Sentence of Marriage

by Shayne Parkinson

  ‘That’s the best view on the farm. We’ll go up there right now, you won’t get a better day for it.’

  ‘Oh, no, Jack,’ Susannah protested. ‘It looks terribly steep, and I’m so tired.’

  ‘It’s not as steep as all that, Susannah,’ Jack said. ‘We could take our time. Are you really tired?’ He looked puzzled.

  ‘I’m always tired!’ Susannah snapped at him. ‘You know perfectly well I’m worn out from having to feed this baby, and I’m not very well anyway. James, wouldn’t you like to go back now?’

  ‘Well, I really would like to see that view,’ Jimmy said. ‘But if you’re not feeling up to it—’

  ‘If you don’t feel well, I’ll take you home now,’ Jack cut in. ‘You young people go on by yourselves.’

  ‘Perhaps I should—’ Jimmy tried.

  ‘You should go and look at that view,’ Jack said. ‘Take your time. Come on, Susannah.’ He tucked George into one arm and attempted to take Susannah’s arm, but she snatched it away and started walking in the direction of the house. Jack held Thomas’s hand and set off after her.

  ‘Well!’ Amy said when Jack and Susannah were safely out of earshot. ‘You’re not going to be very popular with Susannah now.’

  Jimmy shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter. I’ll make it up to her. Come on, my girl, do as your father tells you—let’s see this wonderful view.’

  They stayed a discreet distance apart until they were among the trees, then slipped their arms around each other’s waists and walked on, more slowly but more companionably. A fantail flitted back and forth across their path as they walked.

  ‘Wasn’t that lucky, Susannah wanting to go home just then?’ Amy said. ‘I thought we weren’t going to get the chance to be alone.’

  ‘Lucky? You didn’t really think Susannah would want to walk far, did you? I knew she’d want to go back as soon as the going got rough.’

  Amy stopped in her tracks. ‘You mean you planned all that, about coming up here and Pa taking Susannah back by himself?’

  ‘Yes.’ He smiled smugly

  ‘Oh. You really are very clever, aren’t you? At getting people to do what you want, I mean.’

  ‘Am I? Will you do what I want?’

  ‘You want to see this view, don’t you?’ Amy smiled mischievously, and tugged at his hand until he started walking again.

  ‘The baby seems all right now,’ Jimmy said.

  ‘Yes, Georgie’s fine. The doctor must have been right. Susannah’s not very pleased, though, she doesn’t like feeding him that way.’

  ‘She’s strange sometimes. Well, I’m glad the little fellow’s well, but I don’t think I’ll sit him on my lap again. I haven’t got all that many shirts.’

  ‘You should, really, Jimmy, he is your nephew. He’s a lovely baby.’

  Jimmy pulled a face, then smiled at her. ‘You’re very fond of Susannah’s children, aren’t you?’

  ‘Well, they’re my little brothers, you know.’

  ‘And my nephews.’

  ‘Oh!’ Amy stopped suddenly as a dreadful thought struck her. ‘Oh, Jimmy, do you think it’s all right for us to get married?’

  Jimmy laughed softly and pulled her close to him. ‘You’re a funny little thing, aren’t you? Most people, my darling, would say it’s not only “all right”, it’s just about compulsory—not to mention overdue. What are you going on about?’

  ‘No, listen—we’re sort of related, because Susannah’s your sister and she’s my stepmother.’

  ‘Hmm, I hadn’t thought of that.’ Jimmy looked pensive for a moment. ‘No, I’m sure it’s all right. There was a fuss a few years ago over whether a man should be allowed to marry his wife’s sister if his wife dies. They changed the law to make that legal, and that’s much closer than you and I are. So it must be all right for us to get married.’

  Amy gave a sigh of relief. ‘That’s good. I got a terrible fright for a minute.’ She laughed. ‘Isn’t it complicated, though? Susannah’s my stepmother, but when we get married she’ll be my sister-in-law.’

  ‘And your father will be my father-in-law as well as my brother-in-law.’

  ‘Tommy and Georgie will be your…’ she stopped to work it out ‘Your brothers-in-law as well as your nephews. Does that mean they’ll be my nephews, too? Oh, and our children will be Susannah’s nephews and her grand-children! Or will they? No, that’s too complicated.’

