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An Important Family

Dorothy Eden

For Nancy and Harvey Hackman

A Biography of Dorothy Eden

Supposing there should be going to the Canterbury colonies a large number of families of the gentry class, all being truly respectable or worthy of respect, to found an important family in one part of the British Empire…

—EDWARD GIBBON WAKEFIELD

1

WHEN SHE ARRIVED ON the doorstep, Kate couldn’t bring herself to ring the doorbell. The house was too grand and she was uncertain as to whether she should have gone to the servants’ entrance. But the advertisement had said “to live as family.” Families used the front door. Would there be a servants’ entrance in a colonial house? She doubted it. Therefore, to live as family meant little since there could scarcely be an alternative.

“And is it cannibal country you’re planning to go to?” Cousin Mabel had asked in great alarm.

“A bonny tender young thing like Kate,” her husband, Cousin Giles, hidden behind The Times newspaper, had murmured. “She’ll be served as the plat du jour at the Big Chief’s table.”

Cousin Mabel was English and didn’t appreciate Irish humour. Kate didn’t always appreciate it herself, and particularly not today when she had such an ordeal ahead of her.

But it wasn’t cannibalism she was afraid of, it was what the advertisement had candidly stated about isolation and loneliness. Was she strong enough to face those things?

Of course she was. They couldn’t be worse than the loneliness and grief she had suffered for the last two years, the hatred of Ireland and the longing, since Dermot’s death at the hands of an ill-tempered British sergeant, to get away from that sad, weeping country for ever.

The familiar wrench of pain and anger stiffened her resolve. Kate set her finger on the doorbell and waited in the grey spacious London square, austere and orderly and exuding wealth and power. A thought puzzled her. Why did the people who lived in this grand house, apparently lacking nothing, want to travel so far away? Were they also escaping from grief?

The door opened. A majestic butler appeared. His lofty gaze took in Kate’s modest appearance. His expression said that she should have gone to the servants’ entrance.

“Yes, miss. What do you want?”

The newspaper containing the advertisement, which she had outlined in black ink, trembled in Kate’s hand.

Wanted—for titled family emigrating to the colony of New Zealand, young woman of pleasant disposition and resourcefulness. To be companion to two ladies and to live as family. A knowledge of music, art and literature an advantage, also needlework and care of the ladies’ wardrobes. The post will inevitably represent some isolation from society, so nobody who has not the strength to contemplate partings from family and friends should consider it. Apply with references to 3 Belgrave Square, London.

Kate indicated the column to the butler. She spoke with as much confidence as she could manage.

“I have come to see somebody about this. I’m afraid I don’t know your employers’ names.”

“Sir John and Lady Devenish, miss. I’ll see if his lordship is available. Will you step inside?”

A black-and-white tiled hall, good furniture, mirrors, the curve of a well-polished staircase. Why should Lord and Lady Devenish be travelling into the unknown? Why did they need to seek a new life? Intrigued, Kate forgot her nervousness. She must have caught the scent of adventure for suddenly she knew that she terribly wanted to accompany them, no matter what kind of people they were.

“Will you come this way, miss?” The butler had returned and was indicating that Kate should follow him down the hall into a darkish book-lined room.

“The young lady, my lord.”

“Ah, yes, Parker. Has she told you her name? Never mind, you may leave us. Come and introduce yourself, madam.”

“I’m Miss O’Connor. Kate O’Connor, sir.”

“Irish,” he said at once.

It was impossible to tell from his voice whether he was prejudiced or not. So many English people, especially since the Great Hunger, seemed to hate and despise the Irish. Their own consciences were guilty, that was the trouble.

But this man, strong-looking and youngish, surely not more than forty, seemed impartial, almost a little absent in his manner, as if the irritating Irish were minuscule compared with his own private concerns.

He was well groomed, from his glossy waving brown hair, to his sparkling white shirt-cuffs, his polished fingernails, the heavy, gold watch chain across his stomach. When Kate dared to raise her eyes and look into his face, she saw that he was looking at her with deep-set observant eyes. He was not perfectly handsome because his high-bridged nose was very slightly crooked as if it had once been broken. A fall in the hunting field, perhaps. This slight fault, to Kate’s mind, was attractive. His colour had a healthy ruddiness, as if from an outdoor life, he was clean shaven, his mouth was unsmiling and had a look of intolerance, his jaw strong.

A formidable figure, Kate decided. But who would want a meek and polite gentleman to be in charge of three ladies sailing into an unknown world?

Kate’s heart was beating hard. “Anglo-Irish, sir,” she said in her soft voice. “I was brought up in Mallow by two aunts. My father was thrown from a horse and killed when I was a child. He was Irish and reckless. My mother was English.” She saw him watching her. “She grieved too much, and soon followed him.”

“And now you want to leave your aunts and your country? Why? Are you penniless? In trouble? Are you running away from something?”

I don’t think I care for that inflexible mouth, Kate was thinking. If I could see him smile…

“Does one have to be running away from something, sir?”

“I should explain that I’m a great admirer of the writings of Edward Gibbon Wakefield, the coloniser. Have you heard of him? He has a dream about the ideal colony. A Utopia, in fact. He says that emigrants to empty lands should not be in flight from disgrace or crime or starvation or other desperate ills. He was referring to the unfortunate convict settlements in Australia, of course.”

