Mud and Gold (27 page)

‘Um…’ Amy tried to think back to life in her
father’s house before her marriage. ‘I used to like that chocolate
sort of pudding—you know, the one that makes its own sauce when you
cook it. Charlie doesn’t like chocolate, so I never make it now.
But don’t go to any trouble.’

‘Chocolate pudding it is,’ Mrs Coulson said
triumphantly. ‘That’s one of my favourites, too. Goodness me, I’ve
never heard of anyone not liking chocolate. What a fuss-pot your
husband is.’

Amy felt she should defend Charlie against
this slight. ‘He’s not really fussy, it’s just that he only likes
certain things and he doesn’t like trying new things much.’

‘Just as I said. Fussy.’ Mrs Coulson sat and
watched the baby suckling. ‘He’s feeding well. He’s going to be
another big fellow, all right, same as your Malcolm. What are you
going to call him?’

‘I don’t know. Charlie hasn’t said yet what
his name’s to be.’

‘You do get some say in it, don’t you?’ Mrs
Coulson said in surprise.

‘I shouldn’t think so. Why?’

‘Well, because he’s your son too. Did he
name the first one?’

‘Yes. Maybe he’ll let me this time, I hadn’t
thought of it.’ Amy looked down at the baby pulling at her breast.
‘This one feels more like my baby than Mal did. I know that’s
silly, but he does. I’d like to name him after Pa, but we’ve
already got a Jack and a John just next door. Maybe he could have
John as a second name.’

But when Charlie arrived for his daily visit
the next morning, he announced to Amy that he had just registered
the baby at the courthouse.

‘Oh,’ Amy said, trying not to show her
disappointment. ‘What have you called him?’

‘Good, solid Scottish names. None of your
English rubbish. James David Stewart.’

Amy’s eyes opened wide in shock. ‘No,’ she
said in a voice little more than a whisper. ‘You can’t call him
that—you can’t!’

‘What are you talking about, woman?’ Charlie
said indignantly. ‘I can call my son whatever I want. I suppose you
wanted to name him after bloody Prince Albert or something?’

‘Please, Charlie, no,’ Amy begged. ‘Please
don’t call him that. Not that name. Not… James,’ she got the name
out with difficulty.

‘What’s wrong with it? What’s wrong with
James for a name? He’ll be Jamie, or maybe Jimmy…’ His voice
trailed away. ‘Jimmy,’ he repeated heavily. ‘Jimmy.’ He spat the
name at her. ‘I’ve named my son after your fancy man. The fellow
you rolled in the hay with—or one of them, anyway. Did you give
your bastard that name too? Did you?’ He grabbed at the bodice of
Amy’s nightdress and shook her by it.

‘No, no I didn’t,’ Amy gasped out between
shakes.

‘What’s going on?’ came a stern voice from
the doorway. Charlie let go of her and they both turned to look at
Mrs Coulson, who had appeared from nowhere.

‘I… I don’t feel very well,’ Amy said. That
was true enough; her stomach was churning with fear-induced nausea.
‘I got a bit upset.’

‘Mr Stewart,’ Mrs Coulson said in a tight
voice, ‘I think you’d better leave now. Your wife’s had enough
visiting for today.’ She met Charlie’s grim stare with one far more
hostile. He turned his face from hers and rose to leave.

‘It’s my job to look after your wife while
she’s with me,’ Mrs Coulson went on coolly. ‘If you’re going to
upset her when you visit, I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to stay
away.’

Charlie narrowed his eyes as if he were
about to argue the point, but all he said was, ‘When’s she coming
home?’

‘When she’s fit to.’

‘When?’ he demanded.

‘When the child’s three weeks old. Not
before.’

Charlie worked through the sum in his head.
‘That’ll be two weeks come Wednesday. I’ll fetch her home then. And
I’ll visit when I please in the meantime.’

‘Just as you wish, Mr Stewart. As long as
you don’t upset her while she’s in
my
house.’

Just before Charlie reached the door he
turned back and spoke to Amy, ignoring Mrs Coulson’s presence.
‘He’ll be called David. I’ll not change how I’ve registered him, or
that clerk fellow will be thinking you told me to. But he’ll be
called David.’

Amy nodded, staring at her hands knotted in
her lap rather than look at him.

‘What was all that about?’ Mrs Coulson asked
when they were alone.

‘Nothing,’ Amy said, not raising her eyes
from her lap.

