Sentence of Marriage (56 page)

‘She’s always been more trouble than help.’

‘Has she? Then you won’t mind managing without her. What was it? A nursemaid, an unpaid servant, and what else? Something else unpaid?’

‘Don’t bring all that up again, Jack.’

‘Listen to me, Susannah. I’ll tell you what I do expect of you. I expect you to keep the place decent and get reasonable meals on the table. That and look after the little fellows. That’s all I ask of you. Understand? Nothing else. That’s not too much to ask, is it?’

‘It’s enough,’ Susannah muttered.

‘Maybe. But it’s not too much. So get on with it.’

*

Amy hoped the days would start going faster when she had got used to her life in the boarding house. But even after weeks had passed, there still seemed to be the same number of hours in each day, and each of her waking hours dragged.

She came to know the room intimately, from the details of the pattern on the rug down to the tiny nicks in the paint of the windowsill. The window looked onto the blank wall of a house much the same as the one she was in. If she opened it and leaned out, all she could see was a hedge behind the boarding house in one direction, with the barest glimpse of a large windmill beyond it, and the front fence in the other.

There was absolutely nothing she needed to do. That was the hardest thing of all to get used to. Mrs Kirkham brought her meals in on a tray, and collected the tray when she had finished. That was the only time Amy saw another human being. If she had wanted, there was nothing to stop her lying in bed all day. But although getting out of bed became more and more of an exertion, she made herself get up, get dressed and tidy the bed. At least it filled in the first ten minutes of the day, and let her feel a tiny bit useful.

At first Amy tried to keep track of the days, but each was so much like the one before that she had to give up the attempt. She knew when it was a Sunday, because she could hear church bells ringing, but she lost count of Sundays after the first few. She wished she could write to Lizzie, but that would have meant begging paper and money for postage from Mrs Kirkham. She could tell the landlady was reluctant to have any more to do with her than she had to.

Even walking around the room became an effort, as her bulk increased and her muscles grew weaker from lack of use. For a time Amy tried to count out ten circuits of the room every morning and afternoon, but gradually it began to seem a better idea to spend the day just sitting by the window, looking at the wall or the hedge or the fence.

Amy was watching the shifting patterns of sunlight on the blank wall one day when Mrs Kirkham came in with her lunch. She still felt awkward at being waited on, but that was a tiny part of her discomfort.

Mrs Kirkham, as usual, made a small effort at conversation. ‘It’s getting warmer lately.’

‘Yes,’ Amy agreed.

‘Not long till summer, really. It’ll be November before long.’

‘November—will it? What’s the date today, Mrs Kirkham?’

‘The sixteenth.’

‘Of October?’

‘Yes. It’s Thursday.’ She looked anxiously at Amy. ‘There’s nothing special about the date, is there? I thought you weren’t due till November. Around the tenth of November, your aunt said.’

‘Yes, that’s right—that’s what she told me, anyway. No, it’s just that…’ She trailed off. She was quite sure Mrs Kirkham would not be interested in knowing that Amy had turned sixteen three days before.

‘Didn’t you even know what month it was?’ Mrs Kirkham asked, frowning slightly.

‘No. Every day’s the same, you see.’ Amy tried to smile.

‘Would you like a paper to read?’

‘Yes, please!’ Amy said, hoping she didn’t sound too eager.

Mrs Kirkham disappeared, and was soon back with a
New Zealand Herald
. ‘It’s yesterday’s, I’m afraid. Still, I expect you’re not too worried about that.’

Amy would have been happy with a paper ten years old. She devoured the newspaper from cover to cover, even reading all the tiny advertisements for grazing and stock feed. It was the happiest waking half-hour she had spent since she had arrived in Auckland.

After that Mrs Kirkham brought her a newspaper with breakfast every day, along with an occasional ladies’ paper. Amy only wished she could have had more than an hour or so’s worth of reading to help the day along. The chair became too uncomfortable after another week or two, and she took to sitting on the bed all day, though she still made the effort to get dressed every morning.

