Mud and Gold Page 24

  Frank quickly soaked up the small fountain with a fold of napkin and wiped Lizzie’s hand for her. ‘He’s a brat, all right,’ he said proudly. ‘Do you think he’ll be tall?’

  ‘I hope not—if he gets bigger than you, you’ll never be able to make him do as he’s told. He’s a lot bigger than Maudie was at this age, though, so he’ll probably be a fair size.’ She gave an exaggerated sigh of relief when she had at last managed to get a clean napkin safely pinned and the baby warmly wrapped up. ‘You men and your sons! You’re all the same. Pa’s made much more of a fuss about Joey than he ever did over Maudie—though goodness knows he spoils her rotten. What makes boys so special, for goodness sake?’

  ‘Maudie’s special,’ Frank remonstrated. ‘I mean, she was our first. I wasn’t a father till you had Maudie. It was so neat when she was born—after I knew you were going to be all right, anyway—it was awful till then. I don’t know, it’s just… it’s different having a son. It’s like I’ve done something that’ll carry on after I’m gone. No, that’s not right, that just sounds dopey.’

  ‘Yes, it does. And I don’t see that you did so much, either.’ But Lizzie’s face softened as she looked down at Joseph, still red-faced but now quiet as he drifted towards sleep. ‘He is pretty neat, isn’t he? Come on, let’s leave your precious son alone before he starts performing again.’ She took Frank’s hand and pulled him out of the bedroom.

  ‘You’re right, you know, Lizzie, men do make more of a fuss when you have a son. Even Charlie said something nice to me when Joey was born.’

  ‘Did he? I hope he didn’t do himself an injury—he’s not even used to being polite, let alone pleasant.’

  ‘Yes, he said congratulations, I must be pleased I’d finally managed to get a son after all this time.’

  Lizzie rounded on him, her eyes flashing. ‘You call that nice! That skitey old so-and-so. Just because he’s got two boys—that’s because Amy’s so fruitful, there’s nothing special about him. When I think how knocked out she gets when she has babies, and all he can do is skite about it! He should be telling everyone how lucky he is to have a wife like her, not how wonderful he is at fathering sons. Ooh!’ She clenched her fists in anger.

  ‘Hey, don’t get in a state, Lizzie! Don’t take any notice of Charlie, I sure don’t.’ He caught her around the waist and drew her close. ‘I don’t need anyone to tell me how lucky I am.’

  *

  Lizzie was so obviously in robust good health that neither she nor Frank thought anything of it when she started having occasional stomach pains. The cramps were never particularly strong, and Lizzie put them down to indigestion. Too much of her own good cooking, Frank teased; the waistline that refused to return to its pre-motherhood proportions seemed to support this.

  Frank soon had something that seemed more serious on his mind. One day in the middle of July he was making his usual morning round of the in-calf cows when he realised three of them were missing. Puzzled, he counted them off again, but there was no mistake: where there should have been eighteen cows there were only fifteen.

  Once he began walking the fence line of the paddock it did not take Frank long to discover how the cows had disappeared; indeed the small voice of conscience had suggested the reason as soon as he had double-checked the numbers. When he reached the section of fence Arthur had warned him about all those months ago he saw that one of the rotten posts had snapped off near the ground, probably when a cow had rubbed against it to relieve an itch. The rails slotted into it on either side had collapsed into an untidy heap.

  Muttering under his breath in annoyance, Frank first moved the cows still in the paddock to another one before they could decide to follow their wayward sisters, then he fetched some rope from one of the sheds and set out to find the wanderers.

  They had left a clear enough trail through the sodden ground, churning it into mud as they went. Once the trail entered the bush Frank followed the line of snapped twigs as much as the hoof prints. He saw clear signs that the cows had stopped by the creek and waded along its edge for a while, then had forded it and clambered up the opposite bank, bringing a load of earth into the creek in the process. His boots soon picked up a thick layer of mud, dragging heavily at him as he walked. How far had those stupid cows gone? he wondered. Knowing it was his own fault the cows had got out did not improve his mood.

