Toward the Sea of Freedom (38 page)

With the Busbys, on the North Island, Lizzie felt she finally achieved her righteous and satisfying life. Agnes Busby managed a grand, open house and was truly happy about her new housemaid. She only had Maori servants and maids otherwise but spoke not a word of their language. Either someone had to translate, or she mimed to make herself clear. Neither proved satisfactory.

Mrs. Busby loved beautiful things and would gladly have managed her house like a British country manor. She had grown up in New South Wales but came from a noble family. Alas, neither her husband nor the Maori servants were interested in the waxing and polishing of the heavy furniture or the proper hanging of the velvet drapes. No one brushed Mrs. Busby’s riding dresses properly or ironed the lace on her clothing. Lizzie had learned most of this from Mrs. Smithers, and she shared her new mistress’s joy in well-kept rooms and stylish house management. Lizzie also enjoyed caring for the Busbys’ children, and she gladly took them off the hands of the Maori girls, who were loving but overtaxed by the British style of raising children.

Overall, the Maori were friendly and skillful—they just required certain accommodations. Though Mrs. Busby had a limited view of them, Lizzie quickly realized, much to her surprise, that there were more similarities than differences between the Maori and the English. She had never seen a dark-skinned person in England, and the representations of savages in the Australian reverend’s sermons had led her to picture beings that weren’t quite human. The strong, tattooed people with their strange hairstyles and habit of running around half naked would almost have confirmed this for Lizzie, but then she noticed that girls conversed with each other, giggled, and joked, just as Lizzie had once done with friends. Although Mrs. Busby didn’t speak with Maori in their language, the Busby children picked up the language of their caregivers, and they understood the Maori just as they did their own people.

When Lizzie interacted with the Maori, she did not mime, nor did she adopt Mrs. Busby’s unpleasant tendency simply to speak English louder and louder. Instead, she asked anyone who knew enough of both languages for the Maori words, and in that way began to learn it herself. After a few months, she could laugh along with the scullery maid, Ruiha, about how there was simply no Maori word for “buffet” or “calling card.”

She learned that all the foreign customs of the Maori had their own significance: the dances and cries that had scared her at first were often merely greeting rituals, and the tattoos designated people’s tribal loyalties. Ruiha and the other servants soon invited Lizzie to their
marae
, and Lizzie admired the artistic woodcarvings on the Maori’s meeting place and sleeping lodge.

There was something that completely surprised Lizzie: among the Maori it did not seem to be particularly important who was married to whom, and there was no such thing as a “woman of easy virtue.” In the evenings, Ruiha would disappear with the gardener. The housemaid had a little boy whose father’s identity was unknown. Paora, the stable boy, made open advances toward Lizzie, but he only laughed when she rebuffed him in a panic. At first, Lizzie feared that this would anger him enough that he might approach her with force, but then she realized that the members of the tribe were making fun of his rejection rather than her bristling behavior. As two of the Maori girls began to act out a parody of how one properly courted a
pakeha wahine
, Paora slunk away.

Lizzie’s tension quickly disappeared, and she laughed as one of the actresses offered the other flowers and bowed repeatedly. The actress portraying the
pakeha
girl played coy for a while until she finally “surrendered” to her admirer, which the actress expressed in dance motions that seemed rather obscene to Lizzie’s eyes. The other onlookers weren’t embarrassed at all—they couldn’t stop laughing when the lover tripped over his pants and did not seem to know whether he should take them off or keep them on for the act. Later, Lizzie heard that Paora had disappeared with another girl while Lizzie returned, alone, to the house.

Mrs. Busby was of mixed minds about Lizzie’s friendship with the Maori. Lizzie’s ability to communicate with them made her life easier, but she didn’t like her fraternizing with the natives. It seemed strange to her for a good English girl to do so.

Mr. Busby viewed the whole situation with satisfaction. He thoroughly respected the Maori, despite their lack of interest in wine. They simply did not understand that it mattered precisely when the grapes were gathered and whether the mash was fermented before or after it was pressed. They thought thinning out the grapes was a waste, so there was a lot of wine but none of it very rich.

