Sleep in the Woods

by Dorothy Eden

  Briar flushed with anger. “And what do you find so funny about it?”

  “Why, you must admit, my love, it’s an amusing situation.”

  “So that’s the word you would use. Amusing. I am nineteen. I may live to be seventy or eighty. I confess I don’t understand you, Saul. I simply cannot find anything to laugh at in the contemplation of the next fifty years.”

  His face was abruptly still, his laughter gone. “Why, that’s a tragedy, isn’t it?” he said, very quietly.

  Then, without touching her, he turned and went out of the room. If he had touched her, with his arrogance gone and his face curiously poignant, she might have responded, if only from pity and remorse. She had felt a sudden painful impulse to do so.

  But he had gone. So there was nothing for her to do but blow out the lamp and go upstairs to bed. When he came, and the candle was out, she would try to swallow her pride and admit that she had not been entirely fair, but that she was very young, she was not yet very good at marriage, if he would have patience …

  There was not, however, an opportunity to make this self-sacrificing speech, for Saul did not come to bed. After all she had the big bedroom to herself, as if she were a girl again and entitled to privacy.

  By the morning she hadn’t the least intention or desire to apologize.

  XVII

  SAUL, WAS already having breakfast when she went down. In a bright conversational voice she said, “Good morning. Were you alarmed about a Hauhau attack last night that you did not come to bed?”

  He met her gaze with a hard, indifferent one. “No, I had a sick colt. I stayed with him.”

  “Nothing serious, I hope?”

  “No. He seems better this morning. Been eating something to upset him, probably. We don’t know a lot about some of the plants here. The tutu plant, for instance, will kill cattle in a few hours.”

  “How terrible!”

  “But that grows chiefly in the South Island, luckily for us.”

  Katie had come in with a fresh pot of tea. Briar said good morning to her, and sat down opposite her husband. They surely, she reflected ironically, gave every appearance of being a well-bred, happily married couple, conversing politely at breakfast. It was not apparent that she had suddenly become so distasteful to her husband that he did not wish to share her bed.

  “Briar, as soon as you have finished your breakfast will you write letters to Sophie and to my mother inviting them here as soon as they care to come. Can you have them done in an hour?”

  “Yes. But why this urgent hurry?”

  “I’m leaving for New Plymouth immediately. I’ll take them with me and they can be sent on the return journey of the Seagull.”

  Now she was startled. “You’re going away?”

  “Only for the night. I should be back before midnight tomorrow. There are stores which have arrived for me that I must arrange to transport, and other business to attend to.”

  “You didn’t tell me this last night?”

  “We were talking of other things.” His voice was aloof and unemotional. Suddenly she was in a panic. Had they quarreled so seriously? And what was to happen if they had? Although she could not view the next fifty years with equanimity, it was disastrous to view them with no marriage.

  “Must you go yourself?”

  “I could send Fred Potter.”

  “No, he mustn’t be away from Jemima just now, with the baby sick, and everything.”

  “I imagined you would say that.” Did his gaze hold a little approval? She couldn’t be sure.

  He went on, “When you have written the letters I want you and Katie to get ready to come as far as the village with me. You can stay with the Peabody’s, and I expect Jemima can manage a bed for Katie.”

  “Why can’t we stay here?”

  “I don’t wish you to.”

  “But I’m an excellent shot now with a rifle, and there have been no alarms. Surely for one night—”

  “I don’t wish you to stay here,” he repeated impatiently. “I know it’s been safe so far, but it will be safer in the village. So make haste, will you.”

  “Very well,” said Briar slowly. “I’ll go and write the letters. But there’s no need for you to wait for Katie and me. Fred can take us later in the dray. You can be miles on your way by then.”

  He considered. “Perhaps that would be a good idea. But I wish you to go as soon as possible, you understand. Before midday.”

  An hour later he said goodbye to her. Once, even as short a time ago as yesterday, his arms would have crushed her, he would have commanded in his fierce way, “Kiss me!”

