Sleep in the Woods
To
DOROTHY SUTHERLAND
to whom I owe very much
I will make them a covenant of peace, and will call the evil beast to cease out of the land: and they shall dwell safely in the wilderness, and sleep in the woods.
I
JUST AFTER MIDDAY the wind dropped. Briar, at last, was able to proceed with the packing and fastening of the trunks unaccompanied by the sickening pitch and sway that made her head spin dizzily, but which did much more devastating things to Sophia and Mrs. Crewe.
Although they were in sight of land, Mrs. Crewe had to take to her bunk for the twentieth time during the voyage. Sophia, however, threw off her malaise and went for a last walk on the deck.
“When you’ve finished packing, see what Prudence is doing,” Mrs. Crewe instructed Briar weakly. “Goodness knows, she can’t come to much harm now, within an hour of arriving, and in broad daylight, but never will I undertake to chaperon two young ladies on a long voyage again. Never!”
Briar looked at the plump prostrate ineffectual woman with guarded contempt. All the way from England she had fussed like a hen with a hatching of ducklings who constantly escaped her into the water, and Prudence and Sophia had giggled behind her back and gone their flirtatious way. At least, Sophia had bestowed her attention on all and sundry with a careless gregariousness, but Prudence had fallen in love with the handsome second officer, and was already in anguish at the thought of parting. She was probably regarding Mrs. Crewe’s indisposition as heaven-sent, Briar reflected.
But nothing much could happen now except a prolonged farewell. For they were within hours of landing.
Briar folded the last of the girls’ voluminous muslin and silk gowns with her meticulous care. The ship tipped a little, and through the porthole she caught a glimpse of wooded hillside. Suddenly uncontrollable excitement seized her. Casting a quick look at Mrs. Crewe’s humped back, she crushed the billowing materials heedlessly into the trunk, banged the lid, and ran from the cabin on to the deck.
A sharp cool breeze and brilliant sunshine struck her. Across the blue bay the hills, as bare as a plucked chicken on the summits and with the green bush running like water down the hollows and crevices, rose in an encircling wall. In the distance, at the foot of the hills and rising thinly up their sides, lay the scattered buildings of the township. No, not a township. A town. An aspiring city. Wellington, the capital of New Zealand.
That little cluster of buildings towered over by the hills and the windy sky! The place they had all spoken of so optimistically during the long voyage, where Mrs. Crewe was to join her son and daughter-in-law, and where Prudence and Sophia were to find husbands.
No one had said much about what Briar was to find, but then what was she looking for, poor little thing? She wouldn’t expect much after what she had come from, a good position as housekeeper, or perhaps marriage to an honest, sober type of immigrant who wouldn’t inquire too closely into her antecedents.
“Aunt Charity will find you a husband,” Sophia had said blithely. “She just loves marrying off people. That’s why she’s sent for Prudence and me. She says she’s always longed for daughters, and the colony needs gentlewomen, but really she’s only looking for the fun of arranging weddings. She promised Mamma she’d see we got well-bred husbands, so I haven’t a doubt that when Prue and I are settled she’ll find someone for you, too. Though you’re such a prickly little thing, aren’t you? I don’t know who’ll marry you.”
Briar’s chin went in the air, but she forced herself to reply meekly, “I don’t expect your aunt to find me a husband, Miss Sophia.” “There you are, you see!” said Sophia. “You mustn’t be so hoity toity. It’s out of place for someone in your position. I don’t expect Prue and I would keep you a day if we were back in England. But here we are in the back of beyond where goodness knows if we’d ever find another maid—” she shrugged her pretty plump shoulders—“and now we’ve been so much together we’re really quite fond of you. I’ll speak to Aunt Charity myself. She’ll know of some suitable young man.”
“No! Don’t you dare!” cried Briar, then bit her tongue. “Please, Miss Sophia. I don’t really want a husband. At least, not one that’s found for me.”
“Oh well, if you’re going to be too proud! Silly little creature! You’d be quite pretty if you had more color and more flesh on your bones. Did your family starve you as a child?”
“No!” said Briar fiercely.
“Well, don’t get angry about it. I’m just giving you advice. And I’m sure Prue and I won’t scorn Aunt Charity’s help to find husbands. I long to have one. Goodness me, I’m twenty! I’m getting old!”
But Prudence had fallen in love with Second Officer Edmund Wheeler, and her face, less round and jolly than Sophia’s, was already getting wan and strained as the inevitable farewells drew near. For Edmund was a penniless younger son with only his career as a sailor, and it wasn’t likely that Aunt Charity would permit such a marriage. That was, if Edmund was serious. Everyone said never trust a sailor …
Marriage! The girls and Mrs. Crewe talked of nothing else. Briar was weary of the subject. Was there nothing else in life? And if that were so, what was her life to be? A servant and an orphan who did not even know who her parents had been, who had been rescued out of the dead arms of her mother in a ditch by a passing farmer who heard her feeble cries.
The farmer had been a rustic with a poetic turn of mind, and had said, as from her dirty bundle of clothes she gave him her fleeting tremulous smile. “A liddle briar rose, that’s what she be. Growing in a ditch.”
