Isle of Tears (26 page)

Tucked up in bed, luxuriating in the feel of crisp, clean sheets, Isla asked, ‘D’ye think he will?’

‘Not if she continues to behave in the manner that she has, no,’ Mrs Fairweather said bluntly. ‘Great beauty is not everything, but unfortunately Charity has yet to learn that.’

‘So why wis she so snippy wi’ me?’

‘Why?’ Mrs Fairweather looked surprised. ‘Because you’re also very pretty, Isla, and Charity, I suspect, perceives you to be a threat.’

‘Me?’ Isla was stunned. ‘But look at me! Ma hair looks like I’ve been dragged through a gorse bush backwards, ma leg’s in a plaster cast, I’m too skinny and I have a moko!’

Mrs Fairweather moved from the chair to sit on the end of the bed. She patted Isla’s hand. ‘There’s no need to talk about all that if you don’t wish to, Isla. I understand.’ She sat back. ‘Nevertheless, you’re an extremely attractive young woman, with, I’m beginning to discover, a very appealing character. Hope likes you very much, and so does Prudence. I do, too…and so, I suspect, does Robert.’

Isla didn’t know what to say. Finally, she blurted, ‘But I dinnae like the captain! I mean, he’s verra kind and all, but, well, I’m just no’ thinking aboot anything like that.’

‘No, I expect you’re not, not after everything you’ve been through. But one day you might feel differently.’

Isla didn’t think so. What, she wondered, did they all think had happened to her?

She found out a week later, when a group of women from Mrs Fairweather’s church came to visit. She was on crutches now, having refused to use the wheeled chair any longer: she had to rely on everyone else to push her about, and the seat was quite
uncomfortable. When Mrs Fairweather had caught her for the third time hopping about, she had reluctantly produced a pair of wooden crutches, much to Isla’s relief.

However, the following day, Private Hetfield had reappeared, spending his time sitting at the kitchen table drinking cups of tea and getting in Mrs Chisolm’s way, and following Isla about whenever she went outside. Yesterday it had been a different soldier, who’d told her his name was Page, and that she had better not try to run away. As she’d swung herself on her crutches down the back steps to see Laddie, she hadn’t even bothered to reply.

Now, she sat in an armchair near the fire and tried very hard to look interested as the guests talked to her. She was wearing an old dress of Faith’s, in a pretty blue, patterned with sprigs of indigo and green forget-me-nots. The lace at the collar scratched, but Isla was pleased with it, even if Faith had made catty remarks under her breath about hand-me-downs. Toying with her slice of Madeira cake, she realized that someone had asked her a question: it was the large Englishwoman in the maroon-coloured dress and the hat with the bird on it—Mrs Ebbett.

‘I beg ye pardon?’

‘I was just asking, dear, what part of Scotland you hail from.’

‘Isle o’ Skye.’

‘And when did you come out?’

‘In 1856, tae Taranaki,’ Isla replied, watching the bird bobbing on Mrs Ebbett’s silly hat.

‘Really? Well, we came out on the
Bangalore
in 1843. With Governor FitzRoy, you know.’

‘Oh, aye?’

Mrs Ebbett’s expression became solicitous, and she folded her pudgy, beringed fingers in her ample lap. ‘Isla, dear, we have had several talks with our vicar, and although our church is Anglican and you, being Scottish, are no doubt Presbyterian—’

‘Church o’ Scotland.’

‘Well, Reverend Nicholson has asked me to inform you that he would be very happy to offer you absolution, regardless of your particular faith. It really is a very generous offer, and I’m sure it’s something that must weigh very heavily with you.’

Isla put her plate down on the occasional table at her elbow. Frowning, she said slowly, ‘Absolution from what?’

Mrs Ebbett inclined her head. ‘I know how difficult this must be for you to discuss, dear, but the sooner you confess your sins, the lighter your heart will be.’

Another of the women interjected, ‘Yes, and we’re also hoping to obtain for you a position as a domestic, so you can begin your life afresh. You never know, perhaps even with one of us!’ She smiled happily, pleased to be the one to announce such heartening news.

Isla ignored her and glanced at Eleanor Fairweather, but her gaze was fixed firmly on her teacup. ‘What sins? What are ye talking aboot?’

Mrs Ebbett’s hand fluttered, then came to rest on her large bosom. ‘Why, dear, the dreadful things you were subjected to when you were captured by the Maoris after your poor mother and father died.’ Her face went an odd pink colour. ‘I don’t wish
to be indelicate, but were you not forced to marry one of them? Surely, as your husband, he would have demanded…’ She trailed off, too modest and shocked by the whole notion to say the words out loud, but clearly eager to know.

