The Promise

by Lesley Pearse

  ‘Let’s go and unpack and make our cabin feel like home,’ Mog suggested. ‘It’s cold enough to freeze a witch’s tit out here.’

  Belle laughed then. She hadn’t heard Mog use that expression since they left Seven Dials and she became set on being ladylike.

  ‘Only another two days and we’ll be there,’ Belle sighed. ‘I can’t wait to walk down a street, to look in a shop, to see grass and trees. And won’t it be good not to have to listen to any more people complaining?’

  It was April now, and they had been through every kind of weather. The first storm of the voyage in the Bay of Biscay had been a baptism of fire for Mog when there had been waves as big as church steeples crashing over the ship. But although she turned green, she hadn’t become really ill.

  There had been winds so strong it was impossible to walk without hanging on to the ship’s rail. They’d had hailstones as big as marbles which rattled on the decks like gunfire, rain and thick fog, and sometimes the sun was so intense that in just a few minutes it burned any exposed skin.

  As they drew closer to the equator the sultry heat made it impossible to sleep at night, and there were tropical storms too. But it was cooler now, still stuffy in the cabin, but pleasant to walk on the deck when the wind dropped.

  Boredom had been the biggest trial. The days seemed endless with nothing to do. They had both brought embroidery and knitting with them, and they read books, played cards and waited for meals, but it was being cooped up, and the lack of exercise, that prevented them enjoying what should have been like a relaxing holiday.

  There were of course many other passengers to talk to: a group of officers, all wounded, but not so badly they needed to be on a hospital ship, around forty immigrants like themselves, and some New Zealanders who had sailed for England before the war and had to remain there because of the danger to shipping. But although most of these people were pleasant enough to while away an hour or two with, none of them were terribly interesting, and some were downright dull. Because Belle and Mog were stuck together in such a confined space, they often snapped at each other. They both had to make a concerted effort to give each other some privacy and time alone.

  But now the voyage was nearly over, past irritations had vanished. Mog was being positively girlish, flirting with the ship’s crew and beaming at everyone.

  They disembarked in Auckland to warm sunshine. To them it felt like a spring day back in England, and it was strange to think it was autumn here. The small guest house they found about half a mile from the docks was a pretty clapboard house with a view of the sea from their room.

  They had five days there before boarding the Clansman to sail to the Bay of Islands, and their delight at last to be able to walk around on dry land was almost intoxicating. Everyone they met wanted to talk about England to them. Even those who had been born in New Zealand all seemed to have English or Scottish parents or grandparents. People were friendly and helpful, advising them on places to visit, local customs, items they might need to buy in Auckland that they wouldn’t be able to get in Russell. They were regaled with stories about the Maoris and their culture, something they found fascinating and knew nothing about before. Then there were the tales of the hardships early settlers had endured when they came out on immigrant ships in the last century. They were also shown a great deal of sympathy for losing their husbands.

  In many ways New Zealand wasn’t so different from England. It didn’t have the very old buildings, it wasn’t so crowded, and they hadn’t seen anywhere they’d call a real slum, even if the locals considered them to be so. The climate was similar to back home, people had the same kind of priorities and beliefs. Yet the Spanish flu had killed people here too on the other side of the world. Their landlady told them around 6,700 people had died, but that she’d been lucky that everyone she knew who got it had survived. She described how the trams stopped running for fear of spreading infection, and that carts, trains and trucks were pressed into service as hearses.

  The effects of the war were very similar to those back in England too. Thousands of New Zealanders had enlisted for the same reasons as British men, and as high a proportion had died. And just like at home they saw men with missing limbs, and blinded and disfigured, out on the streets of Auckland. They were told that most of them were casualties of Gallipoli and that there were over 4,500 of them. A further 2,700 had been killed. But that wasn’t all; as many again who had been wounded in France had not been brought back yet. Despite almost everyone here having lost a family member, however, the New Zealanders seemed very stoic about it, and took great pride in the courage of their men. Both Mog and Belle were touched, too, by their sympathy for everyone in Britain, because they’d had to cope with not only huge numbers of deaths and casualties, but also bombing, food shortages and rationing.

