Skylark (27 page)

‘What could we see in the dark anyway?’ says Jack, slumped and sad in his now dirty uniform. ‘The others couldn’t take anything seriously. The Maori would have heard us coming a mile off. They’re up by Handley’s farm, just into the bush. All our troops could talk about was what sharp shooters they were — nonsense — and how frightened the Maori would be when they rode in with their sabres flashing. Their heads are in the clouds, Mattie.
Our
Maori up the valley ride better than any of them. It breaks my heart to see them saw away at their horses’ mouths, ride them at ditches with never a thought to what lies on the other side.’ Jack sighs. ‘I’m ashamed,’ he says.

Not a sentiment Mattie has ever heard before from her
easy-going
husband. She pats his limp hand, but has little time for comforting a grown man. Five babies up here in the loft are often more of a handful than she can bear. She has begged a handcart from the Dunleavys and this morning set out to tour the town, with all five tucked in like sardines in a box. A soft wind blew up the river and for an hour she could forget the squalor and noise of the hotel and its stables. But then, as she turned up Victoria Street, away from the river, she was confronted by ragged and hungry settlers, begging for food at the doors of the more established houses. Begging! What have we come to? Why have Titokowaru’s Maori turned so fiercely against us?

Mattie is unsettled by thoughts of her own mixed blood. Brought up by the nuns, she has never questioned the idea
that the white man’s civilised way, his religion and customs, are superior. Now it seems that this Pai Marire of Titokowaru is stronger. The white men are frightened and hungry. The town is in disarray. Mattie returns to the river; watches it flow clear and green, slowly, peacefully, towards the sea. The babies sleep in their makeshift cart. Oh, let this all be over. Let us go home to our farm. Let Lily come back.

And lo, Lily does return. One wet afternoon, when Mattie is driven to distraction in her crowded loft by babies who will not settle and washing that will not dry, Lily is suddenly there, her smiling face popping up through the hatch.

‘Here you are! Doctor Ingram said you were here. Oh Mattie, what a pickle!’ Lily laughs, somersaulting into the hay, picking up one baby then another, hugging and kissing them, singing a snatch of this and that, and then plumping down beside her friend as if she’d never been away.

‘The Ingrams say we might have to go south! Surely not,’ says sprawling Lily, plucking a straw from her hair and chewing on it. ‘They are organising the evacuation of children and want to know if I want Samuel and Phoebe and Teddy to go too. I said no.’ She looks at Mattie, suddenly sober. ‘They are confused about us, about who is the wife.’

‘I am the wife. I am living here as Mrs Lacey.’ Mattie wishes her voice wouldn’t shake so much, but she’s exhausted. Feeding so many hungry sucklers has drained her. She feels like some dried and cracked landscape, good for nothing.

Lily notices the tears, hugs Mattie. ‘Oh dear Mattie, forgive me. You are the wife, of course you are. I’ve left you too long, but now things will be better. I’m back.’

‘But for how long?’ wails Mattie.

Bert hears his mother’s distress and joins in vigorously. Soon Samuel adds his whimper.

‘Oh what a pickle, sings Lily in a funny, high voice, which brings a smile to some faces, including Mattie’s.

In no time they are laughing and joining in — ‘Boo, hoo, hoo!’

At that moment Jack’s head appears in the trapdoor. His face is muddy and pale. The smart cavalry hat is missing. He climbs the ladder heavily, one-handed. The other hand drips blood. Where the sleeve of his uniform is slashed, a raw and bloody wound glares through the material.

Both women cry out. Babies forgotten, they stumble through the straw and guide Jack to a hay bale, where he sits, head hanging, dry sobs shaking him to the core. Mattie and Lily look at each other. There’s more to this than a flesh wound. Jack has been hurt often enough, breaking in horses, but has always brushed off the damage as part of life. Carefully they remove the jacket. Jack picks it up with his one good hand and flings it, cursing, to a far corner of the loft. The wound is not too serious. Lily dashes water over it. Mattie uses a clean piece of cotton — one of the babies’ napkins — to bind the lips of the cut tightly together. Later they will get Doctor Ingram to stitch it.

Jack moans, tears at his hair. Clumsily he unbuckles his sabre, once so proudly worn, and throws it after the jacket into a dark corner.

