Sleep in the Woods

by Dorothy Eden

  “I know it’s an awfully grand house for the country, but houses aren’t everything. Aren’t you having a baby yet?”

  “I’m not in a hurry,” Briar said primly.

  “It’s not a matter of whether you’re in a hurry or not. It just happens. Briar, you do love Saul, don’t you?”

  “What’s love got to do with it?”

  Sophie’s eyes widened, shocked. “Why, everything! If I didn’t love Peter I couldn’t let him touch me.”

  “Oh, don’t be such a hypocrite, Sophie. You’d have fallen into the arms of the first man who’d have you.”

  Sophie looked a little affronted, and agreed reluctantly, “Well, perhaps I would have. Love comes afterwards. Haven’t you found that out? Haven’t you really, Briar?”

  Briar stared at her angrily. Here Sophie was, supposed to be envying her her big house, her servants, all the superior furniture and comforts. And instead she was pitying her! With those round pale blue eyes, that smug plump face, that swelling stomach lifting the bedclothes.

  “Of course I love my husband.”

  But Sophie continued to look at her skeptically. “I don’t believe you do. I believe you’re afraid of him.”

  “Afraid of him!”

  “Well, I would be, I admit it.”

  “I’m not afraid of anybody,” Briar said crossly. “When those Hauhaus came—”

  “Hauhaus! Heavens! Tell me!” Sophie gave a little shriek and settled down to listen.

  When Briar had finished she said satisfyingly, “How brave you were! I’d have died. I never believed those things really happened in spite of what Uncle Hubert said. Oh, Briar, you’re not leaving me! Not in this room alone!”

  Briar laughed, pleasantly superior again.

  “Don’t be silly. We’re all close at hand. Besides, if you could make that long journey in your condition you needn’t be afraid of a Maori or two.”

  Sophie sighed. “But that’s what a pioneer woman is expected to do. Peter told me. He’s so crazy to get land and make his fortune. I don’t suppose fortunes are made that quickly. So I have to have my baby in the wilds. But if we can have a house like this—”

  “It took Saul four years to build this one.”

  “Oh, yes, I know I’ll have to be patient. We’ll just have a cottage at first, which won’t be any worse than the house we had in Wellington. How that chimney smoked! I was never so glad to leave a place. And the Governor had gone to Auckland, so social life had simply stopped. Oh, and Miss Matthews has made me two new gowns. I’ll show them to you tomorrow. They say the crinoline is going out, which is a pity because it’s wonderfully convenient for concealing one’s condition. And I don’t doubt I’ll be this way often enough.”

  In the next room which Aunt Charity was to share with Prudence, that lady prepared for bed, putting on almost as many clothes as she had discarded. But she was clean and pinkcheeked again, and none the worse for her experience. Indeed, she radiated cheerfulness.

  “Well, Prudence, you can see what Briar has done for herself by being sensible. You can do just as well, or better, if you’ll only put that ne’er-do-well sailor out of your mind.”

  “Yes, Aunt Charity.”

  “Don’t be so meek, child! Show some spirit. Wouldn’t you like a house like this?”

  At the window, Prudence said in a low voice, “It’s lonely and dark. I was frightened all the way. I kept thinking of things Uncle Hubert said the Hauhaus do. They really do do them, don’t they?”

  “So it’s rumored. I’ve yet to see such things with my own eyes.” Aunt Charity dismissed that subject, refusing to be deflected. “You see how well and happy Briar is. Though I don’t believe—”

  “You don’t believe what, Aunt Charity?”

  Aunt Charity’s mouth was tightly pursed. “Never mind, dear. Though Oriane Whitmore is going to be very disappointed if I’m not mistaken. Now, hand me my smelling salts. Oh, what a journey that was! Your Uncle Hubert will never believe it. But we’re pioneer women now, Prudence. That’s something to be proud of. And I believe that drawing room is large enough to hold a very adequate ball. We must get Katie to unpack our bags tomorrow. An idle piece, if ever there was, that girl. I’ll have to take her in hand.”

  Prudence at last climbed into bed beside the large mound of her aunt

  “Shall I blow the candles out, Aunt Charity?”

