6

 

December 1881 – February 1882

December wore on towards the end of the year without Amy and Susannah having any more serious disagreements. When Amy paid her promised visit to an anxious Lizzie the week after the rooster incident, she was able to reassure her cousin.

‘No, she’s not being awful to me. We don’t talk to each other very much, no more than we have to, but that saves fights, anyway. She’s sleeping in later in the morning, too.’

‘Is she bossing you around?’ Lizzie asked suspiciously.

‘I suppose she is, but it keeps her happy. Lately she’s started doing these deep sighs all the time and saying how tired she is, but she seems more annoyed with Pa than me. She gives him such pained looks, as though he’s meant to feel guilty.’

‘Does he tell her off?’

Amy frowned. ‘No, and he doesn’t look guilty, either, that’s the strange thing. Most of the time he just smiles when she does it, and gives her a pat on the shoulder.’

‘He’s just humouring her—I bet she nags him when no one’s around.’

‘Maybe. But he looks, well, sort of proud when he does it.’

‘Ahh,’ Lizzie said very knowingly. ‘Looks proud, eh? I see.’

‘What are you going on about, Lizzie?’

‘Oh… you’ll find out,’ Lizzie said, looking smug. Amy let the subject drop; she was just grateful that her father could cope with Susannah’s moods so calmly.

By the New Year, though, she could see that her father was starting to find it wearing.

‘It’s so tiring to work in the heat of this horrible kitchen,’ Susannah complained one afternoon.

Jack smiled indulgently. ‘You’ll be all right,’ he said, patting Susannah’s arm. But instead of looking soothed she pushed his hand away.

‘You don’t care if I make myself ill working in this heat!’

‘Of course I care.’

‘Why don’t you do something about it, then?’

Jack looked bemused. ‘I don’t rightly know what I can do about it—January’s a hot month, that’s all. You could have a lie-down in the afternoon, I suppose.’

‘Yes, have a lie-down,’ Amy put in, trying to rescue her father. ‘I can finish getting dinner ready.’

Susannah rounded on Amy. ‘Don’t tell me what to do! And don’t you encourage her,’ she snapped at Jack.

‘She’s only trying to help,’ said Jack.

‘Humph! She’s always trying to help, or so she says. And you’re always taking her part against me.’

‘No I’m not—hey, Susie… Susannah, come back!’ But Susannah had stalked out of the room, and they left her alone to have the lie-down of which the suggestion had made her so angry.

 

*

 

Amy was becoming used to accepting instructions from Susannah in what she had thought of as her own kitchen, and she thought she took the directions meekly enough. Susannah, however, complained frequently to Jack of what she considered insolence.

‘She’s cheeky to me,’ she said to Jack one evening in bed. Earlier that day Amy had tried to explain to her that she must be sure to cover the dish of soup she had left on the sideboard, so the horrible huhu beetles wouldn’t fall in it.

‘What did she say?’ Jack asked with a sigh. He knew what was coming.

‘It’s not so much what she says, it’s how she says it. She puts on a very superior air with me. It’s not right in a child her age. You should correct her.’

‘I can’t very well growl at her just for having the wrong tone of voice, can I?’

‘Humph!’ said Susannah. ‘You’ve been too soft on that girl, and that’s why she’s a burden to me now. It’s very wearying, being crossed all the time. As if I didn’t have enough to put up with…’ Her eyes filled with tears, and Jack reluctantly promised to ‘have a word with the girl’.

Having ‘a word with the girl’ meant that next day he contrived to find Amy when she was alone outside.

Amy smiled as he approached, pleased to see him away from her stepmother, but the moment he spoke her happy mood evaporated.

‘Susa… your ma’s not too happy with you, Amy.’

‘What’s she saying about me?’

‘She says you don’t show her proper respect.’ He held up a hand to silence her when Amy tried to protest. ‘Now, Amy, don’t argue with me. It’s not easy for Susannah, you know. She’s had to give up a lot of her comforts, coming here to live. So the least we can do is try and make it a bit pleasanter for her, isn’t it?’

I didn’t make her come, did I? But all Amy said aloud was, ‘I don’t mean to be… disrespectful, Pa. It’s just that everything I say seems to annoy her.’

‘Just try a bit harder, then. Make it a bit easier for me, too, girl, for pity’s sake.’

Amy saw the weariness and strain in his face. She slipped her hand into his. ‘I’m sorry, Pa. I will try not to annoy her.’

‘You’re a good girl.’ The smile he gave her made Amy even more determined to do her best.

