by Vicky Adin
Needing no second bidding, the children ran off.
Emma returned to the table where Heinrich, her father and Daniel were still sitting. Having poured more ale into their mugs, Frederika cleared the table. As she reached the end where Eduard sat, she put one hand on his shoulder as she collected his plate with the other. She squeezed his shoulder, her English heavily accented as well. “It is past now, Eduard dear. It is no shame. Tell your story.”
Placing his big hand over hers, he smiled up at her. “Forgive an old man for being sentimentálni.”
“Phiff! Enough of such talk. Not so old. You not yet fifty. Me – I still young voman. That your baby over there. Remember?” Frederika broke the spell. She playfully clipped him across the back of the head.
“Ja, ja, I know. Little Villiam, our blessing in our new country.”
Happier now, Eduard picked up the story.
“The officer from the small boat, he leave and our big ship she start to turn avay from vharf. Everyone talking at once but nobody know vat is happening. Soon, Captain Kholer and Dr Buthner, the surgeon superintendent, they tell us ve are being quarantined because of the smallpox. So close ve vere. So very close. They take us to an island, she lie in middle of harbour, and ve are unloaded like sheep and cattle down the ladder to vaiting boats, clutching our belongings to us, hoping no one vill fall.”
“I remember ...” began Heinrich.
“Shh!” Frederika stopped him. “Let your father talk.”
Eduard’s voice became melancholy. “The soldiers they herded us up the zigzag path to the top of the hill. No trees in sight, only stubby bush and grasses. At the top of the hill the view vas grand but ve vere too vorried to admire it for long. There vere many buildings. One a large brick building. No vindows, just a door at either end. Ve all shoved into this building and made to sit down on metal forms. There vere holes in the floor, and soon ve are choking on smoke and fumes. The strong gas smell threatened to overpower us. After about ten minutes ve taken out other door and new batch of people vere forced to endure the same fumigation. I know, I know,” he said, waving his hand around his head as if swatting away a memory. “It vas none of my doing. But I still feel shame that I and my family vere needing to be cleaned in such a vay.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Like animals.”
Eduard fell silent.
Frederika finished, telling Daniel, “Ve live on that island – Somes Island, that terrible place – for two months before they let us go.”
* * *
Months later, on an early spring morning Eduard and Heinrich worked together out in the fields repairing the fences. “Heinrich, you need go to Foxton and pick up goots I ordered.”
“What sort of goods?”
“Never you mind, boy. It surprise. You just go, get parcel vaiting for me at rail station.”
“Very well, Papa.”
“Take the horse and dray, and go through Bulls. Emma has day off tomorrow. You take her vith you. She can do shopping for her birthday. I’ll give you some money later. Say hello to our friend Charlie vhile you there.”
“You like Charlie, don’t you, Papa?”
Eduard considered the question. “Ja. Ja, I do. Vhy do you ask?”
“Well ... he’s so much older than Emma. Do you really want her to be with a man who is not much younger than you?”
“Vhat do you know of such matters? You still a boy. I do not look at him as a husband. She does not look on him as a husband,” dismissing the idea out of hand.
“I am not so certain, Papa. Have you seen the way she looks at him?”
“Don’t you vorry. I vill see my Emma happy vhen I think time is right. Now pass me the hammer and staples.”
Early the next morning Heinrich took the horses and covered dray over the hill road towards Bulls and John and Margaret Dalrymple’s station called Waitatapia, at Parewanui, where Emma worked as a housemaid. They were the largest employers in the district, both on the farm and in the house.
Every month he made the trip when Emma had her day off.
She would set off at dawn, walking from the Dalrymple’s property to the corner of the main road, where Heinrich would pick her up to take her home for the day. He knew she would be especially excited today to learn she was going to see Charlie. It would be a long trip, and it would be late by the time they got back that night, but there was no other way. Emma would lose her job if she were not there at her duties at dawn the next morning. As usual, Heinrich and Emma both arrived at the meeting place about the same time.
“Hello, Emma, how are you this morning?” Heinrich’s speech was not as accented and broken as his father’s since he mixed with more English speakers than his father did, but it still was nowhere near as good as Emma’s. Her’s had softened ever more, being younger, and working away from home.
“Hello, Henry. I’m fine, ja. ’Twas a little warmer this morning, ja? Summer is coming, I think. And you?”
The older children had long since started to shorten and anglicise their names. Although their father disapproved, refusing to shorten the names himself, he accepted their need to be seen as one with the people of this new land without dissent.
“Good, good.” Heinrich reached across to give her a helping hand up onto the seat.
“I have surprise for you today,” he grinned, winking.
Emma sidled up to him, tucking her hand under his arm. “What is it?”
“Soon. Soon, you’ll see,” he said, wrapping a blanket around her knees.
“Oh, do tell me, please. I like surprises.”
“We are not going home today.”
Heinrich watched her reaction.
“Why not? What about Mama and Papa, and the little ones? Won’t I see them today?”
