James Dilworth expanded his business and civic interests. He served on the Auckland Provincial Council and on the boards of various companies, including the Auckland Fibre Manufacturing Company, the Thames Valley and Rotorua Railway Company and the New Zealand Frozen Meat and Storage Company. He had prudently or, perhaps fortunately, diversified his business enterprises at a time when the thriving economy slumped into a period of depression, with low commodity prices for agricultural exports. He was fortunate to have able managers to run the day to day business of his agricultural enterprises. Kelly assumed the main managerial responsibility and Rāwiri served more of a lieutenant role.
Rāwiri was occasionally absent from work, however, to attend Kīngitanga Parliament meetings in Te Kuiti, and later, thankfully, closer to Auckland, when Tāwhiao moved to Pukekawa on an area of Waikato land the government returned to Ngāti Maniapoto, and he set up a Māori Parliament based at Māungakawa. Rāwiri took leave without pay to attend the political hui, often at short notice. Dilworth was not unsympathetic to the Kīngitanga and their political objectives but he was unhappy about Rāwiri’s divided loyalty. However, in the short term, there was less business activity in the agricultural sector, and less revenue, so in that regard it could be seen as a convenient arrangement.
During one of Rāwiri’s absences, Dilworth asked Kelly to pick up some sacks of seed potatoes and maize seed, at Rāwiri’s home, as it was time for planting a fodder crop for the cattle. “They’re in the shed at the back,” Dilworth said, handing Kelly a ring of keys. “And there’s a bill of sale you can pick up from in the house as well.”
Kelly drove the cart to Rāwiri’s place and as he walked down the path to the shed with keys in hand, he noticed the door was already open. Then he saw that a window at the back of the house was broken open. He went to take a close look and heard movement within the house. He returned to the cart and fetched a heavy wrench from out of the toolbox and quietly entered the house through the front door. The intruder, a Māori youth, dashed to the kitchen and seized a knife, to even the odds for a confrontation, when he saw Kelly come through the door with the wrench upraised. In the brief standoff Kelly recognised the boy. It was Wiremu.
Kelly put the wrench down and said, “I thought you were a burglar.” A tense moment passed and he said, “Are you going to put the knife down?”
Wiremu held Kelly’s gaze and put the knife on the kitchen table, still within reach.
“What are you doing here?” Kelly said. “Why aren’t you at school?”
“I’m not going back there,” Wiremu said.
“Why? What’s happened?”
“They beat me. They beat me with sticks and kicked me.”
“Who? Who beat you?”
“The older boys. They call me names. They call me half-caste and bastard. I am a half-caste bastard, because of you.”
“I’m sorry.” Kelly could see the scrapes and bruises on his legs. “Do they beat other boys?”
“They make the younger boys do jobs for them and beat them too.”
“Have you told the masters?”
“No, they’ll beat us more if we tell. Anyway the masters don’t care.”
I’ll go and see the headmaster,” Kelly said. “I’ll go with my boss Mr Dilworth. He’s a friend of Mr Davies.”
“I’m not going back there,” Wiremu insisted. “I want to go back to Te Kuiti.”
Kelly was resisting an impulse welling up within him to put his arm around the boy, but he kept a careful distance, physically, and emotionally, lest he begin to weep for him. “You can’t eat that,” he said, looking at the bowl of maize on the table. “It’s cattle food. Help me load the sacks onto the cart and I’ll take you to my home for a proper meal,” He was dignifying the offer as payment for labour. Kelly manoeuvred the cart to the shed while Rawiri dragged the sacks outside, where he grappled the sacks and heaved them up to Kelly to stack on the cart. With the cart loaded they sat by side on the wooden seat.
“Tell me about the school,” Kelly prompted Wiremu, on the way to the warehouse.
“The masters are strict,” he said, “but I enjoyed the lessons. I like mathematics. I got good marks, at the beginning. And I enjoyed the games. I played rugby.”
“What about the hostel?”
“Bad things happen in the dormitory.”
Kelly didn’t press for details. “Did you make friends?”
“Yes, some boys in my class. But the older boys pick on us.”
Wiremu was becoming more sullen and reluctant to speak and Kelly let it rest. Wiremu unloaded the cargo at the warehouse and Kelly spoke to Dilworth, who was still in the office. “I’m sorry to hear the lad has been mistreated at the school,” Dilworth said. “I’ll have a word to Davies about it.”
“You and I both,” Kelly said.
“I’ll make the arrangements,” Dilworth said.
*
Kelly hitched up the gig for the return home. Wiremu followed him diffidently into the house when they arrived and Kelly announced, “Wiremu will be joining us for dinner.”
“You’re welcome here, Wiremu,” Annie said, and she looked to Kelly with unspoken questions.
