Beneath the Kauri Tree (The Sea of Freedom Trilogy Book 2) Read online

  At first, Kathleen wanted to object, but Heather was right. Their relationship with Colin had never been good. The boy had worshipped Ian, which was no surprise, since Ian had shamelessly spoiled him, preferring him to the other children. Colin alone had remained with his father when Kathleen finally fled her marriage—and it had not been to the boy’s benefit. When Kathleen had taken him back after Ian’s death, her son could no longer fit himself into the family. Colin hadn’t wanted to go to school or to remain in any apprenticeship Kathleen secured for him. And even worse, he lied and stole.

  Kathleen hoped the army had at least driven the worst attitudes out of him. Still, she was in a hurry to get to her room and fix herself up for her son. When Peter arrived at six thirty, she was already wearing a proper, but figure-emphasizing, dark-green evening dress. She had put up her golden-blonde hair and affixed a tiny, extravagant, green hat. A small veil danced along the side of her face without obscuring her large, luminous green eyes.

  Kathleen Burton was a beauty—even now, at forty-seven years old. Her complexion was marble white, and her high cheekbones and full lips made her features seem noble. No one would come upon the idea that this British rose came from an unknown Irish village.

  Peter whistled jokingly through his teeth like a boy from the streets, as he often did, when he saw his wife in front of the mirror.

  “Your son can be proud of you in any case,” Peter said as he exchanged his simple brown suit for a frock coat, under which his priest’s collar looked strangely displaced. He was only doing it out of love for Kathleen. Peter hated formal clothing—perhaps because of his years in the gold-mining camps where he had tended his flock. He had rarely worn his vestments there, where the men had more need of hospital tents, soup kitchens, and medical care than preaching. “No one in his barracks has a more beautiful mother. Will he be inviting us into the officers’ club, by the way? I’ve never seen one from the inside.”

  Kathleen shook her head, blushing slightly.

  “No, as you know, that can’t be. He—”

  “Of course, he must still use the name Dunloe.” Peter laughed. “I had almost forgotten. Think of poor Jimmy. But perhaps he’s rather proud of the strapping lad in the red coat.”

  Kathleen did not find the matter so amusing. It had caused her bitter pangs of conscience to pretend her son was English and Jimmy Dunloe’s progeny. Claire’s husband had suggested the plan to her because it would hardly have been possible to admit the son of an Irish horse trader to the Royal Military Academy. Colin was now in the Royal Horse Guards and so protected the queen herself.

  A knock on the door prevented Kathleen’s need to reply. A page bowed and announced that Reverend Burton and his wife were expected in the lobby. She looked herself over once more in the mirror and let Peter help her into her coat.

  Kathleen was surprised by what she saw when they reached the hotel lobby. Heather was conversing enthusiastically with a tall blond young man in the red uniform of the guards. They turned to Peter and Kathleen as they came down the stairs, and Kathleen noted to her relief that Heather was smiling. She, at least, had no intention of playing the sullen one that evening, and she looked lovely in her wine-red dress and matching hat.

  “Mother, Reverend.”

  Colin approached with a friendly smile, kissed his mother’s hand with perfect form, and bowed no less correctly to Peter Burton, who was startled at first. Colin’s striking resemblance to his mother had not stood out to him so much in Tuapeka. He had resembled his father more. But then the boy had been a surly youth with lanky limbs and a devious expression. Now, in contrast, he was a young corporal with an open, amicable gaze—an exceptionally good-looking man with aristocratic facial features and soulful brown eyes. These, Kathleen had not given him, but Colin’s eyes didn’t have the black spark of his father, who, people whispered, had gypsy ancestry.

  “It pleases me greatly to see you, Mother, the reverend, and, of course, my charming sister again. I hardly recognized you, Heather. You’ve grown up into a breathtaking beauty.”

  Heather blushed, and Peter revised his unqualifiedly good impression of Colin. The flattery was a bit too much, even somewhat inappropriate, toward his sister. Heather was shorter than her mother and had fine, curly ash-blonde hair. Her delicate features and her soft, dark eyes had something Madonna-like at second glance. But Heather was far from as eye-catching as her mother, who in her younger years had brought a whole room to silence when she entered.

