Settling the Account (78 page)

‘Now, you mustn’t let yourself think that
sort of thing,’ Richard said. ‘I’m quite sure the nurse would’ve
called me if there was any problem. I did impress on her that she
was to do so if she was in the least bit worried.’

‘I know, I’m being stupid about it,’ Frank
said. ‘Trouble is, I always have been when it’s anything to do with
Lizzie. You’d think I’d be used to it by now, after seven of them,
but…’ He shrugged.

‘So it doesn’t get any easier?’

Frank shook his head. ‘Not really. This time
seems just about as bad as it did with Maudie. Almost worse, in a
way, with Lizzie being so crook all through it. I don’t know what I
would’ve done if Maudie hadn’t got the girls looking after her like
she did.’ He looked longingly at the door again. ‘I just wish it
was all over and Lizzie was all right.’

Richard made a noise indicative of sympathy,
encouragement and understanding all at the same time. Frank
realised with a vague feeling of guilt what dismal company he was
being to his son-in-law.

He and Richard had had it prearranged
between them for many weeks that Richard would come out when the
nurse did, though Frank had been careful to keep their plan a
secret from Lizzie. Maudie was on the farm, too, though not within
hearing distance; neither Frank nor Richard had been foolish enough
to try and stop her from coming. She had spent the time since her
arrival setting the girls largely unnecessary tasks that had the
virtue of keeping them out of the house.

‘I’m really grateful to have you here,’
Frank said. ‘I’m sure this nurse knows what she’s doing—it’s a
nuisance we had to use a new one this time, but it couldn’t be
helped—but it’s good to know you’re right here just in case
anything… well, you know.’

‘I know, Frank. And I hope I’ll have nothing
more important to do than keep you company while we wait.’

The passage door opened, and they both
looked up. The nurse stood in the doorway, her face showing the
marks of a wearying two hours.

‘I nearly called you just now, Doctor,’ she
said, and that admission told Frank that things had not gone
smoothly; the nurse had made her disapproval of Richard’s presence
obvious as soon as she had arrived, a few minutes after Richard’s
own arrival. ‘It was touch and go right at the end. But I managed
on my own.’

‘How is she?’ Frank asked urgently. ‘How’s
Lizzie?’

‘She’s as well as can be expected,’ the
nurse said. ‘She lost a fair amount of blood, and I had to give her
a lot of chloroform, so she’s not going to be sensible for a good
while.’

‘But she’s all right, isn’t she?’ Frank
pressed.

‘She will be, after she’s had a good rest.
She’ll be as well as ever.’ The nurse’s expression softened at the
sight of the relief flooding Frank’s face. ‘Aren’t you going to ask
about the baby?’ she said, allowing herself a slight smile.

‘Eh?’ With an effort, Frank forced his
attention to extend beyond Lizzie’s well-being. ‘Oh, yes, how’s the
baby?’

‘You’ve a fine son, Mr Kelly. And what a
size he is! I’d wager that child’s ten pounds if he’s an ounce. No
wonder we had a struggle to get him out. Why, I’d—Mr Kelly, what
are you doing?’ she said as Frank pushed past her to go up the
passage.

‘Going to see Lizzie, of course.’

‘Oh, no, you can’t go in there—I haven’t
cleaned her up. I would’ve done that before, it was just with you
seeming so anxious I thought I’d better let you know as soon as all
was well. She’s not in a fit state for you to see her yet.’

‘Then I’ll just have to see her dirty,’
Frank said.

When he stepped into the bedroom, he saw why
the nurse had been reluctant to let him in. Lizzie was lying on
several layers of torn sheets, all of them stained with her blood,
and her thighs were dark with it. Her head tossed from side to side
on the pillow. She was mumbling meaningless sounds, but there was
no sign of consciousness.

‘Look what I’ve done to you,’ Frank
murmured. He squatted beside the bed and stroked a damp wisp of
hair from Lizzie’s forehead. ‘No more babies, Lizzie,’ he said to
the oblivious figure on the bed. ‘I don’t care what you try next
time. No more babies.’

The nurse swept into the room, carrying a
basin of water. ‘I’ll be getting on with my work now, Mr Kelly,
if
you don’t mind.’ She arranged the sheet so that Frank
could no longer see those stained thighs. ‘That doctor says he’s
coming in to take a look at Mrs Kelly as soon as I’ve got her
decent, though I’m sure I don’t know why he’d be doing such a
thing. Your son’s in the cradle if you care to look at him,’ she
added pointedly. ‘I did manage to get him cleaned up before I came
out to you.’

