Essie Summers Admirers

South Island Stowaway

Port UnderwoodPort Underwood Sound Sound

Port Underwood Sound

LOCATION Wellington. Inter-island ferry to Picton: http://www.bluebridge.co.nz/experience/thevoyage.aspx and then on to Port Underwood.

Photo of historic Kakapo Bay there:

http://travel.webshots.com/photo/2177100290042756267nDIHOR

The first couple of pages in this album have some relevant shots:

http://travel.webshots.com/album/381020793fxHRbj

Link to a history of Port Underwood Pioneers:

http://www.nzetc.org/tm/scholarly/tei-NHSJ05_04-t1-body1-d5.html

Link to description of a drive Blenheim to Picton on the coastal road through Port Underwood

http://www.nzine.co.nz/features/blenheim_to_picton.html

To see the terrain, go to Google Maps and type in a search for Port Underwood, New Zealand. If you zoom in enough you can see the winding road from Picton to Port Underwood.

http://maps.google.com

CHARACTERS

Julia Merrill: the stowaway
Adam Dare: sheep farmer
Miriam Gillingham: Adam's fiancee
Grandpa Nathaniel Dare and his wife Lydia
Susanna, Esther and Luke, Phemy (Euphemia): young persons

Julia Aged 24. Hazel eyes; eton-cropped chestnut hair; one dimple; pepper-pot freckles above bridge of nose. Impetuous; tomboy.

Adam In his 30s. Black-avised, dark blue, almost black eyes; heavy-browed; large hands; terrifically strong; very tall. Eloquent. Hero type. Sense of humour. Quick tempered.

THE STORY

Julia Merrill has quit her job in Wellington so that she can go live with her bereaved brother on his farm at Omairangi and keep house for him. His fiance has died and he lives alone with two other male workers. He refuses her offer saying that she is not going to shut herself away miles from anyone and that she has already made enough sacrifices for the family.

That night, she stows herself away under a rug in the back floor of his car that he has left parked outside a farming meeting and when he drives off she expects to be taken to his farm and reveal herself there. However she has mistaken another farmer's car for his in the dark and is taken across Cook Strait on the inter-island ferry to Picton.

Fearful of exposure and embarrassment, she remains hidden and is driven out into the countryside eastwards towards a property at Port Underwood, but there is a landslip on the road and the driver waits until daylight to negotiate his way around it.

Once there, Julia is uncovered by a shocked and suspicious Miriam, fiance to the driver, Adam Dare. He and Miriam have a blazing row and Miriam clears off by car without even collecting her things from the house.

Adam is enraged with Julia and plans to drive her immediately back to Picton, but she faints from lack of food and drink and he takes her into the house where she meets Grandpa Dare and the nieces and nephew, whose parents are away. They have breakfast together and she gets on so well with them (unlike Miriam) that they tell her some of the family history as Adam goes to check the sheep because his worker, Ben, is in hospital. Actually, Grandma Lydia who has broken her leg, is also in hospital. Adam's parents are away on an overseas tour and things are awkward as Miriam was there to help out.

Scroll down to the green text now if you do not want to know the rest of the story.

The family lives in the original house which has been there for generations since Captain Ephraim and his bride Camilla settled there in the early days. Camilla was also a stowaway who hid on Ephraim's ship to help her brother. Port Underwood is an historically significant area where there once was a huge whaling industry. It is also in the area where the Treaty of Waitangi was signed by the South Island maori chiefs at Cloudy Bay.

Julia tries to patch things up over the phone with Miriam but only makes things worse. Adam returns and receives a phonecall saying that the roadslip has worsened and that it will be impassable for a few days. Julia must stay and so she makes herself useful getting meals but Adam is still taciturn.

There is an incident in the night when an owl crashes through Luke's window and his screams awaken the household who all run there in their nightgear including Julia in a nightgown of Camilla's, as she had not one of her own with her. Adam stares at her enigmatically when the fuss is attended to.

