A Tattooed Heart (18 page)

His dark, slightly grey-flecked hair was oiled and up in a topknot, which she'd seen on the New Zealanders before, and he wore what looked like half a bird hanging from one ear, which she hadn't. From the other dangled a four-inch greenstone pendant. Beneath the dog-skin cloak he wore a white linen shirt and a snug pair of cream trousers that were too short for him. You need a better tailor, she thought.

He stared back at her, arrogantly and unpleasantly, but she refused to lower her eyes and itched to raise her middle finger at him, but refrained. She didn't feel like being thumped again.

‘Child,' Tu said to his daughter in English, ‘you must end this foolish game and return to Aotearoa. You have duties there and you are betrothed.'

‘No, Father, I have made up my mind.' Aria's voice was loud and clear. ‘I wish to remain here. With Friday.'

Te Paenga grunted. ‘It seems that I must remind you that you have been betrothed to me for the past eleven years, and that we were meant to marry in August. It was agreed.'

‘I have changed my mind.'

‘The decision is not yours to make. It was your father's arrangement.' Te Paenga glanced at Tu for support, his heavy brows raised.

‘And I stand by that decision,' Tu confirmed. ‘I will not go back on my word, Aria. You must return home with us immediately.'

‘No.'

Mahuika thrust out an accusatory finger. ‘Daughter, the political and economic welfare of our family depends on this union. How can you choose a . . . a common Pakeha tart over our future?'

‘Oh, it does not, Mother. It would be moderately advantageous if I married Te Paenga, and, yes, there would be more money in our coffers, but our family is hardly impoverished, is it? We are doing very well with our commercial ventures. So if you are trying to make me feel guilty, it will not work.'

Tu said, ‘It is not a matter of guilt, Aria, it is a matter of honour. I gave my word to Te Paenga when you were seven years old. I cannot break it.'

‘You will have to, Father.' To Te Paenga, Aria said, ‘I am sorry, I will not marry you. It is not as if I have not said this previously.'

In a fit of temper, Mahuika hurled her reticule — beautifully decorated with black, gold and maroon glass beads — at the wall. It connected with a satisfying crunch and dropped to the floor. ‘I have had enough of you, daughter. I cannot understand why you are saying this. I cannot imagine why you think you would rather live with this Pakeha girl in this dirty town, here in this, this —' she looked around disparagingly ‘— whorehouse.'

‘Excuse me,' Elizabeth interjected. ‘This is a perfectly respectable hotel. The brothel is next door.'

‘You are encouraging this,' Mahuika accused. ‘I know you are. You want my daughter to go to work for you, if she has not already.'

‘Mother!'

‘It is true. I know how white-skinned whoremongers operate. I have seen the whorehouses in Kororareka.'

‘I beg your pardon, missus!' Elizabeth protested. ‘I'll be thumping you myself in a minute if you don't watch yourself.'

‘See how uncouth she is?' Mahuika said to Aria.

‘You
belted me,' Friday reminded her.

Mahuika stood, crossed the floor and settled her hands on Aria's shoulders. ‘My dear, my beloved child, think carefully. Do you really wish to live with people such as this? It is not too late to come home. All will be forgiven.'

Gently but firmly, Aria shifted her mother's hands. ‘It is too late, Mother. I have made up my mind. I am staying here.'

Mahuika stepped back, her hands clenching into fists and the tendons in her neck tightening to cords. ‘Then you are no longer a member of this family.'

Friday sucked in a breath. What a low and manipulative blow. She shot a glance at Leo, who scowled mightily. Mrs H shook her head in disbelief, but the faces of Paikea, Hoata and Te Paenga remained impassive, as though they'd been forewarned.

‘You have no entitlement to lands or any other inheritance from me or your father,' Mahuika went on, ‘and if you ever do return to your birthplace, you will not be welcome.'

Aria stood very still for a long moment, then looked at Tu. ‘Do you agree with this, Father?'

He sighed heavily. ‘Yes, I do.'

Aria let out a long sigh of her own. ‘Then so be it.'

Friday cheered mightily, but only to herself. At the same time she felt sorry for Aria for being so thoroughly disowned, but, really, who needed a family like hers anyway?

Te Paenga stood. ‘You will regret this,' he said, and marched out of the room.