“There was a problem at school,” Kelly said. “And Rāwiri is away out of town.”
To Wiremu he said, “You remember meeting… Whaea Annie at the dock, don’t you. He decided on the Māori honorific Whaea, which could mean mother or aunt. “And Eliza.”
Eliza said a shy hello and resumed stirring the pot on the stove. Annie called Charlie and Imogen in for dinner. They’d been playing boisterously at the back of the house but were suddenly quiet on entering the kitchen and exchanged greetings with Wiremu. Eliza set the places for dinner while Annie brought the pot of stew and the potatoes to the table. Wiremu waited to be told where to sit, which was at the end next to Kelly. He was also accustomed to waiting for grace to be said before eating. Kelly thanked the Lord for the food and pronounced a blessing on it in Jesus’ name.
“How’s your appetite, Wiremu?” Kelly asked.
“I’m hungry,” he replied, and ate with gusto.
“Wiremu’s been helping me shift the sacks of maize and seed potatoes,” Kelly said. “The fields are ready for planting.”
He asked the children about their day at school but avoided talking about Wiremu’s school. “What about homework?”
“Did it after school.” Charlie and Imogen both said.
“I still have to do some maths,” Eliza said. “We’ve started doing algebra. Equations with Xs and Ys. Can you help me, Da?”
“Wiremu’s good at Maths,” Kelly said. “Perhaps he can help.”
Which he did, with ease, after dinner, while Charlie and Imogen did the dishes. After that they played a game of draughts, and while they played, Kelly heard, for the first time, the sound of Wiremu laughing.
“There’s a bed for you in Charlie’s room,” Kelly told Wiremu. “You can stay here till we sort something out. Matua Rāwiri will be back within the week.” Kelly referred to him as ‘Matua or Uncle Rāwiri’ just as Wiremu did, even though he knew he was actually his cousin.
“Well that broke the ice,” Annie said, after all the children were in bed. “He seems to have taken a shine to Eliza.”
“Yes. Good to see him coming out of his shell,” Kelly said. “I hope he’ll be friends with our children,”
“He’s a good looking boy,” Annie said. “Takes after his father.”
*
Kelly took Wiremu to work with him in the morning and intended to take him to the school with Dilworth, but Wiremu refused to go.
“What do you want to do?” Kelly asked him.
“I’ll stay at the warehouse,” he said.
“And after that?”
“I want to go back to Te Kuiti and stay with Whaea Ᾱwhina.”
“You know she wants you to stay here and continue with your schooling.”
“What school does Eliza go to?”
“Parnell District School. It only goes to Form Two. You’re past that.”
“What school will she go to next year?”
“Auckland Grammar School.”
“Could I go there?”
“Possibly, but you might feel more out of place there.”
“Because it’s a Pākehā school?” Wiremu said. “Out of place either way.”
“Let’s see if we can fix things at Saint Stephen’s,” Kelly said.
It was a short jaunt up Parnell Rise to Saint Stephen’s School. Kelly and Dilworth were shown into a wood panelled office, where Mr Davies came out from behind his desk to greet them, and exchanged pleasantries with ‘James’. The headmaster was an imposing figure in his black academic gown and his stylish mutton chops. He resumed his seat behind his desk, on which he had Wiremu’s enrolment form. “I see Wiremu’s guardian is Mr Rāwiri Quinn, the boy’s cousin,” he said.
“He’s out of town on parliamentary business,” Kelly said.
“He’s an MP then?”
“Of the Kīngitanga Parliament,” Kelly said.
Davies scanned the enrolment form and said, “I see Wiremu’s mother is deceased,” and looking sidelong at Kelly, “and you are the boy’s biological father, Mr Kelly.”
“Yes,” said Kelly. “He was adopted by his whānau in the King Country, principally by his mother’s sister, who is administrative assistant to King Tāwhiao.” Kelly was at pains to intimate Wiremu was well connected, but Dilworth was probably the most influential connection as far as Davies was concerned.
“I understand you’re concerned about some rough treatment Wiremu received at the hands of some senior boys,” Davies said.
“He said he was punched and kicked,” Kelly said.
“Well, boys will be boys, you know,” Davies said, airily.
“He’s got bruises all over his body,” Kelly said tersely. “It was a serious assault, and from what he’s told me, it was not an isolated incident.”
“The older boys do sometimes take advantage of their seniority,” Davies said.
Dilworth felt it was time to show some support and said, “But surely you don’t condone that sort of behaviour, John.”
“We try not to let it get out of hand,” Davies said. “If you want the boys responsible punished you will have to give me names.”
“Wiremu won’t give names.”
“Well then,” Davies said, as though that were the end of the matter.