The slip worsen on the road and they are cut off as lambing time occurs. Julia shows her prowess with the sheep, as she has helped her farmer brother in the past.

Grandpa is missing Lydia, who rings to say that she is able to come home. Julia feels bad that there is no woman staying there now to look after her since Miriam left. She wants to do it but feels that she has no right to suggest it. She continues to try to conciliate talking to Adam about Miriam but he quite surly about the situation.

Miriam appears once the slip is mended and collects her clothes, offering to take Julia back with her to Picton. Julia agrees to go although she delights in the environment and family, but Adam forcibly restrains her, saying she can stay and look after Lydia now that she can be brought home. They go to fetch her with Adam planning on telling her nothing about the real situation but just that he and Miriam agreed to part and that Julia, sister of a friend, came to help. Lydia goes along with this deception for some time and then one day confronts Adam with the fact that she knows about the fact that he is being accused of smuggling a girl onto the property as a neighbour of Miriam's aunt told her so when she visited her in hospital. Adam is enraged that Julia's name is being blackened and rushes off to put a stop to it. When he arrives at the aunt's place he sees Miriam in a passionate embrace with a stranger and the aunt informs him that the guy is the one she truly loves and only became engaged to Adam to pique into action. There has been no gossip other than to the neighbour who won't spread it.

Adam comes home with Julia's brother on a weekend visit and they spend some time enjoying the district.

One afternoon Julia takes Luke to the shore to collect shells. As they are walking along the path on the clifftop it collapses and Luke falls into falls into a cave below. Julia jumps down to rescue him and they must dive through the opening to avoid the incoming tide swamping the cave and them. They swim around to another bay but it is edged by cliffs and will be covered by the sea too as the tide fills. Julia manages to hoist Luke high enough to scramble up to the top with the help of a mooring ring embedded in the cliff -side. He runs for help as she builds a mound of rocks to climb upon and so lash her wrist to the mooring ring by her belt. She peers at the ring and realises it is actually the cutlass that Captain Ephraim lost in the sound many years ago wedged into the clay and rock of the cliff. Adam comes and rescues her via a rope ladder and declares his love for her on the clifftop. She wonders if there is some element of her being "suitable" as a wife on that property but he later proves his passion by showing her an entry in his diary made some time ago regarding a poem by Robert Herrick about another Julia and how it appplied to Julia herself when he saw her in a nightdress. She is mollified and a wedding is planned with the nieces as bridesmaids much to their delight.

NOTE on dust jacket flap:

Readers often ask how a book comes to be. My books grow out of a variety of ways.

In this case the basic idea has been tucked away in a jotter since my daughter's varsity days when, returning one night to her parked car, she found a little difficulty in unlocking it, got in, tossed some gear into the back seat and was just about to start the engine when she became uneasily aware that there was something odd about this car. She felt carefully in the glove rack and encountered none of our familiar clutter and hastily removed herself to her own car a few yards uphill.

Last year my husband took me to the Marlborough Sounds and on his first sight of Port Underwood, commanded me to scrap the location I had chosen and set my story in an imaginary bay in that incomparable harbour. The result was South Island Stowaway.

POETRYWhenas in silks my Julia goes
Then, then (methinks) how sweetly flows
The liquefaction of her clothes.
Next, when I cast my eye and see
That brave vibration each way free;
O how that glittering taketh me.
By Robert Herrick: 17th century poet.

DEDICATION This book has been written for Marion Estee of Reading Massachusetts, who has been a source of much inspiration to me across leagues of sea and it is dedicated to Miss Emily Guard, granddaughter of the famous child-bride Betty Guard; to Helen Guard, granddaughter-in-law; Elaine Guard great-granddaughter-in-law, and her small, enchanting Edwina, for introducing my husband and myself on a smiling Sabbath day to the delights of their own small Eden at Kakopo Bay, Port Underwood, New Zealand.

PUBLICATION First published 1971 by Mills and Boon. Book number 29.

Essie Summers Admirers

Friday 7 December 2007

29. South Island Stowaway

Thursday 6 September 2007

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