‘And thank you so much for my lovely necklace, Jem. It was so thoughtful of you. I shall treasure it too.’
‘I’ll keep it polished for you,’ he said.
He reached up and plucked a handful of ivy from the mantelpiece. I’d decorated it with holly and ivy to make the cottage look festive. He started fashioning it this way and that.
‘What are you doing? You’re spoiling my decoration!’
‘I’m making a kissing bow,’ said Jem.
My heart skipped a beat. ‘Isn’t that meant to be mistletoe?’ I said.
‘We haven’t got any mistletoe, so ivy will have to do for now,’ he said. ‘Here, Hetty, you do it. Your fingers are more nimble than mine.’
‘Oh, Jem, don’t be silly. Let’s go to bed.’
‘Wait!’ Jem fashioned the ivy into the clumsiest of bows and then held it above our heads. ‘We must have a Christmas kiss.’
I heard the church clock at the end of the village starting to chime. ‘No, sorry! It isn’t Christmas any more,’ I said, and made a bolt for it up the stairs.
Jem didn’t try to follow me or call after me. When I went downstairs the next morning, the ivy kissing bow had been unravelled and threaded back into the greenery on the mantelpiece.
He didn’t mention trying to kiss me when he came home. He couldn’t expect it either, because he’d been carting manure to the wintry fields and reeked of it, even though he stripped off and washed himself thoroughly.
I felt so sorry for him having to work in the bleak fields all day long. He was put to digging ditches for most of January – really hard labour as the ground was frozen.
He caught a chill and yet refused to take time off, going to work even though he had a fever and his nose was streaming. I made him thick soups and wrapped Lizzie’s shawl around him for extra warmth when he came home – simple little gestures, but he was heartbreakingly grateful.
‘You’re so good to me, Hetty,’ he said thickly.
Mother caught the chill too, though I struggled hard to keep her warm and comfortable. She had a fever, and for a few days frightened me because she seemed so ill.
‘I reckon we’d better get the doctor to her,’ said Jem.
The doctor’s visit cost a great deal, and was a total waste of money, because he told me to make sure Mother was well covered and had plenty of fluids. What did he think I was doing with her – sitting her out in the frosty fields and refusing her a drop to drink?
He also said something so dreadful that Jem and I were dumbfounded.
‘It might be better for the poor soul if her lungs gave out altogether. She’s no use to man nor beast in that state,’ he said, wiping his boots on our mat and marching out.
I felt as if he’d wiped his boots on me, and given me a good kicking into the bargain. ‘How dare he say such a wicked thing!’ I said furiously. ‘I’ve a good mind to go after him and give him a good slapping.’
‘Hey, Hetty, hold onto your temper. I don’t want you had up for assault!’ said Jem. He put his arms round me.
This time I clung to him in the old easy, natural way. ‘How could he say such a thing about Mother – and him a doctor too!’ I said.
‘I know, I know. It’s wonderful that you love Mother just the way I do, and want to keep her here as long as possible. On her last visit even Eliza seemed to think that it would be a blessing to us when Mother goes.’
‘I don’t care for Eliza too much – I never did. But I do care for Mother. I tried so hard to keep my own mama alive, but I couldn’t manage it. I shall always have a huge ache in my heart for her. But I will try and keep our mother as long as I possibly can,’ I said stoutly.
‘The ache will lessen one day, Hetty,’ said Jem, cuddling me close.
I knew he was simply trying to comfort me, but I pulled away from him. ‘How can you talk such nonsense?’ I said. ‘You can’t possibly understand how I feel about Mama.’
‘I’m sorry, Hetty. I didn’t mean to upset you. Please don’t be offended,’ said Jem.
He’d always been so used to telling me things that I’d accepted without question. It was painful for both of us when I argued back – but I couldn’t seem to help it now.
At least we were united in our attempts to nurse Mother back to reasonable health, though of course she would never be well again. Mrs Maple made her various herbal tisanes that seemed to ease her lungs and stop her coughing, and we rubbed goose grease on her chest, binding it with flannel.
