“Hine-Moa,” called Véronique, for she could see Hine-Moa moving about in the parlor, laying the table for the evening meal. “Hine-Moa, I’m doing the mermaid’s tail.”
“Are you, my duckling?” asked Hine-Moa. “Don’t you speak too loud, for your Mamma is in the kitchen and it’s past your bedtime.”
Véronique nodded her head, folded her sweet lips and said no more. Hine-Moa knew that she wanted to stay up late tonight. Not only was Papa not yet back from the forest, but Uncle Haruru had been for a journey to a settlement up north along the coast, prospecting for timber, and tonight he would be home again and coming to supper, and she wanted to see him before she went to bed. He would have some little gift for her, she knew. He never went on a journey, however short, without bringing her something: a carving of six little birds sitting on a bough, or a tuft of bright feathers to stick in her bonnet. Mamma said it was spoiling and didn’t hold with it. Mamma was averse to spoiling.
Indoors a door opened and shut, there was a tapping of determined footsteps, and a voice inquired sharply, “Hine-Moa, have you put the child to bed?”
“Yes, Ma’am,” said Hine-Moa in honeyed tones. Old Nick said never a word and Nat stopped hissing. Véronique folded up the kettle holder, put it away in her hanging pocket, arose and shinned up the pohutakawa tree. Quite hidden by the green leaves, she settled herself comfortably in the angle of a branch, folded her hands in her lap and looked about her. She liked sitting still and being what Mamma called “disgracefully lazy.” But she wasn’t really being lazy, because she was looking about her. The rays of the sun were long and golden and lay across the garden as though they loved it, and all the flowers lifted themselves up with cupped petals and drank the golden light, while the green leaves about Véronique took to themselves an edging of pure gold, and Old Nick sitting just below her in the tree fluffed out his feathers and let the light shine through them so that he had an aureole all about him as though he were a saint, which he was not. Peeping through the leaves Véronique could see the crests of the hills blazing with color and the forest below them motionless as a still lake. There was no sound except the ripple of the creek and the beating wings of the wild geese flying homeward. It was one of those hours so hushed and shining that it gave one a sense of safety. It did not seem possible that anger or clamor could ever again break in upon such peace.
Véronique, one way and another, had known a good deal of both in her short life. She had awakened to consciousness in an atmosphere of stress, for it had taken her parents years of struggle to make good the losses caused by the earthquake and to fight their way back to some measure of prosperity again, and always she had been subconsciously aware of her mother’s ambition restlessly striving with her father’s lack of it, and of Uncle Haruru’s desire to let his genius lie fallow while he sat and meditated in the sun, for no one’s good but his own, at odds with her mother’s determination that it be kept in perpetual action for the good of all. She had been aware, too, of quarrels between her mother and Hine-Moa, between her mother and Scant and Isaac, even between her mother and the parrot. And then three years ago, when she had been only four years old, there had been a series of most alarming nightmares. She had been awakened in the night by unfamiliar noise and light and running to the window had looked out upon an angry darkness streaked by fire. The thatch of several houses in the settlement had been blazing, and by the light of the flames she had seen the Maoris from the village running by, not friendly and smiling as she had been accustomed to see them but brandishing guns and clubs and spears, wearing the red bell of the war god Tu, looking horrible and angry and yelling out their war cry, “Ma! Ma! Mate rawa!” which meant that they had already drawn blood from the enemy. She had wondered what tribe they were fighting, for Hine-Moa had told her about the different tribes and their feuds, and then she had seen a man lying on the ground, and he hadn’t been a Maori, but a white man. And then her mother had come running and had pulled her away from the window and wrapped her in a blanket and taken her downstairs, and sat for a long time in the big armchair holding her in arms that felt tight and hard as iron about her. There had been a horrible noise going on all the time but she had not felt too frightened because Nat had been standing by them with a gun in his hand, and her mother’s arms had not trembled, and she was never afraid of anything when her mother or Nat were there. And then it had become quiet again, and her father and Uncle Haruru had come in, very untidy and dirty but not hurt at all, and had said it was over for the moment. And her father had said he had known all along that the fire in the fern was only smoldering. Then she had been given a drink of hot milk and put to bed again.
