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

by Sarah Lark

  In 1864, the soldiers of the Fourth Waikato Militia Regiment and their families arrived and built their town on the grounds of Kirikiriroa, the old Maori fortress. They immediately tested their strength on the surrounding villages; the chieftains and their tribes withdrew without a fight into the woods of Waikato, where they were left in peace. The soldiers and their families, however, sat secure at the end of the world. No doubt they got bored and frustrated with their deployment. And for sure they held the recalcitrant natives responsible.

  Matariki, however, was no longer confronted with the hate of the people of Hamilton because she hardly ever left the house. Mrs. McConnell kept her busy making sure the house was spotless. After the store closed, she had to clean it and restock the shelves. Matariki longed for the end of the first week of work, and when no one hinted at her pay then, she set her sights on the end of the first month.

  When that time arrived, she raised the subject. It was now truly time to compensate her work.

  “You want money?” Mrs. McConnell stared at Matariki with a confounded expression. “You don’t really believe you’re owed money, do you?”

  Matariki nodded. “Of course,” she said calmly. “I’ve worked for a month. I should receive at least a pound for that.”

  “And your food?” asked Mr. McConnell. “Your shelter? The clothes on your back?”

  “And don’t think we haven’t noticed that you’ve been feeding that mutt as well,” added Mrs. McConnell.

  Dingo had gotten used to sleeping outside the barred window to Matariki’s room. She could reach through to pet him, and she always set aside some of her food rations to feed him a bit. Mostly, however, he had to beg or hunt for himself. He was as thin and shabby as when Matariki had found him.

  “I work more than ten hours a day,” Matariki defended herself. “I’ve earned more than a little food and a pallet in a cellar closet. And as for my clothes, I traded you for them before there was even talk of work.”

  “I clothed you out of pure compassion when you were practically naked,” said Mr. McConnell.

  It was a mistake to discuss these matters at the dinner table with the McConnells. She would have done better to attempt it in the store with witnesses, although the customers had no idea how much she did for the McConnells, and they probably would have avoided taking sides.

  Matariki squared herself. “Then I’m leaving tomorrow,” she declared.

  She did not particularly want to go. It would soon be winter, and even if there was no snow in Otago, it rained almost daily and could still get rather cold. Auckland was a good seventy miles away. She would manage. Her ancestors among the tribes had made it through considerably worse. She should have gone straight there after she had fled the Hauhau. But at the time, she had still thought the forests were full of Maori tribes that would likely bring her back to Kahu Heke. Now she knew better.

  The McConnells laughed. “And where will you go, sweetheart?” asked Archibald, at which Marge gave him an angry look. She hated when her husband called Matariki sweetheart.

  “The armed constables will have you before you’ve stepped outside of town.”

  Matariki frowned. “Why would they be after me?” she asked.

  Mrs. McConnell laughed. “Because you stole from the register, girl. Because you ran away from your employers without working off the clothes you have on your back. And there are plenty of witnesses, dear, who saw how you arrived here half-naked.”

  “But that would be a lie,” shouted Matariki. “Your, your faith forbids you from that. That, that’s not pleasing to God.”

  There was renewed cackling, this time from both McConnells. “How do you claim to know what’s pleasing to God? You with your idol.”

  Mrs. McConnell reached for the hei-tiki Matariki always wore around her neck. She pulled on it hard, but the leather band did not break. Matariki felt a burning pain in her neck as it dug into her flesh, but she managed to free herself quickly.

  “Watch out, or I’ll curse you.”

  Matariki held the small jade figurine in front of her without really expecting anything to happen. It would have worked among the Hauhau to invoke the spirits, but the McConnells were a different caliber. They made even God dance to their tune.

  “There, you see, a little heathen. That’s what they say, even in the mission school: the savages let themselves be baptized, so we’ll feed and clothe them. But then they run off again and dance around their totem poles.”

  “It certainly pleases God to keep you here, Martha,” said Archibald. “No doubt he sent you here to take part in the life of a Christian family and perhaps to one day truly repent.”

  “Like hell I will,” Matariki spat back, and stormed to her room.

  She was gathering her few possessions into a bundle when the key turned in the lock.

  For the first few days, Matariki tried to treat her imprisonment by the McConnells as lightly as her abduction by the Hauhau. When she had been among the Maori, it had been clear to her from the beginning that she would be able to escape eventually. Maori warriors were simply not prison guards. When the tribes went to war, it did happen that prisoners were enslaved, but no one needed chains to keep them. Whoever let himself be taken prisoner lost his spiritual rank, his mana. His own tribe was ashamed of him and would not have accepted him back. So, the slave remained willingly among the victors where he had to do menial labor but was mostly treated well. Matariki had not felt herself a slave, and she never believed she was bound by such tapu. She had not been afraid among the Hauhau until bullets started flying. And then she had escaped.

  In Hamilton, however, the situation proved different, although at first glance it did not look as hopeless. Matariki determined that very first night her cell was locked to run the risk of capture by the constables. At least then she would have the possibility of telling her story to the commanders. Perhaps someone would make the effort to follow up on it. And besides, it could not be worse in a reformatory than it was at the McConnells’.

