Mud and Gold (36 page)

‘That must be it,’ Edie said when the doctor
had gone, her voice a sad echo of its usual cheerfulness. ‘She’s
got an infection. Lizzie’s a strong girl, we’ll get her fit
again.’

‘A growth,’ Frank repeated, so quietly that
Amy barely heard him. ‘Nothing he can do. Just like with Ma.’

*

The entire Leith family was soon mobilised
to do all they could to help Frank and Lizzie. Maudie was collected
from the Aitkens and taken to stay with Arthur and Edie, while Amy
took little Joey home with her, much to Charlie’s astonishment.

‘What have you brought him here for?’ he
asked when Amy carried Joey into the house.

‘I have to feed him, Charlie. That means
I’ve got to have him with me all the time. You said it would be all
right for me to feed him.’

‘I said you could go down today and suckle
him—I didn’t know you were going to bring the brat here!’

Amy sank into a chair, holding Joey tightly.
‘Lizzie’s very sick,’ she said, struggling to hold back tears.
‘She’s got something wrong with her insides, but the doctor doesn’t
know what it is. She’s not going to be well enough to feed Joey for
a long time.’
Lizzie might die
. But she refused to say the
words aloud, as if that would give power to the terrible
thought.

‘Well… can’t they give him cows’ milk or
something? Why do you have to be a wet nurse?’

‘Joey’s so little—he’s only four months old.
If we tried to wean him all of a sudden like that he’d probably get
really sick. He might even… he might even die, Charlie. Frank’s
beside himself with worry over Lizzie, how do you think he’d feel
if Joey got sick too?’

Charlie looked thoughtful. ‘It’s that risky
to wean him? Hmm, that’d be hard on Kelly to lose his son—it’s
taken him long enough to get one. I wouldn’t want to take a man’s
son off him. You’re sure you’ve got enough milk for the pair of
them?’

‘Quite sure.’

‘All right, you can feed him for a bit. My
son gets fed first, mind—I’ll not have you starving him for Kelly’s
boy. He’s such a scrap of a bairn, he can’t need much milk
anyway.’

‘Thank you, Charlie,’ Amy said with
heartfelt gratitude.

‘Where’s he going to sleep, then?’

‘I’ll put him in with Davie for now, there’s
plenty of room to top and tail them in the cradle. Aunt Edie said
she’ll get Uncle Arthur to bring Joey’s cradle down tomorrow. It
was too heavy for me to carry.’

‘Two of them in the bedroom,’ Charlie said
grimly, as if already regretting his magnanimous gesture. ‘I hope
he doesn’t bawl at night.’

So do I
, Amy agreed silently.

*

With two nursing babies it was difficult for
Amy to leave the house, so she was not able to help care for Lizzie
as much as she wanted to. In any case, Edie would have insisted on
taking the lion’s share of the nursing herself. But the rest of the
family did what they could, with a constant flow of cooked meals
being sent down the valley to Frank’s house and his washing done in
turns by Amy, Jane and Susannah, while Jack and Arthur sent
whichever of their sons they could spare to help Frank with the
farm work. Early in the crisis Jack pointed out to Susannah that
she was the only one of the three younger women without a baby to
look after, and suggested she should go next door and do Edie’s
cleaning while Edie was busy caring for Lizzie; when Susannah
seemed reluctant he made one of his rare assertions of authority
and insisted she do it.

After a grinding nightmare of a week Doctor
Wallace announced that Lizzie’s illness was definitely an infection
rather than the dreaded growth, and Frank’s barely-controlled
terror subsided into a dull misery. The doctor was quick to stress
that he still had no idea whether or not Lizzie would recover, but
there was no invisible monster slowly devouring her from the inside
as Frank remembered so clearly from his mother’s long wasting
illness.

Day after day Lizzie remained unchanged,
tossing about on the bed flushed and moaning, or when she had been
dosed with laudanum lying so motionless that her stillness made
Frank think of death rather than healing sleep. He could hardly
bear to watch her, but even less could he bear to be away from her
for any length of time, imagining that she might suddenly take a
turn for the worse.

One afternoon two weeks after Lizzie’s
collapse, Amy was cleaning the kitchen when she heard the noise of
hooves approaching the house.

‘That’s Papa!’ Malcolm said, rushing to the
kitchen door.

‘I don’t think it is, Mal,’ Amy said as she
followed him. ‘He only went out half an hour ago, he said he’d be
gone all afternoon.’