Mr. Busby could discuss these problems for hours, but aside from one of his sons, Lizzie was the only other person interested in the particulars of wine manufacture. Busby imported wine for his table from the most diverse growing regions, and he let Lizzie taste the wines, just as he did his less enthusiastic family members. On Sundays he took Lizzie to the vineyard, ostensibly to lay out a picnic for the family, but really as an audience for his endless stories about the grapes. Sometimes, Lizzie asked him a question or two or even expressed her opinions about the winemaking, which delighted Busby.

“Goodness, you two could make me as jealous as a schoolgirl,” said Mrs. Busby with a wink. Then she ducked contentedly under a parasol to read while her husband led Lizzie and the children among the grapevines to explain the importance of early harvesting and of pruning the vines.

For the first time in her life, Lizzie was almost unreservedly happy. She liked her work with the Busbys, and it fulfilled her. Naturally, she occasionally thought of Michael, the strange attraction he had exerted on her, and her unexpected bliss in his arms. In the end, he had hurt her, and she had suffered enough hurt. Lizzie did not want to mourn Michael, and she did not want to be disappointed and frightened anymore.

Summer and winter flew by, but she was still barely twenty-two years old. Lizzie needed a few years to learn to dream again, but she was confident that she would fall in love again. With a good man. Lizzie still believed in living a life pleasing to God, with children and a small house.

“We’re looking for a vintner for our Lizzie,” James Busby liked to joke when someone in the Busbys’ large circle of acquaintances teased Lizzie for not having a fiancé. “What do you think, Lizzie? Should he be a smoldering-eyed Frenchman from Languedoc or a blond German with blue eyes?”

“A dark-haired man with blue eyes,” Lizzie said. “But I fear they’re all making moonshine in Ireland.”

Chapter 3

Michael could not get used to killing and dismembering the whales, but the other jobs that presented themselves in Waiopuka were no more appealing. When he saw how seals were killed and skinned, he drank a whole bottle of whiskey to stop thinking about the little creatures’ howls as they were beaten to death and the cries of their mothers. He would take whales over that, but since he never worked his way up to harpooner or helmsman, his pay remained meager—and he needed enough of that to drink himself a nicer life in the evening. It would take years for him to pay off his ship’s passage from Nelson and be free—a gloomy outlook indeed.

It was two years of loveless work before an opportunity appeared. One day, the old sea dog, Robert Fyfe, ordered his men to build a pen next to his house. The wood for it came from the West Coast. Apparently, Fyfe was sparing nothing for his new project.

“What’s he got brewing? Farming, livestock?” Michael asked his neighbor, Chuck Eagle.

Chuck shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe horses? I could see him doing that. No matter what, he has to start something new. The whales are staying away. Just one in the past month.”

“It’s winter,” said Michael.

Chuck shook his head. “That hardly makes a difference. Besides, they’re all males. It’s always too cold here for the females. We used to hunt throughout the year, but now—well, the critters ain’t fools. It took them a while, but they’ve figured out this area’s trouble. Old Fyfe needs to either buy another ship or think of something else. And the seven seas don’t call much to him anymore.”

The residents of the new pens arrived a few days later, and Michael could hardly get enough of looking at them. Since he had left Ireland, he had hardly seen a sheep. And even in his old homeland, he had never seen such beautiful, well-fed examples as these three hundred animals now rushing into the enclosure in Fyfe’s yard.

“Romney sheep—two rams, three hundred ewes,” Fyfe declared proudly. “Look at the strength of those two fellows, Parsley.”

The two rams attacked each other. Such small confines seemed to make them aggressive.

“I’d separate them before they kill each other,” said Michael. “But truly beautiful animals. First-class quality. My respect.”

“You know something about sheep, do you?”

Michael nodded. “A little,” he said. “We had some. In the village I come from. Or, rather, the landlord had some. We tenants could feed at most two or three, then later, none. In the famine years, we ate the grass itself.”

Fyfe laughed. Michael bit his lip.

“Then I guess I know who to turn to when there’re problems,” Fyfe said affably, but Michael hardly listened.