Amy woke early on the first of November, and was annoyed when she realised it was barely sunrise. That meant it was only about five o’clock, so it would be two hours or more before Mrs Kirkham came in with her breakfast. Two hours to lie in bed, too uncomfortable even to toss and turn.

She felt more uncomfortable than usual this morning, with a dull ache low in her back. When she twisted around to try and find a better way to lie, the discomfort seemed to spread out. The pain became sharp for a few seconds, then to Amy’s relief it faded away. She lay very still, hoping to drift back to sleep, and she had managed to fall into a light doze when the ache returned. Again it lasted barely a minute, but Amy was thoroughly awake by now. It was no use even trying to sleep if she was going to be disturbed every few minutes. The baby had chosen an awkward time to be active this morning.

She got up, put on the green dress, and made the bed, interrupted in the task by another wave of pain. Then she drew the curtains and sat by the window in the sunshine to re-read one of Mrs Kirkham’s magazines. She almost knew the articles off by heart now.

But it was hard to concentrate when every twenty minutes or so the ache would spread across her back again. Each pain did not last long, but while it was there it took all her attention. She put the magazine down in disgust, and by the time Mrs Kirkham brought her breakfast Amy was pacing the floor, her hands braced against her back.

Mrs Kirkham took one look at her and put the tray down on the washstand. ‘Where does it hurt?’

‘Oh, it’s nothing much, only a bit of backache. It’s just a bit worse than what I’ve had up till now.’

‘Low in your back? And spreading across towards your hips?’

‘Yes.’

‘And is it coming and going?’

‘Well, yes, it is. It lasts a minute or so, then it goes away for… oh, I don’t know, maybe quarter of an hour.’

‘It’s started. You won’t want this,’ Mrs Kirkham said, glancing at the breakfast tray. ‘I’ll pack your things.’ She opened the wardrobe and pulled out Amy’s case and her other dress.

‘What’s started? What are you doing?’

‘The child’s coming.’ She lifted Amy’s underwear in a heap from the drawer and shoved it into the case, then looked around the room to see if she had missed anything.

‘But it’s not time yet,’ Amy protested. ‘Not for another week at least.’

‘Babies come when they’re ready, not when you are. My first was two weeks ahead of time. You wait there, I’ll run out and find a cab.’ She darted out of the room, leaving Amy wide-eyed and trembling.

So it had started, and she had been too stupid to notice. She wished she knew just what was going to happen. She had seen enough calves being born to know that the baby was going to come out from between her legs, though it was hard to believe there was enough room for it. She remembered hearing Susannah cry out through the wall before the chloroform had silenced her, but Aunt Edie had said that wasn’t real pain. Susannah had told her she wouldn’t have to know what was happening, because the chloroform would make her sleep, but Susannah had said it was terrible when she had Thomas and George. Of course Susannah always made an awful fuss about everything; maybe it wouldn’t be too bad. And the chloroform would take away the pain before it was too hard to bear.

Mrs Kirkham was soon back, and she helped Amy on with her cloak. ‘We’ll be on our way, then. Oh, just one thing, Miss Leith.’ She pulled a piece of paper from her apron pocket; Amy saw that it was a ten-shilling note. ‘Your aunt left extra money in case I needed to cable her, and you’re leaving me a week earlier than I expected, anyway. I don’t want money I’m not entitled to.’ She slipped the note into the bottom of Amy’s case, then helped her outside to the waiting cab.

The nursing home was only a few minutes’ drive away. Mrs Kirkham was soon leading Amy up a short flight of steps and through an open door. They went a little way down an echoing corridor and into a room where a severe-looking woman with her hair scraped under a white cap sat behind a desk, writing in a large notebook. She looked up from her writing when Amy and Mrs Kirkham walked in.

‘I’ve a patient for you,’ Mrs Kirkham said. ‘I believe she’s booked in, though it’s a week or so early. Miss Leith.’

‘Miss?’ the woman at the desk echoed. She looked disapprovingly at Amy.

‘Yes. Miss Elizabeth Leith.’

The woman glanced down at her book and flipped over a page. ‘I have an Amy Leith written down.’

