Sentence of Marriage (20 page)

*

Susannah had decided her son was to be called Thomas James, after her own father and brother, and Jack seemed happy to let her please herself over the names. When Thomas was three weeks old and Susannah had taken her first tentative excursions out of the bedroom, she announced that she wanted to have a tea party to show off her new son. Amy made the nicest cakes and biscuits she knew how to, and Jack was given the job of delivering Susannah’s invitations to the chosen women.

On the appointed afternoon, Amy helped Susannah settle herself comfortably in the best armchair, Thomas on her lap, before the guests arrived. It was a small group that assembled in the Leith’s parlour. Edie was there with little Ernie, and Lizzie had invited herself. Bessie Aitken’s mother Rachel brought her younger two children (Bessie was at school); Amy, whose eyes had grown sharper to the signs, thought Rachel might be expecting a fourth baby. With Rachel came her friend and neighbour Marion Forster, with her own two-year-old son.

After serving the tea and cakes, Amy and Lizzie took over the task of supervising the four toddlers in a corner of the parlour, where the women soon ignored their presence. The girls plied the children with cakes, which kept them remarkably quiet if not clean. Amy resigned herself to giving the rugs an extra-good beating later.

‘He’s a fine, healthy-looking boy,’ Rachel said, brushing Thomas’ cheek with her hand. ‘You must be relieved it’s all over.’ She smiled at Susannah with the sympathy of shared pains.

‘Oh, yes,’ Susannah said with feeling. ‘I had a terrible time of it—I thought I was going to die.’

‘Worst pain in the world, soonest forgotten,’ Edie said complacently. ‘The pain’s nothing much with chloroform, anyway—having Ernie was no trouble, not when I think about Annie and me delivering one another’s babies with nothing to help. Now
that
was pain.’

‘I didn’t have any till it was nearly over,’ Susannah said huffily.

‘You had it as soon as it was safe—you don’t know how long it was after that, you were asleep, you silly girl.’ Edie smiled at her, but Susannah did not return the smile.

‘We’re lucky there’s things to help nowadays,’ Marion agreed. ‘Things are much easier for women now.’

Thomas started to cry, and Susannah opened her bodice and put him to her breast. ‘I’ll be glad when this part’s over and he can eat solid food. When will that be, Edie?’

‘Well, you can start giving him a bit of milky gruel when he’s five or six months old, but you’ll want to keep feeding him yourself for a year.’

‘A whole year! Oh, no, I can’t put up with that,’ Susannah said firmly.

‘I always feed mine for at least a year,’ Rachel said in her shy way. ‘I think it’s better for them—and it’s certainly better for me.’

‘I fed Bobby for a year and a half,’ Marion chimed in. ‘It’s no bother, really.’

‘Ugh! It’s so… well, undignified. It’ll ruin my figure, too, a child dragging at me like this.’

‘There’s one thing that’d ruin your figure faster than that, Susannah—that’s having a child every year. Best way of spreading them out is to keep on feeding him yourself as long as you can.’ Edie sounded very certain.

‘Really?’ Susannah looked more interested. ‘Is that how it works?’

‘Oh, yes. You hardly ever hear of a woman getting with child while she’s still feeding the last one.’

‘That’s how I’ve put off having another one this long,’ said Marion.

‘It’s how I’ve got two years between all mine, too,’ Rachel added.

‘Oh. Well, I suppose I can put up with it, then.’

‘Of course you can slow them down a bit by fiddling about with calendars and dates,’ Edie said vaguely. ‘It’s no good young women like you trying that, though. Wait until you’ve been married a few more years, Susannah, and I’ll tell you about that.’

Edie leaned towards the other women and spoke more quietly. ‘I had a bit of a fright myself last month,’ she said in a conspiratorial tone. ‘The bleeding was a couple of weeks late—I’m never sure exactly when it’s coming, I always forget to make a note of the date when I get it, but I know it was late. It gave me quite a turn, I can tell you—another baby at my age.’

Lizzie’s eyes opened wide at her mother’s words, and she turned to Amy with a horrified expression. ‘Oh, no!’ she mouthed silently.

