Du Rose Sons

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Calving began early and Logan arrived home late, falling into bed after a shower. Hana traced a lazy finger down his damp skin and he enclosed her hand in his before his breathing deepened and he slid into an exhausted sleep. Unable to settle, Hana got up and went to the kitchen, making hot milk for herself and getting her treasured book out of the change bag housing Phoenix’s things.

Its hard backed, fabric cover was brown and aged and the pages inside were yellowed and speckled with mildew. Hana stroked the diary, one of many, written by Logan’s paternal grandmother - the original Phoenix Du Rose. A box of objects the previous summer had been dropped off by the marae elder, left with his family for safekeeping by the old lady, only months before her unexpected death. He had held onto them for more than forty years, waiting for the right moment. “Keep them,” she told the kaumatua, “keep them until the mountain is joined and only then, pass them onto my mokopuna, Logan.”

The later diaries made hard reading, detailing the argument between her two sons, Alfred and Reuben. The older brother stole Reuben’s sweetheart after a spat between the soul-mates and Reuben had been devastated. Miriam had produced three children for Alfred, but her youngest belonged to Reuben. Phoenix had divided the mountain, giving a smaller share to the disgraced son who was widowed with young children of his own, condemning them to scratch a living away from the homestead. She bitterly regretted her actions, missing her favoured son dreadfully, but couldn’t reverse her decision. So she put her energies into Logan, showering him with everything that Reuben should have had, instructing him in Māori lore, tikanga and kawa and instilling in him a bond with the land which would never be broken. And then she died, unexpectedly and much too early. Logan was there with her on the site of the house he now slept in, unable to prevent her death, sitting with her until it was past dark and knowing in his five year old head - she wouldn’t wake up.

While Alfred’s lack of business sense on one side of the mountain ruined a thriving family business, Reuben’s keen mind and skilled accounting went to waste, decimating his land without the will to make it into anything special. After his death in the fire, accumulated debt made his sons unable to keep the property and when Nev, the oldest of Reuben’s offspring offered it to Logan, he had taken it, keeping his half-brother on as manager. The land had joined and before the ink was even dry on the documents, the kaumatua had come and offloaded his burden in the shape of six extremely large and ratty cardboard boxes.

This diary was dated April 1968 and spoke of a time when Phoenix Du Rose was queen of all she surveyed. Despite the fabled Du Rose curse that had killed her husband, she built her farm into the biggest employer in the area. The locals bitched about the family in the township, but were happy to take her cash to pay their bills.

As the hot milk went to war with Hana’s indigestion, she donned a pair of white cotton gloves and began to read. Will, the museum curator at the hotel would be cross with her if he had seen Hana in the family room, touching the elderly artifact without gloves. Hana cringed as she opened the diary and glass tinkled down onto the worktop. The spine made a horrid cracking sound as Hana tapped it lightly to make the rest fall out. “Sorry, Will,” she whispered, leafing through to find her place and losing herself in Phoenix’s memories.

The next page decried the behaviour of Reuben’s late wife. Reuben and Alfred had married sisters from the wider whānau, continuing the mess of interbreeding and bad genetics.

‘Antoinette is a ridiculous girl. Does she think we are all such fools that we don’t know what she’s been doing? Her father is perfectly well. I saw him in Ngaruawahia last week at the marae, yet Reuben tells me his wife is away taking care of her dying father. Miriam knows nothing of his ‘illness’ and yet, she would be the first to know. She went strangely quiet when I asked her about her sister’s return.

The blond drover is gone, so at least their affair is at an end. Reuben hit him so hard, his head left a notch in the doorframe. It set the disease off in Reuben’s fingers and will be a while before he is able to use his left hand. Foolish boy. It was lucky he didn’t kill him but the man left soon after, JD said. It wouldn’t surprise me if they had killed him and buried the body.’

Hana’s jaw went slack and then she closed it again. Nothing about the Du Roses would surprise her. She smoothed her glove over the black ink. “Who’s JD, Phoenix?” she asked the dead writer. JD had been mentioned numerous times before. “Who is your mysterious man?” It was clear from her writing that he was a trusted confidante of Phoenix Du Rose. The diary went on to detail herd and dairy prices and things that didn’t interest Hana in the slightest. The family had introduced the Charolaise cattle and ventured into raising beef at the beginning of the 70’s. The creamy white beasts roamed the mountainsides, prime purebred after forty years of careful breeding. They were shaggy coated and muscular, many of the females sold internationally as breeding dams.

What Hana really loved about reading the diaries, was the history of the family into which her daughter had been born, adding a context to the sprawling land and lives lived on it over almost two centuries. Phoenix Du Rose was a hard woman, mainly through necessity but also genetics. At her rangatira father’s death, a brooch disappeared from his coffin, thought to have been stolen by her wayward, drunkard husband, Henri. When Henri died a few months later of his haemophilia, legends of the Du Rose Curse were born, involving tales of divine retribution for the theft of the tapu object. But Phoenix was the thief, keeping the brooch hidden from the questing hands of her sister. The diary had revealed her guilty sixty year secret - but sadly not the brooch.

