Chapter 42 Christmas Past
Christmas Past
I dwelt on the entry describing their Christmas together in Smuggler’s Cottage. It was so poignant, knowing what was to come.
Arwen, with her love of cooking, sounded so like me! And I was glad she had some happy memories of Triskelion, too.
Christmas was a quiet affair, cosy in our little cottage with driftwood fires burning brightly to ward off the cold.
We decorated the house with holly, ivy and mistletoe, and Arwen baked a slightly different Christmas cake, a wassail one, from a recipe given to her by the cook at Triskelion, Mrs Bradley, along with those for Welsh cakes and Jumbles, a sort of biscuit, both delicious.
Luckily, she seemed to have only happy memories of time spent in the Triskelion kitchen.
I fear gluttony has become my main sin. Arwen’s appetite, however, gets ever more chancy as her pregnancy progresses.
She’s unmistakably pregnant now, and while our artist friends haven’t commented, I’m sure it has stirred up a maelstrom of local gossip.
Our gifts to each other were modest and practical. Mine from Arwen was a large blue-and-white-striped jug to hold flowers in my studio in place of the jam jar I’d been using, and mine to her a warm dressing gown.
Edwin, stirred by who knew what mixed emotions, sent down a lavish hamper from Fortnum and Mason.
My aunt, who seemed barely to have registered the news that my companion was expecting a child out of wedlock, due to her being such a bluestocking that it had barely penetrated the rarified air she breathed, had sent a selection of the recently published books she considered of note, including a pamphlet on women’s suffrage, to which she’d contributed.
Arwen turned nineteen on Christmas Eve and at her suggestion we drove over to the parish church and slipped into the back for the carol service.
I think in some way she derived comfort from the Nativity story, and for the first time, on the way back, we talked of the changes the coming baby will bring.
She hopes it will be a girl and never know the circumstances of her conception, but grow up surrounded by as much love as if her arrival had been a longed-for event.
I promised to play my part in this, becoming the child’s godmother, and we will be a little family of sorts, here in Smuggler’s Cottage.
Still, I’m afraid the child will suffer from the stigma of illegitimacy as she grows up. It’s such a cruel world.
2 February 1920
Arwen’s health has taken a turn for the worse since the New Year, and I fear for her. We went back to the doctor, who said the baby is small, but moves vigorously enough, and he’s unconcerned that she’s still losing blood from time to time …
When we talked to the local midwife, she too said it was not unusual, and now Arwen was in her sixth month, she was past the stage where most miscarriages happened.
I don’t think either of us was much reassured by this. Arwen has become very quiet and keeps mostly to the house or studio, although the bitter weather doesn’t entice anyone to take walks.
Still, we manage to go out for a little drive most afternoons, for I bought Edwin’s old car when he purchased a newer one.
Yesterday we visited the church of St Pol de Leon’s in Trungle, which was very interesting.
It’s built on an ancient foundation, and rebuilt over the years, but you can still feel a sense of the centuries that have passed since its inception.
I suggested we should go there to paint in the spring, after the baby has arrived, and Arwen smiled and said, ‘Perhaps …’
I accused her of having morbid thoughts when she insisted on making a will, naming me as the child’s guardian if anything should happen to her. She hadn’t much else to leave, but it will all come to me, so I could pass on the family mementoes to the child in due course.
This seemed to put her mind at rest, so I hope she has given up these dark thoughts.
Still, I worry that she’s so pale and languid, seemingly afraid to move with her usual vigour. I’m looking after her as best I can, for she is the centre of my world and I don’t feel I could go on without her.
And now I am the one having morbid thoughts!
And then came the most heart-wrenching entry of them all, which made me weep even more than what had gone before:
30 March 1920
It’s almost midnight and soon there will be a new day – the first one I must get through without my dearest, most beloved friend for, although I can barely yet take the fact in, she died this morning.
Perhaps it will help me to accept the awful truth, if I write down what happened. Yet I still hope this is a nightmare I will wake up from …
Arwen called for me in the early hours of the morning, having had a sudden rush of blood and gone into premature labour.
The midwife arrived very quickly and the baby, a girl, was born alive and soon began to cry very loudly for one so small.
But all my concern, and the midwife’s, was for Arwen. We sent for the doctor and he arrived speedily, but Arwen died soon after from a massive haemorrhage.
Placenta previa, the doctor called it, and he said it was lucky the child was born alive. I know they did all they could to save Arwen too, but secretly I would rather have had Arwen survive than the infant.
Arwen saw the baby, which she wanted called Frances – a favourite name due to St Francis of Assisi, who loved all the wild creatures – and Mary, after her own mother.
As I sat by her bedside, holding her hand in mine and watching as she grew as pale as her pillow, she whispered that the last months with me had been the happiest of her life, despite everything.
‘We have been happy – but for so short a time, Arwen. Please don’t leave me!’ I begged her.
‘You can’t measure happiness in time,’ she murmured.
Then she smiled at me and said she felt as if she was being swept out on a tide and it was so much easier to let go and drift away with it …
I begged her not to leave me, but she weakly pressed my hand and then, closing her eyes, gave a great sigh and was gone.
And now, so many hours later, I’m alone in the house at last, having asked the kind friends who came to comfort me to leave.
Even the baby has gone, for the midwife arranged for a local labourer’s wife who had given birth to twins, one of them stillborn, to take her for the present.
I’m glad of this, because I need time to come to terms with my resentment against the poor little creature for taking the life of my friend, and learn to love her for Arwen’s sake.
Tomorrow I’ll have to face the arrangements that need to be made, but for the moment I sit here, looking at the photographs of Arwen in my albums – my dearest friend, the love of my life – and wondering how I will now face the future.
There was a final postscript, on 12 April, when Arwen was laid to rest in the churchyard of the beautiful old church they had both loved.
This morning Arwen was laid to rest in the churchyard of St Pol de Leon, the old church she had liked so much.
It had been decked with bright spring flowers, which reflected her youth, for she had been in the springtime of her life.
So many kind friends came from the artistic community that I was touched, but Edwin, at the last minute, felt he couldn’t face it and just sent hothouse lilies, which seemed very out of place among the tulips and daffodils.
Oddly, I felt a strange sense of relief when it was all over, as if I’d emerged from a bad dream.
The birds were singing sweetly and the day fresh and clear, with all the promise of spring – and I must steel myself to go on.
My Arwen was not here, under a coverlet of bright blooms in this churchyard. I felt her presence near me so strongly in the first few days after her death. But now … she was gone.
For her sake, I must take on the role of mother and guardian to little Frances – or Fanny, as the woman looking after her calls her – however unsuited to the role I feel.
None of this tragedy was her fault, but Cosmo Caradoc’s, so I will learn to love her for Arwen’s sake.
In fact, I already do feel a growing bond with her, for I visit her every day, so that when she is weaned and comes to live in the cottage, I will not be a stranger to her.
She is very small but seems to be thriving, nonetheless.
I named no father on the birth certificate, for I knew that that was what Arwen had wanted. Nor will I ever tell the child who her father was or the circumstances of her conception, for the same reason.
Edwin again offered financial help, which this time I have accepted, for I’ll need to employ a nursemaid so I can carry on working. Also, thinking ahead, it will be best if, when she is old enough, Frances goes to a private school in another area, where no one will know of her illegitimacy.
But I will do my best to teach little Frances to be proud of who her mother was.
Tears on the keyboard really don’t do your laptop a lot of good …