Mud and Gold (61 page)

‘Feenans? Those bog Irish?’ Lizzie said in
disgust. ‘Waste of time making them come to school, half of them’ll
end up in jail anyway. They’ll drive you mad, Lily.’

‘As bad as that?’ Lily asked Amy and Lizzie
both nodded. ‘Ah, woe is me,’ she said, putting on a tragic face.
‘I sometimes wish I was a washerwoman married to a street sweeper.’
She laughed at her own attempt at melodrama. The other two women
laughed with her, and the children joined in with giggles despite
having no idea what the women were talking about.

*

‘It’s such a shame about Lily,’ Lizzie said
more and more often to Frank over the next few weeks. ‘She’s so
nice, it’s not right that she’s an old maid. She’s very lonely,
too. And she’s so good with the children, I bet she’d love to have
some of her own. I blame her mother, not making sure Lily was
properly settled.’

Frank made noncommittal noises of sympathy
when Lizzie ran on in this vein. He could not raise much interest
in Lily’s prospects, and thought it was none of their business in
any case, but it was in Lizzie’s nature to try and organise the
lives of those around her, and when she was in full flight it was
as much use trying to curb her as to dam the creek when it
flooded.

But Lizzie gradually stopped railing against
what she saw as Lily’s cruel fate of spinsterhood. Frank thought
she had resigned herself to her own inability to do anything about
it. As he later reflected, that just showed that even after knowing
her for so many years he could still be very wrong about
Lizzie.

He thought little of it when Lizzie remarked
one evening after supper, ‘I bet Bill would love to have a look at
the Jerseys.’

‘Do you think so?’ The thought of showing
off his precious Jerseys to an interested audience held great
appeal.

‘Mmm. Well, it stands to reason, doesn’t it?
He helped you get them out here the day they arrived, he’d like to
see how they’re getting on. Just because Pa makes smart remarks
about the Jerseys doesn’t mean Bill agrees with him. I think you
should ask Bill to come around some time.’

‘Maybe I will.’

‘Yes, that’s a good idea, Frank. You’ll
probably see him at the factory tomorrow, tell him to come for
lunch on Saturday.’

‘It doesn’t have to be Saturday, does it?
Friday would do.’

‘No, it’s
got
to be Saturday,’ Lizzie
insisted. ‘Saturday will suit just right. Tell him to get here a
good bit before lunch, so we won’t be in a rush. And you’ll have
time to show him the cows, too.’

‘That’s what he’s coming for, isn’t it?’

‘Mostly,’ Lizzie said, a rather smug smile
playing about her mouth.

Frank studied her in amusement. ‘You’re
plotting something, aren’t you? You’ve got that look on your face.
What are you up to?’

‘You’ll see,’ was all Lizzie would say. ‘You
just tell Bill to come on Saturday, that’s all I need you to
do.’

Frank invited Bill for the following
Saturday as he had been instructed. It was only when Lily arrived
on Friday night straight from school to spend the weekend with the
Kellys, as she so often did now, that realisation of just what
Lizzie was up to dawned on him. ‘Does Bill know Lily’ll be here?’
he asked Lizzie in the privacy of their bedroom.

‘Not if you didn’t tell him,’ Lizzie said.
She gave a small giggle. ‘It’ll be a nice surprise for him.’

As Frank lingered over his morning tea the
next day, he thought Lizzie seemed oddly restless. She kept finding
reasons to go over to one of the kitchen windows and peer out down
the track. After one of these darting visits to the window she
turned to Lily.

‘I’ve just had a thought,’ Lizzie said,
somewhat breathlessly. ‘I need some figs. Do you mind picking me
some?’

Before Lily had a chance to say whether she
minded or not, Lizzie had thrust a basket into her hands and
practically pushed her out the back door.

‘Now, mind you pick plenty,’ Lizzie said.
‘Take your time, there’s no need to rush back. You might have to
climb a little way up the tree, just in the low branches. It’s easy
enough to climb. No, Maudie, you can’t go and help Aunt Lily,’ she
said, restraining the eager child by one hand. ‘I want you to help
me in here for a bit.’

She closed the door on Lily and smiled at
Frank, her eyes dancing. ‘Bill’s coming up the road.’

‘Is he? I’ll go down and meet him. We might
as well go out and take a look at the cows right now.’

‘No, you won’t,’ Lizzie said. ‘You can bring
him straight up here. There’ll be plenty of time for looking at
cows later.’

