Arana and Kahu tried to explain their country (despairingly, because it could not be explained but only lived), saying all land was owned by Maori tribes and clans, who kept forests intact for birds and only cut trees judiciously. Aihe interrupted, saying hotly that some tribal chiefs were greedy and sold their relatives’ land to whitemen of the New Zealand Company. As they walked Kahu pointed at some gnarled pohutukawa trees and said they were sacred. Springs of purest water bubbled out of the ground. In the distance they could see the swell of the forest like a great wave.
They entered what Kahu called “the forest of Tane,” and the air became still and heavy. Above them the westerly wind stirred the treetops and always some birds rose crying out. They went silently as Kahu pointed out the tallest trees making a top roof over the forest, the lesser trees below. Joe Dogg was scandalized by the way of the rata, which began life in the high branches of other trees and, as it grew, sucking the life force from its host, sent roots downward until they reached the earth and twisted together into a distorted trunk until the host tree became part of the rata.
Late in the morning the small pieces of visible sky clouded over and Kahu said they might have a little fast-moving storm. Before she finished speaking they could hear the rain pelting down above them, beating on the leaves, though so interlaced were the treetops that no drops reached them.
They came out of the trees as the storm pulled away, and from a lookout rock they saw pillars of mist exhaled from the folded hills. Aihe said it was Papatuanuku, the earth mother, sighing for Ranginui, the sky father, and that in the Beginning they had been glued tightly to each other in amorous conjunction, making great darkness for their god children. The children decided to separate their parents and let in light, she said, and Tane, the forest god, held them apart with trees. She asked Etienne for Mi’kmaw stories. He remembered several imperfectly, but stayed silent as he thought they would show empty against her accounts of a Maori world teeming with so many gods. The Mi’kmaq had lost their spirit world to the missionaries’ God.
When they passed near an ongaonga Aihe pulled at Joe Dogg’s sleeve, pointed and told him it was a dangerous plant with a poison sting. “They tell of a whiteman sailor who ran away from his ship in the night. He ran into a forest where there were many ongaonga plants and he fell in them in the darkness, crying out. But the ongaonga did not spare him and he died of its stings.” A little later she caught something and passed it to Etienne—“here is a pepekemataruwai for you, we call it ‘insect with a silly face.’ ” He flung it from him, laughing.
• • •
Etienne was impressed that everything they saw or heard or smelled was linked to Maori gods and their feverish vengeful lives. He promised himself that when he returned to K’taqmkuk he would find old people and ask for stories of ancestors. He stared at the ocean below, glinting through the trees, and thought it looked back at him. Never in K’taqmkuk had the Atlantic Ocean fixed him with its watery eye. Was this a sign?
At the new moon Joe Dogg and Etienne Sel worked their passage to Port Jackson and after a long wait signed on to a London-bound ship and on to Boston. “We must find Aaron,” said Etienne.
VIII. glory days, 1836–1870
54. vegetable wealth
James had spent the early August morning hour combing very carefully through the monthly household accounts and totaling up Posey’s expenditures. Since their marriage he had kept her on a liberal but strict allowance; in their early days it was his only ascendancy over her. She had found him rigorous — a single penny beyond the allowance and the next month’s amount was halved. But now he cared less and since the birth of Lavinia (long after they resumed subdued marital relations), Posey had changed, all her tigerish flauntings behind her. The waves of her affectionate care washed beyond Lavinia and over James, his cousins and their wives, the house staff — all except Phineas Breeley, who had been banished to New Brunswick, far, far from infant Lavinia. Posey read stories and poems from Tales of the Robin to the child every night; Lavinia developed a tender regard for “the pious bird with the scarlet breast.”
James closed the account book. Posey had become almost frugal in her expenditures. For himself, beyond his cigars, presents for Lavinia, decent port and a very occasional waistcoat, he spent little money — except for new horseflesh. He had just purchased Throstle, a handsome chestnut Hanoverian saddle mount, and decided now on a half hour of manly horse talk with Will Thing, his aged coachman. As he rose to go down to the stables the new butler came in and said, “Mr. Vogel requesting to see you, sir.”
“Let him come in, let him in,” said James, for Lennart Vogel had become a particular friend. “Lennart, you must be just now returned from your annual jaunt?” He was slightly shocked. There was no sign of Lennart the elegant. He wore dark fustian workman’s trousers, a grey wool vest and heavy boots. The boot heels were crusted with mud.
“I am. And very interesting it was, James,” said Lennart. “Forgive my appearance. I am so charged with information I came straight here. Apropos of my journey I wonder if you have a little time to talk with me. This last week I have been forced to consider the future of the company. I see pitfalls ahead that must be avoided. But also a chance to enlarge our scope if we exert ourselves. No use talking to Edward or the others just yet.”
“Would you like to walk about the grounds while we converse? The day’s heat is not yet intolerable.”
“Better to walk about outside,” said Lennart, “I am so disheveled.”
They strolled through the grounds, under the grape arbor with its clusters of unripe fruit, past the gaudy geometries of bedding plants. Posey was delighted with the strident colors of pelargonium, salvias, petunias and calceolarias, but James preferred roses, which at least had some height and perfume; the bedding gardens, very much the new thing, were like cheap oriental carpets.
Lennart walked too quickly for James’s taste; James finally sat on a stone bench near the roses and said, “Lennart, stop a bit and tell me what troubles you.”
Lennart did not sit but walked back and forth, the words tumbling out. “James, I believe we now must urgently consider the future and our forest holdings. We have had several rather lean years and you know as well as I that we do not have many good patches left in New England or York state. The pine is cut out. I know, you are going to say, ‘What about the forest lands in Ohio’ that your father bought some years back. That purchase is the catalyst to my visit here today. In my woodland journey this year I went to that Ohio property and what I saw utterly dismayed me. It was no longer the pine forest that your father persuaded us to purchase. In his day there were only Indians and fur traders passing through great stands of white pine, but now settlers, mostly from northern Europe, have come there in number. Thousands arrived en masse eighteen months ago and they have burned and cut almost all of those trees and replaced them with farms. Can you imagine? The finest white pine heaped up to burn. There is nothing left. And they keep coming.”
“My God,” said James. “It was several thousands of acres.”
“Yes, we should have had a trespass agent in attendance. But the forest stood empty of all but trees and the inrushing people believed it was free for the taking. They took it. It is gone.”
“I thought Armenius Breitsprecher was supposed to make yearly inspections of those holdings.”