‘I’d be nearly forty when it was born. Of course, I wouldn’t mind too much myself.’ She smiled fondly at little Thomas, who was still sucking greedily. ‘Arthur would’ve gone crook, though—he reckoned he was a bit past putting up with babies when Ernie came along. Not that he isn’t sweet with the little fellow most of the time.’

‘You’re not, are you?’ Susannah asked, looking rather disapproving.

‘No,’ Edie said, and it was hard to tell if she were more relieved or disappointed. ‘The bleeding turned up in the end. No, I think it meant the opposite, really—I’m about finished with having babies, and I won’t be getting the bleeding much longer.’ Lizzie gave an exaggerated, though silent, sigh of relief.

‘I’ve got another child coming,’ Rachel said shyly. ‘I think I’m going to have a big family—I’m only twenty-four now.’

‘You must have married very young,’ Susannah said, turning to her with a slight frown.

‘Yes, I was only seventeen. That’s too young, really, I think eighteen’s soon enough. Matt was older, he was twenty-five, so at least one of us was grown up.’ She smiled ruefully. ‘I don’t think he’ll let our girls get married before they’re eighteen.’

Lizzie pulled a face. ‘That’s just what Ma needs to hear, I
don’t
think,’ she whispered to Amy.

‘She’ll have forgotten by the time she gets home,’ Amy whispered back.

*

For a time Susannah appeared to enjoy the status a new baby gave her among other women, but the novelty of the baby soon seemed to wear off. Amy found there were unpleasant tasks involved in caring for a child, and as nasty smells and messes upset city-bred Susannah far more than they did Amy, the girl took on much of the napkin-washing and cleaning up of vomit that Thomas generated. Susannah seemed to be tired most of the time; even when Thomas started sleeping through the night, when he was four months old, he still woke much earlier in the morning than his mother would have chosen. Amy now always brought Susannah a cup of tea when Jack had got up, and she got into the habit of taking the baby out to the kitchen with her after Susannah had given him his first feed of the day so that her stepmother could doze for an extra half hour. Thomas seemed content to gurgle to himself in the nest of blankets Amy made for him in a warm corner of the kitchen until his mother emerged to take charge of him again.

Susannah’s mother had sent parcels of beautifully embroidered baby gowns, more ornamental than useful, when Susannah had written to let her parents know they had a new grandchild. One day in early December, while Amy was holding Thomas and Susannah was having her morning tea, Jack brought home another parcel. Susannah was at first delighted over the delicate lacy shawl that emerged, but when she read the letter that had been tucked into the shawl she made a sound of dismay.

‘Oh no! It’s not fair!’

‘What’s wrong?’ Jack asked. ‘Not bad news from your mother?’

‘Yes… no… oh, it’s just not fair. Constance and Henry have got a new house—in Judges Bay!’

‘Is that bad?’ Amy asked.

‘It’s just the nicest part of Auckland, that’s all,’ Susannah said, obviously close to tears. ‘My sister living in Judges Bay, and I’m in this dump.’ Thomas stirred in Amy’s arms and began to cry, and Susannah snatched him up to carry him off to the bedroom, where she could feed him in privacy. ‘I’m turning into an old frump, stuck out here with this little parasite draining my strength and ruining my figure,’ she flung over her shoulder as she stalked out of the kitchen. Amy and Jack looked at each other, then went about their work. An unspoken agreement had evolved between them not to discuss Susannah’s more unreasonable outbursts.

*

Even Susannah now considered the elaborate dresses she had brought from Auckland too fussy for the country during the height of summer, and she had taken to wearing plainer cotton ones around the house. She found the hot, dusty trip into town too much to bear more than once a week, and on particularly humid Sundays she even felt unable to go to church. Throughout January Amy thought Susannah seemed worried about something, but she knew better than to pry. One February morning when Amy went into Susannah’s room to bring her cup of tea and take Thomas away, she found Susannah standing in her nightdress in front of her open wardrobe, stroking her dresses and looking at them with an expression that was almost hungry.

