by Sarah Lark
The tavern in front of which she had met Claudia was called the Green Arrow, and from what Lizzie could tell, it was also the cleanest in Kaikoura. Lizzie entered and asked for work.
Pete Hunter, the stocky barkeeper, didn’t ask for references or her name. He eyed Lizzie briefly, mumbled something, and then pointed her to a room on the second floor.
“You need to keep it clean yourself, do laundry once a week at the Chinese cleaners. If you want to change your sheets more often, you have to wash them yourself.”
Lizzie spent the first hours of her new old life scrubbing the room halfway clean and fighting the fleas.
“Should I lend you a dress?” asked Claudia as they went down to the tavern that evening. “Hunter’ll advance you the money for materials if you want to sew yourself one, but he’ll want it back with interest.”
Lizzie shook her head. She had spent the previous few hours lowering the neckline on her maid’s dress and raising the skirt under the apron so that it was shorter in front and gave a view of her legs. Her face was made-up and her hair coiffed, and she wore her bonnet somewhat askew.
She placed herself sheepishly next to the door of the tavern and curtsied as the first man entered. “May I take the master’s coat?” Lizzie smiled mischievously up at her customer, recognizing the coffin maker.
Lizzie had her first customer.
Kahu Heke sailed north, thinking of the girl he was leaving behind. The first girl who seemed capable of wandering with him between the worlds of the Maori and the pakeha. For now, the pakeha still held on to her. As for him? Kahu Heke had no answer. Probably, they would elect him chief after his uncle Kuti Haoka. The Ngati Pau respected him. But if he wanted even a chance to win over Lizzie, he would have to become a farmer instead, cutting through all the tapu that surrounded a warrior chief, acclimating like the Ngai Tahu, whom he looked down upon. He could bring his worlds closer together for Elizabeth’s sake. In truth, he would only be speeding up a development that was inevitable anyway.
Kahu decided not to bother with Kororareka and negotiating with the whalers anymore. It would be better to learn something about agriculture—perhaps even about what fascinated Lizzie so much: viniculture.
The young Maori smiled grimly as the Hauwhenua flew over the waves. If he wanted, once he was chief, he could even get himself crowned king. So far, no one was fighting for the post. To the Maori, the idea of centralized rule was foreign. If someone like Kahu, with his knowledge of pakeha culture and his fluent English, applied, everyone would be excited.
In the rush of speed and wind, Kahu gave in to his daydreams. Elizabeth was his queen, and one day, he would take her with him to London. The young Maori saw himself as kingi, and he laughed as he pictured Elizabeth curtsying before Victoria and having Prince Albert gallantly kiss her hand. Elizabeth would prove herself worthy of her name, a queen who warmed the hearts of others with her irresistible smile.
Chapter 9
Over the previous few days, Michael and his Maori helpers had freed more than four thousand mostly unwilling ewes and rams from their wool—all the sheep of the farms in the Kaikoura district. It had long since become custom for Michael to hand the Fyffes’ farm over to the Maori girls for a few weeks in the spring and travel from farm to farm with his shearing company. The men earned a considerable additional income doing it, while the girls helped lamb and herd the ewes into the mountains for the summer. Fyffe was the only owner who employed women for that job; the other farms exclusively hired men to work as shepherds.
Now that the sheep were shorn, Michael had money in his pocket and a powerful thirst. A march through the taverns in Kaikoura sounded just about right to him. There would still be something left over to set aside for the voyage back to Ireland.
Michael was saving for his return home, although he was not sure how serious he was about it anymore. Since the letter from Father O’Brien had arrived, his zeal had markedly decreased. After all, he would not be seeing Kathleen now. She was gone. Somewhere in America with that swindling ass, Ian Coltrane.
Michael wondered how, of all the men in Ireland, she could have fallen in with that one; when he thought of his son calling that livestock trader his father, it horrified him. Worse still, all of it had been done with Michael’s money. Ian Coltrane would never ever have been able to pay for passage on his own. And Michael did not believe that Ian loved Kathleen. From what he knew, Ian had kept a girl in Wicklow—a red-haired whore, impudent and stuck-up, the exact opposite of the reserved, gentle Kathleen. And Kathleen could not have loved Ian. Perhaps her parents had forced her to marry him.