Kate was interested and forgot her nervousness.

“And so the emigrants should all be respectable people with no blemish on their characters?”

“In Wakefield’s Canterbury settlement in New Zealand, this is his intention. He wants large numbers of families of both the gentry and the working classes to settle there. There must also be members of the professions such as law and medicine. A bishop would be an excellent idea.”

There was the shadow of a smile on that serious mouth.

“And of course a fair measure of craftsmen such as carpenters, bricklayers, shopkeepers, shepherds and ploughmen. A perfectly constructed and balanced society, in other words. It’s a concept that I find tremendously exciting. Surely a promising new country like New Zealand gives enterprising people the opportunity to create it.”

“And everyone is to be perfectly happy?” Kate heard herself saying. “But what about human nature?”

“Human nature?”

“I mean the usual components of love and hate, greed, envy, bad tempers, craftiness, guile. Even stupidity. Your perfect colony can’t banish the things that we all carry on our backs.”

Sir John Devenish was looking at her with some impatience. Had he expected nothing but romantic idealism from a woman? How could he, an intelligent and thinking man, be so gullible himself? Yet the concept was exciting, and how could such a society become a fact if people didn’t believe in it?

“I apologise, sir—”

“What are you apologising about?”

“I think I was impertinent.”

“To express your opinion? No, I welcome an intelligent opinion. Although I had hardly expected such a quickly formed one.” His eyes remained hard and unfriendly. He didn’t like his dream being pricked even in the smallest way. It obviously meant a very great deal to him.

“At least I don’t need to enquire about your education, Miss O’Connor,” he commented. “That’s apparent. Although you have a woman’s way of looking at things. Perhaps you should answer the question that led up to this.”

“Am I running away? From Ireland, certainly. My fiancé was killed there.” Kate bit her lip, and tried to keep her voice calm. “He wasn’t an important person, just a schoolmaster, who was too compassionate. He tried to stop the military from evicting a family from their cottage. There was a young mother and two small children. He acted impulsively, I know, and he would never have succeeded, even if he had been given a chance. But the sergeant, a big brutal fellow, struck him down. Killed him, sir. Although unintentionally,” she added fairly.

“That’s terrible,” Sir John Devenish said with sincerity. “It’s understandable you should want to leave that unhappy country. Have you overcome your grief?”

“I will not be a weeping female, sir.”

Sir John’s mouth gave a twitch. Almost, he had been about to smile.

“Your family?”

“I have only two aunts in Mallow and a cousin in London. They agree with my aspirations.”

They didn’t. At least Aunt Dolly, the younger of the two elderly sisters in Mallow may secretly have done so. She still had the light of the dreamer in her soft blue eyes. But she was accustomed to letting her sister, Esmeralda, be the spokesman, so it was officially known in Mallow that the Misses O’Connor were puzzled and grieved by their niece’s extraordinary decision. They should not have been. Their troubled country had seen many departures from its shores, and the letters and the small packages of gold had come trickling back. Even Aunt Esmeralda and Aunt Dolly would not scorn the gold, if Kate could send it. Their rambling old house was shabby and their tangled demesne had shrunk from ten acres to two since Paddy Dowell had taken the other eight to graze his cows. The money had been most useful while it lasted. But it had quickly gone, and the house was again falling into disrepair. What future did it have for Kate? Even Cousin Mabel in London had been unable to make any suggestions save that Kate, so clever in her brain, should open a small private school for girls—without apparently money or pupils!

“And the other requirements in the advertisement?” Sir John was saying.

Kate was on firmer ground now. “Oh, they’ll be no bother to me. I can do them all, and other things, too.”

“What other things?”

“Speaking French. Riding.”

“French won’t be necessary in New Zealand, I fancy. Maori, more likely. I hear it is a musical language. Riding will indeed be useful as it is the only way to get about, except for bullock waggons. And coaches on the roads, but there are few roads.”

“Does Lady Devenish ride, sir?”

“Not much. My daughter does, but doesn’t care for it. They’re what I call drawing-room women.”

He spoke with a certain pride, as if this was the kind of woman he admired. But in a new settlement? As pioneers? One supposed the ornamental would be necessary, as well as the practical, if they were to have a balanced society.

Kate found she had been enjoying their conversation. It had been much more an exchange of ideas than an interrogation of herself. It was possible that there would be more discussions of this kind, on the long tedious voyage, when good conversationalists would probably be scarce. A stirring of excitement made her eyes brighten. She watched Sir John pull the bell rope, and nodded when he said that he thought it time for her to make the acquaintance of his wife.

“Since she must make the ultimate decision. You will be constantly in her company. And my daughter’s, of course. Parker”—the butler had appeared—“ask Lady Devenish if she is able to come down. You understand,” he went on to Kate, “that no decision can be made today. You are the first applicant and I daresay there will be others.”

“I understand, sir.” For all her confused feelings the excitement stirring in her told Kate that she very much wanted this position, and infinitely more now than when she had been standing nervously on the doorstep. She guessed that Sir John Devenish would be a forthright man, perhaps an intolerant one, and not easily knowable. If he deferred to his wife so meticulously, what could she be like?

