Captive Wife, The (12 page)

Hettie delivers a tray to the dining room where Adie Malcolm sits alone. On the tray is a small mutton pie and three slices of bread still with their crusts on. Hettie is a sallow woman with the hint of a moustache and heavy brows. Her eyes give the impression of looking over the shoulders of the person to whom she is speaking.

‘Did you enjoy your day out, Hettie?' Adie asks.

‘Until it came on to rain, Miss,' replies Hettie, ‘then I came back and stayed in my room and put my feet up.'

‘But the rain cleared at lunchtime, before the children went out,' Adie exclaims. She has been happy all day and now she feels menace in the air.

‘So it did now.' Hettie closes the door behind her, and it seems only moments later that Lieutenant Roddick's footfall lands in the hallway. When he enters the dining room, his face is dark with anger, though Adie does not see this right away.

‘Lieutenant, we were not expecting you,' she says. ‘I am sure that cook can find something in the larder.' She pushes her plate
away from her, as if to share her meal.

‘I have told you, I do not want that woman near the house.'

‘Mrs Guard?' The words hanging in the air like a noose.

‘I thought that was clear.'

‘Lieutenant, you don't understand,' she begins, and falls silent, as she absorbs the full extent of his rage. Suddenly, she is very hungry. Her stomach has had its first whiff of mutton and is groaning for more. She presses her hands over her stomach to contain its rumbling.

‘You don't want to her to come here. Yes, I see.'

‘Who cares what they do, they are riff-raff from the Rocks. But not in my house, I will not have the likes of them here. There is gossip about her condition.'

‘Her condition?' cries Adie. ‘I have seen her this afternoon.'

‘I do know that.'

‘And so I am reduced to eating bread and water, Lieutenant? Let me remind you, I am an adult, not a child to be punished.' Her hands, pressed into her stomach, are white-knuckled. ‘Mrs Guard is not about to have a baby. Or certainly not one that has been hiding itself since the time of her rescue. That is nearly five months ago.'

Roddick's look grows darker still. ‘How would you know? A woman can hide such things.'

‘I am sorry, but you are mistaken,' she says.

The nearness of him is overwhelming, his smell ripe and musky, like leather and whisky on the breath.

‘So she told you more this afternoon of her sojourn in New Zealand?'

‘No,' she says, in a low voice. The room feels cold.

‘The mistress of evasion.' She hears his contempt, but this is such an apt description of the conversations Adie has had with Betty Guard that she can only shrug her shoulders in reluctant assent.

‘You must never let her come here again. If she does, I will have you removed.'

‘Removed? You cannot mean that.'

‘Oh yes,' says Roddick, walking towards the door. He casts her a look of pity and dismissal. ‘Your brother has said he will take you in.'

Adie
    

Adie Malcolm picks her way through the streets of the Rocks district, seeing the houses hewn from brown-gold rock, solid-looking dwellings though the walls are knobbly and irregular, the closely cropped roofs made of hardwood shingles. In the back yards grow small gardens, filled wall to wall with vegetables, among the remnants of native shrubs and trees. Here and there, dandelions and clover spill through the cracks on the street, their seeds imported with peas and beans, radishes and turnips. All of it suggests disorder. And yet, Adie thinks, there must be a pattern to it, for she finds herself more quickly than she had expected at Cambridge Street.

She is on foot and alone. She wears a hat with a vestige of a veil, though it does not cover her face for that would draw more attention than she desires. At the end of the street she hesitates, still composing in her head what she will say to Betty Guard.

Then she sees a large group of men and women walk from one of the houses. The group is headed by a man with squat
shoulders and a thick neck, yet he has an air about him — a presence, she will say to herself afterwards. For at first she does not recognise John Guard, so altered is he since their last meeting. There is something sombre about the tread of these people. Miss Malcolm looks for an awning or a verandah to draw behind but, finding none, she stands with her hands folded. The group moves towards her, and in the midst of them she sees the figure of Betty Guard, shrouded, like all the women, in black mourning garb. Her collar is drawn up around her throat, and a black hat is drawn over her left eye, so that it takes the governess a few moments to recognise her. Her face, or that which is exposed, is very pale in the harsh sunlight, her lips set. Two youths come out of the house carrying a diminutive coffin between them.

