Hope.

by LESLEY PEa.r.s.e.

To all my friends and neighbours in Compton Dando for making me feel so welcome and happy here.

I hope you will enjoy this entirely fict.i.tious story, and forgive me for taking liberties with our real village history, and for any mistakes or omissions.

Chapter One.

Somerset, 1832.

'Screaming don't help babbies into this world!' Bridie snapped irritably, and forced the rope knotted to the bed-head into her mistress's hands. 'Jest pull on this and bear down.'

At the sound of the door opening behind her, she glanced over her shoulder to see Nell, the parlourmaid, coming in with a basin of hot water. 'About time too! I thought you'd skedaddled,' she barked.

Nell was not offended by old Bridie's sharpness; she understood it was only because she was frightened. Bridie was not a midwife and it was only the horror of Lady Harvey being put to public shame that had induced her to deliver this baby herself. She looked all of her sixty years now, with her iron-grey hair escaping from her starched cap, her plump face drawn and yellowy in the candlelight, and her blue eyes, which normally twinkled with merriment, dull with exhaustion and anxiety.

'Maybe we should get the doctor?' Nell blurted out as she saw the angry distended veins which had popped up all over Lady Harvey's face and neck. 'It's surely taking too long and she's in such pain.'

Bridie glared, and Nell took that to mean she was not to offer any further opinions or suggestions. So she took the rag from the cold-water basin, wrung it out and wiped her mistress's forehead. She just hoped Bridie knew what she was doing, for if her ladyship were to die, they'd both be in deep trouble.

The room was fetid and airless, hot as an oven even though the fire was almost out now. The heavy tapestry curtains around the bed and the highly polished dark furniture added to the claustrophobic atmosphere. Nell had seen the first rays of dawn coming into the sky as she fetched the hot water from the kitchen, and she was so tired she felt she might fall down where she stood.

Last year she'd helped at her baby brother's birth, but it had been nothing like this. Mother had been walking around until minutes before, and then she lay down, gave a bit of a shout, and out came the baby as smooth as a greasy piglet. Until tonight Nell had thought that all babies arrived that way.

But Lady Harvey had started her yelling and carrying on at six yesterday evening and it had just got worse and worse through the night. Her lovely white nightgown was sodden with sweat, and beneath it her distended belly looked obscene in the flickering candlelight.

If this was what you got for going with a man, Nell thought, she'd sooner die a virgin.

'Let me die and the baby with me!' Lady Harvey yelled out. 'G.o.d, haven't you punished me enough for my wickedness?'

'Push the baby out or you will die,' Bridie yelled back, and gave her mistress a sharp slap on her naked thigh. 'Come on, push the little b.u.g.g.e.r out, d.a.m.n you!'

Whether it was the slap or the threat of death that did it, Lady Harvey's screams turned to a kind of bellow, not unlike a cow in labour, and all at once she was pushing with real determination.

Some twenty minutes later Nell's eyes grew wide as she finally saw the baby's head coming. The hair on it was gypsy-black, in stark contrast to her mistress's lily-white thighs.

'That's it! He's coming now.' Bridie's voice was suddenly softer with relief. 'Let him come, don't push no more.'

Nell watched entranced, her exhaustion forgotten as the baby slid out into Bridie's knurled old hands. The belly which had seconds ago looked as taut and swollen as a ripe pumpkin suddenly sagged, and her ladyship let out a gentle sigh of relief that her ordeal was finally over.

Bridie pointedly placed the new baby well away from its mother, not even proclaiming that she'd had a girl. Nell caught the older woman's eyes, saw the fear in them, and all at once the joy and wonder she'd felt at the miracle of new life was extinguished.

This baby wasn't intended to live. Bridie was not going to slap its little back, or breathe into its tiny mouth to help it survive. It was meant to die.

'Is it really over now?' Lady Harvey asked, her voice just a hoa.r.s.e whisper.

'Aye, it's over now, m'lady,' Bridie said as she quickly tied the cord and cut it. 'Just the afterbirth to come and you'll be able to go to sleep and forget it all.'

Nell looked down at the motionless, silent baby lying on the bed. Her younger brothers and sisters had all been ugly and purple with bald heads at their birth. They'd squalled with anger at their speedy arrival into a harsh new world. But this one was pretty, with dark hair and a mouth like a little rosebud. Nell thought that was perhaps because it was ordained to go straight to heaven.

