Hettie of Hope Street (34 page)

Half an hour later, as she stripped the swaddling bands off the baby, Hettie wrinkled her nose at the smell, immediately dropping the soiled things into the bucket of boiling hot water she had asked cook to send to the nursery via the tweeny maid.

In order to wash the baby she had found an old-fashioned ewer and basin set and, carefully holding Hannah she held her in the basin and gently started to wash her, talking soothingly to her when the unfamiliar feeling of the water on her skin made the baby cry.

‘There you are,' she told her tenderly when she had finished. ‘All nice and clean. Now I'm going to dry you and put some nice clean things on you.'

Hettie had already found clean swaddling bands and nightgowns for Hannah. But she was going to need more clothes, she decided, as she patted her dry. Then on some impulse she couldn't name she leaned forward and kissed her little hands.

She must have learned more at Connie's nursery during her enforced school holiday work there than she had realised, Hettie acknowledged when she had finished securing a fresh band over the baby's navel, and then fastened her nappy.

Now instead of smelling so unappealing, Hannah smelled sweetly of talcum powder and soap. Nanny might have chosen to wrap her from neck to toes in constraining swaddling bands in the old-fashioned way, but at Connie's nursery even the smallest babies were allowed to have their arms and legs free to wave about.

‘Cook's heated up the bottles like you asked for miss. One just wiv milk and one wiv formula. And I've brought them up for you like you wanted.'

‘Oh thank you, Molly,' Hettie smiled at the tweeny.

‘Could you put them there on the table next to that chair for me, please?'

As she did so the maid added, ‘And cook said to tell you that she's mekkin' some of your favourite biscuits and that there'll be a nice chop for you when you're ready. Oh, and she's told Tom he's to go out first thing in the morning and get some chickens from the poultry shop in Friargate.'

‘Please thank Mrs Jennings for me when you
go back to the kitchen, Molly, and tell her that I said I shall be looking to her to help me keep house as Mam would want. Whilst I'm here standing in for her,' Hettie added diplomatically.

Once Molly had gone Hettie settled herself in the comfortable rocking chair beside the fire, and, holding Hannah in the crook of her arm reached for the bottle of warm milk.

‘I don't suppose either of us are going to be very good at this, Hannah,' she told her softly as she sprinkled a few drops of the warm milk on her own arm to test its temperature, as she had seen the nurses do at Connie's, and then offered Hannah the rubber teat.

The baby gave a thin wail, her small face screwing up. Hettie's heart thudded with anxiety. What if the nurse had been right and she out of ignorance did cause Ellie's new baby to die?

And Hannah would die if she didn't have her bottle. Hettie had seen how very thin she was when she had bathed her.

‘Hannah you must have your milk, sweetheart,' she told her as she tried again, this time squeezing a few drops of milk from the teat into Hannah's mouth when she opened it to cry.

‘Mmm, isn't that good?' Hettie whispered. ‘Want some more?'

It took her ten minutes of patient coaxing to get Hannah to suck properly on the teat, by which time Hettie herself was stiff with anxious tension.

She had read the instructions on the side of the
tin of formula very carefully before mixing it, and, according to what she had read, Hannah was to drink the whole bottle. But already her eyes were closing and she was drifting off to sleep, and the bottle was only just over two thirds empty.

Suddenly the teat slipped out of Hannah's mouth and her whole body stiffened as she screamed in pain, her face bright red. Terrified, Hettie stared at her. What had she done?

‘That sounds like wind to me,' she heard Gideon's voice saying gently from the doorway.

Wind…Of course!

‘Give her to me. I'all do it for you. Ellie always said that I was better at winding babies than she is.'

‘How is Mam?' Hettie asked him as she handed Hannah to him. ‘Sleeping, thank the Lord,' Gideon answered as he deftly laid the small baby against his shoulder and patted her back, both of them laughing when she suddenly produced a loud burp.

‘Hettie, I can't tell you how grateful I am to you, or how proud of you I am for what you're doing,' Gideon told her emotionally as she took the baby back from him.

‘Mam asked me to do it,' Hettie repeated. ‘And…and I want to. After all,' she told him, looking up at him with tears in her own eyes. ‘It's no more than what she did for me.'

