Mud and Gold (10 page)

Charlie followed her gaze. He bent down and
said in a low growl, ‘What are you staring at? Did you fancy young
Kelly for yourself, then? Wouldn’t he have you?’ Amy looked at him
in shocked disbelief.

‘He didn’t want a little slut like you, did
he? He’s got a decent woman now, it’s no good you making cow’s eyes
at him,’ he snarled; still too softly for the people around them to
hear, Amy hoped.

‘Please don’t talk like that here, Charlie,’
she said quietly. ‘It’s not fitting.’

‘I’ll talk to you however I want,’ he said,
raising his voice a little. The group nearest them stopped talking
for a moment and stared, then quickly turned away. ‘Don’t you
presume to tell me what’s fitting, you little bitch.’

Amy rose from her seat and went down the
verandah steps. Charlie got up and followed her. She slipped around
the corner of the house and behind a large lemon tree, which she
hoped would hide them from prying eyes. She did not want people
gossiping about her any more than could be avoided. To her
humiliation, she found the rapid movement had been too much for her
nausea. When Charlie walked around the tree she was bent over the
ground vomiting.

‘What’s wrong with you? Eaten too much rich
food?’

Amy’s body was racked with fierce retching.
When the fit passed she got slowly to her feet and turned to face
him, wiping a small trail of vomit from her mouth with the back of
her hand. She felt weak but relieved. ‘What’s wrong with you?’
Charlie asked again, taking her by the shoulders and shaking her,
but not as roughly as she expected.

Amy looked away from him to the repulsive
mess she had left on the ground. This was how low she had been
brought: to be vomiting in her aunt’s garden, where anyone might
come around the corner and see her. But it was no use trying to
cling to any shreds of pride, not when she knew what she had to go
through before the year was out. She raised her eyes to his.

‘I’m with child.’

Again
, she added to herself.

The effect on Charlie was startling. His
eyes opened wide, and his face took on a softer expression than Amy
had ever seen on it.

‘You’re sure?’ he demanded. She nodded. Yes,
she was sure now. It was as though telling Charlie had made it true
when before it had been only an imagined fear.

‘Come on,’ he said abruptly. ‘We’re going
home.’

‘What? But we can’t go yet, not until Lizzie
and Frank go. And I haven’t said goodbye to Lizzie.’

‘Don’t worry about that, her mind’s on other
things. She’ll not be missing you. You need to get your feet up and
have a bit of peace and quiet.’

This was unlike anything Amy had ever seen
from Charlie, but he was still to be obeyed without argument. He
lifted her onto Smokey’s back to perch sideways in the saddle. She
held the mane while Charlie led the horse by the reins.

Charlie asked her several times if she felt
quite well as they walked home. He insisted that she lie down when
they got to the house, and even brought her a cup of tea. He sat on
the chair beside the bed while she drank it.

‘So, a child on the way. We’ll have to get
things ready for him. When do you judge your time will be?’

‘November, I think. It’s a long time yet,
Charlie. There’s no need to rush.’

‘A cradle, he’ll need a cradle. And clothes
and suchlike, I suppose—you know all about that, anyway.’

Amy, whose real experience of what a baby
needed came from her little brothers rather than her daughter,
noticed it was the first time Charlie had ever managed to refer to
her past without reviling her. She did not risk spoiling his new
softness by pointing out that the child might be a girl. Muttering
to himself, Charlie went outside to stamp about in his timber store
looking for wood suitable for a cradle, leaving Amy to drift off
into a light slumber. She did not expect Charlie’s good temper to
last, but she might as well enjoy it while it did.

*

Charlie was wrong. Lizzie did miss Amy when
the time came to leave for her new home, and was concerned when she
could not find her. But the flurry of gathering up her belongings,
kisses and tears from her mother, and climbing into her father’s
buggy put Amy out of her head. Arthur had insisted they borrow his
buggy; it was hardly fitting for his daughter to leave her wedding
walking up the road in the dust or bouncing behind her husband’s
saddle.

‘I’ll send the boys over in the morning to
do the milking,’ he said to Frank while the two of them were
waiting for Lizzie to reappear. ‘They can bring the buggy back
then. You have a lie-in.’ He dug his new son-in-law in the ribs,
and Frank felt his ears go red. ‘You’ll be all right,’ Arthur added
in a low voice, smiling encouragingly.

Arthur’s confidence in him gave Frank a warm
glow. ‘Yes, I think I will.’

‘Just you remember,’ Arthur said, wagging
his finger to emphasise his words, ‘start as you mean to go on with
Lizzie. Get things sorted out right from the start.’

‘Right, yes, I’ll do that, Pa,’ Frank
assured him.

Frank helped Lizzie into the buggy and
climbed in beside her, while all the guests stood and waved,
calling out their good wishes.

The harness was more complicated than the
one Frank was used to on his spring cart. He fumbled with the
reins, causing the horses to shy. Lizzie was jerked against the
seat, and turned from waving to everyone. ‘What are you doing?’ she
said under her breath. ‘Don’t you know how to do it?’

‘Not really,’ Frank admitted. ‘I’ll manage,
though.’ To his dismay, he saw that he was getting the reins into a
knot.

‘Not like that,’ Lizzie hissed. ‘You’re
making a mess of it. You need to… oh, just hold them steady for a
bit, don’t try steering or you’ll get in a worse muddle.’ She
looked back over her shoulder again and smiled and waved until they
rounded a bend in the road and were out of sight from the house.
Then she leaned across to Frank and took the reins out of his
hands.

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.

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 smother yawns all through the
service.