A Mother's Courage

by Maggie Hope

  It certainly wasn’t worth bringing strangers on the ship even if they did pay their passage. Not when sickness was spread around among the very people the Wesleyans were here to help, Eleanor thought. Look at these poor Tongans now.

  She listened to the women on the beach, shaking her head, for they were coughing and spluttering and some of them holding their sides or rocking backwards and forwards holding their chests. They were in pain; even the smallest bout of coughing hurt them. The strangers must have brought the sickness with them. Not that the Tongans usually succumbed as easily as the Fijians, but this particular fever was especially virulent.

  Eleanor went round the invalids, dishing out bottles of cough medicine and trying to persuade them they would be better off indoors in spite of the heat. The women took the medicine gratefully but simply smiled vaguely at the advice.

  The woman with the injured leg was reluctant to let Eleanor examine it. She shook her head and waved her hands to indicate that she didn’t want the poultice of leaves taken off – no doubt it had been applied by the little old woman who had appeared in the mission house on the day before John was born – and in the end, Eleanor had to admit defeat.

  She got to her feet and arched her back; this new baby was so active he kept her awake half the night, it was no wonder she felt so tired. Besides, a nagging backache was settling into the small of her back and she ought to get back home and rest. Guiltily she realised that Francis would be very annoyed if he knew what she was doing at this late stage in her pregnancy.

  She had barely walked twenty-five yards when the pain suddenly intensified, pulling her almost double and causing her to drop her basket so that the remaining medications and bandages fell out and rolled away in the mud. But there were women there, Fijian women she had not even noticed were anywhere near the compound, surrounding her and holding her up, their bare breasts pressed against her arms and shoulders while their short kilts made of bark cloth from the paper mulberry tree wiggled and showed glimpses of firm brown thighs and knees.

  Eleanor noticed these things in a detached kind of way for suddenly everything seemed unreal; there was almost a dreamlike quality to everything. Somehow she found herself carried along to the mission house and up the steps to the balcony. She was laid on a cloth on the floor, a cushion from the swing for a pillow, and she was trying to tell them that she would like to get into her own bed; she even indicated the door to the bedroom. Did she ask them to fetch Mia? She wasn’t sure whether she had said it aloud and anyway the women were jabbering among themselves almost as if she had nothing to do with what was happening.

  A sharp contraction brought her fully awake. She couldn’t believe it was happening so quickly when John’s birth had taken so much longer, but an old crone appeared – was it the same one who came before? She laid her brown, wrinkled hand on Eleanor’s brow and after that she remembered very little except for the feeling of elated relief when the baby came and was laid on her breast, still attached to the afterbirth by a long and bloody cord. And it was another boy; Eleanor saw it for herself before falling asleep or losing consciousness, she wasn’t sure which.

  When she awoke she was in her own bed and the toddler, John, his hated skirts twisted up round his chest where he had held them to scramble up on to the bed, was asleep beside her and by the side of the bed was the wooden cradle.

  Anxiously she looked at it, trying to edge towards it without waking John. For she had a sudden fear: she hadn’t yet heard the baby cry, and surely there was something wrong with a baby that didn’t cry?

  ‘Francis!’ she called, panic rising in her voice, and at once he was there and Mia too. She was lifting the baby out of the cradle and giving him to Eleanor and he moved his head and whimpered a little as though he resented being disturbed.

  ‘When did you come home, Francis?’ she asked.

  ‘Not long since,’ he replied. ‘Well, Eleanor, I’ve let you down again, haven’t I? I am always so anxious to be about the Lord’s business but I should have stayed with you until the baby came. And this time you hadn’t even Mrs Langham to help you. I would never have forgiven myself if anything had happened.’

  ‘Oh, hush, Francis,’ said Eleanor. ‘What does it matter anyway? Here we are, both of us doing fine, do you think white people are the only ones who know how to help at childbirth? I was attended very well, I must thank the women who helped me as soon as I am able.’