Whenever Michael rode alone across the country, he imagined traveling to America and looking for Kathleen. He would flush her out somewhere in New York and knock Ian Coltrane out of her bed. Of course he knew that it would be harder to search New York than all of Ireland. Besides, the normal route to New York led to Australia—where Michael absolutely did not want to go—and then to China. So for now, Michael put off the decision. His savings grew so slowly that he would have to work for years to afford the passage. The whiskey and the blondes in Kaikoura ate up much of what he earned. When Michael’s longing became overwhelming, he would treat himself to a girl, like cute little Claudia from the Green Arrow—and he paid so well that none of the girls ever complained when he called out Kathleen’s name as he climaxed.
That evening, too, after shearing, he felt the need for a night with Claudia or one of the other blondes. Michael left his Maori friends Tane and Maui at the first tavern, where the beer was weaker and the women cheaper. As he opened the door at the Green Arrow, he was taken aback to see a peculiar figure standing there.
“Good evening, sir. May I help you out of your coat?” A petite, dark-blonde girl in a simple maid’s dress, with a shorter skirt and a lower neckline than most, looked at Michael amicably. “It would be my pleasure to serve you tonight, sir.” The girl sank down in a low curtsy but smiled seductively.
Michael could not help himself. He laughed uproariously. “Lizzie Owens! And still not respectable.”
Lizzie glanced at Michael’s ragged appearance, his tattered breeches and dirty raincoat. “Michael Drury,” she said, “and still not rich.”
Michael had long since forgotten the discord between them when they had parted. Laughing, he took Lizzie in his arms and swung her around.
“Lassie, it’s so good to see you again. I’ve wondered a long time what became of you.”
Lizzie broke free. She was also happy to see Michael, but by no means did she want to let him hurt her again.
“Shouldn’t you long since have returned to Ireland?” she asked. “To marry your Mary Kathleen?”
Michael sighed. “Oh, Lizzie, that’s a long story.”
He began to tell it, but then Claudia shoved her way between them.
“Hands off of this one, Lizzie. He’s a regular of mine.” She rubbed her body against Michael and looked him seductively in the eye.
Lizzie stepped back. “I don’t want him. I just know him from long ago.”
Claudia smirked, whereas Michael looked embarrassed. Lizzie turned to Michael. “Do what you came for. We can talk later.”
He still looked terrific with his curly black hair, which he wore longer now than before. Lizzie had almost forgotten how blue his eyes were and how they could melt her in an instant.
“You really don’t mind, Lizzie, if she and I go . . . ?”
Lizzie rolled her eyes. “No, Michael. I’m just happy when no one calls me Kathleen in bed. Though I’d love to know what happened to your lady. We’ll have a drink once you’ve made Claudia here a happy girl.”
With a smile, she returned to her post. As every evening, she did not have to wait long. Men went mad for her maid outfit, especially after she altered it and started calling every insignificant whaler or shepherd “master.” Lizzie earned enough to get by and to afford a new dress or two. Claudia and the other girls made fun of the dresses Lizzie picked out, which wer
e always made of good material and quite staid. Sunday church dresses, Claudia called them.
However, Lizzie did not go to church. The reverend was an easygoing man who looked after his sheep more than his God, so he allowed the girls to come to services. But Lizzie no longer wanted to pray to a God who, in Kahu’s view, was, at best, overtaxed by His faithful and, at worst, did not care about them at all. Lizzie was long-suffering. She understood that God could not make it too easy for people to lead a life pleasing to Him. But she could not forgive Him for the obstacles He had put in her way: Martin Smithers had been one test too many, not to mention life in the Green Arrow.