‘Nothing that’s any of my business, anyway.
I’m sorry, my dear. I won’t pry any more. But I meant what I said,’
she added sternly. ‘I won’t let him upset you while you’re in my
house.’ She left the room, closing the door after her.

Still trembling, Amy laid her head on the
pillow.
It’s my fault. I thought it could all be forgotten. But
it can’t. He’ll never forget what I did. Everything reminds him.
And this poor little baby—now he’ll remind Charlie too
. She
reached out a hand to rock the cradle gently, careful not to
disturb the sleeping child. ‘David,’ she whispered. ‘He’ll forgive
you. It’s not your fault. And you’re his son—flesh of his flesh.
He’ll forget your name. But he’ll never forget what I did, never.’
She fought against the despair that threatened to overwhelm her.
It’s no good being miserable. I have to make the best of it. I
have to do my best to please him and to look after the children,
and that’s all I can do
.

She was still lying on her back with a look
of grim determination on her face when Mrs Coulson came in with her
lunch half an hour later, so obviously lost in her thoughts that
the nurse put the tray down beside the bed and went out again
without saying a word.

*

‘I have to go home next week,’ Amy said one
afternoon a week and a half later. She and Mrs Coulson were sitting
in the parlour, little David in his cradle beside Amy’s chair.
‘Charlie’ll be glad to have Mal home, I don’t think he likes
Susannah having him very much. The time’s gone so fast.’ She smiled
at the nurse. ‘It’s like a holiday, staying with you.’

Mrs Coulson snorted. ‘A funny sort of
holiday, having a baby. I’ll miss you, dear—you and that pretty
little boy.’

‘I’ll miss you, too.’

‘You’ll have to come and see me, and bring
the children, too. I like to keep an eye on the babies I bring into
the world. I’ve hardly seen you since young Malcolm was born.’

‘I’d like to, but it’s hard. I don’t really
get out of the house much, except church and sometimes Charlie
brings me in to do the shopping with him. I don’t even see Lizzie
much, now she’s got Maudie and it’s not so easy for her to ride
over. Charlie doesn’t like me to…’ She could not bring herself to
say ‘wander’. ‘To go out by myself,’ she finished awkwardly. ‘I’m
allowed to go to Pa’s sometimes, but that’s about all. I’ll see if
he’ll drop me off with the children one shopping day.’

‘That would be nice, dear,’ Mrs Coulson
said. ‘I shouldn’t think he’d mind that.’

‘I expect I’ll be back to stay with you
before too long,’ Amy said, trying to make her voice light. ‘This
is my life now—a baby every other year. I seem to get with child
pretty easily. I wish I didn’t get so worn out having them,
though.’ She frowned in thought. ‘Mrs Coulson, how long do women
keep on having babies for? When are they too old?’

‘The change of life usually comes when
you’re not much over forty. Sometimes a bit later—I knew a woman
once who had a baby when she was forty-six.’

‘Forty-six,’ Amy echoed. ‘I’m eighteen now.
I could keep on having babies for nearly thirty years. That’s
another fifteen babies—even more if I have them closer than two
years. There’s only twenty-one months between Mal and Davie.
Fifteen babies!’ The very thought was overwhelming. ‘But women
don’t really have seventeen or eighteen children—well, not usually,
anyway. Why don’t they?’

Mrs Coulson was silent for some time, as if
choosing her words carefully. ‘There are ways of slowing the babies
down a bit,’ she said at last. ‘A girl’s mother usually tells her
about it after she’s been married a few years. Of course it works
better for some women than others.’

‘How? How do you slow them down? Please, Mrs
Coulson, I don’t want to have twenty children.’

‘You’d never live to bear them,’ Mrs Coulson
said quietly. ‘I’m sorry, dear, I shouldn’t have said that. Take no
notice of my ramblings.’

‘Please tell me how to slow the babies
down,’ Amy begged.

She wondered why Mrs Coulson looked so sad.
‘You really want to know?’ the nurse asked. Amy nodded her head
vigorously. Mrs Coulson sighed. ‘Well, I’ll tell you, for what it’s
worth. You see, my dear, women aren’t fruitful all the time. Only
around the middle of the time between each lot of bleeding, for a
week or so—no one seems to know exactly how long. So if your
husband leaves you alone for that week or two every month then you
don’t get with child, or at least you’re less likely to.’ She
smiled ruefully at Amy. ‘It doesn’t seem so much to ask, does it,
darling?’