Lizzie insisted that Bill sit down and have
a cup of tea as soon as Frank ushered him into the kitchen, but
just as she seemed about to pour it she remarked in a tone of
studied casualness, ‘Bill, how about you just pop out and help Lily
with those figs? She’s probably got a basketful now, and it’ll be a
bit heavy.’

‘Who’s Lily?’ Bill asked.

‘You know—Miss Radford, the teacher. Didn’t
Frank tell you she’s staying the weekend with us? Hurry up, you can
have your tea when you and Lily get back.’

Bill went outside, and Lizzie scurried over
to the kitchen window opposite the one that had held such
fascination for her earlier.

‘What are you up to with all this fuss about
the figs, Lizzie?’ Frank asked, wandering idly over to stand beside
her.

Lizzie craned her neck to see the tree that
stood some distance from the house. ‘Lily will have climbed a
little way up it—yes, she’s a couple of branches up.’ She gave a
small giggle. ‘She’s going to get a shock when she looks down and
sees Bill.’

Frank followed Lizzie’s gaze and saw Lily a
few feet up the tree, standing on a broad branch. She had hitched
her dress up halfway to her knees to make climbing easier, unaware
that she had an audience.

‘Hey, Lily’s showing a bit of leg, eh?’ he
remarked with a grin.

‘Maybe you’d better not look—make sure you
don’t look at her legs, anyway,’ Lizzie said, not turning away from
the window.

‘I’ll do my best,’ said Frank.

They watched as Bill approached the fig
tree. When he got close enough to see Lily clearly he hesitated,
then stepped forward and looked up into the tree for a few moments
before speaking. Although they could not hear what was said, they
saw Lily give a start and almost let go of the basket. Bill reached
up and took it from her, then helped her clamber down.

‘That’s just right,’ said Lizzie.

‘That was a bit mean on Lily, wasn’t it?
She’ll be embarrassed now.’

‘It doesn’t matter. She’ll forget about
being embarrassed soon enough.’

‘Why did you want Bill to catch her like
that?’

‘Lily needs a bit of help, that’s all. She’s
not all that pretty, but I noticed the other day when she was
showing me some new stockings she had on that she’s got a nice pair
of legs. I’m just helping her show her best features off.’

Frank laughed. ‘You’re a wanton little
hussy, Lizzie.’

They watched as Bill and Lily began to walk
back to the house. ‘Oh, good, I thought she might be a bit taller
than Bill, but she’s about the same height,’ Lizzie said. ‘She’s
two years older than him, but you’d hardly know. Don’t you go
telling Bill Lily’s twenty-eight, not till things have got on a bit
further. She looks quite pretty just now, don’t you think?’

Lily certainly looked flustered, but the
pinkness of her cheeks was more becoming than her usual paleness.
She seemed to be covering her confusion by talking in an animated
way, moving her hands about as she spoke. Bill was listening in
silence, smiling as he watched her. Frank saw his brother-in-law’s
gaze drift down towards Lily’s now discreetly covered ankles once
or twice, and he was not surprised at Bill’s wandering eyes. ‘No
one else looks pretty to me when you’re around,’ he said, giving
Lizzie a squeeze. ‘But you’re right, she’s got nice legs.’

‘You rogue, Frank Kelly! I told you not to
look at her legs.’ She patted his hand absently where it rested on
her shoulder and continued her scrutiny through the window.

When the strolling couple neared the house,
Lizzie pulled Frank away.

‘I don’t want them to know we were
watching,’ she said, making a great show of fussing about with the
teacups.

Frank noted the lively pleasure on her face.
‘You must think a lot of Lily.’

She stopped her activity for a moment and
gave him a serious look. ‘Bill could do an awful lot worse for
himself, Frank. So could Lily.’

When they had had a hurried cup of tea,
Lizzie let Frank take Bill out to look at the cows that were the
ostensible reason for his visit, while she and Lily got on with the
lunch preparations. Bill did not mention his dramatic encounter
with Lily, and Frank had no desire to raise the subject;
matchmaking was something he was happy to leave to Lizzie.

Bill seemed genuinely interested in Frank’s
plans to improve his breeding stock, but Frank suspected that part
of his attention was directed towards the other visitor to the
Kelly household. He seemed eager to get back to the house when they
heard Lizzie calling them for lunch.

