Sleep in the Woods

by Dorothy Eden

  “But I mean that, Saul.”

  Her strange tension and unhappiness were driving her on. How she hated the gray sky and the rain and the mud and the green dripping trees. But most of all she hated his dark face, always watching her, leaving her no privacy even in her thoughts. She should have been able to run to him for comfort, but instead she hated him. For he would do to her willingly and thoughtlessly and at his own pleasure what Fred had done to Jemima, making her eventually suffer pain and death.

  “We’ll talk of this another time,” Saul said at last.

  “I want to go home,” she muttered again.

  “And where, in England, is your home?”

  She looked into his implacable face. “In a ditch,” she wanted to say, mockingly. Her eyes fell. There was nothing to do, after all, but go back to Lucknow.

  XXI

  THE TEN boxes, strapped and fastened, were standing in the hall. Aunt Charity counted them again.

  “I thought I was right. There’s one missing. Hubert! Is there a wicker basket on the stair landing?”

  “There is, my dear.”

  “There you are, you see, it might have got left. Really, servants nowadays! One has to keep them under one’s eye all the time. Polly!”

  “I’ll bring it down,” called Uncle Hubert. “It won’t break my arm. Are its contents, in any case, indispensable?”

  “They certainly are. Every one of them.”

  Uncle Hubert came down the stairs to place the wicker basket beside the array of boxes. “And these?”

  “Three of them are Prudence’s. The rest contain absolutely necessary things. I do not intend to go into the country unsuitably equipped.”

  “Let me make a note to order elephants in future,” Uncle Hubert murmured.

  Aunt Charity, resplendent in brown silk liberally trimmed with black velvet, said snappily, “This is no time to be funny, Hubert. We must leave in five minutes, and the carriage isn’t at the door. Where is Tom? And what’s Prudence doing upstairs? Really, the way that girl mopes and moans! If the country doesn’t cure her, I’ll pack her off home to her mother. Has the wind gone down at all?”

  “Blowing great guns,” her husband observed with relish.

  “Then I can resign myself to a night of suffering.”

  Aunt Charity shrugged her plump shoulders fatalistically. She was not too perturbed, however. She was much too excited about the project in hand. It was a large and ambitious one, and she was in her element.

  “Now, Hubert, while we’re gone you’re not to pamper the servants. And if you plan having people to dinner—though I can’t imagine who you will care to ask now Government House is shut up—please do not use the best dinner service. I trust no one to handle that but myself. And be sure to write whenever possible. If any important new people arrive from England it is understood I come home immediately.”

  “But you may be in the process of organizing a large country ball,” her husband pointed out.

  She glanced at him suspiciously to see whether his gentle lugubrious face held malice. “The two things are unlikely to coincide,” she said frostily. “But it’s true I must do something about social life for Briar. The dear child sounded quite in the wilderness, in her letter.”

  “That’s where she is, of course.”

  “Nonsense! Something can be contrived, no matter what the circumstances. Sophia and Peter and I, at least, will do our best, even if Prudence and Oriane Whitmore are not the brightest company. But we shall manage very well.”

  “If you are not all thrown into the cooking pot,” Uncle Hubert observed.

  “Oh, don’t start that nonsense again. There’s very little danger. At the time of writing Briar hadn’t even set eyes on a hostile Maori.” Nevertheless, a lurking memory of that horrible description Hubert had once read to her, of the ceremonial cooking of a white person, troubled her a little. She resolutely tossed her head and said, “Anyway, Sophie and Peter are going, no matter what happens. Very wisely, too, as no doubt the best opportunities for young men lie in the land. And Prudence will mope to death if she loses her sister as well. So this is the better of two evils. And I trust we will behave like well-bred Englishwomen in an emergency.”

  After the excitement and bustle of Sophie’s and Briar’s weddings were over, it was seldom that Aunt Charity had found life so dull.

  Nothing was happening in the town, no new people of any importance had arrived, the Governor and his household had returned to their Auckland residence, and social life was dead. Moreover, with both Briar and Sophie out of the house, Prudence began to mope. She spent most of the day at her window watching for a ship coming in, and when the last ship from England had failed to bring a letter from Edmund she had gone down with a brief but nasty attack of fever that left her more mopey and white-faced than ever.