Inwardly Hettie contrasted her present life here at home to the life she had been living in London. In London she had had admiring crowds clapping
her singing every night; singing lessons, the offer of her own little house, pretty clothes and jewellery, and of course Jay and all that he wanted to give her. Fame of the kind her parents could never really understand.

Here, she suspected she would barely have time to leave the nursery, and she certainly would not be wearing exensive fashionable clothes; a sturdy cotton frock with a pinny over it would be more like it. Her hands would be in and out of hot water all day long, and like as not, when she wasn't looking after Hannah she would be worrying about Ellie.

And yet, ridiculously, being here, holding Hannah, in her arms, witnessing Gideon's joy and relief because she was there, was filling her with a sense of wonderfully happy purposefulness and satisfaction.

As Gideon's arms enfolded her, Hettie leaned her head on her adopted father's chest and gave way to her tears, the baby held safely between them.

And that was how John saw her when he pushed open the nursery door, having been told by Tom that that was where he would find Gideon.

‘John!' Gideon exclaimed with pleasure, releasing Hettie.

She stepped back from him, returning to the rocking chair, so that she could coax Hannah to finish her bottle.

‘I came as soon as I could. How is Ellie? How is the baby?'

‘Ellie is very weak,' Hettie heard Gideon telling him soberly. ‘But little Hannah seems to be thriving now that she has Hettie here to take care of her.'

Gideon's praise was as premature as Hannah herself had been, Hettie acknowledged, and she could see from the look on John's face that he probably thought so as well.

But his arrival reminded her of her newly assumed duties and so she turned to Gideon and said calmly, ‘I'd better go down and tell Mrs Jennings that there will be one more for dinner, and then I'll make sure that a bed's made up for John. Mrs Jennings is going to make some chicken soup for Mam tomorrow. It will help to nourish her.'

John couldn't stop looking at Hettie. He had thought he had stored mental images of every mood he had ever seen her exhibit, but he admitted they did not include an image of her like this, a serene madonna determined to protect the child she was holding and those in her care.

Where and when had the girl he remembered become the woman he saw now?

A yearning ache seized his heart, and closed his throat so that he could not even trust himself to speak.

Hettie, misunderstanding his silence, thought it came from his dislike of the fact that she should be there.

Hettie tiptoed into the nursery, gently pushing open the door. It was hard to believe she had been here for three days already, they had passed so quickly. Hannah was still asleep. Hettie smiled tiredly at the sleeping baby. At least she was thriving, unlike Ellie who had been so poorly the previous evening that the nurse had urged Gideon to send for the doctor.

Childbed fever was notoriously hard to treat, Dr Barnes had told them sombrely, and there was nothing they could do but wait.

Tiredly Hettie lifted her hand and rubbed her eyes, then frowned as she felt the crackle of paper in her apron pocket. Reaching into the pocket she removed the letter. It had arrived this morning and she had recognised Jay's handwriting the minute Gideon handed it to her.

She waited until she was alone in the nursery before opening and reading it. He was, Jay had written, prepared to give her one more chance. She was to meet him in Southampton and he had enclosed a rail ticket for her.

‘Think of what you are throwing away, Hettie,' he had written. ‘Think of what you are denying us both, and for what?'

Hannah gave a sleepy murmur. She was not due to have a feed for another two hours, and Hettie was hoping that she would continue to sleep so that she could go and sit with Ellie and thus relieve the nurse.

She heard someone opening the bedroom door
and immediately swung round, a warning finger to her lips, expecting to see Gideon but instead it was John who stood there.

‘I have come to say goodbye. I am returning to Oxfordshire this morning,' he told her distantly.

Hettie nodded, unaware that she had dropped her letter until John bent down and picked it up.

‘It can't be long before you leave for New York,' he commented.

Hettie looked away from him. ‘I was, but I'm not going now. I've changed my mind.'

John looked at her. ‘Hettie…'

‘I can't go,' she told him passionately. ‘I can't leave Mam and the baby. Not when they need me…You must see that?'

‘
Hettie…
'

She had no time to be either shocked or surprised – one minute John was standing in front of her the next he was holding her fiercely in his arms, and he was kissing her.