He had taken her home to his wife, and the police had buried the unknown girl who had been, one presumed, her mother. She had grown up with the farmer’s own brood of children until she was old enough to be sent out to her first position. The farmer’s wife had been kind enough, but had never really cared for the thin little changeling, and was relieved to see her go. She had been rescued from death, and was now given a good start in the world. Neither the farmer nor his wife had anything on their consciences. And Briar, aged nine years, was taken into the home of a schoolmaster and his wife to be fed and clothed and educated a little (because Andrew Gaunt was a born teacher and could as little tolerate illiteracy as starvation), in return for multitudinous household duties.
The next seven years were Briar’s first and only taste of happiness. She had a quick eager mind, and Andrew Gaunt, somewhat to his own astonishment, had found himself not only acquainting her with the English classics, but with the French, and also with a little Latin and Greek. He corrected her rustic accent and encouraged her instinctive good taste. His lean scholarly face was the only one she had ever grown to love. When he died she was desolate.
Another position had to be found, because his widow was left too poor even to be able to feed an extra mouth. That was when, hiding her intellectual ability (for no one required a maid with a knowledge of the classics and a love, of all things, for the works of Montaigne), she obtained employment with a clergyman’s widow, and later with a Mrs. Carruthers, the mother of Sophia and Prudence.
Here, there was a household of five girls, a Jane Austen Mrs. Bennet’s household, Briar had told herself, all of them to be married, and none of them beautiful or witty enough to compensate for her lack of dowry. So that when the suggestion came from their mother’s sister-in-law in New Zealand that she longed for one or perhaps two of the dear girls to come out to her—she had a large house, the climate was ideal, and marriageable young men abounded—poor distracted Mrs. Carruthers leaped at the opportunity and arranged to send the two eldest, Sophia and Prudence, in the care, of course, of a suitable chaperon and accompanied by a maid.
Briar had been judged to be about three months old when she had been discovered in her dying mother’s arms. Her rescuers had subsequently been able to tell her nothing about her mother beyond the fact that the young woman had had a fine silk petticoat, strangely enough, beneath her ragged cloak, and had been very young. This had been material enough for Briar’s inventive and lonely mind to feed on. Her mother had been a lady forsaken by her lover, or perhaps a young widow with no one to whom to turn. But she had fiercely loved her baby. That was one thing Briar always insisted to herself. She, whom her foster parents had merely tolerated as a stray kitten, and then whose quick sharp mind Andrew Gaunt, the schoolmaster, had played on.… But her mother had loved her. That she knew. And some day, some day …
Her incoherent longings ended in genuine deceit. She lied to the Carruthers about her family. She said she had parents in Devon who were too poor to keep her at home. But they wrote her letters, of course, and were deeply interested in her well-being.
Before this deceit could be found out the tremendous excitement of the voyage to New Zealand had come up.
Briar would never forget that interview with Mrs. Carruthers.
“Briar, if I asked you to go to New Zealand with Sophia and Prudence, would your parents agree?”
Briar’s heart leaped in awful excitement. She felt as if a clean cold wind from the ends of the earth were blowing in her face. A new country, a new start, the chance to be somebody, a person who sloughed off all her memories except those of dear Mr. Gaunt and the slim young girl in the silk petticoat who had closed her loving arms around her baby even as she died …
Confused and terribly excited, Briar could not define her emotions. And before she could speak Mrs. Carruthers was going on, “Of course, you would have to want to go yourself. I wouldn’t ask you to do such a tremendous thing against your will. But it seems to me a young thing like you might well have better prospects out there than here—they say a great many honest laboring men are immigrating, and wanting wives. You would have to promise, of course, to perform your duties with my daughters as long as they needed you. And to behave correctly. But you seem to be a quiet intelligent girl who knows her place. Now supposing I write to your parents—”
“No, let me, let me!” Briar cried. Then remembering herself she added, “Please let me, ma’am. I can persuade them to almost anything if I try. They don’t like to refuse me, you see.” Her lashes were downcast, hiding her brilliant eyes, dilated with excitement. “I’d dearly like to go, ma’am. And I do promise you I’d look after Miss Sophia and Miss Prudence.”
Mrs. Carruthers smiled tolerantly. “You’re younger than either of them, but I believe you have a lot of sense in that little head. Very well, write your letter yourself, and let me know when you receive an answer. By the way, who taught you to write?”
Briar lifted demure eyes. “My father, ma’am.”
A few days later Briar, with the deliberately misspelled letter purporting to be from her mother, went to Mrs. Carruthers and gasped, “I can go, ma’am. Oh, ma’am, I’m so happy!”
“What do you think you’re going to find in this strange country?” Mrs. Carruthers said dryly. “Very well, child, you must have the true pioneering spirit. Now remember, I trust you to behave as befits your position in life, in all situations. Do you understand?”
Long ago, twelve whole weeks ago in England, she had nodded gravely and said yes, she understood. But already, with the clean cold wind in her face, and the dark hills looming nearer, she felt an uncontrollable reaching out to something that awaited her, something that would make her a real person, an individual, someone of whom voices would say tenderly and lovingly, “Here’s Briar come!”
Mrs. Carruthers and her bouncing unmarried daughters were suddenly the people who were unreal.…
It had been a long long voyage with patches of tedium, humor and tragedy. There had been gales, and periods of hot airless calm, fights had broken out in the steerage, and flirtations had progressed on the upper deck. Two babies had been born, one to die almost at once and the other to be kept alive with milk from the unhappy Devonshire cow, Daisy, incarcerated below, the property of an optimistic young settler who prayed that he would get her to her destination alive. There had been an outbreak of measles, that most dreaded of shipboard complaints, and seven of the children had died.