 

*

 

She did try, but it seemed she couldn’t do anything right. If she said nothing she was sullen, and if it meant the food didn’t turn out properly she had done it on purpose; if she did try to correct Susannah she was being cheeky. On the whole it seemed safer to be thought sullen.

On a fiercely hot Thursday afternoon in February, Amy and Susannah were working together in the kitchen when there was a knock at the door.

‘Run and answer that,’ Susannah said, taking off her apron in anticipation of a visitor. Lizzie would not have bothered to knock. Amy found to her surprise that her old teacher, Miss Evans was at the door. She showed her in.

Miss Evans was in her thirties, small and stocky, with a round face framed by brown hair pulled back rather severely from her forehead. The stern effect was softened by her bright eyes, which were turned on Susannah in a friendly smile.

‘How do you do, Mrs Leith?’ she said. ‘We’ve been introduced in town, I believe, but I’m afraid I haven’t had the chance to call on you until now—I’m Ruth Evans.’

‘How nice of you to drop in,’ Susannah said, with a somewhat glassy smile. ‘Yes, of course, you’re the school teacher. Won’t you have a cup of tea with me? Amy, bring a tray into the parlour, then you can carry on out here.’

‘I think Amy should join us,’ Miss Evans said. Susannah looked at her in surprise.

‘The girl’s busy out here, and I hardly think we need her with us.’

‘But it’s Amy I want to talk about,’ Miss Evans said, and Amy felt a sudden leap of her heart, followed by a constriction that was almost painful. No, she cried silently. Don’t even try, Miss Evans—not with Susannah. She’ll never understand. She tried to catch Miss Evans’ eye, but she and Susannah had locked gazes. Miss Evans was the first to break the silence.

‘Now that there’s another,’ and she stressed the word in a way that made Amy want to kiss her, ‘woman in the house, Mrs Leith, I imagine Amy has a little more time. Are you aware that she was intending to train as a teacher under me? She started to, but her responsibilities at home were too heavy at that stage. I think it’s time she came back to me.’

Susannah’s expression showed that Miss Evans had abruptly changed from being a break in the monotony of her day into an irritation. ‘My husband told me about that nonsense of Amy’s.’ Amy felt a rush of anger. ‘He let her do it for a while because she whined at him—he spoils her dreadfully, I’m afraid. But I need her in the house—she is some help to me,’ she finished in an injured tone.

There was a few moments’ silence. ‘So you refuse?’ Miss Evans asked.

‘I’m afraid I must. I’m sure you can find some other little girl to wash the boards for you, or whatever she did. I’m quite capable of teaching Amy all she’s ever going to need. I do expect her to marry eventually, of course.’ Amy cringed with embarrassment.

‘In that case,’ said Miss Evans, obviously holding her tongue with difficulty, ‘I won’t take any more of your time. Good day, Mrs Leith.’ She turned to go.

‘Oh, won’t you take tea with me,’ Susannah asked.

‘No, thank you. Perhaps another day.’ She walked out the door.

‘Miss Evans!’ Amy cried in dismay, and made to follow her.

‘Where do you think you’re going, Miss?’ Susannah called sharply. Amy turned to her angrily.

‘You were so rude to Miss Evans! I just want to apologise to her.’

‘You stay just where you are. What right does she have to come here and say what you should or shouldn’t be doing with your time? That’s up to me, not her.’

‘She just wants to help me!’

‘Help you be like her, you mean,’ Susannah said with a sneer. ‘You should be thanking me for rescuing you from her. Do you want to be a dried up old spinster like her?’

Amy stared at her in fury. She clenched and unclenched her fists, trying to control herself, then her anger boiled over.

‘You’d know all about that,’ she spat at Susannah, who stared at her in shock. ‘Dried up old spinster yourself! Had to take what you could get, didn’t you?’

She turned and rushed out of the house. Miss Evans’ little gig was already disappearing down the road, too far away for Amy to follow. She heard Susannah call her name as she ran, half-blinded with tears, until she was around the hill and out of sight of the house in a small grove of trees. She flung herself down on the ground and gave way to racking sobs of anger and disappointment.

It was an hour later by the time she had composed herself enough to return to the house and face the consequences of her outburst, and with a sinking heart she recognised her father’s boots outside the kitchen door. For a moment she was tempted to slip away again and hide, but she knew it would be more sensible to get it over with. She steeled herself and walked into the house.

Jack was in the kitchen with Susannah. He turned a troubled face towards Amy as she walked in, and she felt a stab of guilt.