  And it was all true, she thought, as she lay on the pillow, feeling cool and rested and pleasantly lethargic. This birth had been so very different to the last, so completely different.

  There were five new graves in the part of the cemetery where the Tongans were laid to rest. For the others, those who had the infection were slow to recover and were but shadows of their former selves for months afterwards.

  None of the whites died of the fever that had been brought to the island by the beachcombers, though Francis and little John were among those who suffered mild versions of the illness.

  ‘Why did it happen like that?’ Eleanor asked the question every time she passed the cemetery with the new graves, their recently bare soil already covered by the green creeping weed with the pink flowers that grew all around. Why was it worse for the Tongans than those of European blood? But no one knew the answer, nor why, when the infection had spread to a tribe in the foothills, close to where Matthew’s uncle lived, a whole village had been wiped out.

  When John had fallen ill Eleanor had blamed herself and confessed to Francis her attempts to doctor the Fijians. He had said little, but in her heart she knew he blamed her too. She spent long hours on her knees beside him in the chapel, praying for the cooler weather to come early, for the rains to come and clear the air of infection, and most especially that her two babies should not die.

  In fact they were never in any real danger; John soon recovered and Edward, the new baby, never caught the fever. But Francis suffered from complications, and caught the quinsy. Eleanor poulticed his throat with hot linseed and when there was no linseed left she used bread and water, heated until it was as hot as he could bear, and she clapped the poultice on his throat and bandaged it round. He recovered, but his fine speaking voice was never the same again.

  Francis was having some success in his forays out to the neighbouring tribes up in the hills and on the surrounding islands. He had been minister in Lakeba for almost four years now and his time there was coming to an end; soon he would be posted to one of the larger islands.

  He’d done reasonably well, he said to himself one evening as he sat in the canoe, idly trailing his hand in the clear water, not blue at this time of the day but reflecting the myriad hues of the sunset, gold and crimson. There were two Fijian warriors paddling the boat and even this he took as a sign of his success.

  ‘Praise the Lord,’ he murmured, and was startled at the immediate response of ‘amen’, in the deep tones of the natives. He smiled at them. He would have been perfectly happy to paddle himself home; the journey wasn’t far, just further along the coast to one of the further bays of the island. The chairman of the district and the superintendent of his own circuit frowned on the missionaries using the natives as servants unless they were paid the proper remuneration and the fact was it was all he could do to pay Matthew and Mia to help Eleanor in the house. But the Fijians had insisted it wasn’t fitting for him to paddle himself, wasn’t he the chief Godman on the island?

  They paddled round the headland and the missionary compound was in sight, the chapel in the centre, long and low and larger than the living huts. Yet it was becoming too small for the congregation at the Sunday morning service and even the mid-week service sometimes.

  A light appeared in a window of the mission house and shortly after that a brighter one on the balcony. Francis smiled, deeply content. Eleanor always had Matthew put a lamp on the verandah when Francis was expected home, even when they were at loggerheads with one another. Thank the Lord, this was not one of those times, and they seemed to h
ave settled down together so much better these last few months.

  It was since Mary had married that scoundrel Morgan West and gone off with him to Viti Levu. They had not heard from her since, though Francis sometimes heard of scandalous doings on the cotton plantation Morgan had established in the interior of that island. It was said that he treated his workers as little more than slaves and if they fled he hunted them down and dragged them back despite the remonstrations of the Methodist ministers on the island.

  The canoe beached on the firm sand of the cove and Francis got to his feet and climbed out. He thanked the men and they grinned and pulled the boat above the waterline, their strongly muscled shoulders gleaming in the light of the moon that had risen sharply.

  ‘God bless you both,’ said Francis. ‘Goodnight now.’

  Insects were buzzing round the lamp as he climbed the steps of the verandah, some of them so huge as to be unbelievable to any European who hadn’t seen them before. Thank goodness he had devised muslin-covered frames for the doorways of the house; at least they kept the insects out and away from the sleeping children.

