Sentence of Marriage (18 page)

Amy looked at her father in disbelief, amazed he could even think about eating when Susannah was going through this mysterious and terrifying experience. ‘You want to have dinner? What about Susannah?’

‘She won’t want anything,’ Jack said, oblivious.

‘Oh.’ Amy was briefly lost for words. ‘Oh, what about Aunt Edie, though? She’s had to rush over here without her dinner.’

‘That’s right—you go and ask her if she wants any.’

‘Me?’ Amy asked doubtfully, but she went into the passage and stopped just outside the bedroom door. ‘Aunt Edie?’ she called.

‘What do you want, child?’ came the reply.

‘Do you want any dinner? Pa’s going to have his now.’

‘Dinner? I am a bit peckish, now I think of it. I’ll wait till the nurse comes, though, she won’t be long now.’ A long wail came from Susannah. ‘Steady, girl, that’s nothing to yell about. Those aren’t real pains—you’ve only just started.’

Amy heated up the food. She was just dishing up the meal when they heard the noise of hooves outside. ‘Thank goodness,’ she breathed. ‘It’ll be really dark soon.’

A few moments later Harry came in, carrying a large cloth bag for the tall, thin woman of about forty who followed him. This was Mrs Parsons, one of the three maternity nurses Ruatane boasted. She had grey-streaked dark hair scraped severely back from her face, and she wore a very plain brown dress under a navy blue cloak. Amy thought she looked like someone for whom even Susannah would have to behave.

‘Well,’ Mrs Parsons said, looking at them all disapprovingly. ‘I wish I’d known how far out the back of beyond you people live before I agreed to follow that young man at such a breakneck pace. That was a most unpleasant journey. Now, where is she?’ She took her bag from Harry.

‘I’ll show you,’ said Amy, helping Mrs Parsons out of her cloak. She led the nurse down the passage, then pointed at the door that she still felt was forbidden to her.

When the nurse had gone into the bedroom, closing the door firmly behind her, Amy went back to the kitchen to finish dishing up. Her father and brothers wolfed down their food while Amy toyed with her own, wincing every time she heard a muffled cry.

The men had almost finished when they were joined by Edie. ‘I’ll leave it up to the nurse for a while. I feel like a good feed,’ Edie said, sinking into a chair with obvious relief. ‘Susannah’s not the easiest of women.’ None of them had anything to say to that.

‘Won’t Susannah want anything?’ Amy asked, fetching another plate for her aunt.

‘No, nothing in her stomach from now till it’s all over, whenever that is. Mrs Parsons said she had a bite to eat before she left, so she won’t need anything till later—keep her something, though.’

‘Poor Susannah. I made her favourite pudding, too.’

‘Food’s the last thing on her mind right now,’ Edie said, helping herself to some potatoes. ‘You make her another pudding in a couple of days, she’ll be grateful then.’

‘Everything all right, Edie?’ Jack asked.

‘Yes, the nurse had a good look, and she says everything’s normal but nothing’s going to happen before morning.’

‘That’s good.’ Amy was amazed at how unconcerned he sounded.

Jack and his sons got up from the table soon afterwards and went off to the parlour, leaving Amy alone with her aunt.

‘Aunt Edie?’ said Amy.

‘Yes, child?’ Edie looked up for a moment from her pudding.

‘Will the nurse give Susannah something to take the pain away?’

‘She will when it gets bad. She’s already had an argument with Susannah—your ma wants something now, but the nurse says she’ll have to wait till she’s further along. That won’t be till after midnight, I expect.’

‘But she’s really bad now!’

‘No, she’s not. She’s just making a fuss, but the nurse can deal with her. Come on, let’s go through to the parlour and see what they’re up to. I’ll have to give Mrs Parsons a break in a couple of hours, so I want to have a nice sit down first.’

Amy went to the other room with her aunt, but it was even worse in the parlour than it had been in the kitchen. Susannah’s bedroom was just across the passage, so her cries were more audible. John and Harry looked uneasily at the door once or twice, then took the lead from their father and seemed to forget about the drama being played out a few feet away.

