‘Frank! Whatever’s wrong?’ Rachel asked.
‘It’s Lizzie. She’s really sick. Can you help?’
‘Of course,’ said Rachel. ‘What do you need me to do?’
Rachel’s capable manner calmed Frank a little as she set to organising. Matt was despatched to fetch the doctor, and Maudie was delivered into twelve-year-old Bessie’s care to be kissed and fussed over. The Aitkens’ oldest son was to ride up and let Edie and Arthur know what was happening, and would drop Rachel off at Frank’s on the way.
‘You get back to Lizzie now,’ Rachel said. ‘You must be beside yourself worrying about her.’ Frank was back in the saddle and urging Belle to a canter almost before she had finished speaking.
*
When a loud knocking made Amy hurry to open the back door she was surprised to see her aunt standing on the doorstep, puffing from her haste.
‘Amy, I need you,’ Edie said, cutting through Amy’s questions. ‘Can you come down to Lizzie’s right now?’
‘I’d have to ask Charlie—what’s wrong, Aunt Edie?’
‘The Aitken boy just came tearing up to our place. Lizzie’s crook, I’m going down there to help Frank with her—she sounds pretty bad.’ Edie looked over Amy’s shoulder as Charlie walked across the kitchen to see what was going on. ‘Charlie, I need to borrow your wife. Lizzie’s crook, and I need Amy to help me look after Joey.’
‘What do you want her for?’ Charlie asked indignantly. ‘You can look after a pair of bairns yourself, can’t you?’ Amy cringed at his rudeness.
‘I can look after them, but I can’t do Joey much good. He’s still a little fellow, Charlie. He needs feeding, and Lizzie must be too ill for that. Amy’s still nursing, I thought she might be able to give Joey a bit, too. There’s only her and Jane with little ones, and to tell you the truth I never even thought about Jane until I was past their place.’
‘Jane hasn’t got much milk, anyway,’ Amy put in. ‘She’s only just got enough for Doris. I’ve got plenty—please, Charlie, can I go and feed Joey?’
Charlie looked doubtful. ‘You’re sure you’ve got enough for young Dave as well as Kelly’s boy?’
‘Yes, I’ve got lots. Davie’s not taking much now, anyway.’
‘Well… all right, then,’ said Charlie. ‘I suppose there’s no harm in it.’
‘Thank you, Amy,’ Edie said with evident relief. ‘I won’t wait for you to saddle up, I want to get down and find out what’s happening to Lizzie.’ She managed to smile, but strain was obvious in her face. ‘You just ride down as soon as you can.’
‘I will,’ Amy said. I’ll have to walk, though. ‘I shouldn’t be gone more than a couple of hours at the most, Charlie, I don’t think Davie will wake up before I’m back.’
Amy was ready to leave within a few minutes of Edie’s visit. She walked as briskly as she could to Frank’s farm, her heart pounding more from the fear of what might be happening to Lizzie than from the exertion of the trek. It’s those stomach aches of hers, I’m sure it is. I knew she should have gone to the doctor. Poor Lizzie. Oh, I wish I could ride—it takes so long to walk.
Rachel’s son was sitting on the doorstep of Frank’s house while his horse cropped grass just outside the garden fence. When Amy walked into the kitchen she found Rachel pacing the floor with Joey, whose cries were now more pathetic than outraged.
‘Oh, thank goodness you’re here, Amy,’ Rachel said. ‘Poor little Joey! I cleaned him up—he was in a terrible state—but I’ve no milk of my own to give him. I tried getting a bit of warm milk into him with a teaspoon, but he didn’t know what to do with it, poor little mite. I was frightened he might choke.’
Amy had sat down and was already unbuttoning her bodice as Rachel spoke. She held out her arms for Joey. As soon as she guided a nipple into his open mouth, his lips closed on it and he began sucking greedily.
‘Poor Joey,’ she crooned. ‘You’re starving, aren’t you?’ Once she was sure Joey was feeding comfortably, she looked up at Rachel. ‘What’s happened to Lizzie?’
Rachel glanced anxiously at the open door that led into the passage. ‘Doctor Wallace only got here a couple of minutes before you did, they haven’t come out since. Amy, I should be getting home now, can you manage without me?’
‘Of course,’ Amy assured her. ‘Thank you for helping us.’
Joey was on to Amy’s other breast when the bedroom door flew open. ‘Get that man out of here, for goodness sake!’ Amy heard Doctor Wallace’s irritated voice. ‘I can’t examine the woman properly with him hovering around.’
