Beneath the Kauri Tree (The Sea of Freedom Trilogy Book 2)

by Sarah Lark

  Miss Partridge rubbed her nose once again. “But if she’s with a—”

  Lizzie held up her hand to stop the woman. “As for any possible beau, she’s never spoken of a boy, to me or to her roommate or her friends back home. Since the Maori, as I’m sure you were about to remark, are rather liberal on this point, my daughter would have seen no reason to remain completely silent about a relationship. So, please call the police, or shall I do it myself?”

  The police officer was gathering information when Hemi returned with Weru, his search companion. They had found Grainie on the coastal road and then searched the surrounding inlets.

  Miss Maynard moaned in desperation when Hemi pulled Romeo and Juliet from his bag, laying it on Miss Partridge’s desk. He also had Matariki’s riding boots.

  “We found even more,” he declared. “Perhaps you should take a look yourself, Officer. Michael already knows, Lizzie. We’re all meeting at the cove.”

  Half an hour later, the Drurys were standing in a desolate inlet lit by the morning sun, which one could only reach by wading through water or being lowered down from the rocks. Hemi and Weru were both skilled trackers, and they found the trail of Matariki’s little feet, Dingo’s paws, and the bare feet of two men. They followed all of the tracks into the water.

  “She was reading on the beach,” Hemi said, reconstructing the events for the Drurys and the officer. “She had taken off her boots. And then these men must have appeared, and they followed her into the water. No, Officer, Matariki went first, and they did not drag her. We then waded around this rock and discovered this cove. There was a canoe here.” He pointed to recognizable indents in the gravel. “And here was a fire and there another—no idea why they needed two, but they seem to have spent the night here until high tide. And now, look at that.”

  Hemi led the group to the back of the cove where the smaller fire had burned. At about hip height, a penciled note had been written on the pale rock.

  Kidnapped, Kahu Heke, North Island, two men, weapons, M.

  The letters were of uneven size and rather awkwardly written. Matariki must have written in several stages and surely in almost total darkness, maybe even behind her back. No doubt she had been under watch.

  Lizzie rubbed her eyes. “I should have known. The Hauhau and their crazy ideas about tikanga.”

  The officer looked at her, horrified. “The Hauhau, you say? For heaven’s sake. You don’t believe, do you, that they want to eat the girl?”

  Hemi shook his head. “A chieftain’s daughter? Certainly not that. On the contrary, they won’t touch the girl. But we still need to try to find Matariki. Isn’t there some kind of coast guard, Officer?”

  “There’ll be patrol boats,” Michael said. “I’ll pay for them myself if I have to. Money’s no object. I won’t leave my daughter to these madmen!”

  Lizzie only stared at her daughter’s note. “He won’t harm her,” she whispered, “but we won’t find her until he wants us to.”

  Chapter 4

  Kathleen, Peter, and Heather took the train to Treherbert, a village in Rhondda in the south of Wales. There had been coal mining in the area for twenty years, but the area had been added to the train line to Cardiff only a few years earlier.

  “It belongs to the South Wales Coalfield,” Peter explained to his family. “Which is the largest in Great Britain, almost sixty miles long.”

  “Is the area pretty?” asked Heather unassumingly.

  She had not liked the atmosphere in the Burton house in Roath any more than her mother or Reverend Burton did, but she would have loved to paint the landscape.

  “It used to be. As a boy, when I visited my uncle, there were tiny villages, hardly populated, waterfalls, mountains, lakes, rivers clear as glass. But that was before they started mining coal in grand style. Back then, it was considered difficult—there were hardly any roads, no rail connections, and most of the coal lay relatively deep beneath the earth. Nowadays, the Rhondda Valley is completely open to mining. That hasn’t contributed to the land’s beauty.”

  This description proved understated as Heather and Kathleen saw when the train crossed the first mining settlement. The lovely green countryside gave way to a black wasteland, marked by coal heaps and hoist frames. The Burtons could taste coal dust on their tongues, and after Kathleen wiped her face with her handkerchief dipped in eau de cologne, black marks showed on the fabric.