Frank took her hint and stepped over to the
cradle. A red, wrinkled creature lay there, waving his fists around
and regarding the world with an air of resentment. Perhaps he
looked bigger than the other babies had; it was hard for Frank to
remember such details. He certainly looked uglier, with his head
squashed by his rough passage into the world.

Frank bent low over the cradle to study his
new son more closely. ‘You’ve been a lot of bother, boy,’ he told
him softly. ‘You’d better be a comfort to your ma once you’re old
enough to take notice of people.’

He pulled a chair closer to the cradle and
sat down, keeping out of the nurse’s way while wishing she would
hurry up and leave him alone with Lizzie. He passed the time
watching the baby and sneaking occasional glances over his shoulder
at Lizzie when he thought the nurse was not watching.

‘He’s a fine boy,’ said a voice from close
behind him, and Frank looked up, startled.

‘I didn’t hear you come in, Richard. Yes, I
suppose he is. I hope Lizzie’ll be pleased with him, after what
she’s been through. How do you think she is?’

Richard caught the nurse’s eye; her mouth
set in a disapproving line as she smoothed the sheet over Lizzie
and stepped back from the bed clutching her basin, the water now
stained with red.

‘There’s no more bleeding—none to worry
about, anyway,’ she said. ‘You’ve no need to be disturbing her
private parts.’

‘And no foreign matter coming out with the
blood?’ Richard asked. The nurse shook her head emphatically. ‘Then
I shan’t disturb her.’ Richard studied Lizzie’s face, felt her
pulse and put a hand against her forehead.

‘Her breathing’s steady, and there’s no sign
of infection,’ he told Frank. ‘I think you can let yourself stop
worrying.’ He smiled at Frank’s expression of relief. ‘And I rather
think you’d like some privacy,’ he said, ushering the nurse out of
the room.

Frank nodded, though there was no one to
take any notice of the gesture. He moved the chair close to the
bedside, sat down and took Lizzie’s hand in both of his, then
settled himself to wait patiently for her to wake.

September – October 1905

‘What do you think we should call him?’
Lizzie asked.

Frank smiled, enjoying the sight of her
obvious pleasure in the plump baby suckling at her breast. It was
pleasant to steal an occasional half hour from his work to sit in
the bedroom with Lizzie and the new baby, though he often felt that
he was the loser in the battle for a share of Lizzie’s
attention.

After her earlier pregnancies, Lizzie had
always been eager to be up and about again, resenting the ten days
or more of bed rest that the nurses always urged. But this time she
seemed quite content to stay in bed and fuss over her baby, taking
only a distant interest in the running of the household. Frank had
not expected ever to see Lizzie cede her authority to the girls,
even temporarily, and it was this ready abdication that more than
anything else told him just how much the birth had drained her.

‘You’ve taken a while to get around to
thinking about that, haven’t you? I was beginning to think the
policeman would be on to me for not registering the little
fellow.’

‘What rot! He’s only two weeks old.’

‘I know. You’re usually a bit faster with
the names, that’s all.’

‘I don’t think I am,’ Lizzie said, and Frank
did not press the point. He had detected an almost superstitious
reluctance on her part to name this child, a reaction unlike
anything he had seen in Lizzie before. He suspected she had been so
frightened of losing the child who had cost her so much in the
bearing that she had not dared tempt fate by giving him a name. It
was a relief to know she had got over that fear.

‘I’d sort of thought…’ Frank said. ‘Well, I
just… you haven’t got any names picked out, have you?’

‘No. I didn’t get around to thinking of any,
somehow.’

Frank nodded wisely. He had a suspicion that
Lizzie had been hoping for another girl, for no better reason than
to compare her own baby daughter with Maudie’s. For that very
reason, Frank was glad the new baby was a boy. Though the acquiring
of a fourth son had set his mind working on the task of seeing that
all his sons would be properly set up in life.

Still, he reflected, two weeks old was a
little early to be worrying about how this child would provide for
a wife and children. The baby’s more immediate need was for a
name.

He leaned over to kiss Lizzie on the
forehead, careful to avoid squashing the child. ‘I’d sort of like
to call him after Ben.’

