Captive Wife, The (16 page)

As well as the child on the spit, there was evidence of this cooking method all about me, on the beach and beyond.

Straight away, I guessed this was again the work of Te Rauparaha. Later, I learnt that his men had taken a war party to Kaiapoi. After a victory, they captured hundreds of prisoners and
brought them by canoe up to our island. They had been camped for nine days.

I discovered Hine, cowering in bushes with Manu beside her. I would never have found her, except that she called out to me in a little voice.

I turned to her, holding my hands palm up to the sky.

Who has done this? I said. Was it him?

Te Rauparaha had ordered an oven to be built on the beach, she told me, before sending off slaves to collect firewood. When they arrived back, he killed them with his tomahawk, while the rest were ordered to cook the bodies of their friends. They served their joints in flax baskets.

I screamed so loud it's a wonder they didn't hear me in Sydney. John began to cry too. I turned away from the scene, and quieted myself, hoping he was too young to understand what he had seen.

Why didn't you stop them? I asked Hine.

She just looked at me as if I was daft in the head, which I suppose I was.

When I told Jacky, he said that he knew about it.

But you did not tell me, I said.

I saw no need for it. I did not know you were going to go prowling around.

Prowling around, I said. Forgive me but I only live here and I wish I did not.

You don't mean that, he said.

I am in a good mind to stay in Sydney the next time we go back.

Well then, I shall leave you here, he rejoined.

And then I will be cooked and eaten too, and so will your son.

At that, he gave me a long hard look. Even though he and I had been so careful with each other since the quarrel over Charley, I saw that deep down he, too, had misgivings about me. After the birth of John, Charley went to sea, and I hadn't seen him in a long while. The silly part of it was, I had never had a
fancy for Charley, only his conversation. From the beginning, it was Jacky I hungered for. Don't look alarmed, Adie — however I tease you, I won't embarrass you by explaining it all. There are some women who do what they must for duty and others who do it because their bodies will not allow them to do otherwise. My mother is one of the second kind, and I am somewhere in between. Or so I thought. I did not wish to sample others when I went with Jacky. Not that whalers are romantic. Their hands are meaty and raw from the cold water, and their clothes stink, always stiff with salt and oil. The smell of whale oil is almost impossible to describe, a cross between vinegar and vomit that seems to leave a stain on the skin. I could never produce enough hot water to keep Jacky clean and scrubbed. But that was the way of it. You didn't think about it after a while.

I have said too much, forgive me. Much has happened to me, much that is hard to forget. Jacky craved me, his eyes always following where I went, and his manner seemingly very kind. And when it was night I made him truly happy. That was enough.

I didn't want us to fall to quarrelling again. His silent rage was something I feared then, and still do. So I turned away without speaking further about what I had seen.

I did not mean for you to find out about the bodies on the beach, he said more kindly. It is not something a woman should know about.

But these things cannot be hidden from me, Jacky.

What do you want me to do about it then?

I want us to go and live at Cloudy Bay, as soon as we can. It feels safer than here.

To my surprise, he agreed straight away. He had named the whole area Port Underwood, out of respect for Mr Underwood in Sydney who had given him his start. I wondered if he shouldn't have called it after his benefactor, Mr Campbell, but as usual it was all decided before I was told. And I wasn't going to argue with him then.

I understood then how deeply concerned he was. Not only did he agree to us leaving Te Awaiti, he said he would go ahead and build us a house there and then, and that he would send for Charley to stay with me.

I was very surprised by this. But you know what they say, blood is thicker than water, and when you think about it, who else could he trust? Going through his mind, perhaps, was the thought that if he didn't send for Charley it would look as if he had not got over what was supposed to be mended.

At first I said, that is not what I want.

He looked quite distracted, as if for once he didn't know what to do. You are in the family way, Betty. There is John to consider.

I could camp out, I said.

You need a roof over your head and a bed at night and it will only be for a week or so.

So I said yes. It occurred to me that this might actually put matters to rest for once and for all.

This was how I got to know Charley well, and to live more or less in virtue alongside a man who was not my husband. I found myself laughing often at things he said. We would walk light-hearted along the beaches, skipping stones on the water with John, and racing each other to see who could pop the beads of seaweed on the crunchy sand first. Once, of an evening, he took some clothes out of his canvas bag, a cravat, a silk shirt and a little waistcoat, and dressed up as a dandy. I don't know why he had these clothes with him, it was not as if we were about to go to a ball. But we laughed so hard, I thought I would break in two. I did a little curtsy and pretended to dance. Other evenings, we read his books together by candlelight. One night we pleasured each other, just for curiosity's sake, but it did not feel like a sin. There had been a storm in Cook Strait all day, the sea lashed up into a frenzy, and he slipped in and out of me like an eel, gentle and not at all like his brother, who batters me with his body. Because I was already five months gone, I knew I could not
catch a baby. In the morning, it was as if it hadn't happened. The bay was humming with white spume, a reminder of the storm that had passed.