Don’t let her spoil my hopes, Kate prayed silently. If she is a dragon, can I live for three months in the confined space of a ship with her, and then in the isolation of a lonely house? And with the daughter, too, who may be just as domineering as her parents…

Her tumbled thoughts scattered as the door opened and a small fragile woman, like a moth, or a white mouse, came in.

“You wanted me, John? Oh, you have an applicant.” There was surprise and apprehension in Lady Devenish’s sigh. “So soon.”

“It can’t be too soon, my dear. This is Miss Kate O’Connor who seems eager to join us in our new life. I know you will have a long list of matters to discuss with her, so I’ll leave you.”

Lady Devenish made a groping movement towards her husband. She was dressed in pale grey and her face had almost the same sad colour. Her eyes were downcast as if she were too diffident or too nervous to look at Kate. Or was it her alarming future which she was refusing to face? Kate was amused at her own apprehension. Was this the woman who was going to dominate the ship’s poky cabin? Poor thing, what she needed was a mouse-hole.

How could someone so urbane and confident as Sir John Devenish have married a timid woman like this? Or had marriage to him developed the timidity? Once Lady Devenish must have been delicately pretty, like a harebell. If one liked the frail short-lived flowers.

The door closed. The two women were alone and unexpectedly Lady Devenish raised her eyes and gave Kate a surprisingly sharp scrutiny. She was not entirely colourless, after all.

“How old are you, Miss O’Connor?”

“I’m twenty-three.”

“And are you good with young girls, Miss O’Connor? Have you a kind and sympathetic manner?”

“I haven’t had much experience, Lady Devenish. But I would be kind, of course.”

“Celina has an extremely nervous disposition. She inherits it from me. Her father, I am afraid, doesn’t always understand a young girl’s vapours.”

“May I ask how old your daughter is, Lady Devenish?”

“How old? Were you not told? She is eighteen.”

“Oh! I had imagined—”

“What?” The sharpness was in Lady Devenish’s voice now. Brittle, Like glass breaking.

“I don’t know why I imagined that she wasn’t out of the schoolroom.”

“That’s because her father babies her. We both do, I’m afraid. She has always been so sensitive, so easily upset. She lives on her nerves. Oh, Miss O’Connor—”

“Yes?”

“Do you believe that the natives of New Zealand are cannibals?”

One could not lie. Kate had heard the same stories herself.

“I believe some of the tribes did practise cannibalism. But not since the coming of the white man, and the missionaries. There is a Bishop Selwyn who has made himself famous for teaching the savages Christian ways.”

“I am relieved to hear it.” Lady Devenish had brightened a little. “Of course, with decent British rule, those horrible practices must disappear. Anyway, Sir John says that our property is not in a native area. It is too far from the sea. The natives live on fish a great deal. Avalon is quite a fine place, Miss O’Connor. We are not going to live in mud huts. Sir John bought the property from a settler who is returning to England. He has seen sketches of the house and outbuildings. It has verandas and gabled windows. It is nothing like Leyte Manor, of course. That is our home in the Cotswolds that we are leaving. But it has a romantic name, hasn’t it? Avalon.”

“Perhaps it will be romantic, Lady Devenish.”

“With those snowy mountains as a backdrop.” Lady Devenish was clasping her hands tightly. “Cold,” she muttered. “Cold, cold.” She seemed to be shivering. Presently, however, she composed herself.

“Forgive me, Miss O’Connor. It’s my wretched nerves, which Celina has, too. We have both been having ridiculous dreams about sheep. Oh, dear Miss O’Connor, you will come with us, won’t you? And help us to be brave.”

“Am I to come?” Kate cried.

She wanted to throw her arms round the little quivering figure and reassure her, as one would a child. Why was she so suddenly taken up with this family? In half an hour she was identifying with them, the adventurous husband with his ideals about a new colony, a Utopia on earth, and now this slender thread of a woman with the fearfulness coming and going in her eyes.

What about the daughter?

“Oh, yes, I think you are to come, my dear. My husband wouldn’t have allowed me to waste my time on someone unsuitable. But naturally we will have long discussions and we will want to see you again. Celina must see you. Have we your address so that we can send you a message?”

“I have it here,” said Kate, handing her one of Cousin Mabel’s cards. “I shall need to reflect, too, of course.”

“If my husband decides in your favour,” Lady Devenish said, “he will allow you no time for reflection.”

After the young woman, Miss O’Connor, had gone, Lady Devenish retired to her bedroom, shutting the door and drawing the curtains although it was still daylight. She liked gloom. No one could watch her in semi-darkness. People watched her too much. She had first known this when she was quite a small child. She had never been left alone. They had seemed to be watching her for something but what it was she didn’t know. She had learned not to meet their eyes. Painfully shy, she was always more comfortable with her gaze averted.

“Hold your head up, child,” Mama had used to say. “You have pretty blue eyes. Let people see them.” But Mama had disappeared before her daughter was ten years old, and she had not seen her again. Nobody could, or would, tell her where Mama was, and only some years later had she learned that the sharp-voiced little person who had scolded her was dead, for the house had been in mourning, the blinds drawn, the servants in black, and a new grave dug in the churchyard.

“Poor thing, like a wild bird come to rest,” Nanny had said.

“Why wasn’t I told? Why did I never see her?” she asked.

“Your Papa thought it better not. Now don’t ask questions that I can’t answer, Miss Iris. Your Papa expects you to grow up into a charming young lady and find a good husband, so that is what you must set about doing.”