'Did it die?' Lady Harvey asked sleepily. The angry red veins on her face and neck had already faded, but she looked gaunt and pale. Her long golden hair, Bridie's pride and joy, was matted and dull. Nell could hardly believe this was the same young woman she'd always admired for her serene elegance and beauty.

Bridie merely glanced sideways at the infant as she ma.s.saged her mistress's belly. 'Aye, m'lady, I'm afraid so,' she replied with a break in her voice. 'But perhaps that's just as well.'

'Just let me see it?' Lady Harvey asked.

Bridie nodded at Nell, who took up a piece of flannel, wrapped it around the baby and lifted it up. Lady Harvey reached out one finger to run it down the infant's cheek, and then turned her head away as the tears came. 'G.o.d's will,' she whispered. 'But I'm grateful for his mercy.'

Bridie nudged Nell towards the door. 'Take it to the still room, then you go to your bed,' she whispered. 'I'll deal with it later when I've finished here.'

Holding the tiny lifeless baby in her arms, Nell walked quickly down the corridor towards the backstairs. Briargate Hall was as silent as a crypt. All the other servants had been sent to the London house three weeks ago to prepare it for Sir William Harvey's return from America. He had been there for almost two years, and this of course was the reason why Bridie hadn't attempted to save the baby. If she knew who its father was, she wouldn't say. She had guarded her mistress's secret pregnancy as if it were her own. Even when she was compelled to include Nell in the conspiracy because she couldn't handle the birth alone, she told her nothing more than that her ladyship was carrying an unwanted child.

It was the end of April, and it was only yesterday that they'd finally seen signs of spring after a long, bitterly cold winter. It was going to be another fine, warm day today too, because the sun was already streaming in through the east window by the backstairs.

In the huge mirror beside the window, Nell could see herself reflected. The image shocked her, not so much because she looked so untidy, her ap.r.o.n stained and her cap all askew with strands of hair hanging down, but because the night's events had suddenly aged her. Just twenty-four hours ago she'd looked like any other sixteen-year-old housemaid: neat and demure in her starched uniform, her cheeks pink from running up and down the stairs, and a sparkle in her dark eyes because Baines, the butler, wasn't here to keep reprimanding her. Her mind had been on Ned Travers, who had said he'd meet her in Lord's Wood that afternoon. He was about to enlist in the army and all the village girls wanted to be his sweetheart. Nell wasn't exactly sure that was what she wanted, but it was good to think he wanted her.

Nell knew she wasn't blessed with beauty. She took after her father's side of the family, as all her brothers and sisters did. They were short and st.u.r.dy with black straight hair and dark brown eyes. Ned had said she had a complexion like cream, but that was probably only sweet talk. Her mouth was too small, her nose a little too big, and her eyebrows too bushy.

She didn't get to meet Ned, so she'd never know whether he liked her for herself or because he thought a plain girl like her might be easy. Bridie dropped her bombsh.e.l.l mid-morning and made it quite clear Nell was not to leave the house for any reason.

Up till then Nell had believed, as all the servants did, that her mistress's lengthy stay in her room was because she'd been hurt falling from her horse. Rose, one of the other maids, had said it was a 'queer do', as the previous time Lady Harvey had had a fall from her horse she was hobbling around with a walking stick within two days.

But Nell saw nothing suspicious in this extended period of bed rest. She had noted in her four years of service that ladies of quality tended to suffer from curious ailments which didn't strike common folk.

It was her view that the mistress's problem was melancholia: a combination of the long, bitter winter and her husband's extended absence. Whenever Nell was sent upstairs with a tray, Lady Harvey was either still in bed or sitting by the window with her feet up, covered in a quilt. She looked as beautiful as ever, her golden hair loose on her shoulders, but she was subdued and very pale. Nell often felt Bridie ought to be firmer with her and make her take a short walk outside every day.

Just before Baines left in the carriage bound for London with the rest of the household, he had given Nell her orders. She was to cook, fetch and carry until Lady Harvey felt able to travel to London with Bridie. Then she was to stay on here alone to look after the house, and the gardener and groom would take care of everything outside.

Nell wasn't disappointed at not going to London too. Bridie said that there was always far more work there because it was a much larger house and the Harveys entertained a great deal. She also said the London staff looked down on country yokels, and it was like working in a madhouse.

In fact Nell viewed staying at Briargate as a holiday, for she'd have virtually nothing to do. She would be able to slip home every afternoon to see her mother and younger brothers and sisters, and to wander around the grounds as much as she liked.

