Chapter 5
Evangelina felt a lump in her throat and she was not surprised by the fact.
Every birth was emotional – even after twenty years of bringing new life into the world she found joy in her work – a joy that never dulled.
She worked in the poorest part of London and more than once she had been asked how she could possibly believe in god after all she had seen. But when she saw moments like this, how could she possibly not?
And this was the daughter of her best friend she had brought into the world she reminded herself. This was the child which Charles and Julienne had been waiting for.
But not on my life if this is not what Elsie wants, a voice in her head growled.
She was always surprised by the pull she felt towards the mothers in the moments after the birth. When she knew she would do whatever she had to in order to keep the mother and the child safe from harm and together.
Then, she wasn't really surprised to feel she would argue for Elsie keeping the baby if it came to it, if that was what she wanted.
But it did feel as if it was an odd kind of betrayal.
Still. This little girl for now was in the arms of her parents. Thus she would stay if they chose.
She wondered how best to facilitate that.
"Elsie, why don't you try and feed the little one?"
The baby was beginning to squirm – no doubt she was hungry.
The new mother had been tracing her daughters fingers with her own while her 'husband' had simply smiled down her as he held on to his 'wife' and child, his hands trembling as he did so. And as soon as Evangelina had said those words she felt as if she had made the most horrible mistake.
It was as if she had broken the trace the new little family had been in.
"No," Elsie said very firmly.
That was not what she wanted. That had never been part of the plan.
She looked at Charles and saw his face fall as he too came out of the moment.
"Elsie let's take a moment darling. Now she is here –"
"She has to go to her parents."
It was lovely to have this moment with her when she settled but it was not going to be long until the reality hit for all of them and the reality was that – that she had had a baby but she was not a mother.
"Nurse will you take her?" Elsie asked in a fairly small voice.
She supposed there were plenty of people who thought she was being cold.
The truth was the opposite. She wanted this child to have everything. Everything she was never going to be able to give to her.
Evangelina came close.
"One moment," she said as she looked at Charles. "Our decision is made. But is there anything- I mean. Not yet." Elsie changed her mind as she shifted in the bed and felt the nurse take a step back.
"You haven't held her yet."
Charles shook his head. He hadn't. And for a moment he had feared he was not going to get the chance to hold her but he should have known Elsie a bit better than that.
"Do you wanted too?"
"Very much."
The transfer was a little shaky. Neither of them were used to handling littles one but before long the little girl was in her father arms. And Charles felt everything within in him melt just because of how right it felt to have his little one there. Right there next to his heart.
Fatherhood was not something which he had dreamt of when he had been a lad. He had a feeling that some lads and lasses just knew from the off that in some way they were meant to be parents but that had not been him.
But now it was.
He was a dad.
"Dashing away with the smoothing iron, she stole my heart away." He could recall being a young lad and hearing his grandfather sing that to his grandmother. She would get so embarrassed and bat him off and tell him what a fool he was. Sometimes he would laugh and settle down a bit and others it would just make him sing lounder. He did not know why it had popped in to his head right then but it had.
And she had. His little daughter had stolen his heart away and she was going to keep it with her for as long as he lived.
He leant down and smelled her. He had heard once before that new-borns had a distinctive smell and they did. That was something else which he wished to commit to memory.
How was he ever going to give her up?
But to force Elsie into a life which she did not want – it would be the worst thing he could do now.
And so he knew it was going to cause him more pain than anything else he had ever done in his entire life, but he kissed the brow of his baby daughter and returned her gently to her mother. Even if he had wanted to he couldn't pass her to the nurse – that he was incapable of.
Then he turned from the bed and looked out the window where tears begun to pour down his face and Beryl came to his side, in the vain hope of being some comfort.
"I am going to carry you with me, for my whole life long little lamb. I love you." Elsie said as she rocked her daughter back and forth.
She wasn't going to do this. She wasn't going to get attached. But she hadn't been able to stop herself.
She looked at the love of her life. For he was always going to be the love of her life and the father of her child.
"Shelagh. Do you mind if we call the baby Shelagh?"
Charles let a tear slid down his check as he turned, trying to be strong for her. "I think that is the most beautiful name in the world."
