Captive Wife, The

by Kidman, Fiona

  ‘You haven’t told your husband?’

  ‘How could I?”

  ‘Oaoiti?’ Adie ventures.

  ‘You’ve heard how they dressed him up like a laughing stock and sent him ashore. My husband’s a jealous man at best.’

  ‘But he doesn’t know what happened?’

  ‘I haven’t told him anything of what passed between Oaoiti and me. Though he has asked me. Because of this, we have nothing to say to each other.’

  The moon has come up, one of those big hanging moons like I used to watch in Taranaki. I want to tell her everything that happened. But that will surely turn her against my husband once and for all, and that is not what I have set out to do. Somewhere in the space of this peculiar day, I have realised I would like peace between him and me, even if we go our separate ways.

  ‘Tell me,’ she says. ‘I have a need to know.’ She does not say a right, and I like her all the better for that.

  So I do tell her. How in the morning at the Bay of Islands, after our first night alone, Jacky had bid me rise and wash my face. I complained that I had long been without rest and this morning there was surely no need to hurry. He had pushed his face close to mine. I have business for you, he said.

  What business? I asked, afraid of him.

  You will find out. Now see to your children for I am going out.

  He did not return till near evening. I held Louisa on my hip and skipped stones with John on the calm waters of the bay, as I had learnt to do in Charley’s company. He complained that he wanted to go with his father. We tried to catch a fish and failed. After awhile he settled in my company. There was flour and other victuals at the hut, and I made some damper but by late afternoon we were hungry.

  On his return Jacky stood at the door and looked through me as if I wasn’t there. He carried bread and oranges, for the missionaries had planted orchards and there was much fruit to be had around there.

  He placed these on the bench, and spoke with his back to me. We are poor, he said, we have nothing left. I have no ships, and no way back to our home. You can do a bit of trade for me.

  I was filled with foreboding.

  There is gunpowder at the pa next door, he said, looking at me at last. His eyes were mean. One of the chief’s sons has heard you are rather nice to men. He would like you as a wife for a night.

  You would not do this, I said, backing away into a corner.

  Six canisters of gunpowder. That would be very useful. A gift for Mr Campbell to whom I owe some favours. Like the loss of two ships.

  It is not I who lost the ships, I said.

  No, but I have been at sea looking for you some six months now when I could have been restoring my fortunes and repaying Campbell.

  You have your son, I said, my voice full of stones.

  It is time you earnt your keep, Betty.

  I looked at him with contempt. I knew he was waiting for me to refuse, to protest my virtue. Very well, I said. I will go.

  When I returned to him next morning, the gunpowder was handed over. I hear you were not worth the price, he said. I thought he took a grim pleasure in that.

  Probably not, I answered.

  You didn’t have to do it.

  Perhaps, I said. But you want someone to pay for all that has happened. You can’t have it both ways, Jacky.

  I saw how bitter he was with himself, and sorry for what he’d done.

  When the Alligator arrived in Port Jackson, there were bands playing and flags flying. A flotilla of small boats came out to meet us and sailed with us the last part of the way. I looked over the rails at the crowd gathered. There must have been two hundred at least, men and women, and children being held up to get a better look. A military guard stood to attention in honour of the returning soldiers.

  I wonder what is happening, I said to Mr Barrett Marshall, standing beside me. Some big event must be taking place. Or someone important is coming to town. You don’t think the King is paying Australia a visit, do you?

  My dear Mrs Guard, he said, I think you will find that it is you the people are greeting.

  And he was right. When I stepped off the boat a cheer went up. I found out afterwards that a whaling ship had left the Bay of Islands the day before us, and already the whole town knew about the rescue.

  As I disembarked onto the dock, my shawl drawn up around my throat and my bonnet tied firmly beneath my chin, a man pushed his way to the front of the crowd. Mrs Guard, he cried. I am so happy to meet you. He wore a hairy brown coat, a red waistcoat and a yellow cravat. My name is Ralph Wallace.

