Captive Wife, The (15 page)

The February heat is intense, and March is slow to turn to autumn, ushered in with heavy skies but no rain. In the second week of the month, after a night that is suddenly and mercifully cool, a second visitor arrives at Malcolm Downs without announcement.

Betty Guard is hatless when she knocks at the Malcolms' front door, her hair loose and wild about her shoulders, as if she has departed in a hurry. Her dress is a soft cinnamon colour, the bodice laced with ribbon between her breasts, giving the impression of nakedness and darkness, for she has come without a shawl. Later, Maude will recall that the woman looked
native
, as if she had no shame.

There is not a servant in sight, and the rapping is so insistent, that Maude opens the door herself. ‘The servants are not allowed to use this entrance,' she says on seeing this apparition.

‘I've come to see Miss Malcolm — Miss Adie Malcolm,' Betty says.

‘And who may you be?' Maude's heart is lifting at the
prospect of someone coming to take Adie away. For days there has been an intolerable atmosphere in the house, and she knows that sooner or later she must relent and allow her sister-in-law to take up residence with them. Percy has killed a snake along the path that leads to the cottage. Things cannot go on like this. Maude knows that the servants will soon become aware of the true situation in their household, and begin to behave insolently towards her. She feels her strength deserting her.

‘I'm Mrs Guard,' says the young visitor, and extends her hand, as if she had not heard the other woman's rebuff and they are equals. ‘Betty Guard. My grandfather used to farm these parts. You've got things looking very nice.'

For a moment, Maude thinks she is going to faint. She clutches the hat stand behind her, nearly pulling it over. Of course, she should have realised at once.

‘You are not welcome here.'

‘Is Miss Malcolm here?' says her visitor, in an insistent way.

‘No.' Maude recovers herself, considering how best she might be rid of this new intruder.

‘I've heard from some soldiers in town that she's here.'

‘She is not in the house.'

This is the moment Percy chooses to emerge between the trees. He is wearing breeches tied close above his boots and carries a spade.

‘Oh, down there, along the path,' Maude cries, exasperated. ‘Am I to have my whole house taken over by madwomen?'

At first, I tell Adie, I thought of Te Awaiti as paradise, even though there were times when I was scared. But it was exciting to have a place that was mine and to own things.

The house Jacky built for us was plain and square, with four rooms, but it was solid and kept the rain out. The kitchen had a fireplace with an iron pot and a copper for the washing. There was a room where we laid out food — the dining room I suppose you'd call it — we called it the outer room; it was not at all
luxurious, still it was separate from the cooking smoke. Then there were the inner rooms, the room where we kept our bed, and another room that Jacky said would be for our babies when they came. We walked on dirt at first, though later, in the winter, Jacky laid a timber floor, and I could put down a pretty rug. Each house we had was built like this. I say each one, since it was not long before it was burnt to the ground when we were gone to Sydney.

This happened not once, but several times. Somewhere in the dark bush that pressed close against our house were people who did not like us being there. The trees of New Zealand are different from the ones here in Australia. The foliage is dark and swirling green, with not so many flowers, but it is peaceful and mysterious. At the beginning, I was not afraid. It was pleasing to know that there were no snakes.

But when I understood that the bush provided shelter for our enemies I did get scared. What have we done to deserve this, I asked Jacky. The first time the house was burnt I cried, for we had furnished it like a real house, with a mirror and chairs in the dining room. Oh, it was very nice. All of this was gone when we returned.

Around this time, I had met my husband's friend Te Rauparaha, who came and went as if he owned the place. He was all swagger, a small man with the reputation of a giant killer. He has a hooked nose and a forehead that slopes back, deep-set eyes. I think he fancies himself as handsome, but I did not take to him, though Jacky said I should be polite. I didn't trust him. Jacky thought he had his measure, but I thought he was fooling himself. As it happens, I wasn't wrong.

Before John was born, I crossed the Tasman and back three times, and each time we went back to New Zealand, the house was gone. We got used to taking our belongings with us, so every time we set sail, we would load our furniture, our spoons and china and the mirror that I could not do without, not to mention our bed and blankets, onto the ship. Jacky didn't like this much
because it took up room that could be filled by flax and timber and baleen, but there was nothing for it.