‘You have not asked me why I'm here,' Betty says, after a silence.

Adie is cooling herself with a silk fan that had belonged until yesterday to Charlotte Pugh (who is possibly still unaware that it has changed hands). Betty has brought it as a gift. It is hand painted in the design of a peacock tail, so that it ripples with tunnels of blue light. Like the paua shell, the governess had exclaimed.

‘A passionate blue,' Betty had murmured.

The gift, of course, had been a perfect choice, both beautiful and practical. How could Adie not have been seduced by it?

Now Adie feels overwrought, as if she is in some kind of slow swelling pain. ‘I'm sure you'll tell me,' she says. She feels her face burning and hopes that it is not obvious to the other woman. She is very shocked by what she has heard, and knows, at the same time, that she could sit listening to more all night. The pain is pleasurable; she cannot describe anything like it. Yes. Yes, if she thinks about it, it is like the pain she has felt when the lieutenant is very near to her.

‘It isn't true,' says Betty. ‘About Charley. Of course I didn't do that. Jacky trusted me.'

‘Then why did you tell me it was so?'

‘To see what you would do. Whether you would throw me out.'

‘What do you want of me?' asks Adie, agitated and angry. She does not know whether she has been tricked, and dare not press the question. Worse, she would like it to be true. For a moment, she has believed it. Perhaps it is.

‘I thought you would have worked that out. I need somewhere to stay until Jacky is no longer angry with me.'

‘Why is he angry with you?'

‘It's too hard to explain.'

‘Has he found out about Charley?'

Betty's brow puckers. ‘Charley? This is not about Charley.'

‘I think you're not in your right state of mind. You've recently lost your child for which I am most truly sorry and would have paid my respects had you allowed me.'

Betty rests her head wearily on one hand. ‘Sometimes I think he is grieving for Louisa, as indeed I am. Other times it is as if I have died. In his eyes.'

‘And have you?'

‘Died? I don't know. A part of me, perhaps, gone the way of the patupaiarehe. My head is away with the fairies.'

‘You may stay here tonight. It's too late for you to return.'

‘And then what? I go back to his silence.'

‘How long has he been like this?'

‘Since the rescue. When the ships came to Taranaki and he took me back from Oaoiti, who is the chief who protected me while I was held by the Maoris.'

‘I see,' says Adie. And somewhere, she thinks she does begin to see, that some key to the mystery has been turned. His name may be Charley. Or not.

‘I cannot bear silence,' Betty says. ‘It is like a blunt axe and just as painful.'

The cook has arrived with the evening meal on a tray, boiled fowl, cooled and sliced and served with a celery sauce, and small heads of broccoli; slices of rich fruitcake for dessert.

‘Tell Mr Malcolm that I will need a bed and some blankets for Mrs Guard.'

‘Well,' says the cook, whose name is Susan, a woman with an oily forehead and quick eyes. Sometimes Adie thinks the world is ruled by cooks. ‘I don't know what Mrs Malcolm will say about that for she has taken to her bed with a sick headache. She put off this afternoon's guests.'

‘If she is in bed she need not know about it,' says Adie, overtaken by a new reserve of energy. ‘Now do as I ask, or I will come up and tell your master myself.'

‘Why have you allowed them to put you here?' says Betty, when Susan has gone.

‘I thought
you
would never ask me,' says Adie, attacking the fowl. She lifts the meat looking for the slick of jelly that gathers under cooled poultry, and scoops what she finds onto her fork, letting it slowly dissolve on her tongue.

‘Well, tell me,' Betty says.

‘I like it here. I like to listen to the gum trees.'

‘I used to listen to them too when I was a girl.'

‘They are like papyrus whispering together, leaf on leaf. Like the ancient scrolls.'

‘But you have not told me. Was it to do with me?'

‘It is no matter. My position in Lieutenant Roddick's house has ended. I will shortly return to England.'

‘You must tell me if I have harmed you in some way. I was not myself when you last saw me.'

‘My dear child, I understand that.'

‘I am not your dear child. You don't know what it is to have a dear child.'

Adie is silent then.