  Eleanor was sitting by the table, engaged in sewing a suit for John, for he was almost old enough to be breeched. A circle of light from the lamp fell on her, highlighting her dark hair where it had escaped from her cap and making the grey of her dress glow softly. She put down her work and rose to meet him.

  ‘Supper is ready, dear, I’ll see to it directly,’ she said and kissed him lightly on the cheek.

  ‘Can’t you let Mia see to it?’ asked Francis. He sat down in the wooden rocking chair, which a previous minister had had brought out from England and left in the mission house when his term of service was ended.

  ‘Mia’s gone back to her village,’ said Eleanor. She carefully folded her work and put it away in a cupboard. ‘She’s getting married, Francis, what do you think of that? Without giving any sort of warning too.’

  Francis sighed. Eleanor sounded crotchety. Mia’s defection had obviously affected her.

  ‘I suppose the woman has the right to get married if she so wishes,’ he murmured, leaning his head back on the chair and rubbing the spot between his eyes that always began to ache when he was tired.

  ‘Hmm.’

  Eleanor went out into the kitchen and after a few moments came back with a tray and began to set the table. She said little more until they had finished their simple supper of pork and pineapple with sweet potatoes and breadfruit. They had already eaten pork three times that week, Francis reflected, but he was too wise to comment on it. The minister’s stipend was very low and pork very cheap on the island, whereas beef had to be imported and when it arrived was either already going off or so salty it was barely edible.

  Eleanor cleared the table after the meal and went in to the children to check on them before coming back to sit opposite Francis. He had already picked up his worn Bible to continue the reading from Acts of the Apostles that he had begun the evening before. He always read one or two chapters aloud before calling in Matthew for the household evening prayers and he was confident that Eleanor looked forward to the quiet time as much as he did. Tonight, however, she spoke before he even opened the Testament.

  ‘Francis, I have something to discuss with you.’

  Francis looked up in surprise before placing the Bible on the table. ‘Discuss?’ he said. Eleanor’s face was slightly pink, he noticed, why, she actually looked guilty, what on earth had she done?

  ‘Yes. I had a letter last month from Mary.’

  ‘Well, that is a surprise. The girl hasn’t been in touch since she left, has she? And very ungrateful I think she’s been, too. And why has she suddenly written to you, out of the blue, so to speak? Wait a minute, did you say last month?’

  ‘Yes. Captain West brought it. He was on his way somewhere, I suppose.’

  At the mention of Morgan West’s name, Francis felt unsettled, something that always happened when there was anything to do with the American. ‘You didn’t say he’d been here,’ he said, making it an accusation.

  ‘No. Well, you were away at the time.’ Eleanor looked down at her hands, which she was twisting on her lap. ‘She asked me to get in touch with Wesley House in Sydney.’

  ‘Wesley House?’ Francis was so surprised he got to his feet and strode up and down, his hands clasped behind his back.

  ‘Yes. She wanted them to find Prue.’

  Francis stopped his pacing and stood directly in front of Eleanor so that she had to look up to see his face.

  ‘I hope you did nothing of the sort!’ he burst out. ‘I hope and pray that we never hear from that girl again after the life she has led – why, we can’t even guess at its depravity!’

  ‘How do you know what sort of life she has led?’ Eleanor was becoming angry in her turn. ‘Why should you always think the worst of the Buckles? As a matter of fact, Prue married her sailor and they led a perfectly normal life in Sydney. He couldn’t get work on ocean-going ships because he had been ill but he worked on the ferry that goes across the harbour.’

  Francis stared at his wife, his expression a study in dis-belief. She had been deceiving him, that was what this all amounted to. She must have been in correspondence with the Buckles to know all this; how else would she have found out?

  ‘You have been writing to Prue as well as Mary?’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘Come on, you’ve let the truth out now, you’ve been lying to me!’

  ‘No I haven’t!’ she asserted, managing to look quite indignant. ‘Well, not really. No, I simply wrote to Wesley House as Mary asked and today I had a reply, it came on the John Wesley. And there was a letter from Prue enclosed. Oh, Francis, the poor girl has been widowed, she is at her wits’ end how to make a living.’

