2.

 

 

  John Wallace had always enjoyed the climb up the hill from Lambton Quay to the Colonial Time Service Observatory. The popular recreational spot was set on a gentle slope, the track winding up through the town belt and around the outskirts of the cemetery at Bolton Street, all wild roses and tombstones. 

  One would then cross Honeyman’s Gully and venture up through the Botanic Garden domain. The view of Wellington city from the top was unimpeded and breathtaking.

  This day, the walk was more arduous than most, John having not counted on such warmth in the spring sun and accordingly being somewhat over-dressed. He stopped to remove his jacket and noticed that behind him, the rest of the family were feeling the heat also. 

  “How much farther…father?” enquired George, the eldest child, aged 14.

  “Your witty repartee is at a zenith this day George,” his father replied. “That quake last evening must have given your brain a good shake up!”

  George had lagged behind to assist his mother and the rest of his younger siblings, while his father had extended himself to twenty paces ahead of the family. George was very fond of his mother and concerned that she was struggling to keep in step.

  “We are a little tired and hungry,” mother Marion added, panting a little, but doing well for her 39 years.

  “And very thirsty,” George retorted almost instantly.

  “What George asks, Sir,” continued Marion, “is may we stop for refreshment and rest?”

  John, he had been thinking along similar lines in any case and readily agreed. “There is a small stream over there. Perhaps we should set down our picnic beside it’s bank?”

  The obvious relief spread across the faces of the family members, like the sun re-appearing from twenty minutes behind cloud. 

  The mere thought of food and drink had furthermore energised the children, who suddenly found all the verve required to run and play.

  “Time and place well chosen John,” Marion opined, as she set about unwrapping the picnic hamper. “I feel we have climbed high enough. Actually, this is a charming wee glade.”

  “Aye,” replied her husband, who although born in the new dominion, spoke with a thick Glaswegian accent. “There is the duck pond further along this track. Unless you fancy walking to the observatory?”

  “I think not,” his wife stammered, not at all entertaining any concept of continuing on. “The children have fared well thus far, but time is moving on…Saturday or not.”

  “It’s only a little after three o’clock woman!” John protested, but he could sense that Marion was adamant that the peak of ascension had been reached for the day. “Alright, alright! We’ll rest a while and refresh. I suppose we do have a church meeting to attend in a couple of hours.”

  Marion said nothing, she didn’t have to. She was gallant enough in gratitude to hand her husband a sardine and egg sandwich, which he in turn chased the children around the wood with. The benefactors were eventually the eels in the small stream, that trickled down through the glade.

  He was a hard working man, John Wallace, putting in long hours at the general store he owned on Tinakori Road. He was a great father and family man and moments like these, away from the shop, were precious to him. A great admirer of Samuel Parnell, he closed his store at noon every Saturday, to be with his family. 

  He had missed out on the family nucleus himself, being raised by his father, George, his mother having died during childbirth.

  George, had arrived in February, 1840, as a cabin passenger aboard the Calcutta built, Bengal Merchant. Chartered by the New Zealand Company, it was the first migrant ship to sail to New Zealand from Scotland and only the fourth in total from the United Kingdom. 

  It’s departure from Glasgow, in October of 1839, was viewed as an historic occasion in Scotland, a country besieged by the heavy hand of sovereign rule, with questionable tactic’s being used by the English in driving the indigenous inhabitants from the highlands.

  A single man of 29 at the time, George had been encouraged to board the vessel in search of a new life, by his brother-in-law, Sir Alfred Turner. A surgeon superintendent and very fine artist, Turner was also emigrating to colonise new lands for the crown, along with his wife and daughter. 

  George wasn’t exactly trouble, but life’s vagaries and variants hadn’t always gone in his favour and the opportunity to start afresh and with genuine purpose, was a powerful drawcard. But almost instantly upon stepping foot on new soil, he had a young school teacher pregnant and was once again in a similar morass to that which had hastened his departure from his homeland in the first instance.

  George married the young woman and with the most honest of intentions, tried to make an honest fist of things as best he could. He found work as a rope maker and occasional bullock driver, but It was a hard slog for the earliest of settlers. Their original settlement of Britannia (modern day Petone) had failed, owing to the constant and irksome flooding of the river, and was eventually abandoned in favour of Lambton Harbour. 

  Post re-location, George and wife, Mary, had settled in a small residence in Murphy Street, Thorndon. But fate would take a turn for the worse again, when Mary died while giving birth to their son, whom George would later name John Henry. Adamant he would do the best for his boy, George had, by the mid 1840’s, opened a grocery establishment in central Wellington and it appeared, had turned his life around for the better.