Paikea and Hoata followed, then a grim-faced Tu and, finally, Mahuika.

At the last second, Aria said, ‘Mother?'

‘Yes?' Mahuika's face was transformed by expectation and hope.

‘I have discovered what happened to the upoko tuhi of your revered brother, Whiro.' She paused for several drawn-out, anticipation-raising seconds. ‘But I will never tell you now.'

Utterly motionless, Mahuika held her daughter's gaze a moment longer, then was gone.

Friday said admiringly, ‘Christ, that was mean.'

‘It was a bit harsh, lass,' Leo agreed.

Smoothing her skirts with hands that shook only a little, Aria said, ‘She deserved it. She knows what I am like if I am provoked. After all, it is a trait I inherited from her.'

Friday gave her an enormous hug. ‘Are you all right, sweetheart?'

‘I think so. Yes, I am.'

‘But the land and stuff. How much are we talking about?' Friday felt uneasy. She would never forgive herself if Aria had missed out on a nice little plot for a house or something like that. Well, it would take her a while to forgive herself.

Aria shrugged. ‘It is complicated. If I had gone, I would have had to marry Te Paenga, and some of his lands would be joined with mine. And some of my land is part-owned by others in my family, so I cannot really say. Many thousands of acres? Anyway, it does not matter now, does it?'

Friday nearly fainted. Suddenly she felt utterly sober, slapped hard across the face by the truth of what Aria had really given up for her.

‘But I don't own anything!' she wailed. ‘I can't give you anything!'

Taking her hand, Aria said, ‘You can. You can give me yourself. That will be enough.'

Elizabeth caught Leo's eye, and together they quietly left the reception room, closing the door behind them.

Early the following morning, well before the brothel opened, Elizabeth asked Jack to drive her to Devonshire Street cemetery. She had a terrible need to talk to Gil but hadn't been able to bring herself to visit him, though he'd been there for well over a month.

‘I shouldn't be too long,' she said as Jack handed her down from the gig. ‘Go across the road and get yourself some breakfast if you like.'

‘I've got me flask and pipe. I'll be right.'

She nodded as she adjusted her hat. Nearby she could hear the lowing of bullocks, and certainly smell them. Jack didn't want to leave her alone in the graveyard and she knew it. She was getting old and he was worried she'd fall over or something equally feeble. That was Jack — loyal as you could want.

Entering the cemetery through the lychgate, she took from her reticule the sketch Friday had made for her and made her way through the headstones towards the Roman Catholic section. It had rained the night before and the wet grass dragged at the hem of her dress. No doubt there would be seeds stuck all over it by the time she got back in the gig. Ivy would have to spend ages picking them off tonight.

When she reached the row of graves marked on Friday's map, she hesitated, suddenly nervous. What if she started talking to Gil and he just . . . wasn't there? She'd had such a rapport with him all tucked up in his lead-lined trunk just a few yards below her in the cellar. It had been almost as though he was with her.

Moving along the row, trying not to step on the graves, especially fresh ones, she came to Clarence Shand's. She knew it was his because his name was carved in large letters across the lid of the tomb. Trust Bella to get him a dirty great chest tomb. Almost everyone else had low ledger stones with crosses, or a plain headstone. The full inscription on Clarence's tomb read:

In Memory of

CLARENCE EVELYN SHAND

Late of Sydney Town

Who Died on the 4th of July 1832

Aged 62 years

‘I Will Fear Not Evil For Thou Art With Me'

What was that supposed to mean? Elizabeth wondered. That Clarence needn't fear evil because God was with him, or because evil was? A bit confusing. Or perhaps it was apt. And fancy Evelyn being his middle name.

Knowing she was dilly-dallying and avoiding what she'd come for, she stepped closer to the chest tomb and whispered, ‘Gil?'

Nothing, but then he'd never answered her before. Not directly. She rapped on the tomb. Again nothing happened, so she gave the rim of the lid a good shove. Stuck fast.

Panic nibbled at her intestines and sweat popped out on her brow and upper lip, even though the morning was quite cool. She made herself close her eyes and relax. ‘Gil, love, are you there?'

