Settling the Account (25 page)

So she was, Frank realised in alarm. Lily
blinked rapidly, but several large tears had already escaped to
start coursing down her cheeks. Emma twisted out of Edie’s grip and
rushed to her mother, burying her head in Lily’s lap while Lily’s
arms reached out blindly to pull her close.

‘Mama’s being very foolish,’ Lily said,
forcing back a sob with an effort so fierce her voice sounded
almost harsh. ‘Mama’s very lucky, isn’t she? She’s got you, and
Papa, too, she’s no business crying like a silly girl.’ She fumbled
in her sleeve till she found a handkerchief, and mopped up the
tears. ‘See, Mama’s not crying now. Don’t be upset, darling.’

Lily looked around at the sea of concerned
faces and gave a watery smile. ‘I’m afraid I’m making a fool of
myself. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be a bother. It’s just… it’s
the music, you see,’ she said, as if willing them to understand.
‘I’d forgotten about the music.’

Her face crumpled once more with threatened
tears. ‘I’m sorry,’ she repeated helplessly. She stood up, hoisting
Emma aloft though the effort of lifting the sturdy three-year-old
made her wince. ‘I think Will’s stirring, I’d better go and see to
him.’

Lily rushed from the room with Emma in her
arms to tend to the supposedly wakeful baby, though no one else had
heard any sound from him. Bill stood up and made to follow her, but
Lizzie put a hand on his arm.

‘I’ll see to her, Bill. Don’t worry, she’ll
be all right. I might get her to lie down for a bit. Do you want to
take a look at her, Ma?’

‘Yes, I think I’d better. She might have
hurt herself with all this rushing around, she’s not really over
the other business yet,’ Edie said. ‘Although I thought she seemed
bright enough today, I don’t know why she’s suddenly taken strange
like that.’

When the men were alone in the room, Arthur
strode towards the piano. ‘Women get like that when they’re
bearing,’ he explained with the air of one claiming the wisdom of
superior years. ‘Though I must say Lily’s usually a sensible woman,
it’s not like her to get weepy.’

‘No, it’s not,’ Bill said in a low voice.
‘It’s not like her at all.’

‘This thing must have cost you a few bob,
Frank,’ Arthur said.

‘A bit,’ Frank allowed. He had no intention
of admitting to Arthur the full extent of his extravagance.

‘Humph! You must have money to burn these
days.’

‘A piano’s not burning money,’ Frank said,
smiling amiably. ‘Anyway, it’ll last for years, it’s not as if
we’ll ever need another one.’

Arthur bent down to peer at the keys,
fingering them idly. ‘I suppose it’s a well-made sort of thing.’ He
lifted the ornaments Lizzie had placed on top of the piano, and
Frank realised he was about to open the lid.

‘Hey, be careful,’ Frank said, earning a
glare in return. ‘Um, I mean, I think it’s a bit delicate in
there.’

‘There’s no need to take that tone with me,’
Arthur said. ‘I think I know as much about machinery as you do.’ He
raised the lid and peered inside.

Frank cringed as he watched. ‘Do you want to
come and have a look at my new calves?’ he asked in an attempt at
distraction.

‘No, thank you,’ Arthur said with great
dignity. ‘I’ve seen enough of your cows to last two lifetimes. And
I seem to remember being dragged around those calves the last time
I was here.’

‘They’ve grown since,’ Frank tried, but
without any great hope of success. Arthur had bent down to look
under the keyboard now, without having bothered to replace the top
cover.

‘I’d like to see them, Frank,’ Bill
said.

‘Well… all right, then.’ Frank cast a last,
anxious glance over his shoulder as he and Bill left the room. If
Arthur put finger-marks on the piano, Frank would at least be able
to pretend ignorance when Lizzie complained afterwards. As she
undoubtedly would.

He was easily distracted from the fate of
his new piano by the pleasure of showing off his calves. ‘Maybe you
can give me a hand thinking up a few pedigree names for them—Lizzie
and me’ve run out of ideas. I’ve got some beauties this year,’ he
said as they approached the paddock. ‘Plenty of heifers, too. One
of them’s—’

‘How much does a piano cost, Frank?’ Bill
cut in abruptly.

Frank stopped in mid-stride. Giving evasive
answers to Arthur was fair enough, but he knew it was not nosiness
that had prompted Bill’s blunt question.

‘Forty pounds it cost,’ he admitted. ‘And
that’s without the freight.’

