Mud and Gold

by Shayne Parkinson

  Lizzie gave him an apprehensive look. ‘I don’t think I’ll be much help. I was never much good at sums.’

  ‘Neither was I. That’s why I need you to help.’

  ‘No, honestly, Frank, I’m hopeless at them. Adding up and things, that’s easy enough, but I hate those really hard sums with lots of things to multiply and stuff. I think Miss Evans must have worn a whole strap out on me, trying to get me to do them properly.’

  ‘She must have worn out two on me, then. She used to be nice about it, you know. Sometimes she’d keep me behind after school and have a little talk about sums and things. I remember her saying, “Frank, I’m sure you could do this work if you’d only try and concentrate. You’d have no trouble at all if you stopped dreaming and took more notice of your lessons.” ’ He pulled a rueful face at the memory. ‘Then she’d pull out the strap and get stuck into me.’

  ‘Humph! She never used to bother saying all that to me. She’d just get straight into giving me the strap. Just for getting a few stupid sums wrong! And for talking, too, she was always going on about talking. “Lizzie Leith, I’ve told you before about talking in class. Come out to the front.” As if there’s any harm in talking! I think she enjoyed it.’

  ‘She must have got sick of strapping you for talking, she would’ve had to do it every day,’ Frank said. ‘I don’t think she enjoyed it really, though. She used to look quite sad sometimes when she did it to me.’ He grimaced. ‘And sometimes Pa would find out I’d got in trouble at school, then he’d give me a real hiding.’

  ‘Why’d he do that?’ Lizzie asked.

  Frank slid away from her gaze as he recalled the unpleasant memory. ‘He used to say no son of his was going to be an idiot. He reckoned I’d remember my sums better if he beat a bit of sense into me.’

  ‘That’s not fair! Giving you a hiding when you’d already got the strap! Honestly, people can be so mean.’

  Frank laughed at the sight of Lizzie with her eyes flashing. ‘Well, you can’t do anything about it now. Pa’s too far away for you to give him a piece of your mind. Let’s have a go at these sums, eh? With the two of us on the job we should be able to muddle through it, even if neither of us are much good.’

  Lizzie still looked reluctant. ‘It’s Amy you should be getting to help you, really. She was always good at sums. Maybe you should wait until she comes around some time.’

  ‘I don’t want Amy to help me. I want you to. I want us to do this together, Lizzie. It’s important.’

  ‘All right, don’t get in a state about it,’ Lizzie said in surprise. ‘I’ll have a go.’ She gave him a sly grin. ‘Shall I go and get one of your belts? You might be better at doing the sums if I stand over you and threaten you with it.’

  Frank grinned back at her. ‘You could try. Of course I might just take it off you and teach you how to be a good, meek little wife.’

  ‘You’d only try it the once,’ said Lizzie. ‘Forget about the belt, then, I’ll just have to trust you to behave. Here, pass that diary over so I can have a go.’

  Accompanied by much head-scratching and pencil-chewing, they had soon covered several pages of the diary with sums, most of them crossed out. ‘I think that’s the answer,’ Lizzie said at last. ‘Five hundred pounds of fat a year—that’s the hard part, eh? I hate those long division things.’

  ‘Mmm, do you think we divided the right bits into each other?’

  ‘Well, we worked it out all the different ways and that was the only one that ended up with a sensible answer.’

  ‘And then we had to times it by the sevenpence a pound the factory pays and change it from pence into pounds and shillings—that was awful. I wonder who decided to make it so hard, you know, with twelve pence in a shilling and twenty shillings in a pound.’

  Lizzie looked blank. ‘How else could it be?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know, just so’s it worked out easier. Don’t worry about it, no one’s going to change the way money works just to make it easier for us.’ He studied their hard-won answers with interest. ‘So that’s about six shillings a week, and fifteen pounds in a year from one cow. Three hundred pounds for twenty cows. That’s a lot! It’s just about twice what I get now. I bet those cows cost a lot to buy.’

  ‘Mmm, the people who have that sort of cow must be well-off.’ Lizzie closed the diary and put it on the floor, then snuggled into the crook of Frank’s arm. ‘Never mind, Frank, we’ve got enough money. Don’t go thinking about things you can’t have.’

