The Wartime Matchmakers, page 43
“How quickly?” Elizabeth asked carefully.
“Within the next month? I . . .” She halted on the next few words. “I am with child, and I will lose my job and be cast out of the boardinghouse I’m in once my landlady discovers my condition. But if I’m married, well, it would fix things.”
Hetty shifted forward in her chair. “Miss Cochran, you are among friends now. Please tell us what happened, if you don’t mind. We will keep everything you tell us confidential.”
“It was four months ago now . . . I heard the sirens and ran for cover. But as I passed a bombed-out building, I thought I heard a child’s cry. I feared a young child was trapped inside. I managed to get into the house, and the sound was coming from the cellar. I went down the steps, but . . .” The woman halted again, her throat working as she fought off tears. “He was waiting there for me.”
“He? Who was it?”
Hazel swallowed before going on. “I never saw his face. He grabbed my legs and pulled me down the remaining stairs and threw me on the floor.” She closed her eyes, her lips quivering for a moment before she continued. “He hit me across the face. I think I was screaming, and he hit me to shut me up. It hurt—he hurt me.”
Elizabeth lay a hand on Hazel’s knee, her heart in her throat as the woman stiffened at the touch. “I’m so sorry, Miss Cochran. No man has the right to hit a woman.”
Slowly, Hazel met Elizabeth’s eyes and took a shaky breath. “He took what he wanted then. I think the blow did something to my head. I couldn’t move—there was pain, yes, but more than that, I just couldn’t move.” Her eyes shone with liquid, but her voice was strong, the voice of a woman who knew she had done nothing wrong but was still made to suffer for it. “I lay there, waiting. He finished and I still lay there. And then finally, after what seemed like hours, he got up and left.”
Elizabeth’s chest tightened with the horror she felt at the story, but words escaped her as Hazel went on.
“I saw the bombers overhead, through a gap in the ceiling. I lay there and watched them, and I wanted to scream at them to drop their bombs right there—on me. I just . . . I wanted to die,” she admitted in a low voice, a tear escaping one eye to travel down the length of her cheek.
Elizabeth’s stomach was lead, her heart swollen with Hazel’s grief and a rage for this unknown man who could harm this woman so irrevocably.
“I finally picked myself up once the all-clear sounded.” Hazel’s voice was strained, and she didn’t bother to wipe the tear from her cheek. “It was dark, but I walked home as fast as I could, and when I reached my room . . . I discovered I was bleeding. Quite badly.” She gripped her handbag handle tightly in one hand.
Elizabeth watched as Hetty pressed a handkerchief into Hazel’s other hand, her friend’s eyes as wet as their guest’s.
Hazel took the handkerchief but only held it, making no move to use it as she finished her story. “I tried to wash him off me in a tub of cold water, but . . . I still felt him. I felt him everywhere on me. I pass men on the street now, and I think . . . could one of them be him? It’s enough to drive a woman to madness.” She still clenched her handbag, but her fingers had loosened a little. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come to you. You couldn’t possibly find anyone who’d . . . who’d want someone who . . .”
Her resolve crumbled, and she wept in silence, tears streaming down her face.
Before Elizabeth could act, Hetty was standing beside the weeping woman, an arm around her shoulders.
“Someone will want you, Hazel. Some wonderful man out there will want you as his wife, and you will be loved and cherished,” Hetty said.
“But what man could accept a child that was born of rape?” Hazel whispered the last word as though she feared she would summon the devil himself.
“You are not defined by the tragedies that happen to you. Someone will love you and the child because that child is half of you. And we will find that man for you.”
Elizabeth was stunned at her friend to make such a monumental promise, but it was exactly what she would have said in Hetty’s place.
Hetty gave the girl a handkerchief. “Dry your eyes now. Then go downstairs and fill out a form for our secretary. Tell her the registration fee has been waived.”
“Oh, but I can pay,” Hazel insisted and started to open up her handbag.
“Nonsense,” Elizabeth said. “This is a gift. We must stick up for each other, mustn’t we, Hetty?”
