by Dorothy Eden
The Maori made another painful movement, raising himself on his elbow. His face, only lightly tattooed so that it was not really frightening, was turned up to her. The muscles over the broad naked shoulders and chest rippled.
Katie felt a piercing excitement that made her breathless. “I’ll get you food if you let me go, but how do you know I’ll come back alone? How do you know I won’t bring Mr. Whitmore and guns? You’re one of those who came to the house the other day, aren’t you? You should really be shot.”
“No one was hurt,” the man said defensively. “And I say, if you don’t come back alone all my people will come to this place. They will burn and kill. No one escapes this time. Te Wepu will fly. Te Kooti will come.”
Katie shrank back, awed by the sudden transforming ferocity of his face. She believed every word he said. Te Kooti would come. They would all die. Unless she brought this wounded man food, attended to his wound, set him on his way.
“Then let go of my leg,” she said sharply.
“You come back alone?”
“If I can. I’ll have to steal food. It might take me a while. Is your leg bad?”
“It will heal.”
“I’d better bring bandages. You stay there.” She began to giggle breathlessly. “But you have to, don’t you? Unless you crawl away.”
The man’s head had sunk into the ferns. Katie sensed his weakness. He was nearly dead, not from the wound, but from starvation.
“Oh, dear!” she whispered. “I’m going to cover you with ferns so no one will see you. I’ll be as quick as I can coming back.”
She flew home across the fields, but in sight of the house restrained her pace and crossed the yard to enter the kitchen nonchalantly. With luck Mrs. Whitmore would be in the drawing room sewing, and Mabel sleeping, squatting on the floor on her sturdy haunches, in the kitchen. She knew there was a cooked leg of lamb in the safe hanging outside, but she wanted bread, too, and material for bandages.
After that first threat to the imprisoned Maori, she did not for a moment intend to give him up. She had found him. She would care for him as one would an animal caught in a trap. Though no animal had those enormous liquid eyes, or burnished body, the very sight of which filled her with an inward trembling.
Mabel was sleeping, as she had hoped, but Mrs. Whitmore heard her and called, “Katie, is that you?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“What time are the men stopping work?”
“At dark, I guess.”
“Then there’s time to hang these curtains. Come and help me.”
“Oh, ma’am, I was supposed to—to dig a root of potatoes.”
“Mabel can do that. Since when has she left you to dig potatoes? Come along. What are you staring at?”
She had been looking helplessly out of the window at the line of the forest. When she didn’t come back he would think she had forsaken him. Or else broken her promise and gone to get men and guns.
“Really, Katie, the cat’s got your wits these days. Come along upstairs and let us do this work. Mr. Whitmore’s mother will be here almost any time now, and what’s she going to say if her room isn’t properly furnished?”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Katie docilely, following her mistress up the stairs.
This meant she would have to make her trip to the forest after dark. She didn’t think she would be brave enough. And how was she to find her way back to that spot? The whole thing seemed desperately impossible.
But if she put some candle ends and matches in her pocket, or better still borrowed the carriage lamp from the stables she could manage. She could make the journey while the men were having their supper with Mabel in the kitchen. She usually had hers there, too, when the master and mistress had been attended to in the dining room.
But tonight she would say she didn’t feel like eating, and was going to bed early. Her room was behind the kitchen, and a door led on to the verandah. It would be perfectly simple, so long as she could find her way in the dark.
It did require a great deal of courage, after all, but she kept thinking of that poor brown man with his great appealing eyes lying helplessly in the ferns. Besides, he hadn’t seemed entirely native. He spoke English too well, and his skin was a lighter brown than was usual for a Maori.
Loaded with provisions, bandages, a leg of lamb, a pocketful of candle ends, and the heavy stable lamp, Katie somehow made her difficult journey. When she reached the dark edge of the forest it took her quite half an hour, even with the light of the lamp to aid her, to find the track where the rata blossom had shone. Owls were calling and a wind stirred. It was horribly eerie.
