Chapter 33
‘You don’t have to go,’ Charles said, holding her bag as they stood on the pavement together.
Hope knew how easy it would be to stay, but she also knew what she was facing. She couldn’t stay. She was a pregnant, unmarried woman, living off the good graces of her uncle, with only enough money to tide her over for so long.
‘I can’t,’ she said, throwing her arms around him and hoping he understood how much he’d come to mean to her. ‘I want this baby to have a better life than I can give him or her, and if I can find a lovely family looking to adopt…’
‘You’re certain?’
She nodded, fresh tears glistening in her eyes. ‘If I change my mind, I know where to come,’ she said. ‘And for that, I have you to thank.’
Charles kissed her cheek and gave her bag to the driver, and Hope stood back to look from him to the house.
It had come to feel like home to her, even in such a short time, and she knew that if for some reason she didn’t return, she’d never forget the magnolia tree welcoming her beside the red front door, or the warmth of being in a household in which there was no judgement.
It was everything her family home had never been.
‘Hope, before you go…’
She turned back to Charles, not liking the edge of concern in his voice.
‘Before you arrived, I wasn’t keeping so well with my health,’ he said. ‘I just, well, I wanted you to know, in case anything happened while you were gone, just how much you’ve come to mean to me. You’re like the daughter I never had.’
If she’d been emotional before, now her heart felt as if it were breaking all over again, and it was all she could do not to sink to her knees and cry.
‘Charles, do you need me to stay? If you’re unwell, if there’s something you’re trying to tell me…’
‘No, not at all, I want you to do what you feel is best. I only wanted you to know how much I care about you.’
Hope walked backwards a few steps, needing to leave now before she changed her mind. It would be too easy to stay. But then what? She couldn’t live in her uncle’s home as the unmarried mother of a baby. It wouldn’t be right. She had to do what was best for all of them, no matter what he said.
‘Thank you, Charles. I’ll never forget your kindness,’ Hope said. ‘I’ll see you soon.’
He lifted his hand to wave. ‘Yes, I’ll see you again soon, Hope.’
She waved back and got into the car, knowing in her heart that she was doing the right thing, but wishing she didn’t have to all the same.
When Hope arrived at the convent almost an hour later, it was immediately clear to her that it was no home from home.
The sisters were stern and clearly disapproving of her condition, even though she’d slipped a modest ring on her finger, hoping they might think she’d simply fallen on hard times rather than come to give birth as an unmarried woman.
‘This is your room,’ said the sister who’d met her at the door and taken her through the cold, concrete building. ‘You share two to a room, you’re expected to keep it spotless, and you’ll be given your list of chores in the morning after breakfast.’
Hope nodded, keeping one hand on her stomach as if she might be able to shield her baby from the sense of foreboding she herself was feeling. She was only grateful the sister finally left her alone as she made to walk into the room.
‘Don’t expect any of them to give you a smile.’
Hope looked up from where she was standing to see a young woman with long brown hair caught in a braid leaning against the doorway. She couldn’t help but notice the swell of her stomach, which appeared to be even larger than her own.
‘I’m Doris, your roommate.’
‘Hope,’ she said.
‘They work us as if they’re trying to force us into an early labour, and I’m fairly certain the only time they’ll actually smile and look happy is when they take our babies,’ Doris said, moving past Hope to flop onto one of the beds. ‘They’re evil.’
‘I thought they were supposed to love babies?’
‘Ha! Well, they might love the babies, but they don’t like the sinners who give birth to them, and they make certain to remind us of that every chance they get.’
Hope shuddered at the word. She didn’t like to think of herself as a sinner; the fact that she and Gus had made a baby had seemed beautiful at the time, and she refused to think of it in any other way.
If he’d still been here, she knew they would have loved their child as fiercely as any parent could.
‘You know, they seem to forget that we can’t get pregnant on our own, but they don’t care who the father is. He gets to move on to the next girl, and we’re left to deal with the consequences.’
Hope found herself nodding, but her mind was a million miles away. She agreed, of course she did, but it wasn’t men she was thinking about right now.