  But in 1851, he was drowned in tragic circumstances. He was aboard the barque Maria, when it struck a submerged rock at Cape Terawhiti, near the Karori Stream, at the entrance to Wellington Harbour. 

  The ship broke in two, barely 400m from shore, and the survivors attempted to reach terra firma using salvaged material. The makeshift raft to, was smashed onto the rocks, killing all but two of the occupants.

    Eleven year old John moved in with his uncle and aunt, at 87 Hill Street, Thorndon. Alfred Turner - as next of kin for George - sold the business, but was able to enter a clause in the contract, that young John remain employed as a grocery hand. 

  In 1862, when Alfred died, John was bestowed with enough money to buy his own general store. He soon thereafter met Marion, eldest daughter of Festus Moorefield, an undertaker, a resident of Tinakori Road.

  John and Marion were married in 1865 and two years later their first child was born, a boy named George after John’s late father. Sarah, now 13, Walter (10), Alice (7) and William (4) followed. 

  As a family, they had very little to grumble about. John had pretty much filled his paradisal dream, as far as being there and providing for his kin was concerned.

  The skids had been placed upon New Zealand’s economy, since the collapse of the City Bank of Glasgow, in 1878. Credit contraction followed a period of unsustainable borrowing, which seriously hampered the national cashflow. With revenue less than planned spending, job shortages and exploitative conditions in many factories, times were getting tough and John was forever thankful that the grocery business was a commodity driven constant for him.

  He found it difficult not to extend credit to hard-up families, less fortunate than his own, but as a businessman, he knew that empathy would not put food on the table and had at times, drawn some difficult lines. 

  He was particularly popular as a store keeper though and prided himself upon his ability to source whatever he was asked for, at times going to great lengths to do so.

  Half an hour had elapsed since the Wallace family stopped to rest and the time to make the return sojourn to Thorndon was nigh. 

  George and Sarah began packing up, while the younger three continued to play by the edge of the stream, feeding eels with scraps of bread and cold meat.

  “Perhaps I should fill these empty bottles from the creek for our return journey?” Marion uttered, as if talking more to herself than anyone in particular.

  “Good idea,” came John’s affirmation. “It is quite a warm afternoon and it does seem to be running freely and of it’s own accord.” 

  With that, Marion dipped two glass bottles into the brook and filled them with water. 

  On the other side of the hill, barely a few hundred metres away, David Robertson, sexton to the public portion of the cemetery, was looking puzzled. Something was troubling his cow, making the beast particularly uneasy.

  David had arrived from Liverpool aboard the Alma in May of 1857, with second wife Mary and their five children. Also aboard were two elder daughters from his first marriage. David was born in 1813 and spent his formative years in Fifeshire, Scotland. His father James, a Chelsea pensioner who farmed on the Firth of Tay, had wanted his son to enter the ministry. But after a period of study in Edinburgh, young David turned toward his true calling, horticulture.

  God-fearing by nature, respectful of the ways of Providence and committed to total abstinence, he left in his early twenties for England and was for seven years, the gardener at Bedwell Park in the County of Hertford. His appointment was most certainly congenial, as the land owner, Sir Culling Eardley Eardley, was not only a personal acquaintance of Dr. David Livingstone, but a religious philanthropist and founder of the Evangelical Alliance, established to promote religious freedom throughout the world. 

  Unable to purchase land in England for himself and family, David became restless and at one time had thought of relocating to Ireland. He had heard much talk of the Antipodes also and the successful colonisation of a new territory in the southern Pacific. 

  The opportunity to study species of natural flora, native to this new land, overwhelmed his fascination and spearheaded his desire to emigrate there instead.

  He had been in New Zealand for three months prior to his appointment as the cemetery’s sexton, after which a small, four-roomed cottage, barely adequate, was built for his family. 

  He had held the position for 24 years and one by one, his children had all married and drifted off, leaving David and Mary to live out an altogether more tranquil existence, in their senior years.

  But this day had been anything but peaceful. An early morning visit from his old friend, Sir George Grey, accompanied by William Jervois, had led to an unexpected expedition into the bush to identify, name and classify a newly discovered species of fern. Then upon return, he discovered his ailing bovine and if there was one thing that greatly un-nerved him, it was animals in distress.

  “There now girl, quiet,” he muttered to his cow, gently moving his hands around her underbelly. “Something’s not right now is it love?”

