Settling the Account (57 page)

‘It didn’t keep you awake at night, did
it?’

‘Oh, no, nothing keeps me awake. Though it
might have if I’d been on my own,’ she added thoughtfully. ‘You
can’t be scared with four of you in a room, eh?’

‘I’ve got another one by Miss Brontë, I’ll
bring it next time I come, shall I?’

*

Amy made her farewells and left. Frank and
Lizzie waved her out of sight, leaving the girls to get morning tea
ready.

‘Fancy having to hurry back to that sour old
so-and-so,’ Frank said. ‘Don’t know how she stays as bright as she
does, living with him.’

‘And no Dave to cheer her up.’ Lizzie
frowned as she watched the small figure fade into the distance.
‘I’m worried about her, Frank. It’s not healthy, being stuck in the
house with a man like Charlie.’

Frank remembered his own thoughtless remark
guiltily. ‘She seems all right.’

‘Amy always
seems
all right—she
doesn’t like to worry other people. I’ll just have to try and keep
an eye on her. I don’t want her going funny in the head.’

‘Couldn’t really blame her if she did.’

*

There were times when Frank thought that
April would never come. But come it did, and the Easter wedding was
everything Maudie and her mother had hoped for.

It was a perfect day, from the golden autumn
weather to the beauty of the simple service and the bounty of the
food and drink that followed it, the amount left over making a
mockery of Lizzie’s earlier anxiety as to whether there would be
enough. A day that would bring a smile to Frank’s face whenever he
recalled it. And at the centre of everything, shining like a
brilliant star, was his beautiful daughter.

The dress was part of it. When Frank first
saw Maudie in the folds of white lace shot through with silver, so
full and soft that she seemed to be floating rather than walking,
he began to comprehend that a dress could just possibly be worth
twenty-five guineas. But the face under the veil, bright with joy,
could not have been bought at any price.

‘I don’t know if I can bring myself to give
you away, love,’ Frank told her as they prepared to make their
grand entrance through the assembled guests. ‘You’re so gorgeous I
might want to keep you for myself.’ Maudie laughed aloud in sheer
delight, gave him the last kiss he would ever receive from her as
an unmarried girl, and tugged at his arm to hurry him up, showing
him that she was more than ready to be given away.

After the service Maudie and Richard moved
among their guests, Maudie bestowing radiant smiles on everyone she
came near. Maisie and the younger girls, looking like bunches of
blossom in their pink satin dresses, hovered about her from time to
time as they helped carry plates and glasses, their prettiness
accentuating Maudie’s silver and white glory.

Maudie was stunning. She smiled and laughed,
twirled to show off her dress, kissed people, and proudly displayed
the gold band that had taken its place beside her engagement ring.
It was the greatest day Maudie had ever had in her life, and she
loved every moment of it.

It was no wonder, Frank thought, that
Richard could not take his eyes off his new wife. All afternoon
Richard watched Maudie with a bemused smile, as if he could hardly
believe his good fortune. When their eyes met, as they often did,
they would smile more brightly than ever, already sharing unspoken
secrets.

By the time the sun had edged close to the
hills few of the guests were showing any sign of wanting to leave,
but Frank saw Richard and Maudie exchange a glance that had an
obvious message in it. He was not surprised when the newlyweds
sought him and Lizzie out soon afterwards, to say their goodbyes
quietly before farewelling the crush of guests.

Maudie gave them both a rapturous embrace,
tilting her veil a little askew in the process. It gave her a
slightly rumpled appearance that Frank observed with a smile. It
was good to see a trace of his little girl again in this dazzling
young woman. Richard gave Lizzie the warmest kiss she had ever
received from him, and Frank observed with amusement the way it
made her cheeks pink with pleasure.

‘Take good care of my girl for me, eh,
Richard?’ Frank said as the two of them shook hands.

‘I will,’ Richard said, gripping his hand
more tightly. His gaze sought out Maudie’s as if he could not bear
to let her out of his sight for more than a moment, and their eyes
met again in that special smile. ‘I will.’

Then it was time to follow them to Richard’s
gig and wave them off, calling good wishes after them as the horse
trotted down the track, leading Maudie away from home for the first
night she had ever spent beyond the valley.