  Mining towns hugged the tracks. Even in Treherbert, the first thing a traveler saw was a housing row. In front of the newer houses were tiny lawns, which seemed gray and sickly. No wonder with all the dust.

  “These houses are so ugly,” Heather pronounced.

  Peter shrugged. “At least they’re houses,” he replied. “The mine owners have them built and rent them to their workers for relatively little money. That counts as very progressive.”

  “And it is,” Kathleen blurted out, “in comparison with the shacks we called home in Ireland. These people have work and a roof over their heads. You’ve been spoiled, Heather.”

  Heather laughed, but her discomfort was evident. “While they are working, the people here have a few hundred feet of earth over their heads, if I understand it right,” she said. “And they die of the black lung.”

  “We died of hunger,” said Kathleen.

  “Now, let’s not fight about who has it worse,” Peter said, trying to appease them. “Surely it’s going better for the people here than for the Irish during the famine—the flourishing pubs attest to that.” The first of the pubs could be seen right from the train station, and it seemed busy although it was only late afternoon. “Though Heather is without a doubt spoiled.” He laughed and tugged affectionately at the veil on his stepdaughter’s elegant hat.

  They left the train station and stepped onto the dusty street. No cabs were in sight.

  “Perhaps we should ask in the pub if they have cabs for hire here,” said Peter. “We can’t go by foot. The house is outside of town.”

  Peter walked to the pub while Kathleen and Heather kept an eye on the luggage. In Wales, as in Ireland or New Zealand, women were not welcome in a pub.

  Nevertheless, Peter met a woman wearing a worn blue housedress at the entrance, and she was moving as if to storm the taproom. However, she did not dare enter; instead, she threw open the door and desperately called inside.

  “Jim Paisley, I know you’re in here. And it’s no good hiding. I’m not going anywhere. This time I’m not going to go. I—”

  “Shall I look for your husband inside?” Peter saw tears in the eyes of the careworn woman. Without a doubt she had once been pretty. She had curly chestnut-colored hair and deep-blue eyes. “I’m a pastor—perhaps he’ll speak with me.”

  The woman sighed and wiped her tears away. “You can try, though so far our own pastor hasn’t had success showing him the error of his ways. Maybe he’s still sober enough to listen. He needs to give me his pay. The children are starving. If I can’t feed ’em, they don’t get anything done below. The foreman’s patient, but someday even he’ll have enough of my Jim.”

  Peter nodded in understanding. “I’ll send the man out to you,” he promised. “What was his name? Jim Paisley?”

  The woman nodded and brushed the hair from her face. The loose strands seemed to indicate she had put it up in a hurry.

  “Heavens, how I must look, Reverend. You likely think I belong with all the drunks and good-for-nothings inside,” she said. “But when Violet told me Jim and Fred went directly to the Golden Arms after work, I ran out at once. As long as he’s only got three beers in him, you can still sometimes talk to him.”

  Peter, who knew this type of man, smiled encouragingly and entered the pub. The barkeeper overheard Peter’s conversation with Mrs. Paisley. He looked distrustful at first but thawed on seeing Peter’s clerical collar.

  “My word, a pastor, and here I was thinking you were fooling with the women. You the reinforcements for our Reverend Clusky? This backwater has three pubs
and only the one church. So, by that measure, there’s need of you.” He laughed. “Jim Paisley is the fellow there.” The barkeeper pointed to a tall, reddish-blond man, just then cheering with his friends. “The one next to him is Fred, his son. He already drinks just like him. But try your luck, Reverend.”

  If Mrs. Paisley already had the barkeeper’s sympathy, her husband had to be in a bad way. Peter moved closer to the miners’ table and cleared his throat.

  “Mr. Paisley, I am Reverend Peter Burton. Your wife is outside and would like a word with you.”

  “Oh, would she?” The man looked at Peter and laughed an ugly laugh from his coal-dusted face. “Then maybe she ought to be a little nicer to me instead of always cursing at me and nagging. It’s embarrassing, you know, all that clamor in public.” The men around him nodded in agreement. “Beer for you, Reverend?”

  Peter shook his head. “I won’t contribute to drinking away the money your wife needs for the household. Mr. Paisley, ahead of you lies a whole week in which you and your children must eat. How many children do you have, anyway?”