‘That’s me,’ Amy put in. ‘My name’s Amy.’

Mrs Kirkham looked at her in surprise. ‘Your aunt told me your name was Elizabeth.’

‘It’s not. It’s Amy.’
And she’s not my aunt
.

‘Her pains have started?’ the nurse asked Mrs Kirkham.

‘Yes. This morning, I believe.’ As if on cue, Amy felt another pain. She grimaced at it.

‘Right, we’ll soon have you sorted out.’ The nurse rose from her chair, picked up the suitcase, took Amy’s arm and propelled her down the corridor. When Amy turned to thank Mrs Kirkham, the landlady had already gone.

The nurse led Amy into a small room that contained an iron bedstead and little else. ‘I’m Sister Prescott,’ she said. ‘Get undressed.’ It was obvious from her voice that she was not used to being disobeyed. Amy slipped off her cloak and unbuttoned her dress as quickly as she could. ‘You’re not married,’ Sister Prescott said.

‘No,’ Amy admitted, her voice muffled through the fabric of her dress as she pulled it over her head.

The nurse made a noise of disgust. ‘I don’t particularly like having young whores in my nursing home.’

‘I’m not a whore,’ Amy protested feebly. She was not sure exactly what a whore was, but from her father’s reaction when Susannah had called her that name she knew it must be a very wicked sort of girl.

‘What do you call yourself, then? You’re not a decent married woman, are you?’ Amy said nothing. ‘Come on, take the rest of your things off, then put this on.’ She pointed to a long robe that lay across the end of the bed, then watched as Amy removed her underwear. It was hard to strip under Sister Prescott’s gaze, but she knew it would be no use asking the nurse to look away. She snatched at the gown and pulled it on quickly, the coarse linen rasping at her flesh.

The nurse pulled back the sheet and made Amy lie down. She washed her hands at a basin in one corner of the room and came back to the bed. She pushed Amy’s knees up and out, so that the girl was lying with her legs sprawled wide apart, and started prodding at Amy’s abdomen. Sister Prescott’s touch was rough, and Amy cried out in shock.

‘What are you doing to me?’

‘Seeing if the child’s lying right. Now I want to see how far along you are. Quiet.’ Amy could not see what the nurse was doing, but she felt hands probing between her thighs. She managed to smother a cry of distress when the probing became more painful. ‘Only two fingers dilated,’ she heard the nurse mutter, but it meant nothing to Amy.

‘Nothing’s going to happen before evening,’ Sister Prescott said, withdrawing her hands and wiping them on a cloth.

Another wave of pain spread out from Amy’s back; this time it was sharper, and seemed to spread out further. ‘Sister,’ she said timidly when the wave had passed, ‘it hurts a bit when the pains come.’

‘I know it does. It’s the worst pain a woman can endure. That’s nothing, what you’re feeling now. Come evening, you’ll know what pain is.’

‘When will you give me something?’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Something to take the pain away. Chloroform.’

‘I don’t waste chloroform on bad girls like you. That’s for easing the pain of respectable women.’

Fear gripped Amy like a hand clutching at her heart. ‘But… but it’ll get really bad later, won’t it?’

‘Yes, it will. I want you to remember it afterwards. I don’t want to see you back here in twelve months carrying another bastard. That’s what happens when things are made too easy for bad girls.’

Amy was too frightened for tears, but her voice trembled as she spoke. ‘But what if I can’t bear it?’

The nurse leaned over her and spoke quietly. ‘You’ll have to bear it, won’t you? And you should have thought about that before you lay with a man who wasn’t your husband.’ She went out, shutting the door behind her with a slam that rang against the bare walls of the room. Amy felt the noise echoing inside her head like a throbbing pain.

November 1884

Amy lay on the hard bed waiting for each new wave of pain. At first she tried to be brave and tell herself it wasn’t too bad, she could bear this, but as the day wore on the pains became stronger and more persistent. When each one came she tensed against it. Her clenched jaw soon ached, a discomfort that remained steady as the sharper pain waxed and waned.