Mud and Gold

by Shayne Parkinson

  ‘Why, Amy? You look as though he tried to kill you or something.’

  ‘No, he didn’t want me dead. He just wanted… well, never mind what he wanted. That’s all over now.’

  Lizzie knelt in front of Amy’s chair and put her arms around her. ‘I didn’t know he treated you like this. I knew he hit you sometimes, I’ve seen the bruises. But like this! Oh, Amy, what can I do? How can I help you?’

  Tears had begun to tumble down Lizzie’s face. She clung to Amy as if she wanted to comfort her, but it was Amy who stroked Lizzie’s hair and whispered soothingly in her ear. ‘There’s no need. It’s over, Lizzie. I’m not going to let him hurt me again.’

  ‘How can you stop him?’

  ‘Don’t worry about that. That’s between me and him.’ Amy took Lizzie’s face in her hands, enjoying the feel of soft flesh that had never known a cruel touch. ‘Now, Lizzie, I want you to forget all about how awful I look. In a few weeks I’ll look the same as I ever did, so there’s no need to make a fuss. I do want you to do something to help me, after all.’

  ‘What?’ Lizzie asked. ‘What can I do?’

  ‘I want you to go up to Aunt Edie’s and act like nothing’s wrong. Don’t let anyone see you’re upset—I don’t want the whole valley talking about what’s happened. I want you to go now, Lizzie. You’ve got Frank and the children waiting out there, they’ll be wondering what you’re up to. Help me up, I’m a bit clumsy just now.’

  Lizzie helped her to her feet, and let Amy lead her to the back door. ‘Off you go now, Lizzie. I won’t come out the door or Frank will see me.’

  Lizzie hovered uncertainly in the doorway. ‘You’re sure you’ll be all right by yourself?’

  ‘Quite sure. Hurry up, Lizzie.’ Amy submitted to a kiss, painful though it was. ‘Now, you go off and have a nice lunch.’

  ‘I’ll come and see you next week.’

  ‘Only if you promise not to get upset.’

  *

  Frank turned with relief from his awkward attempts at making conversation with Charlie when Lizzie appeared through the doorway.

  ‘You right, Lizzie?’ he said as she climbed into the buggy and took Beth onto her lap. ‘We’ll be off, then, Charlie. See you tomorrow at the factory.’

  ‘Don’t talk to him,’ Lizzie hissed under her breath.

  Frank glanced at her in surprise. ‘What’s wrong? Hey, have you been crying?’

  ‘No,’ Lizzie muttered. ‘I’m not crying now, anyway. Drive faster—I want to get away from here.’

  Frank urged the horses to a gentle trot. ‘What happened? Is Amy really sick?’

  ‘She looks awful,’ Lizzie wailed.

  ‘Is Aunt Amy sick?’ Maudie asked from the rear seat, sounding frightened. Joey babbled away in the private language no one but his mother and big sister could understand, but it was clear enough that he was about to start crying at the thought of his much-loved aunt’s being ill, and little Beth picked up enough of her mother’s distress to let out a whimper of her own.

  ‘Settle down, you lot,’ Lizzie said. ‘Aunt Amy’s not sick. She hurt her face, and she looks a bit funny. Mama got a fright, that’s all.’

  The children were easily reassured, but Frank looked at Lizzie in concern. ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked under his breath.

  ‘I’ll tell you later,’ she murmured. ‘There’re too many ears flapping here.’ She gestured towards Maudie.

  Lizzie’s façade slipped from time to time over lunch, and Frank saw her brush an occasional tear away when she thought no one was watching. He kept an eye on the clock, anxious to get home and find out what had so upset her as soon as they could politely leave.

  ‘You look a bit down in the mouth today, Lizzie,’ Arthur remarked. ‘What’s the matter, cat got your tongue?’

  ‘Nothing’s wrong with me,’ Lizzie snapped. ‘Mind your own business.’

  ‘Here, you keep a civil tongue in your head, my girl,’ said Arthur. ‘Frank, why don’t you keep your wife in line?’ he added, forgetting to keep up the haughty manner he was still trying to use with Frank.

  ‘Lizzie, don’t talk to your pa like that,’ Frank said. Lizzie cast an anguished look at him, rushed from the table and went out the back door. She was back a few minutes later, only her swollen eyes betraying her lapse.

