Flight of a Maori Goddess

by Lark, Sarah

  Juliet noted none of her horror. “Was this your idea?” she demanded.

  Lizzie could almost have laughed. “If you could summon just a spark of maternal instinct, Miss LaBree, you’d know that no loving mother would send her son to war. Enlisting to escape a marriage! That stupid boy. What if he’s shot?”

  Lizzie buried her head in her hands, further mussing her hair.

  Juliet narrowed her eyes. How could this pathetic woman let herself go like that? “He’s a medical officer,” she scoffed. “No one will be shooting at him. Don’t worry about Kevin.”

  Fury rose within Lizzie, but before she could reply, Michael entered.

  “Miss LaBree.” Michael kissed the lovely lady’s hand. “What brings you to us?”

  “This,” Lizzie said, holding Kevin’s letter out to him. “I assume a similar letter is waiting for us at the post office. We clearly underestimated Kevin’s state of mind. I thought it was mainly panic at having to grow up. But now we know better: he’d rather be shot dead than marry this woman.”

  Michael looked somber as he read the letter, but he collected himself considerably faster than his wife. “Not exactly flattering for you, Miss LaBree.” He smiled. “But don’t get excited, Lizzie. He’s a doctor. He’ll be working in a hospital. Far behind the line, with any luck. It’s just a question of what to do with his, er, ‘legacy.’”

  Juliet put her hands on her stomach. “So, you know that much, at least.”

  Michael nodded. “Kevin informed us he’s going to be a father. And we advised him to marry you. But now, he seems to have chosen a different path, at least to push the question off. What do you have in mind to do now, Miss LaBree?”

  Juliet shrugged. “I’m completely without means,” she declared. “I was trusting that Kevin—”

  “Kevin will be receiving a salary, I expect,” Michael said. “Surely, he’ll make the money available to you and your babe, and you could live a modest life. Then, when he comes back—”

  Juliet gaped at him. “I’m supposed to—you want me to raise the baby in Dunedin? Without a father?”

  “Well, you could claim Kevin would of course have married you if he had known. He really contrived a fine mess this time, Lizzie. You have to give him that.”

  Michael winked at his wife, whose panic was slowly fading. She realized that Michael was right—and so was that impertinent Juliet. Being a doctor, Kevin was not in much danger, especially in this war, as England was sending a hundred thousand soldiers to deal with a handful of obstreperous farmers. So, it really ought not to turn into a bloodbath—at least not on the British side.

  “Enough, Michael,” she said. “I understand why Miss Juliet isn’t eager to run such a social gauntlet. Another offer, Miss LaBree: you can stay here on Elizabeth Station and have the baby. The war can’t last that long—it might even be over before Kevin arrives. With the overwhelming force of the English—”

  Michael frowned. “They had that on us Irish too,” he said proudly, “and still we resisted them for centuries, we—”

  Lizzie dismissed this. “They didn’t send troops from half the empire after the Irish,” she said curtly, “and forgive me, love, but the British could ignore a few bootleggers in the Irish mountains more easily than a country full of diamonds in the hands of religious fanatics. They say even the Church of Scotland is liberal compared to these Boers. They’re threatening to close the mines because God doesn’t like folks getting rich without breaking their backs in the fields. England won’t let it come to that.”

  “So, what do you think, Miss LaBree?” Lizzie finally came back to her visitor. “Will you stay?”

  Juliet played with the border of her jacket, desperate for another way. “Here? But you can’t have a baby here, without doctors or anything.”

  “All three of mine were born here. There’s a Maori village a few miles away. The midwife is excellent, much better than any pakeha.”

  Juliet looked up at her, horrified. Months of isolation with Lizzie and Michael had sounded bad enough. But now natives too?

  “And when Kevin returns, I bet he’ll be so taken with the baby that he’ll forget all his misgivings,” Lizzie continued.

  Though she wasn’t sure she believed it. Perhaps there were other possibilities. Matariki and Kupe, for example. Maybe they’d be willing to raise their niece or nephew in Parihaka. Lizzie looked over at the young woman struggling against her desperation. A few days here and she’d get cabin fever for sure.