“Me?” she faltered.

“Who else, for goodness sake? You’re fifteen years old and you’re quite passably pretty. Some men like the quiet ones. And your fortune will help. We must be practical in this life.”

Sir John Devenish, that handsome young man with the dark bright penetrating eyes, had liked her quietness and her prettiness. More or less than her fortune? He had obviously liked that, too. She had married him when she was seventeen, and she had been terrified of him.

When her baby had been born he had been enchanted with its silvery head and his own dark eyes. Celina was a little witch, an other-worldish creature, but with all the lively vociferousness her mother lacked. All the same, John had hoped for a son.

He never understood why his wife always stiffened in his arms, but he supposed that was the prerogative of a highly sensitive woman. She never conceived again.

It had seemed to be always cold at Leyte Manor in the dark-panelled rooms with the diamond-paned windows. She had never felt at home there. But now, in comparison with the wastes of an almost uninhabited country, it seemed infinitely desirable, even though she was sure it was haunted. There had been that long moan she had heard one night. No one else had heard it. Yet it was soon after that that her husband had announced their impending departure for the colonies. Partly because he wanted an invigorating change, partly because his pretty doll child, Celina, was moping and pining and not pleasing him. Lady Devenish had always thought of Celina as a doll, albeit often a cross and disagreeable one. Recently the doctor had diagnosed a nervous debility and recommended a complete change of scene and climate.

So here she was, Lady Devenish thought, wringing her hands in her despairing fashion. Caught between the two of them, her alarming husband and her perplexing daughter. But at least New Zealand would not have old haunted houses, with sad moaning in the night.

2

THEY WERE LIKE a group out of a painting, standing at the crossroads overlooking the gentle rolling landscape of the Cotswolds.

Pa wore his shabby tweed cape over his best Sunday jacket and trousers, Mam her Sunday bonnet and the warm shawl Granny had finished knitting just in time for the departure. Emily was in her much treasured blue velvet cape and bonnet. Granny hadn’t thought it at all suitable for travelling, not warm enough and fripperish. But Emily, in tears, had pleaded to wear it because it always made her feel good, and she needed desperately to feel good on this strange, sad morning. She had polished her buttoned boots to a brave shine, and then had done the same for the little boys. Her brothers, Jonnie and Willie, had their tweed overcoats and tweed caps on, making them look like little men. Jonnie was eleven, Willie five. Jonnie was looking bright-eyed and excited about the journey ahead, but Willie’s face was smudged with tears. He had cried about leaving his ferret. There was a small bulge beneath his overcoat, but this came, not from the ferret, but from the shabby wooden doll that he still cherished furtively, for he felt he should have grown out of dolls.

The two boys were younger than the boy who had been the last to hang on the gibbet at the roadside a little way ahead. Although that poor lad had been child enough, not quite thirteen, a starved skinny form like a paper doll swinging in the breeze. Mam hadn’t let any of them near that evil spot on the roadside until the sparrow bones had been cut down and laid to rest. What had the poor boy done, Emily asked over and over again, not believing that he could have been hanged for stealing a trussed fowl from the poulterer in Burford. His Mam and his six younger brothers and sisters had been starving, Mam had explained to Emily. He had done wrong, of course, but the punishment had been far too cruel. It was things like that that made you want to leave the old country and hope for true justice in the colonies.

Mam herself was staring at the sinister outline of the gibbet in the distance, imagining the poor doll hanging there. Making it give her courage, perhaps. Emily understood that because she was in need of courage, too. No matter what dreadful things happened now and then, this green part of England was their home and it was terrible to leave it. Granny and Grandpa were left in the little cottage that was one of a circle of cottages round the village pond, a cottage that had been bursting at the sides when they were all there. Granny and Grandpa in one small low-ceilinged upstairs bedroom, Aunt Annie, who had a crippled leg and walked with a tilt, and would never marry, in the other. Mam and Pa in the tiny downstairs parlour where Grandpa kept his books and the children in the wall bed in the kitchen where the fire winked cosily in the stove until after midnight and the world was safe.

From the pond, in the early summer, there had come the croaking of frogs, and on Sundays the ringing of church bells. The small grey church up the hillside was where squire and his wife and daughter went every Sunday when they were in residence at the manor. Grandpa rang the bells. He was also the parish clerk and recorded, in beautiful script, the births, marriages and deaths in the parish register. He was a very clever man. He had taught his grandchildren to read and to write. He believed that that knowledge was of far greater value than money.

Pa didn’t agree, neither did Mam, otherwise they wouldn’t be standing here on this chilly morning surrounded by their baggage waiting for the London coach. They were going to find gold in the colonies. The boys were going to be rich and Emily was going to get a fine, hard-working, healthy husband. They would all own their own houses and land. There was plenty for everybody and there would be no more masters and mistresses. Everyone would be equal.

Not that Squire was a bad master. If he had been, Pa wouldn’t have agreed to go to New Zealand with him. Nor was the mistress unkind or thoughtless, though Mam had a certain contempt for her. A poor anxious lady, she called her, whom one had to protect. Especially when there was trouble in the house.

But Emily had never been told what the trouble was.

She only knew that it was unlikely she would ever love a house as much as Leyte Manor. She would take the memory of it with her over the seas and keep it in her head for ever.