  ‘You wrote to Wesley House without asking me?’ Francis couldn’t believe any of this. He and Eleanor had been so happy lately; they had got on better than they had done since they left England. They were so much happier without either of the Buckles, why couldn’t she see that? ‘You didn’t think I might not want my name associated with a … a …’

  ‘A poor widow? Oh, Francis, where is your Christian charity? For Heaven’s sake, consider what you are saying.’

  Francis was speechless for a moment or two. Eleanor always managed to make him feel he was in the wrong, even when he knew he was right. ‘A woman of low moral fibre,’ he continued doggedly. He felt wretched; he had had such a good day and the natives gave him a feeling of worth, a sense that he was doing what God wanted him to do.

  ‘A poor widow,’ repeated Eleanor. ‘And the thing is, I sent a letter back on the ship telling Prue she was welcome to come here – she can make herself useful in the house, help with the children. You know Mia is getting married.’

  ‘You did this without asking me?’

  ‘You weren’t here to ask, were you? You never are, always going away and leaving the boys and me to God and Providence!’ Eleanor was working herself up into a state of righteous indignation. Somehow she had managed to turn everything round so that it was Francis who was being unreasonable.

  ‘My work is the most important thing in my life, Eleanor, you know I am dedicated to God’s service,’ he said.

  ‘I know it comes before your wife and family,’ she retorted, ‘and what’s more, you don’t like the Buckles because you’re jealous of them, because Mary was my friend, not just my maid. You didn’t like me giving my attention to anyone but you.’

  Francis sat down feeling absolutely exhausted, incapable of arguing any more. Was it true? Was that the reason he had always felt so antagonistic towards Mary? Surely not, he thought. But there was enough truth in the allegation to make him feel uncomfortable. He made one last attempt at an objection.

  ‘Why can’t Prue go to live with her sister? Surely West can afford to keep his sister-in-law?’

  ‘But you would want Prue to live in a Christian home, surely, Francis? Haven’t you told me that Morgan West treats his workers as little more t
han slaves? What sort of example is that to give a young girl, a girl we wish to reform, to bring back into the fold of Jesus?’

  Francis glanced sharply at her – was she mocking him? Eleanor never used phrases like that, she was very down-to-earth and practical in her Christianity. But Eleanor was watching him solemnly, not a trace of a smile on her face.

  ‘And besides, my dear,’ Eleanor said, and her tone had altered, become soft and womanly. ‘Besides, you know how I need another woman about the place now that Mia has gone.’ She sat down beside him and put a hand on his knee. ‘Francis, I need someone, especially when you have to be away so much. And most especially now that I am almost sure that we are expecting another happy event.’

  Francis was defeated and he knew it. ‘I suppose it is a simple matter of Christian charity to rescue the girl,’ he said. ‘You have a good heart, Eleanor.’

  She laid her head on his knee and he patted her dark hair. Closing his eyes, he prayed swiftly and silently that no trouble should come of their taking Prue into the household. Then he reached over and picked up the Bible. ‘Come now, Eleanor, Acts of the Apostles, chapter three, beginning at verse one.’

  The feel of Eleanor’s soft body against his legs had roused him and he was looking forward to their time in bed.

  Chapter Fifteen

  ‘My darling Mary,’ drawled Morgan, tilting his chair so that it was balanced on the back two legs and stretching his long limbs in front of him, looking in imminent danger of being tipped on to the polished parquet floor. ‘You will come with me this morning, I have decided. So go and get your pretty little ass into that green silk riding costume or I will carry you up and put you into it myself. Do I make myself clear, honey?’

  Mary, who was sitting at the other end of the imported mahogany dining table, regarded him soberly. ‘By, Morgan,’ she said, ‘you’re a proper bastard and no mistake. Why can’t you leave me here while you go prancing round the place on your bloody great stallion, lording it over those poor blacks. By, don’t you just love it, eh?’