The departure of the bridal couple did not
mean the end of the celebrations. Even when the tardiest of the
guests had gone home, Lizzie and the older girls had to put the
house back in some semblance of order and see that the little ones
were properly settled before going to bed themselves. It was close
to midnight before Frank could slide his arms around Lizzie and
feel her warm body nestling against him in the darkness, both of
them too weary for immediate sleep.

‘Funny to think she won’t be coming back
here, eh?’ he murmured in Lizzie’s ear. ‘We won’t even see her for
two weeks.’

‘Ridiculous idea,’ Lizzie said, managing to
sound disapproving even through her drowsy tone. ‘Fancy going away
like that when they’ve just got married! No one’ll be able to visit
them or anything.’

Richard had startled Maudie’s relations at
the beginning of their engagement by buying her an extravagantly
beautiful diamond ring; they had been even more startled to learn
that he intended to take her on a honeymoon. After spending their
first night at Richard’s house, they were to catch the boat for
Tauranga the next morning on the first stage of their trip.

‘I don’t know, I think it’s a pretty good
idea,’ Frank said. ‘Going off by yourselves, sort of getting to
know one another properly without everyone staring at you and
wondering how you’re getting on.’ He gave Lizzie a squeeze. ‘How
about I take you on a honeymoon sometime, eh?’

Lizzie gave a snort. ‘It’s a bit late for
that, isn’t it? You must know me pretty well by now.’

‘You could do with a holiday, though. And
wouldn’t you like to see somewhere different? Maybe Rotorua, like
Maudie.’

‘Don’t talk rot, Frank. What’s wrong with
here that I’d want to go wandering off somewhere else? As if I
could leave the little ones, anyway.’

‘I suppose not.’ Frank put the idea in the
back of his mind along with a few other distant plans that Lizzie
had little inkling of, to be saved for the day when the youngest
children were no longer quite so young. ‘Maudie looked really
happy, didn’t she? Not even nervous or anything. You had a talk
with her about it all, didn’t you?’

‘Yes, I managed to shoo the other girls away
for a minute this morning so I could tell her what she needed to
know. Nervous? I think she was looking forward to it! The little
minx,’ she added complacently.

Frank yawned luxuriantly and pulled Lizzie
closer. ‘I always said Maudie was just like her ma,’ he said,
knowing that Lizzie was too sleepy to take the bait. ‘I hope
Richard wasn’t as tired as I am,’ he murmured as he reluctantly let
sleep take him.

*

Frank was surprised at how flat the
household seemed without Maudie. It took months for him to get over
a mild sense of disappointment every time he came into the house
expecting to see her and finding her missing.

Soon after Maudie’s marriage, Frank decided
the time had come to abandon the pretence that Maisie still lived
with her family and only ‘worked’ for Lizzie. Lizzie had lost the
help of her oldest daughter around the house, and Maudie’s
departure had left enough room in the girls’ bedroom for Maisie to
take her place. Lizzie readily agreed, and Maisie was delighted at
the idea, fear of her father’s reaction to losing his sole reliable
source of income being her only worry.

Frank set off one day with Maisie bouncing
behind him on the horse’s rump and a wad of bank notes in his
jacket pocket. When they arrived home an hour later, Maisie’s face
was wreathed in smiles but Frank was grim and silent.

‘How much?’ Lizzie asked when they were
alone.

‘Ten pounds. I think he expected me to try
and beat him down or something, but I wasn’t going to go haggling
over Maisie as if she was a cow. I just gave him what he asked for.
And I hope he drinks himself to death on it,’ Frank said bitterly.
‘I managed to slip her aunt five pounds, too, when that bugger was
out of sight. She seems to be the only one who’s ever taken any
notice of Maisie around there.’

‘You expected to pay about that, didn’t you?
What’s got you in such a mood?’

‘It’s not the money. It’s what that
so-and-so said about it.’ Frank banged his fist on the table in
remembered anger. ‘Do you know he as good as said I use Maisie as
if she was a sort of live-in whore? He reckoned it wasn’t a bad
price to have a girl around whenever I want one, and he said I must
be… no, I wouldn’t repeat that stuff in front of you.’

‘What a dreadful thing to say!’ Lizzie said,
outraged. ‘Fancy saying such a thing about you! Ooh, I’d have given
him a piece of my mind if I’d been there.’

