You are talking about me as if I’m not here Betsy yelled.
Be quiet I said grabbing her by the arm.
She is young my brother said, not much more than a child.
She is 16 years. And I could not help myself I touch the swelling apple of her belly the pip-squeak container of my own flesh and blood.
At that my bro. turned towards the beach, his eyes narrow against the smoke. I can tell that he does not like the work and he does not much like me but these are troubles I cannot fix.
I dropped Betsy’s arm without so much as a word for what was there to say.
Chapter 20
JOURNAL OF JOHN GUARD
Te Awaiti, 1831
That was a month ago and as I take up my pen to write I think that I should speak to my wife for silence is a habit hard to break. She has hung on my arm and pleaded for a word from me but I have not been in my right mind for words. My tongue seems to have become frozen around words. All around me are the sounds of Maori lingo and yet they take on English words at the same time as if they are laying claim to my mother tongue. At the same time I hear Betsy and Charley and the men of Te Awaiti using the words of Maori so there is no telling where 1 begins and the other leaves off. But I cannot make head nor tail of much of it and so I become more alone in my self.
It is like the thoughts I have about who is God. Who is God that would shackle men in irons, starving in their manacles, worked like oxen and worse from dawn till dark. That thrashes them and beats them and turns their souls upside down until there is no good left in the cup. Around me are men who have been to hell and back. They will stand by me these men. I treat them well. But what have we made here at the end of the earth but another place of toil and dirt and grog. For that is all they know. Their women are like mine, big with children, but they will be a different race, not one thing nor another. The Maoris will go on fighting and burning us if we do not make a place of order.
But there is no order in my head. I know I cannot stay silent long for soon Betsy’s time will come and there must be a woman at her side. I have no knowledge of how to help her and we have stayed silent for so long that I do not know how to begin again.
You are a surly bastard my brother said 1 morning. We had not had a whale for a week and for once the air is clean and clear of smoke as a May morning in the English countryside.
You never knew our mother I said as if he had said nothing.
Your privilege he said with a sneer in his voice.
I was fortunate I said. Although it is hard for me to recall her exact look. But sometimes I think that I see a look of her in Betsy.
He looked at me surprised then. You have never said anything of that.
I have not always thought of that I said. It has come to me that that is why I chose her, for a look that is familiar. A way of walking as if she is proud but obedient with it. Not pretty not plain but not caring one way or another. Perhaps I said, for this thought had come to me in a flash, she has a way of holding herself that I saw in my mother before she gave birth to you.
And then said Charley in a quiet voice you never saw her again.
That is so.
I cannot carry that blame on me forever.
No. I do not ask you to. I am thinking I should get Betsy back to Sydney for the birth of this baby.
I think perhaps it is too late for that he said.
That is for me to decide. I am her husband. Charley is getting away with too much.
Dan Hatton’s woman will look after Betsy he said. My brother was ignoring me as perhaps I deserve. Dan Hatton’s wife is a woman of the Rangitane tribe who has been all but wiped out by Te Rauparaha. The women, what is left of them, have been eager for the protection of the whalers.
Her mother lives here in the bush he said. She is an old kuia and knows what to do.
I heard how he was slipping into their way of talking. Does Betsy know this I asked.
They have spoken with her about it. Or that is what Dan has told me. But how should I know for I have not spoken to Betsy. You should ask her yourself.
It is the 1st day of the month of October. My wife has been often with the women in the week that is past. The women do not call my wife by any of her given names. There is no b sound in the Maori lingo nor any s. Peti they call her, dropping these foreign sounds. I have heard them call to her at the river and seen her raise her head in answer.
Betsy I said when I go to the hut for my dinner.
She did not turn around. I thought her sullen but that is not in her nature. Rather, that is the beast in me.
Betty I tried again and she turned as if in a dream.
When you has had this baby I said we will go to Sydney and bring your brother David back here.
Thank you Jacky she said whispering as if there was someone else in the room. These are the first words we had spoken in a long time.
Elizabeth.
Betsy.
Peti.
She has been reborn in this place.
Her hands were cupped beneath her belly. It is like rods of fire in here she said. Fetch someone Jacky. Help me.
This was how I came to find myself at the door of Dan Hatton’s hut. An old woman without teeth and her daughter who I know as Hine were wrapped in shawls beside a fire. The kuia wore a round cap of black feathers. When they saw me they stood up as if they had been waiting for my signal. They rose and followed me across the cleared ground between our huts.
When my wife saw that they had come she said Jacky I wish I did not have to do this.
I wish you did not have to do it either. There is no other way out.
They could cut me open she said piteously.
Then you would surely die.
Down at the beach my brother Charley stood looking out to sea smoking on his pipe. I know how women die giving birth and it could be he was thinking about this some more even though as we have agreed he is not to blame for our mother’s death.
The women were waiting for Betty. I saw their brown hands reaching out to her and I thought that perhaps theirs wd be the last to touch her living flesh and I was very afraid.
There is no other way I said again.
She followed the women down a bush track to a new hut which had been built just for women to give birth. I thought I should not let her go.