  But now his embrace was perfunctory, and for the benefit of the servants only. There was just a brief moment when he seemed to search her face with a look of angry hostility. Then he leaped on his horse and was gone.

  Briar turned abruptly from the sight of his tall figure riding off. She gave her shoulders a slight shake and went back indoors. Now that he was gone she no longer felt guilt for her behavior, and relief flooded over her. For the first time the house was entirely hers. She wanted to run over it from top to bottom, reveling in its superiority, planning further decorations and improvements which she could show off to visitors, pretending, indeed, that there was no tall arrogant figure to come striding through asserting his ownership. All this day and the coming night and tomorrow were hers. She intended to enjoy them to the full.

  “Katie,” she said, “go and tell Fred to unharness the horses. I’ve decided not to go to the village after all.”

  “But, ma’am, I thought the master said—”

  “What the master said is none of your business. I just haven’t time to be away for twenty-four hours. Soon guests will be coming to stay and the house is not nearly ready for them. Today, we’re going to spend making soap and candles and preserves, and later we have to measure and hem curtains.”

  “But, ma’am, supposing—”

  Briar looked at Katie’s wild eyes and said impatiently, “We’re going to be much too busy to be nervous. And anyway, there’s no reason to be nervous. Nothing has happened while the master was here, has it? So why should something happen immediately he goes away? Now tell Mabel we shall need her help. She can begin by scouring the preserving pan. No, you’d better do that, Katie. Mabel hasn’t the faintest idea of the use of soap. She can start gathering apples for preserves. I have a recipe that Mrs. Carruthers gave me.”

  Aunt Charity had written in her letter yesterday, “Are you being firm with your servants? The first lesson they must learn is to obey without question. And do not tolerate any kind of laziness. Give them an inch and they’ll take a mile …”

  With a fire crackling in the stove, and a pleasant smell of burned sugar and peeled apples, the kitchen was a cozy place when Fred put his head around the door.

  “Ma’am, is it right what Katie told me? You’re not going to the village?”

  “That’s quite right, Fred. We’re much too busy, as you can see. Put the horses out and get on with your work.”

  “But Mr. Whitmore said particularly I was to take you.”

  He was being as difficult as Katie. Indeed, he even looked afraid. His face was pasty, and creased with worry. He was probably always afraid, Briar realized, and her voice was kind as she said, “I take all the responsibility for this change of plan. You will not be blamed.”

  He went away reluctantly, and Mabel, sitting squarely at the table, a carving knife in her hand, her huge eyes rolling fiercely, said, “Ho! If any of those bad Maoris come here, I call to my ancestor. He fix them, plenty smoke and fire.” She rocked backwards and forwards with laughter. She was not being a haughty rangatira today, but merely a fat brown woman who was enjoying the excitement of these strange pursuits in the kitchen, boiling down fat until it was so hot it bit if one stuck one’s finger in it, then pouring it carefully into molds to make the long yellow candles that gave light mysteriously, as if a small flame had been stolen from her ancestor in the burning mount
ain. And peeling the green skins off a pile of apples, and tossing them into the great copper pan for their fragrant cooking. Today she was enjoying herself, and was even prepared to temporarily forget her antagonism for the red-headed Katie.

  Indeed, the three of them were not mistress and servants, not white-skinned or brown, but merely three women following the pleasant domestic pursuits of centuries.

  It was not until dusk that Briar began to feel nervous. She had sent Fred home to Jemima, and now there were only the three women in the house, and the two shepherds who slept in huts near the stables.

  All at once the big house seemed full of stealthy sounds. The wind blew a curtain inwards, a bird, a bush parrot perhaps, or a pigeon, scrabbled on the roof, the stairs creaked. Briar would have stayed with Katie and Mabel in the kitchen, but they were busy getting the evening meal, and she wanted to measure and hem the lace curtains for the room in which Saul’s mother would sleep. It was foolish to be nervous, for other evenings had been exactly the same as this, when Saul had been outdoors clearing the bush or riding around his sheep. He never came in until after dark, when the lamps were lit and the curtains drawn.