  They all heard the front door open and then the roar of the rain outside. It must be Randy come at last from the stables.

  “Well, you can think about it,” Lizzie said. “Come back if you want to.”

  She thought it quite possible that Juliet would still seek a forbidden but nevertheless effective solution to the problem. Lizzie did not view abortions as negatively as her son or Michael, who was raised a strict Catholic. In her former profession, they had been an unpleasant but necessary part of reality. And it would have been better for some children—Lizzie thought of Toby and Laura again—to have been spared painful lives with parents who didn’t want them.

  Michael seemed to be nursing the same thoughts, but he reached a different conclusion.

  “Nonsense, Lizzie. Juliet—may I call you Juliet now? Of course you’ll stay here for now. We’re not going to let you set out again in this weather. No, no, it’s out of the question.” He managed a lukewarm smile. “Chin up, young lady. You’ll have your baby, and when Kevin comes back, we’ll make sure he does what’s right.”

  A tall man in breeches stepped into the room, taking his dripping hat from his head.

  Patrick Drury had been passing quite near Lawrence on his way from Otago to Dunedin and, with an eye to the weather, had decided to spend the night at his parents’. Now he stood in his parents’ living room, looking from one to the other. Rain was still dripping from his coat, and he nervously smoothed his damp hair.

  “There’s no need for that,” Patrick said calmly. “Kevin can get and stay lost. I’ll marry Miss LaBree.”

  Chapter 7

  Land surveying was not exactly one of Atamarie’s favorite subjects. It was, however, an important component of the engineering degree, as large portions of New Zealand had yet to be surveyed. Many graduates of the program would contentedly spend their entire careers mapping the country. Atamarie, on the other hand, was striving for something literally higher. She attended to land-surveying calculations listlessly but successfully, easily surpassing the other students, just as she did in every subject. And in the fall of 1900, Professor Dobbins had a surprise in store for his best students.

  “Just imagine,” he announced to the first-year class, “this very year, a new national park is going to be established. It’ll be on the North Island, around Mount Egmont.”

  Atamarie’s ears pricked up. The name “Mount Egmont” was an invention of Captain James Cook, who had of course not bothered asking its Maori name: Taranaki, the very volcano that stood watch over Parihaka.

  “There’s still some surveying work to do,” the professor explained. “And naturally, the government does not want to spend a lot of money on it. Hence, they’ve appealed to the universities, with a preference, of course, for ours.” The students clapped appreciatively. Dobbins laughed. “I gladly accepted the call of duty, as it allows me to take my most gifted students into the field. We’ll organize a multiweek expedition for land surveying in unexplored regions. Up there, the landscape is, after all—” He flipped through his notes.

  Atamarie raised her hand.

  “Miss Turei?”

  “Not much grows on the mountain. It’s mostly just snow. Surveying will most likely be hindered by the rocky terrain. You have to be able to climb. Around Taranaki, there’s rain forest. It rains there constantly, one of the wettest parts of the country.” She smiled. “The Maori say Rangi weeps over the gods’ fighting.”

  Dobbins furrowed his brow. “Gods, fighting? You seem to know qu
ite a bit. Have you been there already?”

  Atamarie reported that she had even climbed the mountain once, together with a tohunga who was telling the children of Parihaka the story of the volcano’s unhappy love and performing rituals to restore peace between the gods.

  “And around the rain forest is farmland,” she went on. “It’s very fertile because it’s volcanic soil. But there’s a dispute over it. The pakeha farmers might make trouble about the survey. They won’t give up their land, in any case.”

  Dobbins smiled. “That was very enlightening, Miss Turei, thank you. I had already decided to allow your participation—should you desire and your parents permit. Otherwise, only upperclassmen will be invited. In your case, there were—” The professor stopped himself from an ill-advised digression on women’s rights and the university’s reluctance to send a girl on an expedition with male students. In the end, Dobbins had concluded that only Atamarie’s education was his responsibility, not the preservation of her virtue. “But now that you prove to know the area as well—”

  “I’ll gladly come along. But if you’re really looking for people who know Mount Taranaki, you should ask in Parihaka. Maori have lived in the area for centuries.”