‘There, you see if she can deny it!’ Susannah said to him in a passion. ‘She abused me to my face—called me names I wouldn’t repeat in front of you—then ran off and left me to do everything by myself—all because I wouldn’t let her have her own way about that teaching nonsense. Do I have to put up with that? Or are you going to do something about it?’ Her eyes glittered dangerously.

Jack sighed. ‘Is this true, Amy?’

Amy looked at her father, at Susannah’s wild-eyed face, then back to her father. She thought of the things Susannah had said, and she felt angry all over again. But it would be too hard to try and make her father understand just how much Susannah had hurt her, especially when she was standing full in the glare of Susannah’s vengeful gaze.

‘Yes, Pa, it’s true. I did say…’ she realised abruptly just how insulting to her father what she had said was, ‘bad things to her. And I ran away, and I stayed away for a long time,’ she added, not wanting to spare herself any blame she might deserve.

‘You see!’ Susannah said in triumph. ‘She doesn’t even try to deny it.’

‘At least she’s honest about it,’ Jack said in a heavy voice. ‘Go to your room, Amy. I’ll be along to see you shortly.’ Amy went, a feeling of unease joining the hurt and anger.

‘What are you going to do to her?’ Susannah demanded, sounding almost hysterical.

‘I’m going to do what you want me to,’ Amy heard her father say as she left the room.

She sat on her bed waiting for her father. It seemed a long time before he came, quite long enough for her to ponder what he had meant by his last words, though in fact it was only a few minutes until he walked into the room and shut the door behind him. He stood with his hands behind his back, looking at Amy in silence for several moments before speaking.

‘Why did you do it?’ he asked. ‘You told me you’d try not to upset your ma, and now see the state you’ve got her in. She’s just about made herself ill.’

‘She made me angry,’ Amy said, trying to defend herself despite knowing she was wasting her time. ‘She was rude to Miss Evans, and she said… she wouldn’t… she doesn’t think it’s worth anything to be a teacher, even though it’s what I want…’ She trailed away feebly, knowing she had not put up much of a justification for her transgression.

Her father looked at her sternly. ‘Amy, I’ve already said you can’t do that any more, and I expect you to obey me. All your ma did was back up what I’d said—that’s no excuse for you to upset her. I expected better of you.’

Amy hung her head. ‘I’m sorry, Pa.’

‘It’s your ma you’ll have to say you’re sorry to, not me. It’s not good for her to get that upset, especially in her condition.’

Amy looked up at him in bewilderment for a moment, then in wide-eyed surprise. ‘Condition?’ she repeated stupidly. ‘You mean she’s going to—’

‘Yes, she is, and there’s no need for you to look so shocked over it, either. I’m not as old as all that, you know. Anyway, I don’t want to discuss that with you,’ he said, clearly embarrassed. ‘Don’t tell her I said anything about it.

‘You’ve never given me trouble before,’ he went on, ‘but you’ve gone too far over this. Your ma says you need correcting. I’d rather she did it herself—’

‘She’s not my mother!’ Amy interrupted, furious at the thought that Susannah might dare to touch her.

‘Amy!’ Jack shouted, sounding more angry than she had ever heard him. ‘She stands in the place of a mother to you, and she has the right to expect obedience, and to correct you if she doesn’t get it. But she doesn’t want to punish you herself, and I’m not going to make her. She’s upset enough without that.

‘So I have to do it,’ he finished sombrely. ‘I’ve never laid a hand on you—I don’t hold with men hitting women as a rule. But I have to,’ he repeated, pulling his right hand from behind his back. With a sinking feeling, Amy recognised the heavy leather strap. Her grandmother had not used it on her since she was ten.

She stood up from the bed and stretched her right arm out straight in front of her with the hand palm upwards, looking her father straight in the eye as she did so. Remembering punishments from school, she made sure her palm was quite flat, so that the blow would have the maximum effect.

Jack looked from her hand to her face, then looked at the wall.

‘I don’t think it was your hand she had in mind, girl.’

Amy looked at him in alarm, and sat down again on the bed very quickly. ‘No, Pa.’ She shook her head to emphasise her words. Being punished by her grandmother had been completely different; the idea of exposing her buttocks to a man, even her father, was too horrible to contemplate.

Her father regarded her in silence, then his shoulders slumped a little.

‘No, you’re right. I can’t do it. All right, let’s have your hand then.’

She stood up and offered her hand as before. To her surprise, Jack took her hand and pressed the palm so that it made a hollow. Didn’t he know that meant the strap would make a lot of noise but wouldn’t hurt quite as much? All the children she had gone to school with seemed aware of that; unfortunately so was Miss Evans, so Amy had given up trying that trick early on. But if her father wanted to do it that way she would not argue.