When Bridie told her yesterday what really ailed the mistress it was a huge shock. 'She slipped up,' was how Bridie put it, as if she imagined Nell didn't know how babies were made.

Nell had been promised a sovereign just as long as she never breathed a word of what she would see and hear in the next few hours. Bridie bluntly stated that it was her hope the baby wouldn't survive.

Yesterday that hope didn't seem so terrible. Bridie was only being practical, just as the groom was when he drowned kittens born in the barn. Everyone knew that ladies got a wetnurse in for their babies anyway, and had very little time for their offspring until they were almost fully grown.

But once Lady Harvey went into hard labour, she wasn't any different to any other woman Nell knew. She sweated, she cried, she even shouted crude oaths like the slatternly barmaid down at the inn. All the fine linen and lace, silver hairbrushes and jewellery didn't stop her having to push that baby out just like a tinker woman in the fields. And just as the commonest beggarwoman would still grieve for a dead baby, Nell knew Lady Harvey would too.

She looked down at the wrapped parcel in her arms and tears welled up in her eyes. Her folks had nothing, ten children brought up in a tiny cottage with a leaking roof, yet each new baby had been greeted with joy. This one had never been kissed, and it wouldn't even be given a name or get a proper funeral.

The burden of being witness to the birth was a heavy one too. Nell didn't know how she was going to be able to talk to Lady Harvey normally after this, or if she could ever forget. She and Bridie might even be cursed for their part in it!

Everyone knew how a curse was put on Sir John Popham. He was an ancestor of the Pophams who still lived at Hunstrete House, the mansion closest to Briargate on the other side of Lord's Wood. Sir John was the judge at the trial of William Darrell of Littlecote who was charged with murdering a newborn baby by throwing it on the fire. Darrell put the curse on the Pophams because the judge took Littlecote, and with it Hunstrete, which was part of the Littlecote estate, in exchange for his acquittal. The curse was that the Popham family would never have a male heir. They hadn't had one either, only girls.

Nell had to suppose Darrell murdered the baby because he hadn't fathered it. She and Bridie hadn't murdered this one, but perhaps not attempting to make a newborn baby take its first breath amounted to the same thing?

If anyone found out they could be hanged!

Nell's heart began to race and her stomach churned. Was Bridie intending to bury the baby's body out in the garden? How did she think they could do that without old Jacob the gardener seeing?

As she began walking down the backstairs, a faint stirring against her chest surprised her. She stumbled and nearly dropped the little bundle before steadying herself. With trepidation she drew the covering flannel back a little, and to her utter astonishment she saw one tiny hand move, and the baby opened its mouth in a yawn.

For a moment she could only stare, convinced she was imagining it, but the hand moved again, more vigorously this time. 'It's a miracle!' she exclaimed aloud, her voice echoing in the stairwell. Everyone knew newborn babies cried to proclaim they were alive and well. She had never ever heard of one remaining silent unless it was too weak to survive.

Unless it was a fairy child.

Nell's education amounted to little more than being taught her letters and a few sums by the Reverend Gosling between the ages of six and eight. But she'd learned superst.i.tions from birth, from her own parents and many of the old folk in the village.

The story went that fairy children came into this world to bestow good fortune. They could be recognized by their unexpected arrival, their exceptional looks and gentle nature. Joan Stott in the village was barren, and then at well over forty she finally gave birth to a little girl who looked like an angel. Joan and Amos Stott had scratched less than a bare living from their land, and no one expected their baby to survive, but she did. And she was hardly put into her cradle before the Stotts' hens began to lay, their crops increased, and even their old sow produced a litter of twelve fine piglets. That child was over six now, still as pretty as a May morning, and the Stotts were becoming almost prosperous.

But whether Lady Harvey's baby was a miracle or a fairy child, Nell knew Bridie wasn't going to rejoice that it was alive. She had been in service to the Dorvilles, Lady Harvey's family, since she was fourteen. She had risen from scullery maid to nursemaid to the Dorville children, and eight years ago when Anne, the youngest, was to marry Sir William Harvey, Bridie came here to Briargate with her as her personal maid.

Bridie's whole life pivoted around the mistress she'd helped bring into this world, and she wouldn't allow anything or anyone to bring disgrace and shame to her.

But the possibility that this was a fairy child prevented Nell from considering Bridie's feelings or wishes; she had to act on her own instincts. She hastened on down the stairs to the warm kitchen and picked up the shawl she'd left on a chair to wrap the baby more warmly. Ousting the cat from Cook's chair in the corner, she laid the infant down on the cushion, then rushed outside to fill the kettle from the pump.