  He pushed his way through a patch of fern and felt something catch at his leg. Without thinking beyond the cows he was seeking he reached down to grasp at the obstruction then jerked his hand away, swearing as he pulled at the vicious thorns the cord of bush lawyer had hooked into his palm. He gingerly unhooked the weed from his trousers and pushed on.

  A few minutes later he stopped for a moment when an odd sound reached his ear. It was certainly an animal, but he had never heard a cow make quite that noise before. Following the sound, he found himself in an area where the undergrowth was thinner. He looked around the small clearing and found what had been making the noise.

  One of his cows lay on the ground, straining to get to her feet and moaning with the effort. Another was a few feet away, her unnaturally stiff limbs making it obvious she had been dead for some hours. Frank knew the cause even before he saw the scrubby plants around the edge of the clearing with their distinctive pattern of growth, each leaf directly opposite its pair on the long, thin branches instead of alternating up the stem: tutu, the bush farmer’s scourge, and perversely attractive to livestock.

  There was nothing to be done for poor old Brownie except bury her; Pudding might still be saved, though she was certain to abort the calf she was carrying. Frank hauled her to her feet and tied a length of rope around her neck, then led the stumbling creature well away from the lethal tutu bushes before tying her up and going in search of the remaining cow. Her track split off from the other two just outside the clearing; at least she hadn’t been poisoned, Frank reassured himself.

  Patches had not been poisoned, but that was cold comfort when Frank at last found her. She had made her way back to the creek, probably seeking her familiar paddock after her wanderings, but she had never made it. The creek bank was steep at the point where Patches had slithered down it; far too steep for the awkward, lumbering animal. She lay on the edge of the creek where she must have been all night, her head barely out of the water and one leg stretched away from her body at an unnatural angle that would have told Frank it was broken even if he had not been able to see white bone protruding from it.

  The most horrifying thing was that Patches was still alive. Her breath gurgled horribly in her throat and there was blood trickling from her mouth, but it took more than a wintry night lying half in the creek with a broken leg to kill a tough Shorthorn.

  The film over Patches’ eyes cleared for a moment, and those big brown eyes looked at Frank with a flicker of recognition for the man who had handled her every day of her life. She roused herself to a last effort and shifted slightly where she lay, the exertion forcing a grunt of pain from her that would have been a bovine scream if she had not been too weak to make any real sound. Frank patted her shoulder and reached for the knife that hung in a sheath from his belt, then let his hand drop. Cutting the cow’s throat would be a hellish task, especially if she found the strength to struggle, and Patches deserved a kinder death than that. He would keep the knife for skinning the dead cows.

  Frank waded the creek, hardly noticing the chilly water that reached above his knees, then made his way back to the house at a run. He picked up the shotgun that was lying in the porch; Lizzie heard the noise and called out to him, but he ignored her, not trusting himself to speak. He made a short detour to one of the sheds and snatched up a spade for the graves he would have to dig, then retraced his steps to where Patches lay, too far gone now even to open her eyes as he walked up to her.

  ‘Poor old girl,’ Frank murmured as he pressed the muzzle of the gun against the cow’s skull and pulled the trigger.

  ‘What on earth have you been up to all t
his time?’ Lizzie demanded when he at last got back to the house. ‘I’ve had lunch waiting for ages, I’ve had to give Maudie hers, and…’ She trailed off, taking in his ashen face and the state of his clothes, thickly caked with mud well above his knees. ‘Frank, you stink! You smell like a dog that’s been rolling in something dead. What’s wrong? What’s happened?’

  Frank sat down heavily at the table. ‘Three of the cows got out,’ he said in a flat voice. ‘Into the tutu, and Patches fell down a bank. Two of them dead, and Pudding only just alive—I think she’ll pull through. I had to shoot Patches.’

  Lizzie sat down beside him, too shocked to speak straight away. ‘Two dead,’ she breathed. ‘That’s awful.’

  ‘Three calves lost, too. Pudding’s sure to lose hers. Two cows and three calves, and all I’ve got to show for it’s a couple of hides. A few shillings’ worth if that.’

  ‘It’s such bad luck!’

  ‘No, it’s not,’ Frank said bitterly. ‘It’s my fault. I was bloody lucky the whole lot of them didn’t get out.’