  “Where shall we go, Colin?” Peter asked in the somewhat awkward silence after Colin’s little speech. “Or should I say Corporal Dunloe?”

  He spoke amicably, but an expression of displeasure crept onto Colin’s face. “It’s not my fault that I’m not yet a sergeant. And I use the name Coltrane now,” he blurted out.

  Kathleen shrugged. “Whatever your rank, you look grand in your uniform,” she said happily. “Will you recommend a restaurant? Peter was speculating about an officers’ club, but that—”

  “That would likely not be appropriate,” Colin said brusquely, looking at Kathleen with some irritation. “I mean—,” Colin began to explain, but Heather interrupted him.

  “I, for one, am hungry as a wolf,” she said gaily. “And I’m cold. To wit: ‘It’ll be summer in England when we arrive, Heather. You only need to pack your light clothing.’ Perhaps they call this summer here, but to my mind, ‘rainy season’ fits better.”

  Heather’s comment made all of them laugh and led to a graceful change of subject. As he led them to a steak house near the hotel, Colin described the monsoon rains in India, where he had spent the previous year.

  “So, you didn’t like it in India?” Kathleen asked.

  “No,” said Colin tersely. “Thoroughly backward rascals, delusional maharajas, and officers of the Crown settled into jobs for show.” He seemed to want to keep going, but he then squared himself, breathed deeply, and twisted his face back into a smile. “The horses, however, Heather, those are interesting. Can you imagine? They have Marwari horses with upturned ears. I’m serious.”

  Heather, an equestrian, listened with interest while Kathleen and Peter exchanged concerned glances. India belonged among England’s most important colonies—only the year before, the Prince of Wales had visited it—and there was constant unrest. Kathleen had been concerned when they had ordered Colin there, but for young soldiers, service in India was surely a springboard. Colin, however, had returned after one year. Had he let himself be replaced simply because he did not like the weather and the natives?

  “But you do feel at home here, Colin?” Kathleen inquired with concern. “I mean, it’s surely an honor to be in the Royal Horse Guards.”

  “Did you play polo in India?” Heather asked at the same time.

  Colin did not quite seem to know which question he should answer first, and his expression wavered between smiling and reluctance.

  “Naturally, little sis, I was always a good rider, wasn’t I?”

  “And that’s why you’re in the Royal Horse Guards now?” Peter asked. “Presumably one has to be a very good rider to—”

  Colin pursed his lips. “Oh, nonsense,” he blurted out. “Any beginner could ride the few formations we perform when it’s the queen’s birthday, or when we ride behind her carriage as an honor guard—it’s laughable. I didn’t go to the Royal Military Academy for that.”

  “So why do you do it, then?” Kathleen asked. She did not like interrogating her son, but she almost felt she had gone back in time to when every day at dinner she had tried to draw out of him the reason for his latest dismissal from an apprenticeship.

  Colin seemed reminded of that as well. He made a face as if in a fit of rage, but then he brought himself quickly back under control. “Well, in the army, one does what one must,” he mused moodily. “And I don’t cut a bad figure on a horse, you know. Perhaps it simply pleases the queen to have handsome young corporals around her.” He smiled winningly. “Or handsome young sergeants.”


  Kathleen could not return Colin’s smile. Queen Victoria was generally held to be extraordinarily prudish. She surely did not spare a second thought to the men who guarded her.

  “You’re expecting a promotion soon, then?” Peter could not get Colin’s comment when they met out of his head. “Are you vexed that it did not come when you were in India?”

  Colin shrugged, seemingly apathetic. “It can take time. In the army, they don’t give much thought to poor Irish beggars who want to make something of themselves.”

  Kathleen lowered her gaze immediately, but Peter furrowed his brow. No person in the army was supposed to know about Colin’s Irish extraction. To his superiors, he was a Dunloe—perhaps born under somewhat opaque circumstances on the other end of the world but still an offspring of a banking family with contacts all the way to the royal palace.