  The back door of the cottage opened from the inside and Mary stepped out into the bright afternoon sunshine. She had half a mind to admonish David, for neglect of his normal Saturday duties, as on such a fine day, both were fully aware that there would be more visitors to the cemetery than normal. But before she could begin any conversation in regard to the matter, David brought her up to speed with his news.

  “There’s definitely something making Molly uneasy,” he informed his wife. “She is certainly listless beyond all reason.”

  “Shall I send for the new veterinary surgeon?” Mary replied. “It’s getting quite late in the day!”

  David had much the same thought, but decided it best not to trouble the vet, at least not yet. “I’ll see how she is in the morning. Since the quake last evening, she seems not to have recovered her senses.”

  “Are you sure it’s not just the spring clover?” Mary offered, again an assumption that David himself had just thought through. “We have had a lot of rain and the growth is unusually lush, even given the season.”

  “Well it is possible,” he replied. “She is certainly ailing in some capacity and I am unfortunately unable to put my finger on it.”

  Mary watched on as David attempted, without success, to extract some milk from the udder of the cow. 

  “Oh dear,” she exclaimed. “Not even enough for your porridge in the morning!”

  Just down the hill in Thorndon proper, Abraham Moxham was ordering lunch at the Thistle Inn, as he did on most Saturday afternoon’s when he frequented said establishment. 

  A manufacturing jeweller by trade and noted philanthropist (with a soft spot for the fairer sex), he was in particularly good spirits this afternoon.

  Isaac Fisher, waiter for the day, was questioning whether he had heard correctly. “Porridge…did you say Sir? You want porridge for lunch?”

  “That is correct young man.” Abraham was full of assurance. “A bowl of porridge with cream, sugar and a knob of butter. Oh, and please ensure that the pepper shaker is full.”

  Fisher turned on his heels and headed for the galley. He knew Moxham as a regular and was constantly amused by his requests. Was the pepper for his porridge? It did seem a little ludicrous, but then he had ordered porridge in the past for lunch and promptly - and against regulation - tipped a dram of whisky into it, from a hip flask he carried inside his jacket pocket.

  Ellen Taylor, who was lunching with Abraham, had noticed that the Thistle Inn was particularly full this afternoon. Waiters, cooks and patrons were moving in all directions, dodging each other with swift aplomb and carefully choreographed manoeuvres. 

  It was unusually busy, but then in only a few short hours, the curtain would go up on one of the biggest stage productions seen in Wellington for many a year.

  “The Lingard’s have done well to procure the talents of such an esteemed theatre company as The Haymarket,” stated Ellen, casually glancing around the dining hall, her head constantly turning in an attempt to take it all in. “May I suggest that the city will be busy tonight and - dare I suggest - vibrantly exciting.”

  “Indeed dear,” came a jovial reply from Abraham. “It is not often we have opportunities to attend such class performances, in our neck of the woods. The matinee performance and opening night of Our Boys will be quite something to remember.”

  “Amongst London’s absolute finest Abraham,” replied Ellen. “I am so looking forward to it. And indeed to reacquaint myself with Emma, oh, it will be so completely splendid.” 

  “The Evening Post gave a most favourable write up of the production, following yesterday’s dress rehearsal,” said Abraham, opening the newspaper and taking a monocle from his waist coat pocket. He read aloud;

  ‘The scenery was particularly good and both astonished and delighted the audience. A breathtaking last scene performance by Miss Fitzwilliams had to be repeated. A recitation by Mr. Foley and a comic song by Mr. Axtelle were encored also and Mr. & Mrs. Foley’s acting kept the house in perfect ecstasies.’

  “Oh, splendid,” a particularly excited Ellen came back, clapping her hands in joy. “It is just such a pity that I was unable to catch up with Sarah. I’m certain she’d have come, had I been able to contact her before today.”

  “Why, I saw her in the street this very morning,” Abraham said. “And do you know what?”

  Ellen did not know what and it was written across her face.

  “I believe that I just happen to have here,” he quipped, in an attempt to both rag and delight his dinner guest all at the same time. “Two extra tickets for this afternoons performance.”

  Ellen looked somewhat perplexed by this random and unprecedented act, but knew him well enough to know that he would have planned something which would be favourable to her.

  “Oh Abraham, you enormous tease,” she exclaimed.

  “I don’t suppose that your delightful cousin, Sarah, would be interested?” Abraham held the tickets up with the most impish grin spread across his lips. He’d already arranged to meet Sarah at the theatre, very soon in fact.