But the next morning the big wagon had been brought round and she and her mother, and two other white women who lived in the settlement now, had been lifted into it by her father and Uncle Haruru, together with Old Nick and his cage, and a kitten belonging to one of the other women, and boxes containing their best clothes, and a few bits of furniture that they were particularly fond of. And then Nat had climbed up to the front of the wagon and taken the reins, and they had rumbled off across the wooden bridge that spanned the creek and up the hill toward Wellington, with Papa and Tai Haruru riding beside them carrying their guns. It had been a long, tiring journey and the other two women had cried a lot, but Véronique remembered that Mamma had not cried at all but had seemed to be enjoying herself rather than otherwise. “Never mind, William,” she had said to Papa, who had been looking very gloomy indeed. “When this is over, we’ll just have to start again like we did before, that’s all.”
At Wellington Véronique and Mamma, and Nat and Old Nick, and the other two women and the kitten, and the boxes of clothes and the furniture, had all been emptied out upon the doorstep of Uncle Samuel and Aunt Susanna, who had been surprised at first but had kept very calm, considering, and then Papa and Uncle Haruru had kissed Véronique and Mamma good-by and ridden off home again to do what they could to defend the settlement.
Véronique and her mother had stayed at Wellington for some time, and Véronique would have enjoyed the unfamiliar excitement of seeing so many houses and people all together in one place, and the great harbor full of shipping, and soldiers being landed at the quay and marching through the streets in their red coats, and having dough babies with currant eyes made for her by Aunt Susanna, and being taught to say the Ninety-first Psalm by Uncle Samuel, had it not been for the peculiar state of turmoil in which all the grownups had seemed to be living. There was a war on, she had understood, not a new one but an old one broken out again. It was about the land. Somewhere up north of the settlement some Maoris coming back from a long journey had found white men living on what they said was their land, though the white men had said it wasn’t, and there had been a great deal of unpleasantness, and now up north everybody was fighting everybody else. The Maoris who wanted to sell land to the white settlers were fighting with them against the Maoris who did not, and the soldiers in the red coats were trying to stop them and only getting killed for their pains, and no one knew how far the fighting might spread.
There had been a certain amount of fighting even in the Parsonage, for Mamma and Uncle Samuel had not been able to agree about the war. Mamma, as well as a lot of other English people, had been very angry with Bishop Selwyn, the Bishop of New Zealand, because he had taken the part of the Maoris who had come back from the long journey and not been pleased to find English people living on their land. Mamma had said that she loved the Maoris as much as the Bishop did, but after all they were not white, and must be kept in their places, and the Bishop’s championship merely encouraged them to get above themselves. But Uncle Samuel had said that the Bishop was quite right, and that the people who must not get above themselves were the English. And then Mamma had said that the way the Bishop behaved, tramping about the country on foot to visit the lonely settlements and the Maori villages, wading through swamps and swimming across rivers, and getting home again in such a di
sreputable condition that he had to wait until dark before he could enter the town, was most undignified and a disgrace to his cloth. And Uncle Samuel had said that it might be undignified but it was very Christlike, and he hoped to do the same himself one day, and then he and Mamma had made such a noise arguing that Véronique and Aunt Susanna had fled to the kitchen to make dough babies, and the next morning Mamma had said she was going home. She had had enough of Wellington, she had said. She preferred being in danger in her own home to living in safety in someone else’s. It was not only a question of not getting on with Samuel, she had said. Véronique was being disgracefully spoiled by her Aunt Susanna, and if she herself had to eat any more of Susanna’s pastry she would surely die.
So the wagon had been brought round again, and Mamma and Véronique and Nat had climbed up into it, the boxes and furniture and Old Nick had been piled up round them, and they had journeyed off home again to the settlement. The other two ladies and the kitten had not been with them this time, for they had taken a dislike to New Zealand and gone back to England.
