The Fire Blossom

by Lark, Sarah

  Laura nodded. “And you can call me Laura,” she said. “No formalities here. But as far as I understood, you aren’t Mrs. Gibson?”

  “No, I was working for the Brandmanns,” Cat said, “as a maid, on their farm. But that was a while ago.”

  Laura held the door open wide. “Tell me about it over tea. Or do you prefer coffee? We’re from Yorkshire and we drink tea. But you’re not English, are you, Ida?”

  Ida shook her head, and then introduced Betty and Eric, who had shyly joined them. Gibson was still talking to Edward, and Ottfried stood with the men, attempting to look as though he understood.

  “This is my sister Els—er, Betty! And my younger brother-in-law, Eric.”

  Laura grasped their hands in pleasure. “How nice, a whole family! There’s plenty of space up in the fort, if it doesn’t bother you to live there. I think it’s a little spooky. But have a look first, and see what you think.”

  She led the women and Eric into the house. It was a typical farmhouse, centered around Laura’s homey kitchen. Laura put heavy pottery teacups on the large table, as well as a few glasses.

  “Just in case anyone wants cider. We have an apple tree. I’ve been pampering it, and in the autumn, I cook down the juice and mix it with water. It tastes like paradise, I tell you!” She giggled, and with her tanned face creased by smile wrinkles, she looked like a cheerful pixie.

  Betty and Eric were sniffing like bloodhounds. It smelled like fresh cookies. Ida was reminded of Christmas in Raben Steinfeld. But Laura didn’t pull any vanilla crescents or cinnamon stars out of the huge iron-stove oven, but instead a tray of pale, oval-shaped cakes.

  “Scones,” she explained. “And you can eat them now. The men will just have to miss out!”

  She put a plateful onto the table along with butter and jam, and showed the guests how to eat the traditional English tea cakes.

  “So, are you German or Dutch?” she asked. “We’ve had Germans in the area before—I mean, the wider area. The Hemplemans lived on the other side of the peninsula, in Piraki Bay. But I’ve never been there.”

  Ida glanced at Cat. When she didn’t say anything, Ida spoke. “We came ashore in Nelson, and lived in Sankt Pauli Village.”

  Laura had never heard of the place, but listened with interest to the story of the unsuccessful settlement.

  “You had much more luck with your farm here,” Ida concluded, and gazed out the kitchen window at the view of the sea. “What an incredibly beautiful piece of land this is! Who assigned it to you? Was it the New Zealand Company?”

  Laura shook her head, and a few brown curls escaped from her bun. She wasn’t wearing a bonnet. “No, the men managed it by themselves. We moved quite a few times before we found this. At first, we tried on the North Island, and I thought it was very beautiful there too. But the men were restless. Every few years, they wanted something new. We’ll see how long they hold out here.”

  “This is beautiful land!” Ida said with wonder. “You can’t just give it up and settle somewhere else!”

  Laura shrugged. “We can take the sheep with us. And the land is only rented, anyway. We would like to buy it, but that’s a little difficult. Our Maori here—”

  “You rented land from the Maori?” Cat said with surprise. It was a practice that she hadn’t been aware of.

  “For how much?” Ida asked, but immediately put her hand over her mouth. How impolite to ask a complete stranger about money!

  Laura didn’t seem offended, though. “Yes, we rent from the tribe. The men can speak a few words of Maori, and the Maori in the area understand a little English too. Whalers have been living in Port Victoria for a while now, and they trade with the tribes. In any case, the rental price was three blankets and a few yards of cotton fabric per year. For hundreds of acres of land. It was far too little. But if everyone was happy . . .” She shrugged.

  “That’s really very little.”

  Ida regarded her hostess with wide eyes, and Cat could tell what she was thinking. For the first time, Ida actually had hopes for Ottfried and Gibson’s plans. Until now, she’d thought it was completely crazy to trade blankets and cooking pots for land. But the Redwoods had done it . . .

  “My husband and Mr. Gibson plan to purchase land from the natives and sell it to German and English settlers,” Ida said. “Do you think that’s possible?”