I heard Betty’s voice in pain and the women chanting.
I made to follow them. From the door of the hut I saw Betty naked from the waist down, kneeling in front of a pole running down the middle of the room. She seemed to be holding it and pressing against it. Hine’s mother looked up and saw me and the 2 women waved me away their faces angry as if I should know better. I knew them to be right, a man should not be near his wife at this time.
I went to our hut and although there was work to be done about the place I could not settle to any thing. So I took down the book given to me by my father so many years ago. I thought that if there is a God now was the time to take notice of His word. It is springtime and the air is clear and the sea calm. In the stillness of the bay I heard screams that rose louder and louder.
I lit the lamp’s wick and as the dark fell I read again the Husband’s Duty as set out in my book, which forbids all harshness and roughness to the Wife: Men are to use them as Parts of themselves, to love them as their own Bodies, and therefore to do nothing that may be hurtful and grievous to them, no more than they would cut and gash their own flesh. Reading these words I saw I must do better by my wife and thought that I wd pray and if He answered me this one time I wd do better and be more kindly to Betty. I got down on my knees while the distant screams grew thin and asked that God spare my wife’s life. I promised that if He did I wd work harder to believe.
I looked up from these prayers and saw Charley at the door again with that smile that makes a mockery of me.
Betty has been working hard while you were on your knees. You best get over to the whare he said, they have news for you.
In the doorway the ol
d woman held up my son for me to see. Hine clasped a blood covered shell. Behind them Betty lay on a bed of bracken covered by a blanket from our bed. I wanted to go to her, but again my way was barred. This room is tapu Mister Haari says Hine. There is still work to be done.
So I stood humble at the door and thanked God that my son was alive and squealing like a little pig and my wife was mopping her face with the back of her hand, and I heard her say, tell him that John is born, tell him it is all right. I turned back and looked at the night sky and saw it full of stars. My son will have a good life I thought. I will see to it. Nothing will harm him. He is why I have been put on earth.
Charley was sitting on a bank near the path as I made my way back to our house.
She is well I said. I have a son.
He nodded. I am pleased for you. His voice sounded young and lost.
I have been too harsh I said. It will not happen again. You are my brother and my wife is a good woman.
I saw a smart reply on his lip and then he thought better of it.
We will take a cup of grog I said. So we went inside and for a moment I put my arm about his shoulder.
There is new trouble among the Maoris. I have said nothing to my wife but the men know all about it. So does Charley I suppose but I say nothing to him either. We are friends again him and me but I have always kept myself to myself and nothing has changed that. Besides I do not want to spread alarm around our camp by making too much of this trouble though it is known by every ship’s master sailing in and out of Cook Strait. Te Rauparaha has pulled off one of his craftiest tricks and things have taken a turn for the worse. Te Rauparaha has been after a chief called Tamaiharanui at Akaroa for a long time in revenge for the death of his wife’s father at the hands of Ngai Tahu.
Now he has made his raid with the help of a white man called Stewart, master of the brig Elizabeth. Te Rauparaha offered good trade if he wd hide them in the ship’s hold rather than take their war canoes down the coast and warn their enemies of their coming.
Stewart had with him a man by the name of Cowall who thought nothing of how he came by flax and other cargo, he talked Stewart into saying yes. Stewart is an ignorant man. White men do not mix their trade with native wars. But Stewart wanted favours of Te Rauparaha and said yes. He took Te Rauparaha’s war party to Akaroa. When he got there he did not let on what cargo he had aboard.
Stewart tricked Tamaiharanui on board the ship. Then his wife. Then his children. And they were all captured. The crew had become afraid and begged Stewart that he sail away. But the war party was now in charge, through sheer weight of numbers and Stewart could not control what he wd do next.
In the night Te Rauparaha and his men took the ship’s skiff and whaleboat and landed ashore. They set about killing every last person at Akaroa. It’s said Akaroa’s hills were that night lit by the fires of burning whares, the creeks dyed with the blood of those slaughtered. A feast of bodies was held upon the beaches and the next day the remains of what had not been eaten stowed upon the Elizabeth. The ship sailed for Kapiti still with the chief and his family on board.
Tamaiharanui killed his daughter on the voyage north rather than let her die by Te Rauparaha’s hand. Back at Kapiti, Stewart handed over Tamaiharanui to Te Rauparaha, turning his back on what was to follow. Te Rauparaha killed and ate the chief, eyes first.
But it was there at Kapiti that trouble rose for Stewart. Another ship was at anchor there, the Dragon. The master of the ship, Captain Briggs, took the story back to Sydney and reported Stewart. But Governor Darling did not act quickly enough to bring Stewart to justice and he has got clean away.
Well where wd we be without the flax trade. Te Rauparaha is very helpful if you get on the right side of him.
But this is not the way to do it. Soon there will be more fighting and worse, of that I am certain. And the pakea is in for dangerous times.
Part 5
The Dispossessed
Chapter 21
Mrs Perceval Malcolm lives in an ample house on the plain beneath the foothills of the sheep station her husband has established at Parramatta. She is a shrewd woman who, following her recovery from the difficult business of providing heirs, has learnt to keep the most excellent account of all the ingoings and outgoings on the property. She sees herself as her husband’s saviour, for though the man has money, he is not accustomed to using it wisely.