‘What is it, what is it?’ cries Lily. ‘Tell us!’

If Jack has noticed Lily’s return, he shows no sign, so deeply is he into his despair or horror. He says nothing. Shakes his sorry, muddy head as if to shed evil sounds or sights from it. Finally he looks up. Nods a tired greeting to Lily; casts his eyes around the cramped and stinking loft.

‘We’ll go home,’ he says. ‘This is no way to live.’

The women wait for more.

‘No way to live,’ says Jack again. ‘If the Hauhau kill us, so be it. They have reason.’

‘Well,’ says Lily, too heartily, ‘perhaps you are right, Jack. This is a sorry town and no theatre playing, only a foolish acrobat doing somersaults for the crowd. Can you believe it?’

Jack hangs his head, silent.

‘What is it, Jack?’ Mattie lays a gentle hand against his cheek. ‘We can’t go home if Titokowaru’s pa is near Handley’s farm. That’s too close. What has spooked you so?’

Jack will not say.

It is two slow fearful months before the little family can head home. Astonishingly, the threat of war has evaporated as quickly as steam from a kettle. First, news came of a careful advance by Colonel Whitmore, who had his men build trenches in Handley’s paddocks, until the men were close to the fortifications at Tauranga Ika, Titoko’s stronghold. Newspapers were full of stories of the brave militias and loyal Maori who crept nearer and nearer to the dreaded pa. Indeed, so close did their trenches approach that the militias exchanged shots and insults with Titokowaru’s troops all night. But in the morning all was silent. Fearing yet another ruse by the wily Titokowaru, Whitmore had waited, then advanced cautiously. The pa was deserted! In the early hours of the morning the whole of Tauranga Ika must have been evacuated, the tribes melting back into the bush, taking children and women, food and weapons with them. Why? Where on earth had they disappeared to? Whitmore’s soldiers gazed on the empty fortifications in amazement. They were brilliantly designed, could well have repulsed an army larger than Whitmore’s thousand. None of it made sense. The soldiers peered into the bush fearfully. What clever game was that Tito playing?

Whitmore sent his scouts north but could find no army to fight. News came back that the tribes no longer supported Pai Marire. Nga Ruahine warriors had disappeared. Other tribes had disbanded and gone home. Titokowaru and a handful of loyal followers were reported to be fleeing northwards through dense bush. Colonel Whitmore, cheated of the victory he needed, is pursuing. Suddenly the cloud hanging over Whanganui has cleared. No one really understands why. This is an uneasy, shifty kind of victory.

Jack, on Alouette rides up the valley, his family the first to venture back home. The morning is golden, promising a hot summer day. The river winds below the track; red-legged pukeko wade among the reeds. In the distance the dark hills and bush of the Nga Rauru lands remind Jack of Matiu’s words — his strange defiance — before they left. Will they find the farm ransacked? The animals poached?

No. The dear familiar homestead is standing as they left it. The stables are there and, surprisingly, the house cow is grazing contentedly in the home paddock. Who has milked her in their absence?

‘Hey boss!’ There is Matiu standing in the stable door, waving cheerily. ‘Welcome back. All good here.’

While Mattie and Lily, chatting and laughing in the warm
sunlight
, unload supplies and children, Jack questions his stable-hand.

Matiu shrugs. ‘All past now. We don’t follow Titokowaru no more.’

‘What happened? They say that pa of his could defeat the British army!’

Matiu replies in a low voice. ‘No boss, he would defeat no one. All his mana lost. He did a very bad thing. Sleep with a …’ Matiu searches for a suitable word but gives up. He seems embarrassed. ‘He sleep with a woman. Lost his mana in one night. So no one can fight with him. End of battle. End of Pai Marire.’

Jack presses for more information.

Matiu holds up a hand in front of Jack’s mouth. ‘No boss. No questions. It is not to speak about. Too bad.’ For a moment he stands there, serious, frowning. ‘Too tapu. Even the elders only whisper to each other. It is not for our ears. Not mine. Not yours.’

Jack wonders whether his own position with Lily and Mattie means that
he
is losing mana in Matiu’s eyes. He tries, in a rather embarrassed and roundabout way, to ask. Somewhat to his annoyance, Matiu laughs at his stumbling question. He claps a hand on Jack’s shoulder.

