Mud and Gold Page 58

‘Thanks, Pa,’ Frank said. ‘That’ll be a real weight off my mind.’

  That was the essential task achieved; he might as well see if he could manage the other one. ‘It’s going to be a bit of a beggar taking those cows up to Auckland by myself.’

  ‘Oh, not so sure of yourself after all, eh?’ said Arthur.

  ‘Well, I think I can manage. It’s just not going to be all that easy.’

  ‘At least you’ve got the sense to know that.’ Arthur stroked his beard as he studied Frank. ‘I don’t like the idea of you going up there by yourself,’ he said, looking troubled. ‘Auckland’s a big place. I don’t want you getting in strife.’ He mused for a few moments, then appeared to come to a decision.

  ‘Maybe I should go up there with you,’ he said.

  ‘No!’ Frank said in alarm. Fond though he was of Arthur, his father-in-law was not the companion he would have chosen for such a journey. Uncomfortable visions sprang into his mind: Arthur ordering him about on every stage of the trip, Arthur exhorting the judges on how they should select the winning animals, Arthur bailing up any hapless person who showed interest in Frank’s cows and expounding on the virtues of Shorthorns as opposed to Jerseys.

  ‘I couldn’t put you out like that,’ he said, forcing his voice back under control. Panic fed inspiration. ‘And anyway, who’d look after the farms? Yours as well as mine. I mean, it’s really good of you to lend me Ernie, but I was hoping you’d sort of keep an eye on things for me, see that nothing goes wrong. I wouldn’t really be able to leave the farm if you weren’t around.’

  ‘Well, that’s sensible enough,’ said Arthur. Frank sank back into his chair in relief. ‘It’s no good thinking these boys could manage by themselves. Still, I don’t want you going up there on your own, not with all those animals to cope with.’ He gave an exaggerated sigh. ‘I suppose I’ll have to spare you one of the other boys as well as Ernie.’

  ‘I’ll go,’ said Alf. ‘I wouldn’t mind seeing Auckland.’

  ‘You!’ Arthur scoffed. ‘Frank’d be spending more time keeping an eye on you than he would on the cows. No, you’d better go, Bill. You’ve got more sense. There’s nothing like a wife and child for steadying a man.’

  ‘That’d be great, Bill, if you want to come,’ said Frank.

  ‘All right,’ Bill said. ‘I wouldn’t mind seeing it, either.’ He gave a sidelong grin at the scowling Alf.

  ‘As long as Lily doesn’t mind,’ Frank added. ‘It’s a bit mean taking you off her, especially while Arfie’s just a little fellow.’

  ‘Bill doesn’t have to ask leave of his wife,’ said Arthur. ‘I’ve said he’s to go, that’s all you lads need to worry about. Anyway, she’s a sensible woman, is Lily. She’s not one for making a fuss about nothing.’

  ‘No, Lily won’t mind,’ said Bill. ‘It’s only for a few days.’

  ‘I don’t see why Bill gets to go and I’ve got to stay home,’ Alf muttered.

  ‘You could always stay with Lizzie if you’re that set on a change,’ Bill suggested, and was rewarded with a deeper scowl from Alf. ‘Not so keen on that? Never mind, you’ll be so busy doing mine and Ernie’s share of the work, the time’ll be gone before you know it.’

  ‘That’s not fair!’ Alf protested. ‘You get a holiday and I’ve got to do your work for you.’

  ‘You doing someone else’s work as well as your own?’ Arthur said. ‘I’ll believe that when I see it. Well, I’ll just have to manage with what’s left me.’ He looked at Frank through narrowed eyes. ‘You’ve just talked me into letting you have two of my sons so you can go off on this mad fool trip of yours.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Frank said. ‘I really appreciate it.’

  ‘I should hope you do! You’re not as silly as you used to be, are you, Frank?’

  ‘I suppose I’m not,’ said Frank.

  *

  ‘I can’t get over how well they did,’ Frank said. ‘Especially Spring Blossom—did I tell you she got best two-year-old, Amy? She’s one of the first ones I bred, too, she’s out of Orange Blossom, and—’

  ‘Frank, Amy doesn’t want to hear all about your cows,’ Lizzie interrupted. ‘And anyway, you told her about Spring Blossom half an hour ago.’

  ‘Oh. Did I? Sorry, Amy.’ Frank grinned sheepishly at her. ‘I’m going on a bit, aren’t I?’

  ‘Yes, you are,’ Lizzie agreed.