Fyfe was known for insisting on being right. As long as the whaling station had existed, he had never asked for advice. Even buying the first-class sheep was surely a stroke of luck. A livestock trader could just as easily have tricked him.

Michael did not think much more about the sheep for the next two weeks. Two mighty whales fell into the whalers’ clutches, and Michael sank deep once again, first into blood and fat, then into whiskey.

One morning, four weeks after the arrival of the gorgeous Romney sheep, Captain Fyfe appeared at Michael’s hut.

“Parsley? I, well, you know about sheep, you said.”

Michael stumbled outside. The night before, he had once again drank his fill of whiskey.

“Better than whales, at least,” he mumbled.

“Was that bragging, or is there something to it?”

Michael yawned and tried to collect himself. “I herded the landlord’s sheep when I was a boy,” he said. “After that, I was mostly in the field. I’m no shepherd, but I’ve picked things up along the way. All Ireland’s full of sheep.”

“Well,” Fyfe said, “you sure can’t know less than me. So come by and take a look at them. To me, they seem as if they’re not all doing well. Mostly, they limp. I’d like to know why.”

Michael cleaned himself up and walked over to the house. He was shocked by what he saw. The sheep’s wool was matted and filthy, and the grassy ground of the pen had turned into a wasteland of mud. The hay for them to eat was wet and muddy, and several animals dragged their legs.

“And? Any idea?” asked Fyfe. Clearly, it did not please him to have lost hold of the reins.

Michael nodded. “Of course. The pen’s too small. The ground’s too wet and muddy.”

“And that’s why they’re limping?”

Michael nodded again. “It’s called foot rot,” he said. “Hoof inflammation. Take a look.” He went over to a sheep, flipped the protesting animal onto its back in one motion, and grabbed one of its hooves. “Here, it starts in the cleavage. Give it a smell. Stinks, don’t it?”

Michael pointed to the ulcerous mass that had already formed in the cleavage, and the captain crinkled his nose. Michael, himself, did not think the stench of the foot rot nearly as sickening as the stink of rotting whales, but he marveled that Fyfe even had a sense of smell anymore.

“So what do you do?” Fyfe asked, revolted. “I’ll be damned if the breeder didn’t trick me.”

Michael shook his head. “I don’t think so. They were in top form when they first got here. It’s from the mud—foot rot, like I said. It’s a problem with the environment.”

“So we need a bigger pasture, more wood. Will we be able to herd them back into it? And are they always going to limp?”

Michael smiled. “You can’t fence off the pastureland for six to nine hundred sheep,” he said. “And soon that’s how many you’ll have when these ladies lamb.” He gestured at the ewes. “Let them graze freely. The hooves need to be properly trimmed. And get some copper sulfate from a pharmacist. We’ll smear that on, or herd the sheep through a bath of it. Then it’ll heal.”

“Trim?” asked Fyfe, frustrated. “Trim something off their hooves? Can you do that? That is, without killing them?”

Michael laughed. “If you can get me a hoof cutter.”

Robert Fyfe left right away for Kaikoura while Michael began caring for the hooves. Some of the other workers built a basin through which he could herd the animals to treat their inflammation. Two days later, additional wood arrived for more fences. Clearly Fyfe was determined to take the care and breeding of his sheep seriously.

The wet winter gave way to a no-less wet spring, and the new pens soon resembled the old when it came to the condition of the ground.

“You need to herd the sheep out,” Michael advised once again.

“And if they don’t come back?” Fyfe asked, concerned.

“Send a shepherd along,” Michael advised. “One who likes to rove.”

Fyfe snorted. “You’d like that,” he scoffed. “Admit it: you’re after the job. Looking at the scenery all day and pocketing money for it.”

Michael shrugged. “If you leave the sheep here, you’ll soon have to pay me to trim their hooves again.”

And with that, Michael seized his opportunity. Fyfe had paid just as much for trimming the sheep’s hooves as he did for harpooning a whale. Now, he was looking for the cheapest possible alternative.

“Can girls do it too? Shepherd, that is.”

Michel laughed. “Anyone who’s not blind or lame can,” he said.