The Favourite Child Read Free

take its course.’
    ‘Have a child they can’t afford to feed, you mean?’
    ‘No woman can have a child without God’s help.’
    ‘This isn’t a woman. This girl is little more than a child herself. Where’s the sense in bringing a baby into the world if you live in one stinking room and are near starving yourself?’
    The nurse’s shocked face clearly showed her disapproval. ‘You’re surely not condoning this dreadful act? Abortion is illegal.’ Then she glanced quickly about her as if she might be overheard, cheeks pink with embarrassment. ‘Pardon me for being so blunt but I assume you understand what goes on, due to the time you waste on these feckless layabouts.’
    Bella felt a nudge of anger, partly because of the insinuation that a girl of her upbringing shouldn’t be aware of, let alone discuss such matters as childbearing, and partly because of the woman’s obvious prejudice against poverty. ‘My time is my own to waste, if I choose to do so.’
    ‘Of course Miss Ashton. I never meant to suggest otherwise.’ The nurse shook the thermometer with a vigour which indicated how she might like to have shaken her patient, given half a chance, and thrust it beneath the girl’s arm pit.
    ‘Besides, how do you know she’s feckless?’ Isabella persisted. ‘She might be unable to find employment as many are these days, hard working but poor through no fault of her own.’
    ‘You don’t kill a child through no fault of your own,’ the nurse bit back and Bella had to concede that this was generally the case. ‘That isn’t always so, is it? What if she’s been … taken against her will? Raped?’
    The nurse’s cheeks fired to scarlet and puffed with outrage. ‘I thought never to hear such a dreadful word from the lips of a well-brought up young lady such as yourself. We all know for a fact that there are them as works hard and gets rich - or at least comfortably off, shall we say - and the rest who is poor and gets children. That’s the way of the world.’
    ‘Yes but why? Is there no way to stop the children from coming?’
    ‘I’m sure I’ll not hang around to hear this sort of blasphemy.’ Whereupon the flustered nurse snatched back her thermometer, thrust it into her pocket without even glancing at it and stamped out of the room, leaving Bella frowning with puzzlement.
    It was past midnight before she thought to send a message home, via a young boy she discovered sitting on the hospital steps who readily carried it for sixpence. Bella apologised to her mother for missing the birthday dinner, saying she would explain later. She knew that would not be easy.
    Dawn brought no improvement to the patient but finally, in late morning when everyone had quite given up hope, the girl opened her eyes and asked for a drink of water.
    ‘Good. She’s coming round.’ It was a different nurse this time. Equally as brisk as the other, she blithely continued, ‘Now we can send her home. Get her off our hands at last.’
    ‘Back to that hovel, in her condition?’ Bella was appalled. ‘Whoever did this to her could very well abuse her all over again.’
    ‘I dare say.’ The nurse issued a sniff of disdain but was already peeling back the sheets and roughly shaking the girl’s arm. ‘Come on lass. No malingering in this bed as if you had a right to it when there’s folk what deserves it more. You’re lucky we don’t call the constable and have you charged.’
    With an effort that seemed to Bella nothing short of Herculean, the girl dragged herself up into a sitting position. ‘Give me five minutes for me head to stop swimming and I’ll be off home in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.’
    Bella however, had other ideas.

Chapter Two
     
    ‘I can’t believe you’re even considering letting her stay. Have you gone quite mad?’
    Emily Ashton perched stiff-backed on the edge of her best leather sofa and glared accusingly at her daughter. One small fist was clenched tightly in her lap, holding fast