  She has nothing to say to you, Wallace, said Jacky close behind me.

  Who is he?

  Nobody you need to know.

  Sydney Morning Herald, said my new friend as I tried to make my way towards my mother and half-brothers who were among the crowd. At the sight of my mother I began to cry. Mama, I said, we should never have taken David with us. I am so sorry Mama. He loved you to the end.

  I could see how people around me were affected. The cheering quietened down as my mother stepped forward and embraced me. Oh Betty, she kept saying, and squeezing the children and me. At least we have you. Women in the crowd had taken out their handkerchiefs, and I saw men put their sleeves to their cheeks.

  Mr Wallace stood at a respectful distance. Forgive me, Madam. When you are able, I would be grateful for a word.

  I have told you, said Jacky, leave her alone. Clear off.

  No, it is all right, I said. I will tell you my story. We have suffered the most terrible ordeal. I am eternally grateful to everyone who helped to rescue me and my children, and brought us to safety.

  I can see the trials you’ve been through written on your face, Mr Wallace said.

  Yes, I said. I have suffered.

  Beside me, I felt Jacky relax, almost heard his gulp of relief.

  But my mind was made up. I did not want him as a husband any more.

  ‘I can hardly blame you,’ says Adie, her face pallid in the moonlight.

  ‘But now I’m having another baby. In my misery after Louisa died, I couldn’t think clearly, wasn’t sure where this baby had come from. But it’s his, not due for many months, towards the end of the year.’

  ‘Does he know?’

  ‘I haven’t told him. There’s nothing to hold me now, except our son. Perhaps it would be better to let him go. I did that once when I had no choice. If I am ever to make my own way, now’s the time.’

  ‘You haven’t got long to decide,’ says Adie.

  ‘I know that,’ I say. I can hardly keep my eyes open. It’s usually Adie who falls asleep the minute her head touches the pillow, and I who stay awake much of the night. But this time I’m drowning in sleep before I lie down. I feel Adie ease the buttons of my dress and take off my shoes.

  Chapter 37

  JOURNAL OF JOHN GUARD

  Parramatta, March 1835

  This morning I took a room in a small hotel in this town. This place is different from any I am used to. It does not make me comfortable in myself. I fed the black swans that swim on the river as a boy wd when he has nothing else to do. They cackled and arched their necks at me and squawked when I ran out of food. As evening fell they tucked their heads beneath their wings and I think that even they have turned their backs on me.

  Mr Kentish and his lady wife have stayed overnight. I believe they have an engagement with the Governor tomorrow night. I do not wish to see them. I am sick through and through. The lamps still shine across the park from Government House but 1 by 1 the lights go out. Even the taverns grow dim.

  I thought I should eat at the tavern but when it came to it I did not want the food and pushed away the plate. I had some rum and left. What is there to do but sit here and think about the morning. Betty is going to take her leave of me. I saw it in her face as plain as I saw the look she has when she is with child. That is something she cannot hide from me.

  In my mind I see the girl who long ago I took to collect oysters.
r />   I have been reading the book my father gave me as a boy. I have not read it in a long time, though I keep it with me.

  Does a man beset by worry have the leisure to sleep? This is what the book says. ‘If the good Man of the House had known what hour the Thief would come, he would have watched, and not suffered his house to be broken up.’ It comes to me then, that I am the thief in my own house.

  Betty

  Adie touches my shoulder, some time around dawn. At once, I am fully awake and clear-eyed.

  ‘You must decide,’ she says.

  ‘What would you do?’ I say, though in my head I know already.

  ‘There’s a saying. Even God cannot change the past.’

  ‘Adie, don’t talk to me in riddles,’ I say. ‘I’m not so keen on the Bible, as you know.’

  ‘It is not in the Bible,’ she says with some irritation.

  ‘Your Greeks?’ I say, smiling.