  Laura shrugged. “If they can communicate with the Maori. Communication is the main problem, and not just with words. They think differently, somehow. That’s what my husband, Joseph, says. And then settlers will have to be found. So far, not many have come out here.” Laura sounded a little skeptical. “But I would be happy about it, in any case! I’d be very glad if more settlers came, and I’d like to stay here. I’d like to have a stone house,” she said with a dreamy smile.

  Cat glanced out the window. Edward’s brothers had arrived. They were just as tall and lanky as he, and had similar long, sharp-cut features. But the youngest wasn’t brown haired; he was blond. Both still held their compact, strong horses by the reins and looked a little impatient, as did Edward. They probably would rather have continued with their work, or at least stopped for tea and fresh scones, instead of talking to Gibson. Cat decided to rescue the Redwoods from him.

  “We should probably be going soon,” she said, addressing both Ida and Laura. “It’s very nice here, Laura, and I’ve never eaten anything as delicious as your scones. But we should try getting to our place before it’s dark.”

  To her surprise, Laura nodded avidly. “Oh yes, of course, I wouldn’t want to go there after dark either!” she replied. “I mean, it’s always difficult to move in somewhere new after nightfall,” she said, backpedaling. “But we can meet for tea often. The fort is only ten miles from here.”

  “Ten miles?” Ida repeated in surprise.

  Laura put an encouraging arm around her shoulders. “Don’t look so scared! Ten miles is nothing. On the North Island, we had almost thirty between us and our closest neighbors. This is a big country, and there aren’t many settlers yet. Let’s hope that your men manage to change that!”

  Then she led her visitors back outside, not without first giving them a bottle of her homemade cider and some bread, butter, and cheese. The Redwoods had very few fields of grain, but aside from the sheep, they also had a bull and four milk cows.

  Cat hurried everyone along. If they really had ten miles to go before dark, time would be tight. She wondered how Gibson could have forgotten that, but the man seemed completely in his element. Gibson was vividly describing the planned settlements. The Redwoods looked doubtful.

  “Do what you want, Gibson,” Joseph, the oldest brother, said finally. “Just don’t make yourself unpopular! We won’t be happy if twenty tattooed warriors show up here one day waving their spears around because you swindled them. You know all pakeha look the same to them.”

  Gibson and Ottfried laughed as though this was a good joke, but Cat was alarmed. The Redwoods didn’t trust Gibson, and they certainly knew him better than Ottfried did.

  The journey to Gibson’s place took some time; the roads were very narrow, obviously intended for people on foot or people on horseback rather than wagons. During the journey, Cat wondered why Laura had referred to Gibson’s farm as a “fort.” She had never heard the term.

  “Is it a cavalry fort?” Eric asked. “Does it belong to the US Army?”

  “Don’t be silly, the US Army isn’t here!” Betty said with a giggle. “Next thing, you’ll be asking about Indians! You read too many penny dreadfuls in Nelson!”

  Betty and Eric continued to speculate about who could have built the fort, but Gibson didn’t reply. He was obviously upset; it seemed as though he didn’t have a particularly good relationship with the Redwoods.

  Meanwhile, the wagon was rolling between wooded hills, and a mountain was visible in the distance. Then the forest gave way to grassland, which meant the area must have been settled at one time, and Gibson finally drove his horses u
p a hill to a level pasture, and Ottfried followed. By the fading daylight they passed a partly collapsed wooden stockade surrounded by thorny bushes. It had a carved gate, which had been blown halfway open by the wind. There, the road became broader. It led to a few derelict longhouses that were decorated with intricate carvings and had once been painted in bright colors. But the colors had faded long ago, the roof peaks had collapsed, and someone must have removed the totem poles that had once watched over the entryways.

  “Here we are! Welcome to my farm,” Gibson declared. “I know it all looks a bit dilapidated, but that will be easy to fix.”

  “But this is a pa!” Cat exclaimed. “This was a marae!”

  Gibson nodded as Ottfried’s wagon pulled up next to his own. Ida gazed uneasily at the derelict scene, which was lit by the blue tones of twilight.

  “Like I said, it’s a fort,” Gibson said. “You’re right, the Maori call it a pa.”