Emma was not so sure about this surprise now, if it meant not seeing her family. Much as she liked working at the Dalrymples, she loved to go back and spend the day with her papa and her younger brothers and sisters. Mama could be difficult these days, often leaving Emma to do most of the work when she came home. Emma, worried, had asked her once was she ill, but Mama had said no, all was well.
“No, not today. They send their love and said they will see you next month as usual but today we are going to Foxton.”
“Foxton! True?” She sat up straight, looking at Henry’s face in the growing light. “You are not joking with me?”
Henry shook his head. “I wouldn’t joke with you now, would I?”
“Ja, you would. But maybe not this time. So, why?”
They laughed.
“To see Charlie.”
“I know Charlie is in Foxton, but why are we going to Foxton? It’s a long way.”
“Because Papa has arranged for me to pick up some goods he has ordered.”
“What sort of goods?”
“I don’t know. He wouldn’t tell me. Something he’d sent away for. He said I should go today to pick it up and take you with me. Who knows what he is up to.”
Emma felt warm and happy inside, a feeling that came over her whenever she thought of Charlie. She didn’t understand what it meant. Was she in love with him, perhaps? She was so young and inexperienced she didn’t know what being in love meant. She often chided herself with these thoughts, since Charlie was much older. How could he have any feelings like that for her? Or could he?
She remembered some of the things he said to her when they worked in the vegetable garden during his visits, or walked across the fields to get milk from the house cow, or whatever task Mama could think of to send them off together. He had called her by his special name for her – Liebling; he held her hand and kissed it sometimes or twirled her hair in his large, stained fingers, being careful not to pull it and hurt her. Was that love? He would look at her sometimes, and she felt she would melt right into his bright blue eyes. She hoped they would get some time alone. She remembered each and every one of the soft kisses he laid upon her face and lips, sneaked in when no one was looking, or as she walked him to his horse before
he began the long ride home.
“What are you thinking about, little one?” asked Heinrich, unable to let go of the nagging doubts he had expressed to his father.
“Nothing.”
Heinrich laughed. “You can’t fool me, sister of mine. We have spent too much time together. You were thinking of Charlie.”
Blushing and indignant, she said, “It’s none of your business, even if I was.”
“Maybe not. But I worry for you.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want to see you unhappy.”
“What makes you think I will be unhappy?” Emma peered through lowered lashes.
“Because Charlie is nearly forty years old. If you marry him you will have his children and, if he should die, he will leave you by yourself to cope with everything. I see it in the village. The women all look sad and tired. I don’t want that for you. I want you to always be happy.”
She didn’t want him to continue down this path, with worrying thoughts about what the future might look like. “What do you know? You not such a big man yourself. You’re only two years older than me. You still a boy. Only seventeen.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. But Charlie, he is an old man.”
“No. Not old. A strong man, like Papa.”
By mutual agreement, they let the conversation drift to other less emotional subjects. To help pass the time, Emma asked about Fritz and the others. How was Fritz doing at school? Had he started calling himself Fred? It sounded less foreign at school. How was Clara’s reading and what about little two-year-old William, what was he doing? Laughing, Henry tried as best he could to answer her questions, which came thick and fast.
It turned into a warm spring morning with the sun shining across the land. The trees looked green and fresh from the recent rains. The hours passed pleasantly and by lunchtime they had arrived in Foxton. Henry unhitched the horses at the livery stable and went to find Daniel. They met him walking along the road.
“Charlie,” he called out, “see who I have here.”
“Henry, nice to see you. And you, Miss Emma,” he said taking off his hat and bowing in a theatrical fashion. “What a surprise. Gosh! Look at me. All dirty and sweaty in my work clothes. Please forgive me.”
“Nothing to forgive, Charlie. It’s nice to see you,” she replied, giving a slight bob and nod of her head in response. Her eyes never left his face, and she wore the same animated expression that Henry had noticed before.
“Look, Charlie, can I leave Emma with you for a while? I have to pick up something for Papa, and then I have friends I would like to see. Meet you at the livery at four o’clock? We will have to leave by then to get back tonight.”
“Of course, Henry. You can trust me. I’ll take care of her.”
Daniel, too, saw the ardour that burnt in her eyes and a mirrored sensation swept through his body. He’d known women before but nothing that felt like this. He was flattered a man of his age had a young girl, so obvious and innocent at the same time, wanting to be with him.
“Liebling. I have to get out of these dirty clothes. You can wait with Maisy while I wash and change.”
They walked side by side to the glebe where Daniel’s caught his horse, throwing a sack across its back. With one movement Daniel lifted Emma up and taking the bridle led the animal and Emma out of town.
She liked what she saw as she watched him walking beside the horse: his hair, still dark and wavy, with a hint of silver at the sides, and his clear blue eyes, warm and kind. His cap shaded part of his face, but she could see the dark stubble on his chin where he hadn’t shaved that morning. He wasn’t a tall man but well-built and fit.
“Charlie,” she whispered. “I’m so glad to see you again.”
“Me too, Emma. I’ve been thinking about you a lot.”
“You have? Any special reason?”
“Just thinking how well we get on and how easy it is to talk to you. I have lots of mates at the mill and can share a pint or two with any of them at the pub, but no one to really talk to. It’s all boasting about past history or how well work is going. Or not, more likely.”
