Lizzie, Love

by Brenda Delamain

  Elizabeth felt the dark absence of hope. Her anger turned to misery and, dropping down into the long, dew-wet grass, she leant against the henhouse wall and wept.

  CHAPTER 11

  The wind blew across the churchyard in sharp gusts. The ladies clutched their shawls against their arms and prayed that their bonnets would stay in place. Each squall brought a sharp patter of raindrops or a few dried leaves spinning off the trees. The group stood around the hole, the heap of earth, and the small box that was Sam.

  The Reverend Williams stood at the head of the grave, his surplice whipping in the wind. He held the pages of his book with both hands to stop them flapping, but the corners still fluttered with each gust.

  ‘“Man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live. He cometh up and is cut down like a flower. He fleeth as it were a shadow and never continueth in one stay.”’

  The men lowered the box into the earth and Mr Williams bent to gather a handful of crumbled clay. Elizabeth turned away and looked down at the house and at the cattle eating the yellow stubble where the oats had been cut. The smoke from the chimney blew wildly about the house and garden.

  It will be warmer by the fire for my cold feet, she thought. She glanced back at Mr Williams as he started to speak again.

  ‘“… and shall lead them unto living fountains of water, and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.”’

  Elizabeth had a momentary vision of Sam’s face and the tears welling up in his eyes as he coughed. Her lips tightened and she saw her mother looking at her. She pretended not to see, and looked down at the grave. Her anger of the night had dissipated, but a cold regret had taken its place. Words, once spoken, were said forever and she did not know how to take hers back.

  In a few minutes it was all over. Their friends and neighbours, who had gathered to give them support, passed Mr and Mrs Kemp one by one. They offered condolences before walking down the path to the house. Elizabeth was the last to leave. She glanced back. Thomas Reo stood silhouetted against the church, shovelling the heap of earth back into the hole.

  The Maori girls, whom Mrs Kemp trained in the house, had been busy. The table in the dining room was laid with scones and cakes and teacups. The fire burned in the grate. Mrs Kemp removed her bonnet and placed it on the hall table. She fussed over Mrs Clarke who had ridden over with her husband from the Waimate mission station, taking her bonnet and shawl and handing them to Mary Ann to place in the parlour.

  ‘Now, come and have a cup of tea, Martha dear. You too Lizzie, you look frozen.’

  Mr Kemp and Mr Clarke, friends since childhood, stood with their backs to the fire, cups of tea in their hands. Elizabeth crouched by the fender and stretched out her hands behind the black trousered legs. The men’s voices murmured above her, discussing committee meetings and the people of the east coast.

  Mr Clarke suddenly noticed Elizabeth. ‘Hello, want to come and warm yourself?’ He moved to let her in. ‘Creep in round here. By the way, James, how’s Henry getting on? Edward seems to be enjoying himself immensely at Norwich.’

  The two ladies came close. ‘Are you talking of our Henry?’ asked Mrs Kemp.

  ‘I was just asking how he was getting on.’

  ‘He seems to be liking it and doing quite well. But I am worried about his health. My sister Ann says he gets a lot of coughs and colds. The climate does not seem to agree with him.’

  ‘That’s unfortunate. The Williamses are also a bit worried about their Edward. He seems homesick and quite depressed. They are even talking of bringing him back. At least our two boys are at the same school and know each other.’ Mr Clarke put his cup back onto the saucer and turned to Mrs Kemp. ‘I’m sorry about this little lad today, Charlotte; I didn’t have time to say before.’

  ‘Thank you, George, it has happened to you and now it has happened to us. I think we can thank the Lord that we have so many healthy children.’ She looked down at Elizabeth. ‘I’m afraid Lizzie will miss him the most after all the time she has spent looking after him for me. Time will hang on your hands, won’t it, love?’

  Elizabeth could sense their sympathetic eyes looking down at her. She looked at the fire.

  Mrs Clarke broke the silence. ‘Then how would it be if Elizabeth came and stayed with us for a few days? I’m sure we could find plenty for you to do, Lizzie. You could help me with my babies.’

  ‘Well, Lizzie, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?’ asked her mother.

  She sounded almost as though she was trying to hustle her away, thought Elizabeth, but she nodded. She did not mind the thought of going away from the settlement for a while. Sometimes she felt as though her whole life was, and would always be, enclosed within these few encircling hills.