‘Imagine if there was a place young women could go to feel loved and cared for when they were in our position,’ Hope said. ‘I think that’s what I’d do, if I ever had the chance to do good in the world. For the girls and women like us, when they needed someone the most.’
Doris shook her head. ‘Not me. I want to get far away from here and never even think about babies or children again.’
Hope lay there, staring at the ceiling as Doris prattled on about her swollen ankles and the uncaring sisters in charge.
She missed her uncle; she missed his house with the shiny red door; but most of all, she missed Gus.
She missed knowing what her future held and being in charge of her own destiny; of the headstrong, determined young girl she’d once been and the woman she’d become.
If only she could find the path back to happiness; if only there was a way for her to keep the child that she so desperately wanted and leave this place.
Because if she felt there was any other option, she’d have grabbed her bag in one hand and the hem of her skirt in the other and run as fast as her enormous belly could move, and headed straight for the door.
But there was no other way she could see, no path forward that led anywhere but here.
‘Is there anywhere else we could go?’ Hope asked. ‘Is this really the only place?’
Doris sighed. ‘There’s nowhere, or at least nowhere my parents could find when they were looking. They wanted me shipped off as quickly as possible, and they don’t want to hear from me until it’s over.’
Hope saw the tears in Doris’s eyes and looked away, not wanting to make her feel uncomfortable, but the truth was that society shunned an unwed mother.
They were no different, not really. Hope might have chosen to come here of her own accord, but all the women were here because there were very few options for an unmarried woman, pregnant and alone.
‘Well, I suppose all we can do is make the most of it then,’ Hope said, trying to sound bright, even though inside her heart was still breaking.
She lay on the bed, playing with the ring on her finger, wishing she had something from Gus with her.
Her hand came to rest on her stomach then, and she immediately started to wonder if perhaps she’d been too hasty in her decision-making.
But even if she did take Charles up on his offer of providing a home for her and her baby, what would the future look like?
How would her fatherless child be treated at school?
What hardships would he or she face, through no choice of their own?
But as terrible as all of the negatives sounded, she was starting to doubt the sisters’ interest in placing her unborn child with loving parents, or doing right by her at all.
Hope wiped her damp cheeks and cradled her stomach, moving to lie on her side. She had a lot to think about, and she knew that most doctors wouldn’t assist an unmarried mother. But what if she were to have the baby here and then return to her uncle’s care?
She decided then and there that she would write to him in the morning.
‘Hope?’
She rolled back over to see Doris standing there, a ball of wool in one hand and knitting needles in the other.
‘It’s not much, but we are allowed to knit, to keep our minds occupied when we’re in our rooms,’ Doris said. ‘I only have pink wool, but if you’d like, we could knit a blanket?’
Hope was in two minds about whether to curl into a ball and cry for the rest of the day, but she also knew that tears weren’t going to do anything more than leave her puffy-eyed and more miserable.
So she sat up and swung her legs off the bed, taking a deep breath and accepting the bundle being offered to her, the soft wool comforting to the touch.
There were worse things she could do with her time than knit her baby a blanket, and keep another young woman who looked every bit as frightened as her company.
She only wished that she could have brought her painting supplies with her, to have something familiar around her, something to occupy her hands.
Although she hadn’t touched a paintbrush since Gus had passed, and she sometimes doubted whether she’d ever be able to paint again.
Once the baby is here, she told herself. Once the baby is here, I’ll find my way back. She could paint animals and frame them for the baby’s room, and when she had a chubby-cheeked, sticky-fingered toddler, she could teach him or her to paint with her.
Or at least, she hoped she might.
Hope had managed to fall out of favour with all the sisters at the convent.
It wasn’t as if any of them had been kind to her in the first place, but when she’d announced that she was going to keep her baby rather than place the child for adoption, having been told in no uncertain terms by her uncle that he would wholeheartedly welcome her home, they’d become even more unfriendly.
And it couldn’t have been more obvious how they felt when her water broke, and she was shuffled away to the room that was reserved for birthing.