  Everything tonight was as usual, except that she had taken the precaution of bolting the front door and having a loaded rifle leaning against the wall near to her. This she looked at with distaste, for although practicing with it had been entertaining enough, the thought of actually aiming and firing it at a human being filled her with horror.

  The sunset lasted a particularly long time, then the sky was suffused with a delicate gold long after the sun had disappeared. Briar had delayed lighting the lamp, but at last had to do so in order to see to thread the needle.

  She had just sat down to her work again when one of the dogs barked. She started violently, then forced herself to think reasonably. The dogs barked at a number of things, as she had discovered during the last weeks, when every sound had to be interpreted. Now it was probably because the shepherds were coming home, or a wild pig was rooting in the undergrowth. She picked up her skirts and went to peer out of the window into the growing dusk. Everything was normal. There was no movement but the swaying branches of trees in the wind, and now the only sound was the rattle of flax bushes. She didn’t want to disturb the women in the kitchen because she was nervous that a dog had barked.

  She went out there and said casually, “Are the men in yet?”

  “No, ma’am. It’s only six. They don’t come in for another half hour.”

  Katie, busy ironing pillow cases with the heavy flat iron heated on the stove, was not disturbed and had apparently paid no attention to the barking of the dog. Briar looked out of the window towards the sheds. Again there was no movement, and the dog was now silent.

  Mabel Kingi gave her deep rumbling laugh. “He’ll be all right, missus. He halfway to town now.”

  Her brilliant brown eyes were knowing, her smile full of warm sympathy. Aunt Charity would have said she was being much too familiar and impertinent, but how did one teach a simple Maori these finer distinctions of behavior. Briar found her beaming face comforting, and mentally decided to overlook some of her laziness and ignorant ways. She was warm-hearted, and in trouble would be an immense help.

  She returned to the lamplit drawing room and picked up her sewing.

  It was five minutes later that she raised her eyes to the window and saw the brown face looking in.

  She did not know why she did not scream. She rose slowly, her work falling to the floor. The rifle was leaning against the wall on the other side of the room. By the time she had reached it that figure outside could have smashed the window with his tomahawk and leaped in.

  She must do nothing to antagonize him. She must stand her ground, giving him stare for stare, and hope that Katie would not come in and begin to scream, hope that this was a single prowler and that the shepherds, coming home, would come up behind him and seize him.

  Indeed, she could not have moved to do anything, for the stare of that dark face, almost black with tattooing, with the white-tipped huia feather stuck in the long hair, the arrogant straight nose, and the lips drawn back in a snarl, hypnotized her as a leopard crouched to spring might have done.

  It seemed to be hours that she stood there, transfixed. Then, as abruptly as it had appeared, the dark face was gone. A moment later there came the pounding at the front door.

  Katie screamed and came flying into the hall. “Who is it, ma’am?”

  Briar had seized the rifle, but now she did not know what to do. If the door fell in to the pounding she would fire. But she could kill only one, and by the sound she knew that the figure at the window had not been alone.

  It was Mabel who, trembling and rolling her eyes, made sense.

  “You open the door, missus. They not fight. If they fight they break windows and chop down door. They want something. You go see. But you drop that gun, missus.”

  She couldn’t open the door to a group of savages who would cut off her head and gouge out her eyes and then cook her body, like that of a wild pig, on a spit, Briar reflected in horror. She remembered the ferocious face at the window and thought that she would faint.

  “Oh, ma’am!” whispered Katie, clinging to her as the pounding was redoubled and wild voices shouted unintelligibly. “What shall we do?”

  Strangely enough it was Katie clinging to her that dismissed her own panic and forced her to think clearly. She was the mistress. She was responsible. It was because of her that they were still at Lucknow and not safely in the village. So if anyone were to die, it must be she.

  “Go into the kitchen, Katie,” she ordered crisply. “You stay here, Mabel. If they want something I shall need you to interpret. Now I’m going to open the door.”

  She went steadily forward, fumbled with the bolts, and swung open the door.

