Toward the Sea of Freedom (20 page)

“Get up, Kathleen, we have to go. And you need someone to care for you. I’ve spoken with people in town. We’ll take you to the smith’s house.”

“To the what?” asked Kathleen, horrified. “The, the blacksmith? You don’t mean he will deliver the baby?”

“Of course not, but his wife is supposed to be a midwife. Now come on! And put some clothes on. I can’t drag you onto land in your nightshirt. How would that look? We want to open a business here, Kathleen. So get to your feet and act like a lady.”

She bent over with a contraction every few minutes—how was she supposed to force herself into a dress and fix her hair? But Ian’s demeanor left no room for discussion. Arduously, interrupted by cramps and despairing sobs, she put on her loosest dress, stuck her hair under a bonnet, and struggled out of the cabin. On Ian’s arm, she finally left the ship.

Kathleen hardly noticed anything about her new homeland. A gangplank and a primitive, pear-shaped harbor—likely a natural harbor; not much had been built there yet. Above it, hills, a settlement. Kathleen broke out in a sweat again as she struggled down the gangplank. She had to stop again and again. If Ian had not held her, she would have fallen and perhaps delivered the baby on the street.

You’ll raise our child with dignity
. Kathleen thought she could hear Michael’s voice. She clenched her teeth. Fortunately, the smith’s house was not far—nothing in Port Cooper was far from the bay in which the ships anchored. The settlement was tiny. Yet each of the wooden houses was far larger and statelier than the tenants’ cottages in Ireland.

Kathleen’s hopes rose when Ian knocked on the door of a neat little blue-painted house. A mule stood in the pen beside it. From the shed next door came the sound of a smith’s hammer. Kathleen slumped against the door. At least she would get out of the rain. She had to smile at the possibility that the primary similarity between New Zealand and Ireland was constant bad weather. But when the door opened, she froze. The woman who opened the door was short and stout, her hair dark and frizzy. But more than that, she had dark skin.

Kathleen was confused. She thought black people only lived in Africa. No one had ever said they were in New Zealand. Well, Father O’Brien had mentioned natives. They were supposed to be rare. And peaceful.

When Kathleen looked at the woman more closely, she had to admit that she did not make a frightening impression, although . . . her face was covered in blue designs. Tattoos. Was Kathleen trapped in a nightmare?

At that moment her next contraction seized her, accompanied by nausea. She tried to get ahold of herself. She did not want to vomit in this stranger’s doorway.

“Oh! Baby comes quickly now.” The woman smiled—and her wide smile immediately made her face less frightening again. “Come in, woman. I help, don’t worry.”

All too happily, Ian let Kathleen go as soon as the short woman offered herself as a support. At least the midwife wore normal clothing. And she had pinned up her hair just like a good English or Irish housewife.

Kathleen allowed herself to be led into the small, cozily furnished house. In fact, everything here was normal except for the skin of the dark-skinned woman and her broken English. Was Kathleen dreaming? Finally, she found herself in a clean bed—apparently the house’s master bed, which even stood in its own little bedroom. Kathleen only knew of such luxury from the manor house or Trevallion’s cottage.

The short woman felt Kathleen’s stomach with skillful hands. “Comes soon,” she said soothingly. “First baby?”

Kathleen nodded. And then dared to ask a question. Politely—after all, she was supposed to comport herself like a lady. “You, you’re not an Englishwoman?”

The midwife all but shook with laughter. “Of course.” She giggled. “I from London, related to queen, little cousin.”

Kathleen doubled over with the next contraction. Was that a joke? She no longer knew what was dream and what was reality, how she had arrived there, or what awaited her. Perhaps she would wake up in a moment lying next to Michael in the fields by the river.

“You, sit up. Baby comes easier when kneeling. I know is not your custom. And no, I not cousin of queen. Although niece of chief! My name is Pere. I Maori. Ngai Tahu is my tribe.” The short dark-skinned woman pointed, self-assured, at her chest and smiled at the uncomprehending Kathleen. “Before
pakeha,
white settlers, Maori came across sea with Tainui, this tribal way of birth. Many summers and winters ago. But now everyone lives here, not enemies with
pakeha
. My husband
pakeha
and smith.”

