Sentence of Marriage
Read Sentence of Marriage Online
Authors: Shayne Parkinson
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Genre Fiction, #Historical, #Women's Fiction, #Domestic Life, #Family Life, #Romance, #Historical Fiction, #Family Saga, #Victorian, #Marriage, #new zealand, #farm life, #nineteenth century, #farming, #teaching
B
ook One
Copyright © S. L. Parkinson 2006
Smashwords Edition
Other titles by Shayne Parkinson at Smashwords:
http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/shaynep
Family trees and some extra background to the book’s setting can be found at:
http://www.shayneparkinson.com/
July 1881
Beyond the farmhouse the ground fell gradually in a series of low hills and flat paddocks, bright green where they had been planted in grass and darker green where the bush remained. The Waituhi creek wound along the valley floor before disappearing from sight behind a steep bluff. Amy reached the top of a hill and paused, caught as she always was by the beauty of the view.
And beyond the mouth of the valley was the sea. The wide sweep of the Bay of Plenty stretched to the edge of Amy’s sight, and straight in front of her ocean met sky all along the horizon, broken only by White Island with its constant puff of smoke. Today she could see the island quite clearly through the crisp winter air. The ocean looked blue and mild. Some days it was grey and threatening; but always to Amy it was fascinating. To her it meant the world outside her valley; it meant excitement and adventure, and the lure of the unknown.
As she always did, she strained her eyes to catch a glimpse of the little steamer that served the coastal settlements, but today there was no sign of it. Her father would be catching it soon, travelling to Auckland to look at the latest in farm machinery. In the whole twelve years of her life, Amy had never been ten miles away from home.
She adjusted her grip on the handle of the basket she carried, and turned away from the view.
The wintry sun shone out of a clear sky, with only a few wisps of cloud near the horizon. It would have been a nice day to find a quiet spot and read a book if she had had the time. The ground was still soggy from recent rain, and Amy had to watch her step in the muddy patches, but she enjoyed the fresh air on her face, blowing away the smell of dust and furniture polish that hung about her clothes. The occasional blast from the bush, where her father and brothers were using gunpowder to split logs, did not completely spoil the peace of the day.
Amy followed the noise as she picked her way along one of the rough tracks carved through the bush to drag out trees. As she got closer to the men, she smelt the acrid smoke of gunpowder.
When she got very close she could hear from their language that they were finding the work heavy going. She smiled to herself, and called out: ‘Is that you, Pa?’ to give them warning of her approach.
The cursing stopped abruptly as she walked into the little clearing. Jack, Amy’s father, managed a smile for her; her brothers, sixteen-year-old Harry and John who was nearly nineteen, were more interested in the contents of her basket.
‘Lunch at last—I’m starved,’ said John.
‘You took your time,’ Harry muttered.
‘Don’t talk to your sister like that,’ Jack said, flashing him a look.
Amy ignored Harry’s remark; she could see they were all tired out. ‘How’s everything going?’ she asked brightly.
Jack pulled a face. ‘Too slow. All this mud is bl… I mean jolly hard to work in. And I think a bit of damp’s got into the gunpowder—it smells a bit strange. And your
brother
,’ he glared at Harry, ‘ruined that trunk.’ He gestured over his shoulder at a splintered puriri log lying in a churned-up patch of mud. ‘I told you to drill the hole two feet from the end—not half way up the flaming thing. That’s no good for anything but firewood now.’
Harry looked sullen. ‘I’m sure he didn’t mean to ruin it, Pa,’ said Amy. ‘And you’ve got plenty more, haven’t you?’
‘What we haven’t got is time,’ Jack grumbled. ‘I want to get these posts split before I leave, so the boys can get on with fencing that bottom paddock while I’m away. And we’ve only done half a dozen posts all morning.’
‘You’ll feel more like doing it when you’ve had lunch,’ Amy said. ‘I’ve made you some currant scones specially.’ Jack brightened at the mention of one of his favourite treats. ‘Now, where can I spread this cloth?’
