Sentence of Marriage

by Shayne Parkinson

  ‘Took him in? How could she take him in? She’s a child and he’s a grown man. She’s a child,’ Jack repeated. ‘I asked your bloody brother down here. “Make yourself at home”, I said. He repays me by shaming my daughter.’

  ‘She shamed herself! You taught her to be bold—look at the way she’s always talked to me. I could never do anything with her.’

  ‘I wanted you to be a mother to her. I thought you’d tell her about that sort of thing. I thought you’d look after her. You begged me to let that bastard come here—why didn’t you watch her with him?’

  ‘That’s what you married me for, isn’t it? To be a nursemaid to that spoiled little bitch. Not to mention an unpaid servant to you and those other brutes. You should have hired a servant—no, that wouldn’t have done you, would it? You wanted more than that, and you could never have forced yourself on a servant.’

  ‘When have I ever forced you?’

  ‘Every time,’ Susannah spat at him.

  Jack stared at his wife, his eyes narrowed. Amy knew they were saying things to one another that should never have been said, even in the privacy of their bedroom. Things that could never be unsaid.

  ‘It’s been a bloody long while since the last time—I’m surprised you even remember it.’

  ‘Oh, you made sure it wasn’t easily forgotten,’ Susannah shot back.

  ‘Stop your gutter talk in front of the girl.’

  ‘Humph! She’s the one who’s chosen to wallow in the muck. It’s a bit late to try and keep her pure and innocent, isn’t it?’

  ‘That’s because of your bloody brother!’ Jack roared.

  ‘It’s because she’s a slut!’ Susannah shouted back. ‘She’s a cunning little whore!’ She screamed as Jack slapped her across the face. ‘How dare you? How dare you hit me?’

  ‘Don’t you ever call my daughter a whore!’

  ‘My father would kill you if he knew you’d hit me!’

  ‘He’d tell me I was a fool not to have done it years ago.’ Jack’s shoulders slumped. ‘And I am a fool. I’m an old fool who can’t look after his own daughter. I can’t even make that fellow do the right thing by her, now he’s taken himself off to Australia.’

  ‘I wish I’d never come here. I wish I was dead,’ Susannah sobbed.

  ‘You’re here, and you’re alive and well. And you’re no more miserable than anyone else in this place.’ He reached out an arm towards Susannah. She screamed again.

  ‘Don’t you touch me! Don’t you hit me again,’ she said, flailing her arms wildly. ‘I hate you!’

  ‘I’m not feeling very fond of myself, if it’s any comfort to you. I shouldn’t have hit you, and I won’t do it again. You drove me too far. Come on.’ He took hold of Susannah’s arm.

  ‘What are you doing? Let go of me.’

  ‘Taking you out of here. There’s no need for Amy to hear all this. Go to bed, Amy.’ He led Susannah from the room. As he closed Amy’s door he looked across at her. Amy searched for a spark of understanding in his gaze, but all she saw was hurt and bewilderment coupled with a deep weariness.

  She heard muffled shouting through the wall till far into the night. Even when she resorted to putting her head under the blankets the noise still penetrated. When one or other of the little boys woke and cried the shouts would stop for a time. Finally both children wailed in chorus, and the adult voices subsided into an uneasy silence.

  Amy thought she would never get to sleep, but when she woke to see the pre-dawn lightening of the sky she realised she had nodded off sometime in the early hours of the morning. It was time for her to get up and make breakfast. She knew the men would be looking for their food soon; the day started later for them at this time of year when there were only the house cows to milk, but they would still want to be fed and out of the house by eight.

  She lay in bed trying to screw up the courage to get up and face them all. Her father would look at her as though she were a stranger. Susannah would call her those terrible names again. Perhaps her father and Susannah would have another dreadful fight. She wondered what John and Harry would say when they found out about her. Maybe they’d think she was those things Susannah had called her: slut and whore.

  Amy knew she had to face them all soon; perhaps she should get it over with now. She pushed back the blankets and started to sit up, then scrambled right under the covers and hid in the warm darkness. I can’t do it yet. I’m scared.