  There must have been eight of them standing there in the dusk. They were a war party for their bodies were oiled, their faces daubed with red paint, and they carried muskets and tomahawks. Their leader, the one whose face had peered in at the window (Briar recognized him by the feather in his hair), wore a fine cloak of kiwi feathers, and, she noticed with sudden excitement, a greenstone tiki hung around his neck.

  He began to talk rapidly and unintelligibly. He beckoned to one of his party, and the man stepped forward and put a rolled up cloth in his hand. This the young chief shook out, and Briar looked uncomprehendingly at the long narrow length of red silk with strange symbols embroidered on it. Then she saw that the chief was pointing at a part that was torn. It was a bad rent, and seemed to distress him very much. He shook his head and pointed from the rent to her.

  “What does he want, Mabel?” Briar asked quite calmly.

  “He wants you to mend the flag, missus.”

  So that was it. He had looked through the window and seen her sewing. But was that all that such a fierce-looking party had come for? To have a bit of silk mended?

  “Ask him what the flag is, Mabel?”

  The chief talked excitedly at great length, and when Mabel interpreted her eyes rolled frenziedly and she seemed both afraid and impressed. “It’s Te Wepu, missus. Te Kooti’s war flag. He never goes into battle without it. It was hurt in the last battle. He thinks he lose fight if it not mended. He must find white lady to sew.”

  The chief spoke again, and Mabel went on to explain, “The flag was made by missionaries, lady missionaries living in church. White ladies, missus. So only white lady can sew.”

  The length of the flag was rapidly unrolled, and a dark brown finger pointed to the symbols embroidered on the red silk, a crescent moon, a cross, a mountain, a star and a bleeding heart. It was an enormous length, about fifty feet Briar estimated, and she suddenly realized why that proud flying pennant would stir superstition in the hearts of the brown warriors. The ‘white ladies in church’ must have been nuns, and the flag made in days of peace and embroidered with motifs suitable to the people and the country.

  “Ask them where Te Koot
i is,” said Briar.

  At this question there was a muttering and a fearsome scowling and shaking of heads. The leader spoke again and Mabel interpreted, “He say you sew Te Wepu, missus. Te Kooti not here. He far away.”

  Briar looked at the menacing figures. If she wanted to live, she realized, she must do as they asked. She prayed that her hands would not tremble too much to thread her needle.

  “Bring me my workbox, Mabel. And the lamp. I will do it here. I don’t intend to have these heathens in my house.”

  She sat on the carved wooden hall seat. It had come, Saul had told her, from his English home in Norfolk. It was sixteenth century and had been used by generations of Whitmores in their manor house. With the lamplight shining on her bent head, and her hands stitching unhurriedly, Briar herself might have been sitting in that sheltered English home. It was incredible that she was in the wilds, with a half-dozen armed and ferocious savages standing at the doorway, and the cold night wind sweeping in.

  If Andrew Gaunt had taught her well, so had his wife. She had had to do a great deal of sewing and mending, and every stitch had had to be neat and precise. Habit stayed with her now, and her stitching was quite as fine as that done by the nuns in the convent when they had wished to please the peaceful and friendly natives of New Zealand by making them a flag. No one could have known it would fly over such terrible battlefields, nor that one terrorized woman would one day be called on to repair it.

  Suddenly, as she worked, she heard a peculiar rasping sound from the back of the house, and Katie came creeping in to say that two of the Maori warriors were sharpening their axes on the grindstone at the back door. “They mean to kill us when you have done this!” she whispered.

  Briar lifted her eyes to meet, unflinchingly, the hard inimical stare of the chief. With a casual movement she felt at her neck and flipped out the greenstone tiki which she always wore. It was almost identical with that worn by the chief himself.

  The merest flicker passed over his face. After a moment he said something to his men, and one of them disappeared. Presently the grinding noise stopped. Briar noticed that two of the others replaced their tomahawks under their flax mats. She bent her head to her sewing again. Her hands did not tremble. Her fierce will would not allow them to. To show herself afraid in the eyes of these savages would be humiliating indeed.