched a boy to inform Dr Cunningham the baby was on its way.
‘But we’ll have this one ready for him when he gets here,’ Mrs Langham said jovially. ‘You don’t look the kind to hang around for a couple of days.’
She was right. By four in the afternoon the pains were so bad that Hope got into bed, and by six she was bearing down. In less than half an hour Mrs Langham was catching the baby in her hands and announcing it was a girl.
Hope lay back on the pillows and took the baby in her arms. She had expected the birth to be hell, and it had come close. But she had never truly believed that when a baby was put into its mother’s arms she would immediately love it. She had been wrong on that count, however, for the feeling which welled up inside her was so strong that tears flowed down her cheeks. Nothing in her life so far had ever felt so good, so utterly moving as the sight of that tiny little face.
‘Oh, Nell,’ she sighed. ‘Can anything be more perfect, more wonderful?’
‘She looks just like you when you were born,’ Nell said, and she began to cry.
‘Screamers I can deal with,’ Mrs Langham said. ‘But cryers, I need a brandy for those.’
Hope looked up at the big woman and her tears turned to laughter. ‘You shall have a brandy,’ she said. ‘As big as you like. And Nell had better have one too.’
‘So, what are you going to call her?’ Uncle Abel said. He had arrived an hour after the delivery and seemed quite shaken that his skills were unnecessary. He had examined the baby, pronounced her strong, healthy and quite the most beautiful he’d ever seen. Then he sat down and cradled her in his arms.
‘Betsy,’ Hope said without any hesitation. ‘Betsy Hannah Meg Meadows.’
He looked pleased that the second name was to be his late sister’s and the third that of Hope’s mother. ‘Why Betsy?’ he asked.
‘After someone I loved,’ she said simply. ‘I know Bennett will approve, it was when he came to visit her during the cholera that we met.’
‘Have you had a letter lately?’ he asked.
‘Not since the one he wrote in August,’ she replied. ‘I think that means he’s on his way home.’
‘What a devil of a time it takes for letters from abroad!’ Abel said reflectively. ‘We have the telegraph now and that gives us news of what is happening just a couple of days after the event. But letters still take weeks!’
‘There’s a letter for you from the Captain!’ Nell shouted up the stairs exactly a week after Betsy was born. ‘I’ll bring it up in a minute.’
Hope would have run down the stairs immediately had she not been feeding Betsy. Feeding was the best part of motherhood. She had a comfortable chair by the bedroom window which looked out on to the garden, and she could gaze dreamily out at the fields beyond the garden wall as Betsy suckled greedily at her breast.
Nothing before had come close to the joy of looking down at her small face, or feeling her tiny fingers clench hers; there was a faint smell on her head that Hope would sniff rapturously, and it was bliss after the feed to lie back in the chair cradling her in her arms.
Nell and Dora complained that she didn’t allow them to have much time with her, and sometimes she was aware she was too possessive. But Betsy was her baby, and right now while she was so tiny, all she wanted was her mother.
Nell came up with some tea on a tray. ‘Can I hold her while you read the letter?’ she asked as she put the tray down.
‘She needs changing,’ Hope said as she moved to hand the baby over and sawher dress had a wet patch. ‘I never expected babies to be so leaky.’