Authors: Judy Corbalis
A Crooked Rib (25 page)
Lucy was still laid low with a fatigue and spent most of her time resting in her room, writing endless letters to Mr Godfrey. This allowed me the freedom to ride unaccompanied to the Domain whenever I might wish. Should I see Te Toa’s black stallion tethered in his usual place, I would carry on my way, tying Tsarina so far distant that no casual observer would suspect a connection, then make my way to the slave settlement.
We lay entwined, he stroking my hair and murmuring words of endearment, I with my head on his breast, before we were obliged once more to don our clothing and return to our separate mounts and separate worlds. I could not allow myself to think of the future, any future, since I knew we could have none, yet I could not bring myself openly to acknowledge such a thing. We existed out of time, within our own world together, in the wider world apart.
‘Makareta’ said Mr Hadfield, ‘Mrs Godley has spoken with me in Wellington.’
I frowned. Mrs Godley’s nose has become long and narrow from sniffing into the business of others.
‘She has written to Te Kawana. She says she has asked him to find you and Hone another place to live.’
‘But why should we leave you?’
‘Mrs Godley feels that it’s time you experienced more of the world beyond the pa. So Te Kawana, when he is next in the south, will come to visit us and we will talk of it again at that time.’
I did not wish to leave Mr Hadfield. I was afraid. Every night now, I sang my mother’s karakia silently to myself for protection. Then, afterwards, I recited the Lord’s Prayer, the most powerful of all Te Ariki’s words. Or so said Mr Hadfield.
Hone and I packed our belongings in a box.
‘I have spoken with Te Kawana,’ said Mr Hadfield. ‘Very soon he will come to take you to your new home in Auckland.’
Perhaps he saw my expression.
‘Te Kawana is a good man, Makareta. You have nothing to fear.’
Nothing to fear but myself.
And so he came and took Hone and me away with him. Mr Hadfield was most delighted for us. ‘Now that you are under Te Kawana’s protection, you will be educated and guided in the Christian way of life. It is most generous of him. He is a good man of high principles.’
So, I thought, Mr Hadfield has seen nothing. It is my own guilty imaginings.
‘And what of Waka Nene?’ I asked. ‘Now, I am moving closer to his lands.’
‘You will be quite safe. Te Kawana’s mana will protect you. Nene will not complain of such ancient wrongs and Te Rau-paraha has passed from this earthly life.’
So, with many tears, my brother Hone and I left that good man, Mr Hadfield, and paid our last respects at the graves of our mother and Mr Nicoll.
I did not know then that I would never return to my ancestral lands.
‘Fanny, you must come at once. Ingrams says the Maoris are invading. There are more than three hundred of them in a fleet of great war canoes.’
‘What, here, in Auckland?’
‘The Fencibles are massing on Constitution Hill above Mechanics Bay. My husband has put on full dress uniform and ridden to command them. Ingrams says that the Governor has ordered us to go to Colonel Wynyard’s house and remain there until he sends for us, but I don’t see why we shouldn’t ride to the hill above the harbour and see for ourselves what’s happening.’
Lucy and I reined in our horses at a spot from which we could observe events without being seen. Below us, drawn up on the sands were at least a dozen huge war canoes, their high wooden prows elaborately carved and decorated. Two others, each manned by forty or fifty paddlers, floated in the harbour.
‘Look, beyond the canoes, there’s the
Fly
,’ said Lucy.
Fully rigged, the government frigate lay further out in the harbour, commanding the entrance to Mechanics Bay.
‘She has her guns trained on the canoes,’ I said, trying not to sound as alarmed as I felt.
‘And do you see there, on the beach? More than three hundred natives. And they are working themselves into a frenzy. Fanny, if they attack, which way shall we flee?’
Gathered in a large group, the Maoris had indeed begun to stamp and dance, brandishing their weapons with great ferocity and emitting blood-curdling screams. A number of chiefs, distinguishable by their ceremonial dress, were mounting Constitution Hill where
the Governor stood, flanked by Colonel Wynyard and Captain Oliver, behind them, the lines of the 58th and the Fencibles standing to attention with their muskets. Clad in short feather cloaks and bearing long heavy wooden spears, two of the chiefs now advanced in a sort of dance which ended with the taller flinging his spear into the ground in front of the Governor. There followed some kind of angry parley, during which the Governor seemed to be issuing an ultimatum, for there was much head-shaking from the chiefs and more chanting and stamping from the warriors below on the sands. Some of these began to advance up the hill but, at an order from one of the chiefs, retreated again.