Mam had given way to her pleading and let her have a last look over the lovely old rooms after the Squire and Lady Devenish and Miss Celina had gone to London.

“You won’t like it,” Mam said. “Everything’s under covers. It’s sad, ghostly. It’s as if the old house was ready for burial.”

“Oh, no, Mam!”

But Mam was right. For the two large drawing rooms, the library, the tapestry room, the mistress’s sitting room and all the bedrooms were shrouded in sheets. There were faded squares and oblongs on the damask wallpaper where pictures had been removed, and all the fascinating porcelain figures that Emily had loved but never dared to touch had disappeared.

“Packed away,” said Mam briefly.

Emily looked sadly for her most admired painting, that of a child in Elizabethan dress, a tiny, slender creature with a pinched white face and suspicious, slightly crooked eyes.

“A mean, spoiled little lass,” Mam had used to say. “Wasn’t long for this world, I’ll be bound.”

Emily had once had a doll with a cracked china face and sharp eyes. She had loved it dearly, mostly because of its defects. They had made it seem real and human. But it had been broken. Now the painted child with her long-ago sorrows had disappeared, too. And the plants in the conservatory had been given away, Mam said, since there would be no one to care for them. There was a smell of damp and decay in that once green world.

The mistress had kept a parrot. It was said to be sixty years old, as old as Grandpa, and it had used to whistle cheekily at Emily and wish her good night, although it was only mid-morning. It had gone, too. There would be no more fires burning in the huge stone fireplace in the hall, or in the living rooms and bedrooms. Drawing the heavy curtains at all the windows would be her last task, Mam said. Then Jem Watts who lived in the lodge at the gates would pull all the outside doors shut and turn keys in the locks. The garden would become overgrown because he couldn’t manage it alone, not ten acres of lawns and flower beds and woodland.

“What will happen to the roses?” Emily asked.

“They’ll bloom every summer until Squire comes home,” Mam said, blowing her nose. She had been crying, Emily noticed with anguish. “If he ever does come home. If any of us ever comes home.”

“But, Mam, you told us it was to be a great adventure.” Emily was in dire need of reassurance.

“That’s what your Pa says. And Squire. We women weren’t particularly asked what we thought.”

Emily had never before heard her mother speak with that kind of bitterness. She had thought that women were happy always to do as their husbands wanted.

“Didn’t the mistress want to go, Mam? Is she afraid of cannibals? I’m not. Nor is Jonnie. I don’t think Willie knows what cannibals are.”

“The mistress is afraid of most things,” Mam said shortly. “Poor creature.”

“Miss Celina, too?”

Mam gave Emily a sideways look. No one ever seemed to speak out honestly about Miss Celina.

“Oh, no, she’s not afraid. But she don’t want to go, nevertheless. Where will she ever be able to wear her fine clothes, she says. That’s more on her mind than anything else. And will there be any man good enough for her to marry. She’s angry with her Papa. But then—”

“What, Mam?” Emily begged. She had always longed to know more about Miss Celina, what she thought, what were her favourite things, but nobody would tell her. She had been sent to a school in Switzerland last year, although for some reason she had soon been home again. It was whispered among the servants that she was sometimes locked in her room. She could be heard screaming, especially in the night. Eerie…

There had been a very bad night not long before Squire had astonished and appalled everybody by saying that he was shutting up the manor and going on a voyage to New Zealand. (Where was New Zealand? Over the edge of the earth?) But the news had apparently upset Miss Celina a great deal, and Doctor Woodstock had been called to give her a calming draught. After that, although she was seen out in the garden or perhaps in the village, she had never been alone. Even in the seclusion of the garden she had been in the company of her maid.

“Sad,” the servants had whispered inexplicably.

“A nervous disposition,” Emily had heard Mam saying to Pa. “And strong-willed with it. Not like her mother who couldn’t hurt a fly.”

Emily had thought of the picture in the gallery, the little girl borne down by her heavy finery. Miss Celina often had the same look of frustration and bad temper.

“She’s right pretty when she smiles,” Mam said loyally and added under her breath, “poor Squire.”

Everyone said, after that night when the doctor had had to be called, that Squire had begun to look like a man with a heavy burden on his shoulders. It was then that the talk of New Zealand had begun. Squire went several times to London and saw members of the New Zealand Company as well as members of Parliament. Quite fortuitously (this was the gossip that went round the village) he had met a returning settler, a rich and bored young man who had tried many things and grown tired of them all. His latest venture had been as a station owner in the Canterbury settlement of New Zealand. He had built a fine house, probably the finest in the province, and imported livestock, to stock his farm. The venture had prospered, but—quite abruptly—the young gentleman had given it all up and returned to England. Eventually, he had told Sir John, the isolation from the world had begun to drive him mad. He was surfeited with the company of shepherds, a Chinese cook, some Maori labourers, and the rare visit of a passing stranger. Besides, being alone, he wanted to come back to England to find a suitable wife and raise a family.