Mrs Parsons emerged from the bedroom around nine o’clock, and Edie took her place while Amy dished up some food for the nurse. She wanted to ask how Susannah was, but Mrs Parsons looked too forbidding to be questioned, so Amy went back to the parlour and left her to eat in peace. The nurse disappeared back into the bedroom as soon as she had eaten, and Edie stayed there with her.

‘It’s about time we turned in,’ Jack said soon afterwards. ‘John, you’re sleeping with Harry tonight.’

‘Eh? Why?’ John asked.

‘Because I’m sleeping in your room—I can’t sleep in there, can I?’ He indicated his own bedroom. There was clearly no point in arguing, so John and Harry went off to their shared bed with only minor grumbling.

Amy went to her own room, undressed, and got into bed. Despite being tired from all that had happened she could not get to sleep. She tried putting her head under the covers, but she could still hear Susannah’s cries through the wall. Even when she put the pillow over her head, the sounds penetrated faintly.

Later she wondered if she had nodded off briefly between yells, then she decided the cries were closer together.
It must be getting even worse
, she thought in growing distress. The thought stabbed through her:
What if Susannah dies?
For the briefest of moments Amy felt a longing for the life she had had with her family before Susannah arrived, then she was overcome by a rush of guilt. How could she even think such a thing with Susannah suffering on the other side of a thin wall, having Amy’s own brother or sister? Amy sobbed into her pillow over her wretchedness and guilt, finally exhausting herself enough to fall asleep in spite of the noise.

When she woke a few hours later she lay very still for some time, wondering what was strange, before realising it was the silence. What did that mean? Why wasn’t Susannah making any sound? Her heart started to beat faster. Hardly knowing why she did so, Amy slipped out of bed and made her way carefully across the room through the darkness until her outstretched hands met the door. She opened it as quietly as possible and felt her way along the passage until she stood pressed against the wall just outside Susannah’s room. The door was open, and now she could hear voices murmuring; there was another noise that didn’t sound quite human. Without thinking what she was doing, Amy walked through the door.

A lamp glowed, so that the bed was in a circle of soft yellow light. Susannah lay inert in the centre of the bed with her legs sprawled awkwardly; there were patches of blood on her thighs. Edie and Mrs Parsons stood on either side of her, and in her hands the nurse held a dark, wrinkled mass that was blotched with blood and mucus. Something that looked like twisted rope hung from the thing and disappeared between Susannah’s legs. Amy hardly glanced at the other women; it was Susannah who held her gaze. Her stepmother was unnaturally still; far too still to be asleep. Her face had a ghastly pallor in the lamplight. Her mouth hung open, a small trail of saliva running from one corner, and her breathing made a horrible, gurgling sound. Amy was suddenly quite sure that Susannah was going to die.

Amy gave a small cry, and Mrs Parsons looked up. ‘What’s that child doing here?’ she said sharply. ‘Get out of here—this is no place for you.’

Amy fled back to her own room, flung herself into bed and hid her head under the covers to muffle the sound of her weeping.
She’s going to die. I kept upsetting her all the time, and now she’s going to die. I said she was an old maid and she had to take what she could get—Pa said it was bad for her to get in a state, and I upset her. I made her cry. And I thought it was funny when she got a fright about the rooster. And I wished she’d never come, and I kept thinking how nice it used to be without her. And now she’s going to die
.

Amy sobbed until she had no strength left to cry, then she pushed the covers back so that she could breathe and lay exhausted and miserable, wondering when the women would wake her father to tell him about Susannah.

She heard a noise in the passage, and Edie came into her room holding a candle. Her aunt put the candle on Amy’s dressing table, then sat down on the bed. ‘Poor child, you got a fright, didn’t you?’ she said, stroking Amy’s hair, and her kindness made Amy start crying again. ‘Now, you just put it all out of your head and go to sleep—it’s all over now.’

Amy sat up against the pillows. ‘You mean she’s dead?’
Dead
. The finality of the word seemed to drop like a stone.

‘Dead? Of course she’s not—is that what you thought? No, she’s sleeping quietly now, and when she wakes up she’ll find she’s got a fine son to cuddle. What put that idea in your head?’

