Mud and Gold (16 page)

‘Come and see, Charlie.’ She indicated the
cradle, invisible from where Charlie stood just inside the doorway.
‘Come and see your son.’

Charlie strode past the bed and dropped to
one knee beside the cradle. He stared intently at the sleeping
child, reaching out a hand towards the baby’s cheek then letting it
hover a few inches from the soft skin.

‘My son,’ he murmured wonderingly. ‘My
son.’

Amy and Mrs Coulson watched in silence,
unwilling to intrude. When Charlie once again became aware that
there were others in the room, he stood up and cleared his throat
noisily.

‘He’s healthy?’ he demanded.

‘Yes, a fine, strong boy,’ Mrs Coulson
assured him.

Charlie glanced uncertainly down at the
cradle. ‘He’s not very big.’

‘Not very big!’ Mrs Coulson exclaimed.
‘Don’t you go saying that in front of your wife too often or you’ll
hear all about it! Goodness me, if he’d been much bigger I think
you’d still be waiting for him to arrive. I’ll have you know that’s
one of the biggest babies I’ve ever brought into the world.’

‘Is he?’ Charlie stared avidly at Mrs
Coulson. ‘So he’s bigger than most bairns?’

‘I should say so. Well over nine pounds, he
is, and out of a little scrap of a girl like your wife. You did
very well, didn’t you, dear?’ She smiled at Amy.

‘Nine pounds.’ Charlie gazed at his son,
glowing with pride.

‘Closer to nine and a half, I’d say.’

‘Nine and a half,’ Charlie repeated, as if
memorising. ‘People will ask,’ he said with a touch of
defensiveness.

‘Of course they will,’ Mrs Coulson agreed.
‘Everyone likes to hear about a new baby. Now I’ll leave you alone
for a bit and get the kettle on.’

Charlie sat on a chair close to the bed,
from where he could see his son clearly. He dragged his eyes away
to take notice of Amy for the first time. ‘You’re all right?’

‘Yes, thank you. I’m tired, and it still…’
Amy shied away from telling him where it still hurt. ‘I’m tired,’
she repeated awkwardly. ‘But it wasn’t too bad. Not as bad as…’
last time
. ‘Not as bad as I expected.’

‘That woman’s looking after you and the boy
properly?’

‘Oh, yes, she’s being lovely.’

‘Good.’ He turned his attention back to his
son, and no more was said between them until it was time for
Charlie to make his reluctant departure.

Charlie was only the first of several
visitors Amy had over the next few days. Lizzie arrived the
following afternoon, bursting into the room clutching a bunch of
roses from her mother’s garden. She flung her arms around Amy’s
neck and kissed her, then inspected the baby.

‘He’s big, isn’t he? He’s not very pretty,
though.’

‘No, not really. But he’s healthy, and he’s
a boy. That’s the main thing.’

‘Humph! I suppose
he
,’ a vague hand
gesture indicated the absent Charlie, ‘wanted a boy.’ Without
giving Amy time to comment, Lizzie plumped herself down on the bed
and leaned close to her. ‘Guess what?’ she said, her eyes dancing
with happiness. ‘I’m going to have a baby!’

To Amy it seemed the last thing in the world
anyone should be delighted over. ‘That’s good, Lizzie. I’m pleased
for you.’

‘I think I already was when I came to see
you, you know, when I asked you about all that sort of thing. But
I’m sure I am now. The end of June, Ma says it’ll be. I hope I have
a girl—but I won’t really mind if it’s a boy.’

‘Frank must be pleased.’

‘Oh, he is! He’s really excited about
it.’

‘Where is he, anyway?’

‘I left him outside. I thought you mightn’t
want to see men while you’re in bed.’

‘I’d love to see Frank, Lizzie. I haven’t
seen him for months and months—I’ve hardly seen anyone, really. And
I’m decent enough like this.’

‘All right. What’s that girl called who
opened the door for me?’

‘Nellie.’

Lizzie summoned Nellie, a bright-eyed girl
of about twelve, and sent her outside to fetch Frank. He came in
looking shy at entering a woman’s bedroom, but he smiled at Amy,
asked after her health and dutifully admired her son. He and Lizzie
exchanged what Amy could see were meant to be secret smiles,
reminding one another of their own good news.