Mother was still very poorly for weeks, which was a strain on all of us. I did not feel I could go to market on a Thursday and leave her with Molly. I felt very guilty but I missed those market days so much. The only material I had left was the red worsted and I didn’t want to make anyone else a waistcoat like Jem’s, so it stayed untouched. Instead, during those long anxious hours sitting beside Mother while she took such painful breaths, I rewrote my memoirs. I kept to the truth but arranged them like the three-decker novels Janet lent me, with lots of conversation and a proper story structure.
The first volume dealt with my time at the hospital. I carefully did not give it its full name now. I finished that volume with my bolt for freedom the day of Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee. There was a lot of repetitious material thereafter about the hardship and injustice of my hospital life during the next four years, so I discarded those pages and started the second volume when I was just fourteen and leaving the hospital. I wrote about my life in service, my jaunts with Bertie, and then that sad summer at the seaside, watching over Mama. I ended with her telling me I should go and find Father.
Now I was writing the third volume, keeping my writing as small as I could to cram all my story onto the pages. The first part of this volume dealt with finding Father. I felt the wind in my hair and tasted fish on my tongue as I wrote. When I described my return to the village and my meeting with dear Jem, my pen slowed down and I did not know how to continue. I’d caught myself up. I wasn’t sure how my story was going to end.
All Janet’s three-decker novels ended identically – with the heroine marrying the hero and then hopefully living happily ever after. I was clearly the heroine, because this was my life, my story – and the hero was probably Jem.
Why did I write probably? Of course he was my hero, the boy who had looked after me so sweetly when we were both children, who had continued to care for me, and had now taken me happily into his home. He was waiting patiently for me to grow up. Then my story would finish traditionally, with a wedding.
I put my notebooks away, feeling troubled. I loved Jem dearly as a big brother, but I wasn’t at all sure I could love him as a husband. I hated realizing this now, when it had always been my childhood dream. It seemed particularly perverse when poor Janet was silently suffering, longing to marry Jem herself.
I grew oddly subdued and withdrawn. Jem worried about me, wondering if I was going down with the chill myself. He asked Mrs Maple for a tonic for me, which I drank obediently every day, but all the herbs in the world could not lighten my heavy heart.
I was very tired all the time and yet I couldn’t sleep properly. I tossed and turned all night, wondering what I should do. ‘Oh, Mama, why can’t you still be here?’ I said, starting to cry. ‘I need you so!’
I’m always with you, Hetty, you know that, Mama said in my heart.
‘What am I going to do about Jem?’
Wait and see, she said. You don’t know what’s going to happen next.
‘But I do know, Mama. It’s always the same here in the village. It’s only the seasons that change. I do the same thing every single day, and every night Jem and I say the same things. It’s as if we’re little wind-up dolls and can’t do anything else. It’s not what I want, Mama.’
So what do you want?
‘I don’t know! I want . . . I want . . .’ I stretched out in my bed as if I were literally trying to grow.
It’s a long winter, said Mama. Wait for the spring.
It seemed as if spring w
ould never come. January and February were so cold and bleak – but then in early March the sun started shining, so warmly that I didn’t need to huddle inside Lizzie’s shawl.
‘It’s a lovely day, Mother. Shall we sit you in your chair on the doorstep, so you can feel the sun on your face?’ I said. ‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’
Mother nodded yes, making it clear that she would like that very much. I kept her wrapped up in all her own shawls and blankets because she still coughed a little and wheezed when she drew breath. She had lost a lot of weight during her illness and I found I could push her quite easily. I left her there on the doorstep like a great sweet baby while I set about the familiar chores inside the cottage.
I was on my knees scrubbing the floor when I heard Mother give a startled cry. Then she started calling – her old frantic ‘Gi-gi-gi-gi!’
I jumped up, and in my haste kicked my bucket of water over, soaking my skirts. It took me a minute to wring myself out, all the time shouting to Mother that I was coming, but she took no notice.
‘Gi-gi-gi-gi!’ she shouted, and then gave a great gasp.
‘Oh my Lord! Have you hurt yourself? Hang on, Mother, I’m coming!’ I cried, and shot out of the door.
