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Fortune or fate
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16 April 1900
“Elias!” yelled his mother, breathless and anxious. “Elias, where have you been? I need you.”
By fortune or fate, he’d arrived back in the yard and was still unsaddling his horse when Bethan rushed outside.
“You’ve got to help,” she gabbled without preamble. “There’s a telegram from Gwenna and it’s got me fair worried.” The pleading expression on Bethan’s face halted the terse response on the tip of Elias’s tongue. “Will you hitch up the cart and take me to her? Please, Elias, bach. I don’t ask much of you, but I do ask this.”
Not so long ago, he’d not have lifted a finger to help Gwenna in any way, but working with Thomas and meeting Alice had tempered his anger – towards his mother, if no one else.
“What’s she got herself mixed up in?” He continued to groom the horse, moving around the stable area to avoid making eye contact with his mother, while he tried to decide how to answer.
“I don’t know what’s happened. The telegram says: ‘Johnno missing. Desperate to find him. Pains started.’ I’ve got to go to her ... Elias? ... Please?”
The action of grooming reminded him of the effect the plane and sanding had on him. He couldn’t explain why it should be so, but the continual, slow, back and forth movement calmed him and allowed him to think more clearly. If he did this favour for his mother, then she – and Gwenna – would owe him something in return. It might be worth it.
He stopped to stare at Bethan, the brush still in his hand. Moments passed before he grunted ungraciously, “Help me take the cover off.”
Bethan complained the preparations were taking far too long as she rushed about helping him ready the cart, and packing her things and everything she thought she would need for Gwenna. They began their journey with little daylight remaining.
“What does she mean, Johnno’s missing? And how can she find him if she doesn’t know where he is? And, oh dear, she shouldn’t be having pains yet. She’s not even seven months.”
Bethan chatted away incessantly beside him, but Elias didn’t want to be drawn into any conversation about Gwenna. Not yet. His time would come.
“You won’t travel back tonight in the dark, will you, Elias? I don’t want to worry about you too. You’ll stay, won’t you? At least for a while, until I can find out what’s going on. And what I should do. We might have to bring Gwenna back with us. Oh dear, but then, she might be too far gone. Maybe her neighbour, Mrs Mavis Milligan’s her name, will be a help.”
Elias was amazed his mother could talk so much and barely take a breath. He’d forgotten she could get like this when she was worried. He’d not spent so much time in her company of late. Not for many years. A flicker of regret passed through him for all he’d lost, only to be replaced by exasperation. He hoped he wouldn’t rue his decision.
With a twitch of impatience at his wild, random thoughts, he shook the reins over the back of the mare, urging her to a faster pace. They arrived at the house a little less than an hour and a half later.
Partway up the driveway, Bethan clambered down while the cart was still moving. She ran up the front steps and through the door while he drove around the back. With no plans of staying, he didn’t unhitch the horse but led it to the water trough. Leaving the animal to its own devices, he entered the house.
He found Bethan, Gwenna and another woman in the kitchen. He’d not seen Gwenna for months, not since that horror night when he’d lost all sense of anything decent. He’d been appalled when his mother slapped him and he realised what he’d done. Not that he’d let on to them how he felt, but seeing Gwenna now, he was struck by how thin she was, despite being heavily pregnant.
“Um, I should get going,” he said, feeling awkward and out of place, and unsure about the propriety of his being there in the first place.
“Don’t be silly, Elias,” snapped his mother. “You can’t leave yet. Give me a chance to decide what’s best. Stoke up the fire for me. I might need it. And see if you can find some more coal. Or wood.”
Grateful for something to do, he went back outside. With daylight almost gone, the pitch-black interior of the old shed beside the tank stand revealed little through the half-broken door. He’d need a lamp if he were to find anything useful inside. He could smell coal but had no idea how much was there. Much of the pile of wood stacked along the outside wall was still too green and would smoke, but he picked out the driest logs by weight and smell.
Going inside again he dumped the logs in the basket, picked up the poker and stirred the embers, adding more fuel as the flames took hold. After a few moments, the fire settled and burned steadily.
Behind him the women were helping Gwenna walk up and down the kitchen, encouraging her to breathe slowly. He didn’t want to be in the room with women doing whatever women did in this situation, so he lit a lamp and took it outside.
He stroked the horse’s neck and whispered into its ear. “Aye, girl. How ya doing? Better’n me, I bet. I wish it were you that was birthing. I’d know what to do then. I remember helping my da when I was a little fella.” Now his thoughts had taken him back, he opened the box of memories from his youth. Life was great back then, when it was just Mam and Da, and his two giggly sisters. He’d not been quite so happy when Samuel had been born – another boy to steal Da’s attention – but he’d turned out all right in the end. “It’s a silly thing to say after all these years, but I miss my da ...” Elias patted the mare and began to undo the buckles. He’d be here for hours yet and should release the animal from the shafts. “It was my fault. You know that, don’t you. It was my fault Da died ...” Heavy-hearted, he led the horse into the field at the back and let her loose. “It’s never been the same since.”
“Elias? Are you there, Elias?” His mother’s voice reached him from the back door. As he emerged from the darkness, she breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh, thank goodness. For a moment, I thought you’d gone. Come inside. We need to talk.”
“I’ll stay out here.”
The relationship between the two of them had improved in the last few months, but she was still wary of his reactions. So was he.
“Please, Elias. We need your help.”
Misunderstanding her meaning, he stepped back in alarm. “I want nothing to do with any woman’s work or babies. There’s nothing I can do.”