‘That’s enough visiting, Frank, you go and
wait outside again,’ Lizzie said after a few minutes. ‘Amy’s
looking tired.’ Frank gave her a startled look, and Lizzie’s
demeanour changed at once. ‘You don’t want to be stuck in a room
with two women chattering, do you, dear? Can I stay and talk to Amy
for a bit longer? Just for a minute or two? Do you mind?’

‘No, that’ll be all right, Lizzie,’ Frank
said, his composure regained. He left them alone again.

‘Frank doesn’t like me telling him what to
do in front of other people,’ Lizzie explained in a low voice.
‘He’s never said—well, only the once—but I can tell. Of course I
don’t really tell him what to do, just sort of encourage him, but
he gets a bit funny about it. I’m careful now, especially in front
of Pa, but I never thought about it with only you here—I didn’t
think he’d worry about you. Never mind, I made it up all
right.’

‘He looks really good, Lizzie. You must be
looking after him well. Frank never used to look like that. He
looks… well,
sleek
.’

‘Doesn’t he just?’ Lizzie agreed. ‘Well-fed,
well-looked after and well pleased with himself.’

Jack and Susannah came next day with the two
little boys. Jack looked proudly at the baby and squeezed Amy’s
hand.

‘That’s a fine grandson you’ve given me,
girl. It’s a great thing for a man to become a grandfather.’

You’ve been a grandfather for a year now,
Pa
. Amy managed an answering smile with difficulty.

‘The boys’ll be in to see you some time,’
said Jack.

‘I hope so,’ Amy said. ‘I’d like to see
them.’

‘Harry and Jane were meant to come in with
us, but they never turned up. There was a bit of a row coming from
their place this morning. I think they… ahh… fell out.’

‘Poor Jane,’ Susannah said with a sigh. ‘She
has a terrible time with him. Harry’s so bad-tempered, I’ve always
said so, though no one ever takes any notice of me.’

‘Jane gives as good as she gets,’ said Jack.
‘Let them work it out for themselves.’

‘Of course,’ Susannah said. ‘I wouldn’t
dream of interfering.’

Their visit was cut short when Thomas and
George climbed on the bed and tried to clamber onto Amy’s lap,
wrestling each other out of the way. Amy cried out in pain when
Thomas’s foot slipped between her thighs. Mrs Coulson rushed into
the room and swept both boys off the bed.

‘Keep those children away from her,’ she
scolded Susannah. ‘You should know better, Mrs Leith, letting them
climb all over the poor girl like that.’

‘They’re fond of Amy,’ Susannah said,
gripping each of her sons firmly by one wrist.

Mrs Coulson stood close to her and hissed in
a voice that Amy barely caught. ‘The poor little thing’s as full of
stitches as a flour sack. She can do without great lumps of
children tumbling about on her.’

‘Well, I’m sure it’s not
my
fault if
she’s delicate,’ Susannah said haughtily. ‘We’d better go, Jack. I
know when I’m not wanted.’ She swept out of the room. Amy knew it
would be the last time Susannah came to see her.

Charlie came to visit every day, generally
staying for an hour or two. He would sit beside Amy’s bed and stare
at his son, asking Amy questions about the boy’s progress and
health then lapsing into silence for minutes at a time. Sometimes
he arrived while Amy had the baby at her breast, and watched
fascinated as the child suckled. Amy knew it was foolish to feel
shy at exposing her breasts to her husband, but she was always
relieved when she could button up her nightdress again.

It was a new experience for them to be
thrust into one another’s company with neither work, newspapers nor
food to cover their lack of affinity. When the long silences became
too awkward Amy filled them with comments about the child, which
always aroused Charlie’s interest, even if she had made the same
remarks the previous day.

Charlie arrived one day and informed Amy
that he had registered their son’s birth at the courthouse, and had
named him Malcolm Charles. The first two minutes of conversation
thus taken care of, Amy asked him questions about the farm, and was
told the cows were producing well, there were plenty of eggs, and
the grass was growing. Silence reigned until Malcolm woke and
demanded to be fed, and when Charlie had watched the process he
asked Amy yet again if the baby was growing, and was assured that
he was.

But if the daily hour or two with Charlie
was awkward, that did not seem much to complain about. Charlie’s
visits and feeding Malcolm were the parts of Amy’s day that she
thought of as her duty; the rest was gentle pleasure. Mrs Coulson
sat with her each afternoon after she had done her morning’s work,
and Amy enjoyed talking with the older woman or sharing a
companionable silence. Amy was not used to idleness, and begged Mrs
Coulson to let her help with things, so the nurse gave her small
tasks such as mending that she could do sitting down. Often one or
both of them would doze for a time, making up for the broken nights
Malcolm was giving them. Mrs Coulson told Amy of how she had come
to the Bay of Plenty as a soldier’s wife during the wars of the
1860s, and had been left a widow with young children to
support.

