The Wives of Henry Oades
In 1899 Henry Oades discovers he has two wives – and many dilemmas…In 1890, Henry Oades decided to undertake the arduous sea voyage from England to New Zealand in order to further his family's fortunes. Here they settled on the lush but wild coast – although it wasn't long before disaster struck in the most unexpected of ways.A local Maori tribe, incensed at their treatment at the hands of the settlers, kidnapped Mrs Oades and her four children, and vanished into the rugged hills surrounding the town. Henry searched ceaselessly for his family, but two grief-stricken years later was forced to conclude that they must be dead. In despair he shipped out to San Francisco to start over, eventually falling in love with and marrying a young widow.In the meantime, Margaret Oades and her children were leading a miserable existence, enslaved to the local tribe. When they contracted smallpox they were cast out and, ill and footsore, made their way back to town, five years after they were presumed dead.Discovering that Henry was now half a world away, they were determined to rejoin him. So months later they arrived on his doorstep in America and Henry Oades discovered that he had two wives and many dilemmas …This is a darkly comic but moving historical fiction debut about love and family, based on a controversial court case from the early 1900s.
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The Wives of Henry Oades
Johanna Moran
A NOVEL
For my husband, John Moran And for my parents, June Ray and John Campbell Chommie
Tena, ki te riro ko ta te teina ki mua whanau mai ai, hei muri ko ta te tuakana whanau ai, na, he iwi kino taua iwi hou, ina tae mai ki tenei Motu.
But, if it happens that the child of the younger is born first, and of the elder afterward, then the newcomers will be an evil people, when they arrive in this Land.
—A Maori premonition of disorder
A COMMON BAT on the other side of the world elects to sink its rabid fangs, and one’s cozy existence is finished.
Margaret Oades knew her husband was up to something the moment he came through the door with a bottle of wine. It was late. The children had gone up hours ago. “What’s the occasion?” she asked, laying out a plain supper of shirred eggs and lardy cakes.
Henry kissed the nape of her neck, giving her a shiver. “I’ve an announcement,” he said.
Margaret expected him to say he’d found a collie for their son. John, nearly eight now—her big boy, her pride—had been wheedling without letup for weeks. She took down two goblets, hoping the dog was an old one and not some frisky crocus lover.
“A senior passed in New Zealand,” he said instead. “Of a bat bite, poor bloke. I’m to complete his stint. We’re due as soon as possible. You’ll want to prepare.”
Margaret set the goblets aside. “Henry.”
“Two years, sweetheart.” He’d proposed marriage with the same pleading look. “The time shall sail by, you’ll see. It’s a grand opportunity, a flying leap forward. I could hardly say no thanks.”
Three weeks later, boarding the steamer tender that was to take them down the Thames and bring them up alongside the Lady Ophelia, Margaret could not recall what she’d said next. Nothing perhaps, stunned as she’d been.
On board the crowded tender, a child each by the hand, Henry and Margaret jockeyed for position at the rail. Already the narrow boat was moving, spewing gray smoke. Margaret waved to her parents on the quay below, flapping her hankie, straining to pick them out through tears and drizzle. She’d not told them she was expecting again, thinking it too soon. She regretted now not making an exception, cutting the sadness with a bit of happy news. Henry wrapped an arm about her, kissing her brow, his beard grazing her cheek. He’d been made a ship’s constable, issued a red-lettered guernsey too small for him. The bulky knit pulled across his broad shoulders and chest. Pale knobby wrists jutted between glove and cuff. He was to be paid seven pounds for patrolling the single-women’s section, which appealed to the latent cop in him. He’d had other aspirations before settling upon an accountant’s stool. There was a time when he thought himself bound for the opera stage, but that was years ago, before he knew what it took.
He kissed her again. “It’s not forever.”
“The new baby shall be walking,” she said, rising up on her toes, waving wide arcs.
Behind her a woman said, “They cannot see us anymore. We’re too far off.”
Margaret turned to face the lady in the gaudy checked cape, a pixie of a woman with a sprinkle of reddish brown freckles to match her hair. Earlier, Margaret and her father had been standing on the wharf, monitoring the loading of their trunks. The cheeky woman sashayed up like a long-lost relation, saying, “Your wife has such a serious look about her, sir.”
“I beg your pardon,” Margaret had said. “You’re addressing my father.”
“You don’t remember me,” the woman said now, fingering a dangling ear bob.
“I do, madam.” How could she forget?
“Where’s your lovely da?”
“My father isn’t sailing,” said Margaret. “He was there to see us off.”
“A pity,” she said, turning to Henry, smiling, dimpling. “I’m Mrs. Martha Randolph, Constable. One of your charges. Who might the wee lady and gentleman be?”
Henry introduced the children, clapping a proud hand to John’s shoulder, prying six-year-old Josephine from Margaret’s leg. Margaret turned back to the watery haze that was her parents, spreading her feet for balance, her pretty going-away shoes pinching. She’d been told the river was calm. “Smooth as glass,” her favorite uncle had claimed.
“Your children are charming, Mr. Oades,” said Mrs. Randolph. Meaning, presumably,