Papa and Uncle Haruru had been none too pleased to see them arrive, for half the settlement had been burned down, and the Maoris had smashed up the inside of their house and rooted up everything in the garden, and even though the worst of the disturbances seemed over, Papa and Uncle Haruru were just living in the middle of the desolation and smoking their pipes, and drinking their rum and water and not bothering. But Mamma had soon made them bother. Véronique, sitting up in the pohutakawa tree, looking about her and recalling what she could remember of those past days, preferred not to remember too vividly the dreadful state of turmoil in which they had lived until Mamma had got things to her liking again. After all, it was over now, and the grownups said the fighting in the north was dying down, and here she was sitting up in the pohutakawa tree lapped about in this lovely golden peace, waiting for her father to come home from the forest and Uncle Haruru to come in to supper after his expedition up the coast.
Véronique was a very lovely little girl. In looks she had taken after Sophie and Marguerite, except that she was thinner and frailer and her coloring was more delicate. Her hair, that her mother brushed into ringlets round her finger every morning, rejoicing in its natural curl that would never need curl papers, was a very pale gold, almost silver in the sunlight, and her cheeks had the dainty color of a tea rose, not the blatant pink of rude health that had been Marguerite’s. When she was tired, there were dark smudges under her deep blue eyes and a poignant droop to her mouth that sent her father into paroxysms of quite unnecessary terror; because, though she tired easily, she never ailed at all.
Her mother dressed her beautifully in frocks that she made herself, full muslins and ginghams in the pale pinks and blues and lavenders that suited her silvery curls. She was in pale blue today, exquisitely tidy and fresh though it was past bedtime. She had learned to keep herself clean and neat, however many times she shinned up the pohutakawa tree, because Mamma scolded if she hurt her clothes, and she loathed being scolded.
Though she was a naturally happy child, she was not so radiantly happy as Marguerite had been. The love of peace and quiet that she had inherited from her father had not been gratified by the uncertainties of her days, and she was always slightly apprehensive as to what was going to happen next. That was what made her cling so tenaciously to the six who made up her world. It was only when held in the arms of one or another of them that she felt that things were really safe and satisfactory. Old Nick, of course, couldn’t take her in his arms, but when he sat with her in the pohutakawa tree and said, “Oh, my!” in that kindly tone, it was really almost as good.
Nat raised himself, hissed softly, and nodded in the direction of the gate in the palisade that led into the forest. It was Papa, and Uncle Haruru was with him. He must have come home earlier than they had expected and walked out into the forest to meet Papa. Véronique giggled softly and then sat still as a mouse, while Nat bent to his work again and made no sign.
It is strange watching people when they don’t know you are watching them. Papa and Uncle Haruru were aware neither of Nat nor herself as they came through the garden, and they looked so different that she hardly recognized them. Papa’s heavy, red face was troubled, he was frowning and his shoulders sagged, and he came trampling across one of Mamma’s new flowerbeds and smashed off a peony head without apparently noticing what he was doing, though surely he must be aware of the scolding he would get later when Mamma saw what he had done. And Uncle Haruru was looking more like a twisted old kauri tree than ever, and there was a look on his face that she had only seen there once before, when they had been in the forest together and had found a young animal caught in a trap. “. . . Every man-jack of them in the settlement murdered,” Véronique heard him say as they drew nearer. “A hideous sight. God, how I hate the smell of blood! Worse than ever, just when one thought the Governor had got the thing in hand. He went quite alone into the Ngati-Maniapoto country, no one with him but an interpreter. That was courage, if you like, and courage usually wins ’em. Why didn’t he win ’em?”
“He bungled it when he sent those troops to turn ’em out of Tataraimaka,” said Papa somberly. “Rewi knew he’d no right to Tataraimaka, but Grey didn’t tell him first that we were resolved to give up Waitara. He bungled it. His mana has always been high, but he’s lost it now.”
