Song of the Spirits (In the Land of the Long White Cloud saga)

by Lark, Sarah

  “You should now say kia ora to be polite and bow to them,” James said. “In reality, they rub noses together, but I can tell that would be asking too much.”

  He exchanged a few words with the women, who giggled.

  “What did you say?” William asked suspiciously.

  “I told them that you’re shy.” James seemed to be enjoying himself thoroughly. “Now, go on, say hello.”

  William had turned red with anger, but repeated the greeting politely. The old women seemed genuinely pleased and, laughing, corrected his pronunciation.

  “Haere mai!” called the children. “Welcome!”

  A little boy gave him a tiny piece of jade. James thanked him exuberantly and made William do likewise.

  “That’s a pounamu. It’s supposed to bring you luck. A very generous gift from a little boy, one you should plan to be on good terms with by the way. He’s Tonga’s youngster.”

  The boy already had the bearing of a chief and accepted the gratitude of the pakeha with great majesty. Then the men left the village. The land around the camp had not been put to use by the Wardens, and the Maori had planted a few fields and gardens. A short while later, they rode past some large paddocks, some of which held sheep. As the rain had set in again, the animals were crowded into the paddocks’ shelters, where hay was provided as fodder.

  “There’s enough grass in the pastures for most of the sheep even in winter,” James explained. “But we feed the ewes more. That way the lambs are born stronger and you can herd them into the highlands earlier, which saves on fodder. This is where we keep the cattle too. We’ve increased the number we breed since the refrigerated ships have started going to England. Before, the meat could only be delivered to Otago or the West Coast—thankfully, gold and coal miners have always been blessed with a healthy appetite. But now these ships with cooling contraptions sail for England. It’s a good business. And Kiward Station obviously has no shortage of pastureland. The first shearing shed is over there.”

  James indicated a large, flat building that William would not have known what to make heads or tails of a few weeks before. He had since learned from spending time on other farms that this was a dry place for the shearing companies that traveled from station to station in the spring to shear the wool from the sheep.

  “The first?” William asked.

  James nodded. “We have three in all. And we need the shearers for three weeks. You see what that means.”

  William grinned. “Quite a few sheep,” he said.

  “More than ten thousand at the last count,” James said, adding, “Happy?”

  William was incensed. “Mr. McKenzie, I know what you’re insinuating. But I don’t care about your damned sheep! I only care about Kura. I’m marrying her, not your livestock trade.”

  “You’re marrying both,” observed James. “And don’t try to tell me you don’t care one way or another.”

  William flared up at him. “Do I care one way or another? I love Kura. I’m going to make her happy. Nothing else matters. I want to be with Kura, and she wants to be with me.”

  James nodded, though he did not look convinced. “You’ll get her all right.”

  For the Sake of Man

  QUEENSTOWN, LAKE PUKAKI, AND CANTERBURY PLAINS

  1894–1895

  1

  William Martyn and Kura-maro-tini Warden were married shortly before Christmas in the year 1893. Their wedding was the most glorious celebration to be held at Kiward Station since before the death of its founder, Gerald Warden. It was the height of summer, and so the hosts had made it a garden party. Gwyneira had supplementary tents and pavilions set up as a defense against any possible summer rain, but the weather cooperated. The sun competed to outshine the guests, who arrived in great numbers to celebrate the couple. Half of Haldon was present, the perennially sniffling Dorothy Candler chief among them, of course.

  “She bawled her eyes out at my first wedding too,” Gwyneira told James. The residents of the surrounding farms had come for the festivities as well. Gwyneira greeted Lord and Lady Barrington and their younger children. The older ones were off studying in Wellington and England, and one of their daughters had gotten married on the North Island. The Beasleys, once their nearest neighbors, had died without direct heirs, and their distant relatives had sold the farm. A Major Richland, a veteran of the Crimean War, had taken over the farm’s sheep and horse breeding and ran them in just as “gentlemanly” a manner as had Reginald Beasley. Fortunately, he had capable overseers who simply defied the would-be farmer’s more absurd orders.

  George and Elizabeth Greenwood came from Christchurch, accompanied only by their daughters. One of their sons was still studying in England, while the other was finishing up practical courses at the Australian branch of the family’s trading house.

  Their older daughter, Jennifer—a somewhat shy blonde girl—lost all ability to speak when she stood face-to-face with Kura-maro-tini.

  “She’s beautiful,” she merely whispered when she saw the bride in her creamy-white gown.

  That was undeniable. The dress, which had been tailored in Christchurch, highlighted Kura’s perfect form without being indecent. She wore a garland of fresh flowers in her hip-length hair, which she left down. That made a good enough veil on its own. Although she looked almost as disinterested as at any other celebration she had ever graced with her presence, her skin shimmered, and her eyes sparkled whenever they fell on her future husband. When she walked toward the altar, her movements were as graceful as those of a dancer. However, there was one small problem to solve before the bishop, who had traveled from Christchurch, could marry the couple under the flower-decorated canopy.

  Jennifer Greenwood, who normally played the organ in Christchurch—“angelically” in the bishop’s opinion—had lost her nerve. No wonder, since Dorothy Candler had just described in scintillating detail how the bride and groom had come together after Kura’s sensational concert in Haldon.

