Annie Groves - Ellie Pride

‘Ellie…’ Lydia demanded weakly.

‘I shall bring her to you,’ Robert promised her. ‘Only lie still, my beloved. Please.’

‘Mother wants to see me?’

It hurt Robert unbearably to see the relief and happiness brightening Ellie’s pale face.

‘Oh, then she is getting better!’ Eagerly she followed him upstairs, pushing open the bedroom door and hurrying to her mother’s side.

The strong smell of carbolic still hung on the air but now it was overwhelmed by another smell, one that Robert recognised, but that he prayed both his wife and his daughter could not. How many times in the slaughterhouse had he breathed in that scent of hot blood? His throat closed and surreptitiously he wiped his hand over his eyes.

Briefly, Ellie glanced at the baby as she sat down beside her mother.

Robert followed the direction of her glance. The child at least was healthy in spite of its early arrival – a six-pound boy with a strong pair of lungs.

As he looked towards Lydia, Robert thought he could already detect signs of death in her still features. Ellie, though, thank goodness, was oblivious to her mother’s real condition as she bent her head to kiss her tenderly.

‘Oh, Mama, Mama, I am so sorry that I made you angry,’ she whispered. ‘Please, please, say that you forgive me!’

Quietly, Robert left the bedroom.

‘Ellie…please listen to me…’

Tiredly, Lydia closed her eyes and fought to summon what was left of her strength. There was none of the familiar ache she had experienced after her previous live births, none of the deep but satisfying exhaustion that told of hard labour well done; none of the cleansing sense of freedom and euphoria; of maternal joy, only a deep numbing coldness that seemed to seep up her body in a slow tide that could not be escaped. She didn’t need to see the tears of her husband, or the anguish of her sister, to know what was happening to her. She had known it from the moment she had felt that dreadful tearing pain, which had seemed to wrench not only the child from her, but her very womb as well. Time was running out for her, and she doubted that she would see another dawn, which made it all the more imperative that she spoke with Ellie.

‘I am listening, Mama,’ Ellie told her emotionally.

‘Ellie, I want you to promise me never to see Gideon Walker again. I ask you for this promise not because I want you to suffer but because I want to protect you. My mother pleaded with me not to marry your father, but I would not listen. I believed that I knew better than she, and now look what has become of me. Your father is a good man and I would not have anyone say any other, but…but none of your aunts, my sisters, would ever find themselves in the situation that I am in. Men like your father and Gideon Walker, they…’ Weakly, she closed her eyes. How could she explain to Ellie the terrible price that women had to pay to appease the hungry sexuality of such men?

‘Your aunts, my sisters, know my wishes, Ellie…and my hopes for you and your sister. I want you to promise me that you will obey them in all things, and that you will remember that they are carrying out my wishes. I cannot bear to think that you may meet a fate like mine, Ellie…Promise me, Ellie…’

Ellie started to cry, too overwrought to question logically what was happening, knowing only that right now her love for her mother took priority over everything and everyone else in her life.

‘Mama, please,’ she choked. ‘I will promise you whatever you want, if only you will forgive me…’

‘You will put Gideon Walker completely out of your life and your thoughts, and you will be guided by your aunts in all things, do you promise?’

‘I promise, Mama,’ Ellie sobbed.

‘Good. I want you to remember always that you have made me this promise, Ellie. To remember it and to honour it, because…’

Her mother’s voice had become so faint that Ellie could barely hear it, and then suddenly she stopped speaking, her head falling to one side on the pillow.

As she clung to her mother’s icy cold hand, Ellie could hear her breath rattling in her throat.

‘Oh, Mam, Mam, please, please get well,’ she begged heartbrokenly, reverting to the comforting softness of the town’s dialect as she clung to her hand.

Lydia’s eyes were closing. ‘Always remember and honour your promise to me, Ellie.’

The words were so low, little more than a sigh, that Ellie had to bend her head closer to her to hear them.

She saw her mother’s chest expand once as she breathed in – sharply – and then went still, her eyes suddenly opening, focusing not on Ellie but into the distance.

Panic suddenly filled Ellie. Releasing her mother’s hand she ran to the door and opened it, calling frantically for her father, as Lydia’s final breath bubbled in her throat.

Gideon paused as he turned into Friargate. Theoretically he was on his way to see Mary Isherwood, having telephoned to make an appointment, but naturally he wanted to call in at the Prides’ house to see how things were. And, of course, to see Ellie!

For once there was no busyness outside the shop, no carefully protected display of choice hams and salted beefs. The door was firmly closed, and there was no sign of either life or light inside, and then as Gideon glanced along the street he saw the sombre black ribbon attached to the front door knocker – a sign that the family was in mourning.

Had the child not survived? Reluctant to intrude, Gideon started to turn away, but as he did so the door suddenly opened and a buxom woman dressed in black emerged, accompanied by a white-faced Ellie, her hair escaping from its pins to curl softly round a face so riven with grief that Gideon caught his breath in anguish for her. The bleakness of Ellie’s expression didn’t belong to the girl he had held and kissed only the previous day.

‘Thank you, Mrs Jakes,’ Gideon heard her saying. ‘I’m sorry that my father isn’t here, but –’

‘Aye, that’s menfolk for you. First thing they do is turn to drink when they’re in grief. Never met one of them yet who could stomach a laying-out. ‘T’ain’t natural for ’em, you see. Tell your aunt that I’ve done the best I can. Allus close to your mother, she was. She’ll be sadly missed, will your ma, especially with a new baby to be cared for.’

‘My Aunt Jepson is to take care of the baby,’ Ellie said in a low, unsteady voice. ‘My mother left instructions for…for everything. She was afraid that –’

Unable to bear seeing her in so much distress, Gideon stepped forward, causing the departing midwife, who had come to lay out Lydia’s body, to give him a speculative look. Gossip was as much her stock in trade as births and deaths, and it seemed that the Pride household had very generously supplied her with all three. Whoever the young man was in such a rush to get to Ellie Pride, he was certainly a good-looking ‘un, that was for sure.

‘Ellie! What –’

‘Gideon!’ Ellie stepped back from him immediately, holding up her hands in a gesture of denial, but Gideon had already followed her into the hallway and was closing the door behind him.

‘I saw the black ribbon,’ he told her, ‘but I thought it must be the child. I had no idea…My poor little love. Believe me, I do know how you must be feeling. When I lost my own mother…But it will get better, Ellie, I promise you, and you have me and…’

Ellie froze. How could Gideon claim to know what she was feeling? How could he say that he understood? No one understood! No one knew what misery and guilt she felt, what pain!

As he saw the emotions chasing one another across her face, Gideon’s smile changed to a concerned frown. Swiftly he crossed the distance separating them, taking hold gently of her upper arms.