The woman, Jemima Potter, who had the fragile new baby, lost two of her four other children, and it was Briar who stood at her side when the two small bodies, almost too weightless to sink, were slid into the curling waves. Jemima recognized an instinctive sympathy in the slim, soberly dressed girl with the shut face, and a bond sprang up between them. Jemima was only twenty-six, and had already borne her phlegmatic husband, Fred Potter, five children. Now three survived, and Briar saw deep apprehension in her face as to what the new country would do to the remaining children. But Fred had wanted to go somewhere where he could have his own little patch of ground to grow potatoes, so they had come. It seemed as if his freedom had been purchased at very great cost.
These were the only friends whom Briar had made on the voyage, and it was to them she turned when at last the anchor ran down into the blue depths of the bay.
She slipped below to find them in the mêlée of trunks, bags and milling people.
“We’re here, Jemima!” she cried. “Just imagine! We’re here.”
“Why, Briar, you look downright pretty when you’re excited. All flushed, like a rose.”
Briar laughed. “Don’t waste time paying me compliments. Let’s get up on deck. Here, I’ll take the baby.”
“What about your mistresses?”
“Oh, they can take care of themselves for once.”
“That’s no way to talk, Briar,” said Fred Potter, in his ponderous way. “You may be in a new country, but you’re still in the same station in life.”
“Yes, you’re still a servant, love,” said Jemima anxiously. “You’re dependent on them.”
Behave as befits your position in life … came the echo of Mrs. Carruthers’ voice.
Briar tossed her head, spinning her dark curls. Her eyes were a brilliant green, her cheeks glowing. She could not understand the excitement that possessed her, as of some strange unexpressed dream about to come true.
“I won’t be a servant for long. You’ll see!”
On the top deck, Sophia looked impatiently about her. Where was Prudence? Where was Briar? Where was Mrs. Crewe—though one didn’t want her clickety-clacking in one’s ears any more. More important still, where was Captain Bower, who had been so flattering to her, always complimenting her, and Geoffrey Standish, the owner of that absurd cow, Daisy? Geoffrey had probably disappeared to see to Daisy’s welfare over the last stage of the journey, and Prue, the scamp, was hidden somewhere behind the lifeboats with her Edmund. She’d have to get over that infatuation, Sophia reflected practically. Aunt Charity wouldn’t stand any nonsense about penniless sailors. She would have the most eligible young men lined up. After all, she was the Governor’s cousin, and virtually the leader of society.
Really, what did it matter that one stood alone at the rail at this last moment? Everyone on this mortally dull ship would matter less than nothing in a few days. She, Sophie, was much prettier than Prue, and anyway Prue would be looking pale and sulky, as she always did when she was unhappy. She would be the one to sweep the young men of Wellington off their feet and be the belle of the city.
Aunt Charity had written about Government House balls, and week-end parties at country houses, and all kinds of sophisticated festivities. With those new gowns, the latest fashions from London and Paris that Briar was packing, everyone would gasp with admiration. “There goes Miss Sophia Carruthers, niece of the Governor, catch of the season. …”
Oh, yes, one would do very well in this new country.
But it was rather unbecoming to be standing here alone, as if one were the most unpopular young woman on board ship. Sophia stamped her foot pettishly. Where was Prudence?
In the cabin, becoming conscious of the diminished motion of the ship, Mrs. Crewe stirred and sighed, then heaved her bulk off the bunk. One would have to pull oneself together. One would be going ashore presently, and would have to present the young ladies in good order, and no fault of hers if they were not still virgins.
Relations of the Governor. Well, perhaps. But who was the Governor of a small new country like this? Miss Sophia and Miss Prudence might find they gave themselves airs in vain. They’d end up marrying hobbledehoy farmers or bank clerks, and doing their own housework, most likely. And that wouldn’t do them any harm. Indeed, it might be that that snippet of a maid with her secret face and her deceptive meekness might do as well. It was a free country, they said. Conventions went by the board. Even barmaids married the gentry. And as for those dark-skinned Maoris with their war cries and their tattooed faces.… Mrs. Crewe shuddered violently and thought she was going to be ill again. She wished she were back in England. Chaperon to the Goveror’s kinswomen or not. And was that sly Prudence still a virgin?
Mrs. Crewe need not have given serious thought to the latter possibility. Prudence had been far too strictly brought up to behave without decorum. Besides, she had the vaguest notion as to what constituted marriage, and thought that the faint trembling and dizziness that seized her when Edmund looked deeply into her eyes was due to some odd infirmity peculiar to herself. Once indeed, when only the light from the mizzenmast shone and phosphorescence eerily lighted up the sea, he had dared to snatch a kiss, but she had sprung away, shocked and confused. That sort of thing, at least, waited until after marriage.
But would he ever be able to marry her? Did he truly want to? She admitted to herself honestly that she and Sophie were the prettiest girls on board. Sophie, with her fair skin and round ingenuous pale blue eyes, was really the prettier, but at the time Edmund had become aware of them Sophie had been daringly flirting with the captain himself.