  ‘We’ll have to leave soon, though,’ said Mr Clarke. ‘The rain is threatening. Can you get some things together quickly?’

  ‘You mean, take her now?’ asked Mrs Kemp.

  ‘Why not?’

  Mrs Kemp turned to Mrs Clarke. ‘Oh, Martha, that’s a bit sudden for you, isn’t it?’

  ‘Nonsense, we came over on two horses. She can ride back on Selim with you, can’t she, George?’

  It was soon arranged. They walked out to the cattle yard where the horses were tethered. Elizabeth was lifted up behind Mr Clarke. Her crutches and small bundle of clothes were tied onto the front of the saddle.

  As they rode up the hill behind the house a few spots of rain began to fall. Elizabeth clung onto Mr Clarke and was partly protected by his cloak. It was very different to riding with her father who sat solid and immovable as a tree trunk. Mr Clarke, taller and thinner, was more like a branch that moved with the wind.

  It was a monotonous journey over gently rising, fern-clad hills. The road was in good condition, having been recently widened and levelled to take the drays that carried goods between the settlements.

  ‘What do you think of my road, Elizabeth?’ asked Mr Clarke, in a proprietary tone.

  ‘It’s very nice,’ said Elzabeth politely.

  ‘But wait till you see my bridge.’

  As they rose out of the hollow that contained Kerikeri and the Bay of Islands, the countryside suddenly stretched out all around them. Inlets, islands and sea lay behind. And in front was a crumpled mass of land. The volcanic hills of Pouerua, Te Ahuahu, Pokaka and others stood like pots on a table, many stepped and bristling with Maori fortifications. The clouds trailed ragged skirts of rain across the hilltops.

  It was not far before the road started to descend again into the wide valley of the Waitangi River. From there the inland missionary settlement of Waimate was clearly visible on the opposite bank, a geometric pattern of fields and young hedges.

  In the base of the valley, next to a group of shaggy huts, was Mr Clarke’s bridge. Set across the meandering river, it looked solid, neat and alien. The huts were deserted, used only in the summer by the cultivators of the kumara plots along the river bottom. Plants new to the Maori, and grown from seed provided by the missionaries, were also in evidence where a patch of maize stalks waved their tattered remnants.

  The horses trotted onto the bridge where they pranced and sidled, made uneasy by the hollow tones beneath their feet. Mr Clarke reined his horse to a stop so that Elizabeth could look about.

  ‘It is a beautiful bridge,’ she said.

  ‘Sixty-seven feet!’

  ‘Fancy!’ Elizabeth hoped she sounded suitably impressed. In fact she had never seen anything like it and had nothing with which to compare it. It was a bit like a jetty that did not end in the sea but on another piece of land, and compared with the jetty at home it was certainly a solid structure.

  ‘You must be very proud of it,’ she ventured.

  ‘Yes,’ he admitted. ‘Little did your father and I know what we were going to have to be when we came out here, Elizabeth. House builders, road makers, wheelwrights, farmers, even bridge builders. I don’t think, however, that anything else has given me quite so much satisfaction.’ He bent closer and
whispered, ‘I must confess to a secret sin, Elizabeth. I’m very proud of myself.’

  ‘I won’t tell anyone,’ she assured him.

  He gave a short chuckle and, wheeling the horse about, continued up the hill. They could see Mrs Clarke, well ahead of them by now.

  This side of the valley rose steeply from the river to the ridge on which stood Waimate. Beside the road new ground was being broken in for farming. Heaps of stones, removed as the land was ploughed, lay around the perimeter, to be built into walls. Lengths of tough bracken roots had been piled into mounds to be burned when they dried out in the summer.

  Mr Davis, who managed the mission farm, was guiding the horse and plough, working near the track. He pulled to a halt as they rode up.

  ‘Nearly finished, Richard?’ called Mr Clarke.

  ‘Last turn.’

  ‘Planting wheat here?’

  ‘No, I’m trying potatoes first to break up the ground. I should be able to get them out before it’s time to plant the wheat. I’ve put them down there already.’

  Elizabeth followed his directing arm but could see nothing except the bare ridged earth, and the desolate heaps of stones and twisted black roots.