“Here you!” she kept calling in a low voice. “Where are you?”
At last there was an answer. She stumbled forward in the gloom.
“Begorra, I thought I’d never find you!” Her cheerful Irish voice challenged the alien stirring of the forest, and the dark shadows.
“Here,” said the voice again, and the circle of light from the lamp shone on his dark face where he sat propped against a tree.
She produced the food and he pounced on it like a famished wolf. It gave her a queer satisfaction to see him at last growing satisfied and leaning back, replete.
“Now for that leg,” she said. “I’ve brought some ointment and bandages. I know a bit about nursing, because I did it on the ship coming out. What sort of wound have you got?”
“Bullet.”
“How is it you speak English so well?” Katie asked. She had glanced at the raw wound and didn’t like what she saw. If this was the man Doctor MacTavish had taken a pot shot at, she wished the doctor were here to repair his damage. But she was not squeamish where illness was concerned. She set down the lantern and began to work.
“My mother was a white woman,” he explained.
“So you’re a half-caste, too. What’s your name?”
“Rangi.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means the sun.”
Katie looked up at him. The light caught his face and shone on its dark sculptured features. He looked like some heathen god, she thought. That long broad-tipped nose, and the curling black hair knotted at the top of his head. And he was called after the sun. She felt half bewitched.
“You don’t hate white people, do you, Rangi?”
“No. We were good friends till the war started.”
“You—don’t eat them?”
His eyes brooded on her. He answered in a sad voice, “That is a bad custom. It should not have been brought back.”
“But yet you follow Te Kooti?”
“My people have many wrongs. We must fight to end them. It is weak not to fight. Ka whawhai tonu! Ake! Ake! Ake!”
“What on earth does that gibberish mean?”
“We will fight on for ever and ever and ever.”
Katie looked up practically. “Well, you won’t with this leg, that’s certain. But I don’t think the bullet’s in it. It looks clean enough. If you can hide for another few days you might get away. I’ll bring you more food if I can.”
“You are good.”
“Oh, that!” said Katie, her voice scornful because she couldn’t bear the thought of his superb almost naked body, his great shoulders, his liquid eyes. “Why do people want to fight. They’re mad. Let’s all be friends, I say.”
“Your hair is like the rata flower.”
Katie burst out laughing. “Oh, not as red as that. Well, there you are, Rangi. If you keep still that swelling ought to go down. But you’ll have to keep out of sight. I’ll bring you more food tomorrow.”
“There’s a hollow in this tree. I creep inside.”
“Oh, that’s fun. Like playing bears. And I’ll know where to find you. I’ll have to go now, or someone might be wanting the stable lamp and get worried. But I’ll come back. There aren’t any of your friends about, are there?”
“No. I was alone when I fell.”
“What were you doing around here, anyway?”
> “Getting new followers for Te Kooti.”
“And then you mean to fight?”
“Not here, perhaps. Perhaps far away.”
“It had better be far away!” Katie cried. “If you come back here brandishing a tomahawk I’ll shoot you myself, Mr. Rangi the Sun!”
She knew she ought to tell someone about him, especially about the information he had given her. But she couldn’t bear for him to be killed. And after all he had said the fighting would be far away. He had practically promised. That was if Te Kooti or any of his fierce warriors listened to a half-caste. If they didn’t, nothing could be done about it, anyway. No harm could be done by letting Rangi live and escape.
On the third day Katie obeyed her clamoring instinct and crept into the hollow of the tree beside him.
And on the fourth day he was gone.
Which was just as well, perhaps, for Saul had had a lock put on the outdoor safe to protect it from opossums or whatever other marauders had been stealing meat, and it would have been difficult to continue taking provisions into the forest.