  ‘Don’t say that,’ Lizzie protested. ‘How’s it your fault?’

  ‘Because I didn’t mend that fence—I knew it was ready to fall down. Your pa gave me enough hurry ups about it. I was just too damned lazy.’

  ‘Two cows and three calves,’ Lizzie repeated anxiously. ‘What are we going to do, Frank?’

  Her obvious distress brought Frank to his senses abruptly. ‘Hey, don’t get upset, Lizzie. We’ll be all right, it’s just a bit of a blow. I’ve still got plenty of cows. I’m mainly wild with myself for being stupid.’ He tried to laugh, but it came out as more of a snort. ‘I don’t know what your pa’s going to say when he finds out.’

  ‘Don’t tell him,’ Lizzie answered smartly. ‘He’ll only go on and on about it if you do, you know how bossy he is. It’s none of his business, anyway.’

  ‘I’d just as soon not tell him,’ Frank admitted. He smiled at Lizzie, who had completely regained her usual assurance. ‘I’m glad I’ve got you. Things never seem so bad with you around.’

  ‘Things’ll seem even better when you’ve got a decent lunch inside you.’ Lizzie wrinkled her nose at him. ‘You really do stink. Go and get changed, you’re not going to sit at the table in that state. And don’t you dare put those trousers in the wash basket to stink the room out,’ she called after him as Frank headed towards the bedroom. ‘You can throw them in the porch.’

  Lizzie had been easily reassured, but there was a nagging uneasiness in Frank’s mind over the next few days. When spring came, the milk yield would be even lower than the previous year’s. Perhaps he should have kept a few of the calves last season. But there was no sense worrying about it now. They would still have plenty to live on, and Lizzie was a careful housekeeper, not given to waste.

  By early August most of the cows had produced healthy calves, though Frank was disappointed at how few of them were heifers. But when he took his little family into town for shopping one Thursday, he was too busy feeling proud of them to think about much else. Lizzie recited her list of groceries, giving Mr Craig the storekeeper just enough time to fetch each item to the counter before she reeled off the next, while Frank watched her fondly. Joey lay in her arms, blissfully unworried by Lizzie’s rapid movements as she strode back and forth in front of the counter keeping an eye on Mr Craig. The baby looked around the store, apparently taking a great interest in his surroundings when Lizzie kept still long enough for him to fix his attention on any one object.

  ‘Papa?’ Frank looked down to see Maudie tugging at his trouser leg. ‘Lollies, Papa?’

  She tilted her head to one side, showing off the tiny pink bow Lizzie had tied in her hair, and cast a fetching smile at her father. Frank bent to pick her up so she could see the row of sweet jars lining one end of the counter. ‘You want some lollies, Maudie? What sort do you want?’

  ‘She can have a halfpennyworth, that’s all,’ Lizzie said from the far end of the counter. ‘See you wrap that baking powder properly, Mr Craig, I don’t want it spilling. No sticky toffees, Frank, she’ll make an awful mess. No big gob-stoppers, either, she might try and swallow them whole. A bag of sugar, and that’s the lot, I think—no, not that one, the big size. Oh, I’ll have some sultanas, too. She can have one lolly now, put the rest of the bag in your pocket, Frank.’

  Frank sat Maudie in the buggy contentedly sucking on a sweet, and left Lizzie to finish off the shopping and supervise the loading of their supplies while he crossed the road to the bank. He wanted to get a little cash, and it was about time to settle his account at the store, too.

  He wandered into the Bank of New Zealand, a vague smile on his face as he thought about Lizzie and the children, and he hardly noticed that the smile of welcome the bank manager gave him was rather strained.

  ‘Frank, how are you?’ Mr Callaghan greeted him. ‘Haven’t seen you for a while.’ He went on without waiting for a reply. ‘Ah, would you mind popping into my office for a minute?’

  Frank followed Mr Callaghan, wondering what the manager could want. Mr Callaghan sat him down and closed the door before taking a seat behind his desk.

  ‘How’s the family?’ Mr Callaghan inquired.