And suddenly Isla realized what they all thought had happened to her. Not
one
of them—not even Eleanor Fairweather—could imagine that she had chosen to live with the Ngati Pono, marry one of their men and fight with the Kingites of her own free will. They would rather believe that she had been forced, or in some other way coerced, into it. Or perhaps that she not been in her right mind, or even that, as a dirt-poor, ignorant little Scottish girl, she hadn’t known any better.

A hot wave of anger surged through her. She raised one of her crutches and brought it down hard on her plate, sending lumps of Madeira cake and shards of pink and yellow-flowered porcelain everywhere.

Charity and Faith glanced at each other, their faces alight with horrified glee.

Isla forced out her words through clenched jaws. ‘I
wis
nae captured by them, they took me and ma brothers and sister
in
, d’ye hear me? They fostered us and cared for us and loved us, and we loved them. I
loved
ma husband!’ She glared around the room at the shocked faces. ‘We had a bairn together, and when she died I wanted tae die as well! And now they’re nearly
all
dead—ma mother and father, ma brother, ma husband—and it wis
you
who kilt them! You…
English!’
She pointed at Mrs Ebbett. ‘So dinnae talk tae
me
aboot sins.
I’ve
no’ committed any! It’s you lot,
wi’ your greed for money and land. I’ve been proud tae fight as a Kingite. I’ve been proud tae fight for what’s
right.’
She heaved herself to her feet, thrusting the crutches under her arms, and stumped across the room.

At the drawing room door she turned, her voice like ice. ‘I dinnae want anything from
any
of ye, ye ken? Ma people never have.’

N
OVEMBER
1864

T
he winter had seemed very long. Although the sun had frequently shone on Auckland, Isla felt as though she had been living constantly in the shade.

She remained at the Fairweather house for more than six months. In the third week of July, Doctor Sillitoe had removed the plaster from her leg: the following day she had dressed in the only clothes she actually owned—her boots, her skirt and blouse, and poor Private Jensen’s army jacket—and gathered her meagre possessions into her peke. She had slipped out of the house, past her shadow, Private Page, who’d had his head down on the kitchen table, and with Laddie had set off across the domain, intent on finding a trading ship bound for the Bay of Plenty. She had slipped on wet grass and the leg had broken again, leaving her lying in the bracken
until Chisolm and Mrs Fairweather finally found her, weeping with frustration and anger at the frailty of her own traitorous body.

For the next month she had been confined strictly to bed, threatened by both the doctor and Mrs Fairweather with a return to the hospital if she didn’t do as she was told. At the start of September, when she had once again been allowed up and into the hated wheeled chair, she had begun to plan her next escape.

For it would have to be an escape. Both Privates Hetfield and Page, and now also Jones, had clearly been told to watch her more closely, despite the extent of her incapacity. Isla could only assume that someone at Albert Barracks—someone higher in authority than Captain Robert Yale—continued to regard her as a threat.

After the dreadful visit from Mrs Fairweather’s church friends, she had seen that there was no point in hiding or denying anything any longer. She hadn’t had any contact with the Ngati Pono, or any other Kingites actively involved in the war, since Gate Pa; but she knew how the campaign had been going for them: the
Daily Southern Cross
and the
New Zealand Herald
, both of which the Fairweather household took, were filled with stories of the disastrous-sounding defeat at Te Ranga in June, the July surrender of the Tauranga Kingites at Pukehinahina, and the evacuation of Te Arei pa in Taranaki on 10 September. But she had no idea where the Ngati Pono taua might be, or Jean and Jamie.

Hope Fairweather had quite quickly become Isla’s ally, spending considerable time with her while she had been confined to bed,
talking with her or just sitting, silently embroidering or crocheting, to keep her company. At first, Isla had assumed that she wanted something, but when it became clear that Hope was a genuinely kind and generous girl—unlike two of her sisters—Isla slowly came to value, and look forward to, the time they spent together.

Hope was very bright, Isla soon realized, with an apparently insatiable desire for knowledge about human nature and how other people lived. Isla was more than happy to tell Hope about her life on Skye, the four years the McKinnons had spent in Australia, their time in Taranaki, and what life had been like with the Ngati Pono.

Hope had travelled quite extensively herself, as the family had accompanied John Fairweather on most of his military postings, but, as she explained to Isla, she and her sisters had never been encouraged to mix with the ‘natives’ in those places. In India, as younger girls, they had remained more or less inside their own compound and ventured out only when accompanied by a military escort, and seeing much of India itself had been out of the question. They had come to New Zealand two years ago, and, although they were free to go about Auckland as they wished, Hope had discovered that there were still few opportunities to learn about the local people.

So she had been delighted with Isla’s stories of hunting and eeling, of the complexities of gardening according to the seasons, and of the ceremony that seemed to be associated with almost every aspect of Maori life. In particular, she had been fascinated by Isla’s accounts of tribal organization and familial loyalties,
and of birth, marriage and death.

