A Mother's Courage

by Maggie Hope

  ‘Speed thy servants, Saviour speed them,

  Thou art Lord of winds and waves.’

  Mary sat on Eleanor’s chair, listening quietly to the music. The singing seemed to shimmer in the hot air and even the parakeets had stopped their noise and were sitting quietly in the trees, waiting for the heat of the day to pass. A pig grunted softly near the doorway of the chapel and a Fijian appeared briefly in the opening and shooed it away.

  Aye well, thought Mary, there’s nowt to do but wait for the next time the ship comes, maybe Morgan will be on it that time. Or Prue, by, it would be nice to see Prue.

  ‘Mary? Are you there, Mary?’ Eleanor called from the bedroom.

  Mary got to her feet with a sigh and went in to see what she wanted. Come on, Mr Francis Tait, she muttered, come out of that chapel and see to your wife, this is where you’re needed just at the present.

  Chapter Twelve

  The baby was born a full twenty-four hours later, just as the old Fijian woman had predicted.

  ‘A boy,’ said Mary as she swaddled the tiny red-faced little thing in a square of calico and laid him in the waiting cradle. The midwife, a missionary’s wife who had luckily been on the ship with her husband, helped to make the new mother comfortable.

  ‘Thank God,’ murmured Eleanor. ‘Is he all right?’

  ‘A bit red in the face I suppose, but he’s got all the parts he should have,’ said the midwife briskly. Her husband was the Reverend Langham and he was in the next room with Francis. ‘Now, let’s get you comfortable and then Mr Tait can come in to see you both. Poor man, he’s been at his wits’ end this last day.’

  Poor man indeed, Mary said to herself. Why, it had been the middle of the afternoon before Francis had returned to the house. ‘On parish business,’ he had said, never mind that his wife was in labour. Well, he didn’t know his wife was in labour, but still he knew she might have been. Mary helped Mrs Langham change the sheets for cool, clean ones and bundled up the dirty laundry to take out to the kitchen.

  ‘You’ll wash them through yourself, Mary,’ said Mrs Langham. ‘After all, we can’t have a man doing such a thing, it’s woman’s work.’

  Oh no, we can’t have Matthew doing such a thing, Mary thought, of course not. She went through the verandah doors so as to avoid Francis and Mr Langham. On no account could men be allowed to see anything connected with childbirth, they weren’t supposed to know anything about it, not even Matthew, black servant that he was. Oh no, as far as they were concerned the baby might have been found under a bush in the garden.

  Mary set a kettle of water on the stove in the yard and while she was waiting for it to heat up she grated yellow soap and mixed it with soda. Normally a woman from the village would take the dirty washing to the stream that ran down the back of the compound and pound it on the rocks until it was clean, but she couldn’t do that; a man might see it.

  Mary smiled to herself, recognising the absurdity of her thoughts. Men could do nothing right for her at present, she was rapidly turning into a man-hater, it was silly. Ah, but if only Morgan would come for her no doubt her opinions would change. She set to rubbing away at the linen in the tub, working with a steady energy despite the heat, pounding away at the sheets. If she tired herself out she might at least sleep the night through for a change.

  Behind her, in the house, Francis entered the bedroom, a little fearful of what state Eleanor was going to be in after her arduous labour. But there she was, sitting up in bed, the baby on her arm, looking pale and tired and triumphant at the same time. He walked over to the bed and kissed her forehead before studying the infant carefully.

  ‘Well done, lass,’ he said softly. ‘A fine strong lad he looks to be.’

  ‘Oh, he is,’ said Mrs Langham, and Francis looked up as though he had just remembered she was there.

  ‘I’m sure. Both Eleanor and I appreciate everything you have done for us.’

  ‘It’s our Christian duty to help each other, Mr Tait,’ said Mrs Langham. ‘It’s a good thing I was here – the Lord provides in our hour of need, does He not?’ She suddenly realised that they were both looking at her politely but obviously waiting to be on their own together. ‘Er … well, I’ll just go out and see what Mr Langham is doing. If you want anything, Eleanor, I’ll be there.’