So she was a native who had married the local smith. Ngai Tahu seemed to be her tribe or her village. And she did seem peaceful. Kathleen did not want to think anymore. Exhausted, she gave herself over to Pere’s skillful hands.

A few hours later, Kathleen’s son was born. She was enraptured by the little one, and Pere seemed to share her enthusiasm, but Ian hardly glanced at the newborn. Only when Pere quite unassumingly introduced the baby as Kevin James Coltrane did he react vehemently.

“James is fine,” he said. “But she shouldn’t dare name him Kevin! Tell her that. I’m warning her, woman, if she tries to play games with me . . .”

Although she’d already heard his threatening words, Kathleen sighed when Pere brought her the message as directed. “Your husband is not very friendly,” the Maori remarked.

Kathleen began to apologize for Ian—an act that was soon to become a habit. “Then I’ll call him Sean,” she affirmed finally.

She had always liked the name—and as far as she knew, it appeared in neither Michael’s nor Ian’s family.

Ian, fortunately, had no objections to the new name, and he immediately turned his attention from his wife and baby. Seeming satisfied that Kathleen would stay with John and Pere Seeker for the time being, he left to sleep in the tent-like provisional lodgings that the residents of Port Cooper offered its new arrivals. A few of the settlers wanted to stay here; others were in a hurry to get over the mountains and to the interior, where there were supposed to be better conditions for the establishment of a farm. Though there was fertile land around Port Cooper, the residents had already divided it among themselves. Whoever wanted to live in the Canterbury Plains—the name the first white settlers had given to the flat land below the mountains—had to negotiate with the Maori.

Ian had no intention of doing that. Nor did he see the necessity of learning even a few words in the Maori language—after all, it was rather unlikely that the natives would be buying horses from him anytime soon. They kept few livestock; instead, they relied on hunting, fishing, and primitive agriculture.

Kathleen, on the other hand, liked talking with Pere. She learned the Maori word for Port Cooper first: Te Whaka-raupo—Harbor of Reeds.

“And they call New Zealand Aotearoa,” she explained to Ian when he visited her for the second time.

During his first visit, she was still completely exhausted from the birth, but now she sat in bed, holding her baby in her arms. She felt almost like the old Kathleen again.

Ian noticed she seemed happier and, if it was even possible, she was even more beautiful. Ian eyed little Sean with an expression that almost bordered on jealousy.

Pere watched Ian with pursed lips. Her English was not perfect, but she read people’s faces like books.

“The great white cloud,” Kathleen continued. “John says it’s supposed to be beautiful. This is just the harbor, just a bay with rocks all around. But the land itself is vast and fertile.”

“What’s so important you have to talk to the smith about it?” Ian asked.

Curt as he was, at least he addressed Kathleen directly this time. He did not seem to consider the Maori woman worthy of asking.

Kathleen shrugged. She wanted to answer amicably that she could learn important information about her new country from just about anyone, but anger seized her. She could not let Ian keep spying on her.

“Well, I am lying in his bed,” she replied, “so I ought to be able to exchange a few words with him.”

Ian glared at her. “You lie in John’s bed with Michael’s baby in your arms. How remarkable you can be proud of that, Kathleen. But it won’t continue like this. If you would listen instead of chattering so, I would already have told you that part of your Te-whaka-whatever now belongs to me. I bought a plot of land and a house.”

With Michael’s money?
The question was on the tip of Kathleen’s tongue, but she managed to stop herself. The expression on Ian’s face was already frightening enough; she did not want to antagonize him any more. The news—exciting as it was—heightened her anger.

Her own land! Her own house. She had always wished for that in her dreams. But couldn’t Ian have waited until she could look at it with him? And how could he decide to settle in Port Cooper while beyond it much more extensive, better land might be available?

Kathleen bit her lip. “Ian that’s, that’s lovely, I’m sure. But, but didn’t you think about perhaps buying land elsewhere? Over the mountains? Perhaps it would even have been cheaper. Have you already signed for it?” Surely there was a way they could talk reasonably.

Ian frowned; Kathleen knew that her objections angered him.

“Of course I signed; I don’t need your permission, after all. And of course I thought of everything. I’m not stupid, you know. This here is the only large settlement for a long way. And new settlers come through here. They have to. So it’s the best place for a livestock trader. The only place. I think I can come get you tomorrow, Mary Kathleen. In the meantime, I’ll take our things to the house; then you can make a home of it.”