Betty
    

I stop in front of Adie Malcolm. I want to spit in her meddlesome ugly old face. I want to tell her to get out of here and go to hell. I cannot understand what she is saying to me, she is babbling away about not wishing to see me again. Well, the feeling is mutual. Feeling? I am numb and do not feel much, it takes me all my time to put one foot in front of the other. I am sorry about what happened to your brother, she raves, standing in front of me and barring my way.

My brother. I don't know what she is talking about. What do you know of my brother? But that is unfair, for I have spoken more of him to her than anyone else. That is why I do not shove her away, send her flying across the cobbles.

As I stand in silence, I see Jacky turning with his eyes full of yellow fire. I say, in a quiet manner, That is behind me now, Miss. This is what is happening now. That coffin that you see carried by my half-brothers is Louisa's coffin. That is the body of my daughter, Louisa.

Jacky
    

My wife was not there when our daughter died. It was late in the
afternoon and I could see the child was sinking. I took her in my arms beside the fire and I rocked her and I sing to her. I sing ‘lavender's blue diddle diddle, lavender's green' and just for a moment I see something I had not seen in a long time, which is the face of my mother who I think is gone forever, but here she is and here is her voice in my ear and her look in my daughter's face. I seen a shadow of the woman she might have grown into, one I might have looked at and said to Betsy that was my mother's eyes. But that will never be for now the baby's eyes was closing. I did not think they wd open again. And where is my wife? She stays away and stays away. I have heard she is hanging out with the nobs but I do not ask her. What good will they do the likes of her and me. I have lost everything, 2 ships at sea, and there is nothing left but what is in this house.

Perhaps it is not her to blame. I cannot bring myself to touch the woman now. When she asks me what is wrong, I says you know what is wrong. She says, I bring your babies safely home to you. That was the best I could do for you.

When she comes in, I says, now is you satisfied? You have been and left your baby and now she is dead.

She gives me a look that could pierce my heart if I let it. She says I knew she would die. I could not bear to see.

She has stayed rock silent, 24 hrs now. She has not slept nor moved nor made any cry. Her mother and her aunt come and dress the little one in her christening gown that was made for her last year and it fit her still. Then they take Betty and push her arms inside her mourning dress and she lets them do it. They place jet-black beads around her neck and on her breast they place the mourning brooch her grandmother wore when old Pugh died. Inside of it is a lock of hair. I do not know whose hair it is now, it is a brooch that does much service.

The next thing I know there is a woman standing in the middle of the street stopping my wife in her path. I remember this woman from long ago, the fat daft old teacher I sent Betsy to, to learn her sums. I have seen her before and not let on that
I knew who she was. Why should I? Betty wd have been better off if they had never set eyes on each other. She put ideas in her head that she did not need. She looks like a mad woman as if she has been out in the sun too long. She is waving her hands and beating them on her breast and I see Betty clench her fists. I think she is going to hit the teacher but she stands there in the street and the snot comes out of her nose and spills and her mouth is stretched back in a terrible way and I hear her howl as a wild dog might do.

I move to pull her back inside, for by now there is a crowd gathered from out of ev'ry house. I take her elbow, and she pulls herself away.

Do not touch me.

She puts her arms up to fend me off and knocks her hat off in the street. She covers her face with her fists but does not stop this noise of an animal that makes me want to put her down. If I had a musket in my hand I wd do her that kindness.