  “Yes, please. We must get some rest. This bed is very comfortable.” Aunt Charity suddenly bounced upright, almost ejecting the slight form of her niece from the bed. “Do you know, Prudence, this is the first time I’ve ever slept apart from your Uncle Hubert since we were married. And I intend to enjoy every minute of it!”

  Of the guests, only Peter and Mrs. Whitmore, who seemed made of iron, stayed up to supper. Conversation was general until Peter excused himself to go up to see how his wife was, and Briar followed to say goodnight. As she came back she heard Mrs. Whitmore saying, “Well, Saul, you’ve built a fine house.”

  “I’m glad you like it, mother. I looked forward to showing it to you.”

  “Who are those people?” She was pointing to the portraits over the mantelpiece. Briar, at the door, stood rigid.

  “They’re Briar’s parents.”

  “Oh! I didn’t know she had pictures of them. She was very secretive when I talked to her.”

  “She wanted to surprise you with them.”

  “Well—they look respectable enough. I’d hoped you’d have some news for me by now.”

  “Give us time, mother.”

  “Yes, I know. I’m impatient. If anything should go wrong—nothing is wrong, is there?”

  “What should be wrong?”

  Briar heard the harsh impatience in Saul’s voice. Suddenly she pressed her hands to her face and crept away. She should not have been listening. She hadn’t wanted to hear his loyalty to her, either about those two horrible portraits which she had neglected to remove, or about the fact that she had not conceived a child.

  She hadn’t tried not to, had she, she asked herself indignantly. Not until the last fortnight, anyway, after Jemima’s baby had died, and the little snowflake face, so still, so lost, had haunted her. Then she had cried out when Saul had put his hands on her, and he had drawn back, his head high, his face dark and stony. He hadn’t touched her again.

  But now he had lied for her. She wished she hadn’t heard.

  Saul came to bed very late, as he had been doing for the last fortnight, coming in quietly when he had imagined her asleep, and hoping not to disturb her.

  But tonight, although he was late, she had not put the candles out. She was uneasily conscious of an obligation.

  “Not asleep.”

  “No.”

  “There’s been too much excitement for you.” His voice was faintly indulgent, as if he spoke to a child. “My mother thinks you are managing very well.”

  “What’s it to do with her?” Briar asked sulkily.

  “Naturally she’s interested.”

  “Why did you lie to her about those portraits?”

  “A small courtesy to my wife.”

  She would have thanked him, but for his airy voice, as if the lie had meant little to him. Through half closed eyes she watched him undress. He had a lean hard body, she noticed. Tall and taut and hard, with that proud head. Not a gentle man. Not like Peter with his summer blue gaze.

  “Well,” he said, “if the Hauhaus attack tonight I wonder who’ll scream the loudest. I suppose you women will be planning some festivities. You’ll enjoy that, won’t you?”

  “Of course,” Briar replied, in a similar polite voice.

  He threw back the blankets. Instinctively she shrank into a smaller space. She hadn’t meant to. She didn’t think he had noticed. He lifted the candle to blow it out. Then on an impulse he held it where it illumined her face. “What are you looking for?”

  “The girl I saw this afternoon.” His face, heavy with shadows, hung over her. “She’s not often with me.
Well! Too much to hope for after this long day, I expect.”

  “Saul, don’t be whimsical!”

  “But you don’t like the other things I can be, either. Do you?”

  He looked a moment longer. His eyes seemed heavy with sleep. With deliberation he blew the candle out. It thudded on to the bedside table in the dark. Then with a swift neat movement he turned over and apparently went instantly to sleep.

  Briar lay stiff and unmoving, illogically furious with him for his look of disappointment.

  XXII

  IN THE MORNING Aunt Charity, fully restored by a night’s rest, took charge in the kitchen. Within an hour Mabel Kingi, after vainly calling on her ancestor in the mountain, said she was taking her things and leaving.

  She waddled, with an air of alarming dignity, to her room, took her two faded cotton dresses off their hooks, bundled them into an old potato sack and was ready.

  Aunt Charity explained to Briar. “That abominably lazy, dirty and impertinent Maori woman is leaving. And good riddance to bad rubbish. Now you can get some decent help.”

