English (Core) · Ch 15 — Birth
Summary of the Lesson
Summary of the Lesson
It is nearly midnight when Andrew Manson reaches his lodgings at Bryngower, dull and low after an unhappy evening with Christine. Joe Morgan, a burly driller, has been pacing outside for an hour: his wife Susan, married almost twenty years, has gone into labour with their first child, ahead of time. Andrew fetches his bag and the two men walk in silence to Number 12 Blaina Terrace. Andrew has no idea that this ordinary-seeming night call will change the whole course of his life in Blaenelly.
A long wait
Upstairs, in a clean but poorly furnished little bedroom lit by an oil lamp, Susan's aged mother and a stout, elderly midwife wait beside the patient. The grandmother, wise from experience, fears Andrew will leave and return later, so she makes him tea to keep him there. Andrew reassures her — “Don't fret, mother, I'll not run away” — and settles by the kitchen fire. Brooding on Christine and on the failed marriages he has seen, he waits through the small hours, the old woman watching his face with strange, wise eyes.
The struggle
Around half past three the nurse calls him up. After a long, harsh hour of labour, as dawn breaks, the child is born — lifeless. Torn between the lifeless baby and the mother, who is herself collapsed and almost pulseless from the anaesthetic, Andrew acts instinctively: he hands the child to the nurse and works frantically to revive Susan, injecting a stimulant until her heart strengthens.