Toward the Sea of Freedom (37 page)

Lizzie might have been quite content to stay a while and save money, but she found little joy in her work, which was all the worse since it seemed that work was all she did. Lizzie was not lazy. Her skill as a house and kitchen maid had always earned praise. The Laderers, however, needed a milkmaid.

Lizzie was supposed to collect eggs and help slaughter animals, which she struggled to do. Cleaning out the barn bothered her less, except that pushing wheelbarrows full of heavy cow manure to the compost pile made her bone-tired. Then there was the milking, feeding, and herding of the cows and horses. Lizzie didn’t trust the big animals and nearly died of fright when a cow so much as lifted a leg during milking or turned to look at her.

Lizzie had more skill with plants than animals, so she had better luck with the field work and the kitchen garden. On Sundays she often pulled flowers in the forest and planted them in the garden to beautify it.

“What it does, this flower bush?” Mrs. Laderer asked when she saw the garden. “You could plant an apple tree.”

The Laderers, in general, declined anything that was not useful or yielded no produce. Lizzie caught herself missing the Smithers house—the beautiful furniture, the tea parties, the flowers in vases, the rose garden. She had been able to dream herself into a lovelier life, no matter how dirty and fretful reality was. With the Laderers, she had nothing to fear, but there were also no dreams and nothing she could look forward to. She also missed her own language. Neither the Laderers nor their neighbors spoke English more than they absolutely needed to—and in truth, they used their own language rather sparingly. The Lower Saxons were rather curt, and Lizzie never really warmed to them.

So Lizzie was particularly cheered when, after four months, Margarete Laderer asked her to help in the house one afternoon.

“You said you were in a fine house,” she said. “Today comes a fine Englishman, the British Resident and a councillor of the Bay of Islands.”

Lizzie knew nothing about the Bay of Islands, but a councillor sounded important to her.

“On visit wants he to speak with someone who can English, so Otto.”

Otto Laderer did indeed speak better English than most of the settlers.

“Surely drinks he tea. You make tea, or?”

“Can I make tea? Oh yes,” Lizzie said with a smile. “I can serve it too. Oh, please, Mrs. Laderer, let me set the table and serve it properly. Like fine people do. Please.”

“We are good people, not fine,” said Mrs. Laderer, but she didn’t resist.

Lizzie took a look at the pantry and fished out the tablecloth the Laderers only used on the most important holidays. With great enthusiasm, she set the table with the Laderers’ fine tablecloth, folded napkins, and cut rata blossoms, which she arranged beautifully. The farmers only drank coffee, so she had no luck finding a proper teapot, but they owned a handsome earthen coffee set, blue with white dots, from which tea would surely also taste good. Lizzie prepared everything and then put on her dress with a white apron over it. She was only missing a bonnet to make her maid’s uniform complete. Lizzie shook off an uneasy feeling as she looked at herself in the Laderers’ tiny mirror. She hoped the councillor did not have the same perverse tendencies as Mr. Smithers and would appreciate her work, not her appearance.

When she heard voices welcoming the councillor, she went to the door, curtsied, and took the cape that had protected the tall, slender man from the light rain. He smiled amicably and gave her his tall hat as well. Then he followed Mr. Laderer into the living room, where Mrs. Laderer waited.

“James Busby.” With a perfectly executed bow, the guest introduced himself to the woman of the house, who seemed unsure of how to reply. She somewhat awkwardly invited Mr. Busby to sit, and Lizzie brought out the tea after letting it steep exactly three minutes. She positioned herself to the right of the guest, asked politely about milk and sugar, and curtsied when the man thanked her.

Otto Laderer and his wife both looked at her, awestruck, and Lizzie struggled to maintain a solicitous face instead of beaming. Finally, she was making an impression on her masters.

“I heard that a few of the German settlers here in the Marlborough region know a thing or two about viniculture,” Mr. Busby said after exchanging a few words with Otto. “They needn’t be experts, you know; I’d be managing them. But a bit of experience would not be bad. Our native workers have no knack for it, you see. They’ve never drunk wine before, and when you let them taste it, they don’t like it!”

Mr. Busby said this with a horrified expression, as if the Maori had blasphemed against his god, but the Laderers did not react. Lizzie thought it completely possible that they had never tried a sip of wine either. They drank little, and when they did, it was usually homemade schnapps. Lizzie thought it very tasty but rather strong.

“We make no wine,” Laderer said. “Maybe the Bavarians. But I believe not. They prefer beer.”

“You don’t have any vineyards here either,” said Busby, as if anyone who had tasted wine and understood something about its manufacture would certainly plant grapes. “Well, there’s nothing to be done. Forgive me for taking up so much of your time.” Then Busby looked at Mrs. Laderer and Lizzie and smiled. “And thank you for the tea. It was excellent.”

“Would you like another cup?” Lizzie asked.

Really, Mrs. Laderer should have asked this question, but Lizzie couldn’t resist the opportunity.

Busby declined the tea but arched his eyebrows in surprise. “You’re English, dear child?” he asked amicably.

Lizzie nodded and curtsied again.

“And excellently trained. My compliments, Mr. Laderer. It’s a rare thing here. In the larger towns, there’s talk of recruiting English servants from the orphanages in London. Especially here on the South Island, where there aren’t as many natives available—even if they are more compliant than the natives in the north. You’ve really had a stroke of luck with your girl. Where do you come from, child?”