“If I may make a suggestion,” Dilworth said, “you could talk to the senior students as a group, and talk to the other staff so they can be more vigilant.”
“Of course, I’ll do that,” Davies agreed.
“There’s also a matter of misconduct in the dormitory at night,” Kelly said.
“What sort of misconduct?”
“Wiremu wouldn’t say, but I would assume something of a homosexual nature.”
“This is a serious allegation, Mr Kelly.”
“It’s not an allegation, Mr Davies, it’s a suspicion that needs investigating. You’ll need to talk to the House Master as well.”
Davies nodded and frowned.
“The Inspectorate will need to be informed too,” Kelly added.
“I’ll log your complaint, Mr Kelly, and it will be on record when the inspectors visit.” Davies took his watch from his fob pocket and said, “Will that satisfy you, gentlemen?”
“For now,” Kelly said.
“And when can we expect Wiremu back at school?” Davies asked.
“He’s refusing to go at the moment,” Kelly said, “but if we can assure him this matter is dealt with… Let’s wait and see.”
“Very well,” said Davies, rising from behind his desk to see his visitors out, “leave it with me.”
*
Rāwiri duly returned from Te Kuiti and Wiremu returned to his home. A week or so later Wiremu turned up at work with Rāwiri.
“He’s been expelled from school,” Rāwiri said.
“Why? What happened?”
“He took another beating from those boys. He came home in a bloody mess.”
“They said it was payback,” Wiremu said. He still bore the bruises on his face and a cut over his left eye.
“Then he gave the boys a thrashing with a taiaha.”
“A taiaha! Where did you get a taiaha?” Kelly asked.
“Not a real taiaha,” Wiremu said. “I cut a length of manuka.”
“He was given weapons training on the marae,” Rāwiri said. “No boxing, but taiaha and mere.”
“So what now?”
“He can go back to Te Kuiti.”
“Is that what you want?” Kelly asked Wiremu.
“I could stay in Te Kuiti for a while. It’s not long till the end of the year. Maybe next year I could go to the other school, the one Eliza will go to.”
“Auckland Grammar.”
“Yes.”
*
And so Wiremu returned from Te Kuiti in the new year to stay with Rāwiri and attend Auckland Grammar School in Symonds Street. If he thought he would see Eliza at school, he was sorely mistaken. The school was co-educational but strictly segregated, even in the playground, where a fourteen-foot wall separated the boys’ and girls’ areas. Rāwiri continued to make occasional trips to the King Country and Wiremu stayed at the Kelly home while he was away. On the first such occasion Kelly asked him how he was finding the school.
“I’m coping all right with my studies,” he said. “I’m enjoying English, Maths and Science. But History… It’s all about Britain and the Empire. And languages… why so many languages: Latin, Greek, French? Why not te reo Māori? You know they punished me for speaking te reo at the Native School.”
“Auckland Grammar School wants to turn you into a scholar and a gentleman.”
“I think they want to turn me into a Pākehā,” said Wiremu, sourly.
“You can have the best of both worlds,” Kelly said. “What do you want to do when you grow up?”
“Matua Rāwiri wants me to be a lawyer.”
“But what do you want?”
“I don’t know.”
“You still have time to figure it out.” After some hesitation, Kelly asked, “How are you getting on with your classmates?”
“All right. Some are a bit rude, but most are all right and I’ve made a few friends.”
It seemed to Kelly that the boy had put on a growth spurt and filled out and would probably be able to handle himself in a fight if it came to it. Eliza was thriving at the school and was sure that she wanted to become a teacher. She was also maturing but still enjoyed a child-like sibling friendship with Wiremu.
Young Charlie also appreciated having an older brother staying with them. Wiremu was clever at playing games and making things. He flew kites he’d made from toetoe stems and he had wooden tops he whipped with strips of flax to make them spin and hum. He had a shanghai he’d made from a forked branch and a bag of pebbles for shooting birds, and he used the pebbles also for games of knucklebones. The children sat on the ground or on the floor and tossed and scooped and caught the smooth, round stones. Wiremu had a pocketknife, which he used for carving bits of wood and there was plenty of wood in Kelly’s workshop, since he had taken up woodworking. Together they made pairs of stilts and went striding out like giants.
One of the games Wiremu liked to play with Eliza was cat’s cradle. He had a length of flax string which he wove with his fingers into various patterns that he’d learnt on his home marae. He then dextrously wove the string in and out of Eliza’s fingers to create the same configurations, and they laughed together as their fingers became intertwined. Eliza soon mastered cat’s cradling but the game was too difficult for Imogen, who felt put out, at times, when Wiremu got all of Eliza’s attention and there was no time for playing hopscotch or playing with dolls. But all that Imogen required to keep herself occupied was pencil and paper. She went back to her desk, where she’d spent many self-absorbed hours drawing scenes from story books she’d read and other scenes and images from dream worlds of her own imaginings.
