Fiery Possession (25 page)

By the time they arrived at the tea room, her head ached from the effort of not letting anyone see her devastation.

“Isn't it pretty,” Fiona said.

Inside, pristine white cloths and deep green napkins graced the tables. Lanterns set about at intervals along the walls were of elaborate glass. The two serving girls wore black dresses covered by white frilly aprons.

Jo bit her lip as they were shown to a table near the door. It was expensive. “Don't order much.”  A quick glance at the menu once they were seated confirmed her worst fears.

She ignored the disapproving glances thrown out by a middle-aged matron at the next table.

“It's disgraceful a fallen woman like her mixing with decent God-fearing folk.”

The comment floated clearly to them. Jo's glare caused the matron and her male companion to lower their eyes. Pious old biddy.

They ordered a fancy cake each and a pot of tea. Lucy had milk and biscuits. The cakes were gooey and sickly. Fiona devoured hers with relish while Jo forced hers down, hoping she wouldn’t vomit.

The place was crowded, with a number of people they knew. This enterprise was obviously going to be successful. Why hadn't they thought of a similar venture?

Fiona smiled happily. She acted so childlike sometimes, Jo was glad people hadn't snubbed her because she would never be able to survive such treatment.

“I'm strong, I can take it,” she whispered the words to herself, but they sounded hollow.

“There's Luke and his wife. What a dainty little thing she is.” 

Jo glanced up then turned away, but not before her gaze clashed with his.

“Look who’s here, Luke.”

Several heads turned at Cassandra's comment. Jo lifted her hand to wave, but dropped it again.

“I don't want any tea now.” Cassandra inclined her head towards Jo. “Not if she's here.”

Obviously, someone felt it their Christian duty to put the English girl into the picture regarding everything.

“Please yourself,” Luke snapped, as he held the door open for his wife to pass back into the street.

The hopes she had nurtured of Cassandra understanding her predicament and not making things worse, lay dead as an Egyptian mummy. Everyone would side with the pretty English girl.

***

A few days after their trip into town, Mrs. Osborne drove over to visit them. “How are you, Miss Jo?”  She glanced at Jo's burgeoning figure.

“I'm all right, thank you. I wondered why you hadn't paid me a visit before?”

“Sorry.”  She fanned herself with a large brimmed hat. “I haven't got much spare time; that Mrs. Campton is never satisfied with anything. Two maids left and haven't been replaced. The boss lets her do what she likes, seems to have lost interest in everything about the house. Rarely spends any time there now.”

Once seated in the parlor with a cool drink, Mrs. Osborne asked about the baby's layette and produced a beautiful shawl from her bag.

“Thank you, how lovely.” Jo blinked back tears at the woman’s kindness. “Did you knit it?”

“Yes. Things must be hard for you. Many times I’ve wanted to come over but Mr. Campton told us in no uncertain terms not to come anywhere near you. I'm a God- fearing woman, even if I don't attend regular church. I think it's shameful the way he's treating you. I didn't think he had such cruelty in him.”

“Don't upset yourself. Ah, here's Fiona with our tea.”

They chatted on about various things. Jo hated herself for bringing the conversation back to Luke.

“We saw his wife in town. Seems a pretty little thing,” Fiona said.

The housekeeper snorted. “She's no wife to him.  Won't let him near her room, throws a screaming fit every time he tries.”

“She's rather young, of course.”  Jo encouraged the gossip.

“Just sixteen, comes from the English gentry. Years of inbreeding have made her unstable. You know how those rich English families carry on. Her father's a Lord or something.”

“Why did he marry her?”  Fiona asked the question on the tip of Jo's tongue.

“She came here to marry Mr. Tim. Mr. Campton went down to Melbourne to meet the ship bringing her.”

“Probably felt obliged to marry her under the circumstances,” Fiona put in.

“No, that’s not the way of it. Her older brother came out as chaperone. Mr. Campton got drunk, committed some kind of indiscretion and the brother insisted on marriage.” 

“Oh dear.” Jo pretended to be shocked. “How do you know all this?”

“I heard them having a terrible argument one night when she wouldn't let him into her room. She accused him of marrying her because he got drunk. He admitted it, said he behaved stupidly because he had been drinking, and her brother put him in such a position he was forced to offer marriage.”

Didn't care what position he put me in. Jo swallowed down on her bitterness. Of course, I wasn't gentry.

“He left the house in a rage and didn't come back for days. And when he did, weeks ago now, he never tried to go near her room again.”

Mrs. Osborne stood up. “I shouldn’t be discussing Mr. Campton’s private affairs.”

Jo walked outside with Mrs. Osborne. “Come again anytime.”  She waved until the woman disappeared leaving a cloud of swirling dust behind her. Why didn’t she feel a sense of triumph because Luke's marriage turned out to be a sham?

***

Three months after Mrs. Osborne’s visit, Jo’s labor pains started. Her back had ached all the previous day. Fiona assured her this meant the birth was near. As the hours passed, the pain intensified.

They had suffered through a vicious cold winter with the minimum of heating and little food. Their finances were so poor they couldn’t even afford a doctor or midwife, which only left Fiona. For the first time in her life, Jo knew real fear. If something went wrong she would die, her baby might die, or both of them. Screams erupted from her throat.

“What is it?” Fiona rushed in.

“The pain, it's terrible. I don't think I can stand it much longer.”

“Everything will be all right, you'll see. Your time must be close now for the contractions to be so great. I prepared everything yesterday.”

Jo gritted her teeth as another spasm gripped her. She was slowly being ripped apart. The wind howled and screamed outside, rain pelted down without respite. What a wild night for an infant to make its entry into the world.