  ‘I wonder if they advertise cows like that in the paper,’ Frank said thoughtfully. ‘It’d be interesting to know how much they cost. Then I could work out if it was worth—’

  ‘Not more sums!’ Lizzie interrupted, rolling her eyes at the idea. ‘Not tonight, anyway, I couldn’t bear it.’ She covered her mouth as a yawn escaped from her.

  ‘Tired?’ Frank asked.

  ‘Mmm. I’m always worn out on a Monday night, washing’s hard work. I remember hearing Ma talking to Mrs Carr once, the two of them were saying Monday should be the wife’s night off. I didn’t know what they were talking about then, but Ma was giggling like an idiot.’ She yawned again. ‘I can hardly keep my eyes open. Do you want to come to bed?’

  ‘Yes, figuring all that stuff out’s hard work too, eh?’

  It took Lizzie much longer to extricate herself from her layers of clothing than it did for Frank to undress, and he was already in his nightshirt by the time she was ready for him to help her out of her stays. She gave a sigh of relief when he had unlaced her.

  ‘Ahh, that feels better. That dress is getting tighter and tighter,’ she complained as she stepped out of the stays.

  ‘I wonder why,’ Frank teased. He slipped his arms around her and squeezed, enjoying the soft feel of her body through her chemise.

  ‘Having all your babies, that’s why. Let go, Frank, it’s too cold to stand around in my underwear.’

  Frank released her. He climbed into bed and watched as she shed the rest of her clothes and pulled on her nightdress, then bent over Beth’s cradle.

  ‘She’s sound asleep, the good little thing,’ Lizzie said, a fond smile playing around her mouth. ‘She’s the best sleeper of the three of them, and we’ve been lucky with them all, really.’ Lizzie tucked the little girl in snugly before climbing into bed beside Frank.

  ‘Frank?’ she whispered as Frank leaned over to the bedside table to put out the lamp. She sounded half-asleep already.

  ‘Mmm?’ he answered as quietly, both of them careful not to wake Beth.

  ‘You know how you said you used to get in trouble for dreaming at school?’

  ‘I sure did. Miss Evans was always telling me off for staring out the window instead of doing my work.’

  ‘Well, what were you thinking about all the time?’

  Frank pulled her towards him in the darkness. They snuggled close against the night chill. ‘I don’t know. All sorts of things, I suppose. Like… well, how the valley must have looked when it was all trees. And how the different sorts of trees grow—you know, some are tall and pointy, and some are bushy. Why tuis have got those white feathers on their chests. Why sometimes there’s smoke coming from White Island.’

  ‘No wonder Miss Evans got annoyed with you. You must have hardly got any work done, looking out the window all the time.’

  ‘There was Ma, too.’ Frank lay quietly for a few moments, holding Lizzie a little tighter as the feeling of loss washed over him. ‘I used to wonder why she had to be so sick. She never moaned or anything, but her face was all sort of pinched from it. Some days she was better, then I’d think she was going to get well again. Then she’d get worse.’ And she had slowly faded away, till one day she had died in this very bed, but Frank could not bring himself to finish the story aloud. ‘She was nice, Lizzie.’

  ‘I know,’ Lizzie whispered, pressing against him. ‘Ma liked her a lot. I wish I remembered her.’

  ‘I didn’t go to school all that much, anyway,’ Frank went o
n more lightly. ‘Sometimes Pa needed me to help him and Ben. I got up to Standard Three, then I just stopped going. Miss Evans was probably pleased to see the back of me.’

  ‘Probably,’ Lizzie agreed in a sleepy voice. She rolled away from him a little, and Frank lay waiting for a drowsiness that refused to come.

  Instead his mind turned half-formed ideas over and over. If he could get some if those better-producing cows. If he could make more money. He could get nice things for Lizzie. She had looked so tired that evening, after spending most of the day scrubbing at dirty clothes. Maybe he could even pay someone to help her with the washing, outlandish though the idea seemed.