You better go missus, I say to the school teacher. You better get out of here. I see she does not recognise me in all the crying and shouting that is going on. As she turns to leave, I see a redcoat standing at the end of the street, looking at her. I can tell she does not need me to make any more trouble than she has already got. I know the redcoat. His name is Roddick, the one who drinks and did not come to New Zealand with his brothers-in-arms.

The teacher walks away from my wife who is quieter now she has had her yell. Her shoulders droop, her arms hang at her sides. The redcoat walks towards the teacher. Another time I might have stopped to watch but I do not.

I pick up my baby girl's coffin myself and walk down the street not looking to see who will follow me.

Te Awaiti, 1829
    

As I was taking a wife to Te Awaiti I laid in good stores so that we could go for a long stay and not lack in comfort. Before the journey I brought aboard:

57 bags of salt

45 casks of flour

14 casks pork

23 casks sugar

6 ½ chests tea

1 bag of pepper

1 bag of canvas

2 puncheons of rum

2 cases of gin

6 baskets of tobacco.

In all the rush to get everything on board there was no time for me to wed Betsy. I could tell she was disappointed but she is a good girl and said naught. By this time she knew the duties of love a wife must show for her husband. I took her to the ship the
night before we sailed and showed her what was what. She tried hard not to cry. It came as a surprise to her even though she had flirted and carried on. Well there is no way a woman can know what it is like until it's done. But she was a snug fit down there and I told her she was a good girl. I think she is all right about it now. I cannot get enough of her.

When we got to Te Awaiti, Ngai Tahu the Maori tribe to the south had burned down our huts, up to their tricks again. So we dropped anchor off shore the first several nights and I kept Betsy on board while we ran up some more huts. Our houses are built out of supplejack plastered with clay and the roofs thatched with reeds. When our new home was watertight I took the girl ashore and we set up house. I must learn to say wife. Perhaps we will find a minister to put a seal on it. Not that there are any round here. There are missionaries in the north but they are not men to my liking. My men give me sidelong looks. I know they are thinking May (or perhaps April) and December. I have taken to calling her Mrs Guard when they are near.

Te Awaiti, 1830
    

I look back on what I have wrote this past year. Nothing much but the weather and the tides and the whales we have caught and the stores brought. But my life is not the same. It is better now the girl is here. I have not thought to write down so much for she has filled my head instead with her talk and carry-on. But still I do not have a son. Lately I have been wondering if she does not like me well enough for my seed to take hold in her. She gives no sign of this and I tell myself there is no fool like an old one, worrying over these matters.

During the whaling seasons, on my ship the
Waterloo
(½ my ship, for the other ½ is still owned by Mr Campbell), we employ a sea captain by the name of Richard Hall to carry our cargo to Sydney. Between seasons I go on with the arrangement to captain the ship, sailing south to pick up flax and sealskins. Often I take the girl to sea with me because I worry that the
Maoris might take her. A good thing she is not seasick. Some of the men don't like a woman on board. When they think I cannot hear they say that the ship is a hen-frigate. But I am the master and I say what goes. When one of them speaks out of turn I smash his face with my fist and when they have nursed a sore jaw for a day or 2 the message gets through to them.

One thing I have not writ about is my brother Charley who has come with us for the whaling. My brother and I are not alike in many ways. When he 1st came to Sydney I wondered if he was my brother after all and not some man with a likeness who had taken his name. Or some other Charles Guard, no relation to me at all. But 1 time when we were swimming in Sydney harbour I saw the birthmark on his spine, 3 stars in a triangle, and I knew it was him all right.

What is different about him? He is thin and bony for a start and given to reading books. I think our father saw more promise in him than he did in me which has stayed a sore point to tell the truth. After he done his time and got his ticket of leave he was a bit of a dandy round Sydney. I saw him come down to the wharves 1 day dressed like a gentleman in a blue suit and white waistcoat. I was loading stores at the time. I said to him Charley you'll never make a living unless you do an honest day's work.

Work he said. There are other ways to work besides muck and tar. When was the last time you took a bath?