“We must indeed. Especially us mothers.” Hetty patted her stomach.
“Once you fill out your form, we will schedule an interview with you to go into more detail about what interests you in a man.”
Hazel blinked and glanced between them. “You truly mean it?”
“Yes,” Hetty and Elizabeth said in unison.
Hazel’s shoulders fell, and the tension in her face eased. She even managed a little smile. “You’re not matchmakers—you’re angels.”
After she left, Mr. Kirby strode in and firmly closed the door behind him.
“Mr. Kirby, I’m sorry we kept you waiting, but—”
“I want to meet her,” he said abruptly. His face was deadly serious.
“Her?” Elizabeth asked as she retrieved his file from the desk. Mr. Kirby had been matched with twelve lovely ladies in the last several months and had been writing letters to all of them. Elizabeth was curious about which one had held his interest enough to ask for an in-person meeting.
“That woman who was just in here with you. The door was open enough that I heard what happened to her. I shouldn’t admit to eavesdropping, but it happened, so I don’t regret it. And I want to meet her.”
Hetty took the file from Elizabeth and set it back down on the desk, fixing the veterinarian with a stern look.
“We will not send Miss Cochran out with men who will see her as an object of pity. Her situation is—”
“Mrs. Humphrey, there is a vast difference between pity and compassion,” John Kirby said. “What I feel for Miss Cochran is the latter. I will not judge her for the evil actions of another, nor will the child she bears be treated any differently than one of my own making.”
He spoke with such conviction, his face glowing with his passion to do the right thing, the good thing, that Elizabeth truly believed he could be the right man for Hazel. She’d had enough interactions with Mr. Kirby in the last year that she felt she truly knew when he was being sincere. Elizabeth and Hetty shared a look, and she was glad to see Hetty seemed to be with her in trusting him as a possible match for Hazel.
“Very well. We will call her this evening and recommend you once we have interviewed her properly and reviewed her file. If she likes the sound of you, we will have you write to each other,” Elizabeth said.
“Thank you.” He turned to leave, but Elizabeth halted him.
“Mr. Kirby, what about the other ladies we’ve introduced you to?”
He paused, hand resting on the doorjamb as he looked over his shoulder at them.
“They were all quite wonderful, and I’m sure you will find them all suitable husbands. But I respect a woman who has been through the fires of hell and come out stronger for it. Miss Cochran is such a woman. She makes me want to be better, to be worthy of her and her courage. Every man should want to marry a woman like that.” He then exited the office, leaving them in stunned silence.
“He’s like some knight of old, isn’t he?” Hetty said as she opened his file to make a note about his introduction to Miss Cochran.
Elizabeth smiled. “He certainly is.” But it was more than that. She knew Mr. Kirby would see Hazel as more than just a victim—he would see the person beyond that. That feeling of certainty she often got about people rippled through her like quicksilver. She had found a hero for Miss Cochran.
Two weeks later
“Do you really not mind having dinner with my grandmother?” Hetty asked Elizabeth. She felt silly for asking, but she didn’t want to go anywhere alone. She felt as though she was ready to pop with this baby. Being pregnant made her feel both powerful and vulnerable at the same time. To hold a life within her, to grow it on her own, yet knowing that the little life was so fragile, was terrifying. All she could think was that if something happened to Charles, she couldn’t lose their baby.
She’d been spending every few days in the country at Charles’s parents’ estate or at Cunningham House, thinking it would be safer for her child, but at the same time, she had this desperate need to keep coming back to London, as though being brave enough to stay in her city would make Charles proud. It was silly, but she was dealing with the unpredictable emotions that came with her pregnancy and she’d tried to stop berating herself for decisions she made that might seem a bit foolish.
“Of course I don’t mind. You know I adore your grandmother. She may be a bit of a battle-ax, but she is so delightful too.” Elizabeth helped Hetty to her feet, and they grabbed their handbags, turned off the lights, and left the office.
Mr. Jarvis was waiting for them on the outside stairs when Elizabeth locked the bureau’s front door. Hetty gratefully accepted the butler’s hand as he helped her walk down the stairs.
