Tilly Trotter Wed (The Tilly Trotter Trilogy)

by Cookson, Catherine

  ‘There now. There now. Don’t cry. Don’t cry.’

  As she held Katie’s face against her waist she thought: Not a protrusion left on his body. Dear God! Dear God! She hadn’t liked the man, in fact she had hated him. And what had she said to him when she had last spoken to him? One day you’ll wish for death, you’ll be so alone you’ll wish for death. And he hadn’t died alone. She could only pray to God that he had died well before they started slicing him.

  ‘Oh, I wanna go home.’

  ‘There now. There now. If you want to go so badly we’ll see about sending you off.’

  Katie’s head came up quickly, saying now, ‘But not without you. You want to go an’ all, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes . . . yes, I want to go. There’s nothing I want more at this moment than to get on a boat and go home. But I’ve got a husband, Katie; and in spite of everything he loves this place. And I married him and so where he goes I go.’

  Gently now, Tilly disengaged herself from Katie’s hold and, turning, she went towards the bedroom and the man who was tying her to this barbaric country.

  Eleven

  A month had passed, all sign of the Indian raid had been cleared away, in fact a rough homestead had already been erected, but Luisa had not yet gone to live in it. At night she slept on a shaky-down in the living room but most of her days were spent down in the ranch planning and discussing things with Doug and Mack.

  Two days ago she had come back from Houston where she had been to see a solicitor with regard to her father’s will. Before going she had said to Tilly, ‘It wouldn’t surprise me if he has left the whole bang lot to some forty-second cousin just to spite me.’ But when she returned she said simply, ‘I bought meself a frock and a coat because I am a very rich woman.’

  The change in her fortune hadn’t seemed to alter her except that now whenever she rode out with either Mack or Doug she was always accompanied by Three, for he had escaped the massacre. It had been imagined that the Comanches had taken him prisoner but he had returned a week later, saying that he had gone, as he did often at night, to the corral and had ridden one of the horses. Apparently Mack and Rod Tyler knew of these escapades, but this one had certainly saved his life, for he had just returned the horse to the corral when the advance party of Indians rode in and herded the animals out and back along the trail to the high plains to add still further to their massive stocks.

  There was great talk about the new measures being taken against the Comanches. The authorities in headquarters were issuing orders for a real drive this time, but all this talk, in fact all the commotion that went on about the place seemed to be floating over Tilly’s head; all she was concerned about was Matthew, because Matthew wasn’t improving.

  The doctor had called twice during the last week because he wasn’t satisfied with the condition of the arm, and only yesterday he had taken Tilly aside and said, ‘I am afraid the matter has now become serious. Septicaemia has set in. There is little one can do now but pray.’ It seemed to be a favourite saying of his, he usually ended any conversation he had with her with the words, ‘There is little one can do now but pray.’ But now, for the first time, it made her think kindly of the doctor back in the fort; he wouldn’t just have relied on prayer, he would have done something.

  Yesterday she had said, ‘Isn’t there any medicine?’ and he answered, ‘I have used everything possible. But he is of a strong constitution, we can but hope . . . and pray . . . ’

  It was now one o’clock in the morning. The lamp was turned low. She had been sitting in a chair by Matthew’s side for the past three hours and she must have dozed for she almost sprang to her feet with the touch of his hand on hers and she bent over him, saying, ‘What is it, dear? Do you want a drink?’

  ‘No, nothing, I . . . I just want to talk.’

  ‘You’d far better rest, dear.’

  ‘I’ve rested for a long time, Tilly. How many years have I been lying here?’

  She gave a forced soft laugh, saying, ‘Not a month, dear.’

  ‘Every hour has been a year. Turn the lamp up so I can see your face.’

  She turned up the lamp and sat facing him; then she took his hand again, and what he said now cut into her heart as if he had taken a knife and cleaved open her breast. ‘I haven’t much longer, dear,’ he said.

  ‘Please! Please! Matthew’ – she closed her eyes tightly – ‘I beg you, don’t talk like that.’

  ‘Look at me.’

  She opened her eyes.

  ‘We must face the inevitable, I know what is happening, nothing more can be done. This might be the last time we’ll ever talk together.’

  ‘Oh! Matthew. Matthew.’

  ‘Please, darling, don’t cry, just . . . listen to me. I’m not going to waste words telling you how much I love you, and how I have loved you since the first moment I set eyes on you, I’ve said it so many times before, you must be tired of hearing it. Nevertheless it is true. It is so true that you have become a sort of mania with me. I have been jealous of your very glance at another, even at the child. Oh yes’ – he moved his head on the pillow – ‘every soft glance you have bestowed on the child has been a dart in here.’ He glanced wearily down towards his chest, then after a long pause, he went on, ‘I know inside that I am not a good man because, had you ever said you would leave me, I know, and this is true, I would have killed you first; and if you were leaving me for anyone else I would have killed him too.’