But Katie stubbornly continued to look for Rangi until the winter rains set in, and she could no longer cross the fields without being bogged. She had to hide her desolation and the way her newly discovered body ached for him. He would come back, she told herself fiercely …
XX
AFTER A WEEK of almost constant rain the track to the village became impassable unless one wanted to sink into mud over one’s ankles. Briar was condemned to a dreary week in the house, not improved either by Katie’s strange broodiness or Saul’s complete aloofness. About Saul, she was becoming very clever. Outwardly she behaved with a polite formality, but inwardly she refused to let him have any effect on her at all. She could not, after that humiliating night when he had scorned her. She would never forgive him for that. Never! It had been all she could do to lie by his side, and only her firm intention to remain the mistress of Lucknow had kept her there. If Saul could be obstinate, so could she.
Now she fretted about what was happening in the village, knowing most of the cottages would be leaking, and at last urged Saul to go and remove the Potter family, at least, to the comfort of Lucknow.
It was shortly after he had gone that Mabel appeared to suddenly go mad. She began screeching and bumping about in the kitchen, and when Briar rushed out, could scarcely speak. Her eyes were bulging, her lips blanched. She pointed a trembling brown finger at the window.
“Oh, missus! A bad omen! Someone will die.”
All that Briar could see was one of the pretty little fantails that, almost as tame as kittens, would occasionally fly indoors and take an inquisitive look around.
“Mabel, don’t be silly! It’s only a fantail. I’ll open the window and let it out.”
Mabel was crouched against the wall, ready to take wing herself.
“It means death, missus, when it comes inside.”
“What nonsense, Mabel! Nobody is going to die.”
Nevertheless she watched with some anxiety for Saul’s return, and when he arrived alone premonition seized her. But it appeared that Jemima and the children had nothing worse than bad colds.
“Martha and Doc MacTavish are looking after them,” he reassured Briar. “They’ll be all right as soon as the sun shines.”
“But what about the baby? She’s so frail already. She can’t fight another cold. I should never have let them come to this province. They’d have been much better in Wellington. Oh, this horrible rain! Is it never going to stop?”
“At least it’s making things comparatively safe for us,” Saul pointed out. “I’ve reliable reports that Te Kooti’s the other side of the mountains, and the snow will lie all winter. So we can relax in that respect.”
“Only Maoris,” Briar said, with contempt. “I’m much more worried about little Rose.”
“Let’s hope you can go on speaking of the Maoris in that tone of voice,” Saul said ironically. “I assure you he deserves a great deal more respect.”
But Briar wasn’t listening. She suddenly said, “I’m going to see Jemima if I have to swim.”
Saul looked at her, then didn’t bother to argue. “No need to swim. We’ll take the horses. But it’s late. It will be dark in an hour.”
“I’ll stay the night. I’ll pack a bag. And tomorrow I’ll insist on their coming back here. They can be well wrapped up. The journey won’t hurt them any more than that damp cottage.”
She was thankful that she had gone, for although Jemima and the two older children were progressing well enough, the baby seemed very ill. Her face was a disturbing bluish color, and she breathed with difficulty.
She was going to die, Briar realized at once.
The damp smoky cottage was hastening her death, but there was nothing she could do about it except be cheerful for the sake of the others.
She put down her bag and said, “I’m staying. Come back for me tomorrow, Saul. Jemima, get back into bed at once. What are those children doing in the loft?”
“Oh, they get restless, staying in bed. Jimmy gets out, and of course Lucy has to follow.”
“I’ll go up to them presently. I’ll tell them a story. How long have you had these colds?”
“Only two days. The baby’s worst. The doctor says it’s croup.”
“Well, we’ll get her right. And you, too.”
Briar’s voice must have carried more conviction than she felt, for Jemima sank back with a contented sigh.
“Everyone’s so kind, but you share my troubles best, Miss Briar. Don’t laugh at the umbrella. We put it up where a drip keeps falling on the end of the bed.
