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A Maori Maid

Chapter XVI

page 111

Chapter XVI.

John Anderson and Jake were standing near the sheep-yards in the shadow of the woolshed. It was towards evenfall in the early spring.

John was intensely angry. He had received Ngaia's letter and Jake's. He had answered the former by post, and taken the first opportunity of answering the latter in person. Jake's letter gave the easy-going, trustful, old gentleman his first real insight into the man's true character.

It was an unpleasant awakening.

Carlyle, in his roughly-written, ill-scrawled epistle, had curtly stated the feet that he had called at the school and had claimed Ngaia as his child; and had, moreover, promised that Mr. Anderson himself would write and substantiate his claim.

"i no u will do it, for u gave her to the missus and me, and she's ours. If u don't, I don't see 'ow it can help cuming out about her, which yore wife wudn't want, nor u neether."

The meaning was abundantly clear, if the writing was not. Jake intended to retain his hold upon the girl, and he meant to use his knowledge of her birth as a means to an end. And it was left for John, there and then, to make his choice. Either the man's claim had to be substantiated, or else Mrs. Anderson be told of her husband's deceit and shame.

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John lay back in his study chair in an agony of doubt and dread.

Once he almost braced himself to the resolution of admitting the full truth and facing the consequences. For a moment he was strong, and then, like a chill shadow, the thought of the frightful shock it would be to his wife, and the shame to her children, came over him, and enfeebled and unnerved him. It was not so much for himself—justice to Ngaia would come before that—but his wife was so proud, so pure, so holy. She was religious; she was good; she was not as ordinary women. The mere idea of what she would suffer was terrible to him.

He temporised; he wavered; he argued with himself.

Would it, after all, harm Ngaia so very deeply to let Jake pass as her father? He would surely treat her well. Moreover, she would be brought to live at the station, and he would carry out the oft-considered plan of building a large house—to be hers one day—and of taking up his residence at Te Henga. Ngaia would live with him then as a guest, as a friend, or even as a companion to his wife and his daughter.

So he gave in, and yielded his child, as a victim of his shame, on the altar of his wife's purity and goodness. He wrote the saddest, bitterest letter Ngaia ever lived to read.

Poor child! until she received it she at least had hope.

"It's a trick. It's not true, it can't be! He can't be my father, Miss Spence, can he? It's all a mistake; I am sure it is! Mr. Anderson's letter will put it all right," she had said to her friend.

"I trust so, my pet," was the only answer Miss Spence could give; "indeed, I trust so."

Thus these two waited, each with an instinctive gnawing fear at her heart.

Then the letter came, and with it seemed to die the sunshine of one sweet life.

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John had only just reached Te Henga. When he rode up, they told him that Jake was at the yards. He turned down and found him. "Hanging up" his horse at the rails, he called the man aside.

"I received your letter, Jake," he commenced, trying to appear quiet and calm.

Jake made no answer. He was, in his heart, if the truth be written, just a little afraid of the man who had always been his master. It was the first time he had deliberately crossed his path; but he had no great opinion of John's strength, and he was determined to have his way, if he had not already irrevocably got it. He let John do the talking.

"What made you go to Napier?" John asked for the fourth or fifth time. "You hadn't forgotten the agreement. There was no necessity. It's money you want, nothing else; and you know perfectly well that you could have levied your blackmail without going to the girl. I had plans for her."

"So 'ad I."

"You!"

"Well, why not?"

"Plans for yourself, not for her, you scoundrel!"

"Look 'ere, Mr. Anderson, it ain't no manner of use your losin' your temper about this 'ere business. I took the gal when she was a child, or my old woman did. We brought 'er up; we 'ad the bother of 'er. She looked on me as 'er father when she was took to school. That jist suited you then: ye wanted it Well, I say let 'er do the same now. I wants it."

John had difficulty in controlling his passion. The insolence of the man was intolerable; and yet a quarrel could do no good. He had placed him in the position of being Ngaia's father, and plainly the fault lay—originally, at least—with himself. He had made that most expensive of mistakes—he had trusted an untrustworthy scoundrel.

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"As long as ye provide for 'er, and don't forget 'er parents, no living soul shall know the truth, not even the gal 'erself. Ye can't want more."

John turned fiercely towards him.

"What I want I intend to have, and, moreover, it is as well that you remember this. You've deceived me once, and it suits me to overlook it; but if you ill-treat the girl, or breathe even a suspicion of what you know, I'll take her from you and dismiss you without an hour's notice."

"And then tell your wife the 'ole 'istory," added Jake with a chuckle.

"You d——d scoundrel!" exclaimed John, striding up to the man as though he were about to hit him. Jake slunk back in fear. Then John regained some control over himself, and he turned and left

Jake watched him mount his horse and ride off.

"D——d scoundrel, am I? Well, I don't mind, Mr. John Anderson, so long as ye let me bleed ye. I ain't likely to publish yer little secret; just 'cause it don't suit me. The secret's money. The tale ain't. But I'll take it out of my fine lady. I'll make a blooming Maori of 'er. Then ye can take 'er. I'll 'ave 'er 'ome, quick!"