“Please God, don't let my baby die.”  As the hours wore on, she repeated the prayer often. By mid morning Jo knew something was drastically wrong.  The urge to bear down was strong, but push as she might, nothing happened.

After her water broke, Fiona said the delivery would soon follow. More hours went by, but still the baby did not come.

“I'll have to get help, Jo.”  Through a mist of pain Fiona's pale face hovered anxiously over hers. “I have to get help somehow, yet I don't want to leave you alone.”

“Set fire to the old grain shed that should bring someone.”

“I can't.”

“Do it, if you don't want me to die.” Jo slumped back on the pillow exhausted, but she could not rest because of the excruciating pain.

Chapter Eleven

Luke sat astride his horse, watching as the men started moving the cattle to higher ground. He was worried about the rising water level in the river even though he had dismantled the dam. He wasn’t prepared to take any chances with prime stock.

He scowled thinking of the intolerable situation at home. Cassandra's fits of hysteria were becoming more frequent, leaving her weak and depressed. Each attack seemed to be lasting longer, taking more out of her.

He cursed the day he had met that bloody ship and got himself into such a drunken state that he had visited her room, trying to persuade her to return to England. Ashley had caught them together and kicked up such a fuss about his sister being compromised, he could do little else but offer marriage. Had he not been so drunk, he would never have allowed himself to be manipulated.

The arrangement had been for her to come out as Tim's wife, and now he gets stuck with her. All his problems led back to Jo Saunders. Fury almost engulfed him. It was her fault, damn her to hell. The fact that he still wanted her desperately heightened his rage. Temporarily, he could find solace with other women, but desire for the passion they had once shared dogged his every waking hour. He could not forget how good it had been with his Yankee woman.

The treatment by the townsfolk should have broken her, but it hadn’t. That they were practically penniless was common knowledge, yet still they hung on.

Flames shooting up into the storm-darkened sky caught his attention.

One of the men rushed over. “The Morrison place is on fire, boss.” 

“It can burn to the ground for all I care.”

“But boss.”

“Get back to work. I want all these cattle moved before you finish today.”

When the man left, Luke sat watching. It was a large fire. Even from this distance, he could see flames leaping high into the air. He turned his horse around, convincing himself he was glad. If they got burnt out, he would be rid of them once and for all. Maybe then the guilt of what he had done to Jo would abate.

Work continued, but every so often, against his will, his glance strayed in the direction of the Morrison farm. Strange, how the fire still burned as fierce as ever. Two hours passed. Still the flames leaped skywards. Finally, curiosity had him urging his mount toward it. What was Jo up to now?  It would be her doing; that timid sister-in-law would be incapable of such a thing.

The sight that met him at the homestead shocked him to the core. The barn, the stable, the grain shed, in fact every outbuilding had been put to the torch and were even now glowing beds of red embers.

Fiona Morrison rushed out to meet him. Her hair hung in disarray. Her eyes were wild and desperate, her cheeks pinched.

“Mr. Campton, um Luke, I need help.”

He swung down from the saddle, looping the reins through his arm before answering. “What happened to your outbuildings?”

“I set fire to them.” She wrung her hands.

“What?” Arson?  From this weak, trembling woman?

“Jo said it would attract attention, I'm just about out of my mind,” she gabbled. “The baby won't come.”

He stared at her.

“You have to help me. The baby won't come.”

“Baby?”

“Your baby, I mean Jo's baby. It won't come.”

Oh God, what if something happened to Jo? To their child? His gut clenched but he couldn’t show his turmoil. He forced himself to growl. “I may be many things, but I'm certainly not a midwife.”

“Please, I'm begging you to help me. I don't know what to do anymore.  They'll die, both of them, if something isn't done soon.” 

He stood there, hands clenched in his pockets, trying to regain control of his emotions. Campton men acted tough, they never showed their true feelings. Jo always sent his resolve spiraling out of control.

“Please, have you no pity?  Don't you care?”

He tethered his horse before following her into the homestead, scowling as he did so. He wanted Jo to suffer, didn't he?  “Mumma Mumma”, the wailing of a child met them inside, but the agonized screams had him running.

The bedroom was small and sparsely furnished he noticed before turning his gaze to the figure writhing on the bed. Jo's hair lay in all its burnished glory against the pillow, those startling green eyes he had so often admired were glazed with pain, tears glistened on the tips of her lashes.

“How long has she been like this?” he asked frantically.

“Since yesterday.”

“Why the hell didn't you get the doctor?”

“We haven't got any money. I couldn't leave her alone. The baby must be stuck. It was moving before, now it's stopped.”

For the first time ever, Luke saw fear on Jo's beautiful face. This was a different Jo than the one who had defied and taunted him. His heart rose up in his mouth before crashing against his rib cage because she was so distressed, like a wounded animal caught in a trap it could not escape.

“Luke, you came.”  Her voice sounded croaky, barely audible.

“Can you stand up?”

“Of course she can't,” Fiona shrieked. “She's exhausted.”

He ignored her. “You're not doing any good for yourself lying in bed. Native women often give birth standing up.”

Jo stared at him, gritting her teeth to cut off a cry of agony as another contraction ripped through her. “I can't move.”

“Yes you can.”  Two paces brought him to the side of the bed, and with a flick of his wrist, he threw the covers back. “Get up.”

“I can't.”

“Please yourself. If you want to die and the child with you, stay there.” He purposely made his voice harsh to galvanize her into action.

She struggled into a sitting position, by pushing herself up with her hands. Clinging to the bedclothes, she awkwardly swung her feet to the floor.