They found a pretty spot nearby on the bank of the little Waimarama stream, where sunshine dappled the water as it rushed down to the Waituhi under overhanging tawa trees with their yellow-green foliage. The birds had been driven away by the men’s noise, but a few brave bellbirds came back to provide a chorus for them. A large tree stump made a picnic table. Amy set out a meat pie cut into slices, piles of sandwiches, and small cakes and scones, with bottles of her home-made lemonade to wash it all down.
Jack slapped Harry on the back as his son was taking a bite of pie, making him choke on his mouthful. ‘Never mind, lad, I remember ruining a few logs myself when I was your age—when I was a bit older than that, now I come to think of it. And it did make an almighty great crack when it split right up the middle like that!’ He laughed, and Harry looked more cheerful.
When they had finished eating, John and Harry set to cutting a newly-felled puriri trunk into six-foot lengths with a cross-cut saw. The dense, dark-brown timber was the bush farmers’ preference for fence posts, but getting a saw blade through it was heavy work; work for younger backs than his, their father declared.
Amy stayed on with them, glad of the company. Since her grandmother’s death a few months before, she had had the house to herself when the men were out on the farm. Jack lit his pipe and puffed away contentedly, and Amy snuggled into the crook of his arm. She closed her eyes and took in the familiar, comforting smell of him, made up of tobacco, the damp wool of his jacket, and a hint of the grassy scent of fresh cow manure.
‘Only a couple of weeks now till I’m off to Auckland,’ said Jack. ‘I should be able to have a week or so there and still get back before calving’s really started. And I’ve got somewhere to stay, too—Mr Craig at the store knows a chap up there he used to be in business with years ago. He’s written to this fellow and arranged it all. Says they’ve got a flash house in Parnell. Better than staying in some boarding house, anyway.’
‘I wish I could go with you,’ Amy said, the city spreading before her eyes in imagination.
Jack patted her arm. ‘I wish you could, too. I miss my little girl when I go away. But you’ve got to keep these brothers of yours in line, eh? I’ll only be gone a week or two—and I’ll bring you back something pretty. Would you like that?’
‘Bring me a book!’
Jack laughed. ‘You and your books. Haven’t you got enough yet? All right, something pretty
and
a book, how’s that?’
Amy tilted her face for a kiss, and felt the tickle of his beard against her cheek.
‘You’re not going to get too big for cuddles, are you?’ Jack asked.
‘Not for a long time.’ Amy glanced up at the sky; the sun was now well to the west. ‘I’d better go in a minute—I’m doing a steamed pudding tonight, and I need to get it started. Oh, I need to get those rugs in off the line, too.’
Her father let go of her and crouched over his pipe, poking at it to coax more smoke. ‘You do a fine job of it all, girl. I know it’s a lot to manage on your own.’ His mouth made a crooked smile around the pipe. ‘I hope I’m looking after you properly, now your granny’s not here to do it for me.’
His eyes told Amy he was more troubled over the matter than his light tone suggested. ‘Of course you are, Pa. Anyway, Granny taught me all about looking after the house.’
‘Maybe there’re things I should be telling you—things your ma would, if she’d been spared… ah, well, no use thinking about that.’ Jack looked off into the distance for a few moments, then cleared his throat. ‘At least you’re not wearing yourself out trying to manage that teaching business any more.’
Amy made no answer, not trusting herself to speak calmly about what had been the biggest disappointment of her young life. After nursing her grandmother through the old woman’s final illness, Amy had persuaded her father to allow her to work a few days a week at the valley’s one-roomed school. The teacher, Miss Evans, had put Amy in charge of the youngest children, and the months she had spent guiding the little ones through their first steps at sounding out words and scratching letters on their slates had been the happiest of her life.
She and Miss Evans had spoken of Amy’s intended teaching career as a settled thing. Amy’s head had filled with dreams of working in the city; of making her way into the wider world. It had been a time of rushing between farm and school, struggling to get all her work done, and cutting corners where she could.