There was Mother, gasping in her chair. A tall man was bending over her, a terrifying stranger with a great black patch over his eye. He took hold of her – and I seized my broom and waved it above my head.
‘Leave my mother alone!’ I screamed, beating at him.
‘No – no!’ Mother shouted. ‘Gi-Gi-Gi-Gideon!’
I stopped, dumbfounded, my broom waving in mid air.
‘Gideon,’ Mother repeated, enunciating each syllable perfectly, tears of joy streaming down her face.
I couldn’t believe it. This wounded stranger was my foster brother Gideon, who had served his strict nine years at the hospital too? He’d been sent off to be a soldier. What on earth had happened to him?
‘Gideon!’ I said. ‘Oh, Gideon, your face! Your poor face! Were you in a battle? Oh my Lord, when did it happen?’
Gideon put his hand up over the right side of his face, covering the patch and his badly scarred cheek. I could have bitten my tongue off for my total lack of tact.
‘But never mind!’ I said, wildly and stupidly. ‘It’s wonderful that you’ve come home! See how glad Mother is to see you. She said your name as clear as anything. She’s been so ill since Father died, but now look at her, saying your name! She must have been missing you so much!’ I was just burbling in my embarrassment, but as I spoke the words, I realized they were absolutely true. All this time Mother, with her ‘Gi-gi-gi’, had been calling for Gideon. Why hadn’t we realized before? Gideon had always been her favourite, the odd little boy forever creeping onto her lap. I think Mother loved him even more than her own birth children. They had always been so close. Now, seeing them hugging each other, I felt tears stinging my own eyes.
‘It’s wonderful to see you, Gideon! You will act like a tonic for Mother. Oh my, wait till Jem sees you! In fact we won’t wait.’ I called the biggest of the little boys playing hopscotch in the dust – too young for school, but still old enough to run errands. ‘You – Phil, is it? You know my brother Jem, big strong Jem, who works over at the farm? He’ll be in the field by Magpie Wood, sowing barley with the horses. Think you could find him? Tell him Gideon’s come home. Got that? His brother Gideon! See if he can come as soon as possible.’
I made a cup of tea for Gideon, gave Mother hers in a beaker and then rushed upstairs to change into a clean dry dress. When I got back, they were hand in hand, Gideon perching on the arm of Mother’s chair. The sunshine was still so warm that I brought two chairs out from the kitchen and we all sat on the porch.
‘How long are you here for, Gideon?’ I asked. ‘Have they given you an extended leave because of . . . of your injury?’
Gideon lowered his head, his hand hovering in the air, as if he wanted to hide his face again. He made a little grunting noise which could have meant anything.
‘Is it a recent injury, Gideon?’ I asked.
He gave another grunt.
‘What was the battle? Did it happen abroad? Are we at war?’ I enquired.
Gideon grunted yet again.
He was so silent that I began to wonder if he was seriously mute. When he was a little boy he had stopped talking altogether after a fright. I guiltily remembered that I’d been partly responsible. He would not say a word to anyone. It wasn’t till we were sent off to the Foundling Hospital together that he had found his tongue again, but he was always a taciturn boy.
His injury was clearly extensive. Perhaps it had also affected his mouth and he couldn’t, rather than wouldn’t, speak. I put my hand over my own mouth, horrified that I’d been plaguing him with questions, wondering if I should run and fetch pen and paper to help him communicate more easily. Then I wondered if his brain had been affected too, because he seemed to be behaving so oddly, silently sitting there beside Mother, holding her hand. He’d made little or no acknowledgement of me. Perhaps he didn’t know who I was any more.
‘I am Hetty,’ I said, tapping my chest.
He stared at me with his good eye as if I were very strange. He nodded, clearly thinking me a fool. I laughed nervously, wondering what to do next. I wished Jem would come, but I knew he couldn’t leave his three-horse team to do the work by themselves. It would be lunch time at the earliest before he could come home, and only if there was another farm hand free to take over.