‘Plenty babies born in this valley with white fathers but no wedding. Maybe your God is mad, eh? Maybe some wives mad
too, ha!’ Matiu enjoys his joke, then glances more seriously at Jack. ‘No, boss. You lead no one. You are no warrior. Mana is not so important for you. For our General Titokowaru, his mana is the most important thing.’

Jack is both relieved and put out by Matiu’s response. But later, as they work together on a broken fence, Jack has reason to be glad their conversation went no further. Matiu, wiping away the sweat that is dripping into his eyes, says, ‘We are lucky, you and me, that we are not leaders. Bad things happened both sides.’

Jack nods, not trusting himself to words.

‘My cousin’s friend, he killed a Pakeha farmer and all his little children and burned their farm. That is not a proud way to fight.’

Jack bangs a nail into the rail.

Matiu straightens and points down the valley in the direction of Handley’s farm. ‘And then,’ he says, readier to talk than work, ‘my sister’s nephew was killed over that way. A young boy only ten years old. Killed by white soldiers on horses who thought it was good sport to chase little boys who had no weapons and cut them down like pigs.’

‘A bad thing,’ says Jack in a low voice.

Jack finally tells me — Samuel — the story of the day he was a cavalryman and received a wound whose scar reminds him daily of shameful deeds. Even though many years have passed, his words are halting; difficult memories clouding his voice.

‘A small group of us were to ride up past Handley’s farm and see what we could of the fortifications at Tauranga Ika. It was all messy — the whole day was messy. Maxwell and Bryce, our leaders, couldn’t really control those men. They were spoiling for a fight but apart from a pair of distant scouts we saw no Maori. Tauranga Ika was away up at the edge of the bush. We were mucking around among the sand dunes, scrambling up slopes in our boots and spurs, peering over the top, then sliding back down again and up on our mounts. A waste of time.

‘I suppose we were all hot, tired and frustrated. And fearful. Tito’s men were so cunning at striking suddenly from nowhere.
Then we heard squealing. A pig squealing. Maxwell sent someone up the dune again to spy. It seemed that some unarmed fellows had come down from the pa and were attacking a pig down by Handley’s woolshed.

‘What followed was too horrible. Too shameful. We set off without listening to orders, no thought in our heads except that here was a chance to kill. By the time we realised that these were little boys, not yet into trousers, their sacking shirts flapping and their little brown heels flashing as they ran, many of our troupe had lost the will to stop.

‘Thank the Good Lord I was halted by a high fence and swamp. It was too dangerous. No good horseman should risk his mount on an unknown jump like that. I turned Alouette sideways and headed her towards someone’s runaway mount. Three or four
hot-heads
cleared the fence, spurred their mounts through the mud and shot at the poor boys. I saw one man slash and slash with his sabre as the little fellow cried out and held his hands over his head. Never will I forget the sight of those dark and terrified young eyes, so like my own children’s. It was a shameful, shameful act.

‘Of course the warriors came running down from the pa when they heard the shots, but they were too far away to save their little sons. I don’t know how many we killed or wounded. One of our men was mad with fighting lust. When we were finally ordered to retreat, in the face of the advancing and furious Hauhau, this mad fellow was ready to advance, and take the pa single-handed! I leaned over to pull at the reins of his horse, persuade the mount at least to show his rider the sensible way. The fellow in his madness slashed me across the arm with his sabre!

‘We left the boys there. Left them bleeding or dead for their elders to gather. Galloped back to Woodall’s redoubt, many of our number already retelling the story in a more heroic light. The papers hailed it as a triumph. Maxwell and Bryce never admitted to any shame but somehow put a rosy glow on the whole sorry day.

‘I have never shot any firepiece in anger nor carried a sabre since, nor ever will.’

First days at school

[Archivist’s Note: An account in Mattie’s hand, undated but possibly referring to events in 1870 or ’71. E. de M.]

Before we come to Teddy and the Pollards, I must write about the school, for it was a great day in my life when we took Samuel and Sarah to the new school. All the little ones lined up in the cart, even little Teddy and my baby Maud. Oh, what a cat among the pigeons our arrival was! We left Jack at home, just me and Lily and the children, all clean and pretty and well behaved, except for Bert, who could never stay clean two minutes.

