Mud and Gold (76 page)

‘Never mind whether it suits or not, that’s
what’s going to happen. One of the boys can go down there.’ Arthur
glanced across the room at his older two sons. Before he had the
chance to make any announcement on which one was to be chosen, Alf
spoke up.

‘I’m not going. I don’t want Lizzie bossing
me around—it was bad enough when she lived here.’

‘You’ll go if I tell you to, boy,’ Arthur
said, sounding affronted, but Bill cut in before an argument could
develop.

‘Send Ernie down, Pa,’ he suggested. ‘You
were saying just the other day he’s been getting a bit unruly
lately, Lizzie’ll sort him out for you.’

‘Yes, she might just do that,’ Arthur said
thoughtfully. ‘Especially with Frank not there to keep her in
line.’ He smiled at the notion. ‘That’d teach him to know when he’s
well off. Right, Frank, you can have Ernie.’

‘Thanks, Pa,’ Frank said. ‘That’ll be a real
weight off my mind.’

That was the essential task achieved; he
might as well see if he could manage the other one. ‘It’s going to
be a bit of a beggar taking those cows up to Auckland by
myself.’

‘Oh, not so sure of yourself after all, eh?’
said Arthur.

‘Well, I think I can manage. It’s just not
going to be all that easy.’

‘At least you’ve got the sense to know
that.’ Arthur stroked his beard as he studied Frank. ‘I don’t like
the idea of you going up there by yourself,’ he said, looking
troubled. ‘Auckland’s a big place. I don’t want you getting in
strife.’ He mused for a few moments, then appeared to come to a
decision.

‘Maybe I should go up there with you,’ he
said.

‘No!’ Frank said in alarm. Fond though he
was of Arthur, his father-in-law was not the companion he would
have chosen for such a journey. Uncomfortable visions sprang into
his mind: Arthur ordering him about on every stage of the trip,
Arthur exhorting the judges on how they should select the winning
animals, Arthur bailing up any hapless person who showed interest
in Frank’s cows and expounding on the virtues of Shorthorns as
opposed to Jerseys.

‘I couldn’t put you out like that,’ he said,
forcing his voice back under control. Panic fed inspiration. ‘And
anyway, who’d look after the farms? Yours as well as mine. I mean,
it’s really good of you to lend me Ernie, but I was hoping you’d
sort of keep an eye on things for me, see that nothing goes wrong.
I wouldn’t really be able to leave the farm if you weren’t
around.’

‘Well, that’s sensible enough,’ said Arthur.
Frank sank back into his chair in relief. ‘It’s no good thinking
these boys could manage by themselves. Still, I don’t want you
going up there on your own, not with all those animals to cope
with.’ He gave an exaggerated sigh. ‘I suppose I’ll have to spare
you one of the other boys as well as Ernie.’

‘I’ll go,’ said Alf. ‘I wouldn’t mind seeing
Auckland.’

‘You!’ Arthur scoffed. ‘Frank’d be spending
more time keeping an eye on you than he would on the cows. No,
you’d better go, Bill. You’ve got more sense. There’s nothing like
a wife and child for steadying a man.’

‘That’d be great, Bill, if you want to
come,’ said Frank.

‘All right,’ Bill said. ‘I wouldn’t mind
seeing it, either.’ He gave a sidelong grin at the scowling
Alf.

‘As long as Lily doesn’t mind,’ Frank added.
‘It’s a bit mean taking you off her, especially while Arfie’s just
a little fellow.’

‘Bill doesn’t have to ask leave of his
wife,’ said Arthur. ‘I’ve said he’s to go, that’s all you lads need
to worry about. Anyway, she’s a sensible woman, is Lily. She’s not
one for making a fuss about nothing.’

‘No, Lily won’t mind,’ said Bill. ‘It’s only
for a few days.’

‘I don’t see why Bill gets to go and I’ve
got to stay home,’ Alf muttered.

‘You could always stay with Lizzie if you’re
that set on a change,’ Bill suggested, and was rewarded with a
deeper scowl from Alf. ‘Not so keen on that? Never mind, you’ll be
so busy doing mine and Ernie’s share of the work, the time’ll be
gone before you know it.’

‘That’s not fair!’ Alf protested. ‘You get a
holiday and I’ve got to do your work for you.’

‘You doing someone else’s work as well as
your own?’ Arthur said. ‘I’ll believe that when I see it. Well,
I’ll just have to manage with what’s left me.’ He looked at Frank
through narrowed eyes. ‘You’ve just talked me into letting you have
two of my sons so you can go off on this mad fool trip of
yours.’