We sat on in silence for several minutes, my flesh crawling uneasily. I found any kind of silence hard to bear. When I was alone with Mother, I chatted to her all day long, the way a little girl does with her doll: ‘Now, Mother, let’s get you out of that nightgown. There now, bend your arms and let me get these silly old sleeves off. It’s a lovely sunny day today, Mother. Oh, we’re going to sit you out in the sunshine and make you completely better, yes we are . . .’ I’d carry on like that for hours, never quite knowing if Mother was taking it all in, but it seemed to make the day easier for both of us.
I couldn’t talk like that with Gideon here. I was getting nowhere asking him questions about himself, so I started a long rambling monologue about my own life.
I told him about being in service, I told him about Mama’s illness, I even told him about Mr Clarendon’s freak show and my starring role as Emerald the Amazing Pocket-Sized Mermaid. Both Gideon and Mother stared at me then, looking shocked, so I cut short my account of life as a showgirl and talked of my father in Monksby.
‘Did you ever try to find out who your parents were, Gideon?’ I asked instead. ‘I wrote to Miss Smith to ask the true name of my mother. You could write to her and ask after your mother.’
Gideon’s look was withering now. He picked up Mother’s hand and held it against his good cheek. It was obvious he was declaring that she was the only mother he could ever want. Mother herself seemed a changed woman. She was sitting up straight in her chair, looking intently at Gideon’s face. She seemed disconcerted by his patch and scarring, shaking her head in sympathy, but there was still such happiness shining out of her old eyes that she seemed to be smiling all over, even though her poor lips could not make the right smiling shape any more.
I could not believe I’d been so stupid and not realized how badly she was pining for Gideon. She had tried again and again to ask for him, and we had been so slow on the uptake. I was glad she was so happy now, but I couldn’t help being a little jealous too. I had tried so hard to please Mother and had looked after her lovingly for months, but she had never once looked at me the way she was looking at Gideon.
Little Phil came running back and jabbered, ‘Jem says welcome and he’ll come as soon as he’s able and can I have my penny now?’
I gave it to him, my heart sinking at the thought of the whole day trying to cope with my uncommunicative brother.
After what seemed like endless hours I stole away to continue with the household chores. Several times I tho
ught I heard low murmurings and Mother’s excited cries, but whenever I came out of the house they were silent. I gave them both broth and bread for lunch. Gideon supervised Mother’s feeding, guiding her shaking hand, gently holding the spoon to her lips. I seemed redundant now.
Mother fell soundly asleep after her lunch.
‘I think I should get her indoors where she can stretch out more comfortably,’ I said, but when I gently tried to detach Mother’s hand from Gideon’s to wheel her away, she woke and clung on determinedly.
It was a major relief when Janet came calling. She was clearly taken aback when she saw this tall young man with an alarmingly wounded face sitting close to Mother on the doorstep, but her manners were always impeccable no matter what the circumstances.
‘Oh, Janet, this is my foster brother, Gideon. Do you remember him? We were at the Foundling Hospital together and then he went away to be a soldier.’
‘Oh yes, Gideon, I do remember you! And clearly dear Mrs Cotton is very glad to have you back just now. Look at her face! What a happy day for you both.’ She talked naturally and sweetly, never once referring to Gideon’s patch or his wounds, and looked him in his one eye fearlessly. I felt ashamed that I had exclaimed at his injury straight away and questioned him clumsily.
At last she helped me to wheel Mother away and tend to her in the privy, and over Mother’s head we had a whispered conversation.
‘It was such a shock to see him, Janet! His poor face! How do you think it happened – and why won’t he talk about it?’ he said.
‘I think he’s still suffering from shock, Hetty. Perhaps he needs time. The poor boy – he was such a good-looking little chap too,’ she said. ‘But clearly he’s a true hero now.’
I wasn’t so sure. I knew my brother Gideon. He had never been remotely heroic before. ‘I don’t quite know how to cope with him, Janet,’ I said.
‘Wait till Jem comes home. He will do the coping,’ she said.
She was right. Jem managed to leave his work an hour or so early and came rushing home. Mother and Gideon were inside now, in the living room.