Squire already had a wife and a daughter, and he looked forward to the isolation from the world. Or so he said. He had always been a friendly man, genial and jolly when in a good temper, who had enjoyed hunting and shooting and giving elaborate dinner parties and visiting his club in London. Why should he suddenly declare that he longed for solitude? And how would his wife and daughter fare in such a strange, quiet place? Splendidly, he had declared. It would do their health all the good in the world. The wind from the mountains was unbelievably pure. And the house was no mean pioneer cottage but a capacious building, with ample room for as many guests as could be found. They would have balls. The grand piano must go, and a good selection of furniture and fine rugs and silver. The best Spode dinner service and some favourite pictures and ornaments. They would give style to pioneer life. Also, it would be diverting to become a sheep farmer.

At least that was what Squire was reputed to have said. When he told Pa, however, and asked him if he would be prepared to transport his family to such a promising land, with a great future for himself and his sons, Pa said there had been a strange look of torment in his eyes.

“Some sort of secret torment, Mary,” he said to Mam, at night when the children were supposed to be asleep in the wall bed. The boys were asleep but Emily lay awake, alternately fascinated and fearful of Pa’s revelations. “I don’t know what it is, but he’s been a good employer. I’d like to stick by him. And the mistress refuses to go unless she has you along. Or so Squire says.”

“She’s a poor creature,” Mam said.

“Aye. But you can manage her. And think of the opportunity for Jonnie and Willie. By the time they’re grown they can be landowners. Here they’ll never be anything but labourers, and lucky to be that. Think of the hanging boy.”

Mam was silent, not needing to be reminded of that pathetic scarecrow swinging from the gibbet.

Then she said, “You mean to go, don’t you, Jonas.”

“I do. And I hope you do, too.”

“No!” said Mam with sudden violence. “I’d lief not.”

“But you’ll have to, Mary. You must do as I decide.”

“It’s not fair, Jonas Lodden: I didn’t marry you for this. To be taken out of my country like a transported convict.”

“No, no, New Zealand doesn’t have convicts. Squire has explained it to me. There’s an ordered society with all the right kind of people in it. A utop—something.”

“Utopia,” said Mam, who had always read books.

“That’s it. A kind of paradise.”

“In this world! Paradise! You have to get to heaven for that.”

“No, it should be here if people acted right.

Squire’s been talking to learned people. There’s a band of settlers called the Canterbury Pilgrims gone out. Respectable people who haven’t got guilty secrets or haven’t committed crimes or aren’t half-starved. People who are honest and hard working, educated ones and the labourers, judges and schoolmasters and carpenters and shepherds. Enough decent single women for the men to marry so there won’t be trafficking with the natives. There’s even to be a bishop, Squire says. Now what do you think, Mary? Squire goes and we don’t, we’ll be left without jobs because he’s shutting up the manor.”

“You’re mightily talkative tonight, Jonas,” Mam said. “I’ve never heard you use such big words.”

“It’s listening to Squire. He never talked to me like this before. As man to man. It’s the beginning of what he says will happen. We’re all to be equal. But I won’t go without you, Mary. You’re my wife. Where I go you go. Isn’t that what the Bible says?” There was a brief silence. “We’ll take the family Bible,” Pa said. “We’ll need our forbears in that lonely land,” he added in a less certain voice.

“Jonas, you’re a good man.” Emily knew that Mam was crying again. “But I can’t bear the thought of leaving our home. Granny and Grandpa. The church. All the things we love. And just for a wild dream of Squire’s. He’ll get tired of it like that young fellow whose farm he’s bought.”

“I don’t fancy he will, Mary.”

“Why not?”

“There’s something deeper. Something I don’t rightly understand.”

“Something to do with Miss Celina?”

“Could be. Though it hardly seems likely. She’s only a lass, albeit a wayward one.”

Mam’s voice was sharp.

“I can’t decide all at once. Why must it be so quick?”

“The Albatross sails on the fifth day of February. Squire has accommodation paid for. I’ll take care of the stock. Two milking cows, two sows, some speckled hens and a rooster. We may get fresh eggs on the voyage. The name of the place is Avalon.”

“What place?”

“Where we be going, of course. It’s near the mountains.”

“Is it a castle?” asked Mam unbelievingly.

“Course it’s not a castle. What an idea.”

“A dream castle,” Mam murmured. “That’s what it’s called in fairy tales.”

“Oh, you and your book learning.”

“We’ll need that if we’re to live on the edge of the world.” Mam said, and then began to cry again. “Oh, Jonas love, I can’t bear it. All the goodbyes. Leaving the old ones. It isn’t right. It’ll break my heart.”

“Nonsense, lass, your heart’s a deal stronger than that. I don’t like to leave the old ones, neither, but it’s the young you have to think of.”

“It’s not our young that Squire’s thinking of,” Mam said resentfully. “Nor his own. If you ask me, he’s taken leave of his senses.”

So here they were, Mary Lodden thought, the manor shut up, the drawn curtains closing out the light and bringing a quiet death to the rooms, the trunks packed and strapped, and goodbyes said, the choking sobs stifled. The early morning wind sweeping across the low hills made them shiver. Would the pure wind from the New Zealand Alps make them shiver more?

