Kelly’s travelling companion back to Auckland was not the callow youth of former Auckland days. Rāwiri had grown in stature and maturity and had developed much of the regal bearing of his mother. Ᾱwhina had devoted herself to supporting the Kīngitanga’s efforts to protect what was left of their land and also to the education of her son. Rāwiri had become quite proficiently literate in English as well as te reo Māori and well schooled in biblical studies. He had acquired practical knowledge of farming from working the land and some understanding of politics from being immersed in the highly charged Kīngitanga environment.
Kelly found Rāwiri thoughtful and, at times, challenging. He had many questions about the business, about Auckland, about the war, politics and religion, and about his Aunt Pania. He said he respected and shared his mother’s Christian faith but he would not make the mistake that Tāmihana had made by believing that the colonial government and all Pākehā were Christian and therefore honourable people.
Rāwiri stayed with Kelly at first and later moved into a cottage that Dilworth had got for him on the Great South Road, near his own home. There were plenty of vacant houses with tenants returning to farms after the war and rents were cheap. Auckland was going through a time of depression since the seat of the government had gone to Wellington and the Imperial troops had been recalled. There was a general downturn in commerce and less commissariat business. However, Dilworth’s farms continued to do good business and he had diversified and invested in a number of other businesses, including New Zealand railway companies. The railway in Auckland cut through his estate, for which he received generous compensation from the government.
Dilworth was an astute investor but it was from the buying of land that he derived most of his wealth. He purchased properties throughout the Auckland province and some further afield, including 225,000 acres in the Waihou, Upper Thames Valley, in partnership with another Ulsterman, Joseph Ward. As a businessman, Dilworth was scrupulously honest and he was a generous philanthropist and supporter of movements such as the YMCA. But always at the back of Kelly’s mind was the knowledge that the land Dilworth bought had first been acquired from its Māori owners, much of it by dubious means, if not outright seizure. And many of the original owners were suffering from the loss of land that had been their home and their economic base.
Rāwiri worked with Kelly at first and then took over the management of cropping and grazing on the Dilworth estate. The stables and care of the horses continued to be the responsibility of young Bert Grabham, who had been the groom and wrangler since before Kelly started working for Dilworth.
Kelly continued to manage the warehouse, shipping and distribution of imports and produce. He managed the business well, as usual, but his particular interest in shipping at this time was the arrival of the Shaw Saville chartered Mary Shepherd, which was sailing from London under the command of Captain Croot with a cargo of forty immigrants, including one young Irish woman, Annie Gallagher.
It was a balmy summer’s day when Kelly and the Dilworths joined a small crowd gathering expectantly at Queen’s Wharf to await the arrival of the ship. She had made the journey to Auckland in a hundred and twelve days after encountering heavy seas in a southwest gale only two days into the voyage. She called first at the Bay of Islands before arriving at the Auckland dock, where the new migrants disembarked, carrying their meagre possessions: mostly young single men, some couples, babes in arms, and a few unaccompanied young women. Some looked a little worse for wear, dazed and bedraggled and unsteady on their feet after nearly four months at sea. Kelly watched as they filed along the wharf. All looked relieved and hopeful. Kelly looked increasingly anxious as the crowd thinned and he had still not sighted Annie.
Finally, an older passenger approached Kelly and introduced himself as Dr Clarance Chapman, Ship’s Surgeon, and asked, “Are you Finbar Kelly, fiancé of Annie Gallagher?”
The fear that had lain dormant within Kelly rose suddenly again into his chest.
“Annie has suffered quite badly from seasickness,” said the doctor, “and she is rather dehydrated and too weak to walk unaided. I’ve sent for a stretcher.”
Kelly looked desperately into the doctor’s vapid face and asked, “Will she be all right?”
“I want to see her,” he said, and made his way on board, with the doctor following, reassuring, “Yes, yes, she should make a full recovery, but I must say she was not what you would call well nourished from the outset. She’ll need a bit of building up.”
Kelly knelt down and embraced the wan, waiflike Annie, prostrate on a cot, amidst the reek of vomit in the ship’s infirmary. The anguish of what he had stoically endured in war and the uncertainty of waiting broke forth suddenly in uncontrollable sobbing. The doctor stood by quietly. It was an affecting display of emotion, but he had already attended to much sickness on board and presided over four deaths and two births on the voyage. Annie, along with her luggage, comprising a single carpet bag, was conveyed to the dock and to a carriage, not to the hospital, but to the Dilworths’ residence, at their insistence, where she would receive the best of professional nursing care in an environment free of contagion.
Day by day the invalid regained her strength. Colour returned to her pallid face and vitality again shone in her eyes. Annie walked about outdoors in the fresh air as soon as she was able and helped Isabella tend the rose garden. Isabella always wore a bonnet out of doors and ensured that Annie did likewise to protect her fair skin from the harsh New Zealand sun. Isabella was her constant companion and Kelly visited daily. Dilworth was glad of the opportunity to get first hand news of what was happening in Ireland, since his usual source, the newspaper The Irish People, had been closed down. Like most of the Irish, Dilworth was an ardent supporter of the Irish Republican Brotherhood. Annie’s news was that the Fenians were demanding autonomy from British rule to be self-governing and hundreds of Fenian ‘rebels’ had been arrested and were being held indefinitely without trial.
“A familiar story,” Dilworth reflected as they all strolled about the grounds together. “As in Ireland and India, so in New Zealand. Britain’s taking the Empire to the antipodes.”
“Do the Māoris want independence?” Annie asked.
“They were promised self-governing autonomy when they signed the Treaty,” Dilworth said.
“Well, there’s hope,” said Annie, “for Home Rule in Ireland I mean, with Parnell and Davitt and the Irish Land League.”
“Good luck to them,” said Dilworth, “but you know the Brits will fight to keep control.”