  Arthur glanced from Frank to Lizzie, frowning, but he said nothing until he and Frank were sitting on the verandah after lunch while Lizzie helped her mother with the dishes. ‘You boys go and see to Frank’s horses,’ he told Bill and Alf.

  ‘Don’t worry about that, there’s no need,’ Frank said.

  ‘Yes, there is—that bay of yours hasn’t got much condition on her. Spending all your time looking after your fancy cows, are you? Give them a nosebag each, Bill. Ernie, you go too.’

  Arthur waited till his sons were out of earshot before turning back to Frank. ‘Now, Frank, you’ll say it’s none of my business, but Lizzie’s my daughter and I’m making it my business. There’s such a thing as being too hard on a wife, you know.’

  ‘Eh?’ Frank said in blank astonishment.

  ‘It’s not natural to see Lizzie in such a misery. You want the girl to have a bit of spirit. Respect, that’s one thing, but having her scared half out of her wits… well, that’s not right.’

  ‘But Pa, I haven’t—’

  ‘All right, Frank, that’s enough,’ Arthur interrupted. ‘I’ve said my piece, I’ll say no more. I think you know what I mean.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ Frank said dubiously. Whatever had upset Lizzie, he was quite sure he was not responsible.

  At last it was time to go home, and he trotted the horses all the way. He unharnessed them while Lizzie got the children out of their good clothes, put Beth down for her afternoon sleep and sent the two older children outside to play. By the time he got back to the house, she was alone in the kitchen.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.

  Lizzie collapsed into his open arms, dissolving into sobs. ‘Oh, Frank, if you’d only seen her.’

  Frank patted her back. ‘Seen what? What’s wrong with Amy?’

  ‘He’s beaten her. Poor little Amy. And I can’t do anything about it!’

  Frank held her in silence for a few moments, wondering what he could say to soothe her. ‘It’s none of our business, Lizzie,’ he said carefully. ‘I know you think he shouldn’t have done it, but… well, some men do give their wives a slap sometimes, love. It’s nothing for you to upset yourself over.’

  Lizzie pulled away and glared at him. ‘Do you think I don’t know that? I’m not talking about a slap or two—Lord knows he’s given her plenty of those over the years. She’s usually got a bruise somewhere, though she never says anything about it. Never like this, though. Her face is all cut and bruised—she’s bruised all over, I think. You can see it hurts her just to move. He’s had a real go at her with those horrible great fists of his—fought her as though she was a man instead of little Amy who never hurts anyone. Her face, Frank—you can hardly recognise her, it’s so black and swollen.’

  ‘What the heck’s he done that for?’ Frank said in astonishment.

  ‘How should I know?’ Lizzie shot back. ‘How am I meant to know what a man like that thinks?’ Her face crumpled, and she let Frank enfold her in his arms again.

  ‘Poor old Amy, eh?’ Frank tried without success to fathom why any man, let alone one with a sweet-tempered wife like Amy, would want to beat her as savagely as Lizzie had described. ‘She’s such a little thing, too. She’s not very strong.’

  Lizzie’s voice came muffled from where she had laid her head on his shoulder. ‘You wouldn’t say that if you’d seen her today. I was the one crying like a baby, she just sat there all calm and quiet. It was like she was looking after me, not the other way around. Amy’s strong, all right. She’s stronger than any of us.’

  25

  March 1891

  Amy’s injuries slowly healed as the weeks passed. Her bruises faded from livid purpl
e to a dirty yellow; the swelling of her black eye subsided until the injured eye no longer looked half the size of its mate; and her split lip closed up, leaving a red scar that would fade in time to be barely noticeable. Her ribs seemed as painful as ever, but that injury was not visible.

  The healing of her wounds was accompanied by a return to strength not confined to her body. The weariness of spirit that had grown in Amy as a response to years of rough usage, broken nights, and nothing to look forward to but more of the same, more pain and more dead babies, began to lift, and to be replaced by a tiny thread of conviction that things might be otherwise.