  “And they’ll probably shoot you in the back if you stick a leveling rod in their holy mountain,” one of the students sneered.

  Atamarie gave him a wrathful look, but she told herself he was probably just jealous that she got to go.

  “The Maori support the establishment of the national parks,” Dobbins said, coming to her aid. “Miss Turei is right. If there’s resistance, it’ll most likely come from white farmers. But their land isn’t at issue, anyway. It’s really going to be a nearly circular surface around Mount Egmont. A good opportunity to review the surveying of circular surfaces. Mr. Potter, why don’t you tell us what you know on the subject?”

  Atamarie knew that the fall was not an ideal time of year to visit, let alone climb Mount Taranaki. In the upper regions, it might already be snowing, and the mountain usually lay under a thick cloud cover. Atamarie anticipated three very wet weeks. She had no concerns about her parents consenting, however. Grandma Lizzie only worried whether Atamarie’s tent would be waterproof and her sleeping bag warm, whereas Matariki simply invited the whole expeditionary corps to use Parihaka as a base.

  Indeed, autumn’s adversities did afflict Dobbins and his students. The ferry crossing to the North Island proved even choppier than usual. Not without some satisfaction, Atamarie noted that almost all of her fellow students hung over the railings with green faces. Only one young man bore himself as bravely as she did, perhaps because the steamship’s technology interested him more than his stomach.

  “It must be possible to balance out the lurching,” he speculated to the moderately interested but violently seasick Professor Dobbins, “by means of stabilizers. For example, one could attach some sort of fin to the side of the ship.”

  Atamarie joined them. “It would be a help if at least the passenger cabins weren’t so affected. You could place them on pivots, so they always remained in the horizontal position.”

  “That’s already been tried,” the young man informed her. “Henry Bessemer in 1875. It just didn’t work.”

  Atamarie offered a disappointed pout, which she knew men found irresistible. Normally, she wouldn’t bother, but this one was brighter than most. Unfortunately, he had only ships in mind—he peered over the railing as if already looking for places to attach his “fins.”

  “For such stabilizers, there’s already a patent, Pearse,” Dobbins said, holding his hand over his mouth. “Oh God, the more you talk about it, the worse I feel. But look it up in Christchurch. I believe it was two years ago now.”

  The student sighed. “I won’t have a chance to. I won’t have a library card any longer, you know.”

  He took a few steps across the deck as if he wanted to end the conversation. Dobbins was bent too far over the railing to notice.

  Atamarie followed this Pearse and looked at him more closely. He had short brown hair, a round face, and seemed only a little older than she was herself.

  “Are you already done with your studies, then?” she asked. “You look so young. Did you start early?”

  The young man shook his head. “No, I never properly studied, just attended a few lectures. Mostly for sophomores. Professor Dobbins was so good as to allow me, even though I was only a lab assistant. But at least I got a few months in Christchurch. And now the expedition—it’s all very kind of Professor Dobbins. The school pays a little too. But soon I have to return to Temuka. When I turned twenty-one, I received a hundred acres of land. So, I’m going to be a farmer.” The young man looked stricken.

  “I’m sorry,” Atamarie said, “about your studies. A hundred acres in Canterbury is surely very, um—”

  Pearse gave her a sly smile. “So, that wouldn’t tempt you either. That’s quite a change. The eyes of the girls in the Canterbury Plains start to shine when I mention the acreage. But forgive me, I haven’t even introduced myself. Pearse, Richard Pearse.”

  “Atamarie Parekura Turei.”

  Pearse nodded. “I know. Everyone at school knows, seeing as you’re the only girl and the top of your class. How would you do the pivoting of the cabins?”

  Atamarie looked at the water, concentrating. “Forget it. It’s too complicated. But I could also imagine tanks. You’d take them below deck and fill them with water, as a sort of counterweight.”