Frank made a noise of disgust. ‘I don’t care
what he says about me. You know what made me really wild? He
thought it was funny. The man thinks I’ve been using his daughter
like that for years, then he watches me take her away without
batting an eyelid. He bloody well laughed! I just about knocked his
teeth out for him.’

‘Did Maisie hear him say any of that?’
Lizzie asked, suddenly solemn.

‘I don’t know. I hope not. I’d sent her off
to get her stuff before he started. She didn’t seem to have
much.’

‘A spare pair of drawers—damp, I might add,
I don’t think they know how to give clothes a decent airing in that
house. And a raggy old doll. She bawled when I wanted to take it
off her and wash it, she said something about her ma making it for
her. She’s had it hidden under the house for years, it’s just about
falling apart. I might help her make a new dress for it when she’s
settled down a bit, that’ll hold the insides in.’

Frank smiled gratefully at her, feeling his
anger slip away. ‘You’re an old softie, Lizzie. Well, I’m glad I’ll
never have to go near that place again. Neither will Maisie. Gee,
those girls are going to have tons of room in there, aren’t they?
All that stuff of Maudie’s she took with her! Boxes and boxes of
it.’

‘She’ll be taking Rosie, too, if she’s not
careful. Rosie’s always asking Richard when she can come and live
with him. Especially when she’s in trouble with me. Kate’s nearly
as bad.’

‘Rosie’s still telling him off about not
taking her on their honeymoon, too,’ Frank said with a grin.
‘You’re going to have to watch her when she gets a bit older.’

‘Daughters!’ Lizzie said, spreading her
hands wide in an extravagant gesture of defeat. ‘Who’d have
them?’

*

A new arrival in the district was always a
welcome novelty, and when Lily announced that the latest teacher to
arrive in town was distantly related to her, Lily’s family were
eager to make the young woman’s acquaintance. They found her rather
different from what they had expected.

‘You know the new teacher’s coming?’ Lizzie
said to Amy shortly before her next soirée. ‘I had to ask her, what
with her being Lily’s cousin, but you don’t need to take any notice
of her.’

‘Whatever do you mean, Lizzie?’ Amy asked.
‘What’s wrong with her?’

‘Oh, she’s a funny sort of person,’ Lizzie
said, frowning in disapproval. ‘Frank can’t stand her.’

‘Hey, hey, that’s a bit strong,’ Frank
protested. ‘I didn’t say that. She’s just… well, like you said,
she’s a bit funny. She’s got this way of looking at you, Amy, like
she’s caught you out doing something you shouldn’t have. I suppose
it’s to do with her being a teacher—she probably gives the kids at
school a look like that when she’s going to thump them. But I sort
of felt guilty, the way she was staring at me.’

‘And
nosy
,’ Lizzie put in. ‘She kept
wanting to know what everyone’s names were and how we were all
related—she’s sort of fussy, you know? Wanted to be sure she was
getting it all right. You could see Lily was embarrassed, with her
being a relation.’

‘In the end Bill asked her if she was
writing a book,’ Frank said with a grin. ‘That settled her down,
she felt a bit stupid about that, I think.’

‘Serves her right,’ Lizzie said.

‘I don’t like people asking me a lot of
questions,’ Amy said uneasily. ‘Still, I don’t suppose she’ll take
much notice of me, I’m not very interesting. Is Maudie coming?’

‘Humph!’ Lizzie said. ‘I suppose Mrs
Townsend might just decide to drop in on us. I did tell her to
come, but of course she takes no notice of what I say. I’m only her
mother, after all.’

Frank caught Amy’s eye and raised his
eyebrows. ‘Now, Lizzie, Maudie’s all right,’ he said. ‘She’s just
finding her own ways of doing things around the house, that’s all.
It’s only natural she wants to do that now she’s got her own
place.’

‘And I know nothing about running a house, I
suppose? That’s why she argues with everything I tell her.’

‘She’s not as bad as all that. Give her
time, she’ll start asking you things.’

Lizzie’s lips set in a thin, disapproving
line. ‘And another thing—that girl’s got far too much time on her
hands. Do you know,’ she said, her voice tight with indignation,
‘she gets a woman in to do her work for her?’

‘Just the heavy work, Lizzie,’ Frank said.
‘Richard used to have Mrs Clark in to look after the place before
him and Maudie got married, so he’s kept her on to do the scrubbing
and washing and things,’ he explained to Amy.