Lizzie considered whether she should lie. But he was a Scottish man, and if he knew even a little about England, her accent would tell him where she was from.

“From London, sir,” she answered. “Whitechapel.”

Busby smiled. “But not one of the ingenuous orphanage imports, I take it. A strange idea, skimming the scum off to here.”

Lizzie blushed. “No, my, my father was a carpenter.”

Anna Portland’s husband had been a carpenter.

“Very good. As I said, you’re lucky, Mr. Laderer. I couldn’t acquire her from you, could I?” Busby turned to Mr. Laderer with a smile that made it seem as if his question wasn’t a serious one.

Otto Laderer pursed his lips. “Acqu—?”

“Acquire. It means . . . Mr. Busby would like me to work for him,” Lizzie said.

She was being impertinent again, but Lizzie could not keep it inside. Busby seemed to assume that she belonged to the Laderers, body and soul, and that they were happy with their housemaid. But if she could set him straight . . .

“Liese is milkmaid by us,” Mrs. Laderer said.

Mr. Busby looked at Lizzie. He had sharp, piercing eyes. “Milkmaid. Is that true Lie . . . ?” The name obviously presented difficulties for him.

Lizzie curtsied. “Elizabeth, sir. Lizzie.”

“And your family name, child?” Busby asked.

Lizzie breathed deeply. Now, no mistakes. “Portland, sir. Elizabeth Portland. And yes, it’s true. I primarily work in the barn. Here, they don’t much need a housemaid.” Lizzie tried to express herself such that Mr. and Mrs. Laderer would understand her too.

“But then why don’t you seek employment elsewhere? In Nelson or Christchurch or on the large farms. People would lick their chops for you. Doubtless you have letters of recommendation.”

Lizzie needed a good story. One that explained why she had no papers and no recommendations. She bit her lip. Best would be a story as true as possible. It need not be her own story, but it shouldn’t be the kind you would think up on the spot either. She cursed her lack of foresight. After all, her boring months in Sarau had given her plenty of time to think something up.

“Mr. and Mrs. Laderer were good to me when I came from Australia,” she said, then lowered her gaze. “They did not ask me, and I, I would have been ashamed to tell them everything.”

Busby smiled. “Australia? But you can’t be a convict?” He wagged his finger playfully at Lizzie.

Lizzie looked at him, pained. “Not I, sir, but my mother. Anna Portland. In London . . . well, in London everyone heard about the case, and my employers there no longer wanted to keep me. Then I thought I could join my mother if I went to Australia. My inheritance from my father just sufficed. But . . . I couldn’t find her.”

Though the Laderers listened with interest, they surely only understood half of what Lizzie said as she stuttered out the tragedy of Anna Portland to the councillor. He could easily convince himself of the story’s truth with a letter to London—or disprove her story with an even quicker letter to Australia about escaped female convicts.

At the end of her story, Busby was visibly touched. “Naturally, I’ll have that looked into, Elizabeth. But as it stands, if your masters here will let you go, I’d gladly take you with me to Waitangi. It’s on the North Island, so I hope you don’t get seasick.”

The Laderers let their ill-suited milkmaid go easily, and James Busby informed all of the many acquaintances they met on their journey back to the North Island that his wife would finally be happy with him.

“Usually, I only bring grapes back. When, instead, she gets an English housemaid, she won’t be able to contain her joy.”

It was quite clear to Lizzie that Mr. Busby was devoted to his wife and six children. Even during their long journey together, the wine connoisseur and politician did not get too close to his new employee. Lizzie found it difficult to form an opinion of him. Busby had fixed convictions and opinions for which he was willing to fight. On the way to Waitangi, an area on the far edge of the North Island, they often entered the houses of his political friends and foes, and occasionally Busby and his hosts had heated discussions. Lizzie heard again and again that her new master was wrong-headed—but on the other hand, he was highly respected and must have been something of a good diplomat.

As Busby told Lizzie, he had worked out the famous Treaty of Waitangi, in which the chieftains of thirty-four Maori tribes pledged themselves to the Crown without a fight. True, William Hobson had received more fame for it, but Busby had represented the British interests in New Zealand long before him. Now, as a councillor of the Bay of Islands, he functioned as a sort of advisor for the Waitangi region.

The bays and islands of this region were sparsely settled, and the Maori long since Christianized and assimilated. At the beginning of the century, missionaries had settled the area, rather than whalers and seal hunters as in the rest of New Zealand.

No one actually wanted advice from Busby. He had burned too many bridges among the settlers and missionaries for that. He seemed to get along best with the Maori, but they didn’t need a councillor either. Thus, Busby found plenty of time for his own interests. One of these was viniculture, but Busby also published a newspaper and tried his hand at trading and farming. Above all, he liked to see himself as a teacher, at least as long as his students never talked back. He had taught agriculture and viniculture in Australia and seemed to miss it sometimes.

Busby knew New Zealand well and entertained the knowledge-hungry Lizzie with information about its flora and fauna. She marveled at forests of ferns and strange birds that dug holes. She learned everything about sheep husbandry—wherein Busby primarily saw the future of the South Island—and more all the time about viniculture. Busby was trying his luck with a vineyard near Waitangi, so far without much success.

Nelson and Sarau could not compare to the terrain around Waitangi. The natural beauty on the North Island stunned Lizzie. The deep-blue bays with their little rocky islands, the fern forest with its impenetrable green, and the mountains whose color changed with the angle of the sun—she had always pictured paradise like this.