‘You’d
what?
’ Lizzie gave such a
start that the baby hiccuped, lost the nipple, and screwed up his
face in a threatened yell until Lizzie guided the questing mouth
back onto her breast. ‘It’s all right, sweetie, your silly father
just gave me a shock,’ she soothed. ‘What do you want to do that
for, Frank? Ben, of all people! He’s never done us any favours,
that’s for sure. When I think of what he did to you, going off with
all that money and you having to—’

‘Ben’s dead, Lizzie.’ Frank’s voice sounded
unnaturally flat in his own ears. ‘He’s dead.’

‘Dead?’ Lizzie echoed stupidly. ‘But you
never said… when? When did he die? What happened?’

Frank leaned back against the bed head, his
hands tucked behind his head. ‘I don’t know exactly when he
died—that’s the worst part about it, I suppose. My own brother
dead, and me not knowing. But it was about two months ago that I
heard—around the end of July.’

‘That long ago? Why didn’t you tell me
before?’

‘I didn’t want to upset you, love. You had
enough on your plate back then, with this fellow giving you all
that trouble.’

‘He wasn’t much trouble,’ Lizzie said, but
her protest was half-hearted. Lizzie was no longer bothering to
pretend that her pregnancy had been anything but unpleasant. ‘I’m
over all that now, anyway. But fancy you having to keep quiet about
it all that time,’ she said, her voice trembling. ‘I hate to think
of you keeping something like that to yourself.’ Her eyes brimmed
with tears.

Frank put an arm around her. Tears seemed to
come far too readily to Lizzie since the baby’s arrival; a weepy
wife was a new experience for Frank, and not a phenomenon he felt
entirely comfortable with. It was just one of the marks the
harrowing pregnancy and birth had left on Lizzie. But it meant she
needed him more than he was used to, and that brought a kind of
pleasure in itself.

‘Don’t feel bad, love. I had a few talks
with Richard—you know, things I remembered from when me and Ben
were little, that sort of thing. Maudie was good about it, too. And
I told Beth—I didn’t exactly mean to, but she caught on that
something was up. I knew I could trust her not to let on to you.
She’s a good kid, Beth is. She’s good to talk to about things.’

Lizzie sniffed. Frank held his handkerchief
to her nose and she blew noisily into it. ‘Chuck that in the wash,
Frank, it smells a bit. But what happened to Ben? How did you find
out?’

‘I got a letter. There was a little parcel
came in the mail, all nicely wrapped up, and a letter in with it. I
didn’t know the writing, but as soon as I opened the parcel I knew
something had happened to Ben.’

He took his arm from around Lizzie’s
shoulders and crossed the room to fetch a small object from the
chest of drawers. ‘This was in it.’

Lizzie peered at his outstretched hand.
‘What a nice watch. It looks quite old.’

‘It was Pa’s. Ben got it when Pa died, and
he took it with him when he went. Now it’s come to me.’

He put the watch on the bedside table before
lying down beside Lizzie again. ‘Ben ended up somewhere down
South—some place I’d never heard of. He got a job on one of those
big sheep stations they have down there. A shepherd, he was.’ He
gave a snort. ‘That would’ve suited Ben, eh? Nothing to talk to but
sheep. No people to get on his nerves.’

‘No women, you mean,’ Lizzie corrected.

‘Well, Ben didn’t like talking to men much,
either. He liked things quiet.’ Frank lapsed into silence as he
thought over what the letter had said.

‘Must’ve been quiet up in the mountains,
even for Ben. It took them a while to catch on that he was missing.
The letter I got, the boss’s wife wrote it. I suppose the fellow
thought women are better at that sort of thing.

‘Ben had told someone that he came from
Ruatane, and that he had a brother. That’s how they knew to send
word to me. You know Ben, he wouldn’t have said much more than
that, and he’d only have said that much after a few drinks.

‘He’d been up there in the mountains with
the sheep all summer, she said. They bring them down in the winter,
before the snow comes. Ben’s lot seemed a bit late coming, then by
the time July came in they thought he might be in a bit of bother,
so they went up looking for him.’

‘And they found him dead,’ Lizzie finished
for him.

Frank nodded. He had to swallow a lump in
his throat before he could go on. ‘They took him down to the big
house and had a doctor out to see what had done it. Something wrong
with his chest, the doctor said—he thought it hadn’t happened all
that long ago, according to this woman. And no one to tell him to
take to his bed when he felt poorly, I suppose.’