‘I'm sorry, Adie,' says Betty, ‘I didn't mean to give offence. My husband so wanted his son. My daughter, well, I had learnt what it was like to be lonely. I wanted a little girl in my image. I cherished her more than my mother or sister or aunt. All of them have shown indifference towards me.'

‘Like my sister-in-law,' says Adie, with a rueful smile.

‘Just so. But to have a daughter, that's different. Louisa was my little flower from the moment Hine gave her into my arms. I touched the tip of her perfect nose, and stroked back the surprisingly pale hair, for we are given to darkness in our family, though Jacky said he remembered his mother as being light in colouring, and Charley is fairer than him, and I said, Darling girl, my precious little pea pod, I will love you forever with every inch of my breath. And now she's dead and I have both love and hate for those who held us in New Zealand. For in spite of being
shown many kindnesses, I believe Louisa would yet have been here, had it not been for our capture.'

‘I am so sorry,' Adie murmurs. She thinks of young Austen who is probably wondering now why he has not had a bedtime story, and of Mathilde, who will be settling down in a matter of fact way, making the best of things, but missing her all the same. It does not seem the moment to speak of them.

‘It's true,' she says at last, ‘that I've become drawn to your story. And that a woman of my age who has lived her life on the fringe of experience is wont to behave extravagantly when she thinks she has come across the real thing at last.'

‘I suppose that's not so bad,' says Betty, ‘though it tells me how I'm seen by others. The world isn't judging me very kindly. Nor is my husband.'

‘He has no right,' says the governess hotly.

‘Right. What is right? It's almost impossible to tell. I'm a practical woman, Adie. I've had no choice to be anything else. My husband would say that he, too, is a man who knows how to make the best of a bad job.'

I never went back to Te Awaiti. When I stood in front of our house at Kakapo Bay, I believed I was home. The bay is a small sheltered haven. A hill rises in a gentle slope up a narrow valley towards easy rolling hills. Jacky had built me the best house yet. It was much like those that had gone before, only longer and the rooms more nicely in proportion with each other. It looked like a real house, like one of the houses in the top end of George Street, only the water was lapping just beneath my feet. I find it hard to describe the colours of the sea and the sky in that place. Some days when the sky is angry, the light will be green, and the sea boiling. Other days it will be so blue that you cannot tell where heaven and the sea leave off from one another, much like a man and a woman when they have been together. In the Maori world it is said that Rangi is the sky father and Papa, the mother, is the earth, and they were separated only so that light could enter the world, and so people would have space to move around. They are never really apart. On other days, I would stand at the water's edge and pinpricks of fog would appear like
blue sand flung in the air, and when it passed the sky might have darkened, or it might simply melt away, leaving the air clear again.

It is ours for all time, Jacky said, placing his arms around my waist, a gesture that was not like him. I placed my hands over his, so that we were joined together, his hands and mine, over Louisa, soon to be born.

All of a sudden, I was so happy, as if we really had made a new beginning.

Hine had agreed to come with us, for the time being, and it felt as if she was part of our family too, and soon my brother David would be here, for Jacky had made the arrangements with him the last time we were in Sydney, that he would come and do carpentry for us, rather than put to sea. He had been doing some work for John Deaves and was becoming handy with wood and tools.

I have bought this bay from Te Rauparaha, Jacky said.

I felt something in me grow cold. From Te Rauparaha? But he is a murderer.

He knows a good bargain when he sees it, Jacky said, and laughed. I did not like what I heard. He said: I have paid him with a large cask of tobacco worth one hundred pounds, five bolts of cloth, ten oxen, eight iron pots and twenty blankets.

That is a great sum, I said, still doubtful.

Better than that, he will leave us in peace, for we have struck a deal.

So he is our friend now?

That's about it, Jacky said.

I got over it after awhile, because what else could I do. Jacky had sold Te Awaiti to a couple of whalers called Dicky Barrett and Jack Love, from Port Nick, so now we were free of the place and the dark deeds that had taken place there. John and Louisa were doing well, though Louisa had been born with the same difficulty and pain that accompanied John's arrival. A settlement quickly began to appear; there were more ships calling in and it all felt more sociable. Te Rauparaha's brother Nohoroa, who was
a more kindly and open man, lived in the bay and was our neigh bour.

The year before last, 1833, started out then as a good year.

But things can turn bad very fast. Friends of ours on board the
Dragon
were attacked by Maoris while bringing in a whale and killed. Killing, cooking, feasting, that was the order of the day again.