Amy put the cup on Susannah’s bedside table and went over to stand beside her. ‘Those dresses are really beautiful,’ she said softly. ‘It’ll be nice to see you wearing them again this winter.’

‘I hope so,’ Susannah said. There was a catch in her voice that puzzled Amy, but Susannah’s feelings were so often a mystery that she thought little of it. ‘They’re all I’ve got left.’

‘You could get some more.’

‘That’s not what I meant. They’re all that’s left from how I used to be, before I got like this.’ There was a silence between them, then Susannah got back into bed and picked up her teacup.

Amy picked Thomas up and carried him from the room. She was not sure why Susannah seemed so desperately unhappy, but she thought perhaps she understood just a little of her stepmother’s longing for the life she had led in Auckland.

Amy was playing with Thomas, who was just learning to push himself up on his hands to look around, in the kitchen after breakfast when Susannah came out. ‘Look after him for me, I’m going out for a little while,’ she said.

‘Where are you going?’ Amy asked in surprise, but Susannah went to the porch and put her boots on without a word, then closed the door firmly behind her.

‘Where’s your ma?’ Jack asked when he came in for morning tea. He took his little son onto his lap. ‘Not still in bed, is she?’

‘No, she got up quite early and went out—I don’t know where she’s gone, she didn’t say,’ said Amy.

Jack sighed. ‘I wonder what’s got into her now—she’s not usually much of a one for taking walks, especially in this heat. Oh well, the fresh air might do her some good—she’s inclined to spend too much time inside moping.’ He sniffed. ‘The air’s not too sweet in here, what’s that?’ He felt gingerly at Thomas’ napkin. ‘Hmm, I think this little fellow needs cleaning up.’

‘I’ll change him, Pa.’ Amy scooped up the baby and took him to Jack and Susannah’s room. When he had a clean napkin on she thought he looked sleepy, so she laid him down in his cradle and crept out of the room, closing the door softly.

She was almost back at the kitchen when she heard the outside door open and close. Amy could tell from the tread that it was Susannah, and she stopped in the passage near the open door, unsure whether to go into the kitchen or not.

‘Where’ve you been?’ she heard her father ask. ‘Amy said you rushed off somewhere and wouldn’t tell her where you were going.’

I didn’t say it like that
, Amy thought in mild irritation.

‘I don’t have to ask that child’s permission to step outside the door, do I?’ Susannah sounded barely in control, and Amy’s heart sank.

‘Of course you don’t, we just wondered where you were—have you been crying, Susannah?’ Amy heard her father’s step as he crossed the floor.

‘Don’t touch me!’ Susannah flung at him, but she went on more quietly. ‘I’ve been to see Edie to ask her about what’s happening to me. Things didn’t seem right, not like how she said they’d be. And they’re not right. All that talk about how it couldn’t happen while I had all the unpleasantness of feeding him myself—it wasn’t true.’ She fell silent for a few moments. ‘I’m with child again.’

‘That’s nothing to be upset about!’ Jack said, delight in his voice.

‘Yes, trust you to think that,’ Susannah said bitterly. ‘Just like one of your cows, regular as clockwork every August. Well, I’m not one of your cows, and I don’t want to be treated like one. I’m not going to put up with it, do you hear?’

‘Now, Susannah, there’s no need to talk like that. It’s a bit sooner than you thought, but that just means the little ones will be good playmates for each other. You would’ve had another one soon enough, anyway—what difference does it make whether there’s one year between them or two?’

‘Take your hands off me!’ Susannah screamed. She rushed from the room, too abruptly for Amy to make a dash for her own bedroom.

Susannah came face to face with her and stopped in her tracks. ‘Listening at keyholes, were you?’ she said, her voice raw with suppressed weeping, then she pushed past Amy and disappeared into her bedroom. She slammed the door after her, and Amy heard Thomas start crying, but the baby’s wails were soon drowned by his mother’s.

February – December 1883

It seemed to Amy that the remaining months of Susannah’s second pregnancy were like living the previous year all over again. With this baby being due just a year after Thomas’s birth, Susannah was at the same stage each month as she had been exactly twelve months beforehand.