Page 49 of The Secret Word
“I could help him with his geometry,” Fuller suggested. “He is not very good at it, and he is falling behind, being in the infirmary. Would that do?”
“Ask Mr. White if that is acceptable to him,” Clem suggested, hoping that, if the boys would only talk, they would find they had more in common than what divided them.
And so it proved. Fuller was nearly at the top of those to whom White wanted to make recompense, with only Arthur ahead of him. And he had come up with a surprising way of making things even. “I will tell Tom and Arthur what happened to me in the orphanage, and then they will know I am just the same as Arthur. If they ever want to hurt me, they can.”
As far as recompense to the staff was concerned, he was still bedridden, but he said that would not stop him from peeling vegetables if someone would bring them to him. “And if you like, I can do the reading,” he suggested. Mrs. Westbridge had formed the habit of reading a chapter from a story book every night, and the boys really looked forward to it. Since Martin had a dramatist’s flair when reading, the suggestion was popular with everyone.
Peace was restored, or as much peace as could be expected when living next door to a school of fifteen boys.
Chapter Nineteen
Once that crisiswas over, Chris suggested it might be time for them to let the families know about Clem’s pregnancy.
The baby must have been conceived on the night of their wedding, or at least in the week that followed. Clem was growing rounder by the minute, and one of Chris’s favorite times of the day was in the evening, when he sat at Clem’s feet and put his cheek against her abdomen, his palm on the other side, to feel the child they had made moving against him.
They had kept her pregnancy to themselves for months, though Martha knew. Martha, who had been so difficult when Chris first met her, seemed to have undergone a transformation since Clem had challenged her. Clem’s readiness to give her another chance had softened her and Clem’s very real appreciation of Martha’s skills and her fashion sense had gratified her. Moreover, the school had impressed her.
The respectful but sincere courtship of one of the grooms had wrought the final change, for when the groom inquired about the Satterthwaites’ attitude to married servants, Clem had shared her answer with Martha. “As long as you do your job well, I am happy to employ you, Martha. Indeed, I cannot imagine anyone being better than you are with my hair.”
Martha seemed as thrilled about Clem’s pregnancy as Chris and Clem were, and declared that she would wait to be marrieduntil after Clem’s baby was born. “Pat won’t mind waiting, Mrs. Satterthwaite,” she said. “He knows how much I owe to you.”
Clem agreed that she was growing too round for them to maintain the secret of her pregnancy, and they agreed to disclose the news to friends and family.
The two earls were thrilled for them. The school, from Mr. Partridge and Mrs. Westbridge all the way down to the youngest pupil, dedicated themselves to Clem’s comfort. Billy O’Hara merely nodded. “Inevitable,” he said. “Congratulations, Christopher.”
Aunt Fern burst into tears because, she said, she was so happy.
Wright was indignant he had not been told as soon as Clem and Chris knew.
He became a constant visitor to their townhouse. He brought doctors to check on Clem’s health, foods to ensure her good health, books for her read out loud so that the baby would be educated even in the womb, musicians to play for her.
He demanded that she remain in London for the duration of the pregnancy, so she could have what he called “proper attention.” Clem refused. She also refused his choice of doctors, having made up her mind that a midwife would be better for her and the baby.
Wright had a tantrum, demanding she allow the team of doctors to examine her. But the only one who persisted in the face of Clem’s objections recommended a starvation diet to counter her gain in weight, and proposed to bleed her because her color was too high. He left the house in a temper when Chris offered to have the footmen carry him off the premises, and Wright too, if the man didn’t accept Clem’s right to make her own decisions.
For once in his life, Wright found himself powerless to carry out his threats, since any of the repercussions he proposedwould also threaten his much-wanted grandson. Wright refused to entertain the idea that the child might be a daughter. He was determined that Clem was carrying a son, and that the child would be the greatest prodigy the world had ever known. Clem said the baby would be her child—hers and Chris’s—and that was wonderful enough.
The rest of Father’s gifts, she accepted—the food, books, and musicians—and eventually he stopped seething over the loss of the doctors, especially since Clem continued in good health.
In defense of his bride’s sanity, Chris settled them in the country at the beginning of December—they had been spending part of each week in London. Wright had been outraged when he first learned they planned to spend the winter at Chris’s country estate. Chris and Clem had done as they pleased.
“After all,” Chris told him, “you have refused to consider legacies for our other children, and so I need something of my own that Clem and I can use to give a future to our younger sons and dowries to our daughters.”
Wright grumbled, but he came around, and managed to visit once a week, staying for two nights. On every visit, he brought several more items for the nursery, carrying them up to the third floor where a full nursery and schoolroom suite waited, fitted with all-new furniture and gleaming with new paint.
Chris and Clem did not bother to tell Wright that they did not plan for their child to use the nursery in the first months. They had turned the bedchamber adjoining their own into a room for both the baby and his or her nursemaid, for Clem was determined to feed the child herself and wanted him or her close.
Wright soon discovered for himself that coal mines and refineries in Yorkshire could be operated as easily from rural Berkshire as from London. When he stayed, he spent most of his time in the study he had made out of the sitting room attachedto his assigned bedchamber, receiving reports from his various enterprises and writing responses.
“Your grandfather has reconciled himself to the country,” Chris told the baby during one of his evening chats with Clem’s abdomen. “On this last trip, he did not complain once about the noise from the farmyard, and he asked how the winter wheat fared with the recent storm. I told him that most of the young crop seems to be fine.”
“Father says he will return in two weeks, and will then stay until the baby is born,” Clem said, in late February, which was bad news, but not unexpected.
Chris was lying next to his wife, feeling his son or daughter shifting and kicking.
“I could swear this little fellow has at least three legs,” he commented.
“Four, in fact,” said Clem.
