Beyond the Storm. Diana Finley

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СКАЧАТЬ following day Constance brings Mother to see her new grandson. Mother holds him and kisses his tiny fingers. She looks up at Anna and shakes her head, her expression anxious, as always.

      ‘He’s so like Samuel as a baby, dear, that same little worried face.’

      She unwraps a parcel of exquisite tiny garments she has sewn and knitted. Anna leans forward and embraces her mother-in-law. Mother stiffens in her arms, looking at once alarmed and delighted. Constance says they have wondered what the baby will be called.

      ‘Sam and I agreed Benjamin for a boy – Ben for short,’ Anna says.

      ‘Benjamin,’ says Mother. ‘That’s unusual. Is it Jewish?’

       Chapter 3

      Sam

      The behaviour and manner of Dr John Quentin Lawrence reflected the beliefs and attitudes of the Victorian era during which he was raised. Dr Lawrence was respected and trusted, but not greatly liked. He was regarded as a stern and severe man, who believed in hard work and frugality. He married Winifred Wainwright, a parson’s daughter, not for her good looks – she was on the thin side with a long face – but for her humble and compliant demeanour. He knew he would be able to rely on her to make a good doctor’s wife, and to uphold his values.

      Despite her complete ignorance of the physical side of marriage until her wedding night, Winifred was pregnant with their first child. She woke early one morning with violent pains, which she knew to be contractions. She breathed quietly, so as not to wake her husband. She bit her lip and dug her fingernails into her palm. When the clock reached quarter to seven, she allowed herself to speak aloud.

      ‘Good morning, John. The time for the child has come.’

      Dr Lawrence opened his eyes and looked at his wife in confusion for a moment. Then he felt a brief flutter of excitement. Dear God, let it be a son. Any further child can be a daughter if it must, but let this be my son. He remembered his list of home calls and sat up.

      ‘I will ask Alice to fetch Mrs Roly to attend to you. Are you feeling quite well, my dear?’ He was not in the habit of calling Winifred ‘my dear’.

      She gasped and doubled up, her body consumed with pain. There was something almost indecent about such a physical experience, one that was totally outside her control. After a few moments she straightened and flexed her shoulders.

      ‘I believe I am. The pains are quite close together.’

      Dr Lawrence regarded Winifred approvingly. It was just like her not to make a fuss.

      ‘Good, good – then perhaps you won’t have to endure them too long, Winnie.’

      Dr Lawrence dressed quickly and rang for Alice. The girl could not conceal her excitement at the task she was given.

      ‘Ooh, I’ll run all the way to Mrs Roly’s, sir.’

      ‘All in good time, Alice. Before you go, kindly lay out some breakfast for me. I’m due at my first call shortly.’

      Samuel James Lawrence was born some hours later, on 24th March 1902. After the last patient had left his evening surgery, Dr Lawrence paid his wife and first-born son a visit. The small east bedroom had been prepared as a lying-in room. Dr Lawrence was relieved to find that all was clean and neat, and quiet. Winifred was sitting up in bed, brushing her hair. Next to her, the infant was sleeping in a mahogany cradle in which, nearly forty years previously, Dr Lawrence himself had slept.

      ‘Here he is, John,’ Winifred whispered, ‘here’s our Samuel.’

      Dr Lawrence peered into the cradle.

      ‘Splendid. What a funny little fellow.’

      * * *

      Sam, his younger brothers Humphrey and Albert, and his sister Freda, grew up in the rambling house on the edge of the village of Stonethwaite in Cumberland. Their father’s surgery occupied half the ground floor. During surgery hours, patients waited on hard wooden chairs in the hallway. There were two consulting rooms: one for Dr Lawrence, large enough for minor operations, and a smaller one for Dr Jasper, his junior partner.

      At the back was a small dispensary, where Dr Lawrence made up pills and medicines. Stacked on one shelf were glass bottles of ominously coloured liquids: red, green, and brown, each sealed with a cork. Dr Lawrence was a great believer in the placebo effect for simple country people. These bottles contained nothing but sterilised water, some harmless colouring, and a little alcohol added as a ‘pick-me-up’. His patients swore by them.

      ‘Ah no, Doctor, not the green one; my Betty takes that. It’s the red one ’as worked wonders for my rheumatism.’

      Apart from the kitchen, the house was always cold, even in summer, the sun rarely having time to penetrate the thick stone walls before the chill of evening returned. On the bitterest winter nights a meagre fire smouldered in the sitting room grate. Bedroom fires were lit only on rare special occasions, such as when Freda shivered and quaked with scarlet fever. Winifred was in charge of the running of the house. It was a house looming with heavy dark furniture inherited from an earlier age. Carpets were worn and soft furnishings threadbare.

      Sam had no memory of anything new ever being bought for the house. Even shoes were considered an extravagance, and were kept for as long as possible. As the eldest, Sam sometimes had new shoes bought for him, but only when his toes were firmly pressed against the tips. Shoes were patched and mended, their soles and heels reinforced with crescents of metal. When unarguably outgrown, Sam’s shoes eventually passed to Humphrey, and finally to Albert. Sam’s feet caused him problems for the rest of his life.

      Meals were bland and simple, in accordance with Dr Lawrence’s taste. He considered that excessive use of seasoning overstimulated the appetite and the senses, and was to be avoided. Each week, Winifred struggled with the domestic budget allowed by her husband. She made careful lists and opted for the cheaper cuts of meat, which were cooked at length in the Aga until reasonably tender, and stretched with turnips, potatoes, barley and suet dumplings. Certain items not absolutely essential were omitted from the shopping until the following week. She supplemented the family diet with produce from a large vegetable and fruit garden. It did not occur to Winifred to suggest that Dr Lawrence might have increased her household allowance. The children always left the table a little hungry.

      While they were very small, the children were taught to read and write by their nanny in the nursery. Nanny Lawrence was a kindly spinster of middle years, from whom the children enjoyed occasional demonstrations of affection. When Sam was nine, a governess arrived and introduced him and Humphrey to the rudiments of history, mathematics and French. Two years later Nanny Lawrence disappeared, despite anguished tears shed by Albert and Freda, then aged six and five. At the same time, a tutor was engaged to prepare the older boys for their entrance examinations. He performed his task with rigour, caning Sam and Humphrey viciously across the knuckles for any lack of effort or application.

      The austerity of home life prepared Sam well for conditions at boarding school. He expected neither comfort nor affection, and received none. The battlefields of France and Belgium were rapidly absorbing a generation of young men. Many of Sam’s teachers were old men or survivors of the war, returning damaged and embittered, and resenting their pupils’ untouched youth and opportunity.

      Despite its СКАЧАТЬ