‘I think we’ll have our cup of tea in the
parlour,’ Lizzie announced as she and Lily cleared the pudding
plates away, with Maudie self-importantly helping. ‘Lily, put the
tea things on that tray and take Bill through, we’ll be along
shortly.’

‘I know the way, Lizzie,’ Bill said, the
corners of his eyes crinkling in amusement.

‘Yes, I know you do,’ said Lizzie. ‘You can
keep Lily company in there for a minute, Frank and I just want to
have a talk about something. Go on, off you go.’

*

Bill and Lily went obediently off to the
parlour, leaving a smug-looking Lizzie and a grinning Frank.

‘Have you known my sister long, Miss
Radford?’ Bill asked as he stood back to let Lily through the
parlour door ahead of him.

Lily was about to give an innocuous
response, when something in Bill’s impudent grin touched a spark of
humour in her. ‘Long enough,’ she answered with a matching smile as
she placed the tray on a small table. ‘Shall we wait for them
before I pour?’

‘What do you think?’ Bill asked, grinning
more broadly.

‘I think that if we do, this tea will get
very cold indeed.’ She poured two cups, and handed one to Bill
before sitting down on the couch.

Bill glanced at the armchair opposite, then
indicated the empty place next to Lily on the couch. ‘May I, Miss
Radford?’

‘Please do, Mr Leith.’

*

Frank felt Lizzie press against him and give
a little wriggle as they lay huddled together in the island of
warmth their bed made in the chilly darkness.

‘Pleased with yourself?’ he whispered.

‘It’s a start,’ Lizzie answered quietly.
‘We’ve a fair way to go yet, but we’re off to a good start.’

‘ “
We”?’ Frank teased.
‘Are you and Lily plotting this together?’

‘Don’t say “plotting”, Frank, it sounds
awful. I’m just giving Bill and Lily a helping hand. They’re just
right for each other, wouldn’t it be a shame if they never got
around to getting to know each other properly? It’s time Bill found
himself a wife, anyway, and he hasn’t been doing much about it, has
he?’

‘What say Bill and Lily don’t think they’re
as suited as you do?’

‘Don’t talk rubbish—of course they’ll think
it when they get to know each other a bit better. They’re not
silly.’

‘That’s true,’ Frank said. ‘And anyone who
knows you knows it’s pretty silly to try arguing once you’ve made
up your mind.’

‘Only when I know I’m right.’

‘But you always
do
, Lizzie.’

May – December 1891

It was not a whirlwind courtship; neither
Bill nor Lily was prone to being swept along on a tide of passion.
But what began as shared amusement at Lizzie’s blatant attempts to
manipulate them soon turned into a hard-headed appraisal of each
other that led them both to the conclusion Lizzie had already come
to on their behalf: they could each do a lot worse for
themselves.

From there it was only a small step, given
the many opportunities of spending time with each other that Lizzie
made sure of putting in their way, to a mutual respect that seemed
likely to turn into something warmer in time. The only thing that
bothered Lizzie was that neither of them seemed in any rush to move
matters beyond friendship and into romance.

‘I wish Bill would hurry up and ask Lily,’
she fretted to Frank. ‘Lily’ll be twenty-nine next year, they
should get on with it. She’s only got so many child-bearing years,
she’s already wasted half of them. It might be harder for her to
get with child, too, not being very young.’

‘She’s not an old woman, Lizzie,’ Frank
protested in amusement. ‘Heck, she’s a year younger than me!’

‘Of course she’s not old, but she’s not
getting any younger, either. You should have a word with Bill about
that when you see him at the factory some time, tell him to get on
with it.’

‘Now, don’t you try that on me. I’m not
about to tell Bill in front of half the men in Ruatane that he
needs to get Lily between the sheets before she’s too old for
it.’

‘Well, you wouldn’t need to say it like
that,’ Lizzie said, pursing her lips. ‘I wish Lily would give him a
bit more encouragement, though. She told me he’s only kissed her
three times, once when they were—’

‘Hey, never mind telling me all that,
Lizzie,’ Frank interrupted. ‘I don’t want to know their business. I
hope you don’t go telling Lily things about me and you—I’ll never
be able to look her in the eye again.’

‘Of course I don’t! That wouldn’t be decent,
not with her being an unmarried woman.’ She sighed deeply. ‘I don’t
know what I’m going to do about those two. I’ll have to give them a
hurry-up somehow.’