So Edmund had declared that he had eyes for no one but Prudence, and one had believed him because one had so longed to. And certainly his conversation had retained its ardent quality even up until this last day, even if now and then his eyes had seemed to wander. Once Prudence had realized he was staring at Briar, who had just come up the companionway and was ruffling her hair in the wind in a rather bold and languorous way. Briar, a maidservant! A little plain thing in her gray dress.
She must have imagined the flash of interest in Edmund’s eyes on that occasion.
Certainly now, as the encircling hills grew closer, one could not complain about his undivided attention.
“Prue, my love! I may call on you at your aunt’s?”
Prudence hesitated, then burst out boldly as Sophie would have done, “I’m afraid that will depend on your intentions. Aunt Charity is, I believe, very strict. At least, Mamma said—”
A strong hand came over hers, sending delightful tremors through her. “But, my dear Prue! You must know what I would like my intentions to be. The devil of it is, I have no money. I shall have to do several more voyages until I can save enough to buy land. Once one can buy land, fortunes are to be made.”
“Fortunes!”
“Of course. All pioneers make their fortunes. Especially if they’re lucky enough to buy land with gold on it.”
“Oh, Edmund! If only you could!”
“Why shouldn’t I?” His bright eyes rested on her. “Prue—I know I should speak to your aunt or your uncle first, but will you wait for me?”
“How old are you?” she asked, the enormous significance of his question suddenly reducing her to a strange calm.
“I’m nineteen. Old enough, goodness knows.”
“So am I. Sophie’s twenty, and no one has asked her yet to be his wife. So I’m the first,” she finished breathlessly. “Oh, I don’t mean I’m just gloating over Sophie. Edmund, we wouldn’t be too old if we had to wait three years, say. Or even four. You’d have saved enough money by then, wouldn’t you? And the time would go by. I could be making my trousseau, twelve of everything. Oh, Edmund, do you really mean it?”
“At the moment,” he said recklessly, “there’s nothing I want more than to kiss you. Oh, the devil!”
“Here’s Sophie,” said Prudence, trying to compose her face. “Sophie, Edmund and I are just saying goodbye.”
“So I can see,” returned her sister tartly. “Do you need to take quite so long about it? I should think Edmund had other duties. Briar’s disappeared, and Mrs. Crewe is putting on her cloak and bonnet. She says we must do the same. We’re going ashore at any moment, thank heaven for that. I, for one, shan’t be sorry to see the last of this ship. Indeed,” she added, her habitual good humor returning, “when I get on dry land I shall kick up my heels just as poor old Daisy will when she gets to pasture. If Aunt Charity hasn’t made plans for our amusement, we shall make our own!”
II
THE LACE CURTAIN billowed inwards in a sudden gust of wind, and Aunt Charity’s large, fretted face appeared at the window.
“Drat this wind! Will it never stop!” She looked across the bay, and suddenly cried in great excitement, “Hubert! The Mary Louise is in! Hubert, come at once!”
When no voice answered her, she lumbered with more speed than grace to the door. She was small in stature, but definitely plump. Indeed, she strangely resembled the furnishings in her large draughty wood-framed house, where all the chairs were solidly padded and curved in shape, and all the cushions stuffed to bursting point. She was an animated cushion herself, tucked in at the waist, and swelling in rich curves above and below. Her little puffed hands were ornamented with several heavy gold rings, and her feet encased in elegant high-heeled boots, seldom visible beneath her flowing skirts. She wore a white lace cap threaded with black velvet ribbon which tied under her chin. Her mouth was too small in her large round face, and tucked in in a self-willed manner, her eyes darted busily all the time, and her forehead was constantly knitted into anxiety of some kind.
It was obvious from the way she moved, and the restlessness of her face, that her tongue, too, was seldom still.
“Hubert, where are you? Don’t you hear me? The Mary Louise is in. The dear girls will be here any moment.”
She clattered down the stairs, not fast because of her bulk, but noisily, causing her husband at his desk to brace himself slightly.
“Oh, there you are, Hubert. Didn’t you hear me telling you the ship’s in. She’s dropped anchor already. Oh, how can you be so unmoved?”
In comparison with her restlessness, her husband was ponderously calm. He was also almost always preoccupied with affairs of the country, and even now, with the broad windows of his study framing the blue bay, and the little ship lying at anchor, his manner remained tolerantly withdrawn.
“They’re your nieces, my love. As I told you at the beginning, they’re entirely your affair. I can see weddings in your face already,” unconsciously he sagged a little, “and all this endless feminine fuss and flurry.”
“Now, Hubert, you’re not to look so far ahead. There’ll be plenty of parties and fun before there are weddings. We have to show the dear girls what colonial life can be. I expect they think they’ve come to the wilds!”
“So they have,” said Hubert gloomily. “I’ve just had word from up north. The Maoris mean serious trouble again. They’ve embarked on a religious war now, and you know what that can mean.” He looked briefly at his wife’s face and added, “Or perhaps you don’t.”
“All I know is they can be a lot of howling savages, but that’s in the bush country and doesn’t need to concern us. We’re perfectly safe.”
“We’re in New Zealand, my love. We’ve made it our country. We’ve got to be concerned about its troubles whether they’re on our own doorstep or not. This Te Kooti is a fanatic. He’s reverted to cannibalism, you know. I’ve a description here of a white soldier, one of your boys, my dear, being prepared for cooking.”