  Recently, he’d been trying to break the habit of calling the Maori “savages.” Cat had made it clear to him that it would have a negative effect on any kind of bargaining with tribes in which anyone spoke English.

  “The people would never have sold this to you!” Cat said indignantly. “This is—you can’t live here, Gibson! It’s tapu!”

  Gibson burst out laughing. “Is our blonde Maori superstitious? I thought you’d made a good Christian out of her in Sankt Pauli Village, Ottie. Now she’s afraid of ghosts!”

  “Are there ghosts here?” Betty asked nervously.

  It wasn’t hard to imagine, with the derelict buildings, the wind that whispered in the empty fields and gathering grounds . . . The moon that was slowly rising over the mountain lit the peninsula as the blue twilight gave way to a clear, starry night. Betty slid closer to Eric.

  “What does tapu mean?” Ida asked.

  It was a sign of her own discomfort that she hadn’t answered Betty’s question. Normally, she would have scolded the girl. As a pious Christian, she shouldn’t be afraid of ghosts.

  “Tapu means something like ‘forbidden,’” Cat explained. “It’s very clear that no one is allowed to live here.”

  Ottfried snorted as he climbed down from the wagon.

  The best-preserved building had obviously once been the meetinghouse, where the Maori had also slept. The door was still on its hinges, and the carpenter could see by the fading light that someone, probably Gibson, had made rudimentary repairs.

  “What makes you so sure about that?” he asked Cat, who was making no move to get off the wagon. “It looks very nice. And there’s no one here but us.” Ottfried tried the door, which swung open at a light push.

  “Exactly,” she explained. “This pa was given up, surely because blood was shed here. You can’t live where blood has been shed; it becomes a kind of—a holy place. You go there to remember the dead. But you don’t live there!”

  She wondered painfully if the Ngati Toa had also given up their village after Te Ronga’s murder.

  “So you mean the English broke in here and killed the Maori, and the rest ran away?” Betty asked fearfully. “And now it’s full of ghosts?”

  “Maybe,” Cat said softly. “But I’m afraid it may have been Te Rauparaha, with the Ngati Toa warriors. Laura said the people here traded with the whites from Port Victoria. Maybe they owned things that Te Rauparaha wanted.”

  “Either that or the people left of their own accord,” Gibson said. “You said yourself that there used to be more Maori than there are now and that they died of completely normal illnesses. That would mean no more people and no village. The survivors just left. And now the houses belong to no one.”

  “So you just moved in without asking anyone?” Ida asked indignantly.

  Gibson rolled his eyes. “Who would I ask?” he retorted. “The Redwoods did the same thing. They settled wherever they liked. And when the Maori showed up and said they wanted something for it, they made a deal. But here, so far no one has turned up wanting anything.”

  “No one will,” Cat shot back, and pursed her lips in consternation. “If there are Maori here, they won’t talk to us or bargain with us. They won’t do anything to us either. You can’t shed more blood in a village that is already tapu. You have to leave it up to the ghosts to take their revenge. But we will be scum to them, outcasts. We will be committing a crime against ourselves by living here.”

  “The village is really eerie,” Betty said. “I don’t want to stay here!”

  Eric nodded at her almost imperceptibly. “We’re going to Port Victoria,” he whispered. “We’ll find a ship bound for Wellington tomorrow.”

  With a sigh, Gibson pulled a bottle of whiskey out from under the seat of his wagon and took a long swallow. Then he tossed it to Ottfried.

  “Ottie,” he said, “your women have gone crazy.”

  Ottfried—who hadn’t understood even half of the conversation in English—drank, too, and regarded Ida and Cat with his brow creased.

  “Did I understand correctly that you don’t want to sleep here because some savages slaughtered each other?” he asked in German. “Even you, Ida, as a good Christian who has learned to trust in God as her safe haven? The daughter of Jakob Lange?”

  Ida blushed, and Cat nodded. “Ottfried, it has nothing to do with whether there are ghosts here or not. It’s a question of respect. This land doesn’t belong to us. We don’t have the right to just move in. Especially with the knowledge that the land’s owners don’t want anyone to live here.”