Hana yawned and covered her mouth, her well-bred English manners winning through even though nobody else saw. The hair prickled at the back of her neck like a ghostly hand stroking her and Hana swung round on her stool, feeling as though she was being watched. The house was so far from the hotel and even further from the township, she and Logan never closed the curtains, not even in their bedroom. The prickling feeling persisted and she got off her stool and went to the window. Blackness stared back at her, but it unnerved Hana enough to drop the blinds over the sink and pull the drapes across the ranch slider. She shivered, wondering whether to wake Logan, but he was exhausted and would be up before light if calving had started already.

Turning back to the diary, Hana immersed herself in a tale which went back more than forty years. There were more herd prices, physical logs of profits as though Phoenix had used the diary as an account book and then came an interesting entry.

‘Reuben won’t talk to me about it. He has allowed his unfaithful wife to just come home as though nothing happened. Women from the Ngapuhi tribe at the sale yards yesterday told me where she’s been; hiding up north until delivered of her pakeha spawn. It’s not that she’s borne a white-man’s child that has made me angry, but she is married to my son! They say the child is so white haired she cannot possibly be Reuben’s. He angers me with his indifference. I don’t understand.’

“But you will.” Hana stroked the pages sadly. Reuben’s affair with Miriam had stretched decades. It was a wonder poor Alfred had managed to father any children at all with his own wife and a miracle that Logan was the only one belonging to his brother. Hana pondered the identity of the white haired child or where she was now. A dawning realisation began in her breast, curdling the milk in her stomach and reviving the mild morning sickness she had mistaken as a bug. Hana took the book over to the sink, knowing she was going to retch but not wanting to stop reading.

Nothing. The pages rambled on about local people, the staple gossip of the township documented by an intelligent and literate woman, whose skill with the pen had increased visibly over the years from illiterate to gifted. Jack, the deaf stable manager had taught Phoenix to read and write - or so the rumours said. The earliest writings had been almost unintelligible and fraught with error.

Hana turned the pages, doing her best not to damage them. The gloves frustrated her and she removed them, hoping Will wouldn’t somehow know she had handled the artifact with her bare hands. Towards the end of the book and into 1970 came two revelations, bisected by more numbers and accounts. Hana had been dreading the first, but expected at some point to come across the second. It was about Logan. In historical time, Logan’s conception had eclipsed the first disaster but for Hana, the first was far more damaging now, in real time.

‘Antoinette’s bastard has arrived. My father would be turning in the urupa. The northern tribe cannot control her. She is demon possessed. She has hair the colour of morning frost and Reuben has allowed her to stay! My son is a fool and I have told him so. I cannot look at the child. She vexes Reuben’s boys to distraction and is artful and wicked, even though she is only five years old. She has ruin in her soul.’

Hana began to skim read, not finding what she wanted, frustration burning as her fingers turned the pages.

‘I could kill him! I knew he was being untrue. Miriam has the makings of a pregnancy she has been at pains to hide and Alfred has been gone for months. Reuben looked like a whipped dog since Antoinette’s death and I had thought it was grief, in addition to being left to care for the demon child. It is guilt. My sons have outdone themselves this time. Why must they carry this tragedy forward? Miriam’s child is Reuben’s and I feel a fool. Only last month, I convinced Alfred to return home and save his marriage. He is due this week, once he has finished up working for my sister’s family. This disaster will carry forward through the generations and we will be damned.’

Hana skimmed. This was old news and not what she was looking for. And then she found it.

‘23rd March 1971

It is my own fault. I should have anticipated this with us all residing in one house. Miriam’s boy child is the image of his father and to my shame, I favour him above the others. The woman has been low in spirits since the birth, which is little wonder with what is happening around her. She is tearful and I fear for her mind. There was a fight today when Alfred walked in and discovered his brother cradling the baby. He attacked him even though Reuben was holding the child. The mother was bereft. Reuben has agreed to leave the property and take his family with him. We have no choice and we rode up to the high point to work it out. I am devastated.’

Hana raised her eyebrows in interest. Legend told that Phoenix Du Rose threw her son off the property and divided the mountain - but it wasn’t true. This was the proof. But the written words hadn’t finished with their final punch.

‘Reuben’s boys are becoming out of control and it would be best to remove them from the rest of the whānau. Kane, in particular is showing signs of derangement. That girl has been the undoing of my son’s legacy; she is unhinged and her demons are spreading. He feels he can exercise better control over them away from an audience. Reuben will leave tomorrow with Kane and Neville and set up a makeshift camp on the eastern side of the mountain and return for the girl. Until then, Miriam is left to look after her sister’s bastard. Reuben wishes to adopt her but that is one thing I will not allow. She will never be a Du Rose. Caroline Marsh she will remain, until long after I am dead and in the urupa.’

Hana dropped the book onto the draining board as sickness enveloped her and she retched into the stainless steel sink without control.