  Paisley grinned. “Three,” he informed him, “but Fred here, my big boy, he’s already working hard with me.”

  He indicated the youth next to him, a strong redheaded boy, who appeared to be about fifteen years old. If Jim Paisley had looked the same in his youth, it was no wonder his wife had fallen in love with him. Fred Paisley was a handsome boy with flashing blue eyes and shining white teeth. His features were appealing, if a bit rough.

  “Well—have you paid your mother your keep today?” Peter turned to Fred.

  The youth grinned awkwardly. “I will, I will.” He dodged.

  “If anything’s left.” Peter shook his head. “Why don’t you run and do it now, Fred? Your mother’s waiting outside. Keep a couple pence for a beer after every shift and give her the rest. For your siblings.” Peter looked the boy square in the eye.

  “It’s just two girls,” Fred muttered. “They don’t need much.”

  “Come out, Jim, Fred!”

  Mrs. Paisley had decided not to rely on the pastor. Peter had seen women in the gold-mining settlement act this way. If she raved long enough in front of the pub, her husband would have to respond. Some men swallowed their pride and split their earnings with their wives. Usually they forgot the episode after the next few hours of drinking themselves silly. More often they beat their wives when they arrived home. Others had less compunction and beat their wives right there in the street. Then the women only received black eyes and no money at all. But that was the risk. More than one woman had assured Peter it was worth it.

  Perhaps it was the intervention of the pastor that made Fred and Jim Paisley choose another option. The boy pulled out his wallet and counted the few shillings of the week’s pay he had been given that afternoon. He pressed a third of it into the pastor’s hand.

  “Here. Give this to my mother.” He turned back to his beer.

  His father did likewise, grumbling.

  Peter stood at the bar with a handful of money and did not know what to say.

  “Now, piss off, Reverend,” Jim Paisley yelled at him.

  Peter fled outside.

  “It’s not much,” he noted as he handed the woman the money. She, however, was so happy that he feared she would kiss his hand.

  “It’s enough to survive.” She was joyous. “If I skimp and save and Violet earns a few pence somewhere. She’s always looking for work. I am too. I do the reverend’s laundry. So, if you need . . . but you already have a wife.”

  Mrs. Paisley must have realized that Kathleen and Heather were with Peter. They were waiting next to the bags, which reminded Peter about the carriage.

  “We’re here for only a short time,” he explained to the woman, “and now we need a cab to the Burton house.”

  Mrs. Paisley’s eyes widened at the mention of the manor house on the river. Did the miners know that an heir was expected here? Then she shook her head regretfully. “There are no cabdrivers here. The mine owners have their own carriages. And the rest of us go by foot.”

  Peter sighed. “It’s a bit far for that. But the barkeeper mentioned a church. Where would that be? Surely the pastor could help arrange some transportation.”

  Mrs. Paisley nodded energetically. “Saint Mary’s is only two streets over. And here’s Violet.” She indicated a scrawny girl, perhaps twelve or thirteen years old, who was running across the street toward them. “She can help carry your things.”

  The girl stopped somewhat breathlessly in front of them. Even through her concerned expression, it was clear that Violet would be a beauty. She had shining turquoise eyes and finely arched brows. Her chestnut-brown hair was tied into two thick braids, which reached halfway down her back. Her skin was pale, her cheeks rosy after the quick run. Her lips gleamed cherry red and were full and finely carved. She wore a dark-blue dress that had been mended many times and was tight at the chest.

  “Mother, do you have, did he . . . ?”

  Mrs. Paisley held the money out to her daughter with a smile. The girl’s face relaxed; her eyes brightened.

  Mrs. Paisley gestured gratefully to Peter. “With the help of Reverend—”

  “Burton,” Peter said. “And here are my wife and daughter.” He pointed to Kathleen and Heather who were coming toward them with the luggage.

  “The reverend and the ladies want to get to the church,” Mrs. Paisley explained to her daughter. “Why don’t you take them straight there and help carry their things? Where’d you leave Rosie?”