And so many battles had been fought between Te Rauparaha's warriors, and Ngai Tahu in the south, so much treachery committed, that the tribes would not let things rest. A war party led by Taiaroa from the far south came up, seeking revenge for those who had died at Akaroa and Kaiapoi. Only now we were not just in the path of returning war parties, we were in the direct line of fighting. Te Rauparaha must have known this when he sold us the bay. Why would he need to own a battleground, when a white man would pay him so handsomely for taking it off his hands? And perhaps be eaten, instead of him.

The warriors got closer and Te Rauparaha ever more treacherous, to his own people as well as to his sworn enemies.

‘It's surprising that his people continued to support him,' says Adie. The night has drawn in around them. Outside there is the mutter of night things. Moths flatten themselves against the windowpanes, drawn by the lamp's glow.

‘Well, I think he would have turned on them too had they not.'

‘They hate him and yet they long to have him amongst them. They cannot do without him. It reminds me of Alcibiades.'

‘And who might he be?'

‘A statesman of Athens, a soldier turned killer. There was a saying, Better not bring up a lion inside your city, but if you must, then humour all his moods.'

‘You and your Greeks. But you're right. That's how it is with Te Rauparaha. And humour him is what Jacky did. Te Rauparaha had become our protector, when it suited him. But with that came the full fury of his enemies.'
You might wonder what all these battles had to do with our shipwreck and what became of us, but what had gone before was all of a piece. It's late, but I'll tell you how we came to be shipwrecked. Who knows, we might go our separate ways tomorrow, and I may never see you again. You've been very kind. I see that things aren't good for you and that my being here is not helping you.

In September, a ship called the
Sarah
was forced to put in to Port Underwood. The ship had left Sydney, heading towards England, via Valparaiso, but it had developed a leak that couldn't be contained by the pumps. The captain was a surly man who simply wanted to patch it up and keep going. There were four ships at anchor in the bay when the
Sarah
limped in. All the masters came and inspected the ship and told this captain that it was not safe to go on. On board the ship were a Mr and Mrs Kentish, Robert and Ivy, and their children.

I see from your expression that you know them. And yes, it is Mrs Kentish who very kindly organised a collection of money for our family.

It would be uncharitable of me to say anything but the best of them. They are well-connected people who came to Australia as free settlers, like you and Mr Malcolm, but not cut out for farming. It can happen. My grandfather wasn't a free man when he came, but he got to take up land, and look what came of it: we ended up in the Rocks with naught. The Kentishes are of the same cut, for all their airs, though lately Mr Kentish has turned his hand to shopkeeping, and I hear that they're prospering.

The captain of the
Sarah
was not impressed with the idea of caulking the topsides of the vessel and returning to Sydney. He swore to keep on towards Valparaiso.

My advice to you, Jacky said to the Kentishes, is to stay here and wait for another ship to take you back to Sydney. My own ship, the
Waterloo
, is on its way from Sydney, and when it has dropped off some supplies, it will head back there. I wouldn't take my children on that leaky tub if I was you.

So that was settled and the Kentishes moved in with us, and I can tell you I was glad we had a more spacious house, for Ivy Kentish was not an easy guest. You might have noticed, despite that porcelain skin and those dolly curls of hers, she can be fretful. At the time it was made worse by her nursing her baby, as I was Louisa. Her milk wouldn't come in whenever she was upset, which was most of the time. Or perhaps it was because of the shape of her nipples, like flat raspberry stains on her chest, that the baby couldn't get a hold on. She didn't want to stay with us, and she didn't want to go on the
Sarah
but she had no choice but to settle down until the
Waterloo
arrived. Which it never did.

Where had it gone? Well you might ask.

Our ship had gone aground on the rocks near Kapiti, and although the crew were spared, the ship was stripped of all its stores by Te Rauparaha. It was late in the year before we discovered this, when the crew managed to make their way to Kakapo Bay. By now the bay was deserted, and of course, back in Sydney, Campbell and Company, who are, or I should say, were Jacky's business partners, did not know what had happened to the ship, nor of the need to send more supplies.

Soon we ran out of salted meat and sugar and tea and all those things we depended on, and what we had left were potatoes and fish, which is not a bad diet, though Ivy Kentish swore she couldn't look at another crayfish if it killed her, which I thought sad because they are a great delicacy. We were running out of potatoes, and had got down to eating cabbage tree hearts. Nohoroa had predicted to Jacky that Taiaroa and his troops would attack when the potatoes began to ripen.