  She slipped out on to the verandah and Francis turned to Eleanor. ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you took badly, dear,’ he said. ‘You were all right with Mary, though, weren’t you?’

  Eleanor looked at him, remembering how angry she had been that he wasn’t there when she may have needed him, but the pain and the panic were already only vague memories. She looked down at the sleeping baby and fancied she could already detect Francis’s high forehead, the shape of his mouth. A surge of happiness ran through her and she smiled at Francis, feeling closer to him than she had ever been before.

  ‘Eleanor?’

  ‘I was fine, Francis,’ she said. ‘After all, everything turned out all right, didn’t it?’

  Francis relaxed. ‘We have to decide a name for him,’ he said, leaning back in his chair.

  John George Tait was baptised 20 April, 1862. The ceremony was performed in the chapel by the Reverend Frederick Langham and his wife was godmother. The pair had returned specially to the island for the ceremony and afterwards there was a small tea party to celebrate. The two couples were becoming firm friends and Mrs Langham took an almost proprietary interest in the progress of John George.

  Afterwards, the two men went out to visit a tribe of local Fijians who lived only a short distance around the coast from the compound. Most of the converts, those who lived in the compound and some who had spread out into the foothills, were Tongans and Francis was anxious to persuade the Fijians to forsake their old gods altogether and embrace Christianity. He went to it with an evangelistic zeal that he had discovered in himself when he met his first group of unconvinced Fijians. He couldn’t rest until he had ‘brought them into the fold’, as he termed it.

  ‘Take care, Francis, please, for the sake of little John,’ Eleanor begged him, for she too had found a new cause: it was protecting her child and making sure Francis did nothing that might put him in jeopardy.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Mr Langham. ‘We are perfectly safe on Lakeba, why, this was the first island to be Christianised.’

  In which case, why are there still native pagans? thought Eleanor but she held her peace; maybe she was just being overanxious.

  So it proved to be, for Francis returned jubilant that he had managed to extract a promise from the headman of the group that he would lead his followers to the compound that Sunday and listen to what the Godman had to say.

  True to his word, the headman led a string of warriors up to the chapel on Sunday but he refused to lead them in when he realised his group was outnumbered by Tongans. Eleanor watched with baby John in her arms from the safe distance of her balcony. They stood outside in a semi-circle, each man armed to the teeth and naked but for a loincloth with a i ula kobo throwing club tucked into it, a fearsome weapon to see even from the distance away she was.

  Each man held at least two short spears, which he grasped as though he intended to use them at the least sign of any discord. But the Tongans remained inside the chapel while Francis stood under the overhanging roof speaking to the warriors, for all the world as though he was delivering a sermon in the chapel at home in Hetton or Houghton le Spring and, after a while, the Fijians’ grasp on their spears relaxed. Though when Francis suggested they lay them down, for this was the Lord’s Day and fighting was a sin, they muttered angrily among themselves and Eleanor hastily retreated into the mission house.

  The day came when Eleanor awoke feeling fit and full of energy and she decided that it was time she put her own plans into action. If Mrs Langham could act as a midwife why couldn’t she? This was her chance to tend the sick, put the ideas of Florence Nightingale into practice too. Besides, Francis wasn’t in a position to object to anything
she did; he was off on his travels round the neighbouring islands preaching to the natives no doubt. The opportunity was heaven-sent for her to begin practising, nursing the sick among the natives and teaching them hygiene.

  ‘But what about John? Will you be back to feed him?’ asked Mary. Not that she minded looking after the baby; he reminded her of Prue when she was little and at least it gave her a chance to stay at the front of the house away from the supercilious Matthew, who actually thought he could order her about because she was a woman.

  ‘I have expressed enough for you to feed him if I’m not back,’ said Eleanor. She pinned on her bonnet with its swathe of muslin that was supposed to keep off the flies and, blowing a kiss at little John, who was sleeping peacefully in his cradle, she went off towards the huts of the Tongans before she could have second thoughts. It was best to start with the Tongans rather than the Fijians, she told herself, one step at a time, that was best.