Lizzie hated serving the whalers and seal hunters who stank of blubber and blood, and the intense smell of sheep emanating from the shepherds disgusted her almost as much. Selling herself had not been as bad with the sailors on the docks in London. They had often treated themselves to a bath after the long sea voyage, so they were cleaned up for the girls and were cheerful when they told their stories of foreign lands and strange customs. The men in Kaikoura, on the other hand, slogged through their sad, failed existences, gambling and whoring away what little money they earned. In bed they were clumsy and stiff—although Lizzie did attract the best of the lot for herself. After all, the men needed a modicum of humor and imagination to go for her little game. But even her “masters” wanted to get the most for their money as quickly as possible, and each of them left a few fleas or lice behind on the pillow.
Lizzie’s life was a constant battle against stench, filth, and vermin. She washed her bedsheets daily herself, but really, she would have had to change them after every customer for them to stay halfway clean.
While the other girls spent their nights drinking, Lizzie mostly stayed sober. She had Pete pour her cold tea when the customers bought her whiskey. It was enough that her nights resembled nightmares; she did not want to have to deal with morning headaches too. Besides, she did not like the booze Pete Hunter served. It wasn’t that the cheap booze insulted her palate after the Busbys’ wine; even inveterate whiskey drinkers shuddered with every swallow. Lizzie didn’t know where the stuff came from, but whoever made it ought to have been banned not to Australia but to the North Pole.
Lizzie did her best to remain hopeful that there really would be another alternative to her sad existence in the inn. It could not be that she was to spend her whole life there. She often went out to look for other work in the town, and occasionally Lizzie and Claudia or one of the other girls would rent a coach for a Sunday excursion. Lizzie’s wish to find an out-of-the-way sheep farm—perhaps operated by an English gentleman and his wife who yearned to hire a well-trained housemaid—never came true. When even her Maori friends left Kaikoura to go on their wanderings, Lizzie ran the danger of sinking into hopelessness.
She yearned for Kahu Heke and dreamed of him and his canoe the way other girls did of princes and their white horses. In her daydreams, he landed on the beach near Kaikoura, she climbed inside, and they fled her sad existence.
Lizzie often thought that it would be better to turn herself in and face the risk of being shipped to Van Diemen’s Land again. She had felt better in the female factory than she did in the Green Arrow, and at some point even serious criminals were released. Lizzie even had caught herself dreaming of a life with Cecil, the Smitherses’ old gardener.
And now Michael had come.
Lizzie thought of him while she lay under a whaler who just that morning had harpooned a gray whale. The man had proudly told her of it right away, though his catch had hardly escaped her notice. After all, he stank as if he had bathed in train oil. His whole body was covered by a greasy layer.
Lizzie absolutely had to distract herself while he worked himself out on top of her. She ran the risk of vomiting. So she tried to envision Michael’s face. He still looked good, maybe even better. The hard life and the work outside—perhaps even his concern for Kathleen—had etched wrinkles in his face that she found attractive. And while he looked older, he still seemed to be an adventurer, and his life was still young—as was hers. Did she still long for him? Did she feel a desire to share her life with him like she had when they had played husband and wife on the way to New Zealand? One thing was for certain: she did not picture him as a lover. At the moment she felt no desire for physical love. Yet Lizzie was happy Michael had come back into her life. She felt something. Almost like hope.
Naturally, that was foolish. Michael had never had the air of a fairy tale prince. Yet somehow she really wanted him around again. It was as if he were turning a page within her—damn it all, he was not going to help her onto the back of his white horse so they could gallop away together, but he was a man. Granted, he had hardly ever proved rich in ideas or success—not in his wooing of Mary Kathleen and certainly not in his interaction with Lizzie. But he was not so stupid or so proud that he wouldn’t listen to a woman, and Lizzie believed she could take the horse’s reins and lead the prince onto the right path. Now she just had to think of something.
Lizzie’s heart beat heavily as the whaler finally grunted and pulled out of her. If what Michael had told her about Ireland was true, there was a possibility of becoming both rich and respectable.
She did not return immediately to her work post. With a shudder, she washed the traces of the last customer from her body and put on one of her good dresses. Then she excused herself to Pete Hunter.
“Pete, sorry, but I suddenly received a visitor.” She blushed. The whores used this expression when they got their periods.