At length, some kind of agreement seemed to have been reached. The chiefs returned to their tribesmen and, after more shouts and clashing of weapons, the Maoris dragged their canoes across the mudflats, exposed now by the receding tide, and paddled away.
‘And we must ride back at once,’ I said, ‘lest the Governor spy us.’
‘I shall tell him we were too afraid to continue to the Wynyards’ so we turned for home,’ said Lucy.
‘But why did they invade?’ I asked the Governor, as we sat at dinner.
‘A Hauraki chief, who was under tapu at the time, came to Auckland to ask about the arrest of one of his tribe, and a local Maori constable laid hands on him, breaking the tapu. That is a deadly insult and they came here to avenge it.’
Lucy frowned. ‘How could the constable know that the chief was under tapu?’
‘He’s a Maori himself. He should know better than to lay hands on a chief at any time.’
‘We saw … you said … the
Fly
was in the harbour with her guns trained on the canoes. How did she manage to arrive so quickly?’
‘I was warned of the invasion. Te Toa sent a messenger yesterday.’
‘But were you not a little frightened that they might attack you, Governor?’
‘Not at all, Miss Fanny.’ He smiled. ‘I had the Colonel, the Captain, the 58th
and
the Fencibles to defend me. And it is not the way of the chiefs to launch an assault during a parley.’
‘I confess I am surprised at the ease you display among such warlike people.’
‘I daresay, at times, they might consider us to be warlike towards
them
.’
‘Tomorrow,’ said Lucy, ‘the Governor will return from the south and he intends to bring the children with him.’
‘Children?’
Lucy looked at me in exasperation. ‘You remember. From Mr Hadfield’s pa.’
So occupied had I been with my meetings with Te Toa, I had forgotten all about the children. ‘I daresay they will be a little shy at first,’ I said quickly, to cover myself.
‘Possibly. Now, come and see the room I’ve prepared for them.’
She led me into one of the guest rooms which opened onto the garden.
‘There, you see. I’ve put the toy chest between their beds and some books and games on the shelf for them. And we have Midget ready for them to ride. Once they’re settled we can always get another pony if we should need to.’
‘Fanny, have you
seen
the children Sir George has brought from Otaki?’
‘Not yet.’
‘They’re not children at all. The boy is at least eighteen and will be taken tomorrow to board at the Mission school. We will pay for his education there.’
‘And the girl?’
‘She’s about sixteen or seventeen years old. Quite grown, and beautiful after the native fashion, though very sullen. It seems she’s been spoilt by Mr Hadfield. Since the death of her parents, he’s indulged her too much. It’s quite disgraceful of Mrs Godley to send them. And so very disappointing.’
I lay in Te Toa’s arms.
‘Have you seen yet the girl from Harawira’s Mission?’ he asked. ‘Te Kawana is making a mistake. This girl is dangerous.’
‘I agree she seems surly and most ungrateful, but my sister says she won’t be with us for long.’
‘There, I fear she is wrong. The girl is of chiefly blood. She will not easily relinquish such a position in Te Kawana’s household.’
I had barely had time to observe whether Te Toa’s judgement was correct when the household was thrown into utter disarray. Feeling unusually exhausted in the oppressive heat, I was resting on the veranda of Moleskin Hall when Lucy appeared, red-eyed and with her clothing in disarray. I roused myself from my lethargy. ‘What is it? What’s happened?’
She held out a letter. ‘Something quite terrible. Sir George has had … a communication. It’s Godfrey.’ She burst into tears.
The Governor knows about Lucy and Mr Godfrey! I thought.
‘I simply can’t believe it. Oh, Fanny, he’s been utterly base. He’s
betrayed
me — betrayed us all. This letter is from a clergyman in Nelson, a Reverend Cole. He says that several days ago Godfrey called on him in the middle of the night and with him was a girl … a
servant
girl! And Godfrey said he had … formed an … attachment with her in Wellington but found she was already married.’
‘What are you saying?’
‘She was expecting soon to have a child, which Godfrey owned was his.’ She sobbed harder. ‘I can’t believe that
Godfrey
could be so duplicitous.’
‘Nor I. Are you certain?’
‘I assure you, it’s true.’ She turned to the letter. ‘Reverend Cole says,
Mr Thomas, infatuated with the girl, spoke of his prior engagement with her, her situation, her dislike of her husband, of how Mr Thomas’s having brought her into trouble constituted her morally his wife.