“Hello, Jarvis.”
“My lady,” Jarvis said with a fatherly smile. Over the last two months, he had insisted on escorting Hetty to and from the office. He had explained that Charles would expect nothing less for the future Earl of Lonsdale’s wife and child.
“Are we still bound for the Ritz?” Jarvis asked.
“Yes, my grandmother has a dinner reservation for us.”
He waved toward the car he had parked a short way down the street. Where he found the petrol these days, Hetty had no idea, but she was grateful. Riding on a bus made her wildly nervous. Ever since she had seen a double-decker full of people hit by a bomb and get blown straight into the side of a building where no one had survived, the sight had permanently kept Hetty away from stepping onto that particular means of public transportation.
Hetty had been having dinner with her grandmother every few months ever since the bureau had opened. Lady Agnes wasn’t afraid of the bombings. She claimed she was too old to let some bullies in aircrafts frighten her. Hetty was convinced that it was really because she wanted to stay close to Hetty in case she could help in some way. It was still a marvel to her that the woman who she had so often quarreled with about her future was now so proud of her and Elizabeth for the bureau’s remarkable success.
When they arrived at the Ritz, Jarvis escorted them into the hotel and stayed in the reception, where he would wait for them to finish dinner before driving them home.
Hetty’s grandmother, Lady Agnes Allerdale, was already seated waiting for them. She was frowning at her menu, but when Hetty and Elizabeth joined her, she was all smiles.
“My dears! Sit, sit. Oh Hetty darling, I can’t believe it’s been nearly nine months already?”
“Yes,” Hetty laughed breathlessly as she let a waiter carefully assist her into her chair.
“I must say, I’ve never been terribly excited about babies,” Agnes admitted, “but something about this one, my first great-grandchild—it’s going to be special.”
“I just want it out of me,” Hetty muttered. She adored her baby madly, though they still hadn’t met, but she was very much done with being the size of a German zeppelin.
“Everyone feels that way at nine months. I remember being both terrified and desperate,” Agnes said.
“I am a little scared,” Hetty admitted, her tone softer now. She didn’t like admitting to weakness, but it was true. What if something went wrong, or the baby didn’t survive after the birth? Or she didn’t?
In the last few weeks, she had played every terrible scenario through her mind as she lay alone in bed. She would have given anything to have her husband home and safe, his arms around her, reminding her that Lonsdales never die, which meant that she and the baby as Lonsdales were within that magical protection.
“Why don’t we order, and then we can discuss your nursery?” Agnes suggested.
As they ate, Hetty shared the latest developments with the baby’s nursery and how Hetty had stayed up past midnight the previous night, putting the final touches on the room and getting blankets nestled in the cradle. Then the talk turned to the Marriage Bureau, and Hetty sat back, resting as Elizabeth took over the conversation.
It was just after dessert when something inside Hetty started to tighten. Like a fire was burning somewhere far south of her belly, and then the building pressure within her womb suddenly eased. Wetness coated her thighs, and the wetness simply kept coming and coming, until her shoes were wet. Shock and embarrassment had Hetty scrambling for her napkin. She’d been having the occasional false labor pain for the last few days and she hadn’t thought today would be any different with the frequent pains.
“Hetty?” Elizabeth halted her talk as she and Agnes watched her.
“My . . . my water broke,” she gasped in a frantic whisper.
“We had better get you—” The piercing wail of an air-raid siren cut Agnes off. “Bloody Germans!” Agnes snapped. “How dare they bomb us when you’re ready to have your baby?”
“I don’t think they particularly care,” Hetty muttered as she stood. The leaking had changed to a steady dribble that she couldn’t stop if she tried. All the other diners, to her relief, hadn’t noticed the puddle she had left on the chair or floor. They were all exiting the dining room, occupied by their own worries.
Agnes snapped her fingers at a passing waiter. “You there!”
“Yes, ma’am?” the young man asked.
“We need a room immediately. A nice one, if you have any left. My granddaughter is about to have a baby. And fetch a midwife, while you’re at it.”