Those who meet Maude are surprised. They expect to find a large firm woman, with her hands firmly on her husband’s purse strings (it has been rumoured that she once turned up at an auction and forbade her husband to bid another penny on sheep she considered inferior in quality). What they find is a small woman, not more than five foot one, with a smooth complexion that makes her age difficult to guess, dressed in flowing pale muslin gowns. She never goes out of doors without a hat and veil, so that there is about her an air of misty uncertainty, a fragility that is beguiling.
Her house is a long brick dwelling, built with convict labour. There are six rooms, an elegant central hall, a well-stocked cellar and a verandah. The main room is decorated in different shades of blue which Maude feels are cool and soothing in the harsh Australian climate. The garden is ordered in an English style; in spring, almond, apricot, pear and apple trees blossom while wistaria festoons the columns of the verandah. Roses bloom all summer and now, as the season progresses, dahlias and gladioli are making their appearance. A jacaranda tree is the only sign within the garden that the bush landscape was ever there, although the servants’ quarters are down the path through an avenue of rustling blue gum trees that form a natural screen from the house.
These quarters consist of two-roomed cottages, each with a porch, one for the cook and one for the nanny, and a row of lean-tos containing hammocks beneath one long roof, for the gardeners. The farm labourers are far away, though once a week Maude rides side-saddle on a tall, sprightly roan along the fence-line of the paddock where they are quartered, just to satisfy herself that there is not mutiny in the air. The green lands are covered with fine grass; the farm is stocked with hogs, fifty head of cattle, more than a dozen horses and two thousand sheep. Percy has a dozen greyhounds for hunting and there is always a plentiful supply of wild ducks and kangaroo for the table.
Maude thinks of the house as her own, though of course it is hers and Percy’s, but without her it would be all a disaster, as she once said in an unguarded moment when her husband talked of some new and flighty plan. Sometimes she cannot believe that he can be so undisciplined in his thinking, though she believes she is getting him in hand. His sister is a case in point; she does not know how many times she has had to stand over him when he has sat down to write to her.
‘You know I will not have that woman in my house ever again,’ she has said more than once.
But exactly what was it that Adie had done, Percy blustered the first time she said this. She only came to help. You were so ill at the time.
To which she had said in a cryptic way that nobody could find a thing in the cupboards after she left, and nothing would surprise her, and she cannot tell to this day whether she has all the silver Percy bought her on their marriage (though she has been known to tell people that her silver was her mother’s, brought all the way from England). You know what those spinsters who go to stay with relatives are like, she had told him. They fill their trunks with the family jewels, because they think the world owes them a living.
Besides, as Herbert and Nathaniel grew up that woman would fill their heads with nonsense about travel and ancient ruins, when all they need is an understanding of farming and an appreciation of a gentleman’s life in the colonies. Maude Malcolm has entertained governors at the house more than once. She was especially fond of Governor Darling, though she has heard that his successor Governor Bourke is a man not to be trusted and too liberal by far with the convict stock. She has yet to meet him but he has been described to her as a man with large dark eyes and full deep lips. The thought makes her skin crawl, she says
to Percy over breakfast. As for sending gunboats to New Zealand on behalf of lawless ruffians, she cannot imagine what the world is coming to. She says this, on reading the newspapers that describe the infamous expedition to rescue the convict’s wife.
‘But surely, Mrs Guard is not a convict,’ Percy murmurs distractedly.
‘Are you not listening to a word I say?’ Maude demands, pulling the bell for more tea.
Percy is holding a note in his hand, his eyes blank, his gaze as if locked on some space behind her ear. She glances over her shoulder as if half expecting to see dust on the china cabinet. ‘What have you got there?’ she demands, for nobody will have gone to collect the post this early in the morning.
‘A message brought from Sydney. It was delivered while you were dressing. Did you not hear the horse?’
‘Well then, is it good news or bad?’
‘It depends on how you see it. My sister is on her way for a visit.’
‘On her way? Percy, this cannot be.’ When she sees he is serious, she uses what she hopes is a suitably firm voice. ‘You must put a stop to it. She is nothing but a troublemaker.’ Maude gets to her feet in a state of agitation, beginning to clear dishes, before remembering that she is no longer the serving woman she was in England.
‘She is already on her way, on the river ferry. The messenger came on ahead.’
‘Outrageous. How dare she come uninvited?’
‘It seems she has nowhere to go. Lieutenant Roddick has asked her to leave.’ Percy looks despairingly at the letter, as if willing it not to be true. ‘I cannot keep this from you, Maude,’ he says. ‘It seems that she has been visited at the house by Mrs Guard. Roddick has asked my sister to desist in her invitations to her, but she will not keep away from the woman. The lieutenant is concerned for the welfare of his children.’ Percy says this all in a rush, for he knows that in a moment she will snatch the letter from his hand, and he must be seen to have told her before she finds out for herself.
Captive Wife, The Page 14