  “I’m considering . . .” Colin inhaled deeply. “What would you say, Mother, if I were to return to New Zealand?”

  “Armed constable? What is that, anyway?” Kathleen asked.

  She had not wanted to ask the previous evening. Colin had been so enthusiastic about his return home and his new prospects among the Armed Constabulary Field Force that she did not want to raise any objections. After all, he should feel welcome even if she did not have a good feeling about any of this. But now, on the train to Cardiff, Kathleen aired her concerns.

  “The Armed Constabulary is a mix between an army regiment and the police, armed, as the name suggests,” the pastor explained. “It was formed in 1867 and legitimized with a law from Parliament. Under the pressure of the Maori Wars, if you ask me. Back then, it looked like there was going to be a proper uprising. There were even soldiers from England on the North Island, but they were so far out of place and supposed to fight fellows like that Te Kooti in his own country. We’ve seen often enough where that leads. One doesn’t understand the other, and in the end, it turns out bloodier than it needed to be. It did come to a few massacres—on both sides. And finally, they decided in Wellington to send the English home. The armed constables took over the fighting. Apparently with success: Te Kooti ultimately gave up and sought shelter from his kingi.”

  “But where did the men come from?” Kathleen asked. “Certainly not from British military academies?”

  Peter shook his head. “No. Most of them seem to have been recruited from settlers and local police forces—and not without reason. They knew the area. Aside from that, they took on Maori, which was also well advised. Not all of them were in revolt, after all, and surely it contributed to calming the situation.”

  Heather, who had been drawing quick charcoal sketches of the English landscape viewed from the train window, broke out laughing. “That’s one way of looking at it. At the university, anyway, they said instead that the tribes fought all the more fiercely with one another. In East Cape and Gisborne, there were supposedly civil wars.”

  Kathleen shrugged. “Either way, the battles are past. Why do we still need armed constables?”

  She did not ask the question she wanted to pose: “Why do we need Colin?” Yet, it hung almost palpably between them in the elegant first-class compartment.

  “To prevent further battles?” Peter said. “They still need to recruit people; otherwise Colin couldn’t return.”

  “His sergeant apparently put in a good word for him,” observed Kathleen, still somewhat tense.

  Colin had presented the matter as if the Armed Constabulary were simply waiting for him, and his British superiors had approved his transfer.

  Peter nodded—soothingly, he hoped—and was grateful to Heather for not saying more. Kathleen had to know that one could praise difficult subordinates out the door.

  Peter’s brother, Joseph, had sent a carriage to the train station to retrieve his relations from New Zealand. The Burtons owned an estate in Roath, a small town a few miles east of Cardiff. Although Roath was centrally situated, according to Peter, it was still stamped by village life.

  Cardiff itself had originally been an idyllic little city itself, but since the boom in coal mining, its small harbor had grown into one of the most important industrial ports in the world. The city showed the signs of a settlement that had grown too quickly: ugly, hurriedly raised houses, shanty towns around the city center, and many migrants who sought their fortune or at least a livelihood by more-or-less legal means. However, beautiful buildings, arcades, and government buildings also sprang up. The city was clearly changing, and it reminded Kathleen in some respects of Dunedin during the gold rush.

  “For those of us in Roath, the growth in Cardiff is a decided advantage,” explained Joseph Burton, a plump, red-faced man who allowed one to imagine what Peter would have looked like if he were not kept so busy by his parish. Joseph, too, had straight brown hair and symmetrical features. Instead of having laugh lines and creases like those that characterized Peter’s face, Joseph’s cheeks seemed rather more bloated, and there were bags beneath his eyes.

  “They’re already building in our neighborhood. Naturally only the better sort, you understand: bankers, ship owners, businessmen who make their money in coal without getting the dust and filth in their eyes.” Joseph laughed. “In Roath, they practically get to live in the country, but they are in their offices on the harbor in a jiffy. For that, they’ll pay just about any price. We even sold a little land and made a humble profit.”

  Joseph Burton’s appearance was anything but humble. His coach was exceedingly elegant, hitched to four beautiful horses and driven by a liveried servant. Peter praised the lovely horses but rolled his eyes when he faced Kathleen. It was completely unnecessary to send a four-horse team. After all, there were only three people and three bags to transport.