  ‘You know what else it means, though, Amy?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m your uncle!’ He laughed. ‘You’d better do as your Uncle Jimmy says, my girl, or you’ll get in trouble.’ He wagged his finger at her.

  Amy wriggled out from his grasp and pulled a face at him. ‘I don’t think I like you as an uncle. You’re too bossy. I think I’ll just have you as a husband.’

  She squealed as he made a lunge at her. She hitched up her skirts to run faster, but he caught her in a few strides. He swung an arm around her waist and picked her up off the ground, then he sat down suddenly and Amy found herself upside down across his lap. ‘What are you doing?’ she gasped out through her giggles.

  ‘Teaching you a bit of respect for your elders,’ Jimmy said sternly. He lifted her skirts and gave her buttocks a slap, making Amy shriek, then giggle even harder.

  ‘You’re a horrible uncle!’

  Jimmy rolled her over till she was lying on her back beside him. ‘I don’t think I can do this to my niece, so you’d better just be my wife. You still have to do as I say, though.’

  ‘I might say you have to wait till we’re married,’ Amy teased.

  ‘Humph! You could try.’ He lifted her skirts with a flourish. ‘Mmm, these are fancy.’ He fingered the lace on her drawers.

  You noticed! Amy thought in delight, then she felt a stab of guilt. ‘Jimmy, do you think I’m shameless?’

  ‘Oh, completely shameless—that’s why I love you so much.’ Jimmy was undoing his trouser buttons as he spoke.

  Amy’s face crumpled. ‘Do you really think that?’

  ‘Hey, don’t cry, little one—I was joking!’ He reached out to caress her face. ‘Amy, do you think I’d rather you were like Susannah? She shoves her husband away every time he gets within two feet of her. But you—you love me, and you show me you do.’ He took her hand and kissed it.

  ‘I do love you, Jimmy. I love you more than anything.’

  ‘Show me, Amy. Show me.’

  *

  Amy lay in Jimmy’s arms, feeling so delightfully languorous that she would have slept if she had let herself. Her body tingled with remembered pleasure as she lay and listened to a bellbird singing a song of ecstasy in a branch above her. When she opened her eyes she could see the sky through a tracery of leaves; it was a darker blue now.

  ‘The sun’s getting low,’ she said. ‘If you still want to see this view we’d better get a move on.’

  ‘I’d rather stay here,’ Jimmy said. ‘But I might go to sleep if I do.’ He stretched luxuriously.

  Amy sat up. ‘I think you did drop off for a minute. You were very quiet.’

  ‘No, I didn’t. You just wore me out, that’s all. I was recovering.’

  ‘Wore you out! What nonsense.’

  Jimmy sat up and put a hand on each of Amy’s arms, then looked intently into her face. ‘Amy, if I ask you a question, will you promise to tell me the truth?’

  ‘Of course I will. What do you want to know?’

  ‘It’s important.’ He sounded very solemn, and Amy stared back at him, wondering what was so momentous. ‘Amy, do you snore?’

  ‘What? Do I snore?’ She dissolved in a fit of helpless laughter. ‘What a silly question! I thought you were serious.’

  ‘I’m deadly serious,’ Jimmy said, but then gave the lie to his assertion by grinning. ‘Your brother snores terribly, I thought it might run in the family. I’ve hardly had a decent night’s sleep since I got here.’

  ‘Well, I’ve slept with Lizzie quite a lot, and she’s never comp
lained. I’m sure she would if I snored.’

  ‘That’s a relief. Do you think maybe I could swap beds?’

  ‘Sleep with Harry instead, you mean?’

  ‘No, with you. I thought I might just casually ask if I could. You know, something like “Jack, how about I move across the passage and start sleeping with your daughter instead of your son?” Do you think he’d mind?’

  ‘You could try,’ Amy laughed. ‘You’d soon find out.’ She stood up and shook her dress out. ‘Oh, I wish you could, though. This ground gets very hard.’

  ‘It’s all right for me,’ Jimmy said, standing up and stretching. ‘I’ve got something nice and soft to lie on.’

  ‘That’s right! It’s not very fair.’

  He laughed. ‘No, it’s not, is it? Oh, I don’t know if I feel up to much more walking, shall we just go back now?’