  However, the matter was anything but easy. The McConnells were not stupid. The very next morning, Matariki heard Archibald tell every customer of his Maori maid’s attempt to steal and disappear with the money.

  “Thanks be to God we caught her. And now we’ve locked her up. No, no, we probably won’t report it. After all, the poor thing can hardly help being made to lie and steal since she was little. But naturally, we’ll try to drive it out of her. With the goodness of Christian people, but also with the sternness the Lord teaches us. I think you can help us with that. If the girl ever shows up somewhere without our permission . . .”

  Matariki suddenly saw herself surrounded by a whole town full of watchmen eager to catch her in a mistake. Over the first few days, she tried twice to get away but was stopped quickly.

  The man who brought her back the second time scolded Archibald, saying he should chastise his ward. The storekeeper did not do that. The only thing one could say for Archibald McConnell was that he never laid hands on Matariki. He did not hit her or attack her sexually, and that remained true even though Matariki developed into an exotic beauty over the next few months. Despite the meager food, her breasts grew, and her hips rounded. She now fit into the old green dress, her only possession. However, there was no one to compliment her.

  The McConnells completely sealed away their house slave.

  Winter passed. Spring came and gave way to summer. Not a ray of sun reached Matariki in the cellar. She was pale and constantly felt tired. To be sure, she missed the light, but she suffered even more from the loss of hope. Still, she constantly told herself that there had to be someone in Hamilton who did not hate her and her people, who would believe her when she told her story, and who would risk everything to help her.

  This someone, however, did not appear. At most, she would glimpse a customer who wouldn’t give her a second look and talked about her dismissively with Mrs. McConnell: “How is little Martha getting on?” or “It is truly Christian what you�
��ve taken on with the little savage.” Matariki could have screamed with rage, but she would only make her situation worse. If one of these customers ever heard her, it would only be when she shouted her cry for help.

  Every few weeks, a pastor of the Free Church of Scotland came by to pray with the McConnells. A fuss was always made about it, and naturally Matariki was presented. The first time, she tried to ignore the McConnells’ instructions: “You’ll say your prayers, be humble, and be thankful. Pour your heart out to the pastor.” In hurried, desperate words she confided in him that she was being held against her will, and he shook his head.

  “My child, you must learn to accept your fate with humility. It may not please you to be here and unable to give in to the sinful drives of your tribe. Yet, for your immortal soul, it is beneficial. So, be grateful and try to be a true Christian.”

  Matariki wanted to ask how this coincided with the McConnells’ beliefs that who was blessed and who was damned was fixed from the beginning of time. But it did not seem worth the effort to ask. Besides, the McConnells’ expressions made clear what awaited her after the cleric’s visit.

  During the pastor’s next visit, she showed herself tractable and humble, and she was as excited as a child when he gave her a copy of the Bible. The McConnells allowed her to keep it, and Matariki realized to her shame that she was moved to tears at that and truly thankful. Though she had not found the Bible such exciting reading before, now it was the first book she had held in her hands for months. The McConnells did not tolerate reading. The Bible was the only exception.

  Boredom added to Matariki’s hopelessness and desperation. The McConnells locked her up immediately after her work was done. She received her food in her cell. And then there was nothing to do but ruminate. If Dingo had not appeared every evening to receive her caresses and listen to her complaints, she probably would have gone mad.

  Matariki began to read to him from the Bible, just to hear her own voice. The scrawny dog listened patiently. And the girl again created a little hope from new dreams. If she could scrounge a pencil from somewhere, she could write a cry for help on the edge of a page and tie it around Dingo’s neck. If he then ran into the only nice person in town, who knew Dingo in turn because he occasionally gave him food, then perhaps she could be saved.

  Matariki did not find a pencil stub in the McConnells’ rooms; they wrote as little as they read. She dreamed of animal-loving citizens who opened their hearts to imprisoned girls, and sometimes of a fairy-tale prince who suddenly appeared to set her free. The longer her imprisonment lasted, the more often Maori warriors ghosted through her imaginings, men with spears and deadly war clubs, guns and frightening tattoos. She pictured an army of Hauhau fighters storming into Hamilton, razing houses, and throwing people into the river. She finally understood Kahu Heke’s argument for fortifying the men spiritually, and she spent nights thinking up ceremonies with which she could send warriors into battle with the mana of a chieftain’s daughter.

  Matariki felt herself more and more a part of the Maori people, and as such, she had every reason to hate the people who had stolen her land and enslaved its true owners. After a long time with the McConnells, she felt the power of the chieftain’s daughter rising within her.

  Matariki wanted to see blood. No matter the price.

  Chapter 5

  For Violet, the happiest time of her life began when her father disappeared. She and Rosie moved into a room in Heather’s apartment and studio.

  Heather asked her stepfather to sign registration papers so Violet could go to school. She suggested Peter Burton claim Violet as his niece.

  “If Paisley stays away, we’ll do it,” he declared. “For now, I know you don’t want to hear it, Heather, but I don’t trust this peace. The man could make life hell for us if he does come back. Besides, you should ask Violet if it’s what she really wants.”