  ‘I feel as if I’ve come to the place I was supposed to live,’ Mog said one night as they were preparing for bed. ‘Don’t you just love it that they don’t seem to have pokers up their arses?’

  Belle roared with laughter at that. Mog meant the seeming lack of class distinctions. Belle wasn’t entirely sure that this was a general attitude; they were after all staying among ordinary people. But she was hopeful it would be the same in Russell, because she remembered Vera had always been rather puzzled and amused by the snobbish attitude of the other women drivers in France.

  ‘You’d better not bandy the word “arse” around until we know people well,’ she warned Mog.

  As the Clansman headed into the Bay of Islands, both Mog and Belle gasped at the beauty of it. They might have had it described by Vera and seen pictures of it in Auckland, but the reality of it was far more astounding. The sea really was turquoise and so clear they could look down and see fish clearly. The trees on all the little islands were a vivid green and grew right down to the water’s edge.

  They had seen dolphins as they sailed here; they had come and played around the bows of the ship, lifting their shiny heads out of the water and opening their mouths as if smiling in welcome, and that had moved both Belle and Mog almost to tears. They had seen a huge whale in the distance too, and all this had been so exciting, sights they’d never expected to see. Yet to see this magnificent bay spread before them, which outshone all the wonders of HMS Stalwart’s ports of call, was truly humbling.

  ‘If we can’t be happy here then we won’t be happy anywhere,’ Mog said, wiping an emotional tear from her eye.

  As the ship approached the jetty at Russell they could see a great many people gathered there waiting. They had already been told that the north had no proper roads, and that a ship was the only way to get there. The Clansman was the town’s weekly lifeline. It brought not only passengers but mail, food supplies and other goods. The first European settlers had come here, and it was once intended to be the capital city of New Zealand, because of its splendid and safe natural harbour, but in the end Auckland was chosen because of Russell’s isolation.

  ‘There’s Vera!’ Belle exclaimed, pointing her out to Mog. ‘I wonder how she knew we’d be coming today?’

  ‘Well, it looks like the whole town turns out whenever the ship comes in,’ Mog said. ‘But look at those pretty little houses! What a picture it is!’

  It certainly was a picture, a clutch of pretty little white or cream clapboard houses which looked like dolls’ houses. Up behind the town the wooded hills rose up as if protecting it, and in front of the houses was a narrow strip of sandy beach. Dozens of small boats bobbed up and down at their moorings, and gulls were wheeling overhead, hoping to snatch an easy meal from one of the fishermen.

  Vera was jumping up and down with excitement even before the ship was moored and a gangway fixed to the jetty. She was wearing a green print dress, her red curly hair loose on her shoulders and gleaming in the sun. An older, stout, short woman was with her, who they thought perhaps was her mother.

  Finally people began to file off the ship and they joined the queue. They had already been told their trunk and
other luggage would be placed on the jetty after everyone had disembarked.

  ‘Belle, Mog!’ Vera yelled as she elbowed her way through people on the jetty. ‘Welcome to Russell!’

  It was around four in the afternoon when they arrived in Russell and the remainder of the day passed as if they’d walked into a party where they knew no one but found they were the guests of honour. Vera and her mother, Mrs Reid, who immediately said she was to be called Peggy, took them home to the family bakery, where Mr Reid – Don, as he wanted to be called – was kneading a mountain of dough for the next morning’s bread. He broke off from this to plant a kiss on both Belle and Mog’s cheeks, apologized for his flour-covered hands and said they were to think of his home as theirs.

  Peggy was the kind of woman who could do ten things at once and talk at the same time. While laying the kitchen table for tea, she shouted through the back door at a man to go and collect their belongings on a cart. She took a fantastic-looking tart with a latticed top out of the pantry, served up five large portions and added a dollop of custard to each. She asked about the trip from Auckland while making a pot of tea, and almost by sleight of hand the cups and saucers appeared on the table.