It was hard for Kathleen to imagine making a home when she could barely stand. The birth after the long sea voyage had drained her more than she had expected. But Pere and John had showed her a great deal of understanding. Tall, strong-as-an-ox John Seeker had simply taken his bedding into the smith shop, and Pere had lain down next to Kathleen. At night, they had whispered to each other and exchanged stories. Pere told little Sean the first fairy tales from his homeland, Aotearoa.

“He needs to know his history,” she had explained to Kathleen. “For us is important; we call
pepeha
. Everyone can tell in what canoe forefathers come to this country, where settled, what they did. Also, history of ancestors.”

After Ian left in a huff, Kathleen and Pere lay on the bed with Sean between them. Pere said, “Your husband not happy with baby. Why? Is son! Everyone want son.”

Kathleen had learned that
pakeha
was the Maori word for the white European settlers.
Pakeha wahine
meant “white woman,”
pakeha tane
, “white man.” The Maori called themselves “moa hunters.” “Moa” was a bird that had lived on Aotearoa when they had arrived. By now, however, the beast had died out.

Kathleen sighed. She did not know how to answer. But Pere was already speaking again.

“Is maybe from other man? We don’t act so, children welcome. But
pakeha
. . .”

Kathleen was horrified. Was it so easy to recognize? Would everyone know? Alarmed, she reached for Pere’s arm.

“For God’s sake, Pere, just don’t tell anyone!” Kathleen pleaded. “Please, this child is a Coltrane. I did all I could to give him a name and a father. No one can know that, no one, please! Please don’t even tell John.”

Pere shrugged. “I don’t care. I no tell anyone. But you only gave baby name. Not father. Father is more than name. And your husband is nothing.”

Chapter 5

For three whole days the prisoner believed Lizzie Owens was a proper girl. And Lizzie had never felt happier.

The men from belowdecks recovered slowly from their fevers. Lizzie and the other women still spent many hours washing the sick men, rubbing them with vinegar and gin, and pouring water, tea, and finally some soup into their mouths. To Caroline Bailiff and Anna Portland’s satisfaction, none of the men died under their care. And on the third day, the dark-haired man even managed to smile at Lizzie and call her by her own name rather than Kathleen’s.

“Elizabeth,” he said softly. “You see, I remember. You told me your name when I was sick, and you claimed not to be an angel. But I don’t believe that. You’re an angel all the same. My name is Michael Drury.”

Lizzie smiled, and Michael thought she looked lovely. Until then she had looked nondescript—surely warm-hearted, but unimpressive to him. Now, however, her warm, all-indulgent smile charmed him.

“An angel doesn’t land on a prison ship,” she replied. “Unless it got really lost.”

Michael smiled back and drank a sip of the tea Lizzie handed him. “You said it yourself: an error, doubtless. Why are they sending you to Van Diemen’s Land, Elizabeth?”

“Lizzie,” she corrected him, although she felt flattered. Elizabeth sounded lovely, important, and—good. “I stole some bread,” she admitted. “I was hungry. And you?”

Lizzie’s heart pounded. She had been afraid of the answer—which was why she had thus far avoided asking Mrs. Bailiff, let alone Jeremiah. Michael had been in chains; obviously he counted among the serious criminals. But she could not imagine him as a robber or murderer.

“Three sacks of grain,” said Michael. “Our whole village was hungry.”

Lizzie felt weak with relief. So, he, too, had erred out of need. And to help others.

She smiled happily. “That doesn’t count,” she said. “The judges, they’ve just never been hungry.”

For a few days, Lizzie walked on clouds. Michael was no criminal; he could prove himself and be set free—just like her. As she lay on her pallet at night, she dreamed of such freedom. Fields, a garden, a house—and Michael, who would ask her shyly if she would want to share that with him.

But those were just idle dreams. This Kathleen, whom Michael obviously loved, was still out there somewhere.
Kathleen
—Lizzie did not want to be jealous, but she felt something like hate for his sweetheart in his homeland. She had cautiously asked, making a joke of being only too eager to know about the girl for whom he had mistaken her. Did they really look so similar?