And read the postscriptum. It’s that which has particularly enraged Sir George.’
‘I should have thought the intelligence contained in the letter enough for that.’
‘Read on and you’ll see.’
I took the paper from her. ‘
P.S. Private and confidential
,’ I read.
‘I should fail in faithfulness to Your Excellency if I omitted to say that it is my belief that this sad, sad affair is no unnatural consequence of the contamination into which Mr Thomas has been thrown by Your Excellency’s most unhappy selection of persons to fill some of the most prominent public offices …
‘Your brother, Mr Thomas, will lose his berth. Why? The Sheriff, the medium of communication between the Government, the Public and the Natives, grieves the natives by debauching the girls at the pa, but is kept in office. Yet why should the Sheriff lose his berth when Domett publicly keeps his woman (and that woman a “Neighbour’s Wife”)
?’
I looked up from the letter. ‘That’s all. It appears to end there.’
‘Isn’t that enough? My husband is apoplectic with fury. I can’t believe that
Godfrey
, of all men, could be so vile.’
Remembering the scene in the stables, I tried to choose my words with care. ‘This must be so distressing for you. I know you regard Mr Godfrey as … as a brother.’
She turned on me furiously. ‘I thought you loved me, Fanny. How
dare
you call him my brother?’
‘But surely his conduct towards the young woman shows he has a genuine regard for her?’
‘She’s a
servant
, Fanny. Why are you defending him?’ Her sobs increased. ‘How can Godfrey have deceived me so?’
To my consternation, she sank onto the veranda seat and began to gasp for breath.
I ran indoors, returned with wet cloths and laid them on her brow. She opened her eyes briefly. ‘Go away, Fanny,’ she said. ‘I feel too ill to talk. Even to you.’
From the moment he brought us back with him, she did not like me. I remember how she looked at me. ‘This is not a child,’ she said. ‘She is fully grown. You must send her back.’
But he overrode her objections and he kept me, as I always knew he would from the first moment I saw him again at Waikanae.
The next day, he took Hone to the Mission school and I was left with Mata Kawana and her sister. She did not offer me tea or speak to me, but gave me into the care of a servant woman, Johnson, who seemed to think I had been hired to assist her in the kitchen.
I waited for Te Kawana’s return.
‘If you wish me to become a servant in your house,’ I said to him, my eyes cast modestly down, ‘then I will be so. But, in Mr Hadfield’s home I—’
‘What is this talk of being a servant?’ he asked, so I told him of Johnson and how she had set me to menial work. As I expected, he strode immediately to the kitchen and berated her for being ungracious to an honoured guest.
Then he came back to me where I waited in his study. ‘Sit down in this chair,’ he said, ‘and we will speak together.’
I told him of my early life and of my father and Te Rau-paraha and my mother’s fabled journey under the protection of the god, Tangaroa. And when I had finished, I allowed my eyes to lift and seek his. He gazed at me for a long time and I saw how his hand flickered and he was forced to restrain it from stroking my hair.
And so, you might say, I was reborn again and entered into yet another life on this earth.
I waited for Te Kawana to approach me, for his shyness to crumble. For I knew that the more mighty a rangatira, the more is his need for the solace of woman. But Mata Kawana, herself, demanded constant attention. Her constitution was weak, and every day she became more tired and discontent, more querulous and demanding. And so, every day, he turned from her a little more. It was clear to me that he did not go to her bed. This was my power. I knew what she did not.
He
took me to him;
he
chose me.
I
am not to blame. Consider my fate had I stayed where I was.
It was not simply a matter of the fulfilment of desire. In all of the time I knew him, I do not think he felt the passion of the body. With him, it was a craving for a meeting of spirits; if you like, a fervour of the mind. He would stroke my hair, run his hands across the smoothness of my skin, lay his head upon my shoulder or in my lap and cast from himself, for a brief time, those heavy burdens of rank and state that distanced him, in his own mind, from the common man.
When first he touched my hair, I flinched. Even among the lower caste of Maori, to lay a hand upon the head, the most tapu part of the body, is forbidden. But though he might speak our tongue, collect our legends, treat with our great chiefs, he did not truly believe us his equals. He was not Mr Hadfield for whom Maori were as himself. Our legends Te Kawana thought imaginary and fanciful; he did not see the truth of them. He respected our tapu but he did not understand it, and our beliefs, our magic spells and chants he dismissed as the prattle of children.
This
was his weakness.
This
was what sealed my power over him.