  When his chest heaved and he drew in a long breath she gripped his hand and said, ‘Matthew, please, please, don’t go on. You are tiring yourself.’

  ‘No, no, Tilly darling; it’s strange but I don’t feel tired, I’ve got a sort of elation on me, a peaceful elation which really isn’t me at all because I’ve never known peace. All my life I’ve been ravished with desire, desire for you. As I said, it became a mania, and although I have this feeling of quietude inside the mania still remains with me.’ His fingers gripped hers now with an unusual strength and his eyes that were sunken in his head gleamed darkly as he gazed at her. And then he spoke again: ‘I want you to promise me something. Will you promise me anything I ask, Tilly?’

  It was some time before she could bring the words through her throat, and when she said, ‘Yes, yes, darling, anything. But believe me, you are going to get well.’ He shook her hand in a way that showed his irritation and, his voice changing, he said, ‘You swear you’ll promise me this?’

  ‘Yes, yes, anything, darling; anything.’

  ‘Then swear to me, swear to me that you will never marry again.’

  Her head came forward, her eyes stretching wide. Her face dropped into pitying lines as she whispered, ‘Oh, Matthew!’

  ‘Promise me? I want to hear you say it.’

  In this moment she could hear her granny’s voice, saying, ‘Peggy Richardson, poor Peggy Richardson, promising that mother of hers on her deathbed not to marry Billy Conway because he was a Catholic, and look at her now, a wizened nerve-tortured creature. Oh, the dying have a lot to answer for.’ But here was her Matthew whom she loved with every fibre of her being asking for her to promise not to marry again. Well, would she ever? Never! Never! She brought his hand to her chest and, holding it tightly there, she said, ‘I promise. Oh, I promise.’

  ‘Say it. Say, Matthew I shall never marry again, I shall never put another man in your place.’

  The words seemed hard in coming, she didn’t know why because her heart was in the answer:

  ‘Matthew, dearest, I shall never marry again, I shall never put another man in your place.’

  His whole body seemed to sink further into the bed, he closed his eyes, the grip on her hand relaxed. Of a sudden she felt that she had just gone through some great travail, much worse than the first raid, or even the second, when she thought that the children were gone. Her body felt weak, her mind heavy with the pressure that was numbing thought. She looked at him. If he were to die, and yes, he would die, she knew that now, she had known i
t for days, well why not go with him?

  And the children? Mark’s child and Matthew’s child. Whether he disowned it or not she thought of the child as his.

  She lay back in the chair. She was so tired, so very, very tired . . .

  She slept and it was Katie who woke her up as the first light was breaking. She must have been in the room some time for she had done something, she had covered Matthew’s face with a sheet.

  Tilly sat staring at the sheet. It was a white sheet; then suddenly it changed colour to blue, then to black, and it turned into a wooden box, a black box, and she saw it being lowered into a black hole, and in it was all that had been worth living for. She had lost this man’s father by death, now she had lost him; everything she touched turned to death. And there was young Hans Meyer, and Hal McGrath. She had killed as many people as the Indians. She now saw the Indian. He was walking over the bed towards her, his face was all paint, yet she could see the wrinkles in his brow and his great nose and the gap of his mouth. But what was coming right for her was the buffalo head – the horns were pointing straight at her – but just before he neared her he stopped and they looked at each other again as they had done a short while back. Then he lifted his tomahawk and cleaved her on the head, and as it struck her she knew her wish was coming true and that she was going to join Matthew.

  Twelve

  The sun was shining. For days now, she had been looking at it through the window, but it was the first time she had really noticed it. It was causing a heat haze to cover the ranch like a low canopy. There were houses down there again, low rambling ones and high ones. Had it ever been a smouldering waste? At times she was confused in her mind about the ranch, believing that nothing had ever happened to it except that the shape of the buildings now was different. Yet the dog run had gone and the bunkhouse, and Alvero Portes’ palace. Why did she still think about Alvero Portes with sarcasm? He had died a terrible death, a death that was far beyond any payment due for what ill he had done in his lifetime. Even Christ hadn’t suffered that kind of death. But then Christ hadn’t known Indians. Some day she would go down the slope and see the new house, Luisa’s house with all its new furniture, not rough made, Katie had said, but real furniture, some pieces like those which had been in the Manor.