By the time Nell heard Bridie's heavy, slow step on the stairs almost an hour later, it was broad daylight, with warm sunshine coming in through the lattice window by the sink. The baby was now washed, rewrapped in clean flannel and fast asleep in a linen basket by the stove.

She had opened her eyes as if in astonishment when Nell peeled off the soiled flannel, and she'd wailed indignantly as she washed her. But the moment she was rewrapped she went back to sleep.

'I thought I told you to go to bed?' Bridie said grumpily as she came into the kitchen, weighed down with a pail of dirty water in one hand, a covered basin in the other and bundles of bloodstained linen under each arm.

She looked all in. Her ap.r.o.n was bloodstained, her shoulders were stooped and she was wheezing with the effort of walking.

'The baby, it's alive,' Nell said, pointing to the basket.

Bridie blanched and dropped her burdens, splashing water on to the floor. 'Oh Jesus, Mary, Mother of G.o.d!' she exclaimed, crossing herself and glancing fearfully at the basket.

'She's very bonny,' Nell ventured fearfully. While she felt some sympathy for Bridie and her mistress because she knew how much trouble a living baby was going to cause for them both, she couldn't help but feel delight she'd helped it to survive. Yet at the same time she also knew girls like her could be dismissed for getting above their station, and Bridie was quite likely to feel that was just what she'd done.

Bridie let out a sob of pain, and put both hands to her face in consternation. 'Oh, my lawd!' she exclaimed. 'What am I to do?'

Nell instinctively moved towards the older woman and put her arms around her, just as she would do to her own mother if she was in distress. Bridie had been kind to her right from her first day at Briargate, when she was a frightened twelve-year-old who had no real idea of what leaving her own family and going into service meant. It was Bridie who had suggested Nell was wasted in the kitchen, and that she should be trained as a parlourmaid; she'd fought the protests from Cook and Mrs Cole, the housekeeper, covered up for Nell when she broke an ornament, and smuggled home leftover food when her father was laid up with a bad chest and couldn't work.

During her four years at Briargate this woman had been Nell's comforter, teacher and confidante. Thanks to her, she could help her family; she had good food, decent clothes, and prospects. She didn't know if there was any way she could help Bridie out of this tight spot, but if there was one, she'd find it.

'Don't take on, Bridie,' Nell said comfortingly. 'We're both tired now, but if we put our heads together we'll think of something. I'll make you some tea, and then you go to bed. I'll put the linen in to soak and listen out for the mistress.'

Bridie drew back from Nell's arms and wiped her eyes on the hem of her ap.r.o.n. Her blue eyes were still swimming but Nell could see she was struggling to regain her composure. 'You're a good girl,' she said, her voice shaking. 'But it's you who must go to bed. I'll sit here with my tea for a bit, and then go back upstairs. I can doze in the chair in the mistress's room.'

'Shall I take the baby in with me?' Nell asked.

Bridie shook her head. 'She'll be warmer here. Go to bed now.'

Nell found she couldn't sleep for thinking about the baby. It would need feeding soon and if Bridie was up in Lady Harvey's bedroom she wouldn't hear it cry. There was so much else which needed to be done too coal brought in for the stove, linen to be washed and something nourishing cooked for Lady Harvey. She couldn't just lie here wide awake and leave everything to Bridie.

She got up, washed herself and put on the old grey dress she had been given to wear when there were dirty jobs to do, then, carrying her boots, she stole quietly down the stairs from her attic room so she wouldn't disturb the mistress.

Hardly a day pa.s.sed without her feeling blessed to be able to live at Briargate Hall. It was a light, bright house built just forty years ago by Sir Roland Harvey, William's father, and situated half-way between the cities of Bath and Bristol. Nell had never been to either of these cities; all she knew was the village of Compton Dando where she was born and the surrounding villages. The farthest she'd ever been was to Keynsham, some three and a half miles away.

People did say that Bristol's port was a marvel and you could see wondrous great sailing ships there that sailed to the far ends of the earth. But Nell had no yearnings to go there; a year ago hundreds of people had died from cholera, and only five months ago, in October, there had been three days of terrible riots. Scores of people were killed, many more seriously injured, and dozens of buildings destroyed and burned. Four people were hanged for their part in it and dozens more put in prison or transported. To Nell it sounded a very dangerous place.