He did, for the holidays had just commenced.

That home-coming was, for Ngaia, a never-to-be-forgotten experience. The pain of it passed—not the memory.

The Maori settlement, which now boasted an accommodation house, a couple of stores and a billiard saloon, was the terminus of the coach. It lay some eight or ten miles from Te Henga.

It was a hot, dusty day when Ngaia arrived. She looked charming and beautifully trim in her straw hat and summer blouse and dark skirt. Apart from her beauty, she had that natural grace and erect carriage, that art of wearing and not carrying her clothes, that page 115society sums up in the word "stylish." Ngaia Carlyle was just that type of girl whose whole demeanour seems too modest and retiring to seek admiration, whose unconscious beauty nevertheless attracts it. Like every young girl, she was fond of pretty clothes, whilst having all the horror that a real gentlewoman invariably has of overdress.

She possessed but a dim idea of the life she was coming to. She had, in fact, yet to learn that even expectation cannot kill the pain of realisation.

For years, almost indeed during her whole lifetime, she had been reared to look upon herself as a lady of gentle birth, whose lot it was to lead a life of refinement as an English girl amongst English people. She had now to remember that she was a Maori, and was, moreover, returning to her birthplace, to her people, to her future home—to Maoridom.

She was in no sense ashamed of the dark blood in her veins. Indeed, as matters had turned out, it was rather the contrary, for her white blood was obviously not worthy of much boasting. Now that she knew the manner of man her father was, it seemed probable that the name of his father was the most she would ever learn. She might find out who his grandfather was. It was barely possible.

On the other hand, inasmuch as her mother was a Maori, she could readily learn her mother's father, and his father, and on and back for generations. Who amongst white folks could boast a longer lineage, and a lineage, too, of chiefs and chieftainesses, for Mr. Anderson had told her that her mother was the daughter of a great chief?

She was proud of her dark blood, she was proud of her mother's people; but she dreaded a life amongst them.

Yet what could she do? She was helpless. She was a girl, she was poor. She could not live for ever page 116on a rich man's bounty. He had been unspeakably good to her. He had taken her from a low, half-civilised life and had given her all the benefit of a gentlewoman's upbringing and of a good education.

Yet it seemed hard. It seemed, too, to be almost a wicked wrong that she should have received such an education only to learn its value and be forced to waste it.

Surely it would have been better, she reflected, to have left her to grow up in the kainga as a regular Maori, satisfied with her life and contented with her surroundings, than to have made her what she was.

"They have taught me," she said, "to be discontented when I might have been quite happy, and to dread a life I should have cared for well enough if I had known no other."

In truth, they had shown her the full beauty of another world, another existence, merely to snatch her from it at the threshold.

A less gentle girl than Ngaia would have rebelled, or would have submitted with little short of hate and anger against the man whose daughter she was forced to believe herself. At the outset such indeed was her impulse. But the conviction of what she believed to be her duty outweighed her grief and her disappointment. Jake Carlyle was her father, and, unless good reason could be shown, her proper place was in her home.

"I might be able to do good, and to make it happier and better for him and for my mother. I have had all the good things, and they the rough."

Then she wondered whether she had brothers and sisters, and somehow she found herself dreading, rather than hoping, lest she had.

Miss Spence of course came down to see her favourite off. Though no word of such a possibility was actually expressed by either of them, each one realised that the page 117parting might be something beyond a mere question of the holidays.

The fact of Ngaia's father having proved to be a low shepherd had become the property of the school, and it was obvious that the knowledge of her plebeian parentage had tended to be prejudicial to the girl in more than one direction. In some instances, where jealousy had always fostered a secret enmity, the news begat a studied, contemptuous coolness. Such girls, with feminine skill, spoke at her and of her within range of her hearing, and made it impossible for her to fail to perceive that she was not considered, by them at any rate, as sufficiently a lady to mix with freely. Injustice often turns an insult into a compliment, and Ngaia might have survived the direct attacks of those who disliked her. It was the generous and scarcely to be concealed sympathy of those who loved her that completed her misery. They were sorry for her, and were unable to hide the fact; and the girl who can complacently permit people to sympathise for the manner of creature her father may be must be strangely devoid of natural pride. The happiness of Ngaia's school-life had passed for ever. She almost realised it. Not quite, perhaps. Whilst she was haunted with the presentiment that the days of her school-life were ended, she yet clung desperately to a vague hope that Mr. Anderson, or some happy chance, would shorten the horror of a Maori life to a matter of merely a few weeks.

The two days' journey on the coach seemed interminable; but like things both good and bad, it drew towards its end. At length she was near her home, and almost amongst her people. Perhaps, even, a portion of the land around belonged to her, for she had a dim idea that, being partly a Maori, she of necessity owned some land. So she did; and not only a portion of the land, but a very vast estate. During the whole page 118afternoon, until within two miles of the settlement, the land stretching on either hand was hers—her very own, The driver, old Dave Shorland, explained to her that it was the great Te Henga run, Mr. Anderson's, the finest property in the district.