  Violet was fourteen years old and could not read or write any better than a young child. How were they supposed to explain that a niece of Reverend Burton’s could hardly write her own name? In what class could they place her?

  After she thought about it, Violet decided she preferred to work her way through the lessons in Heather’s books by herself. She also worked in Kathleen and Claire’s shop. At first, the women let her make tea and take care of small duties, but soon she was helping the seamstresses, and Kathleen praised her for her skills. No one screamed at her; no one frightened her. Instead, the seamstresses and often the customers, too, complimented her for her beauty and her good manners. Ellen Paisley had always urged her daughter to be polite, courteous, and friendly, and when she grew brave enough to smile at the customers, she was irresistible. Claire insisted that when Violet was working at the shop, she wear a skirt and blouse from the Gold Mine Boutique’s collection.

  “Admit it. This is a trick to increase sales,” one of their regular customers said, laughing brightly. “You want to make us believe we can look as delicate and beautiful as your shopgirl in your clothes.”

  Violet also continued to model for Heather when they both had the time. However, word had already gotten out that Heather Coltrane was back in town, and her portraiture schedule was full. The city dwellers came to her apartment to have themselves painted, but when someone from an estate wanted a portrait, Heather also went traveling—though usually she had several commissions to fulfill at the same time.

  “Barrington Station: the woman of the house, a horse, and a dog,” Heather said as she packed her bags. “They’re still thinking about the ram. It depends on whether it wins at the agricultural exhibition.”

  Violet and Rosie stayed at the Burtons’ when Heather was traveling. Violet almost liked it better in the small house with its garden than in Heather’s elegant apartment. She loved gardening and enjoyed helping in the pastor’s soup kitchen, but most of all, she was happy when Sean Coltrane, Kathleen’s firstborn and Peter’s stepson, came to visit on Sundays.

  Until then, Violet’s heart had never pounded when she spoke with a boy, but this serious, dark-haired man had caught her eye. Sean was so quiet and friendly—very different from the men in Treherbert or on the ship. He had gentle, pale-green eyes, which always seemed lost in a lovely dream, and curly black hair. He did not speak much with Violet—what would a well-read young attorney, who was much older than she, perhaps nearly twenty years older, have had to say to a young girl from Treherbert? But when he did talk to her, it warmed her heart. Naturally, it was hardly more than, “Thank you, Violet,” or “Did you really bake this cake yourself, Violet? It’s exceptional.” Sometimes, though, he would compliment her appearance with something like, “What a lovely dress, Violet.” That would make her happy for days, and she would dream about his deep, friendly voice, which, in her imagination, said, “And how gorgeous you are, Violet. Would you consider kissing me?”

  Sean always smiled when he saw the girls, and when Violet brought herself to ask him something, he answered very seriously. On a previous visit, he had mentioned an interesting case about a dispute between the Maori and pakeha. A tribe wanted to sue because a land buyer had cheated them in the negotiations.

  Violet had thought about the case, and her response to it, for days. “But if they agreed to the sale,” observed Violet, “then they can’t change the contract later.”

  “That’s precisely the question,” said Sean thoughtfully, “and one could argue that the Maori were at fault if they sold too cheaply. However, they could not know what this piece of land would normally have been worth. It’s a bit like in horse trading. If the seller is a scoundrel and sands the horse’s teeth to make it look younger, then the buyer would have to know horses well to notice that. You can’t assume that, and at trial, the buyer would be in the right as far as that went.”

  “But the seller could say he didn’t know, especially if he bought the horse from another trader,” Violet argued.

  Sean laughed. “He’d probably do just that. And in that case, it would be good for the bu
yer if he had a witness to the sales conversation. For example, if he heard the trader say that the horse was born exactly three years ago in his stables.” Sean briefly thought of Ian Coltrane, whom he had long believed to be his father, and his disreputable horse-trading practices. But then he found his way back to his conversation with the lovely young girl who clearly hung on his every word. “You’ve recognized the principle, Violet,” he said amiably. “It’s his word against theirs, and naturally, our land buyer will try to talk himself out of it. Although the argument on both sides is a balancing act. We have to argue that the Maori are a bit foolish but not too foolish—we don’t want them to look completely incapable of business. It’s very difficult. And it’s an important case. Such a case sets what people call precedence. If we win for the tribe, others will refer to this judgment when they submit similar complaints.”

  Violet nodded. She noted every word of this first real conversation with Sean. She would have to think about it quite a bit and come up with more questions to keep the conversation going next week.

  Now, however, Sean turned to his mother. “While we’re on the subject of horse trading . . . You spoke in London with Colin? He really wants to come back?”

  Kathleen shrugged. “He’s hoping for better opportunities at being promoted here, in the Armed Constabulary.”

  Sean furrowed his brow. “With the constables? Does he want to shoot Maori? Well, he’s out of luck there. They’re resorting more and more to justice than show of force. There are a few exceptions, but, according to what I’ve heard, they’re now employing the armed constables by having them build bridges and roads.”