She opened the door to see her aunt standing
in the porch. Edie smiled at her, but lines of strain were worn
deep in her face and she swayed as she stood.

‘Aunt Edie! Is everything all right? How’s
Lizzie?’ Amy asked.

‘She’s the same as ever. No better, no
worse. Hello, Mal.’ Edie managed a smile for the little boy staring
up at her. ‘You looking after Mama, are you?’

‘I thought you were Papa,’ Malcolm said
accusingly.

‘Charlie’s gone out by himself,’ Amy
explained. ‘Mal’s having a bit of a sulk because he couldn’t go
too. I’ve told you, Mal, sometimes Papa likes to go out by himself.
I expect he’ll take you with him when you’re old enough. Come
inside, Aunt Edie, you look worn out. I’ll put the jug on.’

Edie shook her head. ‘No, I’d better not sit
down or I’ll fall asleep on you. Amy, I wondered if you could do me
a good turn?’

‘Of course. What can I do?’

‘I’ve been down at Lizzie’s from morning
till night every day, but I’ve just got to go home for a spell this
afternoon. Maudie’s fretting for her Mama—your uncle’s trying to
look after her, but she needs a woman. Susannah’s over there most
mornings, but she’s not much on cuddles and things. And Ernie’s got
a bad cough, he keeps going out without his jacket on, and your
uncle never thinks to make him wear it. I’d like to give the place
a decent clean up, too—not that I’m not grateful for Susannah
coming over to help, but she’s not too keen on getting down on her
knees and scrubbing.’

‘You look as though you need a good sleep,
Aunt Edie.’

Edie smiled ruefully at her. ‘Well, maybe
I’ll even manage a nap if I get everything sorted out quickly
enough. You’re right, that’s what I feel like more than
anything—taking little Maudie to bed with me and having a doze. But
Amy, dear, someone needs to look after Lizzie this afternoon. She
needs a wash, and I only got a couple of spoonfuls of soup into her
this morning. Do you think you could go down there? I know you’re
busy with the little ones, but I’d take it kindly if you could
spell me.’

‘Oh, Aunt Edie, I wish I could,’ Amy said in
distress. ‘But Charlie’s out.’

‘Yes, so you said, dear. Does that
matter?’

‘I can’t ask him if it’s all right, you see.
Oh, I wish I could go. I really want to help.’

‘But you’d just be popping down the road to
Lizzie’s,’ Edie said, looking puzzled. ‘He wouldn’t mind that,
would he?’

‘I’m not allowed… I’m meant to ask…’ It
sounded ridiculous, Amy knew. She could see that Edie had no idea
what she was talking about, and no wonder. After all, other women
were allowed to leave the house without having to beg permission.
Other women aren’t as bad as me, I suppose. But Lizzie needs me!
And Aunt Edie’s just about dead on her feet. Oh, what can I do?
She saw the puzzlement in her aunt’s face turn to
disappointment.

‘That’s all right, dear,’ Edie said. ‘I
shouldn’t have asked you, you’ve got enough on your plate just now.
I’ll go back to Lizzie’s, I don’t really need to go home at all.
You just forget I troubled you.’ She turned to leave.

Charlie will be really wild with me if I
go down there without asking him. He’ll give me an awful
beating
. She saw Edie stumble a little with weariness as she
negotiated the porch steps. ‘Wait a minute, Aunt Edie,’ Amy said,
making up her mind abruptly. ‘Of course I can go down there this
afternoon. I was just being silly, saying I couldn’t.’
So I’ll
get a beating. I’ve had beatings before, I know what to expect. It
won’t kill me
.

‘You’re sure?’ Edie asked.

‘Yes,’ said Amy. ‘I want to go, and it’s
time I helped a bit more. You go home and have a rest. Let’s see,’
she said, thinking aloud. ‘I’ll have to take the little fellows
with me, they’ll both need feeding. Mal, we’re going down to Aunt
Lizzie’s.’

‘Don’t want to,’ Malcolm said.

Amy studied him anxiously. She could try
insisting he do as he was told, but dragging an unwilling Malcolm
down the road would not be easy. The only thing he seemed to take
any notice of was a belt or a stick, and they both knew she would
not use either on him. ‘Aunt Edie, would you take Mal for me and
drop him off at Susannah’s?’ she asked.

‘Of course, dear—I’ll take him home with me,
if you like.’

‘No, don’t do that. He’s in a mood, you’ve
got enough to do without putting up with his sulks. Susannah will
just send him off with Pa and the boys, he’ll like that. Mal, I
want you to go with Aunt Edie.’