  ‘Right, sit down now,’ she said. ‘I won’t stand on ceremony with you as from what Vera’s told me about you I already think of you as family. This is just something to tide you over as there’s people coming to supper soon who are dying to meet you.’

  Vera rolled her eyes, which Belle felt was a silent message that she knew her mother was a bit exhausting on first meeting, but she would ease up soon.

  Don came in then, having washed the flour off his hands and taken off his apron, and his smile was as warm as his bakery. ‘Vera told us what a good time you gave her in London,’ he said. ‘She’s as pleased as punch you’ve come over here to live, but you’re going to find it very slow after London.’

  ‘We like slow,’ Mog said and took a spoonful of the tart. ‘Oh my goodness, this is lovely,’ she exclaimed.

  ‘We were happy to leave London,’ Belle said. ‘There’s nothing left there for us. It’s beautiful here, and we intend to make a go of it.’

  ‘Tomorrow I’ll show you all round,’ Peggy said. ‘That won’t exhaust you, it only takes half an hour. And that would be the long tour,’ she laughed, and her big bosom shook with it.

  Belle laughed too. She had a feeling laughter was something that was in plentiful supply in this house.

  They had barely drunk their tea and eaten the delicious tart when people started to arrive: first the couple that ran the post office, Frieda and Mike Lamb, who told them they had both been born in England but had come to New Zealand as small children with their parents. They were around their mid-forties and had met at school in Christchurch.

  ‘It’s good to have new people coming here to live,’ Frieda said as she plonked a plate of cooked sausages down on the table. ‘Our folks in Christchurch thought we were crazy coming here. They said it was all right for a holiday, but we’d be bored and fed up in no time. But we’ve been here ten years now and we haven’t got time to be bored.’

  Women came in thick and fast after that, all bringing a dish of food. Vera said that was customary when there was a party or gathering. She also explained that their menfolk would be along after the ‘six o’clock slurp’. When Mog and Belle looked puzzled at this she explained that the pubs closed at six in the evening all over New Zealand, a law which was supposed to make men stay at home with their wives and families in the evenings. But as she laughingly explained, all it did was make the men drink as much as they could in the last hour, then go home to fall asleep.

  Yet drunk though many of the men were, they still came, and Belle wondered how she would ever remember which man was which woman’s husband, or anyone’s name as there were so many of them. They all wanted to know what she and Mog intended to do here, and each one of them had a different idea about what sort of business was needed. Belle’s dress was admired by all the women, though to her it was drab, just grey cotton with a thin white stripe, a sensible, everyday dress which was ideal for travelling in, and made by Mog. But compared with the clothes worn by the women here it did look stylish because it fitted properly. Their dresses were shapeless, and she suspected they were either bought readymade or run up by someone with only rudimentary knowledge of dressmaking. She guessed that most of these women had no concept of fashion, and it crossed her mind that perhaps this could be an opening for her and Mog.

  The party spilled out into the back yard, but it wasn’t until it grew dark and Peggy and Don began lighting oil lamps that Belle and Mog became aware there was no electricity in Russell. They didn’t remark on it, partly because they felt they ought to have known such a remote spot wouldn’t have it, but mostly because it really didn’t matter to them. They’d both grown up with oil lamps, and even back home they hadn’t progressed to buying an electric iron or a fire as so many people had. More worrying was finding there were only outside privies, one echo of the past they didn’t relish much.

  Later candles were lit and placed in jam jars in the back yard, a gramophone was wound up, an Irish jig played and an old man entertained everyone with Irish dancing.

  ‘So how is Russell so far?’ Vera asked when she finally managed to get a moment alone with Belle out in the back yard. ‘Too much, too soon, I expect. I did suggest we held off on the party until you’d been here a day or two. But as you might have noticed, Ma does everything fast.’