Finally — finally — she felt him rising up towards her from the depths of whatever quiet, dark place he went to when he wasn't with her, and her knees went rubbery from relief. ‘There you are!' she said. ‘Thank Christ. I thought I might have lost you for good. It was Friday's idea, you know, not mine, but she's probably right. Are you all right in there? I've such a lot to tell you.' She looked around for somewhere to sit, thought about perching on the chest tomb, realised she'd never manage to scramble up onto it, and contented herself with leaning on the lid as though she were at a public bar. ‘The goings on lately! Where do I start?'

And off she went, telling him in great detail about Friday and Aria, and the previous day's fracas when Aria's parents had turned up, and the new flogging room, and how well the brothel and hotel were doing in general.

‘Actually, I'm thinking of taking on another girl, though I've already got a full roster. I mean, I replaced Molly when . . . well, you know what happened to Molly, but that was nearly a year ago now. We've got even busier since then.'

Gil spoke.

Taken aback and a little irked by his unexpected words of warning, Elizabeth snapped, ‘I was careful. What would you know? You weren't even there. What? No, I told you, everyone thinks she drowned while swimming drunk. She was always drunk, nasty intemperate piece of work that she was.' Her voice softened. ‘Yes, I know, but don't, there's nothing to worry about. That's all over and done with.' She took a twist of lemon drops out of her reticule and popped one into her mouth. ‘Anyway, I do think I need another girl, maybe even two; we really are that busy. It bothers me, you know. Sometimes I think I'm getting too old for this. Oh, some days I feel well enough, but last week I made a mistake adding up a column of numbers in my ledger and Mr Mulcahey at the bank had to point it out. I almost cheated myself out of eighty-nine pounds! Lucky he's so honest. Well, more or less. We both know I shouldn't be using a dead man's bank account, not even yours, dear, and he's perfectly aware of how I make my money. Still, it doesn't do his bank any harm, does it? It did give me a fright, though. And I do wonder what I'll do when my business head really does turn to flummery.' She trailed off as she thought about the day when she might not be able to work any more. ‘I'd hate that. I'd hate to retire. What would I do? I could no more sit quietly in a rocking chair all day than you could stay away from the sea. I'm just not the embroidering sort.' Glancing at the watch on her chatelaine, she swore and peered across the cemetery at the gig parked under the trees. ‘Good God, I've been blabbering on for ages. Jack'll be fading away. I must go. I have missed you, my love, but Friday was right. This wasn't so bad after all.'

Kissing the palm of her hand, she pressed it firmly against the lid of the tomb.

Putting a last silken stitch into a panel of embroidery she was working on for Nora, Harrie asked, ‘What is the time?'

Glancing at the clock, Nora said, ‘Almost three o'clock. Why?'

‘Free a cock!' Charlotte crowed.

‘Hell, is it? We'd better be off. How are you going, Sophie? Sorry, Nora, do you mind if I finish this tomorrow?'

‘I've just got two more pins to put in,' Sophie replied, the hem of a taffeta skirt spread over her knees.

‘Not at all. We've plenty of time with this one,' Nora said, and raised a questioning brow at Harrie.

‘We're off to look at a house with Matthew,' Harrie explained. ‘He's thinking of buying it.'

‘Can I come?' Hannah asked.

She, Anna and Charlotte (who wasn't really helping) were sitting on the floor of Nora's workshop sorting out and tidying her hundreds of spools of thread, as Hannah couldn't be trusted with scissors or the responsibility of handling expensive fabric, and Anna's spectacles weren't ready so she still couldn't see very well. James had taken her to an ophthalmologist, specialising in maladies of the eye, who had diagnosed something called an astigmatism in both eyes. James was a bit worried about her wearing spectacles for the rest of her life as it was thought that they worsened the vision over time, but she couldn't go on squinting at everything. She could barely even see to read. She was a far less accomplished reader than Sophie, and even Robbie, and Lucy didn't think she'd improve until she started to use them, but apparently it would take another fortnight for the lenses to be ground and polished to the right thickness and curvature. Harrie, though, thought it would be worth the wait.

‘No, you can't,' Nora said.

‘I never get to do anything!'

‘Oh, rubbish.'

‘She can come if she likes,' Harrie said. ‘But you have to promise to behave, all right? And help me with Charlotte.'