Dave vouchsafed frequent conversation with her during the journey. He took her at first for some young lady travelling up to pay a visit to the big station, and was suitably deferential. When he learnt from her that she was a child of Jake Carlyle's, he wondered at his never having heard of his white wife. When, however, Dave learnt that Ngaia was a half-caste— presumably Ka's daughter—he became really interested in her. Not that she was the first of her sort that he had seen. More than once he had driven half-caste, and even Maori, girls back from their schooldays to their real life. From time to time afterwards he had seen them at the settlement, and he had observed how invariably they quickly grew to forget their civilisation and became once more Maories. From trim, clean girls they one and all fattened into coarse women, with their pipes, their dirty hands and their babies. Perhaps one or two of those who were half-castes might have remained slim-waisted; that was if their fathers were well-bred Englishmen. The female offspring of a common, ill-bred white man and a Maori woman always grew big and greasy, and soon became a mother—an admirable thing in its way, but then, everything depends upon the way. Having become a mother, the wretched girl—and yet not really wretched or miserable, but accepting the whole situation as a matter of course, and as an inseparable condition of her phase of living —would become a regular Maori wife, with a whare of her own.

There seemed, however, a difference in this girl; one that struck Dave the more forcibly for his knowledge of Jake. She was so gentle, so beautiful. He could page 119scarcely credit her being a half-caste. The hair and skin seemed too fair. The eyes and eyelashes alone were dark. There was no trace of coarseness, no sign of fat. She was so perfectly a lady that it seemed a pity, the biggest pity of all, that she should be, as it were, led to the slaughter; that she should be sacrificed to the crude, dirty habits of her people, and become the victim of her surroundings, until, without marriage, she became the mother of some chance Maori brat.

The old driver saw her as she was. He pictured her as she would be within a twelvemonth; a Maori woman, in a short, gaudy skirt, and loose bodice, scraping potatoes, with a pipe or cigarette in her mouth. Taught by all around her that self-control was mere waste of energy, viewing the future as the absolute counterpart of her present, swayed by a woman's natural desire to become a mother, she would give way to the persuasion of her companions, and, yielding to the importunities of some young Maori, would complete her effacement by becoming his wife and bearing him a child.

"Dang it all!" Dave muttered to himself, "she'd make one of my boys a real good wife. She'd just about suit Jim, with 'is music and 'is fiddlin'. She plays the pianer perhaps."

"Eh, miss," he said to her, "I suppose you plays the pianer?"

She replied that she did, and smiled at the question.

He noticed the smile, and it seemed to him the sweetest part of a lovely face.

"It's a darned shame!" he muttered and flicked the off leader so that it took him a quarter of a mile to regain control. "Fancy a gal like that being chucked into a Maori whare. Poor little woman, she don't 'alf know what's coming! I'll tell Jim, and if 'e's a sharp 'un 'e'll 'ave her. Wot a wife she'd make 'im! Lor!"

Ngaia's arrival was expected.

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Ka had not come down into the settlement. Jake had, and as usually happened when away from the station was just not sober. He helped Ngaia down from the coach, and before she could realise it he had kissed her. She was shocked despite herself, and yet she was constrained to submit. After all, what else could she do? He was her father. She half recoiled from the loathsome experience. He felt it and slipped his arm round her waist and, holding her firmly, kissed her again.

A number of Maori men, young and old, were clustered behind Jake. She held out her hand to each one. Some were content merely to press it deferentially; others drew her towards them, and pressed noses. It is the Maori welcome of close Maori relatives.

A few paces off, along the side of the road, were squatting a number of Maori women, whom Jake told her to greet. She walked across to them and shook hands and pressed noses with each one, amidst cries of welcome and weeping. Each woman, as she squeezed her nose to Ngaia's, snivelled and sobbed, and kept her "at the press" for a couple of minutes.

The operation disgusted the girl; it almost made her sick. The faces of the natives were damp and unclean; their breaths reeked of tobacco and food. Yet they meant it kindly. She was being received by them in true native fashion. In their eyes she was simply a Maori, and as such they were welcoming her. She was the child of a Maori woman. Most of them accepted her as Ka's; many as Ruta's with Jake as her father. Only amongst the older natives was the fact of her being Ruta's child and the daughter of John Anderson well known. Nevertheless a white man might have spent twelve months in the kainga and have never learnt it. John Anderson was the father, but he had handed the child over to Jake, by whom it had been adopted. Thenceforth amongst the Maories it was practically page 121Jake's child, and referred to as such. What a Maori knows and never mentions is wonderful—as wonderful as what he does not know and talks about.

They led her to one of the big huts and presently set food before her, treating her in many respects as a guest, although at the same time, in some indefinable way, making her feel that they regarded her as one of themselves. It was only in her birth. She possessed no knowledge of Maori; the language of her childhood was forgotten. Their manners and customs were rudely mcomprehensible.

A daughter of the soil and of its people, she was none the less a stranger in a strange land.