We never stayed long in Sydney. Our visits were simply for trade. I stayed with Charlotte sometimes, and other times with my mother and John Deaves, but I did not care for it. I was treated differently, as if I was simply a visitor who did not do enough work, no matter how much I tried to help. My brother David had grown tall, but he was still too pale and very thin, like he would snap and break. I wished I could take him with me and fatten him up a bit, but whenever I thought about this, I couldn't imagine what he'd do with himself in New Zealand. I knew he couldn't hold his own with the men, and Jacky wouldn't want a big lad like him doing nothing round the place. He had already made work for his own brother, and that had led to trouble of all sorts.

I wished sometimes we could have the wedding Jacky had promised, but we were always busy when we went to Sydney and there were still no missionaries in our part of New Zealand. Besides, we were thought of as man and wife. And Jacky let me shop to my heart's content when we were in Australia, and sometimes he bought me things himself. He gave me a charm string button that I lost when I was taken captive. It was so elegant, a brown glass ball set in a gold claw. I wore it on a thread of leather round my neck, along with my necklaces of gold and moonstone. He said I looked like his gypsy woman. I did wonder if I reminded him of Granny Pugh, but I didn't ask. But I could tell he liked the way I walked down George Street, turning heads. There is something to be said for being tall. You know I'm just a fraction taller than Jacky, though you wouldn't tell it at a glance, the way he stands. He bought me combs, too, although I preferred the one that had belonged to Granny. He has always liked my hair and often draws his fingers through it. Or so he did, in the days when I could do no wrong in his eyes.

And here I think I must tell the governess a little of the misunderstanding over Charley.

Betty and Adie have eaten lunch together, freshly made bread and some sliced apples washed down with tea. Adie eats a little stew as well, but Betty rejects the plate offered by the serving girl. ‘It's kangaroo,' she says after the fork has touched her lips. ‘I don't fancy wild game.'

‘Why, it's a delicacy,' Adie says. ‘The flavour is so piquant, and it's very fresh. I understand my brother shot it yesterday.'

Betty wrinkles her nose. ‘We left shooting rabbits and the like to poor people and poachers in England. We prefer to eat beef and lamb now we can buy it.'

‘I'm surprised,' says Adie, ‘you make it sound superior.'

‘To be honest, I'm not inclined to eat much at all right now,' says Betty, breaking open the skin of a banana and peeling it.

After the first rush of astonishment, Adie has welcomed Betty. For a moment, she had thought to demur, for Betty is the cause of all her troubles, and yet she has become enamoured of the young woman's presence. Besides, her solitude is turning her in on herself. Some afternoons, in the heat of the past month, she has thought of walking outside and sitting there until the sun burnt her up. She knew it could happen, that if you did not seek shade you would die, and this time in the cottage has become a purgatory of loneliness. When she closes her eyes she sees violent orange colour behind her lids, as if the sun's rays have reached inside her already. On other days, she has woken full of determination to find a way out of her troubles, but by the end of the morning it has ebbed away. The sensible thing would be to demand that her brother give her her fare on a ship returning to England, and to leave without delay. But none of this is as simple as it seems. Percy holds the key to her own modest fortune, which she understands Maude now sees as her own. Returning to England penniless is not a prospect that appeals to her. Besides, there is the question of Lieutenant Roddick and her own reckless ageing heart that has tricked itself into an affection she is sure will never be returned, but cannot be denied.

I became more afraid. It's true Adie, I'm unschooled, except for what you taught me (which means you know exactly how much I do and do not know), but I'm not silly. I began to see that the Maoris had much to complain about. We killed many whales. But whales are rangatira, chiefs of the sea. They stand for riches and plenty in the Maori world, but only when they are cast up on the shores of the ocean. True, some Maoris had begun to work with us at killing whales; they wanted our trinkets and treasures. The first Maori my husband ever met was on board a whaling ship. But what they got was nothing but the stench of dead animals and smoking fires like glimpses of like hell on earth.