‘Well now,’ said Miss Craythorne the teacher, beaming to see so many children, ‘this is a fine day for the school as we are struggling to boost numbers high enough for the slates and chalk from the School Board.’

‘Not to mention your salary,’ Lily whispered to me. Lily knew those things.

Miss Craythorne was daughter of a local farmer who had donated a little split-shingle shed on his property for the purpose of schooling. Inside were eight little desks, their timber tops still smelling of resin, a blackboard on an easel and a small pot-belly stove. The one window looked out onto a paddock of sheep.

‘Now,’ said Miss Craythorne brightly to the newcomers, her pencil poised over her brand-new register. ‘Names, please.’

‘Sarah Lacey,’ said my girl in her clear, quiet voice, ‘and that’s Samuel.’

‘Samuel, what is your father’s name?’ asked Miss Craythorne. She knew well enough what she was asking: a question all the valley wanted the answer to.

Samuel looked surprised to be asked. ‘Mr Jack Lacey,’ he said,
with a nice touch of pride. ‘We’re all Laceys. That’s Phoebe and Bert and Teddy and Maud in the cart. Phoebe and Teddy are my mother’s and Maud and Sarah and Bert are Mother Mattie’s. Phoebe and Bert will be coming to school next year.’

Miss Craythorne was clearly taken aback by such a forthright answer. Her mouth shrank into two tight lines. ‘I’m not sure we can allow …’ The word bastard was implied but not spoken. ‘Surely it will be uncomfortable for the other little children to have …’

Lily and I kept up a stony front, helping her not one whit with her silly scruples. The children would not be uncomfortable, unless the teacher planted the idea.

Miss Craythorne, who by my guess was younger than either me or Lily, finally came around to her point. ‘Are any of these Laceys legitimately born, or christened into God’s Assembly?’

Lily took a deep breath. I could tell a Grand Speech was about to emerge and was fearful of how she might phrase matters. Obviously Miss Craythorne expected my brood to be the outcasts. ‘These children,’ said Lily in her richest and most cultured tones, ‘are all beloved by God. Surely you cannot believe otherwise? Mrs Mattie Lacey here is wed to Mr Jack Lacey and I — a well-known artiste of stage and hall — have a special place in Mr Lacey’s heart. Our children know their prayers and their catechism. Now they need education and it is their right. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I am prepared to attend the school for the purpose of training the children in singing, dancing and general deportment.’

Miss Craythorne’s tight little mouth opened in shock. She began to say something, but Lily’s ringing tones rolled on, obliterating whatever disagreement the teacher might wish to present.

‘I will devise an Easter Concert and train the children. When the Inspector from the Education Board arrives it will be well to have a song or two ready to impress him. Sarah! Phoebe!’

My Sarah stepped forward, and little Phoebe jumped from the cart. They took their places, one each side of Lily, and began a little song and dance they’d practised at home. Something
about a farmer, a dog and a cow. The other schoolchildren came running out of their room, laughing and pointing. In a trice Lily had them joining in with the actions. Even Bert stood up in the cart, stamping his feet and singing along until he lost his balance and fell to the ground, his astonished face only adding to the general enjoyment.

‘Easter concert, Easter concert!’ shouted the children, dancing around Lily.

Miss Craythorne and her scruples didn’t stand a chance.

Oh what fun those next years were! I played the role of the upright, capable mother, Lily the wildly talented music and dance teacher. Jack bred horses and children with equal enthusiasm. If Lily missed a wider audience she didn’t show it. For those years we were a happy family. Our valley school was famous for its concerts and plays. Of course the main roles usually went to a Lacey. So popular were the performances, such talent unearthed and fostered among the children, that the usually conservative farmers accepted our unorthodox household. Perhaps they whispered behind our backs, but I like to think they were also a little proud of the exotic Lily who so galvanised the community. She organised fundraising evenings and performed along with the little ones. The tiny schoolhouse was rebuilt with a hall attached. A piano was installed. Lily gave piano lessons. Where or how she learned to play I never knew. Lily danced on golden feet in those years when the children were growing up. They all loved her.

But I was the one who fed and clothed them. When there were tears, they ran to me.