Chapter 45 Dorothea
DOROTHEA
Dorothea folded the letter she had just received from James.
Marvellous, stimulating, challenging. Missing you, my Thea.
The words beat a hollow drum in her head.
She held the counter with one hand, glad for something familiar and solid to hold her up when all she wanted to do was lie down.
Ten months had passed since he left. James had created a thesis.
She had created a child. It felt unbalanced, in the achievement stakes.
Although, technically, James won, she supposed, because his had taken sustained effort, hers only passive reluctance.
She had held their son only once. Adeline had been handed the boy as soon as he was born.
She had tearfully rocked him, thanking Dorothea, but oblivious to all but the child.
Adeline had purposely gained some weight, so that when she returned ‘early and unexpectedly’ with their ‘slightly premature’ newborn to Bleddesley House, her husband would not suspect the truth.
She had telephoned ahead to report he’d been born too quickly to even inform Edward the baby was on the way!
A shock, the labour being so swift and unexpected, but a blessing. And look, they had a beautiful son!
Adeline had been good company in the weeks of their confinement.
Now and then she would go away for a few days and, during that time, Dorothea would sit outside and watch the fisherman unload trawlers on the curved stone breakwater below their cottage.
She never would have believed that a village could live as it had done for four hundred years—without cars—every villager having to bring their wares up or down the hill by sled.
They ate fish from the trawlers, and vegetables grown in the gardens of the residents. They took the sea air and played chess and watched the seabirds while Adeline chain-smoked and Dorothea knitted a layette—booties, cardigans, hats—with the delicate yarns Adeline supplied.
They made friends under assumed names, told people they were cousins, visiting Clovelly for the fresh sea air for part of the pregnancy, and would return home when it came time to give birth. The people of Clovelly accepted them, although the two women kept to themselves as much as possible.
Dorothea told people she was due a month later than she was, so nobody presumed it strange that she was still there in the days before the baby came.
A midwife in the nearby town of Barnstaple was called when the pains arrived.
Adeline had met with the woman previously and organised she be on hand for any ‘unexpected emergency’ during their visit.
She had asked her not to speak of the birth to anyone.
Paid her handsomely, Dorothea knew. Adeline was adamant they must not be discovered; that the secret of the baby’s birth must never be known by Edward or his family.
Now, weeks later, as she waited for the bookshop visit that Adeline had promised, Dorothea craved something to fill the emptiness inside her.
She had chosen this course, but she hadn’t known it would be so hard.
Mr Thistlethwaite entered from the back room and frowned. ‘Are you all right, Dorothea?’
She forced a smile. Her employer had been so good to keep the job for her. To accept her excuses about going away to help her sick aunt, with only a mild level of worry and an assurance that she was always welcome in the bookshop.
She owed him her best efforts. ‘I’m just realising how good it is to be back here,’ she said.
‘The smell of the books is something you never get anywhere else.’ This much was true, and as she breathed it in, a green car pulled up outside and Adeline stepped out of the driver’s side.
A young woman got out of the back of the car and lifted out a Moses basket.
‘Lady Fitzhenry! How wonderful to see you. And with your new family addition. Congratulations!’ said Mr Thistlethwaite as they came in the shop door.
Adeline smiled. ‘Thank you, Harry. He’s wonderful.
Katie here is excellent at feeding him and getting him to settle too.
And, of course, we have Nanny Pam at home, giving us three generations’ worth of experience in raising Fitzhenry children.
I feel quite lucky!’ She looked over at Dorothea. ‘Hello, Dorothea. Are you well?’
‘Yes, thank you.’ Dorothea stepped closer. ‘May I see?’ She peered at the sleeping face of the child.
‘We called him Francis, after his father’s grandfather.’ Adeline lifted the baby from the basket. ‘Francis Edward Montague Fitzhenry. Would you like to hold him?’
Dorothea could barely nod, but she took the sleeping baby and lowered her face; smelled the yeasty sweetness of him.
She closed her eyes and felt a little split in her soul, and into it crept a yearning so deep and pure she knew that this was a mother’s love, and it was as vast and mysterious as the woodlands of the Weald.
She would stay close by to watch over him; it was her fate.
She would stay. Here in this village, within the dark blue walls of this shop that sustained her so well.
She would be close by him forever, just in case his need for her arose.
‘Hello, Francis,’ she whispered.