After the Earthquake (1)
More than a century ago, many people from Britain sailed out to New Zealand, to start new lives as farmers or doctors or teachers. It was not a crowded country, and people on farms and in small towns all knew each other. They knew each other's family history, how much money they had, who loved whom, who hated whom...
Children, of course, must not know too much, about what adults do and think and feel. But Walter, who is only six, notices things and likes to ask questions...
The earthquake happened late on a Saturday right in summer and shook the coast, the farms, and the towns for twenty miles, from the sea to the mountains. At the Blakiston home, everybody had gone to bed and was asleep, but the shake woke Mr Blakiston immediately. When it was over, he sat up in bed, lit his candle, and looked about him at the walls and ceiling. He could not see any damage, although the quake had been strong and had shaken the house from side to side for a moment or two.
'Are you all right?' Mr Blakiston asked his wife, who was now awake beside him.
'Yes, dear, but do go and see if Walter is awake. He may be frightened.' She had been frightened herself, waking from a dream of ships on the sea.
Her husband rested on one elbow, staring at the candle and listening for sounds from his son's room. Walter was six and had his own room near the top of the stairs.
'He must be all right,' said Mr Blakiston, hearing no sound in the house. He blew out the candle and lay back beside his wife. 'Still, that was a bad little quake. Yes, a damn bad little quake.' Soon he was asleep again.
In the morning, they found little damage outside, except for the old washhouse chimney, out at the back, which had fallen onto the washhouse roof. But inside the house a thin china vase had fallen onto the floor and broken. At breakfast time, Mr Blakiston brought the pieces of the vase to the table, to show his wife and son.
'English china,' he explained to the boy. 'Very fine too. See that letter D? That's for Doulton, the people who made it.' But Walter was more interested in the earthquake. 'Did the whole house shake?' he asked his father.
'Shook, yes, and went up and down a bit.'
'Do you think it shook down any houses that we know?' 'Not many - maybe a few ceilings and chimneys.'
Walter ate his breakfast. 'I'd like to see an earthquake,' he said. 'I'd like to see houses falling down, and all the people inside them getting frightened.'
'Walter,' said his mother, 'you shouldn't say things like that. It's very unkind. You should think first.'
'I did think first,' said Walter softly, to his plate.
'What did you say?' asked his mother. 'Speak clearly.'
'I only said I'm sorry I didn't wake up in the earthquake.'
That day was a Sunday. Mr Blakiston was a farmer, and although there is work to do on a farm every day of the week, he usually spent Sundays in and around the farm buildings near the house, resting himself. Every fourth Sunday the family went to church in the town down in the valley. But today Mr Blakiston, with Walter's help, began to clear the bricks from the roof of the wash-house, where the chimney had fallen.
Walter always asked questions when he worked with his father. 'Do earthquakes happen in England?' he asked.
'Yes,' said Mr Blakiston, 'But not often.' He was enjoying the work, and found Walter's questions a little boring. The broken vase made him think about England, the Old Country, and he wanted to think in silence.
He had had his farm in New Zealand for nearly twenty years, but he still thought of England as home. Colonial life was freer, and he liked it better, but it was not as English now as it used to be. Life was changing in this young country, and he was changing with it.
Now, as he threw the bricks from the roof down to the ground, he knew that he would never go back to England. He was a colonial farmer for life. Time had decided this for him, and he felt pleased.
'Can I drive to town with Mum in the morning?' asked Walter.
'Yes, if you want to. Now climb down and put those bricks tidily by the wall.'
Next morning at eleven o'clock, Mr Blakiston brought the horse and gig to the front door. Every fine weekday morning at eleven Mrs Blakiston drove to the town four miles away to get the post and the newspaper and to shop at the store. Summer or winter, she wore a flat grey hat and long gloves.
On this Monday morning, Walter went with her. They drove past wide flat fields of hot yellow grass, burnt by the sun, until they came to the town. Mrs Blakiston stopped the gig by the verandah of Lakin's General Store.
'Can I go in?' asked Walter, getting ready to jump down.
'Mr Lakin will be out in a moment,' said his mother. She opened her purse and found her shopping list. 'We'll wait till he comes.'
Soon Mr Lakin came out from the shop door. He held his hand above his eyes to keep off the bright sun and looked up at the gig. 'Good to see you're all right after the quake, Mrs Blakiston,' he said, in his high thin voice.
'I'm very well, Mr Lakin, but it did frighten us a little, so late at night. Did you have any damage?'
'I slept through it, myself. But I found a few broken bottles on the floor yesterday morning.'
Mrs Blakiston gave Mr Lakin her shopping list.
'Have you heard about old Mrs Duncaster?' he asked.
'Heard about her?' Mrs Blakiston was not sure.
'The quake brought the ceiling down on her. She died of shock, they say, early yesterday.'