  Briar controlled her anger. “And where from, pray?”

  “Why, the village, of course. I know it’s a pitiful place. We came through it yesterday. But there must be some decent white girls—”

  Aunt Charity’s voice became less certain beneath Briar’s flashing regard.

  “We’ll go into the village later, Aunt Charity. You shall meet everybody and see how many young girls are clamoring for jobs. In the meantime, excuse me while I calm Mabel down.”

  “You mean you’re going to apologize to a native!”

  But Briar did not stop to witness Aunt Charity’s horror. She hurried to Mabel’s room, and found the stout Maori woman sitting on the floor clasping her possessions, tears running down her cheeks.

  “I don’t want to leave you, missus. But that fat pakeha I will not have in my kitchen. She has too much of the mouth. And she picks up rugs. Why does she pick up rugs? Does she think a devil hides under them?”

  “She’s looking for dust, I expect,” said Briar, wondering if she should have looked beneath the rag mats, too.

  “Dust! Is she afraid of that?” Mabel asked, her brown eyes bulging with interest.

  “She’s not used to seeing it in a house,” Briar explained. “Now, Mabel, please hang up your dresses and come back to work. It’s time to get the vegetables ready for lunch. Besides, it’s a long wet walk to the village, and no one there is likely to give you a job or a bed. And you can’t possibly walk to New Plymouth in this weather. Besides, there are still those bad warlike Maoris roaming about. So you’d really better stay.”

  The fat dark woman was wavering. She clasped her hands around the loose top of the potato sack and considered.

  “Where else would you get a beautiful room like this?” Briar said persuasively. The walls were not papered and the floor was bare, but Mabel, she knew, had been immensely proud of her warm dry room in a pakeha’s house. “And don’t you like working for me?”

  Mabel nodded violently. “Oh, yes, missus. I have great love for you. I call on my ancestor to protect you. You are kind and brave. But that other big one—he will pour smoke and fire on her!”

  “Then you’d better stay to see it happen, hadn’t you? Now, no more nonsense. Hang up your dresses and get back to work.”

  Mabel fumbled in the bag. “Yes, missus. I obey.” Then her head lifted, her eyes flashed, her face grew full of her impressive hauteur.

  “But no more lifting of rugs off the floor! You make her understand that, missus.”

  Briar returned from that encounter to find Aunt Charity upstairs giving Katie a demonstration on making beds. Katie, however, was shrewdly taking the instruction in good part, for Aunt Charity, in her enthusiasm, was doing the lion’s share of the work.

  “That girl,” she said to Briar afterwards, “is a slut.”

  “Oh, no, not Katie!”

  “She’s too bold. And she skimps her work. Her mind is on other things, and I could make a guess what those things are. I hope you don’t allow her too much freedom.”

  “She may do as she likes when her work is finished.”

  “Tut, tut! Then we must keep her very busy.”

  Briar swallowed her irritation. But later, when Aunt Charity began enthusiastically to make plans for a ball, she calmly asserted herself. Had Aunt Charity forgotten who was mistress of the house?

  “Now who is there to ask?” Aunt Charity said brightly. “Saul, you must help me to make a list. What people are suitable in this district?”

  “You mean, supposing it were for a Government House ball?” Briar put in smoothly.

  “Well, perhaps. Though one has to be a little more flexible, Briar dear, in these isolated parts. One would ask the minister and his wife, for instance, and the doctor and his wife. Also the gentlemen farmers. There must be several in this district.”

  Saul, looking bored, said he expected the Galloways would come, and the Masefields, if they could put their baby to sleep upstairs, and the Cranby-Smiths. Though it was bad weather, and everyone was still a little uneasy about the possibility of a surprise attack by the Hauhaus.

  “I believe there was a large ball on the Eve of Waterloo,” Aunt Charity said imperturbably. “A much more major war, if I may say so. Now don’t let us worry about things that may never happen. My husband has that pessimistic turn of mind, too. Give me some names for my list.”

  “I’ll give you some,” said Briar, with deceptive calm.

  “Splendid, dear. Whom?”