Whack! There was a loud noise, but it only hurt a little. Yes, she could bear that in silence. Amy gritted her teeth and fought down the urge to cry out.

‘Make a noise, for God’s sake!’ Jack said in a hoarse whisper. ‘She’ll be listening!’

After that Amy yelled obligingly at each stroke, wondering if she was overdoing it. Her father did not seem to think so.

After a dozen strokes Jack lowered his arm to his side, and Amy dropped her own arm, rubbing the tender palm. Her father said nothing, but watched her steadily for several moments until she dropped her gaze, unable to endure what she saw in his face.

‘Don’t ever make me do that again, Amy.’ He turned and walked out of the room, shutting the door after him.

Amy collapsed onto the bed and wept bitterly. Not from the pain in her hand, which was nothing; but from the look she had seen in her father’s eyes: a look compounded of hurt and disappointment and bewilderment. The knowledge that she was the cause of that look was almost too much to bear.

When she had cried herself out she rolled over on her back and stared at the ceiling, wondering what to do. She wasn’t sure if she was allowed to leave her room, and she was in enough trouble without making it worse. She could hear Jack’s and Susannah’s voices faintly, but she couldn’t make out any words, or even tell whether the voices were angry.

The door opened and her father and stepmother came in together. Amy sat up, rubbing the back of her hand across her eyes to clear the leftover tears. She made sure her right palm, with its telltale redness, was hidden in her lap. Susannah looked calmer, but Jack had his arm protectively around her shoulders; the sight made Amy angry, though she knew she had no right to be.

‘Amy has something to say to you,’ Jack said. ‘Don’t you, Amy?’ He looked pointedly at his daughter. She stood up and looked at the floor.

‘I’m sorry I upset you.’

‘That’s not enough, Amy,’ said Jack. Amy shot a glance at him, then looked back at the floor and tried again.

‘I’m sorry I was rude to you, and I’m sorry I left you to do the work.’ She looked at her father to see if this apology met with his approval. To her relief, he gave a slight nod.

‘So you should be,’ Susannah said sharply. She was clearly elated at winning the trial of strength, and was going to push her success to the limit. ‘You can spend some time thinking about how you should behave in future—you’ll have the chance to do that this evening. You’re to stay in your room until tomorrow morning, and there’ll be no dinner for you, either.’

‘Susannah, that’s a bit hard,’ Jack said. ‘I’ve already punished her.’

Susannah turned on him with her eyes flashing, and pushed his arm from her shoulder. ‘You said I could punish her.’

‘Yes, I did. But you didn’t want to, and you made… I did it instead. It seems a bit rough, that’s all,’ he finished feebly.

‘She has to do what I say, not just you,’ Susannah flung at him. ‘Are you going to take her part against me?’

Amy looked from one to the other, wondering if they had forgotten she was there. Jack gave her a helpless glance.

‘No, I won’t take her part. You do whatever you think is right.’

‘I will,’ Susannah said triumphantly. ‘You heard what I said, Amy, I don’t want to see you until tomorrow.’

I don’t want to see you at all. But Amy schooled her expression into what she hoped looked like submissiveness and stood with downcast eyes.

‘I don’t suppose you feel able to sit on a hard chair at the moment, anyway,’ Susannah said as a malicious parting thrust before sweeping out of the room, skirts rustling. Amy carefully avoided meeting her father’s eye as Jack followed.

She’ll have to do everything by herself tonight, Amy thought with some satisfaction. And I don’t care about missing dinner. She started to reach for her sewing, then abruptly decided against it. Instead she went to her bookshelf and let her finger run along the titles before she selected Villette. She snuggled herself comfortably among the pillows and settled in for a long, self-indulgent evening. If she was as bad as all that, she might as well be lazy too.

When the smell of roast meat seeped under the door, her stomach grumbled noisily. The hunger pangs became more insistent as the evening wore on, and Amy began to wish she had eaten a few scraps while baking that afternoon. Thinking about that only made it worse. She could see those rows of biscuits looking golden brown and tempting. The faint voices she could hear from the parlour were distracting, too. She wondered if John and Harry had been told why she wasn’t there, and if they were all talking about her.

She shut the book in disgust; it was getting too dark to read, anyway, and she didn’t have anything to light her lamp with. But after she had undressed and climbed under the covers it seemed a very long time before she drifted off into a restless sleep, and dreamed of roast mutton.