  ‘They’re great,’ said Frank. ‘Joey’s really thriving, he’s big for his age, Lizzie says. And that Maudie, she’s a real hard case. Never stops talking, either. You know what she came out with the other day? Lizzie was—’

  ‘That’s good to hear, Frank,’ Mr Callaghan interrupted. ‘You’re quite a family man now, eh? Is the farm going all right?’

  ‘Pretty good,’ Frank said, feeling a momentary rush of guilt about the cows that had died. ‘Prices haven’t been that good the last few years, but we get by. You know how it is.’

  ‘Yes. I know how it is,’ Mr Callaghan echoed. He sat and looked at Frank but said nothing for a few moments. ‘Times are hard all over the country, Frank. They’re hard for banks, too, even though everyone thinks the banks are rich.’

  ‘I suppose that’s right,’ Frank agreed, wondering what on earth this had to do with him and how soon he would be able to get away. Lizzie had whispered to him not to be too long; Joey was getting restless and would be sure to want a feed soon.

  ‘It’s Head Office, you see. They’re telling all the little branches like us to wake our ideas up. I’ve been letting things drift a bit, I must confess.’

  Frank made what he hoped was a sympathetic noise and looked blankly at Mr Callaghan.

  ‘That loan of yours, Frank. The one Ben took out against the farm. You haven’t paid anything off it for a while.’

  ‘Oh. I suppose I haven’t,’ Frank admitted, struggling to recall just when he had last made a payment. Mr Callaghan had given him an occasional friendly reminder over the last few months, he remembered, but Frank had somehow not got around to doing anything about it.

  ‘Not for over a year, actually. You’ve only ever paid ten pounds off it.’

  ‘Have I?’ Frank said guiltily. ‘Well, you know, there always seems to be something that needs buying, what with the little ones. I sort of had to get a buggy now we’ve got the two of them, the cart wasn’t too good. Maybe the milk price’ll be better this season.’

  ‘Maybe. I hope so, Frank.’

  ‘Yes, it’s sure to be. Well, I’d better be—’

  Mr Callaghan raised his hand to wave Frank back into his seat. ‘Wait a moment, I’ve something to give you.’ He picked up a sheet of paper from his desk, holding it as though it burned his hand. ‘I don’t want to do this, Frank. I’ve got to. Head Office says I must with all the slow payers.’

  Puzzled, Frank reached out to take the letter, which was addressed to him and written on the bank’s letterhead. He began to read it, then looked up from the page and stared at Mr Callaghan in consternation. ‘It says you’re going to take my farm off me!’

  ‘Believe me, that’s the last thing the Bank wants to do. We don’t know anything about running farms. The Bank wants you to get y
ourself straight, that’s all.’

  ‘But it says if I don’t pay you’ll take the farm off me. I can’t pay! I haven’t got two hundred pounds.’ The bleak picture of being turned off his farm with a wife and two children to provide for made him feel physically ill.

  ‘One hundred and ninety, plus interest,’ Mr Callaghan corrected absently. ‘Frank, you don’t have to pay it all off at once. The letter says you have to satisfy the bank that you intend to make good your debt.’

  Frank grasped at the straw of hope being held out to him. ‘How do I do that?’

  ‘Just make a good, solid payment by the end of September. That’ll keep Head Office off my back.’

  ‘That’s less than two months. How much do I have to pay?’

  ‘Seventy-five pounds would do it.’

  Frank shook his head. ‘I can’t do that. I can’t get seventy-five pounds.’

  Mr Callaghan looked weary. ‘Fifty, then. I think I could keep them quiet if you paid fifty pounds—it’s a quarter of the loan. I’m sorry, Frank, that’s the best I can do for you.’

  ‘And if I don’t pay that you’ll take the farm away.’

  ‘Let’s hope it won’t come to that.’

  Frank shoved the letter into his jacket pocket and rose unsteadily. He walked out of the bank without speaking again, and made his way to where Lizzie and the children waited in the buggy.

  14

  August 1888

  Lizzie did not seem to notice Frank’s quietness on the way home. She was busy soothing an increasingly fractious Joey until they reached a quiet spot out of town and she could put him to the breast, then she chattered away about the people she had spoken to in town. Frank let her voice wash over him, not taking anything in. Even when Maudie slipped her little arm through his and snuggled against him he hardly noticed.