  ‘You lazy thing! What are you going to say when Pa asks you what you thought of the view?’

  ‘Now who’s being clever about managing people?’

  ‘I must be learning it from you. Come on.’ She tugged at his arm.

  ‘Wait a minute, you’ve got twigs and things in your hair.’ He carefully teased the bits out from her curls, then slipped his arm around her waist. ‘Couldn’t I just tell your father all the view I wanted to see was in his daughter’s beautiful blue eyes? No?’ He looked crestfallen. ‘Maybe you’re right. All right, slave driver, lead the way.’

  Amy wound her arm around Jimmy’s waist and snuggled against his side as they walked on up the steep hill.

  ‘Amy,’ he said softly, ‘you really enjoyed that, didn’t you?’

  Amy looked at the ground in front of her feet. ‘Yes. It was nice. Is that all right?’ she appealed, looking up at his face for approval.

  ‘All right? It’s wonderful! You are the most wonderful girl in the world.’ He stopped and kissed her. ‘Don’t you ever go aloof on me because you think that’s how a “lady” behaves.’

  ‘I won’t,’ she assured him. They started walking again. ‘Oh, I do wish we were already married.’

  ‘It won’t be long.’

  ‘It seems such a long time to wait. I wish I could tell Lizzie we’re engaged.’

  ‘Amy, you know it’s got to be a secret, don’t you? What if your father found out from someone else?’

  ‘Lizzie wouldn’t tell anyone—not if I told her it was a secret.’

  ‘She wouldn’t mean to, but it might slip out. It’s safer not to tell her.’

  ‘I know, but it’s hard, Jimmy. She keeps asking me things, and she gets hurt when I brush her off.’

  Jimmy looked serious. ‘Is she really prying? You haven’t told her anything, have you?’

  ‘No! She’d make a terrible fuss if she knew about what we’ve been doing. Lizzie wouldn’t understand how it’s all right, really, because we’re going to get married as soon as we can.’

  ‘So what have you said to her?’ Jimmy pressed.

  ‘Well, she sort of guessed you’d kissed me, and I told her we love each other—that was all right, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Don’t tell her anything else, Amy. You’re right, she wouldn’t understand.’ He smiled again. ‘Frank’s a nice chap, but I get the feeling he’s not exactly… well, I can’t think of a nice way of putting it.’

  ‘He’s not very exciting,’ Amy volunteered. ‘But you’re right, he is nice, and Lizzie likes him. He’s not a bit like you.’ She smiled at a memory.

  ‘What’s so funny?’

  ‘Oh, I was just thinking about one time Lizzie was all proud because Frank had taken her for a walk.’

  ‘How romantic. A moonlight stroll under the trees? Maybe he’s smarter than I gave him credit for.’

  ‘No,’ Amy said, and now she had difficulty getting words out through her laughter. ‘No, nothing like that. They took the slops bucket down to the pigs!’

  ‘What?’ Jimmy was silent for a moment, then he roared with laughter. ‘Amy,’ he said when he had recovered himself enough to speak, ‘how on earth did a place like this ever produce a girl like you?’ Amy smiled and shrugged. ‘The sooner I get you out of here and up to Auckland the better,’ he said firmly, and Amy could only agree.

  22

  March 1884

  Now that a precedent had been set, Amy took Jimmy on evening walks whenever the day was fine and the household was calm enough for Jimmy to neglect Susannah for an hour or two. They soon discovered a favourite place, in a patch of bush just over the hill from the farmhouse. It was only ten minutes’ walk from the house, but the bush was dense and trackless, offering little danger of being disturbed, with a clearing large enough for two bodies to lie entwined. The ferns pressed close around them as they spoke in whispers or cried out in shared delight.

  Amy looked out her bedroom window on the first Monday in March, to be greeted by a clear blue sky. She dressed quickly, eager to see Jimmy as soon as she could. When she brushed her hair she found a few of the tiny twigs that were becoming a familiar sight.

  As she turned away from her dressing table her calendar caught her eye, and she realised she had not marked off the days for several weeks. A smile crept over her face at the sight of the boldly circled ‘8’. That was the night he had asked her to marry him. Amy determined to celebrate the eighth of February for ever after. And the night they had first done that thing. She had thought it was terrible then; now she thought it was wonderful. She was quite sure it would be even more wonderful when they were married.