  ‘Well, yes,’ she admits. ‘A man called Agathon. But I think of it as true.’

  On an impulse, I go over, put my arms around her and drop a kiss by her ear. ‘I would have died without you,’ I say. The bracelet she gave me glints on my arm.

  ‘Nonsense,’ she murmurs. ‘After all you’ve been through. You’d have survived.’ But her arms tighten around me, and for a moment we hold each other before I step back.

  She is pink and I see a hint of tears in her eyes. ‘Thank you,’ I say.

  She begins packing her few possessions into a portmanteau.

  ‘What will you do now?’ I ask.

  She takes a deep breath. ‘I promised Emmeline I would look after her children,’ she says. ‘I can’t think how I forgot about that. Poor little Austen, he’ll be beside himself without me there.’

  She does not seem surprised when I tell her that I am going for a walk.

  JOURNAL OF JOHN GUARD

  Parramatta, March 1835

  I thought I had not slept at all but I must have dozed because Betty’s knock woke me from a slumber in which I saw her dying. I woke with a shout startled by the rattle of the door handle. Her voice outside said let me in Jacky. It is me Betty. When I opened it I wanted to seize her in my arms so relieved was I to see that she was alive.

  She stepped aside from my embrace and closed the door behind her.

  Betty I said. I heard myself croaking, not able to bring out the words I wanted to say.

  What do you want of me Jacky she said.

  I want you to love me I said helpless as a woman.

  She looked puzzled. But I have always done that.

  You cannot love 2 people at once.

  Yes it is possible.

  It is not possible for me I said. She gave me a look then which told me she knew of Charlotte. At that moment I thought no woman could know me like Betty does.

  I shook my head. It was not like that. I have no love for your aunt.

  Doesn’t that make it worse she said.

  I thought she was trying to make a fool out of me as if our trouble was all to do with me. What surprised me was that she was not in tears. Once she wd have wept and begun to plead with me. But something in her had changed. For a moment I thought I saw the eyes of Granny Pugh looking at me. That frightened me.

  You wd have chosen him I said as rough as I could. That clown.

  Why did you dress him up like that she asked her eyes hot.

  I did not. It surprised me that she wd think that of me. It was Charley I said.

  She was silent. She knew what I said was true. And she was surprised Charley hated the chief enough for that.

  At last she said I never had a chance to choose anyone. I do not expect you to understand what happened between Oaoiti and me. But it had nothing to do with what I have felt for you. We are different.

  I wanted to ask her in what way but I did not. Of course we are different her and me. Still I said you loved him.

  Yes she said. I did and now I do not. But I am forever changed by it.

  I saw there was no shaking her over this nor could there be any taking back the things that had been said.

  Betty I said. I want you to forgive me for what I did to you at the Bay of Islands.

  She looked at me in a blank way, as if she did not know what I was talking about then gave a short hard laugh which I did not understand.

  Betty

  The son of the chief I was to lie with couldn’t have been a lot younger than me, but he had a boy’s narrow chest and weedy arms. He was dressed in European clothes as if in honour of the occasion, though he had taken off his jacket when I arrived and sat nervously unbuttoning his shirt buttons. I could see that he was frightened.

  I greeted him and he nodded in return with downcast eyes. Was this the first time he had been with a woman? Had I been his father’s idea, or was any of it their idea? I thought it more likely that Jacky had offered me.

  I put my hand out and touched the young man’s skin. He flinched as if my whiteness might be catching. I let my hand rest on his and he appeared calmer. I turned his hand over and saw dark stains like ink on it. I breathed deeply and closed my eyes for a moment, and I smelled again the familiar scents of Te Namu — the brush mattress, the ti-tree walls, food cooking near by. I was so hungry I felt faint, and a longing stirred inside me. It would not have been difficult to fondle and excite him, to trade my body for gunpowder.

  I opened my eyes to see the boy unbuckling his belt. I said, Do you work for the missionaries?