  From her breathing he thought Lizzie was deeply enough asleep not to be easily wakened. He reached out towards her. Lizzie’s nightdress had ridden up around her hips, and Frank stroked her thigh with a light touch, savouring the satin feel of her skin. He wished her hands might have the chance to be as soft as the rest of her body, instead of chapped and reddened from all the rough work she had to do.

  ‘Don’t go getting any ideas,’ Lizzie said drowsily. ‘I’m too tired. It’s Monday, remember? The wife’s night off.’

  ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you up.’

  ‘Go to sleep,’ she mumbled.

  Frank rolled onto his back and tried to sleep, but his mind refused to rest. He listened to Lizzie’s breathing and decided that she was also awake, though only just.

  ‘Lizzie?’

  ‘What?’ came a muffled response.

  ‘If you could have anything you wanted, what would you have?’

  ‘A good night’s sleep. Shut up, Frank.’

  At least that much was in his power to give her. Frank rolled away, and was careful not to disturb Lizzie again. He at last dropped off into a sleep that seemed full of dreams of Lizzie wearing pretty dresses and displaying rings on smooth, unblemished hands.

  *

  The house was full of the noise of three lively children all day long, so it was the following evening before Frank had the chance to raise the subject that had been filling his head for much of the day. With the children all tucked up and asleep, Frank broke the companionable silence as they sat in the parlour, Lizzie stitching away as usual.

  ‘Lizzie?’

  ‘Mmm?’

  ‘Remember what I asked you last night? About what you’d have if you could have anything you wanted?’

  ‘Did you? I must have been asleep. Oh, that’s right, you kept talking when I was trying to get to sleep. I didn’t take any notice.’

  ‘Well, what would you have?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean, Frank. I’ve got everything I need.’

  ‘But what do you wish you had?’ Frank persisted. ‘There must be things you dream about.’

  ‘Of course not,’ Lizzie said, looking at him with an utter lack of comprehension. ‘What would I want to do that for? I’ve got healthy children, a nice house, and you’re all right when you’re not going on with a lot of nonsense.’ She pressed against him for a moment to take any sting out of her remark. ‘We’ve got plenty to eat, and we’ve no worries now we’re over that bit of bother with the bank.’

  ‘I know, Lizzie, but what about other things? I mean, there’s more than just what you need.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like…’ Frank tried hard to think of something to illustrate the point he had trouble seeing clearly even for himself. A fancy of his mother’s slipped into his head, taking him by surprise. ‘Well, what about music?’

  ‘Music? What about it?’

  ‘You don’t need music, do you? But people like having it. It’s sort of something extra, just to make you happy. I remember Ma used to say she went to a concert once, some man playing the piano. She said it was like hearing the angels sing. Sometimes I used to hear her humming away to herself, and she’d have a special little smile. I think she was remembering the music. You see what I mean?’

  ‘Not really. You’ll be telling me we should get a piano next.’

  ‘That’d be good. Maybe we will one day.’

  ‘Frank, we can’t play the piano. You’re getting silly.’

  ‘But just because this is how things are now, it doesn’t mean they’ve always got to be like this. Can’t we think about how things might be different? I want special things, Lizzie, things for you.’

  Lizzie put down her sewing and stared at him with a troubled expression. ‘You sound like Amy. Going on about things you can’t have, dreaming about things till you talk yourself into believing they’ll come true. It’s no good thinking like that, Frank. It’s… well, only bad can come of it. Look what happened to Amy.’

  ‘Did she used to dream about things?’ Frank asked, surprised. As little notice as he took of her, he could see that Amy’s life did not leave room for such luxuries as dreams. Lizzie’s remark raised a curiosity in him. ‘Why did she marry Charlie, anyway? They’re a strange match.’

  ‘They made her,’ Lizzie flashed, her eyes burning with indignation. She opened her mouth to speak again, then snapped it shut abruptly. ‘That’s none of our business, Frank. Don’t ask me about it.’

  ‘All right,’ Frank said, his momentary interest easily diverted. ‘What about you, Lizzie? Didn’t you ever have dreams?’

  ‘I wanted a place of my own, and lots of children, and a nice husband. I’ve got all that. I’m lucky, aren’t I?’ She turned a glowing smile on him, and Frank gave her a hug.