Emily scuffed her boots in the dirt road, then remembered how carefully she had cleaned them, and desisted. The little boys were hopping about and swinging their arms to keep warm. Jonnie was sturdy, with a stiff thatch of brown hair and red cheeks, like his father’s. Willie was shy and skinny, little more than a bag of bones, with big anxious eyes. It was always Willie who got the coughs and colds, the sore throats and the fevers. The sea voyage would set him up into a strong little lad, Jonas said. The churchyard at Little Shipton held too many children, dead from unexplained illnesses. Some said the cause was the bad humours from the scummy village pond, some the lack of proper drains to the picturesque row of cottages. Whatever the cause, the little boys and Emily, who was thirteen and inclined to outgrow her strength, would be much healthier in the wide, free spaces of an almost empty country. Grandpa had always dreaded having to take up his quill pen and make an entry in the church register concerning the demise of one or more of his grandchildren. Now he was to be spared that great misfortune.

Mary lifted her chin. The farewells had been terrible, both with her parents and lame sister, and with Jonas’s brother who had ridden over from Burford. But now they were over, and although Mary thought she would never again in her life feel so desolate, a sensation of pride was easing the grief. She was a strong responsible woman obediently accompanying her mate on his chosen way. She had stopped complaining, and had resolved to accept cheerfully whatever lay ahead. They were a small family, complete in themselves. And God would accompany them because they had the shabby family Bible packed in the wooden trunk.

They were so much more fortunate in their serenity and hardiness of spirit than poor Lady Devenish, a prey to nervous anxieties, and her wilful difficult daughter…

As a shaft of pale sunlight slanted over the brow of the hill, the peaceful scene became etched on Mary’s mind for ever. She slid one hand into her husband’s and one into her own good little daughter’s. Both hands were squeezed hard in return. Jonas didn’t look at her, and she guessed he was embarrassed by sudden tears because he sniffed mightily. Emily took one last swift, compassionate glance at the distant gibbet and said boldly, “Goodbye, poor hanging boy. We’re going to be luckier than you. Aren’t we, Ma? Pa?”

“For a certainty we are,” Pa said.

And then the coach lumbered into view. Pa stepped into the road beckoning it to stop. Had it room for a new complement of five passengers heading for London and the East India docks? Heads looked out. The driver leaped down, and cheerfully stowed the trunks and baggage on board. Mary and Jonas and Emily fitted themselves into the stuffy interior. The boys, to their great delight, were squeezed on top beside the driver.

“You be telling us where you’re going, young sirs,” he said.

A sudden flight of seagulls over the ploughed land, swooping on their immaculate white wings, crying with the hopeless pain of lost mariners, seemed symbolic. Mary pulled Emily against her and made herself smile cheerfully at the curious faces of her travelling companions. Jonas didn’t need to pretend cheerfulness. Now that he was on his way the adventure had completely captivated him. He was his own man at last. He was a pioneer.

3

KATE O’CONNOR WAS THE successful applicant for the post of companion to Sir John Devenish’s wife and daughter. The other applicants had been impossible, Sir John said. One, he vowed, was a petty criminal, guilty of pilfering from ships and other mean offences. Another did nothing but fidget nervously with her bonnet ribbons, her reticule, her gloves, and could not raise her eyes to look him full in the face. The third had been a bold enough young woman, but an eyesore, poor creature. To look at that deplorably plain visage all the way across the ocean to Lyttelton harbour would be a penance no one should be expected to make.

So Miss O’Connor it was, if she had not changed her mind.

“I haven’t changed my mind,” Kate said steadily. They were sitting in Cousin Mabel’s parlour, for Sir John had done them the honour of driving out to see not only Kate but her family. It was only fair to them as well as to himself he said.

Cousin Mabel was in a rare fluster and could hardly get out a word. Cousin Giles did a lot of silent staring at the handsome caller, so it was left to Kate to make conversation.

She was not flustered as Cousin Mabel was. She had got over her nervousness, and was contemplating her future with equanimity.

“You do realise, sir, that I haven’t yet met the young lady who is to be my charge.”

“That’s the reason for my visit. You are bidden to take tea with us tomorrow at four thirty. Celina is as eager to meet you as you are to meet her.”

He smiled, and Kate was suddenly aware of his charm. The groove of anxiety or bad temper between his eyes seemed to disappear and his face became youthful. He must have been a light-hearted young man once, she realised. And why not? We have all had times when we were happy and carefree, she thought. And I am not too old to be unable to have them again, she added to herself, in optimism and excitement.

“Thank you, sir. I will be delighted to come to tea.”

“So you are taking our Kate away from us!” Cousin Mabel had got herself into a state of indignation and was speaking up to her grand visitor. “Will it be for ever?”

“Not if she doesn’t wish it.”

Cousin Giles was more puzzled than indignant.

“But you, sir, you intend to make this savage country your home? Why, if I may ask?”

Sir John’s deep-set eyes held a boyish sparkle.

“Oh, for change. Adventure. A testing of a man’s skills. And being a loyal Englishman serving the interests of my Queen.”

“Now, come, sir, the Queen is acquiring more colonies than she can keep count of.” Kate winced. Cousin Giles was not always respectful to his monarch. But Sir John continued to look good-humoured, even amused.

“I can assure you that her new brown-skinned subjects occasionally remind her of their existence. They send messages of loyalty to their Great White Mother. Don’t doubt it, my dear fellow, New Zealand will be of some moment one day, even so far away as it is.”

“Damn near at the South Pole, isn’t it?”

“Not quite. It has a temperate climate, and being virgin soil it is splendidly productive.”

“So you mean to make it your permanent home, sir?”