  ‘We are touched by such a warm welcome,’ Belle said. ‘I like that it’s so informal too. Everyone is so nice.’

  ‘You might change your mind about that and decide they are just plain nosy soon,’ Vera said. ‘Don’t tell anyone apart from me anything you don’t want spread around Russell. My mother is one of the worst for that, so be warned.’

  ‘You haven’t told her about my past?’

  ‘Of course not,’ Vera cut her short. ‘Anything you told me in France stays with me alone. I told her Mog was the housekeeper in your mother’s guest house and she brought you up. I said too that you learned millinery in Paris. Trust me, Belle. I valued your confidences, I will never tell anyone about them.’

  Belle thanked her and assured her she did trust her, then asked if there was any further news of her brothers.

  ‘Last time we heard they were waiting to go on a troop ship. As we’ve heard nothing more we think they must be on it now. We are so thankful they made it. Spud was wounded at Ypres but nothing serious, a bit of shrapnel in his arm. Tony said he’s got nothing worse than flea bites. So you’ll meet them soon, but for now you’ve got their room, which Ma has spent the last few weeks getting all smartened up for you.’

  It was after midnight when they finally got to bed. Their room was large, with twin beds, each covered in a brightly coloured patchwork quilt. Like in the rest of the family house, the furniture was old and battered, but it had a very comfortable feel about it. The walls had recently been painted a pale green, there was an embroidered cloth over the small table by the window, and on it was a vase of white, daisy-like flowers.

  Their trunk and other belongings had been put in the room and as Mog unpacked their nightdresses she looked across at Belle undressing and smiled.

  ‘We did the right thing, it already feels like home. But let’s find a place of our own really quickly, shall we?’

  Belle knew exactly what she meant. Mog wanted her own things around her, to cook her own meals and have her own door which she could shut to be alone when she felt like it. Peggy and Don were the nicest of people but it was plain to see that they would become wearing.

  ‘You are such a nest builder,’ Belle said fondly. ‘Don’t worry, tomorrow we’ll make it clear that’s our first priority.’

  The next day Peggy proudly showed them around. First to Christ Church, the oldest church in New Zealand, and the police station which was once the customs house but looked far too pretty a building to be used for either purpose. They saw t
he canning factory by the beach, and watched for a while as fishing boats came in with their catch. The Duke of Marlborough public house right on the shoreline was an impressive size for such a small town, and they dropped in to see Mr and Mrs Clow at their boarding house next to it. The piece of waste ground that lay between York Street where the Reids had their bakery and Church Street was still known as the swamp even though there were a couple of houses built on it and cows grazing. Peggy told them that in the old days when Russell had been known as the hell hole of the Pacific because of the wildness of the whalers who came and drank here, there had only been a few grog shops and shacks by the shore, then behind them nothing but mangrove swamp all the way back to the forested hills that surrounded the town.

  There really wasn’t a great deal to see apart from the post office which sold a variety of goods, the Reids’ bakery, a general store, a butcher’s, a small hotel and various workshops. Peggy had waved her arm in the general direction of a few shacks at the back of the town and said, ‘Natives live there.’ Belle had seen quite a few brown-skinned people as they were walking around, some of whom had greeted Peggy, but she hadn’t introduced them. Belle was dying to know what the situation was between the Maoris and the settlers but she thought it best not to ask Peggy, thinking Vera would give her a more balanced view.

  They were going back to the bakery when Mog noticed a small house on Robertson Street that looked abandoned and neglected and she asked Peggy about it.

  ‘Jack Phillips, a shoemaker, lived there,’ she said. ‘He died two years ago.’

  ‘So is it for sale or to rent?’ Mog asked.

  ‘Henderson the solicitor would know,’ Peggy said.

  As Peggy had to get back to the bakery and relieve Vera who had been working with her father since early that morning, Belle said they would go and see Mr Henderson straight away if she would direct them where to find him.

  ‘No time like the present,’ Mog said cheerily as Peggy pointed out his house.