His mother smiled. “It’s not woman’s work I want you to do, bach. It’s man’s work. Mrs Milligan and I can manage here. What you have to do is far more important.”
Mollified, he followed her up the steps.
Elias listened to Gwenna’s version of events when Black Jack had returned without Johnno, and Mavis’s story about how she’d found Gwenna after seeing Jack leave in such a hurry.
“It was just as well I came round, it was,” Mavis preened, glad to be involved in something quite shocking. “Young Gwenna here was in such a state. Dishevelled and half-dressed, and determined to go after that man. It took me all my time to stop her. What was she going to do, after all? He was long gone and she on foot. That’s when the first pains started. Well, she obviously couldn’t go anywhere then, could she? So that’s when I sent the telegram to you like she asked.” Despite asking several rhetorical questions, Mavis had not paused long enough for anyone to agree or disagree. Until this trip, Elias had no idea women could talk so much, so quickly. Alice didn’t.
During it all, Gwenna suffered more, but still infrequent pains.
Bethan reassured her they were still too far apart to be concerned about. “There’s plenty of time yet. Just keep breathing like I said; it’ll help.”
“I’m that scared for him.” Gwenna eyed Elias warily, as uncertain about his presence as he was. “We have to find him. We have to find Johnno.”
“Do you know where Jack was, or who he was meeting?” asked Elias.
Gwenna shook her head.
“Or the route Johnno might have taken?” he pressed.
“No. Nothing. South, he said, but he wouldn’t tell me more. Jack had made him promise.” She gazed at Elias, imploring. “But I had a terrible dream last night. I saw Johnno swallowed up by the earth, lying covered in vines and creepers or such like, completely hidden from view. Please, Elias. Find him for me?”
“I can’t promise anything, but I’ll ask around.”
Elias got up to leave, but Bethan put her hand on his arm. “Wait until morning, son. There’s nothing you can do tonight.” She stood and led him to one side of the room. “And I’d like to take Gwenna home with me in the morning. The baby’s not coming any time soon. Will you let her come and stay, Elias? I can do more for her there than here. Will you?”
Turning his head towards Gwenna – thin, frightened, desolate – she looked a different person to the girl he’d known. And she was visibly wretched.
“Very well. If it makes you happy.”
* * *
How Elias managed to control his temper while Bethan and Mavis fussed over how the quilts should be folded on the floor of the cart and where the pillows should be placed so Gwenna wasn’t shaken around too much, he did not know. Eventually, with him driving, Bethan sitting beside him and Gwenna lying in the back, they left for Auckland not long after eight o’clock the next morning.
Mavis stood at the gate waving them goodbye, disappointed the diverting commotion was leaving her behind.
After a long half hour or so, Elias urged the horse beyond the dawdling pace they had so far maintained.
“Don’t go so fast,” protested Bethan. “Think of Gwenna.”
How could he not think of her! Bethan never ceased to remind him every few moments about poor Gwenna. For a while last evening, Elias had almost believed his animosity towards her was fading, but his mother was doing a good job of stirring it up again.
“We’ll never get there at this rate,” he snapped. “And since you expect me to go haring off all over the place in search of someone I barely remember and care even less about, then leave me alone.”
By the time they reached North Street, the morning was well advanced. Bethan continued to fuss over Gwenna until even she showed signs of crossness.
“I’m all right, Mam. Honestly, I can walk by myself,” Elias overheard her say as they entered the house, but he wasn’t off the hook yet either.
“Elias, bring the quilts and cushions inside for me,” Bethan shouted over her shoulder. “And don’t forget our bags,” she added as an afterthought.
Elias unhitched the wagon, fed, groomed and watered his horse, and did as his mother asked. “I’m ’way round to the King’s Arms,” he told her after dumping everything in the middle of the floor.
“What’re you going there for?” Bethan sounded piqued. “Don’t you want to get on the road? There’s no telling how far Johnno has got.”
Elias took a deep breath. He didn’t want to argue with his mother, but his patience was wearing thin. And he wanted to see Alice before he went anywhere. “Don’t you think I know that?” he snapped in a much sharper and louder voice than necessary. “But there’s no point in riding off willy-nilly. I need some clues about Jack Jones and his business dealings, or who his associates are, before I head off.”
Elias saw the alarm in Bethan’s eyes. “I’m sorry, Elias. Of course, you know what’s best,” she soothed, still wary of the bad-tempered brute of a few months ago.
“Yes. I. Do.” He turned on his heel and left in case he said anything that might upset their fragile relationship.
––––––––
Alice did not offer him the solace he’d hoped for. Quite the opposite. Feeling as confused and out of sorts as when he’d left home, he needed to drown a few sorrows before heading off on a journey he didn’t want to undertake.
Tuesday lunchtime was not the greatest time to catch men idling at the pub. Elias started with the King’s Head at the bottom end of France Street but drew a blank, so he headed towards the Newton Hotel, his nearest local, on the corner of East Street. While having a half-pint of ale and picking up another comment to add to his list, he briefly considered going into the Naval and Family Hotel on the corner of Pitt Street but decided Black Jack was unlikely to have frequented it. The pub was too new and too well known, so he headed further east along Karangahape Road to the Star Hotel, near the corner of Newton Road. This end of the road had a reputation for being a bit rough and the perfect setting for some of the money-lending dealings Black Jack got into.
And he was right.
It cost him a few bob to get the rest of the information he needed, but Elias walked out of there with knowledge, if not comfort.