The two of them shared a smile. No matter how far she was from the two of them, they were going to have this to remember.
"Nurse, I think I am ready to let her go now." Elsie said as she tried to keep her voice steady.
Never had she been so ready to give in and say the three of them might make a go of it together.
But that would not be the right thing to do. Their daughter was always going to be one of the loves of their live.
But she needed so much they were unable to give her.
"Elsie, normally mothers keep their children with them for six weeks."
"Nurse we have been through this. I can't – please don't make me. I need to get on with my life and she needs to get on with hers." She said as she looked up at Evangelina.
She knew what Evagelina wanted. For the two of them to stay at the home and for her to feed the baby.
"I have got a job and a life waiting for me back in Yorkshire. It is high time I got back to it."
If it was anyone else then Evangelina knew she would try and keep going. There were those who thought she was old fashioned but she had always believed that the mother milks was best for baby and if they could be feed from their mother then they should.
But Elsie had some steel to her. She had a feeling she was a match for her even and there were not many young girls she thought that of.
Instead she tried to think of the positive in this. Yes, Charles and Elsie were going to lose a daughter a little earlier than she thought they should be leaving her.
But Julienne and Charles were going to get there child that much sooner.
That was the joy of this case.
The baby was going to go to a very loving home.
She knew that for a fact.
There was going to be no doubt about that.
Charles and Elsie looked at one another for a moment and the two of them shared a nod.
The baby in the young women's arm gave a little howl as if she knew what was going to come next.
"I know you are not going to remember this darling girl, but your mother and I give you our blessings – for your whole life long." Said Charles as Elsie put her in the arms of the nurse.
But the main thing was those blessings were going to go with her whether she remembered it or not. And maybe they would keep her a little safer than she would have been otherwise.
X x x
After all the sadness she and the baby had already had to witness in the short life of the baby girl, Evangelina had to say she was thrilled to put her in the arms of her new mother.
She walked into the room where Charles and Julienne were waiting to see the two of them sitting together holding hands.
This was the biggest and best day of their lives.
She did not need to be told that to know it was true.
Julienne looked up at her with so much emotion in her eyes Evagelina was sure she was never going to be able to name it all. There was hope and there was a little sadness and there was fear and a steely resolve to be the best mother she could be.
And there was so much love it broke her heart.
Already this baby was so loved she thought and remembered the two heartbroken young parents who were getting ready to leave the maternity home if they had not done so already.
For they had been heartbroken at the loss of their daughter whether this was their choice or not.
"I have got someone who is very excited to meet you." She told Charles and Julienne.
The two of them were on their feet and coming towards her.
"This is…"Charles begun softly as he looked into the bundle or blankets.
"Your daughter."
They were the magic words the two of them had been waiting to hear for very long years.
Our own sweet girl.
They had thought she was going to come to them by another route but she had come in her own sweet time and when she was good and ready and not before.
Julienne was not sure why but she had a feeling already this dear girl of hers was going to march to the beat of her own drum already.
"Come here…" she said as Evangelina placed her in her arms.
"Is she ok? Was the birth an easy one?"
"It was. She had no problems – came out into the world well."
"And the mother? Was she ok?"
"She is perfectly healthy." That was the best that she was going to say for her. Physically she was going to be fine. But mentally this was going to take longer to get over than Evangelina thought she anticipated.
Julienne looked down on the little face and felt a rush of love.
She had feared as this child was not of her body she was not going to feel as a new mother should but when they got to see the face of her little one it all came.
She was sure she could not love her any more from the first moment.
"It is so good to see you at long last, our tiny girl," Charles murmured. As much as he was longing to give his little girl a cuddle there was no way he was going to rush this moment for his beloved Julienne Louise. She had waited too long for this. They both had. And now that it was here it just meant so much.
Her face was alight. He had dreamt of seeing her as a new mum, but she was even more beautiful in the role than he had thought she was going to be.
"She is so perfect and she is all ours."
Truly it was nothing short of a miracle.
"What are you going to call her?"
Julienne and Charles voices crossed mid-air.
"What name did her parents give her?" Julienne asked. Maybe they had shaped that part of her identity already.