‘I just want you to tell me what’s wrong with Lizzie! Is she going to be all right?’
‘Come on, Frank,’ Amy heard Edie trying to soothe him. ‘Let’s leave the doctor to get on with his work. Please, Frank, come with me.’ A few moments later she came into the kitchen leading Frank by the hand like a child. Amy twisted away to hide her exposed breasts, but it was obvious that Frank was in no state to take any notice.
‘Why won’t he tell me what’s wrong with her?’ Frank said, staring wild-eyed in the direction of the bedroom.
‘He doesn’t know,’ Edie said, looking close to tears and keeping a tight hold on Frank’s arm. ‘He’ll tell us what’s wrong as soon as he can. Please, Frank, try and calm down. You don’t want to disturb Lizzie, do you?’
Frank passed the back of his hand over his forehead and gave a shuddering sigh. ‘Sorry, Ma. I just… it’s driving me mad, not knowing what’s going on. If anything happens to Lizzie, I don’t know what—’
‘Don’t talk like that,’ Edie cut in. ‘We’ve just got to hope for the best.’
‘Yes, I know we do. She’ll be all right, eh?’ Frank looked at Edie and Amy with a pleading expression, then a scream from the bedroom rent the air. ‘Oh, my God, what’s he doing to her?’ Frank flung himself towards the passage door while Edie took hold of his arm and held on with all her might.
‘Don’t go up there, Frank,’ Edie begged. ‘The doctor knows what he’s doing… oh, Lord, what’s happening to my girl?’ Edie broke into sobs. Her noisy loss of control distracted Frank. He put his arm around her and the two of them sank into adjacent chairs.
Amy disengaged an almost replete Joey from her breast, hastily closed her bodice and sat the baby on Frank’s knee. She curled Frank’s arm around his son and held it in place until he noticed the warm bundle on his lap.
‘Joey,’ he murmured. ‘Poor little Joey.’ He looked at Amy as if seeing her for the first time. ‘You’ve settled him down. Thanks, Amy.’
‘He was hungry. He’s all right now.’
They sat in tense silence, Frank holding Joey close as the baby drifted towards sleep. There was no more sound from the bedroom until the door opened and Doctor Wallace walked down the passage to the kitchen, to three expectant pairs of eyes.
‘She’s very ill,’ the doctor said sombrely. ‘She has some sort of internal disorder. Perhaps a growth of some kind, or possibly an infection in one of her organs. She seemed very tender when I probed her.’
‘But… but she’s going to be all right, isn’t she?’ Frank implored.
‘It’s too early to tell,’ Doctor Wallace said. ‘All I can do for the moment is make her as comfortable as possible, and try to find out just what the trouble is. She has a high temperature, which suggests an infection, but I can’t be sure. Now, she’s going to need proper care.’
‘What do we have to do, Doctor Wallace?’ Amy asked.
‘Keep her warm and comfortable, that’s important. Whatever’s wrong with her seems to be giving her a lot of pain. I’ve given her a strong dose of laudanum, that should keep her quiet for eight hours or so. If she seems at all restless, give her another dose. A spoonful or two should suffice. Is she normally a robust sort of woman?’
‘She’s hardly had a day’s illness since she was a baby,’ Edie said.
‘That’s something in her favour. Now, she’ll need to be kept clean—her bodily functions will
continue, you understand. One of you women should wash her at least once a day.’
‘What about food?’ Edie asked.
‘You won’t be able to get solids into her. I doubt if she’d keep down anything heavier than water today, see if you can coax her into taking some. Then from tomorrow make up a broth of some sort and give her a few spoonfuls. No warmer than lukewarm, you don’t want to scald her. With the amount of laudanum she’ll need to kill the pain she’ll be no better than semi-conscious in the near future. Now, do you understand all that?’ Doctor Wallace, observing the slender hold Frank had on his self-control, ignored him and addressed the two women. Amy and Edie both nodded solemnly.
‘Good.’ Doctor Wallace picked up his hat and coat from the chair where he had placed them. ‘I’ll be back tomorrow to see how she is.’
‘Can’t you do anything for her?’ Frank begged. ‘Can’t you fix her up?’
Doctor Wallace stopped halfway to the door and turned a grim stare on Frank. ‘Mr Kelly, if she has an infection then proper care and her own strength will give her a chance of pulling through. A chance, I said. Nothing’s certain. If she has a growth… well, then there’ll be nothing I can do for her except ease the pain. Good day to you.’
‘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.
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