  To sleep properly at night, a deep sleep not disturbed by a hand snatching at her nightdress or a heavy body heaving itself onto hers, was blissful, and she wallowed in the luxury of it. After years of having to spend every night lying flat on her back for Charlie’s convenience, even when he had beaten her buttocks raw, she indulged herself trying out different positions to sleep. On her front, on either side, her head on two pillows or on none, changing position a dozen times if she wanted instead of lying very still so as not wake Charlie; Amy tried them all, until at last she decided the way she liked best was to lie on her side right in the middle of the bed and curl her knees close to her chest so that her body made a half circle. It was the way she had slept as a girl, she remembered now, in the days before she had known anything of men.

  By the end of March, though her face was far from back to normal she no longer looked horrifying. Indeed, there was a new calmness about her that a more perceptive man than Charlie might have wondered at. She had been aware for days that his scrutiny of her face must be telling him the worst of her injuries had healed, so it was no real surprise when the crisis came.

  It was a cool evening at the end of a bright day. The boys had been in bed for hours. Amy sat at her sewing and Charlie read his newspaper, casting occasional glances at her.

  He folded his paper noisily and put it down on the floor by his chair, then stood up and lit a candle from the lamp. ‘I’m going to bed,’ he said, extinguishing the lamp as he spoke.

  Amy stopped in mid-stitch when the lamplight disappeared. She slipped her needle into the cuff of the shirt she was mending and bundled the shirt into her sewing bag. ‘Good night,’ she said as she struck a match to light her own candle. She gathered up their tea cups from beside the chairs and carried them through to the kitchen, expecting Charlie to go straight into the bedroom.

  Instead she heard his heavy tread following her into the kitchen. So it’s to be tonight. She put the candle and the cups down on the table and shut her eyes for a moment, gripping the rough wood of the table as if to gather its strength into herself, then turned and looked straight at Charlie.

  ‘I thought you were going to bed.’

  ‘Aye, so I am. And so are you. There’s nothing wrong with you now.’

  ‘Nothing that shows, no.’

  ‘So there’s no need for you to go off to the other room any more. You can come back where you belong.’ He had half turned to go, too sure of being obeyed to bother waiting, when Amy answered.

  ‘No.’

  The word dropped heavily into the silence of the dim room, like a stone flung in a pool. Charlie turned back and stared at her, his face grim in the flickering light of the candle.

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I said no.’ Her voice rose on the last word. ‘I’m not coming to bed with you.’

  ‘I’m telling you you’re coming—you’re coming right now.’ Amy knew the irritation in his voice would soon turn into something stronger.

  ‘And I’m telling you I’m not.’

  ‘Are you defying me, woman?’ Still he seemed to doubt that he was hearing her properly.

  ‘Call it that if you want. I’m not coming back to your bed. That’s all over between us.’

  ‘I’ll not have you talking to me like that—I’ll show you what happens when you don’t do as you’re told.’ He took a step towards her; Amy held her ground and stared back defiantly. ‘You’re going to feel that stick on your backside—I’ll teach you not to disobey me.’

  ‘No, you’re not going to do that, Charlie.’

  The calmness of her voice brought him up short, and almost despite himself he asked, ‘Why not?’

  He towered over her; Amy had to crane her neck to look him in the eye. She spoke slowly, enunciating each word clearly. ‘Because if you ever lay a hand on me again, I’ll walk out that door and I won’t come back.’

  ‘You can’t! You’ve no business talking of leaving—you belong here. You belong to me.’

  ‘I’m not going to put up with what you did to me. I won’t let you touch me again.’

  ‘I’ll do what I like with you,’ he said, his face a fierce red. ‘You’re mine, woman, and I’ll show you what that means.’

  ‘What are you going to do, knock some more of my teeth out?’ It was dangerous to taunt him, she knew; but she was beyond fear. He had done his worst to her and she had survived it; he had no weapons except the strength of his body, and she was not going to let him use it against her any more. ‘You could only force me once. If you do I’ll walk out. I mean it, Charlie.’

  ‘Do you think I’d let you go?’

  ‘You can’t stop me. You’re not always here to watch me. It’s not far to Pa’s, I could be over there before you’d noticed I was gone.’

  ‘I’d fetch you back—I’d not have you making a fool of me, running home to your pa.’ He still thought he was winning, Amy could tell, but her new-found self-assurance was confusing him.