  She heard a door opening across the passage; it must be John going out to the kitchen. A few minutes later another door opened, and she recognised her father’s heavy tread in the passage. He went into the kitchen, but soon came out again. Amy held her breath as she heard him approach her door, but he walked past it towards his own bedroom. Amy heard him call from the passage.

  ‘Susannah. Get out here and make breakfast.’ There was a muffled response with a questioning note in it. ‘She hasn’t got up yet.’ Another muffled sentence. ‘No, I’m not going to get her up. You can do it for once.’

  Susannah’s response obviously satisfied Jack, because Amy heard him go back into the kitchen. When Susannah had not emerged a few minutes later, she heard Jack open the kitchen door and shout down the passage. ‘Susannah! Hurry up!’

  ‘All right, all right,’ came Susannah’s voice. ‘I can’t get dressed in two minutes.’ She grumbled her way into the kitchen and out of Amy’s hearing.

  When it became too stuffy under the covers, Amy emerged. I’ve got to get up soon. Maybe I should now. But that would mean walking into the kitchen when the others were already sitting at the table. They would all turn to look at her. No, that would be too hard. Pa doesn’t want to see me, I know he doesn’t.

  Amy jumped when her door opened half an hour later to admit Susannah. ‘Here’s something for you to wear,’ Susannah said curtly. She flung two dresses onto the bed. Amy recognised them as the ones she had made for Susannah when she had been carrying Thomas. ‘They’ll be far too long for you, but you can cut off as much as you need to.’

  ‘I’ll… I’ll take a deep hem,’ Amy said, trying to match Susannah’s casual tone. ‘I don’t want to spoil them for you.’

  Susannah shrugged. ‘It doesn’t worry me. I won’t need them again. Do whatever you like with them.’ She crossed to the window and drew the drapes, letting in daylight. ‘Are you going to get up this morning, or just lie in bed all day?’

  ‘I’ll get up now.’ Amy got out of bed and picked up the blue dress, then took up her sewing box and searched for the scissors to unpick the existing hem.

  ‘Your nightdress still fits, I see,’ said Susannah. ‘It’s not too tight over the bosom?’ She came closer to examine the gathered yoke.

  ‘No,’ Amy said, turning away from Susannah’s inquisitive fingers. ‘Leave me alone, please. I don’t want to be fiddled with.’

  ‘There’s no use taking that attitude with me. You’re going to learn, my girl, that there’s not much dignity involved in having a child. Let me look.’ Amy submitted, and Susannah twitched at the yoke. ‘No, that’s quite loose, really. That should do you until your time.’

  Amy kept her eyes on her sewing, willing Susannah to go away, but her stepmother seemed in no hurry to leave. Instead she sat down on the bed.

  ‘When’s the child due?’ she asked.

  ‘I… I don’t know.’

  ‘You stupid girl. Well, when did it happen?’

  ‘When did what happen?’

  ‘It’s no use trying to pretend you don’t understand what I’m saying, sitting there with a great belly like that. When did you shame yourself?’

  Shame myself. A large tear dropped onto the blue dress, and Amy rubbed it into the fabric with her hand. ‘It happened lots of times,’ she said quietly.

  ‘You are a little whore, aren’t you? And you try to drag everyone around you down to the same level. I’m not going to talk about that filth any more than I have to. When did you last have your bleeding, then?’

  ‘It was
at the end of January.’

  Susannah counted on her fingers. ‘November then, I think. Early in the month. I was right, you’re nearly six months gone—five and a half, anyway.’ To Amy’s relief, Susannah stood up and made to leave the room. ‘So we’ve got three months to decide what to do about you,’ she said as she walked out.

  When she had finished hemming it, Amy put on the sack-like blue dress over half a dozen petticoats. At least she felt warm, for the first time in weeks. She caught a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror and turned away from the ugly sight, then went out to the kitchen. If she kept busy enough, perhaps she would not have time to think. ‘Decide what to do about you.’ What does that mean?

  Susannah raised her eyebrows at the sight of Amy in the shapeless dress. ‘Well, you needed that, didn’t you? You wouldn’t have been able to squeeze into your old dresses much longer. How long did you think you could get away with not telling me?’