‘It makes the notion of calling cards, balls and a “Season” all seem a bit silly, doesn’t it?’ she had remarked one day.

But Isla had said, ‘I’m no’ so sure aboot that. It seems tae me that it’s all the same, in the end. It was, even on Skye. Everyone has their special way o’ doing things. It’s when ye start comparing it and judging it that the problems come aboot.’

Hope had considered this for several days, then, blushing furiously and not quite able to meet Isla’s eye, she had said, ‘Nobody has ever told me this, and I’ve never heard anyone speak of it in so many words, but I’ve always assumed that, well, when Maori people get married, it’s never quite as sincere, never quite as
genuine,
as it is between white people.’

‘Why no’?’ Isla had been astonished. ‘The ceremony is the same, the sharing o’ the two lives is the same.’

‘Well, yes, I see that now, but I just thought…well, I don’t know what I thought.’ And then Hope had screwed up her courage and made the biggest admission of all. ‘You’ll despise me for this, Isla, but I also assumed that, for some reason, Maori women wouldn’t, well, they wouldn’t love their children as much as other mothers might.’

‘White mothers, ye mean?’

Shamefaced, Hope had nodded miserably.

‘What a foolish thing tae say.’

‘I know. I’m so sorry, Isla.’

And Isla had seen in Hope’s eyes that she really was.

It seemed that Eleanor Fairweather had been having similar thoughts. She had apologized with embarrassing profuseness after the episode with the women from the church, and several days later had asked to speak with Isla in private. She had taken her to the sewing room—a cosy, sunny little nook off the dining room crammed with a crinoline cage with several bent hoops, a sewing machine on a small table, a spinning wheel, dozens of fabric off-cuts, and baskets containing thread, scraps of wool, buttons and lace—and pointedly closed the door behind them.

Sitting Isla down on one of the two chairs, she had said in a rush, ‘I know I have apologized several times already, Isla, but what happened has been very much preying on my mind and I want—no, I
need
—to make it very clear to you how ashamed I feel about it.’

‘Aye, and I’m verra sorry I broke your plate, Mrs Fairweather.’

But Mrs Fairweather had only waved the apology away. ‘Dear, a broken plate doesn’t matter! What matters is the dreadful insult to your character, to your
integrity!
The suggestion that you might have been…well, it has been known to happen, of course, but to just
assume
that it had, against your will, and all because the man in question was Maori and you are not! I can’t imagine what we were thinking! I am so very sorry, Isla, I really am.’

Isla had taken a length of wool and begun to wind it around her index finger. ‘Is it what
you
were thinking? That ma husband had forced himsel’ on me?’

Mrs Fairweather had sat very still and thought about it. ‘Robert
had told me that you were a married woman, of course, and that your husband had been killed, but I’m not sure I really thought about, well,
that
side of things at all. But I had assumed that you’d probably been kidnapped and married against your will.’ She had made a moue of regret then. ‘I don’t know why. I just did. And that’s why I’m so ashamed of myself. Because I didn’t think. It didn’t occur to me that a bright, pretty young—’

‘Fair-skinned.’

Mrs Fairweather had blushed. ‘Yes, that a young white woman would choose to marry a Maori man. And I had no idea, I really didn’t, that Margaret Ebbett was going to be so…
prurient
about it.’

Isla had not responded, merely watched as her index finger had turned purple.

‘And I certainly had no idea that she and the other women had spoken to Reverend Nicholson about it. About
you.’

‘I loved ma husband, Mrs Fairweather. And we loved oor bairn. She wis only one day old when she died, ma wee Meg. I’d give anything tae have them back. Anything. And ma brother.’

Mrs Fairweather had reached out then, unwound the wool from Isla’s finger and gently rubbed the circulation back into it. ‘What can I do for you, Isla? How can I help you?’

‘Why d’ye want tae, though? Ye’ve got your nice life here, your house and your husband and your pretty daughters. Why d’ye want tae help someone like me?’

‘Because Robert asked me to. Because I feel that we have wronged you. And because…because I like you, Isla. There’s
something about you, some element of your character, that I might have wished for in my own daughters.’ Isla had raised an eyebrow at that, and Mrs Fairweather had flapped a hand limply. ‘Well, Prudence is only nine, so it’s a little early to tell how she will turn out. Hope is too quiet and reserved for her own good. Sometimes I think she’ll never pluck up the courage to take life by the horns. And Charity and Faith, well, they’re two of a kind, aren’t they?’

‘They certainly are, Mrs Fairweather.’

Mrs Fairweather had laughed at that, then Isla had said, ‘I want tae go back tae Opotiki. I want tae find ma brother and sister.’

And Eleanor Fairweather had enfolded Isla in her arms and hugged her while she wept.