‘She was so still, and she looked so… horrible. And… that’s how my real mother died, isn’t it?’

‘Who told you that?’ Edie frowned at her.

‘No one told me, but I’ve heard them talking sometimes—Pa and Granny specially. She had a baby, didn’t she, and then she died.’

Edie sighed. ‘Well, if you’ve got the wrong idea I’d better tell you all about it or you’ll fret.’

Her voice took on a different quality, and Amy felt that her aunt was seeing again something that had saddened her deeply. ‘It wasn’t having the baby that killed your ma. She took a chill when she had about two months to go, and she didn’t seem to get better. Then she got a terrible, racking cough that made it hard for her to breathe sometimes.’

‘Couldn’t the doctor help?’

‘Your pa had him out a couple of times, but he just said she had a bit of bronchitis and she’d get better when the weather warmed up. All the time she was getting bigger and bigger, and what with the cough keeping her awake at night she was just plain worn out by the time the baby came. She had a terrible time having that baby. It was a little girl.’ Edie smiled sadly at Amy. ‘She named her Edith, after me. The little one only lived an hour or so. Your granny said the baptising words over her while your pa went for the minister and the doctor—she was right, too, the baby was gone before they got here.’ Edie stopped, seeing the stricken look on Amy’s face. ‘I shouldn’t be telling you all this.’

‘Yes, please Aunt Edie—I want to know, and I don’t think Pa will ever tell me.’

‘No, he won’t. It’s not something that’s easy for him to think about. The doctor said your ma had consumption and he couldn’t do anything for her. Your granny and I had to stop your pa from hitting the stupid man when he said it—he made it sound as if he was talking about whether it might rain tomorrow. But he gave her some things to take the pain away, and she didn’t suffer much after that. You came and stayed with me then, do you remember?’ Amy shook her head. ‘No, of course you don’t, you were only a little thing of two or three. I had you for three months. Your ma died two months after the baby, and… well, your pa wasn’t too bright for a while after that, so I kept you a bit longer. My Alf was only a year old, so Lizzie kept an eye on you for me. I remember she said you kept crying for your Mama at night, and she had to cuddle you and kiss you till you stopped. She thought you were her little sister, I think—you both cried when you went home at last.’

Edie stopped, and Amy saw that her aunt’s cheeks were wet with tears. She realised that her own eyes were streaming unchecked.

‘There, now I’ve made us both miserable,’ said Edie. ‘I’m a fine one, aren’t I? But there’s nothing wrong with Susannah—she’s strong as a horse, that one.’

‘But why does she look so horrible, Aunt Edie? She doesn’t look as though she’s just asleep.’

‘That’s the chloroform. It puts you out soundly, but she’ll wake up right as rain in an hour or two. Don’t you worry, in a couple of days she’ll be growling at you as good as ever.’

‘Really and truly?’ Amy asked, desperately wanting to believe her aunt.

‘Cross my heart. Now, you go to sleep and in the morning you can see your new brother.’

‘Is the baby all right?’ Amy remembered the ugly mass. It hadn’t looked wet and shiny like new-born calves did.

‘Right as rain. Babies don’t look too lovely when they’re just born, but we’ve cleaned him up and he’s all pink and nice now. Your pa’s going to be proud. Now, off you go to sleep.’ She gave Amy a kiss, and Amy put her arms around her aunt’s neck in grateful affection. She was asleep with minutes of Edie’s going.

August 1882 – February 1883

Amy woke the next morning eager to make amends for her guilty thoughts by being helpful to Susannah. She dressed and started making breakfast, then knocked timidly on Susannah’s door.

Mrs Parsons came to the door, looking weary. ‘What do you want?’ the nurse asked.

‘Is Susannah allowed breakfast? I’m just making it now.’

‘No, I don’t want her to have anything solid before lunch. You can bring her a cup of tea if you like.’

By the time Amy had made the tea Edie and Mrs Parsons had appeared in the kitchen, both yawning. She poured them a cup each before going back to Susannah’s room.