Hunter looked at her unhappily. “Again, Lizzie? Weren’t you visited just last week?”
Lizzie looked at her feet. “I, it seems I caught something. Anyway, I cured that, but now, well, it seems I’m bleeding again.”
She hoped that the innkeeper did not know enough about women’s matters to question her.
“Fine, fine. The main thing is you’re not running around here with a heavy belly. Do you mean to go out still?” He looked at her dress. “Wouldn’t it be better to lie in bed?”
“Pete, I need to see the woman again. About this matter now. I don’t want to be out from work longer than I have to, you know.”
Fortunately, Michael was already standing back at the bar with Claudia, and he watched Lizzie walk outside. She hoped he would follow her, and indeed, he caught up with her at the next corner.
“So, I still have to meet you in unlit streets.” He grinned and put an arm around her. “Tell me what you’ve been doing, Lizzie. Or no, we’ll find a nice tavern where we can drink as we talk.”
Lizzie shook her head. “There’s nothing like that here, Michael. All three pubs are whorehouses, too, and I can’t be seen at the Golden Horseshoe or in Paul’s Tavern after sneaking out on Pete. If we want to drink, you’re going to have scare up a bottle somewhere, and we’ll go down to the docks.”
Lizzie waited for Michael on the pier, and finally he showed up with the whiskey.
“What miserable booze,” he complained after taking a gulp and passing the bottle to Lizzie. She smiled, having expected that reaction.
“I wanted to talk to you about that,” she said. “But first, tell me: What happened to your plans for Ireland?”
Michael gave her the broad view of what had happened, and Lizzie laughed. “So, she did replace you, your Mary Kathleen,” she mocked him. “She who was supposed to wait until the end of her days, ever with a prayer for her lost love on her lips.”
“I’m sure she couldn’t help it!” Michael defended his love. “I’m sure.”
Lizzie rolled her eyes.
“Anyway, I haven’t saved up enough money for Ireland, yet,” he continued, “or for America. You don’t make much as a shepherd. Old Fyffe pays just enough.”
Lizzie nodded, although she was tempted to mock him again. In fact, good shepherds earned considerably more than most whalers or seal hunters. But she’d just seen where Michael’s money went.
“And what happened to you?” Michael changed
the subject. “Stayed true to the old calling?”
Lizzie shook her head and told him about the Busbys and then about what had happened with Smithers.
“Unbelievable,” he laughed. “There are supposed to be about sixty-five thousand whites in New Zealand now, and of all people he runs into you. It seems to be fate, Lizzie. Accept it. And you have a new job now, right?”
Lizzie glared at him. “I’d be happy to give it to you, Michael. I’d even trade with you. The sheep don’t smell worse than the boys, and at least I wouldn’t have to smile at them, I wouldn’t get pregnant from the work, and the rams wouldn’t give me any disgusting diseases. Damn it, Michael, I want out of there!”
Michael shrugged. “I can ask old man Fyffe,” he said. “We employ a couple of Maori girls for the sheep. But a girl like you from the docks of Kaikoura? My God, Lizzie, the lads at the whaling station would go mad.”
Lizzie sighed. “I don’t want to herd sheep either, Michael. I want to do something else. Listen . . .”
“Can we go somewhere else? What do you think?” Michael interrupted her. He shivered. “To the stables, maybe; it’s warmer near the horses.”
“That’s another thing supporting my idea,” said Lizzie.
Michael eyed her, confused. “You want to go to the horse stables?”
Lizzie grabbed her forehead. “I want to go under a roof with a whiskey bottle,” she explained. “Or put another way, with loads of whiskey bottles. There’ll have to be something better in them than what’s in here. Michael, you used to sell the stuff. Do you know how to make it?”
Michael thought. “My father did the distilling, but it’s not all that hard. You need a few things for the still, as well as a pot and grain. Besides that, wood plays a role. You need oak or ash. There’s none of that here.”
Lizzie waved off that concern. She was not interested in details. “Can you do it or not?” she asked coolly.