  ‘Would you? You’d have to deal with Pa and the boys first. Pa wanted to bring me home with him when he saw what you’d done to me—he’d never let you take me back if I asked him to look after me.’

  ‘You’ve no right—the law would be on my side, you know. I’d get the sergeant out here to fetch you back.’

  ‘I thought you didn’t want to be made a fool of. What do you think the town would say when they heard you’d had to get the policeman to drag your wife home for you? And then I’d run away again, and you’d have to get Sergeant Riley out again. How long would you keep it up? How long do you think Sergeant Riley would keep coming out before he told you to stop bothering him?’

  ‘You… you couldn’t.’ Now he was struggling to hold on to his certainty. ‘What kind of a woman abandons her children? Eh? What sort of evil bitch runs off and leaves her bairns?’

  ‘Leave them? I wouldn’t leave my boys with you. I’d take them with me.’

  ‘No!’ He howled the word, fear and fury mingled. ‘You’re not taking my sons away from me—not my sons! I’ll not let you take them.’

  ‘If you force me to run away, then they’ll come too. You can’t stop me doing that, either. You can’t have them with you all the time, not every minute of the day. They love going to see Pa, I’d have no trouble getting them to come with me. And Pa wouldn’t give his grandsons back to you any more than he’d give me.’

  ‘You want to take my sons away from me!’ he raged.

  ‘No, I don’t, Charlie,’ Amy said, her voice calm although she had to raise it to make him hear her. ‘I don’t want to take the boys off you—they need their father, and I know you love them, whatever you feel about me. I’ll only take them away if you make me leave.’

  ‘I won’t let you,’ he repeated.

  ‘Otherwise, things can carry on just the same as before. I’ll keep house for you, I’ll do the same cooking and cleaning I’ve always done. I’ll do everything I’ve always done. All except that one thing. Just that one thing.’

  ‘You’ve no business saying what you will and won’t do—it’s your duty to do as I say—damn it, you’re my wife! What about my rights?’ He shouted the question at her.

  ‘What about mine?’ Amy shouted back, allowing herself to feel anger at last.

  He stared at her blankly. ‘What are you talking about?’ Amy could see that he truly had no idea what she meant. ‘For years
I’ve fed and clothed you—kept a roof over your head—what do you mean, going on about rights?’

  ‘I think you’ve had your money’s worth out of me.’

  But that was too subtle a concept for Charlie. ‘The rights of the marriage bed—it’s your duty to share my bed,’ he floundered.

  ‘I don’t think it is. Not any more. You’ve made it very clear to me over the years that I don’t… please you in… in that way.’ Amy fought down the embarrassment she felt in speaking of such things. ‘And it seems there are women who do.’ She saw him give a start. ‘I think we’d both be a lot happier if you stopped trying to force the rights of the marriage bed and just carried on taking your pleasure where you’ve been taking it for years—in the whorehouse.’

  ‘Who told you that?’ Charlie demanded. ‘Who’s been running to you with tales?’ Amy could tell from his voice that he was struggling to keep up his belligerence in the face of the jolt she had just given him.

  ‘You told me yourself. I smelt the whores on you.’

  ‘And why shouldn’t I go to the whores? What pleasure do you think it is mounting you, the nonsense you carry on with? All that trembling and bawling, and making out you’re too much the fine lady for me?’

  ‘Stop doing it, then. Stick to your whores.’

  ‘What makes you think you’re so much better than them? Eh? You bore a bastard to the first man who offered to tumble you—what does that make you, then?’

  ‘I’ve never been a whore, Charlie. I didn’t even know what the word meant till I married you, but you flung it at me often enough that I took notice of what people say until I’d figured it out for myself.’

  ‘So you’re trying to make out that you were a decent woman when I wed you? That you came to me in the state a wife should?’

  ‘Of course I’m not.’ For a moment the vision of her tiny daughter lying in her arms flashed before Amy, but she shut it out at once. She had to be strong, not dissolve into tears. ‘Yes, I sinned. I did wrong. But that was before you had any claim over me. I’ve never wronged you, Charlie. I’ve never sinned against you.’ Despite her best efforts, she could not keep a catch out of her voice. ‘I’ve done my best. I’ve tried so hard to please you.’