Isla had also told Robert everything. She told him how the accumulation of grief had almost killed her, and that if it hadn’t been for the twins she would have given up long ago. He in turn had told her, to her surprise, that he wasn’t particularly shocked by her revelations, that he had met several Pakeha-Maori since he had come to New Zealand and, because of that, had suspected from the outset that she might be fighting with the Kingites.

‘Wis it the moko, or the business wi’ the Jensen laddie?’ Isla had asked.

They had been sitting on the back verandah, Robert on a bench and Isla on a chair with her foot up and a rug over her knees, watching Laddie race around after sticks energetically hurled by Prudence.

‘No, it wasn’t just the tattoo,’ he’d said. ‘All that told me was that you’d spent time living with Maori. It was more the way you handled yourself, that first day we found you. You’re a very good shot, and you wouldn’t give in until you’d passed out and had no choice. I’m a soldier and I know how soldiers operate. You only get that sort of determination when a man believes in what he’s fighting for, and wants to win at any price. Or a woman, in your case. And if you hadn’t been a Kingite, why would you have retaliated like that? At us, the Queen’s own troops?’

‘And d’ye believe now that I didnae kill Private Jensen?’

‘Having come to know you a little better since then, yes, I do. You said that you weren’t responsible, and I trust you.’

‘But no’ enough tae stand doon your men?’ Isla had asked.

‘I would if it were up to me, but it isn’t. My superior, Major Blainey, is under the impression that because you fought with the Kingites, and have lived with them, you must know every detail of every battle they plan to wage for the next twelve months.’

Isla had snorted.

But then Robert had said, ‘But
do
you know anything, Isla? I have to ask. In fact, I’ve been ordered to. I should have done it well before now.’

‘Been
ordered
, have ye? Is that why ye brought me back tae Auckland?’ she’d replied bluntly. ‘I cannae think o’ any other reason for it.’

Robert had gone bright red then and looked away, and Isla had seen very clearly then that there had been another reason. But she had rushed on, as though nothing had happened.

‘I’ve no’ got a clue aboot battle plans. Why would the great warrior chiefs tell me anything? It’s no’ like I had cups o’ tea wi’ Wiremu Tamihana and Rewi Maniapoto every morning. Aye, I knew where we were heading whenever we were on the march, we all did, but ye have tae remember, Waikato and the Bay o’ Plenty are no’ oor lands. Ngati Pono only went there because that wis where the fighting wis. We went where we were needed. And I left ma people before it had been decided what tae do next. It wis just after Gate Pa, we were exhausted. All we wanted tae do wis sleep.’

Robert, his composure now recovered, had said, ‘Yes, quite. I have to say that I do feel that Major Blainey has a bee in his bonnet about it. Although I don’t view the matter lightly myself, of course. The campaign here in New Zealand is taking far longer than anyone expected.’

‘Far longer than
you
expected,’ Isla corrected.

‘Yes, longer than
we
expected. And I don’t know when it will end. Do you?’

Isla had shaken her head. To her, Robert’s question had sounded wistful. Or regretful. Or
something
that a soldier of Her Majesty the Queen shouldn’t be feeling. He had watched Prudence and Laddie for a while, then asked, ‘Where do you think your brother and sister are now?’

‘Anywhere between Opotiki and Taranaki, I suppose. Though I dinnae really think they will’ve gone back tae Taranaki yet. Pikaki would no’ have allowed it, if she thinks it’s still too dangerous. But after Te Arei, I’m no’ so sure. I dinnae ken what’s happening anymore.’ She had turned to him then. ‘I’m so oot o’
touch with ma people, Robert. I miss them.’

And he had stared at his boots again, because he knew how responsible he was for her pain. Then Prudence had come skip-limping up the steps and inside, returning a few minutes later with an apple in her hand and singing, ‘Here comes Chaaaarity!’ as she danced past. And Charity had appeared, sat down on the bench very close to Robert, looked directly at Isla and smiled unpleasantly.

One afternoon towards the end of October, the day after the blossom on Eleanor Fairweather’s small peach trees had begun to open, Robert arrived at the house in a gleaming black and red gig. He parked it in the carriageway, handed the horse over to Chisolm and knocked jauntily on the front door, where he was met by Charity, who had seen him arrive.

Hoping that his disappointment wasn’t too obvious, he said brightly, ‘Good afternoon, Charity. How nice to see you.’

‘It’s lovely to see you, too, Robert!’ Charity stood aside to let him in. ‘That’s a very smart gig. Have you just purchased it?’

Robert took off his cap and set it on the hall table, snatching a surreptitious glimpse at himself in the wall mirror. Should he have had his hair cut this morning? ‘No, it belongs to a friend. Joshua Wainwright? Royal Artillery?’