  Naturally, Joseph was expensively dressed, his frock coat definitely bespoke.

  “We have them made in London,” he said when Kathleen asked him about it. She was heart and soul a tailor, after all. “On Savile Row. Here in the provinces, you can only get whatever’s sold to the masses, but it must be worse for you lot at the end of the world.”

  Joseph passed an eye over Peter’s already somewhat worn brown suit. Kathleen immediately began feeling embarrassed. There were plenty of good gentlemen’s tailors in Dunedin, but Peter simply didn’t place importance in his outward appearance. At least Kathleen was sure that Heather’s riding clothes and her own, too, could withstand any scrutiny.

  Heather was not so easily impressed. She did not like Peter’s brother or his pretentious ways. She wondered to whom the “we” referred. What a shame that her stepuncle was now sitting across from her in the coach. That made it impossible for her to discuss her impressions with Peter.

  The coach traveled through Cardiff’s attractive center and the less appealing outskirts. The road to Roath led through lush green pastures and fields, and Roath itself was marked by a vast lake-dotted landscape. The stables, haystacks, and ivy-covered cottages seemed small and dollhouse-like to the New Zealanders. As they traveled through this landscape, it wasn’t long before mother and daughter had a change of mood. Kathleen thought of Ireland, and Heather felt herself transported to the fairy tales of her childhood.

  The Burton house lay amid a parklike landscape on one of the lakes. The building was a dream of red brick, its façade decorated with high windows, bays, and little towers. It was surrounded by ancient trees, its approach paved with bright gravel. Really, the Burtons owned a castle.

  “Well, not a castle exactly,” Peter said when Kathleen later accused him of understating his family’s estate. “It’s just a manor house. Like I said, country gentry. And the family did not have all that much money anymore, at least until my little brother made his ‘humble profit’ with land speculation. But all the better. Then they won’t envy us the house in Treherbert.”

  A great deal of money had gone into furnishing the entrance hall, the apartments, and the guest rooms. Kathleen could estimate the value of the furniture and textiles, since the Gold Mine Boutique ordered it
s materials from England. Moreover, everything was arranged in the very latest fashion—which no longer astonished Kathleen once she met Joseph Burton’s “we.” Joseph’s new wife and his son from his first marriage also occupied the house. Joseph had been a widower but had remarried a year before. Peter and Joseph’s aged mother occupied rooms in the house’s upper story. Their father had died.

  “Didn’t he say something about a son?” Heather whispered as a girl approached them in an elegant receiving room. She had dark hair, pale skin, and a fairylike beauty.

  “Welcome to Paradise Manor,” she said softly.

  Joseph Burton laughed behind them. “She’s renamed it,” he explained. “Before, it was simply Burton Manor, but Alice has a knack for poetry. Allow me to introduce you. This is Alice Burton, my wife.”

  “Dear Lord, the girl’s younger than Heather,” Kathleen said when she was alone with Peter.

  Both of them had worn frozen smiles as Joseph and Alice showed them the house and then offered them tea. Kathleen still found the English tea rituals somewhat uncomfortable, and the procedure in Paradise Manor reminded her so much of days long past in Ireland that it almost made her skin crawl. Then, she had been the somewhat awkward girl serving the tea—and longing for the sweet tea cakes served alongside it. The young Mary Kathleen had served in the landlord’s manor house, and although occasionally she was allowed to take some bread home, she was constantly tempted to steal leftover tea cakes to share with her beloved Michael Drury.

  Kathleen smiled encouragingly at the shy blonde housemaid who poured the tea with shaking hands. Alice had rebuked her sharply when a few drops spilled to the side. Surely the young housewife did not have it easy asserting her position, but Kathleen and well-raised Heather winced embarrassedly when Alice made a scene with the girl.

  “Where did he scoop up this Alice of his?” Peter asked later. “She doesn’t display the most proper behavior even though she is clearly trying to. And she’s hardly older than his son, if I remember correctly.”