Mud and Gold

by Shayne Parkinson

  Frank was about to protest, but he had to admit that Lizzie was right; he had been making a mess of driving. She knew what she was doing, so it seemed only sensible to let Lizzie take over.

  5

  April – August 1885

  It seemed to Amy that Charlie was now obsessed with her health. Several times a day he asked her how she felt.

  ‘You were sick this morning,’ he said at breakfast time a few days after Lizzie’s wedding.

  ‘I’m sick every morning now. It won’t last much longer, maybe a few more weeks.’

  Charlie stared anxiously at her. ‘You’re sure that’s normal?’

  ‘I think so. It doesn’t always happen, I remember Susannah was sick a lot when she was having Georgie, but she was fine with Tommy.’ I didn’t get sick with Ann, either. ‘It’s nothing to worry about, I’m sure it isn’t.’

  ‘Well… just be careful, then.’

  What’s that supposed to mean? ‘I’ll try.’

  It was hard to get used to expressions of concern from Charlie. Amy had hardly had a sharp word from him over the previous few days, let alone a blow.

  ‘You’re not showing any sign yet,’ Charlie said, looking at Amy’s belly. ‘You’re sure about it?’

  ‘Quite sure. I’ll start showing soon enough.’ I’ll soon be heaving myself around like a great bloated cow. Then I have to go through all that. Amy hid a shudder, and busied herself with dishing up Charlie’s breakfast.

  ‘Where’s yours?’ he asked when she put his plate in front of him.

  ‘I can’t face bacon and eggs, I’ll just have some dry bread and a cup of tea.’

  ‘Bread? You can’t live on bread and tea! You’ve got to eat, woman—good food, too.’

  ‘I’ll eat at lunch-time, when my stomach’s settled. I really can’t face anything heavy, Charlie.’ Even the smell of Charlie’s breakfast was making her queasy.

  Charlie frowned at her. ‘You’ve got to eat. Dish yourself up some breakfast.’

  ‘I don’t want—’

  ‘Eat!’ he shouted. Amy cringed and waited for a blow to go with the words, but it did not happen. Charlie’s fist was clenched, but he pressed it against the table, clearly making an effort to restrain himself. ‘Do as I say. That’s not some man’s bastard you’re carrying this time—it’s my son. I expect you to take proper care of him.’

  And I thought it was me he was worrying about. That was stupid of me. Amy dished herself up a small plateful and forced down some bacon and eggs under Charlie’s watchful gaze.

  She fought back nausea with each unwanted mouthful, until it became too much of a struggle. She hurried outside and emptied her stomach onto the grass, then sat on the ground enjoying the sense of relief vomiting had brought. Charlie came out and glared at the sight, but said nothing. Amy suspected it would be the last time he forced her to eat in the morning.

  *

  Every day Amy saw Charlie studying her belly closely. It was as much to make him happy as for her own comfort that she started lacing less tightly, then in mid-May abandoned her corset altogether apart from on her Sunday outings to church.

  ‘You’re looking thicker around the middle,’ Charlie said on the first morning he saw her fully dressed without it.

  ‘Yes, I am.’ Amy did not tell him that he was merely seeing her natural waist rather than the line of her corset.

  But in another few weeks she had a definite bulge; so much so that when she put on her good dress one Sunday she shook her head at her reflection and replaced the close-fitting dress with a looser woollen frock.

  ‘I won’t be going to church today, Charlie,’ she told him. ‘I’m going to have to stay home from now on. I’m really showing now, see?’ She pressed her dress flat over the bulge.

  ‘Mmm, you are.’ Charlie looked at her belly with a satisfied expression. ‘I’ll stop home too.’

  ‘Oh. Just as you like, Charlie.’ Amy had looked forward to a peaceful morning alone, but she kept her thoughts to herself.

  ‘I suppose I could go without you,’ Charlie said. ‘People will ask where you are, though. No one knows about the bairn except your kin. What’ll I say?’

  ‘You just say I’m a bit poorly, and they won’t see me around for a few months. People will know what you mean.’

  ‘Will they?’

  Amy nodded. ‘That’s what husbands say when their wives are with child.’

  ‘Hmm. I might go, then.’