  She had watched the wagons coming and going for weeks now, first bringing the wood and the men who hammered and hammered. At first, the nails had gone through her head, all knocked in by the tomahawk, and the blood had run all over her face, and Katie and Luisa had wiped it away.

  How many times had she fought the Indians? After one terrible fight she had woken up in Doug Scott’s arms. He was holding her tightly and for a moment she thought it was Matthew and laid her cheek against his until he had spoken to her, and his voice was not Matthew’s voice.

  Another time she had crawled out of bed and got the gun. She had done it very quietly because she knew the Indians were all round watching her, and she had got it into her hands and was lying on the floor aiming it at the Indian who had jumped through the window. But this time it was Mack who foiled her aim. And after that they had tied her to the bed and let the Indians have their way with her. They were cruel, cruel; even the white people were cruel.

  It had taken her a long time to recognise the faces about her. Even when she recognised them she still fought them when they kept pouring laudanum and aniseed into her.

  She lay back against the pillow on the bed which was arranged so that she could see out of the window. She must have been a great trial to everybody during these past weeks . . . months. Had she been in this bed for nearly five months? She had been sick but once in her life before and now she felt she’d be sick for the rest of her life. She’d be tied to this bed for the rest of her life. There was nothing wrong with her limbs but she had no desire to move them; she had wished to die and she had died inside, for there was no feeling in her, not even for Willy, and this troubled her greatly. She could look at her son, into his beautiful eyes, one without sight and the other straining to see, she could feel his arms around her neck and hear his voice, saying, ‘Mama! Mama! Get up Mama. Take me for a walk,’ and be quite untouched by his plea or by the look on his face.

  Josefina had the strange habit of tracing her fingers lightly over her jawbones as if she were feeling the texture of her skin, and she, too, would say, ‘Mama! Mama!’ but she’d make no request, she would just sit on the bed and look on her with those dark eyes filled with love. She knew they were filled with love, but she could not return the feeling in any way.

  And then there was Katie. Katie, too, must have been ill. Although she hadn’t taken to her bed she had lost her buoyancy; she did not chatter as she used to. The only one who appeared the same to her was Luisa. Luisa was brisk and stimulating; yet her stimulation could not probe the deadness within herself. If only she could feel again. Only yesterday she had heard Luisa say to Katie, ‘I’d prefer her ravings to this dummy-like attitude. Something’s got to be done, but what? It’s gone past me. It’ll likely take another raid to get her on her feet’; to which Katie’s answer had been a groan: ‘Oh, don’t say that. Don’t say that.’

  And now here was Luisa coming into the room. She had some letters in her hand and she placed them on the bed, saying ‘These should cheer you up, the mail’s just come in.’

  As Luisa pushed the letters under her fingers Tilly said, ‘Read them to me.’

  ‘I’ll do no such thing; they’re private letters, you read them yourself. Now come on. I’ll open them for you and that’s as far as I’ll go. There you are!’ She slit open the three letters and out of the first she lifted a sheet of paper which she pushed into Tilly’s hand, saying, ‘Get on with it. I’ll come back later and listen to your news.’

  Slowly Tilly raised the letter to her face and her eyes travelled down to the signature first. It was from John, and it began: ‘Dearest Tilly, I don’t know what to say, only that I am devastated, I cannot believe that Matthew has gone. I could never imagine Matthew dying; he seemed to be the epitome of life. Oh my dear Tilly, how sore your heart must be at this moment.

  ‘I am sending this off immediately, and both Anna and I say, please come home, we want you, we need you. I cannot see to write any more, I feel heartbroken. We send our deepest love to you. Let me call myself your brother. John.’

  John. John. Dear John. She wished she could see John. Oh, how she wished she could see John, to hear his voice, his stammer, his dear stammer. Come home, he said. Oh, she wanted to be home.

  She saw herself rising from the bed, packing the cases, then taking the children by the hand and walking down the hill through the burning rubble of the ranch . . . No, no; it was burning no longer. A new ranch had sprung up in its place and it was a better ranch. Under Luisa it would be a better place to live, but she would never live in it. No, she would pass through it, lift the children into the buggy and they would drive all the way to Galveston. . . . Oh, Galveston and the sea.

  She dropped the letter on to the quilt and, putting her hands to each side of her hips, she pulled herself upwards; then looking down the bed where her toes made hills under the bedclothes she moved her feet.

  If she could walk she could go home. Slowly she drew her knees upwards; then as slowly she twisted her body and let her feet drop to the floor, but when she made to stand she swayed and fell backwards on to the bed.

  If you can walk you can go home.