  Aunt Charity had been driven to distraction. Even the news of Sophie’s pregnancy had not excited her greatly, for it was obvious that Peter was planning a move to the country any day, and that meant she would be barred from the fuss and excitement of the baby’s birth. Unless, of course, she accompanied them …

  That was when the idea began. She sat up in bed one night with such vigor that her husband, startled awake, exclaimed, “Te Kooti!”

  “Don’t be absurd, Hubert. We’re in Wellington. But I’ve just had the most wonderful idea.”

  Uncle Hubert settled down grumpily. “Not another charity ball!”

  “Perhaps, but not here. In the country. At Saul’s home. He and Briar shall give a house warming. And we,” she finished dramatically, “will all be there.”

  The wind was blowing against the house in sharp gusts, with a sound of approaching winter. Uncle Hubert buried his face in the pillow and hunched the blankets defensively over his chilly shoulders. He was tired of routs and balls, of tea parties and dinner parties, weddings and picnics. There was far more serious business to be done, and his wife had a mind full of nothing but frivolous feminine ambition. She was occupied only with fashion and social triumphs, and the bending of other people to her will.

  “Speak for yourself,” he said tartly. “I, for one, won’t be there.”

  It was futile to think that that might end the conversation. Aunt Charity was just beginning. She sat up in bed, her wavering shadow enormous across the wall, her plump hands gesturing dramatically. Wellington, it appeared, had bored her to distraction lately. If it hadn’t been for the girls’ arrival in the late spring she would have expired. But that distraction had been only temporary, and short of a trip to England, the only thing that would save her would be to visit dear Briar and Saul in Taranaki and do what she could to make their lives more gay. One simply could not stagnate, as they were in danger of doing. Besides, Briar was a pretty little thing, and deserved showing off. Having so recently been a servant, she wouldn’t have any idea about organizing a satisfactory social life.

  Oriane Whitmore had mentioned only yesterday that she was traveling to New Plymouth by the Seagull on its next voyage, and Peter intended taking Sophie, so why shouldn’t they all go? And if Hubert was so unenterprising as to refuse, then they would go without him!

  By this time Uncle Hubert was so uncomfortable, with the draughts creeping into the bed, and the energetic bouncing of his wife, that he murmured, “Do what you like, my dear. The field is yours—and Te Kooti’s. Only leave me in peace.”

  So the ten trunks were in the hall, and Prudence was coming slowly down the stairs, and the carriage was at the door. A new epoch, thought Uncle Hubert ironically as he assisted the rotund form of his wife to mount the carriage steps, was being made in New Zealand history.

  Hampered by adverse winds, the Seagull took seven days to make the voyage. Battered and seasick, flung like sacks of grain into the bobbing surf-boat, drenched with sea spray and rain, the travelers at last reached shore.

  That tough old woman, Oriane Whitmore, had withstood the journey the best. It took more than a little seasickness to defeat her, and it a
mused her to see Charity Carruthers reduced to a green-faced shadow of herself. This descent on Saul and Briar was an imposition. But apparently the long-faced Prudence could not be left behind if her sister went, and Charity Carruthers would not be left out of the excitement. The young man, Peter Fanshawe, was coping as well as could be expected with such a clutch of women on his hands, though once or twice one caught a look of desperation in his eyes. All in all, the journey had not been without its diversions, and the visitation in such numbers would test Briar’s ability as a hostess. Though if she failed lamentably, what could one do about it?

  Mrs. Whitmore prayed that Saul was not too disappointed and disillusioned. She also prayed that Briar was, by this time, the same interesting shape as Sophia.

  Safely on land Aunt Charity quickly recovered. She swept aside the astonished protests about transport so far into the country at this time of year, and said, “I don’t care how long it takes, nor how many vehicles we require, we must get there.”