The waiter’s eyes bulged as he noticed Hetty’s round belly and the way she was slightly hunched over.
“Don’t just stand there gawking!” Agnes bellowed at the young man. He tripped over a chair leg as he ran to do as the formidable older woman had commanded.
Hetty winced as a cramping pain made her bend over and clutch the back of the nearest chair. But thankfully the pain vanished just as quickly.
“Come on now, we have no time to waste.” Agnes marshaled her and Elizabeth out of the dining room. Jarvis spotted them when they reached the reception and came straight toward them.
“Are you all right, my lady?” He took Hetty’s arm, steadying her.
“It’s the baby, Jarvis. It’s coming.”
The butler paled and his mustache twitched, but his brown eyes were fixed with determination. “We need a room.”
“We’re waiting on one,” Elizabeth assured him.
Soon, a very anxious hotel steward arrived. “Please, this way. We have a room you can use.”
“It had better be a good one. This is Mrs. Henrietta Humphrey, future Countess of Lonsdale,” Agnes declared.
The steward rushed to assure Agnes that the rooms were suitable. The air-raid sirens grew louder and then softer again, but Hetty didn’t care. She had but one goal—to bring her and Charles’s child into the world safe and healthy.
They were settled in a three-room suite with plenty of space and located on the ground floor. The young waiter from before bustled into the room.
“My lady, I couldn’t find a midwife among our guests in the shelter.”
“No midwife?” Agnes said sharply. “Unacceptable. You will have to leave the hotel and go find one.”
The poor boy’s face paled as the air-raid siren rose and fell again. “I’m very sorry, my lady, but—”
“My lady,” Jarvis said as he took Hetty’s hands in his own. “My mother was a midwife. If you wish, I can help you deliver the baby.”
Hetty stared into the older man’s eyes. Charles trusted him with his life, his home, and his wife. Why not their child?
“Yes.”
“Oh, thank God,” the waiter whispered in relief. But that only caught Agnes’s attention.
“You there. Don’t stand about. Fetch us some towels.” The waiter fled to do her bidding.
“All right, what do we do?” Hetty asked, trying to stay calm even though her heart was pounding and her body ached between the contractions.
“You must remove everything but your underclothes and get beneath the blankets.”
“I can help you,” Elizabeth volunteered.
“As can I,” Agnes said. “I’ve delivered a baby a time or two in my day.”
“Good.” Jarvis began issuing orders, but Hetty was focused on getting to the bed and stripping out of her clothes with Elizabeth’s help. A fresh wave of cramps made her lose all modesty in front of the butler.
“Make her comfortable. Prop up some pillows behind her back so she’ll have the strength to push when the time comes.”
The waiter returned with the towels, and Jarvis instructed him next to bring him hot water, a pair of scissors, some needles, and thread.
Hetty let Elizabeth make her comfortable as she lay back and stared at the closed blackout curtains. The sound of the distant explosions filled her with a rage she’d never felt before. How dare those bloody bastards bomb her city just as her baby was coming into the world?
Jarvis and the others moved around in a flurry of orders and actions over the next several minutes. After that the time seemed to slow down as they waited for each contraction to come and go. Finally Hetty bent her legs and pushed when Jarvis told her to. Pain threatened to tear her in half as each contraction ripped through her. Then the pain would fade and she would fall back against the pillows, gasping for breath.
“Damn. The babe is stuck. Its shoulders are too big,” Jarvis snarled in frustration. “We need something to pull the baby out.”
Hetty lay back, her head tilting up to the ceiling as she closed her eyes, trying to stay conscious. It felt as though she was drifting away from her body . . . drifting away upon the wind.
A gray mist formed against the backs of her closed eyelids, where shadowy figures moved. She could make out the faces of men in British Army uniforms crouched behind a crumbled farmhouse. Melting snow dusted the ground, and yet buds bloomed on distant trees as though fighting against the lingering winter. They held their guns ready, hearts pounding. Dirt, smoke, and ash showered over them as something exploded nearby.