  Charlie did go off to church alone, and he arrived home looking pleased with himself. ‘People asked after you. I told them what you said—I think they knew.’

  ‘I’m sure they did, Charlie.’

  Her bulge was not yet an encumbrance, but Amy knew that in a few more weeks she would become awkward. Taking care of Charlie’s baby meant taking care of herself. One evening as they sat in the parlour, Amy sewing a baby gown while Charlie read the Weekly News, she chose a moment when she saw him look up from his newspaper to glance at her thickening middle.

  ‘Charlie, things are going to start getting a bit hard for me soon.’

  ‘What are you talking about? What things?’

  ‘When I get bigger I won’t be able to do all the things I do now. Some of them I’ll just have to leave, like scrubbing the floor—I’m afraid we’ll have to put up with it for a few weeks.’

  Charlie grunted. ‘That doesn’t matter. Floor’s clean enough.’

  ‘And butter, too—I don’t think I’ll be able to manage the churn. You don’t mind buying it at the factory for a while, do you?’ Charlie shook his head.

  ‘That’s good. But some things can’t be left. I’m sure I’ll be all right with the cooking, but doing the washing and fetching water for the kitchen’s going to be hard.’

  ‘I’m not doing it for you!’ Charlie said indignantly. ‘Don’t go thinking you’ll get out of all your work just because you’re with child.’

  ‘I’m not trying to get out of it. But women aren’t meant to carry heavy things when they’re with child—honestly they’re not, Charlie. Aunt Edie told me that when Susannah was having her babies. I think it can make things go wrong.’

  Charlie looked anxious. ‘Can it? What do you do, then? What did your pa’s wife do?’

  ‘She had me, so she didn’t need to do heavy work.’ And Pa made Susannah do the heavy work for me when I was carrying Ann.

  ‘It’s the water, mainly,’ she hurried on, not giving Charlie time to comment. ‘Up and down to the well for all the cooking. Do you think you could get a new rain barrel? Then I wouldn’t have to carry it so far. And as long as it rained enough to keep the barrel full, I could do the washing up here instead of taking the clothes down to the creek and back—that’s very heavy, especially carrying the wet clothes up the hill.’

  Charlie grunted and went back to reading his paper, and Amy said no more. But when he returned from his next weekly trip to the store he unloaded a large barrel from the cart and put it in the place of the rotten one.

  It’s something, Amy thought as she knelt over the tin bath scrubbing Charlie’s trousers the following Monday. It’s not like a copper and tubs, but it’s easier than washing by the creek. She knew that later in her pregnancy she would be unable to crouch on the grass over her makeshift tubs, but she put that problem off for the moment. Even with the status pregnancy gave her in Charlie’s eyes, it was not easy to ask him for favours.

  *

  Frank drifted through his first few days of marriage in a happy daze. He had guessed from men’s talk and jokes over the years that it must be fun, but he had had no idea anything could be quite that good.

  Their shyness evaporated after the first night, and their clumsiness lasted only a day or two longer. When Frank emerged from church with Lizzie on his arm the Sunday after their wedding, their first public appearance since the wedding itself, he was feeling thoroughly smug. He had even managed, albeit with difficulty, to stay awake during the long sermon, though he and Lizzie had both had to smoth
er yawns all through the service.

  They were soon surrounded by a crowd of well-wishers; the sea of smiling faces made Frank feel awkward. The thought that all those people knew just what he had been doing all week brought a blush to his face. He was amazed that Lizzie could talk to them all with no sign of embarrassment; but then, that was Lizzie. Nothing ever seemed to discomfort her.

  Frank noticed Amy hovering on the edge of the crowd, patiently waiting for a chance to talk to Lizzie. He was about to point her out to Lizzie when Arthur put a hand on his arm and manœuvred him off to one side.

  ‘Everything going all right, Frank?’ Arthur asked quietly.

  Frank gave him a smile that turned into a grin. ‘Yes. It’s going really well, Pa.’ He stifled a yawn as he spoke.

  ‘Good lad. I knew you wouldn’t have any trouble,’ Arthur said. Frank yawned again, belatedly covering his mouth with his hand. ‘Well, Frank, I would tell you to start getting a bit more sleep,’ Arthur said with mock sternness. ‘Except I know that’s one piece of advice you wouldn’t take a bit of notice of!’