John was kissing her.

Hettie closed her eyes and clung tightly to him, returning his kiss with all the passion locked in her heart.

‘I'm sorry, Hettie, I shouldn't have done that.'

Hettie forced herself to smile but inwardly she felt more like crying. These last few days had shown her so clearly just how very deep her true feelings for John actually were. ‘That is twice now that you have apologised to me for kissing me, John,' she reminded him unevenly. ‘But truly there
is no need. After all, it is not as though…'

‘Not as though what, Hettie?' John asked her with a frown.

Hettie sighed and moved away from him. ‘I just wish that I did not always make you so cross.'

‘You make me cross?' John repeated, looking bewildered. ‘Hettie, I could never be cross with you.'

Hettie couldn't help but laugh. ‘John, that is such a fib,' she teased him. ‘Remember how cross with me you were when I first went to Liverpool to sing at the Adelphi?'

‘Aye, I was a right fool then,' John acknowledged gruffly.

‘You disapproved of my singing and you disapproved of my new dress and I was so upset about that, John, because I'd been looking forward to showing off my dress to you.'

‘You looked a fair treat in it, Hettie, but I were that jealous knowing that other men 'ud be seeing you in it that I couldn't stop meself from saying what I did. I didn't mean to hurt you, lass, and I'm right sorry that I did.'

I was hurt, Hettie admitted softly to herself. ‘You were my best friend, John, my very best friend,' she emphasised. ‘I loved you so much.'

‘I loved you an' all, Hettie,' John admitted. ‘But it were not as a friend that I loved you,' he told her meaningfully.

The colour came and went in Hettie's face, but she managed a small emotional smile. She had given up hope that she would ever be able to talk
to John like this – as openly and as honestly as she had done as a child. And yet here they were doing just that, and all because of a kiss.

‘I felt so grown up in that dress and I desperately wanted you to tell me that I looked grown up,' she admitted. ‘I felt that hurt and upset when you didn't, but John what hurt me even more was when you didn't come to hear me sing.'

Even now the memory of those feelings filled her eyes with tears.

‘Oh, Hettie,' John groaned, reaching for her hand and giving it an apologetic squeeze before releasing it again.

‘You didn't even write to me to say that you were sorry or to explain why you weren't there, not even though I had written to you. And all Mam and Da would say when I got upset was that you must have been too busy.'

Now the tears were rolling slowly down her face as she relived her pain.

‘Hettie,' John repeated pleadingly in the kind of deep gruff voice she had heard leading male actors use to convey intense emotion, but somehow that particular note in John's voice affected her in a way that theirs had not. ‘I didn't mean to hurt you,' he told her thickly. ‘In fact,' Hettie watched as he took a deep breath. ‘Hettie let's go for a walk. I…I need to talk to you and…'

There was so much emotion and urgency in his voice that Hettie felt her heart beat extra fast in response to it.

She looked hesitantly towards the crib where Hannah was fast asleep and, as though John had sensed her reluctance to leave the baby, he pressed fiercely, ‘Hannah will not even know you have been gone, I promise. We could just walk through the park and then down to the river, just for half an hour, Hettie. Please?'

‘I was going to go and sit with Mam.'

‘Gideon will do that. Unless, of course, I am pressing you to do something you do not want to do, Hettie, and if that is the case then…'

‘No,' she assured him quickly. ‘No. I would like to go with you for a walk, John.'

Try as she might she could not stop a delicate pink blush from warming her face, Everyone in Preston knew that when a lad asked you to walk in the park with him of an evening it was as good as saying he wanted to walk with you permanently.

‘I'll just have to warn Mrs Jennings that I'm going out and ask her to keep an eye on Hannah. I wouldn't want her to wake up on her own,' she warned John, but she could see from the way he was smiling at her that he knew he had won her over.

The summer evening was light and warm, but Hettie still enjoyed the way John fussed over her, asking if she would need a coat in case she might feel cold. The sun had dropped low enough in the sky to throw long golden shadows across the square as they walked side by side towards the park as
they had done so many times in years gone by. Then, though, she would probably have hopped or skipped at John's side, or even tucked her arm through his, Hettie recognised as they entered the park.