  ‘Well, I’d better get finished before it rains. I’m cold enough as it is without getting wet too.’ He flicked the reins and the horse strained forward.

  The sky was certainly growing darker and the white buildings of the mission station glowed luminous against the thunderous background as they rode up the hill, spurring the horse forward to catch up with Mrs Clarke. A dovecote stood in front of the Clarkes’ house and the bright white doves fluttered into the openings to gain shelter as the first heavy drops began to fall.

  Mr Clarke lifted Elizabeth down from the horse and across to the verandah, then ran back for her crutches and bundle of clothes. Mrs Clarke was already there, holding onto her horse. Mr Clarke took her reins and, leaning against the rain, led the two horses over to the shed.

  As they opened the front door a chorus of voices arose.

  ‘Mama is back!’

  Children seemed to gather from all directions. They emerged from doors, ran down stairs and slid down bannisters. The hall filled rapidly although, as Elizabeth later realized, there were only seven of them. The two oldest were at school and the baby in bed but, for a moment, it was quite overwhelming.

  ‘Lizzie has come to stay,’ announced Mrs Clarke.

  ‘Goody,’ said a small girl, grabbing her hand. ‘Come and play with me.’

  ‘Just a moment, Martha,’ Mrs Clarke interrupted the daughter who shared her name. ‘Give Lizzie time to take a breath. She will be sharing your room so you can take her things up. I expect that she would like to get warm first. I know I would. Is the fire on in the parlour?’

  ‘No, in the dining room, we’ve been in there.’

  Elizabeth was led into a room where bright firelight shone between the babies’ napkins, which decorated a brass fireguard. The floor was littered with toys, bricks, dolls, books and balls. In the middle of it all sat a small fat toddler, obviously wet, and bawling.

  Mrs Clarke swept over and picked him up. ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, Hopkins,’ she said as she tucked him under her arm, his limbs flailing. The sudden movement seemed to deprive him of breath and sound. She whisked an aired napkin off the fireguard and departed through the kitchen door.

  Elizabeth had barely got herself settled in a chair by the fire, with her crutches against the side, when Mrs Clarke reappeared with Hopkins still tucked under her arm. She came and plonked him onto Elizabeth’s lap.

  ‘He’s dry now,’ she announced. ‘Keep him happy for a moment, dear.’ She lifted the remaining napkins from the fender, and handed them to her daughter, Mary. ‘Fold them up, dearest,’ she ordered.

  She turned to the rest of her untidy children ‘William, put the blocks away if you have finished with them. Henry, the books belong in the bookcase.’ Mrs Clarke picked up a ball. ‘And you know you are not allowed to play with balls in the house.’ She handed a rag doll to her daughter, Martha, after straightening its skirt. ‘How about putting Polly to bed, dear. It’s nearly time for tea.’ In a few seconds chaos was turned to order. Used to her mother’s gentle admonishments, Elizabeth watched with widening eyes.

  It did not take Elizabeth long to realize that she, also, was being watched. Hopkins, deposited so suddenly on the knee of a complete stranger, sat staring at her with fixed intensity. Uncertain whether to relax or yell, he was hovering on the brink when Elizabeth noticed him.

  ‘Hello,’ she said. His mouth puckered at the corners. Elizabeth suddenly recollected Sam’s delight at the toe game. ‘This little piggy,’ she said hastily, wiggling his big toe, ‘went to market. This little piggy stayed at home.’ Hopkins transferred his astonished gaze to his toes. By the time she had reached, ‘This little piggy cried wee, wee, wee, all the way home,’ his fascination had overcome his fear. Elizabeth launched onto the other foot and, by the end of that, he was laughing happily.

  ‘Good, I’m glad you’re getting on so well,’ said Mrs Clarke, picking up the pile of folded napkins. ‘Tea won’t be long, then I’ll put him to bed. You don’t mind keeping him amused, do you, dear?’ She departed into the kichen with a backward call: ‘Come and lay the table for tea, Martha, dear.’

  In the days that followed Elizabeth and Hopkins became fast friends. He was delighted to have someone who played and didn’t suddenly dart away on pursuits of her own. Elizabeth was happy to amuse him as she had Sam, with the added advantage that he did not need to be carried and could toddle along beside her clutching a handful of skirt.