  ‘No, I’m interested really,’ said Amy. ‘You must be so proud, Frank—I know Lizzie’s proud of you, too.’

  ‘Don’t encourage him, you’ll make him worse,’ Lizzie said. But Amy saw her rest a hand on Frank’s for a moment and give it a squeeze.

  Frank had hardly been home a day, and was still full of his trip to Auckland. Lizzie maintained that he had kept her awake half the night talking about the show, but despite her claim of broken sleep she looked happier than Amy had seen her since the day Frank had sailed out of Ruatane. It was well worth the walk down to Frank’s house for afternoon tea to see the two of them together; the sight of Lizzie without Frank had seemed almost unnatural.

  ‘I got a third prize for Countess, and Duke William got fourth in his class,’ Frank reminisced happily.

  ‘Frank!’ Lizzie scolded. ‘That’s enough about your cows, for goodness sake. Drink your tea before it gets cold.’

  ‘How about hopping off my lap for a bit, love?’ Frank told Beth, who had her head pressed against his chest as she hung on her father’s every word. ‘Go on, there’s a good girl.’ He unwound Beth’s arms from around his neck. ‘You can come back when I’ve had my tea.’

  ‘Come and sit with me, Beth,’ Amy invited. ‘See what Maudie and I are doing.’

  Beth trotted over to the couch and snuggled up to Amy, peering closely as Amy helped Maudie do fine hemming stitches around a handkerchief.

  ‘You know, that was one of the funniest things about being away,’ said Frank. ‘I’d sit down and no one rushed to sit on my lap. There’s always a couple of them ready to climb on here. It felt sort of funny, having no weight on me.’

  ‘Beth fretted over Frank more than the others did, and the whole lot were pretty bad,’ Lizzie remarked. ‘I had to have all four of them in bed with me the first night, they were all in such a state with their Papa gone.’

  ‘You cried too, Ma,’ said Maudie.

  ‘Oh, did you just?’ Frank looked pleased at the idea. ‘You didn’t tell me about that.’

  ‘No one asked you, Miss,’ said Lizzie. ‘I told you I’d only let you stay home from school to see your pa today if you promised to behave, not go butting in with your opinions when they’re not wanted. You watch your step, or I’ll tell your pa about a certain girl who had a hiding the other day for giving me cheek.’

  Maudie tossed her head in a manner so like Lizzie’s that Amy and Frank both had to hide smiles.

  ‘Anyway,’ Lizzie said, ‘who could help having a bit of a weep with four kids bawling? We all settled down after a couple of days.’

  ‘Ernie looked a bit down in the mouth when he met us at the wharf,’ Frank remarked. ‘He reckoned he thought you were going to belt him once or twice.’

  ‘The little wretch! What did you say to that?’

  ‘I told him off—said he’d better not have been giving you a hard time. He said it was you who’d been giving him the hard time.’

  ‘Just because I made him work properly! He thought he could get away with sleeping in.’

  ‘Ma poured a jug of water over him to make him wake up,’ Maudie said, eyes sparkling.

  ‘He didn’t sleep in again. Then he tried being a bit slack about some of the work. I gave him a piece of my mind about that, don’t you worry. I made sure he had plenty to do, that kept him out of mischief. He’s cleaned all your tack, Frank, and polished your boots, too. And those horses have never looked so shiny—I made him groom them all every day.’

  Frank laughed. ‘No wonder he looked sorry for himself! Bill told him that’s why Alf wouldn’t come down here. Ernie was jus
t a little fellow when we got married, he’s forgotten how good you are at getting your own way.’

  ‘I just wouldn’t stand for his nonsense, that’s all. I had enough to put up with, what with Pa coming round all the time poking into everything, looking in the sheds and nosing around the animals.’

  ‘Gee, it’s a big place, that Auckland,’ Frank mused. ‘When the boat was coming up to the wharf there, Bill and I sort of looked at one another, and I knew he was thinking the same as me—we’d just as soon have stayed on the boat and come home again. All those people! And they’re all rushing around, no one taking any notice of anyone else. I never thought there could be so many buggies on the road, either—it’s a wonder they don’t bang into one another all the time.’

  ‘It’s not healthy, all those people living jammed up against each other,’ Lizzie said. ‘It doesn’t seem right to me.’

  ‘There’s a lot to see there, though. There were some really fancy machines at the show, too—even machines for milking cows, if you please! We had a bit of a look in that Queen Street place, too. After me and Bill got the animals settled in we went for a ride on one of those tram things.’

  ‘What’s a tram, Pa?’ Maudie asked, abandoning her sewing to Amy for the moment.

