Free A Blessing In Disguise by Elvi Rhodes Page B

– but my mother appears at once, and from the study. She takes my arm and propels me into the dining room, speaking urgently but quietly.
    â€˜You’ve got a visitor!’ she says. ‘“The Vicar’s not at home at the moment,” I told her. I said she must come back some other time, or phone you. I wasn’t for letting her into the house at all but she pushed straight past me, so I took her into the study and stayed with her. I didn’t fancy leaving her there on her own.’
    â€˜Right,’ I say. ‘I’ll go and see what she wants.’
    â€˜The other thing is . . .’ my mother begins . . . but before she can tell me what the other thing is the sound of a baby’s cry comes from my study. A young baby, I can tell that, but nothing wrong with its lungs.
    I look at my mother.
    â€˜I couldn’t keep her out,’ she repeats. ‘But in any case it’s raining. What else could I do?’
    â€˜Don’t worry, you did the right thing,’ I assure her. ‘I’ll sort it out!’
    Those were brave words, I was to think not many minutes later.
    â€˜Good-evening!’ I say as I walk in. The woman is sitting on the edge of the sofa, holding the baby which continues to cry. I raise my voice above it. ‘I’m the Vicar! And you are?’ She is quite young, twentyish. Pretty, with long dark curly hair, red lips and a tanned skin.
    I can tell at once by the look she gives me that I am not what she’d expected, that I’m a disappointment. I daresay she’d expected some saintly-looking, compassionate man and here am I, a small woman with windblown hair, dressed in a long black cassock and no doubt looking suspiciously at her. My mother has used the words ‘the Vicar’ instead of ‘my daughter’.
    â€˜What’s your name?’ I ask, I hope gently. The baby has momentarily stopped crying and I don’t want to frighten it, do I?
    She is reluctant to tell me.
    â€˜Emmeline,’ she says in the end.
    â€˜What a pretty name!’ I remark. ‘And your baby’s name? How old is she?’ (He?)
    â€˜Gloria. Three months.’
    I’m not sure why, but I smell something not quite right about this, and I don’t only mean the baby, which is a malodorous addition. Little Gloria is in urgent need of a change of nappy.
    â€˜So what can I do for you, Emmeline?’ I ask. ‘What do you want?’
    The answer comes with the speed of light, no hanging about. ‘Money! Me and the baby have nowhere to sleep and we haven’t eaten all day and I need the money to get a bed for the night. So please . . . ?’
    â€˜First things first!’ I tell her. ‘I think before we do anything else Gloria needs changing. She’d be more comfortable. And after that you can feed her while I get you something to eat.’ One good thing, at three months Gloria will still be breast-fed, or is she already on to meat and two veg from a little jar? ‘Do you have a spare nappy?’ I ask. ‘I expect you always carry one. I know I did when my little girl was a baby.’
    Emmeline looks at me as if I’m speaking Chinese. ‘If you’ll just give me the money, ten pounds would do it,’ she says. ‘I’ll be off and out of your way. I don’t want to bother you.’
    â€˜No bother!’ I say, moving to the door, opening it, calling out to my mother, who immediately comes running, no doubt she’s been hovering close by on tenterhooks with curiosity.
    â€˜Mother,’ I say, ‘the baby needs a clean nappy. I know we don’t have nappies but could you find a towel and cut it up? And some soap and water and a flannel.’ Nothing in my training ever mentioned that I should keep a supply of nappies in the linen cupboard and baby food in the larder.
    â€˜At once!’ my mother says, all her skill as a one-time voluntary hospital