  Amy noticed that the day numbered ‘28’ had a cross above it; she puzzled over why she had marked it. She gave up and went out to the kitchen, and it was only when she had started making breakfast that she remembered the significance of the marked date: it was when her monthly bleeding had been due to start.

  So the last few times she and Jimmy had lain together had been a gift from the tardiness of her bleeding. I’m so lucky. The weather’s staying nice, and now the bleeding’s late. She knew that when it did start it would leave a yawning gap in their lives for a few days.

  By Thursday the bleeding was a whole week late, and Amy was puzzled. She had been regular for almost a year now; why should things suddenly change? It occurred to her that perhaps her abrupt entry into womanhood had thrown her cycle out of balance. That seemed a good enough explanation for a few days’ delay.

  On the following Monday evening she and Jimmy were about to set off for one of their walks when Susannah spoke.

  ‘James, I don’t feel terribly well this evening, I’ve had to do all that washing in this heat.’

  Jimmy exchanged a quick glance with Amy. She could see in his face that he was resigning himself to having to sit with Susannah instead of making love with Amy. ‘You poor thing,’ he said. ‘You do look rather pale.’

  ‘I know. And George has taken to waking up very early in the morning lately. Do you think you could take him and Thomas with you? It might tire them out a little, then they’d sleep better.’

  ‘Oh. That’s a good idea,’ Jimmy said, managing to hide his lack of enthusiasm from Susannah if not from Amy.

  So Amy and Jimmy found themselves with two unexpected companions that evening. Amy led Thomas by the hand and Jimmy carried George rather gingerly.

  ‘I hope he won’t be sick on me,’ said Jimmy.

  ‘I’m sure he won’t. This isn’t going to be much fun, is it?’

  ‘It’s not exactly what I had in mind for the evening. Does Tommy talk much?’

  ‘A little bit. He repeats words you say.’

  ‘Then I’d better be careful what I say to you, hadn’t I? I don’t want him giving away any of our secrets.’

  As if on cue, Thomas said ‘Sec-rets’ quite distinctly. Amy and Jimmy looked at one another, then shared a rueful laugh.

  ‘I’ll just tell you about the view and the farm and things tonight, I think,’ Amy said.

  They managed to tire out the two little boys successfully, but she and Jimmy returned to the house with mu
ch more energy than either of them had wished.

  When her bleeding had still not started by that Thursday, Amy began to wonder if she might be ill. She felt as well as ever, but two weeks late seemed very strange. She toyed briefly with the idea of asking Susannah’s advice, but sharing such intimate details with her did not appeal. Amy decided that if the bleeding had not started in another week she would pluck up her courage to ask her Aunt Edie if anything could be wrong.

  The image of her aunt struck a chord in her memory. She struggled for the elusive thought. It was something Aunt Edie had said once. Something about the bleeding; what was it? For some mysterious reason the memory that refused to be a memory gave her a vague feeling of uneasiness.

  Having to take the little boys on the walk had been a minor irritation, as well as being rather funny. When she realised that Susannah had now decided this was to happen every evening, Amy was alarmed.

  ‘Can’t you talk her out of it?’ she asked the next night. Thomas had decided he was too tired to walk any further, so Jimmy had to carry him while Amy carried George. ‘You’re good at managing her.’

  ‘I’m trying to think how,’ said Jimmy. ‘The trouble is, it’s a perfectly reasonable thing for her to suggest. I mean, all we want to do is walk, isn’t it? Why not take the little boys with us? I’m already taking Jack’s “little girl” for a walk, I might as well take my own nephews as well.’

  They sat down with their backs against a large tawa and looked out over the valley. The late afternoon sunlight was deepening the velvet folds of the hills and giving a rich golden tinge to all the shades of green. Jimmy stood Thomas in front of him and looked hard at the little boy.

  ‘Now listen here, Tommy. Let’s have a man-to-man talk,’ he said very seriously, and Thomas laughed at him. ‘I want to give your big sister a cuddle, but I don’t want you telling your Mama.’

  ‘You can’t, Jimmy,’ Amy protested through her own laughter as she bounced George on her lap. ‘It wouldn’t feel right, not with the little ones watching.’