  She walked along one of the myriad paths that criss-crossed the compound towards the area where the Tongan families lived. The huts were deserted, only a few pigs and dogs lying dozing in the sun. But from the beach beyond she could hear laughing and shouting and children playing so she walked on, determined not to give up now. The corner of the beach seemed to be given up to the women and children and they were splashing about in the shallows, the children quite naked and the women either with only a loincloth round them or occasionally a sarong covering their breasts.

  She stood for a minute or two, watching them, envying them being able to splash about with next to nothing on. Then someone noticed her there and the whole lot of them rushed out of the sea and surrounded her, laughing and talking, inviting her in a mixture of mime and broken English to join them. One, a grey-haired, matronly woman who Eleanor recognised as Mia, a relative of Matthew, began to unwind Eleanor’s muslin scarf and pull at her dress, wanting her to discard it.

  ‘Baby?’ said one, looking round in puzzlement. ‘Baby?’ Most of the younger women had babies wrapped in their sarongs or straddling their hips and Eleanor realised they couldn’t understand why little John was not with her.

  ‘Baby in house,’ she tried to explain but only succeeded in making them look even more puzzled. She looked around the bathing place; it was a secluded corner of the bay with not a man to be seen. Surely it wouldn’t hurt if she took off her dress and joined them in the sea? It looked so inviting and Francis would never know. Within minutes, she was splashing around in the shallows, joining in the games with the younger children and feeling cooler than she had felt since coming to Lakeba.

  I’m making friends, she said to herself, if I get to know the women better they will trust me, they will let me help them when they need it. But then she gave herself up to the pure enjoyment of the sea and the feel of the damp sand under her feet and the gentle waves lapping between her toes.

  Afterwards, the women walked a little further along the beach to where a small stream came down from the foothills and together they rinsed the salt from each other’s long hair in the clear water and exclaimed at the fineness of Eleanor’s hair. Eleanor took her own ribbons and hairpins and demonstrated with Mia’s hair how to pile it on the top of the head so that it didn’t fall down and Mia strutted about before them like a queen, showing her new hairstyle off with elaborate gestures. And it was then that they heard a male voice. Francis is back, thought Eleanor, her heart sinking.

  ‘Eleanor? Eleanor? I can’t believe my eyes! Are you really sitting there laughing so shamelessly and practically unclothed?’ Francis strode forward and, taking off his coat, flung it round his wife’s shoulders and the excited hubbub went deathly quiet as the Tongan women backed away into the undergrowth until there was no one there by the stream but the missionary and his wife.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Mary was still sitting on the verandah swing, idly moving it backwards and forwards, when a strange boat came round the headland, a sailing boat perhaps forty feet long. She watched it curiously; she couldn’t remember seeing it before though there were more and more boats about lately, apart from the native canoes.

  The boat slowly came in to the jetty and tied up. After a short while the figure of a man jumped out and began walking rapidly along the wooden ramp and up the beach. Mary sat up, her heart beginning to beat uncomfortably fast; there was something so familiar about the man. She walked to the edge of the verandah and put up a hand to shade her eyes, straining to see who it was. And then he lifted an arm and waved and she just knew he was waving at her, not any of the people who had gone down to meet him but her, up on the verandah of the mission house.

  ‘Morgan!’ she cried and ran down the steps to meet him, but stopped short as a sound came from the cradle. Little John was stirring and she couldn’t leave him alone on the verandah, even in her excitement. Hurrying back, she picked him up, held him to her shoulder and ran on down to meet the man from the boat.

  ‘Good Lord!’

  Morgan came to an abrupt halt as he saw the baby in her arms, an expression of shock on his face, but Mary didn’t notice it at first; all she could see was that Morgan had come back. He wanted her, he hadn’t abandoned her as she had feared, he must want her else why had he come? She flung herself at him, baby and all, and he dropped his bag and put his arms around her to steady her, holding her as she laughed and cried at the same time.