“Cooking!” Aunt Charity echoed faintly.
Hubert Carruthers shot a glance at his wife’s outraged face. Suddenly he was filled with anger that she should be so stupid, and have her head filled with nothing but frivolous parties and match-makings, when such terrible things were going on in this country which already he loved. He was no match for her domineering nature. He would dearly have liked children of his own, sons to give to this wild fertile country teeming with opportunities, and that Charity, despite her abundant body, had not been able to do this for him disappointed him deeply. But that she could derive such satisfaction from the arrival of two unknown nieces, and the opportunity to give vent to her match-making talents, filled him with obscure resentment.
He indulged in one of his few small revenges. “Listen to this,” he said, almost with relish. “‘I watched the preparation of the body of the white soldier for the warrior’s feast. The head was first cut off with a tomahawk, and then the body was cut open and prepared as a butcher prepares a beast he has killed. The body was laid on red-hot stones in the bottom of the earth-oven so that the outer skin could be scraped off easily—’”
“Hubert, stop! This is barbarous. You’re making me ill.”
“Listen!” he commanded. “This is your country. You must be concerned with what goes on in it. ‘Water was then poured over the hot stones to create the steam which was to cook the meal, and green leaves were spread on top of the stones. The body was cut up into convenient portions so as to cook thoroughly. The thickest pieces of meat were cut from the thighs. The hands were laid with the palms uppermost, because when they were cooked they curled up, and the hollow palm was full of gravy which was a great delicacy to the Maori …’”
Aunt Charity’s face, by now, was filled with a terrible fascination. Her mouth had fallen open a little, and her eyes at last were still.
“‘The body of the pakeha or white man took between two and three hours to cook. Then the oven was uncovered and the contents carried in small flax baskets, with kumara and fernroot. It was usual also to cook some of the young curly fronds of ground fern with the meat. It added to its flavor.’”
“Hubert! I must sit down.”
Hubert, a little remorseful now, sprang to lead her to a chair.
“I’m sorry, my love. But these things are going on now, perhaps at this very moment, while you have your head full of nothing but social activities.”
Aunt Charity, although still pretending faintness, for a gently-bred woman should never never have to listen to, much less witness such ghastly happenings, was possessed of a secretly tough nature. It would be unwomanly not to faint at such descriptions, but had she been brought face to face with these savages she would have showed a commendable amount of courage and resilience.
Besides, she hadn’t an acute imagination. Her mind was still almost fully occupied with the bedroom upstairs awaiting her guests, with the anxiety as to whether the girls would be attractive and vivacious and worthy of her efforts on their behalf, and what new fashions from London they would have brought to this sadly benighted and isolated country.
“Hubert, I forbid you to talk to Prudence and Sophia like this, and scare them out of their wits.”
“They must know what to expect.”
“But nothing like that will happen to them! They’re going to live safely here with us.”
“You’re determined to find husbands for these young ladies, my dear. Isn’t it conceivable they may marry young settlers who are moving into the bush country?”
“Oh, no, Hubert, that isn’t at all likely.” Aunt Charity, embarked on her favorite subject, became garrulous. “I’ve already decided that Peter Fanshawe will be ideally suitable for one of them. Such a nice boy, and of very good family. And he is settling down nicely in your bank, isn’t he?”
“He hasn’t a brain in his pretty head,” Hubert grumbled. “Oh, yes, he’ll make a good enough bank clerk. Nothing more.”
“He’s a very handsome young man!” Aunt Charity declared indignantly. “And if he isn’t too devoted to his work—well, what young man is at his age? Besides, it isn’t too important, is it? He has a very nice inheritance, I understand. I thought if he were to build on that piece of land overlooking the harbor, when it has been cleared of flax and tussocks—I predict it will be one of the best areas.”
Hubert’s heavy brows were raised in their tolerant whimsical line. His account of the cannibal feast had temporarily eased him of his vague resentment and dissatisfaction with his wife. “And having built Fanshawe’s house for him, and installed in it Prudence or Sophia, what do you propose doing with Sophia or Prudence?”
“Well, do you know, I can’t make up my mind about Desmond Burke or Allan Greaves, or perhaps Gabriel Brown.”
“I’m surprised you haven’t mentioned Saul Whitmore.”
“I almost don’t dare to,” Aunt Charity declared, with sudden vivacity. “He’s so elusive. Martha Burke declares he will never marry, he’s too much of the lone wolf type. And then there’s his mother who terrifies young girls. Susan Chittaway was reduced to tears after only five minutes’ conversation. But I must say Susan is a mouse if ever there was one. One must admit, however,” her eyes grew dreamy, “that Saul is a tremendous catch. First cousin to an earl, and only second in the line of succession. Mrs. Cooper would give her diamonds to see her daughter married to him, but then she’d not hesitate to throw poor Amanda to the wolves. And I never did think much of her diamonds, anyway. They’re out of place in this simple community.”
“Saul,” said Hubert mildly, “is, I understand, only a single wolf, not a whole pack. And he might, at that, be preferable to Te Kooti and his Hauhaus. Besides, my dear, didn’t I see you wearing your diamond and ruby brooch last evening?”
“That was for dinner at the Government House. One has to wear something! One isn’t entirely reduced to savagery, as we will show these two dear creatures arriving today.”
