A Country Marriage by Sandra Jane Goddard Page A

that came to mind felt in the least helpful or sincere. ‘But it’s more than a year now since I lost the last one and well, while it’s a terrible thing to lose a baby, Mary, to my mind, it’s just as bad not to fall in the first place. I pray feverish hard every day, too; we both do. But despite our prayers, every month it’s the same. I try to draw comfort from the words of the Bible but just lately, I’ve oftentimes come to thinking that maybe God’s never going to let us have a child. And I’m not sure I’m strong enough to bear that, even if it is His path for me.’
    ‘Oh, Ellen…’
    ‘You know, Mary, when me an’ Will first wed, I dreamed of a house filled with children; you know, a big family like I grew up in but now, well, now I’d settle for just one child. Just one. After all, ʼtis what we’re here for, ain’t it, to serve God an’ to have children?’
    Ellen’s face – a pale and ghostly oval peering out from her shawl – seemed to have lost all of its life. How unfair things had a habit of being. How deeply unfair to want a child and not be able to have one when, by all accounts, a good many women felt themselves to be in precisely the opposite predicament.
    ‘Well, perhaps it’ll still happen one day.’ It was a sentiment that she offered uncertainly, though; Ellen’s long, tremulous sigh by way of response seeming to suggest that she didn’t agree.
    ‘I do hope for it, Mary, although I’m not rightly sure I know what to think any more. See, what I can’t fathom, is how with one hand God can give a husband and wife such an act of love for creating new life but then, with the other, see fit to let all of that tenderness… go to waste; to not produce a child. It just don’t seem right, do it?’
    Although she hadn’t intended to, she shook her head. What act of love? What tenderness? What, precisely, was Ellen talking about? She knew of course that eventually, George’s efforts would give her a child – always assuming that God was willing – but surely that wasn’t love? Surely, love meant two people sharing deep feelings or a bond of some sort. George hadn’t said that he loved her and in fairness, she didn’t think that she loved him , although having no scale by which to measure such things, it was hard to say. But she did feel certain that if by some chance she did love him, then she would somehow know it. She was beginning to quite like him and as a husband he did seem, much to her relief, to be a considerate one. But tender? Already she had become used to his needs and rather indifferent to his efforts to satisfy them but the whole thing was still largely just a fair bit of discomfort and a lot of grunting; definitely not something she could describe as an act of love. And, when he was on top of her in the dark, her original notion that she was missing the point still insisted upon creeping back. No, Ellen, it seemed, was talking about something altogether different.
    Raising her head, she stared out over fields that were now slowly beginning to emerge from obscurity into the first fingers of daylight. Was it possible that there was something that she still didn’t know? And if so, how was she ever going to find out? Clearly, this wasn’t the time to ask Ellen and anyway, she wasn’t even sure that she knew what to ask.
    Biting her bottom lip, she saw Ellen looking back at her. She seemed to be expecting an answer.
    ‘I still don’t think you should give up hope.’ How deeply unhelpful that sounded. But then given the misfortune of the matter, it was hard to know what would sound any better.
    ‘No. I know. You’re right of course. It’s not too late yet. But enough of my problems: you don’t want talk of my misery when you’re on your honeymoon!’
    ‘Hm.’
    ‘Do you know, I can still remember as plain as plain those first few weeks of being wed; such a perfect time.’
    At the brightening of Ellen’s face, she smiled. Perhaps after all, now might just