They had seen Nat now, and they straightened and grinned and suddenly looked like themselves again. And Nat grinned back and gave his head a tiny jerk toward the tree. They were both preternaturally solemn as they strolled beneath its branches.
“Did you think you saw a blue bird up there?” asked Papa.
“It’s only Old Nick,” said Uncle Haruru. “Ugly old fellow. Molting badly.”
Old Nick squawked derisively and flew to Uncle Haruru’s shoulder. However much he was abused, he nevertheless always flew to him. All birds, all the children of Tane-Mahuta, always flew to Uncle Haruru. And when he put his hand in the water, the strange slim fishes would weave in and out around his fingers, and the lizards and the woodland beasts never ran away when they saw him coming along the path.
“Not an ugly old green parrot but a beautiful blue bird with a silver-gold topknot,” said Papa, staring upward in a vague sort of way. “Pretty! Pretty! Sweet! Sweet! Where are you?”
“This’ll fetch it,” said Uncle Haruru, and he took from his pocket a necklace of scarlet berries, such as the Maori children wore, and hung it on a twig.
Véronique could hold out no longer. She went off into a peal of laughter, reached for the necklace, overbalanced and fell out of the tree into Papa’s arms. It was wonderful to be in Papa’s arms again, though it wasn’t really very many hours since she had last been there. Perhaps of all the people whom she loved, he was the one she loved best of all.
“Mamma thinks I’m in bed,” whispered Véronique.
“Mum’s the word,” whispered Papa, and then hand in hand they stole softly round the house to Véronique’s bedroom window. Though Papa was a naturally clumsy man he had learned to be very cat-footed when they were eluding Mamma. . . . Nat, Véronique noticed, had already removed the peony head, and cut away the broken stalk.
They climbed in through the window, and Papa unhooked her down the back and brushed her hair, and when she had got into bed, he folded up her clothes neatly and laid them on the beautiful little chest that had been made out of a cradle Uncle Haruru had carved for her in her babyhood, and then he sat down beside her and held her hand, and she lolled her curly head against his arm and said, “Tell about the Island.”
She and Papa had two wonderful worlds in which they lived together, worlds which to them were as real as, and decidedly more enjoyable than, the world in which they ate and dressed, went to bed and got up again, did the wrong thing and were scolded for it by Mamma, and never felt safe because of the Maoris. Papa told Véronique tales of these worlds when she went to bed, but th
at was not the only time when they lived in them. They were really in one or other of them always; in their dreams at night and during the reveries that Papa had while he was working in the forest and Véronique while she was sewing her sampler under Mamma’s eyes.
The first world was called Green Dolphin Country and was a laughing, merry world where Papa felt particularly at home, where they sailed upon a great ship whose crew consisted of Véronique and Papa, Nat, Old Nick, and a jolly old gentleman called Captain O’Hara, who was the chief person in this world and whom Papa had described to Véronique so many times that she knew him as well as it is possible for one person to know another; far better, in fact, than she knew many people in her everyday world. Upon this ship they had the most incredible adventures, all rendered highly enjoyable by the knowledge that, whatever happened, everything would come out all right in the end. They were wrecked on desert islands and walked through tropical forests full of hummingbirds. They bathed in lagoons with troops of beautiful mermaids. They landed on icebergs and walked straight into their blue mouths, and found banqueting halls inside where hundreds of little sea horses sat up on their tails and ate porridge out of pink coral bowls. And on other days they did not land anywhere at all, they just sailed on and on over blue seas with white waves on them like curling feathers, with troops of dolphins sporting around them and huge whales with fountains on their heads cruising along in the distance. Perhaps these days were the best of all, for Nat sang sea chanties to them and Captain O’Hara told wonderful tales of his boyhood in Old Ireland, and Old Nick did not confine his conversation to ejaculations only, as he did in the everyday world, but told the most wonderful yarns about all the countries he had visited during a life so long that he had clean forgotten how old he was. No one was ever unhappy in Green Dolphin Country. There were no quarrels there, no scoldings, and no misunderstandings. It was in fact, so Papa had said one day, Paradise.
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