‘There was only one thing I knew how to do
that could make me a bit of money, and that was birthing babies. So
I started doing that when my youngest was seven years old. Many’s
the time I’d have a frantic husband knocking on my door in the
middle of the night, and I’d have to saddle up and ride out to some
farm in the back of beyond, with my oldest girl looking after the
other four, and her only fourteen. Well, my little ones are all
grown and settled now, none of them in Ruatane, I’m sorry to say.
But they visit me when they can, and I see plenty of little ones
still.’

In return, Amy told her of her own
childhood, the little she remembered of her mother, what her
grandmother had been like, and how Amy had run the household after
her grandmother died. She even mentioned her dream of being a
teacher, though briefly and in an offhand way. After a small
hesitation, she confessed that she had never got on very well with
Susannah, and she could see from Mrs Coulson’s set expression that
the nurse did not approve of her stepmother.

Safe though she felt with Mrs Coulson, Amy’s
confidences did not extend past the birth of her little brothers.
She did not trust herself to speak of Jimmy’s arrival with anything
like nonchalance, and she would not risk being drawn on the reasons
for her strange marriage. Not that Mrs Coulson showed any
disposition to pry.

‘You remind me of my granny,’ Amy told Mrs
Coulson one day, as the two of them basked in the afternoon
sunshine.

‘Goodness me, I know I’m ancient but I’m not
old enough to be your grandmother, girl!’ Mrs Coulson said, with a
mock-fierce expression that took Amy in for a moment.

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude.’

‘Now don’t look so crushed, darling! I was
only having a little joke. Where’s your sense of humour?’

‘I don’t know,’ Amy said thoughtfully. ‘I
used to have one. I think I lost it.’

‘Not much to laugh about these days?’ Mrs
Coulson asked gently, with a kind smile that made Amy want to cry.
‘Never mind, dear, make the best of it. You’ve got your little boy
to cheer you up now.’

Mention of Malcolm made Amy feel guilty
again.
I don’t love him. There must be something wrong with me
when I don’t love my baby
. She fed Malcolm when Mrs Coulson
placed him in her arms, held him when the nurse told her to give
him a cuddle, and handed him back as soon as she could. When the
baby’s face was contorted with angry crying, making him look like
his father in a rage, Amy sometimes had a twinge of fear she knew
was foolish, but other than that she felt nothing for him at all.
‘Yes, I’ve got Malcolm.’

Her three weeks with Mrs Coulson drew to an
end all too quickly. On the appointed day, Charlie pulled up in the
gig to collect his wife and son.

Amy walked down the path with Malcolm in her
arms, Mrs Coulson beside her carrying Amy’s bundle. At the gate,
Amy impulsively flung one arm around the nurse’s neck and kissed
her, careful not to crush the baby as she did so. She turned and
saw Charlie standing by the gig watching.

‘She’s been very kind to me,’ Amy said,
abashed at being caught in such an outburst of emotion.

Mrs Coulson smiled at her. ‘Now, who could
help being kind to you?’ She turned to Charlie and fixed him with a
serious look. ‘You’ve a sweet little wife, Mr Stewart. I hope you
look after her properly.’

Charlie frowned, but made no reply. He took
Amy’s bundle and loaded it into the gig, then helped her up to the
seat. When Amy looked back at Mrs Coulson the nurse was dabbing at
her eyes with a handkerchief, but she put it away quickly and waved
them off.

Amy had worried that Malcolm might wake and
want to be fed during the drive home, but the gig’s motion seemed
to soothe him. He was still sleeping in her arms when they went
into the house. She put him in the cradle Charlie had made, and
went out to start cooking dinner. She knew it would take her what
was left of the afternoon; she still tired easily, and her body
ached if she stood for long without a rest. Amy ignored the pile of
dirty dishes for the moment; cleaning the house would have to be
done a little at a time.

That evening Amy once again had her sewing
and Charlie his newspaper to hide behind, so that their silence did
not appear awkward. At nine o’clock Charlie stood up and said
‘bed’. He put out the lamp, walked out of the parlour and into the
bedroom. Amy sat on in her chair for a few moments, gathering
strength for what was to come. She had never before denied Charlie
anything he demanded.