  “The other is, of course, for that onerous scoundrel with whom she chooses to make conversant,” he continued. “I don’t approve of the man myself, but cannot deny that Mr. John Valentine is indeed a most generous and supportive patron of the arts in this city.”

  Ellen Taylor had not been in the country all that long and if there was one thing that she missed with much reverence, it was quality theatre and live performance. 

  Although her parents, Richard and Eliza (Montague), were prominent in London society, young Ellen held a particular penchant for entertainment and herself (against her parents wishes and desires) had pursued her passion for song and dance.

  In 1870, she secured for herself a role in the James Albery three act comedy Two Roses, in the recently opened Vaudeville Theatre on the Strand, in London’s West End. 

  The show enjoyed an extraordinarily successful run of 300 nights and was the first stand out success for the great Shakespearian actor, Henry Irving, who played the character of Digby Grant.

  In 1875, Ellen married actor, David Trent, ten years her senior, whose aspirations and devotion to the theatrical mirrored her own. Buoyed on by an opportunity to invigorate live performance in the relatively new colonial outpost of New Zealand, the pair boarded a ship for Auckland the following year.

  Ellen was far more sceptical about moving overseas and the hastily arranged immigration policy, even more so when quite unexpectedly, David died during the voyage and was buried at sea. 

  She arrived in Auckland, penniless and distraught, and made her way to Wellington almost instantaneously. She had a cousin there, herself also a devotee of drama and the stage.

  Ellen missed London society immensely and drifted in and out of states of depression, unable to settle or afford the fare for a return home to England. 

  Sarah Bainbridge took her younger cousin under her wing and by 1878, she had immersed herself in rekindling an interest in performance. 

  A mutual acquaintance, namely Mr. Abraham Moxham, had introduced Ellen to James Marriott, regarded as the pioneer of theatre in Wellington. Marriott often boldly proclaimed that theatre was ‘a necessary concomitant of an advanced state of civilisation.’

  In 1843, he had opened the city’s first theatre, the Royal Victoria, located behind the Ship Inn on Manners Street. It was brightly lit by whale oil gas, also a first for Wellington.

    By the time he was introduced to Ellen Taylor, he was well into his 70’s and the former actor, singer, dancer, musician, poet, scene painter, producer and stage director, was generally happy to leave tasks of management to her. 

  He also ran a highly esteemed bookselling and stationery business on Lambton Quay. In fact, Marriott’s talent’s knew no bounds. He had worked as an optician, an instrument maker, engraved tombstones in the cemetery in Bolton Street, held several minor provincial government offices, was the registrar of cattle brands and dogs and supplied illustrations for prominent events held in or around the city.

  Through her association with Marriott, Ellen had been able to not only regain a genuine interest in her passion, but was quick to recognise that the experience she obtained while still in London, was of significant value to a pioneering society, still attempting to establish it’s own protocol where the fines arts were concerned.

  She had set up (with Marriott’s help, encouragement and partial funding) her own drama and dance academy and was starting to make a name for herself, mainly as a promoter.

  She was simply delighted to see how full the Thistle Inn was, aware that most of these folk would be moving on to the Theatre Royal, to attend the matinee performance.

  Isaac Fisher danced his way through any permissible gap he could find between tables and chairs, dodging diners, staff and a baker with trolley, who’d been hastily called upon to deliver more bread. 

  He had safely negotiated his way to deliver, in a most professional manner, Abraham’s porridge. Right until he got to the table that was, when accidentally nudged by a passing gentleman, a small dollop of cream was forcibly expelled from the bowl and onto the tablecloth.

  Abraham and Ellen were aware of the diligence and care he had shown in attempting to deliver the oats, but both feigned the opposite by pretending to not find the situation amusing, in any capacity whatsoever.

  The Maitre de, Eliza Mudgway, a stern Glaswegian woman in her 50’s, had also noticed the whole event and did not find the lunch guests ribbing of her staff member to be humorous. 

  Delivered with jocular intent or not, in a flash she came to the aid of the waiter, in an attempt to make light of the situation.

  “Och, my apologies Sir, Madam,” she jumped in. “It’s like Sauchiehall Street on a Friday night here at the minute.”

  “I have no complaint my dear lady,” Moxham replied. “One can plainly see that this is an afternoon beyond normal exception!”

  Content that she had defused the situation sufficiently, Eliza bowed her head, smiled and left the pair to enjoy their meal without further disturbance. 

  As she turned away from the table, Abraham reached into his pocket, produced said hip flask and poured a dram of whiskey into his bowl.