“Perhaps. Perhaps not. I shall certainly be making visits home. I still have my property in the Cotswolds. It will need an inspection from time to time. But since it has already stood for two centuries I don’t imagine its owner’s absence for a few years will harm it.”

“This property is for your daughter to inherit?”

Kate winced again. How could Cousin Giles be so impertinent?

“Perhaps. Perhaps since I have no son, her husband as well.”

“A New Zealand husband?”

Sir John smiled easily, but this time his eyes remained dark and inward.

“Not a brown one, I assure you. There are many young men from good families emigrating. Some of them are cadets on the big sheep runs. They learn their trade, and have every chance of becoming rich. Quite apart from my daughter acquiring a husband, I shall live in fear of Miss Kate doing the same thing. We won’t want to lose her too quickly.”

“Oh dear!” Cousin Mabel exclaimed. “Then we will never see you again, Kate. What will your aunts in Mallow say?”

“There are people who stay at home, and people who do things,” Kate murmured, and saw Sir John looking at her with approval.

“Well put, Miss O’Connor. The world is here to be discovered, surely. I have been asked by a friend in Parliament to write articles for The Times on the new colony. You must watch for them, madam, and learn about the Maoris, and the white settlers. Now I must be off.” He bowed to Cousin Mabel, “A pleasure meeting you, madam.” And then a brief nod to Cousin Giles. “And you, sir. Don’t forget to look for my articles.”

It was a very formal tea party, with Lady Devenish presiding over the silver teapot, the hot water urn, the silver bowl of sugar lumps and the silver milk jug, the delicate fluted cups and saucers, the plate of thinly cut bread and butter, the muffins in their silver warming dish, the rich brown fruitcake.

Would she ever be able to give a tea party like this in her colonial home? No doubt exactly that thought was going through her mind for her head was bent in a subdued fashion, her expression sad. Very different from her daughter’s. That young lady, Miss Celina Devenish, was a fascinating enigma. Dressed in a childish fashion in a sprigged muslin with a sash round her infinitely slim waist, she looked no more than twelve years old. She had come into the room meekly, her eyes downcast, the dark lashes lying on her pale cheeks. She had seemed almost as gentle and colourless as her mother, sketching a curtsy to Kate, and then sitting down in a huddled fashion, as if she were modestly trying to conceal her budding breasts.

The first thing I will have to do, thought Kate, is correct that young lady’s posture. The second will be to instruct her in polite conversation, since she had not yet deigned to speak a word. Her looks didn’t seem to be anything to be vain about, and she did curl up as if she would like to be invisible. But her hair was striking, an extremely pale blonde, almost silver, and luxuriant. That would make men look at her, even if her face promised little.

But Kate discovered that she was already underestimating the young lady. For Sir John Devenish, apologising for his lateness, had just come into the room, and his daughter’s head had shot up, her dark eyes now opened wide, transforming her insignificant face, making it brilliant with feeling. One didn’t know what the feeling was, joy or love or—could it be, startlingly, a flashing message of hate? Sir John, taking her hand as if she were indeed the child she had looked a moment ago, sat beside her and continued to hold her hand tenderly.

“So now you are all acquainted,” he said genially. “What do you think of my little witch, Miss O’Connor?”

“Don’t call her that,” Lady Devenish protested. “She is no more a witch than I am. Are you, Celina? I hope you won’t spoil her with absurd compliments, Miss O’Connor. You will find her a perfectly ordinary young woman with little learning, in spite of all her expensive schooling.”

Celina seemed only half to listen, her huge eyes fixed on one, then the other parent. Finally they were turned to Kate, and she spoke in a high, insipid voice.

“I find study so tedious. I think my new governess ought to know that I am much too old for books.”

Sir John smiled, as if she had made some profound statement. Nevertheless he spoke firmly. “Your education has a great many gaps, and these I expect to be filled on the long voyage. You will be glad of an occupation.”

“Education, for a cannibal country!” Celina said scornfully. Then her face changed, and turning abruptly to her father she cried, “Papa, why must we do this crazy thing? I never really believed you would. Why must we? Mama cries all the time, and so do I. What am I to do there, in the dust and wind? Where am I to wear my best gowns? Who am I to talk to? Papa, you are so cruel to us, wanting to turn us into savages.”

“Cruel to be kind.” Kate wasn’t sure whether she had heard Sir John’s words correctly. For a second his eyes had gone dark, as if with thoughts he preferred to keep private.

Then Lady Devenish spoke with some weariness.

“Celina, it’s too late to talk in this way. Your father has decided, and we women must obey.” She gave a brave smile. “And indeed enjoy our new life as much as possible. Isn’t that so, my dear?” She directed the smile at her husband. “You did promise that it would be enjoyable, didn’t you, John?”

Sir John’s face was lively and cheerful again.

“Infinitely so. There will certainly be balls to which this minx can wear her finery. Not perhaps equal to our own balls at home, but the greatest fun. And there’ll be no doubt Celina will be the best-dressed young lady present. I’m sure you’ll enjoy that, my dear.”

Celina, however, had lost what had been only a temporary animation, and was huddled in her chair again, limp and silent. This was obviously an argument they had had many times, and always the two women must have been defeated. Yet Sir John seemed to be very concerned for them. So what kind of a man was he, to go so determinedly against their wishes?

An Important Family

Dorothy Eden

Contents

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