‘That’s right,’ Frank said. ‘I really
appreciate it.’

‘I should hope you do! You’re not as silly
as you used to be, are you, Frank?’

‘I suppose I’m not,’ said Frank.

*

‘I can’t get over how well they did,’ Frank
said. ‘Especially Spring Blossom—did I tell you she got best
two-year-old, Amy? She’s one of the first ones I bred, too, she’s
out of Orange Blossom, and—’

‘Frank, Amy doesn’t want to hear all about
your cows,’ Lizzie interrupted. ‘And anyway, you told her about
Spring Blossom half an hour ago.’

‘Oh. Did I? Sorry, Amy.’ Frank grinned
sheepishly at her. ‘I’m going on a bit, aren’t I?’

‘Yes, you are,’ Lizzie agreed.

‘No, I’m interested really,’ said Amy. ‘You
must be so proud, Frank—I know Lizzie’s proud of you, too.’

‘Don’t encourage him, you’ll make him
worse,’ Lizzie said. But Amy saw her rest a hand on Frank’s for a
moment and give it a squeeze.

Frank had hardly been home a day, and was
still full of his trip to Auckland. Lizzie maintained that he had
kept her awake half the night talking about the show, but despite
her claim of broken sleep she looked happier than Amy had seen her
since the day Frank had sailed out of Ruatane. It was well worth
the walk down to Frank’s house for afternoon tea to see the two of
them together; the sight of Lizzie without Frank had seemed almost
unnatural.

‘I got a third prize for Countess, and Duke
William got fourth in his class,’ Frank reminisced happily.

‘Frank!’ Lizzie scolded. ‘That’s enough
about your cows, for goodness sake. Drink your tea before it gets
cold.’

‘How about hopping off my lap for a bit,
love?’ Frank told Beth, who had her head pressed against his chest
as she hung on her father’s every word. ‘Go on, there’s a good
girl.’ He unwound Beth’s arms from around his neck. ‘You can come
back when I’ve had my tea.’

‘Come and sit with me, Beth,’ Amy invited.
‘See what Maudie and I are doing.’

Beth trotted over to the couch and snuggled
up to Amy, peering closely as Amy helped Maudie do fine hemming
stitches around a handkerchief.

‘You know, that was one of the funniest
things about being away,’ said Frank. ‘I’d sit down and no one
rushed to sit on my lap. There’s always a couple of them ready to
climb on here. It felt sort of funny, having no weight on me.’

‘Beth fretted over Frank more than the
others did, and the whole lot were pretty bad,’ Lizzie remarked. ‘I
had to have all four of them in bed with me the first night, they
were all in such a state with their Papa gone.’

‘You cried too, Ma,’ said Maudie.

‘Oh, did you just?’ Frank looked pleased at
the idea. ‘You didn’t tell me about that.’

‘No one asked you, Miss,’ said Lizzie. ‘I
told you I’d only let you stay home from school to see your pa
today if you promised to behave, not go butting in with your
opinions when they’re not wanted. You watch your step, or I’ll tell
your pa about a certain girl who had a hiding the other day for
giving me cheek.’

Maudie tossed her head in a manner so like
Lizzie’s that Amy and Frank both had to hide smiles.

‘Anyway,’ Lizzie said, ‘who could help
having a bit of a weep with four kids bawling? We all settled down
after a couple of days.’

‘Ernie looked a bit down in the mouth when
he met us at the wharf,’ Frank remarked. ‘He reckoned he thought
you were going to belt him once or twice.’

‘The little wretch! What did you say to
that?’

‘I told him off—said he’d better not have
been giving you a hard time. He said it was you who’d been giving
him the hard time.’

‘Just because I made him work properly! He
thought he could get away with sleeping in.’

‘Ma poured a jug of water over him to make
him wake up,’ Maudie said, eyes sparkling.

‘He didn’t sleep in again. Then he tried
being a bit slack about some of the work. I gave him a piece of my
mind about that, don’t you worry. I made sure he had plenty to do,
that kept him out of mischief. He’s cleaned all your tack, Frank,
and polished your boots, too. And those horses have never looked so
shiny—I made him groom them all every day.’

Frank laughed. ‘No wonder he looked sorry
for himself! Bill told him that’s why Alf wouldn’t come down here.
Ernie was just a little fellow when we got married, he’s forgotten
how good you are at getting your own way.’

‘I just wouldn’t stand for his nonsense,
that’s all. I had enough to put up with, what with Pa coming round
all the time poking into everything, looking in the sheds and
nosing around the animals.’

