You and I are standing unseen and unheard on a wharf that holds a small group of waiting people. It is early morning and the sun has only just cleared the horizon. Before us a wide tidal river curves gently away both above and below our position giving, perhaps, a mile’s clear view in each direction and although the water is heavy with clay, as it always is, at this slack tide it looks a near perfect mirror.
May I direct your attention to the people who share this place with us. You’ll observe that they are wearing an outmoded form of dress. No, this is not one of those popular historical re-enactments. Look around! On the stretch of river that lies within our view, there are another two wharves and several small jetties, I can count at least six tall ships, they will be from Australia, There’s a steam tug, and a couple of steam launches. Above and below us are the sawmills that own those wharves and the kauri logs confined behind their booms.
And, looking behind us, what do we see? Beyond the wharf’s entrance stands a carrier’s dray and several gigs with their horses head down in their own private reveries, a rutted street that climbs after a short stretch on the flat, two cross streets, and wooden buildings of one storey. The town could be a film set but the cost of reproducing the wider scene would be prohibitive even for a movie company. This is a real town whose life blood is the kauri. We have, in fact, gone back in time.
You’re probably wondering why the town behind us is so quiet this morning. There is good reason for that. The townspeople need their sleep, those who aren’t nursing sore heads and queezy stomachs. There will be no scream of steam -driven saws today as there was none yesterday. Yesterday was 1899. Today its 1900 the start of a new century though some would argue otherwise. People came in from all over, by horseback, pony trap, and by rowboat. The roads are poor and the river and the isolated local railway are the principle highways here. The railway laid on two trips for the great occasion and supplimented its three carriages with open wagons for the menfolk. Their little F-class loco, ex-government railways, was called upon to exceed its makers ratings. There were athletics, chopping and sawing contests, this is after all a timber town, There were horse races, and boat races fiercely contested by the crews of those ships yonder. A ball in the evening wound things up. For some, the festivities continued into the early hours. But now yesterday’s visitors are gone and the town is dead.
So these people who forgo their sleep and share the wharf with us must do so for some good reason. They are, or I should I say ‘we are’, waiting for the steamer which has come up from the government railhead in Helensville sailing overnight to take the full advantage of the ruling tides.
Ah ha! Someone with keen eyesight is pointing out a smoke plume down there beyond Mt. Wesley. It shouldn’t be too long now.
I want you to take notice of this man here who is standing a little apart from the others. If he was to speak, you would pick his origen immediately. His name is Sean Partrick Ryan. That’s a new suit he’s wearing, new boots too, and I’ll bet that that high high stiff collar is just about strangling him. There’’s no need to whisper. He can no more hear us than the others can. You can stare at him close up and he won’t know. Look at his face. You can just about read what’s going on inside that head of his. Yes, there’s no doubt that he’s excited but there’s apprehension there too, wouldn’t you say? Almost as though he was walking to the scaffold or is he the groom waiting at the altar for his bride to come?
There’s no chance of him ever having to face the scaffold. He is a fine man. One of the best. Neither will he ever wait at the altar. He is, in fact, already married. It’s just that he has yet to meet his wife. You want` me to explain?
Well, Sean here, left his home in County Antrim at the age of twelve and spent the next nine years at sea. He might well have stayed at sea but for one of those chance occurences. He was on the Heligoland which was wrecked within sight of where we are now. You may have heard of it. She actually loaded some of her timber from this very wharf.
When she sailed, her captain decided that he could manage without the tug but, as it proved, the tide was flowing just a little too fast and there was not enough wind to give control. They began to drift rapidly to that wharf there below us. The tug-master saw their difficulty and went to offer assistance but the captain waved him away I imagine he was expecting a possible claim for salvage. He would save the ship himself. Of course he didn’t. She hit hard and opened some of her seams. She had been near the end of her economic life anyway so that was the end of her. That would be all of ten years ago now.
Sean here was paid off with the others, liked the place, and decided to stay. With the timber trade booming, it was easy enough to find work in a sawmill. The gloss went off that in a single week with two fingers gone and a bit of his left palm. No compo of course. At this time that’s still in the future.