“And Saul Whitmore, I might point out, has bought land in the Taranaki district.”
“I know. He’s built a very fine house, I’m told. That does seem to give the lie to his intended bachelorhood, doesn’t it?”
“Oh, indeed, indeed. Young Saul doesn’t look the celibate type to me. But if you’re planning to marry Prudence or Sophia to him, let’s hope they’re not timid creatures, scared of mice.”
“Oh, I never thought Saul was that terrifying,” Aunt Charity said comfortably.
“I wasn’t referring to Saul, my love. I was pointing out that he has built his house in the Taranaki district. If I’m not wrong in my predictions it will be right in the heart of the Hauhau country. So let’s hope your little nieces, or one of them, can stand up against a Hauhau attack. It’s quite blood-chilling, I believe. Their war cry is like the bark of a savage dog, and their bare brown bodies and tattooed faces—”
“Hubert! Stop that indecency at once! I won’t listen to another word. If Saul Whitmore takes a bride into the Taranaki country he will be well able to look after her. Anyway, I haven’t time to stand here gossiping. I must go up and see that the girls’ room is quite ready. That new girl, Polly, she’s a lazy female if ever there was one. I wonder if Prudence and Sophia would have preferred a room each? I did think they might be happier together at first. And that best bedroom really is a large airy one. Besides, there’s the maid to be accommodated, too. That’s if she stays. From what I know of girls nowadays she’ll leave the moment she sets foot ashore. She’ll have her eyes open for the nearest man. Marriage! That’s all they think of.”
“But aren’t you planning her marriage, my dear?” Her husband asked suavely.
Aunt Charity glared at him. “Don’t be ridiculous, Hubert! She’s a servant. Although I’ll do my best to see she doesn’t get into trouble. One has that duty at least.”
“Don’t let it fret you, Charity. New Zealand needs sons and daughters.”
“But not outside matrimony!” his wife snapped.
“Which room are you allotting?”
“I’ve told you, the big north bedroom. It gets all the sun, and has a beautiful view.”
“I was speaking of the maid.”
“Oh, her! Really, why do you ask? She’ll go in the servant’s quarters, of course. The little room next to the kitchen. She’ll have it entirely to herself. Surely you can’t accuse me of not treating my servants well!”
Before ordering the carriage (the Carruthers were one of the few families in Wellington who could boast a carriage), Aunt Charity had time to go upstairs and cast a last critical eye over the bedroom in which presently her nieces would be installed.
Away from her husband’s irritating determination to spoil her pleasure, she allowed her excitement to rise in her again. She was so full of plans for the next few weeks, tennis parties, excursions to the beach for picnics, balls, and, if they were fortunate, invitations to week-end parties in one or more of the sparsely situated country houses. That, of course, was if the girls rode horseback. If they didn’t, they would have to learn.
But that was a minor detail. Their mother would have brought them up properly, in every other way, and they would be able to dance well, to talk gracefully, to be gay and vivacious, to play the piano and sing a little, to embroider, of course, and perhaps to paint. They would be ornaments to society. That was what this raw little community, bursting with life but sadly lacking in the more important refinements of life, needed.
Bringing out these two gently-bred girls was her contribution to the community. Hubert, in his coarser moments, had said it was equivalent to introducing a good strain of horseflesh or a pedigree cow. Hubert sometimes was quite intolerable, but when dear Sophia and Prudence were married and producing attractive babies, he would drop his sarcastic attitude and be as delighted as she.
Though that was leaping ahead. One had all the excitement of the courtship and wedding first. Perhaps a double wedding. No, that would be swallowing her cake all in one mouthful. Sophia, as the eldest, must come first. One could decorate the church with arum lilies that grew wild on the hillside.
But they simply must be pretty. If their mother had lied to her about that she would never forgive her.
Yes, the room looked very clean and attractive. Polly had done her best here. Opossum and sheepskin rugs, much washed and whitened and fluffed out, lay on the bare scrubbed floor. The wide iron bedstead with brass knobs and high pillows was covered with a snowy cotton bedspread, and surrounded with a starched lace-trimmed valance. The dressing table, also draped in starched runners and frills, held sundry articles of toilet, a gay pincushion, a hair tidy, and two floral china candlesticks, complete with tall white candles and match-boxes, ready for use. The washstand was occupied by Aunt Charity’s best set of basin and jug, soap dish and other necessary bedroom equipment all in a delightful pattern of leaves and pink blossom. The high windows which rattled slightly in the wind and emitted faint eddies of cool air (for no one had yet been able to build an entirely draught-proof house in this windy town), were attractively curtained in white Nottingham lace as snowy as the bedspread. The room was high-ceilinged and light, and looked over the hillside and the bay.
Soon, Aunt Charity reflected ecstatically, the girls’ trunks would stand on this floor, and the little strange maid, whom one hoped would be reliable and sober, as good maids really were at a premium, would be hanging away the fashionable English dresses in the enormous wardrobe. There was even a long gilt-framed mirror, sacrificed from her own room, hanging on the wall so that the girls would be able to look at themselves in their ball gowns.
She was so sure they would be happy at once. How could they be anything else, with herself, like a fairy godmother, ready to wave her wand and produce out of this crisp bright air their future happiness?