  There were five of them, and luggage. The luggage was certainly formidable. Aunt Charity did not intend to explain to these ignorant yokels what space a ball dress made to the crinoline pattern occupied in a trunk, nor how many bonnets it was necessary for a fashion-conscious woman to have. She waved an imperious hand.

  “We require all this transported safely, and kept dry. We will pay a reasonable sum, and if you say it’s impossible to do this, then you should be ashamed to be pioneers!”

  An arrangement for three bullock drays and two drivers-Peter would drive the third—was at last made. It was pointed out that the roads might be impassable in places, that streams could be flooded into rivers, and that the danger from wandering Hauhaus was by no means over. Aunt Charity’s mind was on her destination. She refused to admit any obstacles.

  “Well,” she said, as at last they sat over tea in the Ship Inn, “what would you all have done without me?”

  “You didn’t give anyone else a chance,” Sophie retorted, rather bad-temperedly. She was still feeling ill from the dreadful voyage, and she resented the slight to her husband.

  “We, at least, will have available a change of clothing,” Mrs. Whitmore observed dryly, her mind on the array of baggage. She herself had traveled with one small carpet bag which contained a silk afternoon dress, night things, and underclothing. She had long ago refused to turn herself, a civilized human being, into a beast of burden, always struggling with too many possessions.

  “Oh, I shall hold up my umbrella all the way,” Aunt Charity stated cheerfully. “I warrant I shall arrive perfectly dry.”

  This optimistic statement was finally completely disproved on the second day when after wallowing at a dangerous tilt in deep mud, the dray in which Aunt Charity and Mrs. Whitmore were riding overturned and the two ladies were deposited very thoroughly in the mud.

  Sophie, who had been near hysteria from tiredness, and discomfort, dissolved into uncontrollable giggles. Peter, after an alarmed moment while he thought the ladies might have been seriously hurt, joined her, and even the wan Prudence managed a nervous titter.

  Nobody was hurt, and the vehicle was soon righted and set on its way. But the nightmare journey on which they had so rashly embarked had turned into comedy, and Aunt Charity who had intended to teach the poor benighted settlers in the bush something of social life and the latest fashions was in a deplorable state.

  “Now it only needs the Hauhaus!” she declared grimly, re-erecting her umbrella over her mud-spattered but indomitable figure.

  “They wouldn’t dare!” giggled Sophie.

  “Told you this journey was crazy, ma’am,” ventured the driver.

  “You shut your mouth and get on. I don’t intend to spend another night under these wagons. Mrs. Whitmore, I don’t know how you stand all this.”

  Mrs. Whitmore calmly wiped mud from her face, and gave her faint smile.

  “It’s not as bad as India, Mrs. Carruthers. There we had heat, and no water.”

  Aunt Charity looked at the dripping trees and drenched grass.

  “If only there were more moderation in things. Peter, as soon as we’re within reach of Lucknow you’re to go on ahead and prepare Briar and Saul for our arrival. Tell them our most urgent need is for baths.”

  So it happened that Peter took Briar completely by surprise. She thought it was an apparition standing on the doorstep, except that no apparition would look so travel stained. His eyes were as blue as she had remembered them. Used by now to only Saul’s black brows, she temporarily forgot her resentment against him for her thwarted plans, and felt nothing but pleasure.

  “Peter! Peter Fanshawe!”

  “Yes, it’s me. We’re all on the way. We’ve had a ghastly journey, to say the least. Can you possibly put us all up?”

  “All?” Briar repeated blankly.

  “Mrs. Whitmore and Aunt Charity and Prudence and Sophia.”

  “All of them!”

  “Isn’t it crazy?”

  He stood there laughing in that light-hearted careless manner that she hadn’t known since the days in Wellington when everybody laughed. In the fortnight since the baby Rose’s death she hadn’t even smiled. But now, all in a moment, it was as if clouds were lifting and she was alive again.

  “Oh, Peter, it’s wonderful to see you. We knew you and Sophie were coming one day, but you hadn’t written—”

  “There wasn’t a ship sailing to take a letter, and then Aunt Charity got this crazy idea to come, too. And Mrs. Whitmore was coming, anyway. And we couldn’t leave Pru—”

  “Of course you couldn’t. I’m so happy to see you!”