  “To begin with, Fred and Jemima Potter. I shouldn’t think Jemima’s ever been to a ball in her life, and if ever anyone deserved to, she does. She’s just lost her youngest child, and also had a miscarriage.”

  “Briar!”

  “It will cheer her up,” said Briar, thinking that if Aunt Charity had had to watch Jemima suffering she would not have been afraid of using that word, nor bothered as to whether it were an indelicate one to use in mixed company.

  “Then there’s Amy Perkins,” she continued. “I gave her one of my bonnets. She hadn’t had a new one for five years. She’d just adore to see some of the latest ball gowns.”

  “But, Briar—”

  Briar’s cheeks were flushed. She was aware of them all watching her. So Aunt Charity could quarrel with her servants, and be snobbish about her friends, could she? She would show her who was in command of this situation.

  “And Elisha Trott who has the village store. He’s nearly sixty, and he’s a bachelor. He’ll make a very suitable partner for you, Aunt Charity. I’m sure he dances a very energetic polka.” She ignored Aunt Charity’s popping eyes, and went on, “Then there’s Tom and Joe Brown who grind the flour, and their wives, and Rima Ludlow who is a full-blooded Maori. I teach her little boy Honi to read. And Amos O’Brien from the public house. Have you got them all down, Aunt Charity?”

  “My dear Briar, I can only imagine that you’re joking!”

  Briar was acutely aware of old Mrs. Whitmore’s eyes on her. What was she thinking? Did she care what the old lady was thinking?

  “I’m not joking, Aunt Charity. These people are my friends. I see them whenever I go to the village.”

  “That’s quite another thing. There are limits to one’s social obligations, even in this country. Isn’t that so, Saul? Mrs. Whitmore?”

  Saul’s eyes were narrowed with what seemed to be amusement. His mother said cryptically, “This, I imagine, will be my daughter-in-law’s ball.”

  Aunt Charity’s eyes glinted angrily. “Briar, this really is quite nonsensical. What would all these people have to wear to a ball?”

  “It wouldn’t matter what they wore. They’d find it fun enough to see our fashionable clothes.” She had been enjoying herself enormously—she felt revenged for Aunt Charity’s interference in her housekeeping affairs—but now she was deeply serious.

  “Don’t you realize, Aunt Charity, that some of these women haven’t been to
a town for years? They haven’t had a new dress for years. They have no fun except what they can make for themselves, and little enough of that. They live in extreme discomfort, and always, lately, in a state of tension in case the Maoris attack. This ball would be a wonderful happening for them. And you’ll be surprised how clever they can be at making themselves look festive.”

  “But, my dear child—” Aunt Charity, without supporters, was making a last despairing stand—“you don’t realize how important it is for cultured people like ourselves to form some kind of society in this country. We must have standards. We mustn’t all become a lot of barbarians.”

  “I think you’re saying all this to the wrong person, Aunt Charity. I can’t think that associating with Jemima Potter and Elisha Trott will turn me into a barbarian. Anyway, these people are my friends, and if we give a ball they come. If they are not asked, there will be no ball.”

  “Saul—”

  Saul shrugged his shoulders. “Sorry, Mrs. Carruthers. That seems to be my wife’s decision.”

  He didn’t say whether he agreed with it or not. But Briar imagined a little of the frosty disappointment of last night had gone out of his face. Did it matter if it hadn’t? She had enjoyed herself a great deal, she had proved she was mistress of her house, she had cared little what went on behind Mrs. Whitmore’s enigmatical gaze, and she had seen a look of warm admiration on Peter Fanshawe’s face.

  Sophie, of course, shared Aunt Charity’s consternation, and Prudence’s pale withdrawn face showed no feelings at all.

  But the important thing was the tremendous pleasure Jemima and Amy Perkins and Hannah Brown would get from seeing attractive ball dresses, and listening to dance music. Everyone, she decided, must wear her very grandest gown.

  “Saul!” she demanded imperiously, when they were alone, “you don’t say whether you approve of my asking all those people.”

  His face was unreadable. “You will be making social history in the colonies.”

  “You think this is easy for me to do because I was so recently a servant myself!”

  “On the contrary, great ladies also behave in this way.” So she didn’t know what he was thinking.