  Yes, marriage was the best thing that had ever happened to him, Frank decided as the days wore on into weeks. Life had become so comfortable with Lizzie around. The house was spotless, and tasty meals appeared on the table without any effort on his part. His clothes were washed and ironed, and his own clumsy attempts at mending were replaced with neat stitches. And best of all, every night instead of a cold bed he had Lizzie’s soft body snuggling up against him in the warm darkness.

  Ben’s ‘few days’ stretched on, and Frank was relieved when he could dry off his herd. Milking the cows, even once a day, was a long, wearying task when he had to do it with Lizzie’s help instead of Ben’s. Lizzie did her best, but she had not milked in years, and was much slower than Ben. Frank wondered occasionally where Ben had got to, but life with Lizzie was too full for him to think about his brother very often.

  Lizzie seemed to feel the need to rearrange the house as soon as she was installed as its mistress. She announced it needed tidying up, and Frank left her to it. All the dishes were moved around on the dresser until Lizzie was satisfied, and the larder was completely reorganised. She shifted the parlour furniture into a new arrangement and moved rugs from room to room. It made her happy and it didn’t do any harm, though Frank was taken aback when he opened a drawer in the bedroom one morning and found it full of Lizzie’s underwear instead of his own.

  ‘Where’s my stuff, Lizzie?’

  ‘Oh, I moved it. You had it all shoved in that drawer, and it looked really untidy, so I pulled it out and went through it. Some of your things needed chucking out, but they’ll make good rags. The rest is all folded nicely in that drawer there.’ She indicated a lower drawer. ‘You need some new combinations, Frank.’

  ‘Do I?’

  ‘Yes. You’ve only got three pairs, and one of them can’t be mended much more. You can buy some this week. I went through all your clothes yesterday and rearranged them, they were all in a muddle. It’ll be much easier for you to find things now.’

  Getting used to his clothes’ being in different places didn’t seem much to ask, especially when the bedroom was new to him anyway. There were other changes, but Lizzie had good reasons for them all. She liked to serve dinner half an hour earlier than Frank was used to, because it gave her more time to get the bread made afterwards. Fresh bread every morning was worth the small effort of adjusting to a different meal time. And Frank could understand why Lizzie didn’t want him to wear his boots to the table, though it was difficult to remember to take them off in the porch.

  ‘Frank, you’ve done it again,’ Lizzie said one lunch-time, shaking her head at him.

  ‘Sorry.’ Frank pulled the boots off, dislodging a few clods in the process.

  ‘Careful! And don’t just drop them in the porch like that. Put them tidily against the wall.’

  ‘Is that all right?’

  ‘That’s nice. Now, hurry up before your soup gets cold.’ And very good soup it was, too, Frank thought as he spooned it up.

  ‘I’ve got most of my work done this morning. Ben’s room must need an airing by now, I might give it a tidy up this afternoon.’

  Frank looked up from his soup in alarm. ‘No, don’t do that, Lizzie. Ben wouldn’t want you to interfere with his things.’

  ‘I’m sure he’d like to have his room tidied and nice, and men never do that sort of thing for themselves. Look what a muddle your drawers were in before I sorted them out.’

  ‘I don’t think you should, Lizzie. I’d rather you left Ben’s room alone.’ Frank realised that he never had got around to warning Lizzie how she should behave around Ben. ‘Hey, I was going to talk to you about Ben, too. When he comes back I want—’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Ben’ll be pleased. Eat up your soup, it’s getting cold.’

  It was hard to argue with Lizzie when she was so sure about everything. Frank wondered briefly what Arthur would have to say if he were there, but he brushed the uncomfortable thought aside.

  Lizzie was a good wife, and she was making him very happy even if she was a bit bossy. Well, if he was honest, she was very bossy. Was she getting worse? Frank wondered. Arthur had warned him that she would. But what could he do about it? He couldn’t hit her, he just couldn’t. Surely they could talk about things.

  ‘Lizzie, I wish you wouldn’t tell me what to do all the time,’ Frank said, trying to sound stern.