‘No,’ said Malcolm.

Persuasion seemed more likely to succeed
than coercion. ‘Aunt Edie will give you a ride on her horse. You’d
like that, wouldn’t you? He’s mad on horses,’ she explained to
Edie.

Malcolm weighed up the offer. ‘Can we go
fast?’

Edie laughed. ‘We’ll have a go, Mal. I’ve
ridden more in the last couple of weeks than I have in years—it
just about killed me the first day or so. Oh, Amy, see if you can
get a bit of food into Frank while you’re there, too. I made him
some lunch, but I bet he’s left it. You’ll have to stand over him
like you would a child to make him eat it. Poor boy, he’s beside
himself over Lizzie.’

Amy hoisted Malcolm in front of Edie and
waved them off, then went inside to get ready. She wanted to leave
quickly; because she knew she was needed, but also so as not to
give her courage time to fail.

She took a scrap of brown paper that had
been wrapped around a tin of baking powder and flattened out the
creases, then wrote a quick note on it:

‘Charlie,’ (
Dear
would have been too
blatant a lie) ‘I have gone to Lizzie’s for the afternoon to help
look after her. Mal is at Pa’s and I have the babies with me. I’ll
be back in time to make dinner.’ She hesitated for a moment, then
added, ‘I’m sorry,’ before signing the note with a simple
‘Amy’.

‘I’ll be a lot sorrier when your Papa’s
finished with me,’ she told an oblivious David, who chortled away
as she put a warm coat on over his gown. ‘Well, it can’t be helped.
I’ve got to go.’ David crawled around by her feet while she wrapped
Joey warmly for the journey and thought over just how she was going
to carry the two children down the valley.

Amy improvised a carrying sling for Joey
from a length of old sheet that had been consigned to her rag bag.
She hoisted David onto one hip and set off down the road.

The mile or so to Frank’s house had never
seemed so long. Amy’s arms were aching well before she got there.
She sighed with relief when she walked into the kitchen and let
David slide to the floor. There was no sign of Frank, though she
saw the pan of chops Edie had left for him lying untouched on one
side of the range close to a pot of soup. Amy decided he must be
out working somewhere on the farm.

‘You can walk for yourself now we’re inside,
Davie,’ Amy said. ‘I’ve carried you far enough. You’re such a heavy
boy!’ She kept hold of his hand and steadied his tottering steps as
they slowly went up the passage to the bedroom.

Amy walked through the open bedroom door and
stopped in her tracks. Frank was sitting on a chair beside the bed,
close to where Lizzie lay pale and still, the slight rise and fall
of the blankets over her chest the only sign of life. He held her
limp hand in both of his while tears flowed unchecked down his
face.

She hesitated in the doorway, unsure whether
to speak or to slip away quietly, till David broke the silence with
a burst of childish babble. Frank turned an unseeing face to them,
then rubbed his sleeve over his eyes to clear them of the tears
blinding him.

‘Amy?’ he said, sounding confused. ‘I didn’t
know you were coming.’

‘Aunt Edie asked me to, Frank.’

‘Did she? Maybe she told me, I don’t
remember. Hey, you’ve brought Joey with you,’ he said, a tiny look
of animation softening the naked grief that twisted his face.
‘Look, Lizzie, Joey’s here.’ He turned back to Lizzie and stroked
her unresponsive cheek.

Amy walked closer to the bed. ‘She can’t
hear you,’ she said gently.

‘I know. I just sort of hope she can, you
know? I don’t want to treat her like she’s… like she’s…’ He trailed
off, unwilling to voice the thought.

He loves her so much that he can’t bear
the thought of losing her
. Amy stood in silence for a few
moments before she could bring herself to speak. ‘I need to do a
few things for her, Frank,’ she said at last. ‘She’ll need washing
and things.’

Frank let go of Lizzie’s hand and stood up.
‘I know, you want me to get out. Edie always shoos me out of the
way when she’s looking after Lizzie.’

‘It’s not that you’re in the way. It’s just
that… well, I’ll need to…’

‘You have to take her clothes off, and you
don’t want me around. Don’t hurt her, eh, Amy?’

‘I don’t think she can feel anything. Have
you given her any laudanum this afternoon?’

Frank shook his head. ‘Edie gave her a dose
before she left, that’s why she’s lying so still now. I can’t bear
to give it to her. I want her to have it so nothing hurts her, but
I hate the way it makes her look as though she’s… as though she’s
dead
.’