Bridey

Bridey

I bought it on an impulse. It’s not something I’d normally buy, but I was feeling rather low when I went into the old shop, a mixture of grocery store and junk shop. I’d been driving through the country town, and, being thirsty in the summer heat, had called in for a drink. The framed embroidered text hung on the wall among other antique objects and old junk. My eyes were drawn to its message – a message I needed at the time; the well-known Psalm 23: “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want”. The text had been embroidered on fine cotton in a steady hand, each letter beautifully worked. The colourful silk thread, having been protected by the glass, was unfaded. Even disregarding the religious significance, it was a lovely picture, though the glass and frame were fly-marked and grimy. I got it cheaply.

It was a couple of weeks before I got round to taking the frame off and cleaning it and the glass. When it was restored to cleanliness, I hung it above my desk. It looked very nice there. I’d look up at the text occasionally as I worked, and remind myself of its message. One day I was showing the picture to a friend. She took the frame down to have a closer look at the workmanship of the embroidery. After examining it for a few minutes, she asked if I had a magnifying glass. I found one and handed it to her. I noticed that she was studying the decorative patterns between the lines, rather than the text itself, and she had a puzzled look on her face.

“What’s the matter Brenda? Can you see something wrong with it?”

“I can see something very odd, Lucy.That’s what I can see. Here, have a look.”

I took the picture and the magnifying glass, and looked where she indicated. I examined the pattern beneath the first line of the text. Immediately, I saw something I hadn’t previously noticed.

“It’s not a pattern. It’s writing! Let’s see if I can read it.”

This work was begun on my sixteenth birthday, 5th April 1908. I put my trust in the Lord.

“Goodness, what fine writing! It’s so small, no wonder I didn’t see it before! This person was very good, wasn’t she?”

“She certainly was. The ‘pattern’ seems to be between every line of text, and it goes around the outside too, to make a sort of frame for it. Have a look and see if it’s all writing.”

I looked at the next line, ‘He maketh me to lie in green pastures’. There was more tiny writing below it. I could hardly believe what I read.

“Brenda, listen to this. It’s amazing!”

I am a prisoner in this house since December. I near died in the wilderness when I tried to get away. He found me and brought me back. Now I am the wife of his son.”

“Where did this come from Lucy? Is it for real?”

“I got it at a little old shop in a town out west. It looks old. I don’t think it’s a joke. But who did this I wonder? Was some girl really abducted, then forced into marriage? Maybe raped?”

Brenda almost snatched the glass from my hand.

“’He leadeth me by still waters’. Look Lucy, the message does continue below the next line. It’s a bit hard to read, but I can make it out.”

I was fearful at first. John, is big and unlettered, but kind and gentle. He calls me Bridey, his little bride. Mama and Papa must think me dead.”

“How must her parents have felt, not knowing what had become of her?”

“There must have been some time between writing the first and the second bits. It almost looks like she’s accepted her situation doesn’t it?”

“Yes, it does. Give me the magnifying glass Brenda, I want to see what else is there. What happened to this girl? How did she write all this without anyone noticing?”

Between us, Brenda and I worked out the rest of the message. It continued after each line of the Bible verse and then around the outside of it. The story had obviously been worked into the fabric over a period of several months. Tears came to our eyes as we read the young girl’s tale.

John’s father’s eyes fail him. I must read the Bible to them each night. There is much work to do, cooking and cleaning and sewing. I need something of my own.

He brought materials for this text. I work an hour each night by candlelight after my work. John watches me with pleasure.

Brenda was angry. “Can you imagine it, her having to work like a slave for these men? How awful it must have been!”

“Yet it does sound like she’s come to like John at least. And his father did get her those materials.”

I am with child. Perhaps December or January. It will be hot. I wish Mama were with me.

“Of course, that had to happen! She must have been just pregnant when she started the project. She’ll have to work all through her pregnancy I suppose.”

Today I felt the child move. It is becoming joyously real.

“Gosh, all on her own with two men. A girl needs her mother when she’s pregnant Lucy. Those unfeeling bastards! She hasn’t mentioned John’s father again though.