I took no notice of him for a few years after that. I heard he'd tried his hand as a salesman and for a short time teaching school. But he is a fool if he thought he could get away with that for Charley has had no education to speak of. Reading, writing and a little arithmetic do not a teacher make. My Betsy knows as much as he does. Anyway, when he was broke, which happened as surely as night follows day, he come to me and asked what jobs can you offer. I looked him up and down and thought he will be an albatross around my neck, but he is my brother and what is a man to do. I said well you'd better put to sea with me. He went green around the gills for he was sick all the way from the old
country to Sydney. He told me once before how he wd never set foot on a ship again.

You can be my storeman I said and when you have your sea legs I will teach you the art of catching whales.

This is how I came to have my brother Charley with me. I can tell he will not settle long, will come and go, and stay in Sydney whenever he's got money in his pockets. For the time being he is with us and does his share. My wife can do with help and I see they get on well enough.

For it is a hard life on my wife. She has to live as rough as any man with long hours of work and to live like a woman as well. The washing is the worst especially when it's winter in the Sounds. There is always wet clothes, a case of running out at 1st sign of rain, bring in the wash, run out with it when the shower passes. There is whole days when there is nothing much else, but still there is the cooking to do.

I've told my brother Charley to keep an eye on her when he can.

Some days Betsy is very quiet. When we are abed she whispers to me in the winter air Jacky you will not let the Maoris get me.

I will break them before that happens. I do not allow the Maoris to take liberties. You should know that.

For it is true I take no nonsense and punish those who give me trouble. Like an unruly seaman I give them a tap and it brings them to their senses and if they do not mend their ways I will not employ them any more. I think the Maoris know where they stand with me.

I came in 1 day and found Betsy standing in the hut with a bowl of flour untouched on the bench before her and the fire gone out. She was looking into space.

What is it Betsy?

I cannot hear the birds she said.

But there are birds everywhere. And so there are, birds full of song, the air filled with the beat of their wings. Parrots and
wood pigeons, hawks and saddleback, huia and kokako, and birds that sing all night.

There are no cockies she said. And I see then what she means. The birds here are dark of plume and sing more sweetly, not full of noisy shouts like parakeets and cockatoos.

But I told her listen hard and you will hear the birds. They sing a different song.

Yes she said and put her head on one side. I do not know if it is just to please me or what. After a while the fire was lit and things back to normal. That night she made her own music. It was a cold night and still, there were fires on the beach. She sang for us several songs for she has grown up with the music of the Rocks people. She finished with the old 1 about the cambric shirt, about the king who promises to marry a maid if she can make him a shirt out of a piece of linen 3 inches square.

She sang each 1 of the verses that number 12 and the men on the beach sang the chorus to each 1 and clapped, wiping their eyes on the cuffs of their shirts and all the time the sea roared, and far away heading towards Port Nick we saw the slow moving lights of a ship like fireflies. Betsy did a little dance and a curtsy. I
ordered another ration of rum all round.

She is not bad for a girl said one of the men, in his cups. His mate laughed and tipped a wink in my direction. Then the wives of the men, who had been listening too, began singing back in great harmony. It was the most peaceful a scene I have seen here and the sweetness of all their Maori voices was soothing on my mind. I think then we are in for better times.

It is time to set down some of what Te Rauparaha has been up to. Nobody should think they know what he will do next. You can only take him minute by minute. He might think he is a general but he is what soldiers might call a mercenary for he makes war for profit. I don't know much about him except that when he was young he came down from the north and joined up with Ngati Toa. They are a tribe driven south from the western coast by Waikato tribes. Te Rauparaha led them in fighting all down the Taranaki coastline, defeating everyone in his path until he reached Cook Strait.

He acts like a king, and white men who come to New Zealand find it best to treat him like one. Early on he learnt that if he traded with pakea he would get rich. He calls us pakea, or somesuch. I have heard it means a flea. He has got rich through trade and it goes without saying that if pakea want to prosper they must be on his good side. On Kapiti Island he boasts 2000 slaves preparing flax for trade and as many muskets.

