Sophy nodded. ‘I went to London when I left the vicarage once my schooling had finished. The row, it was about my mother. My beginnings. Did – did you know that the story about her marrying a Frenchman wasn’t true?’
Bridget bit her lip. ‘Not till you’ve just said, lass, although I have to admit I always had my suspicions. Me mam an’ da believed it, but they didn’t have as much to do with your mother as I did when she came home.’
‘She wasn’t married to my father.’
‘Well, all the same for that she was a real lady, lass, and nice with it, if you know what I mean. I liked her.’
Sophy put out her hand and clasped Bridget’s once again. ‘Thank you. Anyway, I went to London . . .’ She told Bridget everything, about Cat, about Toby, Kane’s accident, filling in the missing years as they sat by the fire drinking another cup of tea together. Then they went through to the kitchen and Sophy introduced Bridget to Sadie and Harriet, explaining their shared background. When Kane came out of the study where he had been finishing the accounts Sophy had been working on earlier, the four women were laughing at one of Sadie’s witticisms, and he said again, but to himself, ‘Yes, the power of good,’ as he looked at his wife from the kitchen door. And, although not a churchgoing man, he sent up a swift prayer of thanks for the little Irishwoman who had come knocking at their door.
Chapter 28
The next few weeks passed without mishap and the house ran more smoothly than it ever had. Bridget fitted into the household as though she had always been there, and she and Sadie hit it off immediately, for which Sophy was thankful. Harriet had Ralph, and although Harriet was very fond of Sadie, she obviously preferred to sit by her own fireside with her husband once Josephine was tucked up in bed and her work in the house was finished for the day. Now, instead of Sadie retiring to her cottage at some point after she and Harriet had served dinner to Kane and Sophy and then made the kitchen spick and span, she and Bridget sat by the range drinking tea and putting the world to rights.
It had been agreed that, for the present and until the twins, once they arrived, were old enough to go through the night, Bridget would sleep in the room next to the nursery so she was always on hand to help with night-feeds and so on. But once the children were older, Bridget would join Sadie in her cottage and the two women would share the little home.
The only cause for concern as the last weeks of the pregnancy progressed was the swelling in Sophy’s feet and legs. This persisted, to a greater or lesser degree, during the whole of the month of November. A bitterly cold November, with thick frosts and ice and the odd snow flurry.
Dr Palmer had flatly forbidden his patient to leave the house, and in truth Sophy didn’t think she could have done so even if she’d had his blessing. Looking at herself in the bedroom mirror, it was amazing to think she hadn’t known she was pregnant at first. Once her stomach had started to expand it hadn’t known how to stop, and even Harriet, the most tactful of creatures, had to admit Sophy looked as though she was going to burst. Sophy agreed with her – over the last weeks she felt as though she was going to burst too. She slept half-sitting up, propped against a pile of pillows because if she lay down flat she felt as though she couldn’t breathe, and she waddled rather than walked. In the last weeks her appetite had all but vanished, because, as she said to Kane when he worried about her small portions at the dinner-table, there was no room for anything but babies in her abdomen.
But Sophy was happy and it showed.
On the afternoons when Kane was working in his study or out checking on how things were going at the theatre with Ralph, she would join the three other women in the kitchen and sit in Sadie’s comfy armchair in front of the glowing range. The four of them would drink endless pots of tea, gossip about this and that, discuss names for the babies and generally enjoy themselves while the Arctic conditions outside made the kitchen all the more cosy. Sadie and Bridget’s knitting needles kept up a steady click-clack while they talked, and the pile of baby clothes grew week by week. Josephine revelled in all the attention she got, playing on the big thick clippy mat at their feet with her toys or having stories read to her. It was a halcyon time and despite her enormous bulk, Sophy was utterly content.