“Look at this next one Bren. John loves to feel the baby move in my belly. He calls it our little boxer. That’s rather sweet. They sound like they‘re in love.”

“That can happen with prisoners. They begin to identify with their captors. Remember the newspaper tycoon’s daughter? She became a terrorist along with the ones who kidnapped her.”

“I don’t think this is quite the same thing. But Bridey does sound like she can make the best of a situation doesn’t she?”

The winter rains are hard to bear in this rough hut. I am thankful for John, who helps me with the heavy work.

“Well, good on him!” Brenda was sarcastic.

It becomes more difficult to sleep. The baby grows big, like his father.

The spring has been beautiful. The Lord has given us a multitude of flowers and the bees have made much honey.

We walk a little in the early summer evenings though my back pains from the weight I carry.

I am only little. The baby seems to be so big. I am afraid.

“Poor Bridey. She needs a woman’s help. She needs her mother! Will they get her a midwife?”

We’d really become involved in this girl’s story. She was Bridey to us now, not some anonymous person. We both hoped she’d be all right; that John would get her the help she’d need when her time came. There was one more sentence.

The baby must come soon.

Then there was an empty space. The frame around the main text had not been closed by Bridey’s story. The gap looked ominous. Why hadn’t she completed it? Had her words been discovered? Surely she’d want to record the birth of her baby. I thought the worst.

“I think she died Brenda. She was so worried about the baby coming. It was so big and she was only little.”

I had tears in my eyes, and when I looked at my friend, I saw that she did too.

“We have to find out what happened. Do you want to come with me to that little shop and see if the owner knows anything?”

“We can’t let this go now Lucy. I’m with you. Let’s see what happened to Bridey.”

We went the following weekend, driving out the same road I’d travelled a few months previously. The shop was still there, and the kindly old shopkeeper was happy to tell us what he knew about the framed Biblical text.

“It came from the old Johnson place. Belonged to old George Johnson’s uncle, Fred I think his name was, who lived in the original shack on the property. Old George inherited the property when his uncle died in the nineteen-thirties, and built a bigger house for himself. George didn’t have a family though, and when he died, everything in the house went to auction. The picture you got was in a box of stuff I paid a couple of dollars for.”

“Is the old house still standing?”

“No. Fell down years ago. But there’s a couple of graves near where it stood.”

I felt the hairs rise on the back of my neck, and I looked at Brenda.

“Can you tell us where they are? Can we get to them?”

“They’re not far off the main road now. It used to be a back track in the old days. The house was pretty isolated then. There’s nobody living there now, but I suppose it wouldn’t hurt for you to go and have a look.”

The old man drew us a mud map, which gave us a good idea of where we’d find the graves. I don’t know about Brenda, but my heart was thumping and my hands sweating as we drove up the track off the main road and pulled up near the remains of a stone chimney.

“Look Brenda. Is this where Bridey was brought to?”

There wasn’t much left of the old house. It would have been hard to see any signs of habitation if it weren’t for the chimney. We looked around us at the dry plains. What a lonely place to live! We separated, looking for signs of a small cemetery.

“Lucy! I’ve found something. Come over here!”

It was difficult to read the shallow writing on the sandstone block that still sat upright in the long dry grass. I had to move around a bit, to get the sunlight in the right place.

Dearest Bridey, my wife
My infant son Richard Johnson
Died 23rd December 1908.

“Oh Brenda! She did die. She died in childbirth. They both died. Oh, those rotten men! They killed her.”

I burst into tears. A young girl and her baby, both dead. If she’d been left with her parents, how different would the outcome have been!

“Look here Lucy! There’s a second stone. It’s fallen down. The wind and rain have worn some of it away, but you can still read it. Look what this one says.”

I read it.

John, Beloved son of Fred’k Johnson. Died of sorrow. 5th April 1909.

The fifth of April was Bridey’s birthday. I wept again. He had loved her.

Later, I looked up John Johnson’s death in the records. Cause of death was suicide by hanging.