Yes, the bedroom couldn’t be more ready to receive her guests. Now for a final look in the kitchen to see that her orders for dinner that evening had been completely understood, as cook was scarcely more trustworthy than the slow, lazy Polly.
On the way to the large kitchen situated at the back of the house on the ground floor, Aunt Charity paused to look into the maid’s room.
That, too, was spruce and clean. It was small, certainly, but it had everything a girl could require, even a bright rag mat at the bedside, and washbasin and jug in plain white china. The window looked out into the wilder part of the garden, and the flax bushes crackled like flicked whips, but after three months at sea a young woman wasn’t going to be nervous of a few noises outdoors. She could lock her window if she were. But one did hope she was the old-fashioned type of maid who put her work and her mistress first, and wouldn’t get these flighty ideas of independence that almost all immigrants seemed to get. Because, with parties and balls, there would be a great deal of sewing and laundering and ironing to do, and even perhaps waiting on table. Let’s hope the girl was adaptable, and knew her place.
On the whole, Aunt Charity was well pleased with her plotting and planning. She lived in one of the finest houses in Wellington, her husband was a respected bank manager, she herself stood in the coveted position of cousin to the Governor, and therefore an acknowledged leader of society. For a comparatively new community she had contrived a surprisingly comfortable and civilized standard of living. Soon, one didn’t doubt, the social amenities would bear happy comparison with those belonging to a similar standard of life in England. It was really enormously exciting pioneering such a worthwhile cause.
There was no reason at all, simply none at all, to let one’s mind dwell for one shocking second on that horrid description of Hubert’s, that poor white hand slowly crisping and curling with heat and filling with dreadful gravy.…
III
THE MAN on the black horse drew rein for a minute to look at the new ship anchored in the bay. Boats were on their way out to it. Shortly, another batch of bewildered homesick immigrants would stand on dry land wondering what roof would shelter their alien heads, and what they were to do with their conglomeration of possessions, pianos, kitchenware, family portraits, bedsteads and crinolines transported sentimentally from their homeland.
Saul Whitmore was able to feel superior to this far-off scene. He had sailed several years ago in a cargo ship along with his first consignment of sheep and cattle, and, in company with a tough hard-working crew, had escaped the emotionalism and confusion of a shipload of immigrants.
Now this beautiful wild country was his home. He had hacked out his farmlands from the bush, turned loose his livestock, and, over the last five years, built his ambitious house. It was the finest for many miles.
He did not particularly want to boast of owning the finest home in the district, but he was accustomed to a certain standard of living, which it seemed only sensible, if possible, to maintain even in the bush.
Besides, one did not take a bride to a mere laborer’s hut. One offered the best one could—even to an as yet unknown woman.
Saul’s horse, sensing his master’s mood, fidgeted restlessly on the dusty track. Saul cast another look downwards at the midget boats toiling across the wrinkled blue water, and spoke to his horse, “Come on then, old fellow. Home now.”
But his brow was dark as he turned down the track towards the town and his mother’s house. It was a pity, he was reflecting, that women were so necessary.
His mother, a toweringly tall old woman, thin as the niu poles which the Maoris hoisted at their incantation ceremonies, with yellow-tinged skin and enormous high-bridged nose, looked at him comprehendingly.
“Well, my boy, you’ve come.”
“Yes, mother.” He kissed her cheek. He did not need to stoop. She was as tall as he. They were good friends, these two. She knew why he had come and what he was thinking. Even if they had not been friends she would have known, for she had strange powers of intuition. The people who were afraid of her she scorned. Some of those silly giggling girls, for instance, one of whom this black-browed son of hers would have to make his wife.
“How are things? Do you want tea? Or whisky?”
“Whisky, please. Things are so so. The house is finished. I’ve called the place Lucknow.”
His mother’s face softened. “Thank you, Saul. That’s a nice tribute. But why are things only so so?”
“It’s the old trouble.” Saul flung down his pack. “The Maoris. Oh, they’re friendly enough on the surface, but now Te Kooti has escaped from the Chatham Islands his myth is spreading. He’s bad, but he’s a devastatingly clever war leader, and he uses these horrible pseudo-religious initiation ceremonies to get recruits.”
“They’re savages, of course. In spite of the poor optimistic missionaries.”
“Poor missionaries is right,” Saul agreed. “Have you heard what happened to that poor devil, the Reverend Volkner? He was beheaded with a tomahawk, and they put his head in church on the pulpit. There the chief gouged out the eyes and swallowed them, one by one. That’s his way of defeating the enemy, apparently, though I believe the last eye nearly choked him. Sometimes I think these Maoris are not human. If you’ve heard one of their attacks when they yell like wild dogs, or wolves, hau, hau, hau hau, you’d believe they’re fiends. They take their initiation ceremony around the severed head of a British officer, stroking or even licking the decaying flesh. They’d drink its blood, if there were any left!”
“This is only a disease they have temporarily,” Mrs. Whitmore said.
“But it’s spreading. Especially with a fanatic like Te Kooti. He’s a handsome devil, you know, with that curly black hair and arrogant tattooed face. He’s young, too, and strong and very brave. He wears a cloak of black and white feathers, and one of his men always carries his own particular flag into battle. Te Wepu, the Whip. Oh, he knows all the tricks.”
“Why did they let him escape from the Chathams after he was imprisoned there?”