‘I see,’ Amy said in a small voice. ‘I
thought maybe it was something a woman could do by herself. Thank
you for explaining it to me.’
A baby every other year for the
next thirty years. Except I won’t live to bear them
. ‘I think
I’ll have a lie-down till dinner time. I feel like being by myself
for a little while.’

‘That’s a good idea,’ Mrs Coulson said. ‘You
have a nice rest. I’ll keep an eye on the little fellow.’ She
watched Amy walking a little unsteadily out of the room, and knew
it was because the girl’s eyes were blinded with tears.

Why ever had they made that poor girl marry
a man like Charlie Stewart? Mrs Coulson asked herself. That
stepmother of hers must have taken a terrible dislike to the
girl—though just how anyone could dislike that sweet little thing
was beyond her—and had moved heaven and earth to get her out of the
house. Jack Leith should have had more sense than to let himself be
talked into such a dreadful mismatch, but perhaps he had been too
besotted with his young wife to see what was going on.

But how on earth had they talked Amy into
it? Mrs Coulson had counted on her fingers enough times to know
that Malcolm had been born nine months after the wedding, so he
certainly hadn’t been the cause of it. And anyway, how would
Charlie have got Amy to lie with him without putting a ring on her
finger first, short of raping her?

All that talk about the terrible things the
poor girl thought she had done, that must be the clue. Susannah
Leith must have somehow convinced her that she had to marry
Charlie, almost as some sort of punishment. Charlie would have been
only too pleased to grasp the rich prize offered him. And yet, from
what the girl said he was not at all grateful for his stroke of
luck in getting such a wife.

Mrs Coulson shook her head. It was none of
her business, and she had no right to be puzzling over Amy’s
private life. It was foolish of her, too, to get so attached to the
girl. But she was such an affectionate little thing, so
pathetically grateful for the tiniest kindness, that it was
impossible not to love her. She was certainly not the first young
mother Mrs Coulson had seen who had a bad-tempered husband, nor the
first to show the marks of old blows. But Mrs Coulson had never
seen a girl so frightened of her husband, a husband more than old
enough to be her father. This was not some empty-headed girl going
into marriage full of romantic notions that the cold reality of
cooking, cleaning and child-bearing soon knocked out of her. The
girl had obviously never had the least desire to marry that man,
except to please other people. And now she was breaking her little
heart trying to make him happy so that he might show her some sign
of affection. That, Mrs Coulson thought grimly, assumed the man had
a heart to feel affection with.

When Charlie left the bedroom after his
visit the next day, Mrs Coulson intercepted him before he reached
the front door.

‘Mr Stewart, could I speak to you for a
moment?’ she asked, careful to sound very polite as she ushered him
into her parlour. She sat him down in her best armchair and
gathered her thoughts.

‘I wanted to have a word with you about your
wife. I’m a little worried about her.’

‘What’s wrong with her?’

Was that concern in his voice or just
irritation? Mrs Coulson wondered. ‘Having this baby has been hard
on her. She had a difficult time of it with young Malcolm, too. I’m
afraid I was rather remiss back then not to explain that to you. I
want to be sure you understand it this time.’

‘She looks all right,’ Charlie said
dubiously. ‘Has she been playing up for you? I’ll have a word with
her.’

He made to rise, but Mrs Coulson put out a
hand to stop him. ‘There’s no need for that. She certainly hasn’t
been “playing up”. She’s as good a patient as I could wish, and
I’ll miss her when she goes home. She’s simply not very well,
however she might look. Mr Stewart, your wife will be rather
delicate for a few months.’

‘Delicate? What the hell’s that supposed to
mean?’

‘It means you’ll have to be patient with her
for a while. You might find she’s inclined to get fits of weeping,
that sort of thing. Childbearing takes some women like that.’

‘I’ll soon knock that nonsense out of her.
I’ll not put up with that sort of rubbish.’

‘She won’t be able to help herself, Mr
Stewart,’ Mrs Coulson said, wishing she could shake some sense into
the stupid man. ‘You won’t help her by being harsh. You won’t help
yourself either,’ she added, willing him to understand. But there
was no hint of comprehension in his face.

‘You’re saying I should be soft on her. Let
her get away with her nonsense, instead of correcting her when she
plays up.’

‘I’m saying the poor girl needs a rest. She
needs to get her strength back before you expect too much of her.
Mr Stewart, I’m a nurse, and you must excuse me if I say things
that might offend you. She needs to get her strength back before
she’ll be ready to do her duty as a wife.’