Then there were the women, leaving their tribes to live with the whalers. We had a bad spell for some months, when few ships came to Port Nicholson, and the same mountainous seas that prevented them from coming in stopped us from going out. We ran short of food, and ate roast kiore — and if I tell you that these are rats, you may understand why I don't fancy game — and wild turnips. Some of the women tried to go back to their tribes but they were not wanted, unclean from the white men. You could see they were broken-hearted and repented of their mistake.

It was round then my husband began the whaling operation over at Cloudy Bay. We were back on our feet again. Jacky took me to see the new station. When I saw it, I knew it was where I wanted to live. Not yet, Jacky said, it's too soon.

Our son was nearly two, and another baby was on the way, and I was impatient.

But, because of the baby, I agreed to stay near Hine and her mother at Te Awaiti until it came. I think I would have died when John was born, if they had not been there. And Hine made me laugh, and taught me how to weave patterns with string threaded through my fingers. Her little boy Manu was a year older than John, beautiful in a way my children can't be, the colour of China tea.

I would like a baby that colour, I said to Hine once, when we were watching the children at the water's edge.

She gave me an odd look. I don't think you would, she replied.

Perhaps it was on account of these women who had helped me that my way of looking at things began to change. Not that I mentioned this to Jacky, for I knew he wouldn't understand. In particular, I didn't like the way the whales were killed, nor did I feel easy about the way Jacky kept on the good side of Te Rauparaha, when all about me I saw how much damage he was doing to my friends. Jacky and I had fallen out for a while, and then he made it up to me, and was nicer to me than he had ever been before. He called me his little treasure, his finest possession and all manner of things like that. He's my husband and there is much between us and I did not wish to hold a grudge in my heart. But there were times when I found myself strangely unmoved, as if I could not quite trust him again. Charley was right when he said that I was lonely, though that was not so much the case, now that Hine and her family were my friends. When I was not doing my tasks, young John and I spent much of our time with them. John was a merry baby and he spoke with the Maori children as he played, seeming to know their language better than ours. He reminded me of his father, for he was always the one who suggested mischief to the others, in the way of a little leader.

But Jacky had not trusted me when I needed him most, and now I found myself more critical of him than at the beginning. His friendship with Te Rauparaha was something I couldn't speak of, for I knew he would brush me aside. But I knew that trouble was brewing, for the women told me what was going on around the Strait.

Then I didn't see Hine for a little while.

The whare she shared with her husband Dan had been moved several times, once because of flooding, another time because it was in the way of some storehouses that were being built. Later, Dan had gone to sea and not come back.

I asked Jacky where he had gone, because I knew how badly
Hine wanted to know. Then Jacky told me Dan'd picked up with a ship in Port Nick, and I wasn't to tell Hine. The ship was heading for South America. That is probably the last she will see of him, he said. The girls in South America are prettier.

I didn't like that. I knew he could be wrong about things. Mind you, he could still make me feel guilty. I often wished I could have seen what was coming with Charley; sometimes I felt as if it had all been my fault. Because Jacky was older, and so much in charge, you understand.

But it was on account of what he had told me about Dan that, for some time, I had been unable to bring myself to look for Hine. I was just a couple of months gone with Louisa when I took John on my hip for a walk to the next bay in search of her. I wanted to tell her about the new baby. But I couldn't find her.

What I did find round in the next bay stays with me still. Lying on the beach were some sixty half-cooked bodies of men and women, along with the body of a young child spitted over the remains of an open fire. You're very pale, Adie. Don't flinch. Remember, it was you who unlocked my tongue.

Let me tell you how humans are cooked. A hole is dug in the earth, some two feet deep. A fire is lit with dry wood, and a quantity of round stones are added which are made red hot. These are removed, except for a few at the bottom, but by now the whole pit is like a furnace. Over the stones that are left, layers of leaves and flesh are built up, one after another, until there is as much above ground as below. Then water is thrown over this mixture, perhaps a bucketful, or two, in our measurements. All of this is covered with old mats and earth, so that the steam is trapped underneath and the cooking begins. By this method, the flesh is cooked very quickly.