‘Gee, it’s a big place, that Auckland,’
Frank mused. ‘When the boat was coming up to the wharf there, Bill
and I sort of looked at one another, and I knew he was thinking the
same as me—we’d just as soon have stayed on the boat and come home
again. All those people! And they’re all rushing around, no one
taking any notice of anyone else. I never thought there could be so
many buggies on the road, either—it’s a wonder they don’t bang into
one another all the time.’

‘It’s not healthy, all those people living
jammed up against each other,’ Lizzie said. ‘It doesn’t seem right
to me.’

‘There’s a lot to see there, though. There
were some really fancy machines at the show, too—even machines for
milking cows, if you please! We had a bit of a look in that Queen
Street place, too. After me and Bill got the animals settled in we
went for a ride on one of those tram things.’

‘What’s a tram, Pa?’ Maudie asked,
abandoning her sewing to Amy for the moment.

‘Sort of a great big buggy, love, with
dozens and dozens of people riding on it. Hey, Amy, did I tell you
the boarding house we stayed in had that Edison electric
light?’

‘Did it?’ Amy said, with a more genuine
interest than she had managed to rouse for Frank’s cows. ‘I’d love
to see that.’

‘I can’t imagine what that looks like,’
Lizzie said, frowning. ‘Frank’s told me and told me about it, but I
just can’t. I’m not sure it’s safe, either. It’s not natural, that
electric business.’

‘I bet you’d like it,’ said Amy. ‘No more
filling lamps, and having to clean them out and keep them trimmed
all the time.’

‘You’d like the running water, too, Lizzie,’
Frank put in.

‘Yes, I wouldn’t mind that,’ Lizzie said.
‘Still, that’s only sense, getting water an easy way. It’s still
water, that’s natural enough. What’s so funny?’ she asked, noticing
that Frank and Amy were both laughing at her.

‘You are,’ Frank said.

‘You always know exactly what you think
about everything,’ Amy said. She bent more closely over the
handkerchief with Maudie.

‘Hey, I forgot to tell you, Lizzie!’ Frank
said suddenly. ‘You’ll be interested in this, Amy.’

Amy looked up from her stitching, needle
poised in the air as she waited for Frank to tell her something
else about his cows.

‘It was when Bill and I had that trip into
Queen Street. We went in a tearoom, and afterwards Bill ducked out
the back and I walked down the street a bit while I was waiting for
him. I was wandering along—half the people in creation there, mind
you, the last thing I expected was to see a face I knew. And there
he was—I just about walked into him—it was that Jimmy fellow, you
know, Susannah’s brother.’

Amy’s body gave a jolt as if a shock wave
had passed through it. Every muscle seemed to have gone rigid. She
could no longer feel the warmth of the two little girls pressed
against her. It was a moment before she could make out Frank’s
voice again through the roaring that filled her ears.

‘Hey, watch out, Lizzie, that’s my foot
you’re kicking. It took me a minute to recognise him, it’s years
since he was here—ten years, we worked out. He gave me a funny look
at first, as if he—ow! Stop it, Lizzie.’ His chair scraped as he
moved it out of Lizzie’s reach. ‘As if he didn’t want to talk to
me. He was friendly enough once he got over that. Boy, you should
have seen his wife. Talk about a fancy outfit—sleeves you could
stick a leg of beef in, and the whole dress all covered with fancy
stitching and lace and stuff. Jimmy said she’s from—’

‘Never mind all that, Frank, Amy doesn’t
want to hear,’ Lizzie cut in.

‘Of course she does!’ Frank protested.
‘Jimmy’s sort of her family. He met his wife—Charlotte, her name
is—in Australia, he said. Seems he was living there for a bit.’

‘Frank, I want—’

‘In a minute, Lizzie, just let me finish the
news or I’ll forget what I was going to say. Then his pa started
ailing, so he came back to Auckland. Boy, that Charlotte! You could
see just by looking at her she’s always had money. I was talking
with Jimmy about that hay dance—you know, when he knocked down Mike
Feenan—and she was really looking down her nose. I saw her checking
her glove after she shook hands with me, like she thought I might
have got it dirty. Then she looked at me as though I hadn’t had a
wash for a few weeks, and she said,’ he made an attempt at a
mincing voice, ‘
 
“Oh, from a farm,
are you? How very interesting.” Then Jimmy—’

‘Aunt Amy, look what you’ve done!’ Maudie
wailed. ‘Ma, look what Aunt Amy’s done! Let go!’ Amy was vaguely
aware of Maudie tugging at her arm, and in obedience to the
pleading in the little girl’s voice she looked down at her hands.
The sight of the needle buried deep in her finger confused her;
however had it got there?