  “On the sides,” Pearse added enthusiastically, “in a U-shape. The water could flow from one side to the other and would even out the rolling of the waves.”

  Atamarie smiled. “Register a patent. When all the world’s steamships are equipped with a tank, you’ll make loads of money and can continue your studies.”

  “Nonsense, it was your idea,” Pearse replied, “and someone else probably had it before us. That’s how it’s been with all of my attempts to invent something. I don’t have any luck.”

  “It’ll happen,” Atamarie encouraged him, pointing north where the coastline was finally coming into view. “Look, there’s Wellington. In half an hour, our seasick comrades will be saved. Do you know if we’re continuing the journey today?”

  “I think it rather unlikely, considering everyone’s condition. And besides, there’s a university here.”

  Atamarie laughed. “We could go and ask if they’re giving out scholarships. I’ll ask first, and then they’ll be relieved when I say it’s for you.”

  The group stayed overnight in Wellington, and the students were housed with the families of local university students. Atamarie spent an enervating evening with a female medical student of Dutch heritage. Neither Petronella nor her parents had ever met a Maori, and they’d expected a square-framed, dark-haired form instead of a petite blonde.

  “You’re not even tattooed,” noted Mrs. van Bommel, half-relieved, half-disappointed. “I thought you’d at least have it around the eyes.”

  “I’m only a quarter Maori,” Atamarie explained. “And my tribe doesn’t practice moko often anymore. Besides, women have the area around their mouths tattooed at most. As a sign that the god of women, not men, gave the breath of life.”

  Mrs. van Bommel and her daughter were captivated and pressed Atamarie to tell more about her people. She had hoped to go back out for dinner with Dobbins and the other students—one in particular. The van Bommels, however, had no intention of letting their guest out alone into the Wellington night, despite her protests that she’d lived there for years with her mother during the fight for women’s suffrage. She even knew the inside of the Parliament Building. That was another story the van Bommel family begged to hear. In the end, they marveled wholeheartedly at Atamarie, despite her disappointing appearance.

  “Such a strange course of study for a young woman—and alone among all the young men! Don’t they make advances? I, for one, would be afraid.”

  Petronella van Bommel shivered, and Atamarie rolled her
eyes once again.

  “As a matter of fact, none of them even talk to me,” she informed her hostess, but was happy to remember that, as of today, this was no longer the case.

  The thought of Richard Pearse’s friendly smile and his engineer’s mind made her heart beat faster. She was slowly beginning to feel enthusiasm for the expedition. She had considered it an honor before, but at this time of year, also a chore.

  The next day, they traveled onward, taking the new and still incomplete North Island Main Trunk railway line. Atamarie sat with Professor Dobbins and Richard Pearse—a seat for which no one fought her. Surely, there would be more talk about her being a teacher’s pet. Yet nothing was further from her mind than flattering the professor. Atamarie was focused on his assistant.

  “I missed you last night, Miss Turei,” Richard said. “I thought you’d come eat with us.”

  Atamarie covered her delight at this by making a face and launching into a comical description of the van Bommel family. “I would have had to bring Petronella,” she concluded. “But, no, her parents wouldn’t have allowed that either. Two women and twelve men aren’t much better than one woman and twelve men.”

  Richard considered this. Apparently, it was only now occurring to him how unusual it was for a woman to be traveling with male students. “And your own parents don’t object? I mean, uh, not that you’re in danger here.”

  “Maori don’t really have a concept of chaperones. And my mother was also raised pakeha, but she trusts me. Besides, I’m at the university every day surrounded by men. It would be much simpler to meet secretly with one of them there than here where we’re all stuck together all the time.”

  That was true, of course, but it would not really have assuaged a concerned pakeha mother in the van Bommel mold.

  Before Richard could say anything more, the professor turned toward them. Dobbins praised the North Island’s train line as a wonder of engineering. At first, it led alongside the banks of the Rangitikei River, and the professor did not tire of pointing out various challenges of track construction in the craggy landscape to his students.