Saul shrugged. “He’s another Bonaparte, perhaps. At least, he has the same pattern of megalomania. His return has set some fires alight. There’ll be guerilla warfare until he’s caught again, or killed. One never knows where he’ll strike. The bad thing is, one can’t trust one’s own natives any more. They disappear overnight or steal one’s horses.”
Then he smiled reassuringly at his mother. “Perhaps it’s not as bad as that. We’ve had no attacks close at hand. They’ve been in Hawkes Bay and the Urewera country. But nobody listens to me when I tell them this trouble is spreading, and the army—I’m sorry, mother, but I’ve yet to find a more stupid commanding officer than Major Braby in our district.”
“Something’s happened to upset you recently, Saul?”
The old lady’s eyes penetrated her son’s somber face. He didn’t try to deceive her. He never had been able to, and he knew it was useless to attempt to do so now.
“I found young David Bowden’s body in the forest. The heart had been cut out, and—” His face grew dark. “There’s no use in talking about it. But all in all, it might be better if you don’t come up until this trouble blows over.”
“Don’t talk nonsense. Haven’t I always gone everywhere with your father?”
This was true enough. Mrs. Whitmore had been at uncomfortably close proximity to several battles, and had lived through the siege of Lucknow during which her husband, Colonel Whitmore, had died. It was true that she was not to be frightened by a couple of hundred yelling brown men, tattooed and almost naked. She had seen that kind of thing before. There was a limit to the horrors one’s mind could assimilate, or the fear one could feel. There was even a limit to the various methods of frightfulness.
“I shall come later, Saul. That’s definite. I’ll shut up this house, if one can call it a house.” There was a flash of humor in her extraordinary dark eyes as she looked around the tiny room, small-windowed and claustrophobic. “I’ll be glad to get away from that smoky chimney. It’s the strange currents of wind, I think. I hope you’ve managed better in Taranaki. But what about the girl?”
“The girl?”
“Don’t pretend to be stupid. Your wife.”
“Oh, that. Well—what do you suggest, mother?”
“Frankly, I don’t know. Anyone would have you. Jump at the chance. Heaven knows why! You’ll frighten the life out of them.”
Saul grinned suddenly, his heavy brows lifting. “I won’t put up with the vapors, if that’s what you mean.”
“There’s Susan Chittaway, who weeps if you so much as look at her. Or Janet Reid. She’d give you healthy children, but what she would do in a Hauhau attack, I’d hate to think. Or that bold creature, Sarah Jane Maxwell. In some ways, she might be the better choice.”
“There was a ship in the harbor as I came along,” Saul commented.
His mother looked up with sharp interest. “That’ll be the Mary Louise. Charity Carruthers has done nothing but talk of her for the last three months. She has two nieces on board. Coming out to find husbands. Perhaps you’d better look them over. Though what a niece of Charity Carruthers might have to commend her, I can’t imagine.”
“I’ll take a trip to England,” said Saul suddenly, with a hint of desperation.
“No, you won’t. You’ll stay right here and marry the first healthy girl who’ll have you and start a family.”
“Mother! Marriage isn’t that important.”
“It is for you, Saul,” said the old woman, fixing him with her intense eyes which made no secret now of her obsession. “You’re the last of your line. I want you to have children. Your father longed for that. For his sake and my own, I want my first grandchild. You’re thirty. You’ve waited too long already. I won’t have you taking any more risks until you’ve made sure of this. Life’s too uncertain anywhere, and particularly here, with this madman Te Kooti on the warpath again. You’re not to wait any longer, Saul. I ask you not to.”
Saul’s brows were lifted arrogantly to face her. “And what am I expected to feel for one of these silly young virgins who’ll be scared of her own shadow. Love?”
“Call it what you like,” his mother said impatiently. “But find a healthy girl and get her into bed. Don’t go on dallying. You need a wife, and I want a grandchild. I haven’t superhuman patience, even if you have. What’s wrong with you, may I ask?”
“Nothing at all,” Saul grinned. He pressed his mother’s shoulder affectionately. “Very well, you old tyrant. I’ll show you. But she ought to be able to cook, don’t you think?”
“Certainly. And sew, and run a household efficiently. If her face is pretty, so much the better. I’m sorry, Saul. If you were in England I’d be content for you to go to every ball in the country. But you’re not in England. You’re in a new country where the simple facts of existence are the ones that count. I shouldn’t have to tell you what they are.”
“Mother, be assured, you don’t.”
“Then what about starting by going to Charity Carruthers’ welcome party for the two nieces. She’ll be overjoyed if you walk in.”
Saul sighed with distaste and boredom. “Must I?”
“It’s a beginning. And when you’re married, if you don’t want to take the girl to the country until things are quieter, you can leave her here with me.” The old lady’s eyes twinkled with macabre humor. “I, at least, won’t eat her.”
Saul swallowed his whisky and went out to unsaddle his horse. The wind was cool now, and carried the tang of the sea, although here a shoulder of the hill hid the bay from sight. The little ship riding at anchor was hidden. Yet, for some reason, she was vividly in his mind. Perhaps she had carried on board the woman he wanted, the single one in the whole world whom he could imagine permanently at his side. Because there was such a woman, he knew. Or was that just one of the foolish fancies he had caught from his mother? His mother was a very dominating woman, but since he had outgrown childhood she had not dominated him. If he did not wish to marry he would not.