  ‘I don’t. Are you going to eat that soup or not? I’ve cooked some nice chops, they’ll get all dry if we leave them too long.’

  ‘You do a bit, Lizzie.’

  ‘Don’t you like the soup? I thought you liked vegetable soup. You told me you did.’

  ‘I do, I just want—’

  ‘I won’t make it again if you don’t like it. I wish you’d told me.’

  ‘I do like it. But Lizzie—’

  ‘Why don’t you eat it, then? Oh, I’ll tip it out for the pigs. I think my cooking’s good enough for them.’ She reached over for Frank’s bowl, giving him a hurt look.

  Frank knew when he was beaten. ‘Don’t do that, Lizzie, I’ll eat it now.’ Maybe he would try talking to Lizzie that evening when they sat in the parlour. Then again, maybe they would go to bed as soon as Lizzie had set her bread dough to rise; they often seemed to be in bed by half-past seven.

  Frank smiled at the thought. He would certainly find it hard to scold Lizzie in bed, and he had no intention of wasting time trying to threaten her with the strap. As long as Lizzie wasn’t bossy to him in front of other people she couldn’t make him a laughing-stock. And it was very good soup.

  *

  When Frank realised he and Lizzie had been married two months, he felt a stab of guilt at not having even thought about Ben for weeks. Where could Ben possibly have gone for so long? When was he going to come home? And what would he say to Lizzie when he got there? Fighting with his brother to protect his wife did not appeal, but it might yet come to that.

  ‘I’ve got to find out about Ben,’ he announced one morning. ‘It’s stupid not knowing where he is. He can’t be in Ruatane, not for two whole months without us seeing him.’

  ‘I suppose he’s gone away on holiday somewhere,’ Lizzie said. ‘It’s funny he hasn’t written, though.’

  ‘He wouldn’t write.’

  ‘Why not? Just a few lines to let you know where he is, that’s not much to ask.’

  ‘He…’ Frank struggled between loyalty to his brother and a reluctance to keep secrets from Lizzie. ‘Ben’s not much good at writing.’

  ‘Lots of men aren’t.’

  ‘No. But Ben… he can’t really write, Lizzie.’

  Lizzie looked astonished. ‘Can’t he? Why not?’

  ‘Well, Ben was fourteen when the school started. Pa said he could go for a few months if he wanted, and Ma tried to talk him into it, but Ben didn’t want to sit with a lot of little kids. I was only ten, so it wasn’t so bad for me—there were kids there o
lder than me. Ma taught us our letters when we were little, and to read a bit, but that was all. Ben can sign his name, and he can read easy things if he takes his time, but nothing else.’

  ‘Oh. That was silly of him not to go to school. He’ll be all right, though, wherever he’s got to.’

  ‘He should be back by now. I’m going to find out.’

  That morning Frank went into town and started asking questions. He spoke to Sam Craig at the general store, but Mr Craig had no particular memory of seeing Ben. Sergeant Riley, Ruatane’s sole policeman, was no help, either, though he promised to keep an ear open for any news.

  Then Frank remembered that Ben’s horse had thrown a shoe a few days before Ben’s sudden departure. He rode over to the blacksmith’s shop, where he found the broad-shouldered Mr Winskill working at the forge.

  ‘Shoe his horse?’ Mr Winskill laughed. ‘I bought his horse off him! Not a bad animal, either. He’s in the paddock over the back.’

  Frank checked the paddock behind the shop; sure enough, Ben’s gelding was munching contentedly from a nosebag. Why on earth would Ben sell his horse? Especially since the horses belonged to the farm rather than to either brother.

  ‘Did Ben say where he was going?’

  ‘Said he was escaping from a woman! Was some female after him?’

  ‘Not exactly. Didn’t he say anything else?’

  ‘No. Not a great one for talking, your brother.’

  Frank thanked Mr Winskill and went on his way, thinking hard.

  Ben had obviously wanted some money, and it was this thought that led Frank to the Bank of New Zealand.

  The manager, Mr Callaghan, was behind the counter. ‘Goodness me, Frank, I only usually see you when your milk cheque’s in or you’ve sold your potato crop and you’re settling up at the store. And now you turn up when your brother was here only a few weeks ago! What’s got into you Kellys? Wanderlust?’