  ‘Sort of a great big buggy, love, with dozens and dozens of people riding on it. Hey, Amy, did I tell you the boarding house we stayed in had that Edison electric light?’

  ‘Did it?’ Amy said, with a more genuine interest than she had managed to rouse for Frank’s cows. ‘I’d love to see that.’

  ‘I can’t imagine what that looks like,’ Lizzie said, frowning. ‘Frank’s told me and told me about it, but I just can’t. I’m not sure it’s safe, either. It’s not natural, that electric business.’

  ‘I bet you’d like it,’ said Amy. ‘No more filling lamps, and having to clean them out and keep them trimmed all the time.’

  ‘You’d like the running water, too, Lizzie,’ Frank put in.

  ‘Yes, I wouldn’t mind that,’ Lizzie said. ‘Still, that’s only sense, getting water an easy way. It’s still water, that’s natural enough. What’s so funny?’ she asked, noticing that Frank and Amy were both laughing at her.

  ‘You are,’ Frank said.

  ‘You always know exactly what you think about everything,’ Amy said. She bent more closely over the handkerchief with Maudie.

  ‘Hey, I forgot to tell you, Lizzie!’ Frank said suddenly. ‘You’ll be interested in this, Amy.’

  Amy looked up from her stitching, needle poised in the air as she waited for Frank to tell her something else about his cows.

  ‘It was when Bill and I had that trip into Queen Street. We went in a tearoom, and afterwards Bill ducked out the back and I walked down the street a bit while I was waiting for him. I was wandering along—half the people in creation there, mind you, the last thing I expected was to see a face I knew. And there he was—I just about walked into him—it was that Jimmy fellow, you know, Susannah’s brother.’

  Amy’s body gave a jolt as if a shock wave had passed through it. Every muscle seemed to have gone rigid. She could no longer feel the warmth of the two little girls pressed against her. It was a moment before she could make out Frank’s voice again through the roaring that filled her ears.

  ‘Hey, watch out, Lizzie, that’s my foot you’re kicking. It took me a minute to recognise him, it’s years since he was here—ten years, we worked out. He gave me a funny look at first, as if he—ow! Stop it, Lizzie.’ His chair scraped as he moved it out of Lizzie’s reach. ‘As if he didn’t want to talk to me. He was friendly enough once he got over that. Boy, you should have seen his wife. Talk about a fancy outfit—sleeves you could stick a leg of beef in, and the whole dress all covered with fancy stitching and lace and stuff. Jimmy said she’s from—’

  ‘Never mind all that, Frank, Amy doesn’t want to hear,’ Lizzie cut in.

  ‘Of course she does!’ Frank protested. ‘Jimmy’s sort of her family. He met his wife—Charlotte, her name is—in Australia, he said. Seems he was living there for a bit.’

  ‘Frank, I want—’

  ‘In a minute, Lizzie, just let me finish the news or I’ll forget what I was going to say. Then his pa started ailing, so he came back to Auckland. Boy, that Charlotte! You could see just by looking at her she’s always had money. I was talking with Jimmy about that hay dance—you know, when he knocked down Mike Feenan—and she was really looking down her nose. I saw her checking her glove after she shook hands with me, like she thought I might have got it dirty. Then she looked at me as though I hadn’t had a wash for a few weeks, and she said,’ he made an attempt at a mincing voice, ‘ “Oh, from a farm, are you? How very interesting.” Then Jimmy—’

  ‘Aunt Amy, look what you’ve done!’ Maudie wailed. ‘Ma, look what Aunt Amy’s done! Let go!’ Amy was vaguely aware of Maudie tugging at her arm, and in obedience to the pleading in the little girl’s voice she looked down at her hands. The sight of the needle buried deep in her finger confused her; however had it got there?

  Lizzie hurried over to the couch, took hold of Amy’s right hand and tugged at it. ‘Poor love,’ she murmured.

  Amy stared down at her hands and saw a drop of blood welling up on her finger. It was deep crimson, darker than she had known blood from a finger could be, and it grew in size as she watched.

  She gave a great shudder, and realised that she had not breathed for some time. With the movement came feeling. Amy let out a strangled sound that might have been a shriek if it had had any real volume. But the cry was not from the pain in her hand; she had many times felt far worse pain than that and kept silent.

  Her loss of control lasted only moments. By the time Lizzie had finished dabbing the blood away and tying a strip of cloth around the finger, Amy had assumed something close to her usual calm appearance.