What a place, Briar thought angrily. Cold, damp, choked with smoke from the stubborn fire, water running down the walls and curling up the carefully hung pictures, fungus growing on the floor. This, for the sake of his wretched potato patch and his cow and his sliver of independence was where Fred Potter would make his wife and children live.
Indignation made Briar hurry about, coaxing the fire to burn, climbing the ladder into the low-ceilinged loft to visit the delighted children, hanging the kettle over the fire to boil, and tidying the cluttered room as best she could.
But when Fred came in she could no longer be angry. He looked so forlorn and so anxious. She had to do her best to comfort him, too. And later, after tea, she got Jimmy and Lucy down from the attic, and with the baby in her lap where she seemed more contented, told stories to them all.
The lamp burned yellow and the manuka wood had a tangy smell. Jemima’s precious copper saucepans gleamed, the chintz curtains were drawn against the dark, wet night. Only an occasional drip fell heavily on the opened umbrella. It seemed as if, for a little while, they were all children, not living in a wet wilderness but in the palace of the fairy queen. Jimmy’s round face was lost in enchantment, and Lucy nodded against her shoulder.
“And they all lived happily ever after,” Briar finished, and wondered why there were tears in her eyes.
She made bread and milk for the children, and tucked them back into their bed in the loft.
Jemima wanted to take the baby into her bed, but Briar firmly refused. Jemima was to sleep tonight, and Fred also. When Doctor MacTavish knocked softly at ten o’clock everyone was asleep except Briar, who still sat with the baby in her lap.
“Is she very bad?” she whispered, with a wary glance towards the curtains drawn across Jemima’s and Fred’s bed.
“Aye. She’s no stamina, poor little lass. Keep her warm and comforted. Send Fred if you want me in the night, otherwise I’ll be in first thing in the morning. And you might mind Mrs. Potter, too. She’s not in the best of health herself. Bless you, lassie. Goodnight.”
It was a long night, and early in the morning, just after she had stirred and looked a little better, as if she would give her tremulous smile, the baby died.
There was not even time to rouse Fred. Briar sat perfectly still. The little form in her lap, with its snowflake face, was as quiet as time.<
br />
Faint daylight was beginning to show through the windows. It had stopped raining and the birds were beginning to sing. Suddenly she hated their alien calls. She wanted to scream to them to be quiet lest they woke the baby.
And when there was a thump and some hushed giggling overhead, she wanted to hush the children sharply, “You’ll wake your little sister!”
But their two heads had appeared at the loft, and they were looking down with round inquisitive eyes. Briar had a sudden sad knowledge that all their lives they would remember this scene, the dim room, and herself sitting so still in the rocking chair, the dead baby in her lap.
A little of her felt dead, too. But there was no time in the hours that followed to think of that. For Jemima’s grief brought a new disaster, and by evening it was apparent that there was not going to be a sixth Potter baby at the present time.
“All for the best,” Doctor MacTavish said briskly. “She was in no condition to have another sickly child at this stage.”
Be not afraid for the arrow that flieth by day … came Martha Peabody’s calm voice. “I’ll take care of Jemima now, Briar, if you and Saul will have Jimmy and Lucy for a few days. They’ll think that’s a party.”
“It’s Rose who was mine,” Briar said numbly. “She was always mine.”
“And the Lord’s,” added Martha gently. “Now go home with Saul. He’ll take care of you.”
She wanted to weep, but could not. When Saul took her, with uncharacteristic gentleness, in his arms, she strained away crying tensely, “I want to go home.”
“We’re going home, my love.”
“No, I don’t mean to Lucknow. I mean to England. I hate this country. I hate the rain and the forest and the danger and loneliness!” Her face was twisted with pain. “It’s where children die.”
“Your child won’t die, Briar.”
“Rose was my child. She was named for me. I don’t want any other. I’ve told you so.”
He took her hand, but she snatched it away fiercely. “Don’t touch me! I’m telling you the truth! I don’t want any other child!”
“You’re tired, my dear. Come home and get some sleep.”