We were now under siege. Jacky issued muskets and six rounds of ammunition to all the men, and they took it in turns to sit up at night. Mr Kentish didn't seem to know what to do with his musket at first. Perhaps he thought he was supposed to cut the wood with it, I don't know. Well, you couldn't tell with those two, they were altogether useless at almost everything. No wonder they were going back to England. But once he
understood that the Maoris might really invade us, he sat up all and every night with a sabre at his side and a loaded musket on the table. I kept out of his way and didn't come out to the kitchen until it was morning, lest he made a false move. He slept most of the day, waking only to fret over his wife not getting enough to eat.

I said to him, Mr Kentish, we are doing the best we can. I know it's not the best hospitality in the world, but it's all we have to offer.

It cannot be helped, he said, attempting a brave face, but my Ivy is used to the finer things in life. I doubt you would understand.

Well, I said, I may not have seen the Elgin Marbles and I only know of the Acropolis from afar, but I have heard of the world beyond.

At that he looked very surprised, and I thought then of you, Adie, and was grateful. Mr Kentish made the common mistake of believing that people from the Rocks are simpletons. He didn't understand that, although we were short of food, Jacky could buy him twice over. Oh well, that is not entirely true, for by that stage of course we knew that the
Waterloo
had gone, and this ship was vital to us. I was thankful we still had our interest in the
Harriet
.

A ship came at last and delivered provisions to tide us over. Charley was on board, on the lookout for a job again. By now fresh stories arrived every day that Taiaroa was about to attack Cloudy Bay. The men wanted to get away, and the season being all but over, there was no reason to hold them back. And it was decided that, when the ship left, our family should leave with the Kentishes. I could tell Jacky didn't want to go but neither did he want us to sail alone. I was in two minds about it. It's one thing to stay and keep a brave face when you just have yourself to look after, but now I had two babies it seemed reckless to stay. I might have insisted on staying if Ivy Kentish hadn't got me so worked up. She screamed at every little thing and had hysterics from top
to bottom when a friendly canoe pulled up on the beach one afternoon. I'd become jumpy too, not sleeping well at nights.

I think we should go, Betty, Jacky said to me the night before the ship was due to sail.

What of Te Rauparaha? I thought he would protect us?

He is more on the run than not these days. He'll look after his self first. And who is to know who did for the
Waterloo
? He said this with a deep and bitter anger as if he could taste arsenic in his mouth.

So much for our friend, Te Rauparaha, I said to myself.

We should have Louisa baptised, Jacky said, it will be a good chance to have that done. I was pleased to hear him say that, for though she was thriving, you cannot be sure how long a soul can survive, can you, Adie, and it would grieve me to think of my little girl waking up in the afterlife and the gates of heaven not open to her.

If we went, it meant leaving our belongings, for there was no room on the ship and not enough time to pack before it must leave. Then Charley told Jacky that he would stay and watch over things while we went to Sydney, and another seaman agreed that he would stay too, and we were grateful.

I was to see Charley again sooner than expected. Within days of our leaving, Taiaroa did attack, and Charley and the other man were taken captive. The Maoris at the settlement were killed. For some reason the two pakea were spared — perhaps they were saving them for last — but a schooner arrived in the bay and they were rescued.

We had made it in safety to Sydney, and the Kentishes bade us farewell without so much as a backward glance. A week or so later, Charley appeared at the Rocks, and I learned that our house had been burnt again.

Also, that Hine was among the dead.

You may think it strange that I was willing to return. Yet so much of our lives had become tied up with Kakapo Bay that when Jacky said let us go back, it seemed like the most natural
thing in the world. The whaling season was almost upon us again, and if we were to go back, the time was right. Jacky arranged to take the
Harriet
back to New Zealand, with Richard Hall on board. Captain Hall would sail her back to Australia with a load of flax and timber. And we would take up as we had before, if somewhat the poorer.

Charley did have news about the fighting that gave us hope. Taiaroa had declared himself tired of battle. He and his warriors were going back south to settle in for winter. Perhaps they felt that they had taught Te Rauparaha a lesson.

Charley was coming back with us. He and Jacky seemed at ease with one another, as if something between them was settled.

And David was finally coming to live with us. When I knew it was decided, and nobody was looking, I put my arms around him and said, Don't be afraid, you will like it well, living with us. He was half a head taller than me, and he went red in the face. Don't be silly he said, pushing me away.

I said, Cross my fingers and make a wish and hope to die if it don't come true. Which we did when we were children.

All right, he said.

What did you wish for?

I'm not telling you.

Did you wish to have a girl? There are girls in New Zealand who would like you.