  ‘I was going to tell you soon.’ Amy picked up a duster and started on the dresser so that she would not have to look at Susannah.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Susannah said. ‘You’d come out one morning with a brat in your arms and tell me then.’

  Jack came in by himself at lunch-time. He sat down heavily, glanced at Amy in her baggy dress, then looked at the wall. ‘Now, listen to me, both of you. There were things said last night that shouldn’t have been. I’m going to forget they were ever said, and I want you to do the same. Susannah, I expect you to do what’s needful for Amy. You know about such things, and the girl’s your responsibility. Understand?’

  ‘Of course I do,’ Susannah said. ‘I’m already looking after her.’

  ‘Good. It’s about time you started—it would have been better if you’d started six months ago. You’ve dressed her properly, I see.’

  Amy walked slowly up to her father, but her courage failed when she was still a table length away from him. ‘Pa, I wanted to tell you before, but it was never the right time. I wanted to try and explain it.’

  ‘Never mind all that now. It’s no use talking about it, what’s done is done.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Pa.’

  ‘It’s too late to be sorry,’ Susannah said.

  Amy closed her eyes against the tears. ‘I know it is. But I’m still sorry. Pa, I never wanted to cause all this trouble. I didn’t think it would be like this. Please, Pa, can—’

  ‘That’s enough,’ Jack interrupted. ‘There’s no use dragging it all out. You just do as your ma says, she knows what you’ll need. Where’s my lunch?’

  After being dismissed so abruptly, Amy did not dare try to ask her question out loud again. She looked at her father, repeating it silently. Please, Pa, can you forgive me? But he did not meet her eyes.

  ‘Where’s your brother?’ Jack asked when John came in by himself a few minutes later. John looked at Amy, then looked away quickly. She saw embarrassment in his face. So he knows, too.

  ‘I don’t know, Pa,’ John said, looking worried. ‘He… he got a bit wild, and he went off somewhere. He wouldn’t tell me where he was going, but I saw him heading off down the road.’

  ‘Silly young fool,’ Jack muttered. ‘Well, I’m not waiting my lunch for him. He can go hungry. What have you got such a long face on you for, John?’

  ‘Well, Harry was in a really bad mood, Pa. And he took his gun.’

  Amy could see that gave her father a jolt, but he soon looked resigned. ‘He’s not likely to do anyone much harm. I’d be more worried if he was here in the house with it.’ He glanced at Susannah. She looked affronted, then alarmed. ‘He’ll come back when he’s cooled off,’ said Jack.

  They ate their meal in a silence interrupted only by Amy’s occasional muffled coughs. ‘You want to do some of that fencing over the hill?’ John asked when they had finished.

  ‘You start on it,’ Jack said. ‘I’ll join you later. I’m going to Arthur’s for a bit.’ John nodded and went out.

  ‘Jack, do you need to tell them?’ Susannah asked. ‘You don’t want the whole town to know.’

  ‘I’m not telling the whole town, I’m telling my brother,’ Jack said. ‘I’m no keener than you are for anyone else to find out what’s going on.’

  ‘It reflects on us all, you know,’ Susannah said to Amy as soon as Jack had left the house. ‘You’ve brought shame on the whole family, not just yourself.’

  ‘I know,’ Amy said miserably.

  ‘You’ve driven your brother away already. And look at the state your father’s in,’ Susannah went on relentlessly. ‘At his age, too, to get a shock like this. Especially when he’s always doted on you so ridiculously. He can’t bear to look at you now.’

  ‘I know,’ Amy sobbed.

  *

  Lizzie thought nothing of it when she saw her uncle talking with her father out in the paddocks; he often popped over for a chat. But when her father strode back to the house looking grim, she knew something was up.

  ‘Go outside,’ he ordered Lizzie. ‘I want to talk to your ma.’

  Lizzie pressed her ear to the door, but her parents were speaking so quietly that she caught nothing except an exclamation of shock from her mother. When her father finally opened the door again, her mother was dabbing at her eyes with her apron and her father looked grimmer than ever. Lizzie looked from one to the other, and her mouth set in a firm line. So they had found out at last. She bent to put her boots on.