Bill gave a low whistle. ‘As much as that?’
He shook his head dejectedly. ‘Pa’s very fond of Lily, but he’d
never run to forty pounds. I never knew the music meant that much
to her,’ he said quietly.

‘She’s more than welcome to come and use the
piano any time she wants,’ Frank said. ‘I don’t mean teaching
Maudie—just any time she feels like having a play on it.’

‘It won’t be like having her own, though. I
sort of had an idea that if it wasn’t too much I might be able to
put a bit aside—Pa comes to light with the odd bit of money
sometimes, says “Shout yourself a drink” or something—then talk him
into coughing up a few pounds to make up the money.’ Bill snorted.
‘I’d never save forty pounds out of it if I never bought another
drink in my life. Forty pounds!’ he repeated, awed by the sum.
‘We’ve got to cart a hell of a lot of cans of milk to the factory
to get forty pounds.’

Or sell two or three heifers, at the price
he expected to get this season, Frank thought to himself, but he
said nothing aloud. Bill was lost in his own thoughts for a while,
then collected himself.

‘Hey, you must think I’m an ungrateful
bugger,’ he said, managing to laugh. ‘Thanks, Frank, that’s good of
you. I’d like to see her play. I’ll bring her down when I can get
away—she’s not going to be up to riding for a long while yet.’

‘She’s really good, eh? I mean, I knew she
could play, but not like that.’

‘Yes, she is,’ Bill said. ‘She doesn’t talk
about it much, but she told me one time her piano teacher said she
could have been a… what did she call it? A concert pianist. You
know, going round the place playing in front of important
people.’

‘Really?’ Frank said, greatly impressed.

‘Mmm. Her ma wouldn’t let her, though. Said
she didn’t approve of girls going on the stage. Anyway, it would’ve
cost money to start with, and they never had any.’

He gave Frank a wry grin. ‘She should’ve
married a rich bloke like you, eh?’ Seeing Frank’s embarrassment,
Bill clapped him on the back. ‘Well, maybe Pa’ll go soft in the
head one day and let me get some of these fancy cows of yours up at
our place instead of just borrowing your bull to get a few
half-breeds. Then we could start selling calves for heaps like you
do. Let’s have a look at them, anyway.’

‘This is the best one, right here,’ Frank
said. He stroked the soft muzzle that had been thrust towards his
hand as soon as they climbed into the paddock. ‘I’m not going to
sell this one. Isn’t she a beauty? See the line of her back, and
the build of her. She’ll be a good milker, this one—a good bearer,
too. She’s got such a pretty face, I wanted to put Elizabeth in her
name somewhere, but Lizzie says she doesn’t fancy having a cow
named after her.’

‘Call her after Lily, then,’ Bill suggested.
‘Hey, that’s a good one—Jersey Lily, like that Lillie Langtry
woman—you know, the actress the Prince of Wales was meant to be so
keen on.’

‘It’s just right,’ Frank said. ‘It’s an easy
name for people to remember, too, when I start showing her. Jersey
Lily—I’ll write that down when we get back.’

They lingered outside for some time, with
Frank enjoying the chance to show off his calves as well as discuss
some of his plans for further improving the herd. He vaguely
noticed the older children’s arrival, and was surprised to realise
that it was late enough for school to be over, but neither of them
was in any great hurry.

Bill was back to his usual cheerful self by
the time they returned to the house. He became even brighter when
they joined the others in the parlour and found Lily there.

The family had gathered around the piano,
and Lily sat playing a pretty tune to which Edie seemed to know a
few of the words. Emma was perched on her mother’s lap, making
playing awkward, but Lily insisted that the tune was so simple the
little girl was not getting in the way.

‘Are you feeling a bit better now, love?’
Bill asked. Lily smiled at him.

‘Much better, thank you. I’m sorry I made
such a show of myself before.’ She ran her fingers up and down the
keys and laughed aloud at the sound they made. ‘It’s
lovely
to play again! I’ve forgotten so much, but it’s coming back
already.’

‘Aunt Lily’s going to teach me, too,’ Maudie
said. ‘Will you teach me a bit today, Aunt Lily?’

‘Oh, not today, dear,’ Lily said. ‘I’ve got
to go soon, Arfie’ll be on his way home. Perhaps next week—’

‘No, not that soon,’ Bill cut in. ‘I don’t
want you wearing yourself out. You have a few goes just
playing—it’s good to see you enjoying yourself. But it’s going to
be like work if you’ve got to start teaching Maudie right off.’

‘I think I could manage,’ Lily said. ‘Though
I must confess I’d like to get some more practice in first.’