  “Ottfried,” Ida tried, “what would we have done if Maori had suddenly moved into the church in Sankt Pauli Village, and had disrespected our beliefs by building their fires and saying their heathen prayers there?”

  Ottfried fetched and lit a lantern from the wagon, then held it in front of him as he entered the old meetinghouse. Inside, it didn’t look so threatening. Gibson had added some basic furnishings, including a simple pegged table, chairs, and a bed platform. Nothing there had belonged to the previous owners.

  Ottfried reemerged, looking content. “What would we have done with savages in our church?” he replied. “Of course we would have thrown them out, with drums beating and trumpets sounding. The savages could have done that to Gibson, too, if they cared at all about these ruins. But they don’t, Ida. They’re either apathetic or cowards, you can choose. And in the long run, everything in this country will belong to us anyway. The savages are blustering around now, and we’re being nice to them, bringing gifts instead of coming with muskets. But if they make any trouble, then—”

  “Are you planning to fight the Maori alone?” Cat asked sarcastically.

  Ottfried shrugged. “I don’t need to. As you can see, they left of their own accord. They know where they belong. And we’ll take what we deserve!” He walked determinedly into the house and tossed his jacket on the back of a chair.

  Joe Gibson followed with the whiskey, the provisions, and a bag containing the women’s blankets. “You girls can sleep here tonight. Ottie, Eric, and I will find another place,” he said appeasingly, and Cat wondered if he’d understood some of Ottfried’s German outburst. “Tomorrow we can talk about who stays where, in the long run.”

  Ida was still standing hesitantly in front of the house. She didn’t like the pa, but she was exhausted and hungry.

  “Would it be better if we slept outside?” she whispered to Cat.

  Cat suddenly felt bone tired.

  “The entire place is tapu,” she told Ida, “so it doesn’t matter whether we sleep inside or out. We’ve already deconsecrated it. Te Ronga would have said that we are now in the hands of the spirits. Let’s hope they will be merciful with us.”

  Chapter 42

  After the hard journey, Ida and Cat were so exhausted that it would have taken a very loud ghost indeed to wake them. They also slept through Eric and Betty’s departure.

  As Cat finally peeled herself out of the blankets, she found a note on the table.

  We’re off to Wellington. The Redwo
ods will be able to tell us how to get to the harbor. We took some bread and cheese for the road, please don’t be mad!

  Betty

  “Well, all we can do is wish them luck,” Cat said calmly. “Don’t worry, Ida, they’ll be fine. I don’t know how your sister feels, but Eric is clearly in love. He’ll take good care of her. Or did you want them to stay here?”

  Ida shook her head. “No! Betty should be free. At least one of us should do what she wants. I also don’t want her to know what’s going on here. My—I mean, our—disgrace . . .”

  Cat put her arms around Ida comfortingly but said nothing. She had reassured Ida again and again that although her pregnancy by Ottfried was unwanted and cumbersome, she didn’t see it as a disgrace. Neither she nor the child was to blame for any of it. Ida certainly wasn’t either. Ida could understand the logic of that, but she knew that it would be viewed differently in the settler community. At the least, they would argue about whether she’d shirked her marital duties and had given Ottfried a reason to stray. And no one would ever accept her decision to raise Ottfried’s bastard as her own. Ida was already terribly embarrassed that Joe would have to find out about it. She wouldn’t have been able to bear sharing the secret with her sister.

  “Everything’s going to be all right,” Cat murmured helplessly. “Somehow, it just is. Now, let’s go outside. Look, the sun is shining! Betty and Eric have beautiful weather for walking, and the pa doesn’t seem so spooky anymore, does it?”

  Of course the partially collapsed buildings looked neglected and sad, but with some work, it would be possible to fix up the pa enough that it wouldn’t immediately remind them of war and destruction. Ottfried set about it right away. The women knew that he could work hard when he wanted to. Joe, however, was whining about Eric’s departure. He had been counting on the boy’s labor.

  “We can manage this by ourselves,” Ottfried said optimistically. He took a hearty bite of cheese sandwich and washed it down with a swallow of the coffee that Ida had brewed. “We can start with a barn. We’ll use the little house next door.”