Katherine Mansfield, The Woman Behind The Books (Including Letters, Journals, Essays & Articles)
around, the day cleared. After their lunch which they had beyond the Maori pah, they found themselves out in the wild bush.
They camped that night at the Tarawera Mineral Baths.”We laughed with joy all day,” Kass wrote in the black Note Book.
The following day they reached the Waipunga Falls. How fierce the winds through the flax and manuka! How bad the roads as they forced their way up hill through the shimmering heat to Rangi- taiki. Kathleen’s abiding memory of the Rangitaiki Valley was expressed in a poem of that name which she wrote a year or two later:
“O valley of waving broom,
O lovely, lovely light,
O heart of the world, red-gold!
Breast high in the blossom I stand;
It beat about me like waves
Of a magical, golden sea.
“The barren heart of the world
Alive at the kiss of the sun,
The yellow mantle of Summer
Flung over a laughing land,
Warm with the warmth of her body,
Sweet with the kiss of her breath.
“O valley of waving broom,
O lovely, lovely light,
O mystical marriage of Earth
With the passionate Summer sun!
To her lover she holds a cup
And the yellow wine o’erflows.
He has lighted a little torch
And the whole of the world is ablaze.
Prodigal wealth of love!
Breast high in the blossom I stand.”
At Rangitaiki Kathleen posted the letters she had been writing while they travelled. That evening they camped nearby, and they had cream at a clean farmhouse where the happiness of the man and woman and their daughter, isolated in the wilderness, was astonishing to Kass. She saw there, too, the wild pigs which had descended from those which Captain Cook had released in the ‘70’s, and of which Cousin Ethel had told her years before at Anikiwa.
Two days later they struggled across the plain in a torrential downpour, over a fearful road, with “long threading purple mountains” in the distance. Wild horses swept by them; they saw one clump of broom through the rain, and heard larks singing. After a time they reached manuka bush and saw more wild horses over the far plains. Their clothes were drenched, but they had no water to drink. It was a strange night in the tent, with “quivering air” and the solitude closing them in. The next few days Kass recorded fully in the black Note Book. She kept her impressions in flying words, with no attempt at form or style. It was a swift series of jottings to serve as background against which to weave future tales:
“In the morning rain fast — the chuffing sound of the horses. We get up very early indeed, and at six o’clock ready to start; the sun breaks through the grey clouds — There is a little dainty wind and a wide fissure of blue sky. Wet boots, wet motor veil, torn coat, and the dew shining on the scrub. No breakfast. We start — the road grows worse and worse. We seem to pass through nothing but scrub-covered valley, and then suddenly comes round the corner a piece of road. Great joy, but the horses rush right into it; the traces are broken; it grows more and more hopeless. The weather breaks and rain pours down. We lose the track again and again, become rather hopeless, when suddenly far ahead we see a man on a white horse. The men leave the cart and rush off. We met two men, Maoris in dirty blue ducks — one can hardly speak English. They are surveyors. We stop, boil the billy, and have tea and herrings. Oh! how good — Ahead the purple mountains — the thin wretched dogs; we talk to them. Then we drive the horses off, but there is no water; the dark people, our conversation — Eta hoeremai te kai — it is cold. The crackling fire of manuka, walking breast high through the manuka. … We approach Galatea. We lunch by the Galatea River; there is an island in the centre, and a great clump of trees. The water is very green and swift. I see a wonderful great horse-fly; the great heat of the sun, and then the clouds roll up.
“‘Hold the horses or they’ll make a bolt for the river.’ My fright — Encounter one man, surveyor on white horse; his conversation. At the city gates we pull up and walk into the city. There is a Store and Accommodation House, and a G.P.O. Mrs. Prodgers is here with the baby and the Englishman — It is a lovely river. The Maori women are rather special — the Post Boy — the children — an accident to the horses — very great. The Maori room, the cushions. Then a strange road in a sort of basin of strong underbush.
“Through the red gate were waving fields and fresh flax — the homestead in the distance — a little field of sheep, willow and cabbage trees, and away in the distance the purple hills in the shadow — sheep in for the shearing.
“Here we drive in and ask for a paddock. Past the shearing shed — past the homestead to a beautiful place with a little patch of bush — tuis, magpies, cattle and water running through. But I know from bitter experience that we shall be eaten by mosquitos. Two Maori girls are washing; I go to talk with them; they are so utterly kids. While the dinner cooks, I walk away and lean over a giant log. Before me a perfect panorama of sunset — long, sweet, steel-like cloud against the faint blue, the hills full of gloom, the little river with the tree beside it is burnished silver — The sheep, and a weird, passionate abandon of birds — the cries — the flocks —
“Then the advent of Bella, her charm in the dusk, the very dusk incarnate. Her strange dress, her plaited hair, the shy, swaying figure. The life they lead there. In the shearing sheds — the yellow dress with tui feathers on the coat and skirt and a () with scarlet () blossom. The () heat and look of the sheep. Farewell.
“Had strawberries.”
“Waki.
“Lunched in a space in the bush cut through and then by devious routs we came to the pah. It was adorable. Just the collection of huts, the built place for Koumara and potatoes. We visit first the house. The bright, clean, charming little place, roses and pinks in the garden. Through the doorway, the kettle and fire and bright tins — the woman — the child in the pink dress and red sleeves in all the (). How she stands gathering her pleats of dress — She can say just ‘Yes.’ Then we go into the parlour — photos — a charming clock — mats — kits — red table cloth — horsehair sofa. The child saying, ‘Nicely, thank you.’ The shy children, the Mother, and the poor baby, thin and naked. The other bright children — her splendid face and regal bearing.
“Then at the gate of the P.O. a great bright coloured crowd, almost threatening looking — a follower of Rua with long Fijian hair and side combs — a most beautiful girl of 15. She is married to a patriarch — her laughing face, her hands playing with the children’s hair. Her smile across the broad river — the guide — the swimming dogs — it flows on — he stands in the water, a regal figure — then we alight, and we are out. The absolute ease of his figure, so boneless. He speeds our parting journey. His voice is so good. He speaks most correctly and enunciates each word. We see him last stopping to rest his horse.
“The sun is fearfully hot. We camp by the guide’s whare. The splendor of the night.”
“Early (Monday).
“The wet bushes brush against my face….
“We pick Ngamoni (sweet potatoes) with the Maori children — in the sunshine — Their talk and their queer, droll ways…. We learn, too, though it is difficult and tedious because our hands are so stiff. One girl is particularly interesting with auburn hair and black eyes. She laughs with an indescribable manner and has very white teeth. Then another Maori in a red and black striped flannel jacket. The small boy is raggedly dressed in brown — his clothes are torn in many places — he wears a brown felt hat with a koe-koe feather placed rakishly on one side.
“Here,