Читать книгу Katherine Mansfield, The Woman Behind The Books (Including Letters, Journals, Essays & Articles) - Katherine Mansfield - Страница 21

Cradock was a brother of Arthur Beauchamp; his daughter Ethel was second cousin to the three little girls. She was an extremely tall, angular woman with fine warm blue eyes, and an expression so naturally sweet that even false teeth could not stiffen it. She had been engaged to Grimsdale Anderson for several years, but a series of unexpected misfortunes falling upon this young English pioneer had prevented their marrying. Yet Ethel Beauchamp seemed only to grow more gracious with misfortune. Like all the Beauchamps, she had an almost inexhaustible supply of courage.

Her sister, a plump little fantail, had married Mr. Greensill, explorer and prospector of the Malay States. In one raid while he was away fighting, she had stayed alone to protect the household goods, even under the knife of a Chinese. She had been shipwrecked many times. When she was asked:”Weren’t you frightened?” she said,”I never have time to think about that. I have to be wondering what’s going to happen.”

Cousin Ethel, noticing that Kass was treated as “the difficult child,” made special efforts to interest her or tell her a little story. She told her how Mahakipuna, between the Sounds, was named “The Smoke Goes up Straight,” when the tall plume indicated fair weather and a propitious place for the Maoris who had just dragged their canoes onto land. She told her how Captain Cook had released the first pig in Queen Charlotte Sounds in 1773.

She took the child down to the old pah by the hill behind the homestead. Maoris had lived there when Cradock Beauchamp first settled, but now on the hill by the pah there was only the Maori burial ground. The rough wooden slabs were rotting under the trees.

Old Armena, who worked for the Anikiwa Beau-champs, was the last Maori left. She had been a tribal chieftain’s daughter, of the best native blood; and she was devoted to the English. To hear her speak, one would believe that she had no use for Maoris. Yet when the cemetery had caught fire, she begged the Beauchamps to save it.

“But you have no interest in it, Armena,” Cousin Ethel said in her gentle, solicitous way.

“Armena have seven husbands there,” said the Maori.

Kass liked to talk to Armena while she ironed the children’s pinafores. She ironed beautifully; and especially she liked to iron men’s shirts. When they asked her where she had learned, she said,”Down in the city.” She had paid five pounds to learn. Her last husband had been an Englishman, and she was very proud of him. When he died he left her a bit of land which she treasured and called in Maori,”The Wedding Dowry.” She was fond of “Maggie” — as she called Ethel, whose name she couldn’t say — and she wanted to give her the title-deeds. But Cradock Beauchamp had the strictness of a prospector who never jumps his neighbour’s claim.”You can’t take it from them, Ethel,” he said sternly. So she returned the deeds to Armena.

One morning Armena came crying down to Anikiwa. Her whare had burned, and the deeds with it.

“Now the dirty Maoris will get my bit of land,” she cried in Maori, forgetting English in her despair. She had wanted it — the gift of a white man to her — to return to the whites. The land became valuable long afterwards — worth a fortune — when the Anikiwa homestead had to be sold for taxes.