  She stood with her face lifted to him, her cheeks bright, her eyes sparkling. She was grown-up, he was thinking. And yet he had caught a glimpse of this desirable young woman just after her wedding, when he had kissed her. He hadn’t really noticed her before. She had been just a servant girl.

  But now. … And Sophie had grown plump and languid and petulant in her pregnancy …

  He was aware that Saul had come into the hall, and said, “My God, Saul, you don’t know how good it is to see you after that journey. We thought you must live at the end of the world. I’m afraid you have a visitation arriving.”

  “Splendid!” said Saul heartily. “Just what we were needing. Isn’t it, Briar?”

  “Oh, yes, indeed. I can’t believe it. It’s so wonderful. I must go and tell Mabel to put plenty of hot water on. Saul, will you go and meet the wagons? Oh, isn’t this exciting!”

  He had never thought to see her again, Saul reflected wryly, this brilliant-cheeked girl full of life and vitality. Since the baby Rose’s death she hadn’t let him touch her. He had thought it was because of shock (he would not admit it had anything to do with his own humiliation of her), and had been forced to decide that there was nothing to do but give her time to get over it. But now, all in a minute, there she was, that person he so rarely saw, laughing and gay and surely full of warmth and passion. It was as if one had to know the trick of finding her—perhaps this good-looking young Fanshawe had it. Or more likely her pleasure was for the arrival of old friends. After all, it had been lonely and strange and full of tension here. What else could he have expected?

  But would that laughing bright-eyed person come to their bedroom that night? It was so unlikely that his lips curled bitterly at the thought.

  All at once the house was in a tremendous bustle. Kettles of water were put on the stove to heat, fires lit, beds made. It was like a ship arriving, Briar thought, with people and news from another world.

  She had come out of her queer frozen state and was on fire with excitement. She felt that at last a dream had come true. She was a child, and it was her birthday and there were people who loved her and brought her gifts.

  But she did not feel a child when the rest of the party had arrived and she saw Sophie’s swelling figure. The color heightened in her cheeks. She flung herself from Aunt Charity’s muddy embrace to Sophie and then to Prue. Last, she welcomed ol
d Mrs. Whitmore politely, and felt the sharp eyes on her slim waist, seeking.

  “Well, I’m not having a baby!” she wanted to say pertly.

  But she bit her lips and made all the polite welcoming remarks. Had it been a terrible journey? How brave they all were. There were fires lit, and Katie would help them to change and unpack.

  “We’ve a real bathroom,” she said, with enormous pride. Then she remembered that she was the hostess and must be poised and adult.

  “You may all like to have trays in bed this evening. You must be quite worn out. I’ll show you your rooms.”

  “I must go to bed,” said Sophie. “My back is breaking.”

  She would, of course, draw attention to herself and her condition. She was never one to be in the background. If she were to stay here to have her baby Briar would have to overcome her strong resentment.

  But there was old Mrs. Whitmore eyeing her again. She pinched in her waist ostentatiously, and said, “Of course, Sophie dear, you must rest immediately. Come upstairs.”

  Sophie lay in bed, her hands clasped smugly on the bulge of her stomach.

  “Briar do stay and talk. We’ve thousands of things to discuss.”

  “I know, but—”

  “Oh, pretend you’re my maid again and I command you to stay.” Sophie’s eyes went around the spacious room, and were honest enough to show appreciation and envy. “This is like a fairy-tale come true for you, isn’t it? Aunt Charity’s always felt like a fairy godmother, and she hated it when that stopped. So she was determined to come and visit you and try to go on feeling that way. She’s much more proud of you than she is of Prue and me.”

  Briar was glad to seize on another topic of conversation. “Is Prue still fretting for Edmund?”

  “Yes, the little fool. We all know now he’s forgotten her or he would have written. There have been two ships in that could have brought letters. We hoped a visit to you would do her good. She knows how happy Peter and I are, and if she sees you and Saul happy, too—you are happy, aren’t you, Briar?”

  “Of course I am. What do you think? With all this.”