  “Mrs. Brown is watching her,” Violet told her. “She’s in high spirits. Her husband dropped off the money before he went to the pub, and he worked loads of overtime. And she wants to make candy with Rosie.”

  “Rosemary is my younger daughter,” Mrs. Paisley said. “My name’s Ellen, by the way. Again, many, many thanks, Reverend.”

  Ellen Paisley stowed the money in her pocket and turned to go. Violet reached reflexively for the heaviest suitcase. Peter took it from her. “You can help my wife,” he said with a meaningful glance. Kathleen could have carried her own luggage, but Peter was sure Violet would more readily accept money in thanks if she had done something for it.

  The church was not far. Saint Mary’s was a simple brick building. The parsonage next door mirrored the miners’ houses but stood on its own on a small, not-well-tended piece of land.

  “I told the reverend I’d clear a few beds to garden,” Violet said, excusing its sorry state, “but he says nothing will grow here either way. He’s right. The coal dust gets on everything.”

  She carried Kathleen’s bag up the three steps to the door and knocked. A stocky, dark-haired man opened the door. He smiled at Violet amicably.

  “Well, whom’ve you brought me?” he inquired. “Visitors?”

  Violet curtsied. “This is Reverend Burton and Mrs. and Miss Burton—of London, I think.”

  “Burton, did you say?” The pastor looked at Peter probingly as if searching for a family resemblance. “Come in and welcome. Violet, thank you. You can also take the laundry with you to your mother.”

  Violet’s beautiful eyes brightened anew. And even more so when Kathleen gave her a penny for her help carrying the luggage. For the Paisley women, this really seemed to be a lucky day: on top of the hard-won pay from the men, they had a laundry order from the pastor and a penny from visitors.

  In a flurry of curtsies and thank-yous, Violet left with the laundry basket.

  “A nice girl,” Peter observed, “but the father . . .”

  Reverend Clusky turned his eyes toward heaven. “And that boy Fred is just as much a good-for-nothing. Please, let me take your things, Mrs., Miss Burton. And tell me, is it a coincidence your name is Burton, or are you perhaps the rightful heir to the house on the Rhondda River?”

  Peter nodded. “The latter. But we don’t intend to settle here. In truth, I just wanted to sell the house and the land as quickly as possible. However, there seem to be dif
ficulties.”

  Reverend Clusky sighed. “You can say that again. Randolph Burton acts as if the estate belonged to him. He’s emptying the wine cellar at breathtaking speed, and he’s scared away the servants. Those he hadn’t already let go have left of their own accord. He’s running the estate into the ground. Word has it he’s already sold half the furniture and smashed some of it when boozed. He’s frenzied, Reverend Burton, against God and the world. Although I can’t begrudge him that.”

  The cleric’s gaze wandered to his fireplace mantel decorated by a few simply framed photographs. An old daguerreotype showed a serene-looking matron, likely Reverend Clusky’s deceased wife. The more recent photos, however, made Kathleen gasp for air. The delicate creature at first depicted as a girl with long dark hair and then in a bridal gown beside a stocky man was clearly Alice Burton.

  Reverend Clusky noticed his guests’ gaze. “Ah, one of the reasons it will hardly avail me to try reforming the young man,” he observed, “although I’m anything but happy with what Alice, my daughter, has wrought. If only she had taken the son. I think in truth she had an eye for young Randolph Burton, for she was constantly in the Burton house when James Burton received a visit from his nephew and grandnephew. Dear Lord, I still blame myself for not preventing it. Though I wouldn’t have had anything against a union with Randolph. But alas.”

  Peter laughed tiredly. “Alas, my brother fell for her, body and soul,” he said, completing his colleague’s sentence. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that either. Joseph was a widower, and your daughter surely was not dragged by her hair to the altar. So, there’s no reason to fault the two for their happiness, as long as they find it.”

  Reverend Burton raised his hands as if in blessing. “As long as they find it,” he repeated, and it sounded like a prayer to God. “Be that as it may, Randolph sees things differently. He feels they went behind his back, possibly robbing him of his inheritance. His father apparently has reduced his allowance. From what I hear in Cardiff, Alice requires a lot of money to be happy.”