  In a few days the character of Sam seemed to have blended with that of Hopkins and Elizabeth had to admit, with almost a feeling of guilt, that it was difficult for her to recall the features of her little brother.

  When Hopkins slept, Elizabeth had no lack of things to do. The whole house moved at the pace that Mrs Clarke set and she was always calling out:

  ‘William, please watch James for me.’

  ‘There are weeds in the carrot patch, Henry.’

  ‘How about cleaning the silver, Elizabeth?’

  ‘Martha and Mary, your beds are not made.’

  Elizabeth only had time to think at night, as she lay in bed, beside the warm brick chimney that ran up through the room. Then she would think of home. Lying in the warm darkness, listening to the sleeping sounds of Martha and Mary, she could see it in her mind. Certainly it was not as elegant as the Clarkes’; there were no curving bannisters or silver coffee pots, but it was home and she longed to go back.

  It happened sooner than she expected. One morning, when playing with Hopkins, she heard a voice calling, ‘Whoa there.’ and then the sound of horses’ hooves coming to a halt at the door. She looked up. Was that her father’s voice? She reached for her crutches and swung to the doorway.

  ‘Papa,’ she cried.

  Her father descended from the dray, holding the reins in one hand. ‘Hello, Lizzie. Ready to come home?’

  Before she could reply she heard Mrs Clarke’s quick step behind her. ‘James, don’t say you’ve come to fetch Elizabeth. Hopkins will be heart-broken.’

  ‘I’ve come to bring you some coal.’

  ‘Coal, for me?’

  ‘No, not for you, for the forge,’ he smiled. ‘It gives a better heat than wood. But I will take Lizzie too, if you don’t mind. Perhaps she could get her things together while I take the cart over to the forge.’

  ‘You’ll stay for some lunch, surely?’

  ‘Thank you, Martha. Yes, that would be good. I’ll have to wash out the cart and get a load of flour from the mill, so that should give Elizabeth enough time.’

  ‘I’ll get started,’ said Elizabeth, turning to the stairs. Hopkins sat on the bottom step, in the bright square of light from the doorway. He looked as though he knew something was happening and he didn’t quite like it. Elizabeth felt a twinge of guilt.

  ‘I’ll come back soon,
Hoppy, I promise.’

  After lunch and farewells, Elizabeth climbed up onto the dray beside her father. He urged the horse forward. The cart jolted down to the river, passing the new ground that Mr Davis had been breaking in. To Elizabeth’s surprise, the previously desolate patch of ridged ground had suddenly, in these last few days, come alive. Along each furrow a line of yellow-green dots was pushing up through the black earth. She could barely understand the great tide of excitement that rushed through her. It had all looked so dead, so depressing and empty, and now there was this: ridges of light, bright green, bringing it to life.

  ‘Nothing ever stops, does it?’ Elizabeth said on impulse. ‘Even when you think it should.’

  ‘Well …’ said her father slowly, ‘I can’t say it ever entered my head that it, whatever it is, should stop just for me. But if you mean life in general, no, it doesn’t stop. We’ve just got to get on with it, whatever happens. But I’m worried, Elizabeth. I don’t think your mother realizes this at the moment. That’s why I came and fetched you. I think your mother needs you. I’m not quite sure what, but there is something wrong.’

  ‘With Mama?’

  ‘Yes, she hasn’t seemed overly upset by Sam going the way he did, but she’s not behaving right.’

  ‘What do you mean? Not behaving right?’

  ‘I don’t really know. She doesn’t seem to notice people properly; it’s as though we were hardly there.’

  ‘Well, what can I do?’

  ‘I don’t know that either,’ he said. ‘Just be there, I think. You were always close. Perhaps she will talk to you.’

  They came to the bridge. ‘Isn’t it a good bridge?’ said Elizabeth. It was a deliberate attempt to end a conversation that bewildered her.

  ‘Aye, he’ll tackle anything, that George. Roads, houses and now bridges. He’s a remarkable lad.’

  ‘So are you,’ said Elizabeth defensively. She remembered Mr Clarke’s secret sin. ‘You’re better,’ she added, making him laugh.

  At length they reached Kerikeri. Nobody came out to meet them. Her father lifted her down near the back door then led the dray away to be unloaded.