"Bernadette." Julienne had often spoke of the song of Bernadette when they had been young and while Charles knew she was not going to admit to it… He wanted their child to have the name her mother wanted to give her.
Julienne smiled at him with love in her eyes before looking back at her friend.
"Did they give her a name?" she repeated the question.
With a nod Evie confirmed they had.
"Shelagh."
It was a very pretty name. Not one she would have thought of but it was going to be important to keep that link to the past she thought.
Charles thought so too. "Bernadette Shelagh Newgarden then."
She would carry her history with her… until she was ready to find it all over again.
X x x
Charles walked down the road to see that Elsie was standing by the River Thames.
She had been told she should stay in while she recovered from the birth of their daughter – it was only Tuesday and they weren't due to be going back to Yorkshire till the weekend.
He had made a joke about her being a lady of leisure on the way back to the flat which she had not laughed at.
He had found her missing not so long later and had thrown on his coat to find her. Spring was underway but in the evenings there was a chill in the air. He would not have her take cold now, not after everything she had already been through.
She looked as if she was lonely to her very core and he did not think he had ever seen her like that before. And if he had then he had always known what to say or to do to lift her spirits before…. then he knew this time he was powerless to do so.
"It was so much harder than I thought it was going to be." She said as he came close.
Relief flooded through him as she spoke to him. It was only as he came closer to her that he realised she had come here to be alone with her thoughts. But now maybe she did not wish to be.
"To give her up."
Since before she had told him they were going to bring as life into the world, she had been set on the idea that the two of them had to give her up and that that was the best thing for all of them.
She wondered how and when she had managed to desensitised the whole thing for herself for she did not think she was a cold person. She had never been cold.
Yet she had thought about giving over her baby so many times that it had become just a process.
But putting a life you had created – something that precious – was not like giving someone a cup of tea you had just made for them. It was not like giving them anything you had made…
It was something entirely different and it felt suddenly cruel.
"I know."
"Do you think who ever has her is going to love her as much as we do?"
He said nothing, trying to imagine so, hoping so but suddenly feeling stupidly jealous of anyone else who felt such a rush of paternal love for his daughter. Yet the hope they would was stronger. She would need parents who loved her…
"I know I have been the one who has been pushing the two of us to do this – if we find out in years to come that we have made an awful mistake and she has been placed with people who do not love her as much as they should do you think you could ever forgive me, Charles?"
The truth of the matter was on the tip of his tongue. She was right – she was the one who had wanted the adoption to go through much more than he had. He would have sought another road. And if they found out there little girl had been hurt when the two of them could have been keeping her safe, then he just was not sure if he was ever going to be able to see a way past that.
But that would be bucking the responsibility. He had not pushed his point of view on her as he already felt terribly guilty of what he had already put her through.
He had been the one who had got her pregnant after all.
He knew that if he did blame her for something which he had let happen without speaking out against it then he was going to be nothing short of a coward.
And he did not think he had ever been one of those…
"Yes. Yes, I could forgive you. This was our choice. We let this happen. And whatever comes next then the two of us are going to deal with it together."
She looked as if the weight of the world which had been on her shoulders was lifted from her just a little bit.
That was a good feeling for him. Even if he had to carry a little more than he didn't mind that. it was worth the trade.
"Beryl is going to go back tomorrow. She thinks the two of us need a little time on our own to recover…"
"I agree," she said as her as her Scottish accent came out stronger, as it did whenever she truly agreed with something. "Oh Charles, how are the two of us ever going to be the same as what we were?" she asked as she looked up at him with hope in her eyes that he had as the answers.
And he wished more than anything that he did.
"I don't think we can ever be the same as who we were. I think we are going to be very, very different now."
Because they had her in their hearts they were going to be very different to the way they were before.
"But we will love each other just the same," he said as he kissed her forehead.
He reached out and brushed her cheeks. He was further relieved when she leant in to his touch for she looked so pale and so far from him that…
Well, he wasn't sure. But there was a closeness in that gesture that he had needed maybe more than she had.
"I know I was the one who suggested the two of us give her up… but I miss her so much… and she is gone and I miss her…"
"She won't be gone forever, my love," he said as he kissed her forehead and pulled her into his arms. And for the sake of his sanity, that had to be true…
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