After another of Wiremu’s visits, Kelly reflected contentedly on how well the children got on together.
“Yes. Wiremu and Eliza especially,” Annie said. “Did you see that he kissed her when he was leaving?”
Annie seemed to think this was a matter of concern, a romantic attraction, but Kelly said, “It was just a peck on the cheek. A brother farewelling his sister. Nothing more.” And yet, and yet, Kelly knew Annie to have some intuition regarding relationships and feelings and he could not dismiss it entirely, so he resolved to be more vigilant in future. In subsequent visits, Kelly more often took Wiremu and Charles to the beach or the wharf for a boys’ day out fishing.
*
Wiremu was a diligent student at Auckland Grammar School, excelling in Mathematics, and with much encouragement from Rāwiri, he focussed on the goal of going on to university to study Law. There were no incidents such as those that occurred at St Stephen’s School. Wiremu’s reputation as a boy with a wild Māori side had followed him from St Stephen’s and the other boys were wary of him as someone not to be trifled with. He continued to move between his two homes and became part of the Kelly family. Annie’s suspicions regarding the friendship between Wiremu and Eliza proved to have some justification. Kelly came upon them unexpectedly in the garden at the back of the house in an embrace that was beyond mere sibling affection and they abruptly separated when Kelly appeared.
“This cannot be!” Kelly said sternly. “Remember who you are.”
Wiremu left, shamefaced; he’d been preparing to depart anyway, and Eliza went into the house in tears. Wiremu’s visits to the Kelly home ceased from that day.
*
Wiremu duly graduated from school and was admitted to Otago University College. The family saw him off on that journey at the wharf with mixed feelings. Kelly was proud of Wiremu’s achievements, as was Rāwiri, but while Rāwiri regretted that Wiremu had to go all the way to Dunedin to study Law, Kelly was actually relieved that he was moving so far from Auckland. Eliza was tearful again and their parting was sad and awkward. Wiremu boarded the coastal steamer and, as it sailed out of the harbour, he stood stoically on the deck and waved to all the family, though his gaze was fixed on Eliza.
For her part, Eliza discovered a love of language and languages at Auckland Grammar School and, though at times she became distracted from her studies, she never wavered from her goal of becoming a teacher. Actually, Eliza’s love of words had begun with story time on her mother’s knee. Annie was pleased to find in her daughter a love of reading literature that she herself had only come to later in life, though she confined herself to reading books written in English. Eliza, in due course, graduated from school and entered Auckland Teachers Training College, in Epsom.
At the College, Eliza developed new friendships with likeminded young women and even among the few young men who were also training to be teachers. It was quite a novelty to have male classmates. A novelty also for the fortunate men to find themselves in the company of so many women. The male trainees fancied they had entered hunting grounds with plentiful game and joked among themselves that there were more than enough women to go round. Eliza found their ribald humour off-putting but didn’t mind the attention she received from Oliver Steadman, a classmate whom she considered stood out from his peers as more urbane and more respectful of the women, especially of her. Eliza’s parents were also approving and perhaps even relieved when Oliver came courting their daughter. Wiremu had faded into the background. Oliver certainly seemed a very personable young man but Kelly was concerned to know more about his character and his prospects, as he was a possible candidate for his daughter’s hand in marriage. He was a church-going Christian. That was an important consideration. He attended a Baptist church. What of his family? He was born in Australia. His father, he discovered, was an industrialist, in the iron and steel business, so probably quite well off. Not that that mattered, particularly. Oliver had a secure job as a teacher. And he liked children.
*
Charles and Imogen continued the family tradition of going to Auckland Grammar School, though neither stayed there long. Charles disliked academic study and instead got apprenticed to a builder. His love of carpentry had begun in his father’s workshop, where they worked with wood together. A good honest trade, as Kelly said, when he made the arrangement with Ernest Samuel, the builder in question, whom Kelly knew to be a man of good character with a reputable construction company. Charles wasn’t completely done with schooling, though, as he attended evening classes at a technical school to properly learn the trade.
Imogen had a precocious talent for art and applied herself to the study of Art at Auckland Grammar School but showed little interest in any other subject. She left the school toward the end of the first year because of her failing grades and failing health. She had a congenital heart condition, for which the doctors had no remedy and she had consequently always been a bit sickly and prone to fainting. So Imogen worked on her art quite happily at home, with the occasional supervision of Mrs Paddock, her art teacher, who had been so impressed with her work at school and continued to take an interest. Mrs Paddock made sure her protégée was well supplied with materials, especially water colours, with which Imogen painted landscapes and still lifes, many of which adorned the walls of the Kelly home.