“But you talk to me about what you have done sometimes and where you’ve been. And you explain to me about your work. What’s the difference?”
“Lots. Don’t knows as I can explain it properly, but I can tell you about my fears, my worries that things ain’t right – that things should be done differently – without you judging me. My so-called mates, they would think I was mad or soft or summat.”
Daniel didn’t usually let on he was worried about anything. Over time, he had begun to confide in her. He told her about his mother sometimes and his sister Elizabeth, who was looking after his Aunt Mary full-time now after the death of his Uncle John some years before. His mother and stepfather worked for the breweries running a pub in some place called Newcastle-under-Lyme in England. She got confused between all the various counties and names that meant nothing to her. She hoped she sounded interested when he talked of ‘home’, which wasn’t often.
“I’ve had a letter from home,” he said, echoing her thoughts. “My stepfather has died. It was a while ago now, but still unexpected. News doesn’t travel fast. My mother has gone to live with Aunt Mary and Elizabeth. Now that is a surprise, but I guess she must be getting on now.”
“How old would she be, Charlie?”
“Probably in her seventies, I would think.”
“Goodness. So how old is your Aunt Mary?”
“That’s a good question. She’s my da’s older sister, so ten years or more older than Ma, maybe. A grand age, if I’m right.”
“You must be pleased they are together and can look after themselves. You haven’t ever wanted to go back?” Emma had come to understand how he now regretted his time in the army. That the reason he came out to New Zealand in the first place had been undermined, first, by finding he was not exhilarated by the fight as others were – that the killing left him troubled – and second, that the natives only wanted to be left alone to live on their land and raise their crops and their children, same as any other man. How stealing their land was going to make life better was beyond him. This was a new country, he had argued, not another England, and everyone had to learn to get on with their neighbour to survive.
Daniel turned his head to look at her. “No. What makes you ask?”
“If there is no man as head of the house, who provides for them?” Emma asked.
Daniel smiled at her naivety. “At their age they will have money of their own left to them by their husbands. Don’t fret, my sweet girl, I’m not going anywhere.”
Keeping off the road, they headed across the paddocks skirting the swampy areas towards the riverbank so they could follow the river up to the house.
“See that building there?” he asked, pointing across as the barn he had sometimes worked in when he had first arrived came into view.
“Ja. What is it?”
“It was the main storage shed for the district when I came here. All the boats tied up there. Then it would be all hands to unload the goods coming in and load up the outgoing goods. Since the new wharf were built back in ’73, it’s only used now for hay and storing some farm equipment. Come on,” he said, changing direction. “I’ll show you the view from the top floor. You can see all the way across the swamp out to the sea from up there.”
Emma noticed a new spring in his step and thought how young and lighthearted he could be.
Daniel tied his mount to the large metal ring on the wall around the far side of the barn. He lifted Emma off the horse, holding her slightly longer than necessary before letting her go, since it took two hands to pull open the large, creaky barn door. Once it was open, he took her hand again, leading her inside.
Dust floated in the air as the sun shone through the open doorway. Festooned with dirt and cobwebs, some of the farming equipment looked forlorn and neglected. One horse cover tossed over the rail to the right and another one thrown onto the stale h
ay over in the far corner indicated that not many people came here these days. Daniel looked around with a mixture of dismay and happy memories. He’d been content in those days. After army life he’d enjoyed the work and settling into a new community that was soon to become his home, but life moved on, and this barn was not the same place it had once been.
“Come on, up you go.” Daniel pulled her towards the ladder fastened to the upper floor. He stood behind her.
Emma was nervous. “Are you sure we’re allowed?’
“Of course. Anyway, there’s no one here to tell us different. Go on; it’s quite safe. I’ll come up behind you. Tie your skirt up so you don’t trip.”
Emma reached down and grabbing the back hem of her skirt brought it through her legs and hooked it into her waistband, in the traditional peasant way. This method preserved the women’s modesty and allowed them to work unhindered.
“Now, one hand over the other on each rail and the opposite foot so you’re balanced. Don’t look down. I’m right behind you.”
Emma began to climb the ladder, doing exactly as Daniel said. But having climbed many ladders before, she scaled the ladder quickly, leaving him in her wake. When she reached the top she turned to look down at Daniel coming up behind her. Her face was glowing. Whether with excitement or exertion, she didn’t know. When he was face to face with her, so close they could almost touch, they started laughing.
“You didn’t tell me you could climb ladders.”
“You never asked. You told me what to do, so I did it.”
“Scallywag.”
Stepping off the ladder, Daniel pulled Emma to her feet and into his arms. Then swiftly let her go again, telling himself she was too young for him, never mind how he felt. She straightened her skirt to hide her confusion. He crossed the floor and opened the shutter doors from where the pulley and rope had operated. The sun lit up the dark zone with a golden glow.
“Look. Isn’t it a grand sight?”
Emma joined Daniel at the doorway. He put his arm around her shoulder to hold her as he stood at the edge looking out towards the sand dunes in the distance.