After that, he tried his hand at gum digging and somehow took up with Matte Radonich which is unusual. The Croations, they call them Austrians at this time because Croatia is still part of the Austro-Hungarian-Empire. Later they’ll be Dalmations or Dallies although Dalmatia is only a small part of Croatia. But I’m getting sidetracked. The Croatians, as outsiders for the moment, tend to socialise among themselves and to work together in groups of their own nationality. No wandering around with a gum spear and trusting in providence for them. They work on a face a systematically dig their way across a swamp. They shift a lot of dirt but the find every last piece of gum. A lot of people don’t like them, probably because they do so well. Jealousy, that’s what it is! Sean came quickly to use a spade with the best of them. After all, think of the debt this world owes to the Irish navvy.
But that boat is getting closer by the minute so I’d better get to the point. Matte and Sean eventually set themselves up as gum buyers and made a good name for themselves, good money too. Sean is pretty good at the lingo. Actually, Sean has been running the business himself for the past nine months. Some years ago Matte went home and married his childhood sweetheart Nada Nine months ago they went back to see Matte’s father who was not expected to live long and has since died. They are actually on the boat that is approaching but there is someone else with them and that is what has our friend here so worried.
“We find a nice girl for you, eh?” That’s what Nada said before they left. Sean thought that she was joking but then a letter arrived that was close to being a package. Sean speaks the language much better than he reads it and had to get someone to read for him. ‘The girl has been found,’ it declared, ‘Maria Sokolich, a distant cousin of Nada’s.‘There was a photograph, a declaration from the priest that ‘she is a good and devout girl,’ another from the schoolmaster, a note from the girl herself which was formal and in all probability ghost written. What was not mentioned is that she is only sixteen.
The testimonials were unnecessary, Sean trusts his friends’ judgement. But in particular, he recognises the finery that the girl was wearing. It was Nada’s and, in spite of some skillful tucks obviously meant for a somewhat larger woman. He guessed, and rightly, a background of grinding poverty. He remembered it only too well from his own younger days. He could understand and sympathise with her willingness to marry out of it, even to a total stranger, and his heart had gone out to her. And so the legal formalities were set in train and Sean Patrick Ryan and Maria Sokolich had become husband and wife by proxy.
As their meeting has drawn closer, Sean has become increasingly unsure that he has done the right thing. It is all too clear that many Croatian wives are not learning English and remain isolated from the general community, prisoners in their own homes and he will be away frequently on buying trips. How will Maria cope?
He has married largely out of sympathy and she almost certainly as a way of escape. For the moment tthey have no more in common than their Catholic faith. Will they come to love each other? Will he be able to give her the support that she will most certainly need. And what if it doesn’t work out?
Sean is honest enough to know that he has little understanding of women. Almost his only association with them has been—how can I put it delicately?–shall we say?–certain commercial liaisons during his sailing days. He suspects that this experience is probably more harmful than helpful.
But now the steamer is close enough so that we can recognise some of those on board. This morning in consideration of the sleepers it does not announce its arrival. Do you see that large man with the side whiskers just forward of the funnel? That’s Matte. The older woman with him is of course Nada and the young one has to be the new bride. Look! Matte and Nada have caught sight of Sean and are pointing him out to her.
While we stiill can’t see the expression on Maria’s face at this distance, it is not too difficult to guess what she is thinking. She will be one frightened girl. Until a few weeks ago , she has never been more than a few miles from the village of her birth. That has been her whole world and had seemed to be her whole future. Now everyone and everything familiar has been left behind. She has been seeing another world that she did not know existed and it has made her concious of her ignorance and her limited schooling. She thinks it unlikely that this man, rich like Matte, rich beyond dreams, could ever be satisfied with the likes of her. That he should marry a girl without a dowry is amazing in itself. That he might be just as unschooled as she and every bit as scared and feeling out of his depth does not occur to her.
Every marriage faces difficulties at the start and it is clear that this one will have more than most given the disparity in age and background. The Croation community will make the girl welcome and do their best to ease her way into her new life as they do with any bride from the old country. We can only hope it will be enough. You and I are powerless to help even though we wish them well and every happiness.
Now this first meeting is going to prove a real strain for both of them and I do not think that we should intrude. So…if you’d like to take a last quick look at this world that was, we’ll away. Are you ready?…I clap my hands thus…and we are back in the present,