‘Please
, Uncle Bill,’ Maudie pleaded.
She slipped a hand through Bill’s and leaned her head on his arm in
a manner that Frank always found utterly irresistible. He turned
away to hide a smile.

But Bill extricated his hand after giving
Maudie’s a brief squeeze. ‘It’s no good trying that on me, Maudie.
I’ve known your ma all her life, I know all those tricks.’ If he
noticed the indignant glare Lizzie directed at him, he gave no sign
of it. ‘You can wait until you finish up at school in December,
that’s soon enough. Aunt Lily’ll be feeling stronger by then.’

‘But that’s
months
,’ Maudie said, her
eyes wide with the injustice of it. ‘Aunt Lily, that’s so
long
.’

‘I’m sorry, dear, but we’ll have to do what
Uncle Bill says,’ Lily said, earning an approving smile from
Arthur, but Frank caught the grateful look she cast at Bill. He
could see that Bill was right: Lily was not up to coping with
Maudie’s exuberance just yet.

Maudie’s view of the world did not include
the notion that women did their husbands’ bidding unquestioningly.
‘What’s the point having a piano if I can’t learn to play it?’ she
complained. ‘And I’ve been walking with a book on my head for
ages
,’ she added, a remark that meant nothing to most of her
audience. ‘I want—’

‘Now, Maudie, that’s enough,’ Frank said
mildly. ‘Aunt Lily’ll start teaching you as soon as she feels up to
it. I hope you’ll come down and play whenever you feel like it,
though, Lily,’ he added. ‘I’d like to just listen to you.’

‘But Pa,’ Maudie said, trying another
target. ‘Why can’t—’

‘Maudie!’ Lizzie cut in sharply. ‘Don’t you
go contradicting your father. I’ll have a word with you about that
later. I think it’s time you started peeling a few potatoes—go on,
you get out to the kitchen.’

Maudie gave her mother an aggrieved look,
and made her way slowly out of the room, scuffing her feet against
the carpet as she went.

She had recovered her usual composure by
that evening, when Lizzie let the three oldest children sit in the
parlour with her and Frank. In between prattling away about her day
at school, Maudie sat and admired ‘her’ piano, gloating at the
sight.

‘We can start having people out as soon as
I’ve learned to play it, can’t we, Ma?
Interesting
people,’
she said archly.

‘We’ll see,’ Lizzie said. ‘There’ll be time
enough for that once you’ve left school. There’s no need to go
breaking your neck over it, Maudie. I don’t think anyone’s going to
find a girl of twelve
interesting
. Even if she can play the
piano.’

Frank thought he saw the tip of Maudie’s
tongue briefly poked in her mother’s direction, but she was not so
foolish as to let Lizzie see it.

Beth went off to the girls’ bedroom and
returned with the two large porcelain dolls Frank had bought in
Auckland the previous year. Maudie picked hers up and began
dressing it in another set of clothes, forgetting about the piano
for the moment.

Lizzie took the children off to bed a little
later. ‘They still like those dolls, eh?’ Frank said when she
returned from tucking them in.

‘I should hope so, the money you must have
paid for fancy things like that. They’re lovely dolls, though.’

Frank smiled fondly at the memory of the two
girls playing. ‘They’re still little girls, you know, Lizzie. Fancy
you thinking Maudie’s got ideas about a husband at her age! She’s
keener on dolls than anything.’

‘That’s just practice,’ Lizzie said, full of
assurance.

‘Practice? What for?’

‘Having babies, of course.’

Frank was rather shaken by this. ‘But…’ He
trailed off, unable to think of an argument to refute it.

He gave a thoughtful look in the direction
of the girls’ room. ‘How old were you when you started thinking
about that sort of thing, then?’

‘Oh, older than her,’ Lizzie said. She gave
Frank a quick glance, her lips curved into a smug smile. ‘A little
bit older,’ she amended.

September 1899

Charlie screwed up his newspaper and pushed
it away, at the same time reaching out to cut himself another slice
of bread from the loaf.

‘Bloody Government,’ he grumbled. ‘You know
those mad buggers are getting into a war now?’

Amy pushed the butter closer to his hand.
‘In South Africa? So they really think it’s going to come to
war?’

In the urge to air his disapproval, Charlie
had forgotten his usual disregard of anything Amy had to say on
subjects of consequence. ‘If Seddon has his way. He’s offered to
send soldiers over there, so it says in the paper. To fight the
bloody Queen of England’s war! What business has that German woman
got poking her nose around in Africa, anyway?’