'Oh, but what a terrible thing, Mr Lakin-' said Mrs Blakiston. 'I had no idea -'
'Well, it was a sudden end,' Mr Lakin said. 'I thought I should tell you,' he added. 'I don't like my old customers dying.'
'Yes,' said Mrs Blakiston. 'Thank you, Mr Lakin. I hadn't heard about it, of course. I'll go and visit her daughter this morning.'
Mr Lakin went to fetch Mrs Blakiston's shopping.
'The Mrs Duncaster, who is dead,' said Walter, 'is she the old lady I know?'
'Yes,' said his mother. 'I'd no idea,' she added quietly to herself. 'Of course it was Sunday yesterday, so we didn't hear.'
'Did the roof fall right on her face in bed?'
'I don't know, Walter. Don't ask silly questions. You heard what Mr Lakin said.'
'I think when there's an earthquake you should get right under the blankets. Then the ceiling won't hurt you.'
'She was very old. It's very sad that she's dead,' said Mrs Blakiston. She pulled Walter's sunhat down to his eyes, and made him sit up straight on the hot seat of the gig.
'Are we going to visit Miss Duncaster?' he asked.
'Yes, we must go and see her. She loved her mother very much.'
After Mr Lakin had put the shopping in the back of the gig, Mrs Blakiston drove up the street to the post office to get the post and the newspaper. She then drove to the north end of the town, where the Duncaster lived.
A row of trees hid the little low house from the road. Behind the trees, long wild grass, burnt almost red by the sun, grew up to the verandah.
'There's somebody here already,' said Walter. A dark brown horse stood by the verandah, tied to one of the posts.
It was a farmer's horse, a working horse.
Mrs Blakiston looked at the horse for a moment, then, carefully holding her long skirt, she got down from the gig and knocked at the door. She knocked twice, in the hot summer silence, before the door was opened by a tall woman in a dark grey dress.
Walter watched his mother kiss Miss Duncaster. He had hoped to see Miss Duncaster crying for a mother killed in an earthquake. Bur he was sorry to see that Annie Duncaster's light blue eyes and pink face looked just the same as usual.
'You must come in and have tea,' said Miss Duncaster's deep voice to his mother. 'And Walter with you. Please, please do. I'd like it.'
'But you have a visitor already,' said Mrs Blakiston.
Miss Duncaster looked quickly at the horse tied to the verandah. 'Nobody's here,' she said. 'Nobody at all. Please come in.'
So Mrs Blakiston put the gig under the trees, tied up the horse, and took Walter with her into the house. 'You must be quiet,' she whispered to Walter, 'and not ask questions.'
Inside the house, it was dark and smelt cool after the hot morning. The little room behind the verandah was full of china and books, but the most interesting thing to Walter was a great creamy-white egg in a corner. It was bigger than his hands. When Miss Duncaster had brought in the tea, he sat down to stare at the wonderful egg while his mother talked.
'I've only just heard about your mother, Annie,' said Mrs Blakiston. 'I'm so very sorry.'
'Mother hated earthquakes,' Miss Duncaster said calmly. 'We had a bad one here, you know, just after father and she had first come from England. She had always been frightened of them since then.'
'They frighten me too. Did your mother die suddenly?'
'A little of the ceiling fell, you know, in her room. I got her out of bed and into a chair and ran downstairs to make her a cup of tea. When I got back, she was dead.' Miss Duncaster put down her cup and stared out of the window. 'It was all a great shock. The earthquake itself and then my mother dead.' 'I slept all through the earthquake,' said Walter, 'didn't I, Mum?'
'Yes, dear, luckily,' said his mother.
Miss Duncaster, who had begun to cry a little, suddenly seemed happier and said, 'Of course, my mother was no longer a young woman. But even at sixty, people like to live. And she had had a wonderful life. Young people like me can't hope for nearly so much.'
'Yes, Annie, I know,' said Mrs Blakiston, who also knew that old Mrs Duncaster had been at least seventy and that her daughter was at least thirty-five. 'It is hard for you, on your own now,' she added.
Miss Duncaster got up. 'Oh, thank you, thank you. But I won't let myself be lonely.' She looked quickly out of the window, then moved to the door. 'I'd like you to come and see my mother now,' she said. 'She's lying upstairs in father's old room. She looks beautiful.'
'Yes, of course I'll come up,' said Mrs Blakiston. 'Walter, you stay down here for a few minutes.'
'Oh, but I want Walter to see her too,' said Miss Duncaster. 'She always loved children, you know.'
The stairs were very narrow and dark, and the air was warm up under the roof.
'In here,' said Miss Duncaster, opening a door.
The small bedroom was full of dark furniture and had a window in the roof. The bed was against the wall by the door, and on the bed, covered by a sheet up to her neck, lay the dead Mrs Duncaster. Walter was surprised; the round creamy-white face was like the big egg downstairs, he thought, but somebody had given it a nose and a mouth and put a hard line down each side. He hadn't remembered that old Mrs Duncaster looked so serious; she had always laughed at him and given him sweets.