  ‘Not as lucky as me. But you must have dreamed about some things—things that weren’t sensible, I mean.’

  Lizzie gave him a sidelong glance, then spoke almost shyly. ‘Maybe,’ she allowed. ‘When me and Amy were little we used to read stories. You know, things about castles and princesses and stuff. We used to make up our own stories sometimes and act them out, up in the bush where no one could see us and laugh. I used to think about those stories sometimes—only when I was little, I mean. It was all a load of nonsense.’

  ‘What did you used to think?’ Frank probed.

  ‘Oh, just how it’d be nice if some of that stuff was true. You know, if I could live in a castle and wear pretty dresses and jewels and things. And if…’ she turned her face aside slightly. ‘Well, sometimes I wished I could be beautiful, and have some handsome prince ride up and carry me away with him. Silly, eh?’

  ‘Hmm,’ Frank said thoughtfully. ‘Well, I can’t do much about the castle. A farm might have to do. And if any princes come sniffing around here after you I’ll see them off the place with a shotgun, never mind how good-looking they are. I want to get you the pretty dresses and things, though. I’m going to do it, too, Lizzie, you wait and see. I’m going to get better cows, and I’m really going to make a go of this place. And Lizzie,’ he slipped his hand under her chin and gently pulled it around to face him, ‘you’re already beautiful,’ he whispered as he leaned over to plant a kiss on her open mouth.

  21

  November 1890

  Amy wondered why washing day seemed even harder than usual as she lifted the heavy sheets, dripping their burden of scalding hot water, out of the copper and into the first rinsing tub. After the recent hot weather the rain barrel did not contain nearly enough water for the tubs, so she had had to carry load after load from the well. A dull ache had started low in her abdomen during one of those wearying treks up the hill, and it grew worse and worse as the morning wore on.

  Even when she had finished hanging out the last load of washing, the cramping pains did not ease. Late that afternoon, after she had carried the dry washing inside, the pains became severe enough to make Amy double over and clutch at herself. She thrust some cakes at the boys to keep them amused and shut herself away in the bedroom to expel what would have been a baby had it been able to remain in her womb for seven more months.

  She could not allow herself to lie down and rest. She had the boys to watch, the clothes to fold away ready for next day’s ironing, and it would soon be time to start making dinner. And before any o
f that, she had the miserable job of cleaning herself up. There was a harder task later. That evening she had to tell Charlie she had lost yet another baby.

  The tiny hope she still held that Charlie might show her some sympathy, might open his heart over the loss they shared, was soon dashed. When Amy tried to say something of her own sadness he silenced her at once, burying his nose in the newspaper though she could tell he was not actually reading it.

  There was nothing to be done but try to go on as if nothing had happened, although the latest miscarriage seemed worse than the ones that had gone before. Her body complained as she dragged herself around the house, trying her best to do her work properly. She got up every morning already tired, and by the end of the day she was often dizzy with weariness and with the dragging pain that refused to leave her entirely. She was barely twenty-two, but she felt like an old woman.

  Amy had no one to share her sadness with, and there was no one to tell her that she should rest for a few days to recover her strength. It did not occur to her, much less to Charlie, that she might be due any special care. For all the pain of the miscarriages there was no baby to show for them, and thus no right to the two or three weeks of rest giving birth would have entitled her to.

  ‘I’m taking the boy milking with me this afternoon,’ Charlie announced a few days later over his afternoon tea. ‘It’s time he got used to being around the cows. He’ll maybe be ready to start helping next year, the rate he’s growing.’

  Malcolm was delighted at the idea of being treated in such a grown up way. ‘I’m going to milk the cows,’ he said proudly as he sat on the back doorstep and Amy tied his boot laces for him.

  ‘Now, you must do what Papa tells you,’ she cautioned him. ‘Stand just where he tells you, and don’t get in Papa’s way.’ She could not help but be relieved at the thought of having a rest from Malcolm for an hour or two, but when she saw how excited he was at the thought of ‘helping’ his father she had misgivings. An over-excited child a few days past his fifth birthday was not likely to stay calm and quiet, especially a child as lively and self-willed as Malcolm.