But he takes things too far. He has long been set on war with Ngai Tahu, the big tribe of the South Island. He finds many reasons to quarrel. Above all he wants more land and the greenstone jade that is to be found in Ngai Tahu country. Along the way has come plenty of battles. They are filled with bad blood. For each there must be revenge. Utu. So it is hard to follow what each battle is over. Te Rauparaha's men go into the battle with a chant that shakes the sun. Ka mate, ka mate they cry. They stamp their feet in time and twirl their spears.

Ngai Tahu was weak from having fought among themselves.
They made easy pickings for Te Rauparaha. But now Ngai Tahu have recovered and are fighting back so we are piggy in the middle here. Their warriors come in waves from the south, wanting to push Ngati Toa back to where they come from.

I have made it my business to make a friend of Te Rauparaha, thanks to young Rangi who showed me how to catch a whale. He made the path easier for me. This did not happen overnight and Te Rauparaha and I do not always see eye to eye. Things can fall apart when you least expect it.

Late one afternoon, on his way north after a raid on the south, he came by with a war party of 500 men and decided he wanted to see me. He sent most of his troops in their canoes ahead to Kapiti. It soon came out, he was after more muskets. I told him I need more flax for my next trip to Sydney and I wd see what I could do for him.

At this moment Betsy chose to come after me with some story about the sheep running away with her shoe. She was laughing and giggling like a silly girl, hopping round with 1 shoe on and 1 shoe off.

Go away I said, can't you see I am doing important business.

Oh business she said and put her hand to her mouth. She looked Te Rauparaha up and down. He had no clothes on except a string belt round his waist. His old brown flesh was battered and scarred and filthy with the blood of others.

You get yourself inside I said.

Te Rauparaha was looking sore put out.

She is young I said by way of an apology.

You have a sheep he asked.

Yes I have 10 I said which is true for I have got them from a man who is farming them on Mana Island, another island in Cook Strait.

Throw in a sheep with the muskets he said.

Not likely I said. For I was planning on cooking lamb for a treat for Betsy. I was feeling pleased with Betsy for she had been 2 months without blood and I was very hopeful.

Te Rauparaha's eyes blazed black with anger. You will give the girl the sheep before me he said, or that is what I took him to say.

I shrugged and walked away, not wanting to argue in a language I cannot get my tongue around. Betsy was prancing ahead and I didn't want to growl at her. All the same I said to her, you cannot make a fool of me Betsy. That man is not to be played with.

Near dusk we heard a great commotion at the water's edge. I saw Te Rauparaha struggling with 1 of my sheep, trying to load it in his canoe. I picked up my 2 good pistols and a cutlass, and took off. The sheep was part way in the canoe and Te Rauparaha could not get away from me for the animal had its back feet trailing in the water and going baa baa for its life. The chief was very unhappy at being caught like this.

You is a thief Te Rauparaha I said.

He picked up his tomahawk and came at me. I stood stock-still and drew a line in the sand with my cutlass.

Cross that line and you are a dead man Te Rauparaha, old fool.

He rushed on towards me but when I my cocked my pistol he stopped at the line. He ran back to his canoe and then back at me, his teeth bared in a snarl, spit upon his chin. I did not blink.

I will kill you I said.

Inside me I was thinking he wd not give up. He is famous for that. I looked deep in his eyes to read his intention all the time hoping he could not see inside of me. I thought if he did I wd have to kill him in cold blood. I did not much care to do that, for he is more trouble dead than a sheep. But he is an old sheep stealer and men have swung for less. Out to sea a canoe full of his warriors was looking on. It wd be him or me. I tightened my finger round the trigger and then I saw him blink.

He turned and walked away and I felt the bile of disappointment ride up inside me. I had wanted to kill the old bastard. And
something more. I wanted a fight.