Mr Baines, who knew just about everything, said that the riots happened because the system of government was corrupt. He said the Tories bribed and intimidated people at elections so that the reform parties couldn't get in. He took some pride in the fact that the people of Bristol were brave enough to make their voice heard, and he claimed that if he had been a young man he would have joined them.

Nell had heard that Bath, the other city nearby, was very different to Bristol, for it was where the gentry went to take its special waters and have a high old time. Baines said it was beautiful, with wide streets, splendid houses and shops so full of luxury items that your eyes would pop out looking at them all.

Cook claimed that it was a hive of wickedness, the streets full of pickpockets, and the special waters tasted so vile it was a wonder they didn't kill people. So if these were the two nearest cities, Nell didn't think there was much in either of them for a girl like her.

Baines said that old Sir Roland Harvey had been a great traveller, and the design of Briargate was influenced by houses he'd seen in Italy and plantation houses in the West Indies. He had brought the black and white marble for the floor in the hall back from Italy, along with the marble statues in the garden, and instead of building it in the local stone, he'd used brick with a kind of pinkish-cream plaster over it. There was a very grand portico at the front held up by big pillars, and the tiles on the roof were green instead of red.

Long narrow windows almost reached the floor and let sunshine stream in all day; the graceful shutters had been specially designed for Sir Roland, as were the marble fireplaces. Nell particularly liked the carved grapes and birds on the staircase newel posts; it didn't seem possible a man could make something so delicate with just a chisel. With the sparkling chandeliers and thick rugs and furniture so highly polished she could see her own face reflected, Nell felt as if she were living in a palace.

When she first came to work at Briargate she could scarcely clear a fireplace for looking at the paintings on the walls. Everywhere she looked there were objects of wonder. Bridie didn't share her enthusiasm. She said with only eight bedrooms, it wasn't anywhere near as large or magnificent as the London house. She did concede that old Sir Roland had his head screwed on right, for he'd designed it to be labour-saving. She usually added somewhat tartly that he must have known that slave trading would be abolished, and that he wouldn't be able to get servants to work for nothing here.

To Nell, a butler, housekeeper and cook, four maids, plus gardeners and grooms, along with various other people who came in as they were needed, seemed to be an awful lot of servants to look after just one house and two people. But Bridie said it wasn't a big staff, and pointed out that they only managed it so easily because of the design.

The main rooms were s.p.a.cious, but not so big that they couldn't be heated adequately. The dining room was close to the kitchen, so food arrived at the table hot. There was even a contraption in the kitchen where large pails of hot water could be sent upstairs for baths and washing just by pulling on a rope. Bridie laughingly called it 'The Maid's Saviour' and pulled up her sleeve to show a burn on her forearm which she'd got as a young girl from hauling a pail of boiling water up the stairs.

Hearing the baby cry out as she neared the kitchen, Nell didn't stop to put her boots on, but as she turned the corner of the hallway which led to the kitchen, she was horrified to see Bridie leaning over the baby's basket with a cushion in her hands.

There was no doubt as to what she was intending to do for she was crying and muttering something through her tears that sounded to Nell like an apology or even a prayer.

'No, Bridie!' Nell called out, dropping her boots with a clatter and running towards the older woman. 'You mustn't it's wicked, and she's a fairy child.'

Bridie wheeled round, her old face stricken with guilt. 'But it's the only way, Nell. If she lives it'll be ruin for m'lady, she'll be cast out of Briargate.'

Later that day it was to strike Nell that Bridie had watched indifferently as a maid was ordered out of the house because she was with child. If Lady Harvey was cast out she could go back to her own family, but that poor girl had nowhere to go but the workhouse.

But Nell didn't think of that then all she had on her mind was the prevention of murder. 'You can't kill a baby,' she insisted, getting between Bridie and the makeshift cradle. 'It ain't right and you know it.'

For a second or two Nell thought Bridie would strike her and carry on with her plan, for she could see the desperation on her face. But instead she suddenly sagged, sank down on to a chair and covered her face with her hands. 'Heaven knows I don't want to hurt the babby, but what else is there to do?' she asked imploringly.

'I don't know,' Nell said, and put her hand on the older woman's shoulder. 'But it ain't never right to kill her. It ain't her fault she were born, and like I said she's a fairy child. Just look at her!'

The baby had her eyes open now, and had stopped crying, almost as if she knew the danger had pa.s.sed. Her eyes were not the usual blue of a new baby's, but dark as night, looking up at Nell as if thanking her for the reprieve.