  ‘I’m sorry I gave you all a fright,’ she said, trying unsuccessfully to smile. ‘I felt a bit faint, that must be why my hand slipped.’

  ‘It’s the heat,’ Lizzie said. ‘It’s bad in here this afternoon. Would you like to lie down for a bit? Frank, help her into our bedroom.’

  Frank was standing over Amy, looking concerned. He bent to slip an arm behind her back. ‘Shall I carry you?’

  ‘No, Frank. Please don’t worry about me, I’m all right now.’ She accepted Frank’s support to stand up. ‘I’d better go home now.’

  ‘Have a lie-down first,’ Lizzie urged. ‘You’re white as a sheet.’

  ‘No, I’ve got to go, or there’ll be a fuss. It’ll be time to get Charlie’s afternoon tea ready, it was good of you to have yours early so I could come. He doesn’t like being kept waiting, and I don’t want trouble today—I do feel a bit odd.’

  ‘You can’t walk home in that state,’ Lizzie said. ‘Frank, you’d better take her home. You can pop her behind you on the horse, she hardly weighs more than a feather.’

  ‘No,’ said Amy. ‘I’ll walk.’

  ‘Are you sure, Amy?’ Frank said. ‘I don’t mind taking you, and you look pretty pale.’

  ‘Thank you, Frank, but I can’t. I’d never hear the end of it from Charlie if I went off by myself with you.’

  ‘Ooh, that man,’ Lizzie muttered. ‘All right, then, Maudie can take you. Maudie, go and catch one of the horses, then you can double Aunt Amy home.’

  ‘There’s no need—’ Amy began.

  ‘Yes, there is. Don’t argue, Amy.’

  Amy submitted to Lizzie’s orders, relieved that she did not have to attempt the walk home while her head was still spinning. She let herself be lifted onto the horse behind Maudie, and clung on to Maudie’s waist when the little girl told her to.

  The slow ride, with Maudie scrupulously keeping the horse to a walk, offered few distractions. Maudie prattled away, but she did not seem concerned whether or not Amy answered her, and Amy took the opportunity to put her jangled thoughts in order.

  I haven’t even thought of him in years. If her thoughts
had turned even vaguely to Jimmy, she had imagined him in Australia, as remote as if he were dead. And now it seemed he was no further away than Auckland. Auckland. Where Ann was born. Does he ever wonder what happened to his child? Does he ever wonder about me? The memory of loss was a raw, open wound. Not the loss of Jimmy himself, but the things he had taken from her: innocence; the right to stay in her father’s house and not feel herself a shameful burden; the possibility of a life that did not include marrying Charlie. And Ann. My daughter. He gave me Ann, but I couldn’t keep her because he ran away. He never wanted me. Not as a wife, anyway. I suppose he’s got what he wants now—a fancy wife, the sort he can show to his elegant friends. Not a rough farm girl without proper manners. I was only good enough to make a baby with.

  Amy thrust aside the picture of the baby in her arms. The place for weeping was in the privacy of her own room, not on a bright afternoon out on the road where anyone might see her.

  Maudie turned the horse off the road and on to the farm track. Charlie looked up from the paddock where he was digging potatoes, and shaded his eyes to see who was coming. When he saw that Amy’s companion was only a child he turned back to his digging, no longer interested.

  ‘Let me off here, Maudie, I’ll walk the rest of the way.’

  ‘No, Ma said I’m to take you right to the house,’ Maudie said self-righteously, and Amy let her have her way.

  When they got to the fence in front of the cottage, Maudie brought the horse to a halt for Amy to dismount. ‘Shall I help you down, Aunt Amy?’

  ‘No, thank you, I can manage.’ Amy tightened her arms around Maudie’s waist and leaned over her shoulder to plant a kiss on her smooth cheek. ‘You’re a good girl, Maudie. Your ma’s very lucky to have a daughter like you.’ She slid from the horse’s back and waved to Maudie as she rode off.

  Amy stood on the porch steps for a few moments, watching Maudie shrink into the distance. Charlie would come up for his afternoon tea now he had seen her returning; she had better make a batch of scones for him. And the boys would be home from school before long, wanting something to eat. She would have to try and give Malcolm a reading lesson; it had been several days since his last one. Perhaps she could slip a lesson in before it was time to start preparing dinner. The rain barrel was almost empty; there would not be enough in it for the vegetables and to wash the dishes afterwards, so that would mean a trip to the well to fill a pair of kerosene tins. The kitchen floor was due for cleaning, too; she would have to remember to save the soapy water for scrubbing it in the morning.