  The welcoming crowd of Tongans and Fijians crowded round watching the strange goings-on of the couple. Matthew, who was just emerging from one of the huts, took on a look of scornful disdain that the white woman servant should behave so in the middle of the compound, too. White women had no shame, no decorum, he decided.

  ‘Morgan! Oh, Morgan, you came back, I knew you would, I knew it! By, lad, I’m that glad to see you, I thought you’d gone for ever, I did, I did. I thought I’d never see you again, I thought I’d lost you,’ babbled Mary in her excitement.

  Morgan had been staring down at her and the top of the baby’s head but he was suddenly aware of the interested crowd around them.

  ‘Hold on, now, hold on,’ he said. ‘Let’s go back to the mission house away from this crowd of black folk. I think there’s some explanations wanted here, I do indeed.’

  He freed one of his hands, picked up his bag and began to propel her towards the mission house with one arm around her, steering her, for she still had her face pressed into his nankeen coat. It took some doing but eventually he cleared a way between the natives and got her up on to the verandah and sitting down on the swing.

  Mary sat there with the baby, who was beginning to struggle and whimper against the tightness of her grip, still held against her shoulder. All she could think of for the moment was that here was Morgan back and she loved him and maybe, just maybe, he loved her.

  ‘Now then, ma’am,’ Morgan said and she was assailed with a sudden doubt. Ma’am? Why did he call her that, as though she was a stranger? She moved a little away from him and looked into his face, trying to read his expression.

  But Morgan was looking at little John as Mary sat the baby on her lap and loosened the cotton shawl so that he got one tiny arm free and waved his fist in the air. His face was red with exertion and temper but he was not a baby who cried a lot and when he realised he was free he settled down and began to suck his thumb.

  ‘What?’ asked Mary, still watching Morgan.

  ‘Why didn’t you let me know about this?’ asked Morgan. ‘I would have come sooner, I wouldn’t have left you on your own.’

  Mary gazed at him, mystified.

  ‘Is it a boy?’

  Mary nodded.

  ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘John.’

  ‘Let me hold him.’ Morgan held out his arms for the baby but instead Mary took John over to his cradle and laid him there. She busied herself making him comfortable, fiddling with the sheet and pillow. For it had finally struck her that Morgan thought it was her baby, hers and his. A small giggle escaped her – she couldn’t help it – and h
e strode over to her and swung her roughly round to face him.

  ‘Is he mine?’ he demanded and she shook her head, unable to stop herself from laughing.

  ‘He’s not mine either, you daft lump,’ she said. ‘I’m only minding him. This is John George Tait, he’s the Taits’ baby. An’ don’t tell me you’re not glad of it, you didn’t care what happened to me, no, you were off on your own, I could have been having twins for all you cared!’

  ‘Mary, Mary, I’ve come back for you, haven’t I?’

  She had been working herself up to a proper head of steam, all the frustrations of the past few months boiling up together, but his quiet remark was enough to shut her up and it was her turn to sit down hurriedly. She stared at him, trying to gauge if he really meant what he said or whether it was a ploy to get her into bed. Did he think that all he had to do was make a vague promise and she would fall into his arms?

  Uncomfortably, she remembered the first time he had made love to her. It had been in Sydney; he’d caught her at a bad moment when she had just lost Prue and he had pretended to comfort her. Or rather, he had comforted her, she thought grimly, he had comforted her only too well. And she knew how weak she was where he was concerned; it wouldn’t take much for her to give in all over again.

  ‘Did you really come back for me?’

  Morgan looked at her flushed face, the bright blue eyes and shining curls. Of course he hadn’t come back for her, though he had to admit that when he was passing by Lakeba on his way to one of the other islands where he had heard there was still a supply of the prized sandalwood, he had thought of her and how pleasant it might be to spend an hour or two with her.

  It would be nice to see the other one too, the prim and haughty missionary’s wife – the two women complemented each other perfectly. And that had been all that was in his mind when he dropped anchor at the jetty down below and strolled up into the compound.