  ‘Where do you think you’re going?’ Arthur said.

  ‘Next door to see Amy. I’m bringing her back here to stay the night.’

  ‘No you’re not.’

  ‘Why not?’ Lizzie demanded.

  ‘Don’t take that tone with me, girl.’ He stared closely at her, his eyes narrowed in anger. ‘You already knew about this, didn’t you? Why didn’t you tell anyone?’

  ‘It wasn’t my secret to tell. I’m going to get Amy.’ She looked mutinously at her father.

  ‘I say you’re not leaving this house!’ Arthur shouted. ‘Are you defying me, girl?’ The red tint of rage slowly mounted in his face. ‘You’d better not be.’

  Lizzie stared back at him, coolly weighing her options. If she did defy him he would make her mother give her a beating, something that hadn’t happened to Lizzie for many years. He would probably stand in the bedroom doorway and make sure her mother made a proper job of it, too. If she got him angry enough he might even do it himself.

  What mattered far more was that she would not stand a chance of getting off the farm against her father’s will. Even if she took to her heels, trousers could beat skirts without even trying.

  ‘All right,’ she said, glowering at her father. ‘I’ll do as you say.’ She slumped down in a chair and watched him regain his calm.

  ‘Good,’ he said. ‘I’m only thinking of you, girl.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Arthur made a noise of exasperation. ‘Isn’t it obvious? You’re not going to that house, and you’re not going to talk to that girl.’

  ‘Arthur,’ Edie protested feebly.

  ‘Don’t argue. Either of you. She’s shamed herself, and I’m not having my daughter mixing with her. That’s that, I won’t listen to any arguments. And you,’ he stabbed a finger at Lizzie, ‘you don’t leave this farm again till I say you can. Understand?’

  ‘Yes,’ Lizzie muttered, looking at the floor.

  ‘Just you remember it. You watch yourself with that Frank Kelly, too.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Lizzie asked indignantly.

  ‘I don’t want the same thing happening to you.’

  Lizzie glared at him. ‘Do you think Frank is the sort of man who’d do that and then run away?’

  ‘Frank’d have a bit more trouble running away, wouldn’t he? Anyway, he knows I’d kill him if he tried. You just watch yourself.’

  ‘I don’t need to be told that.’

  ‘I’m telling you anyway,’ Arthur shouted. For a moment Lizzie thought he was going to hit her. She braced her
self for the blow. But instead he turned away. ‘Get to your room. You can stay there till you’ve remembered your manners.’

  Lizzie went without a word. She stared out her window for a long time in the direction of Amy’s house, pounding her hands on the sill in frustration at her own powerlessness.

  27

  July – August 1884

  John again came into the house alone and some time after his father that evening, but this time he looked calmer.

  ‘I saw Harry,’ he said.

  ‘Where is he?’ Jack asked, looking over John’s shoulder as if he expected to see Harry there.

  ‘He’s gone next door. He said he wanted to be away from…’ John glanced at Susannah, ‘people for a while. He went up in the bush—he said he felt like killing something, so he shot a few pheasants.’

  ‘When’s he coming back?’ Jack demanded.

  ‘I don’t know, he didn’t say.’

  ‘He’d better be back here tomorrow morning or I’ll go and get him,’ Jack growled. ‘He needn’t think he’s sloping off like that.’

  Jack was not forced to go and fetch his wayward son. Next morning when Amy was carrying the rugs out to the clothesline to beat them, she saw Harry walking across the paddock to join his father and brother. She gave a sigh of relief.

  Amy tried to find a way of scrubbing the kitchen floor that stopped her bulge getting in the way so much, but her arms banged against it every time she pulled the brush towards her. She was concentrating so hard on the task that she did not even look up when the back door opened, though she recognised her father’s tread.

  ‘Leave that,’ Jack said brusquely.

  ‘But… but today’s my day for doing the floors, Pa. I’m only half finished.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. I don’t want to see you doing that heavy work. Where’s your ma?’