  He said he was one of Henry Williams’s printers, something I had guessed from the ink.

  What would the Reverend Williams make of this? Your father paying for a woman like me?

  He wouldn’t like it.

  No, of course not.

  Would you tell him? he asked, with alarm.

  Well I might, I said. It depends on whether I see him or not. This was hardly likely, but I didn’t tell him that.

  All of a sudden, he pulled his clothes together and fled from the room. Soon afterwards, his father appeared in the doorway.

  You’ll be in big trouble with your husband, he said to me in Maori.

  Yes, I said. My hands were shaking. But what is to be gained from me making love to a young man who would rather not? Besides, he has a good employer in the missionaries and I don’t think they would like this.

  At this he nodded and withdrew from the room. After that, a woman came and said that I could stay the night if I wished.

  I was given food, offered with kindness. In the morning I walked back to the hut where we were staying. On the way I met Edward Markham, an English adventurer who Jacky knows, and does not like, as I recall. He had a smile playing around his lips, but not his eyes. He raised his hat. Nice morning, Mrs Guard, he said and tipped me a wink.

  Six cases of gunpowder had already been delivered at our door. The next day, the Alligator sailed, our booty stored on board.

  What I did not know was that Markham had joined the ship, for he was leaving New Zealand, and the Captain had given him a berth to Sydney. I kept below decks as much as I could in order to avoid him. When the children and I did venture forth I saw that Barrett Marshall had taken up with Markham. I raised my chin, and thought that is where it will stay when I touch land in Australia.

  Did it make it easier to forgive because I had not done what Jacky asked of me?

  I suppose it must, because forgiving is what I have chosen to do. My husband could not have known that, in offering me up in rage, he gave me the first true choice of my life. I will not explain or defend myself. I know what happened. He will have to decide for himself.

  Now a second choice has been delivered to me. I will take you back, I said.

  The secret of that night stays with me.

  Chapter 38

  Governor Bourke gives his dinner party this evening at the Parramatta residence. Jacky and I are his extra guests. Earlier in the day, Ivy Kentish and I have been shopping, as if we are old friends.

  The shops are far better here than in Sydney
, announced Ivy gaily, as we floated from one establishment to another, several boxes in our arms.

  I don’t know what I’ll use for money, I said as we set out. Besides I have fancy dresses at home.

  Well, you haven’t got time to go and get them today, and besides, you want to be up with the times when you step out this evening, Ivy said.

  She assured me that the money was all taken care of; she had smiled charmingly at Percy Malcolm as she and her husband took their leave after a late breakfast. Breakfast had been an elaborate affair, taken on the Malcolms’ lawn under umbrellas, all of us — Percy and Maude, and their sons Herbert and Nathaniel, who seemed pleased to be the centre of their mother’s attention for once; Adie; Lieutenant Roddick who had ridden forth again in the early morning; Jacky and me, and the Kentishes.

  Percy slipped me an envelope, Ivy said. He said it was for you and me.

  Really? But what for?

  Why, because he knows how badly his wife has behaved. It is for treats, he said when he gave it to me, meaning not a word to a soul about what has happened here. He knew you wouldn’t take it.

  It is Adie to whom he should be giving envelopes, I said hotly.

  Oh, I think somehow she will get a large envelope. Wouldn’t you say? His own sister.

  Jacky had wanted to leave right away, after I had agreed to go back to the Rocks, but I wanted to go back to Malcolm Downs once more, to take proper leave of Adie. And from there, one invitation flowed into another, and it seemed that if we did not stay to breakfast it would be considered rude, just when things were being mended all round. Besides, I was feeling, if not exactly carefree, at least as if I might enjoy my life again.

  Why is the Governor inviting us to dinner this evening? I ask Ivy, as we retire to the inn to unload our boxes. (Ivy has some of her own, though she had brought a portmanteau the previous day, for since the wreck of the Waterloo she never travels anywhere without a complete change of clothes.)