  “I can’t do it,” Jenny whispered to her mother, her face as red as a beet. “Not now that I’ve seen her. I’ll play something wrong and then everyone will look at me and compare me to her. I thought all those stories about Elaine O’Keefe were exaggerated, but…”

  Gwyneira, who could not help catching these words, bit her lip. The Greenwoods probably knew every detail of the fiasco that had taken place between Elaine and Kura in Queenstown. Helen was close friends with George and Elizabeth, both of whom had been among her favorite students in their youth. Helen had been George’s tutor back in England, and Elizabeth was one of the orphan girls she had accompanied to New Zealand. She kept nothing secret from them, especially from George, who was a successful wool trader and import-export merchant. Without his powerful backing, her husband, Howard, would not have been able to hold onto his farm for long, and Helen’s marriage would have taken an even more traumatic course than it already had. Ruben O’Keefe clung to his “Uncle George” with nearly idolatrous love, and he had named his younger son after George Greenwood. It was quite possible that Ruben’s conversations with him—or Georgie’s with his namesake—had unveiled embarrassing secrets.

  Elizabeth, a blonde, still-slender woman in a simple, elegant dress, tried to calm her daughter’s nerves: “It’s just ‘Here Comes the Bride.’ There’s nothing simpler, Jenny. You could play it in your sleep! You’ve even played it in the cathedral.”

  “But when she looks at me like that, I just want to disappear.” Jenny indicated Kura, who was casting a rather merciless look in her direction. The music should long since have begun, after all.

  Not that Jenny had any reason to hide. She was a tall, slender girl with golden-blonde hair and a sweet, narrow face dominated by large green eyes. But at that moment, she was doing her best to conceal her face by lowering her head and letting her hair fall over it like a curtain.

  “No, we can’t have that!” a young man in the last row said as he stood up gallantly. It was Stephen O’Keefe—the only representati
ve of the family in Queenstown. As he was among the closest relatives of the bride, Gwyneira had reserved a place for him in the very front, but he had been hiding in the back.

  Fleurette and Ruben had sent him to avoid creating any further scandal that might be brought on by boycotting the wedding altogether. Fleurette had made it clear in a letter that they wished Kura and William all the best, but that Elaine wanted no part in the celebration: “Though she seems to have slowly gotten over Mr. Martyn’s rejection, she remains a shadow of her former self. Unfortunately, she places the blame squarely on herself. Instead of being rightfully angry, she makes herself miserable thinking about what she did wrong and how she pales in comparison to her cousin. There is no way we can expect her to watch Kura as a glowing bride.”

  Stephen, however, was on Christmas break and happy to ride to Kiward Station. Though he had learned from his mother’s letters all about what had happened between Kura and Elaine, he had not taken the matter all that seriously. During his next visit to Queenstown, however, he had been quite disturbed by how distraught his sister still appeared to be. He could not pass up the opportunity to get to know the two causes of this tragic change.

  “With your permission,” Stephen said, smiling. He bowed to Jenny Greenwood and sat down at the splendid grand piano that was serving in place of an organ. It was Gwyneira’s wedding present to her granddaughter, even though James had grumbled, “We’ll have to clear out half the salon to make room for it.”

  “You can play?” Gwyneira asked, amazed, having left her seat to see to the delay.

  Stephen smiled again. “I’m Helen O’Keefe’s grandson and grew up next to her church organ. Even Georgie could manage something as laughably simple as the ‘Wedding March.’”

  Without further delay, he struck the first notes. He played the piece casually, with almost a little too much verve, as the wedding couple stepped up to the improvised altar. Since Stephen did not know what song was supposed to be played when the couple walked back down the aisle, he played an equally animated version of “Amazing Grace,” which earned him an amused look from James McKenzie and a chastising look from Gwyneira. After all, the lyrics “how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me” were hardly flattering to a young bride.

  Nevertheless, Stephen hit every note. Insecurity was alien to him. Jennifer smiled at him gratefully from behind her curtain of hair.

  “I’ve earned myself the first dance after that, right?” he whispered to her, at which Jennifer blushed again, this time with delight.

  In the meantime, a group of Maori musicians had assembled in front of the pavilion. Marama sang a few traditional songs with them—at which time it became clear to everyone where the girl had gotten her beautiful voice. Marama’s voice was higher than Kura’s and possessed an almost ethereal timbre. If the good spirits that Marama conjured with her songs could hear her, they would not be able to resist her; Gwyneira was certain of that. The guests were likewise enraptured.

  Only William seemed to find his mother-in-law’s performance unsuitable, despite the fact that Marama was wearing a European-style gown and none of the other musicians stood out with unusual clothing or even tattoos. The groom preferred to ignore the natives and looked relieved when the music came to an end. The parade of congratulations that followed appealed to him a great deal more, though he found it a bit strange that the sheep barons of the area congratulated Gwyneira at least as heartily as the newlyweds.

  “You’ve achieved something quite extraordinary,” said Lord Barrington, shaking her hand. “The boy is just what you wanted for Kiward Station. It’s as if you made him yourself.”

  Gwyneira laughed. “I did no such thing. It’s just how things turned out,” she said humbly.

  “You didn’t pull any strings, then? Never slipped little Kura a love potion, or anything?” asked Francine Candler, Haldon’s midwife and one of Gwyneira’s oldest friends.

  “I would have had to have you brew it for me,” Gwyneira teased. “Or do you think the Maori witch doctor would ever have cooked up a concoction that would give the farm an English heir?”

  Tonga was present, of course, though he had not ceded his right to wear his tribal clothing, including his chieftain’s insignias. He observed the ceremony with a stony face and then congratulated the couple politely. Tonga spoke perfect English with excellent inflection—when he condescended to demonstrate it to the pakeha. He, too, had been among Helen O’Keefe’s best students.

  The other Maori, including the bride’s mother, Marama, and her husband, kept to themselves in the background. Gwyneira would have liked for them to participate more fully in the festivities, but they had a fine sense for what the celebration’s main couple wanted. Although Kura looked as indifferent as she always did, word of William’s skeptical attitude toward the tribes had already gotten around. For that reason, Gwyneira was happy that James joined the Maori guests and chatted amiably with them after the meal. He was not entirely at ease in the illustrious company of the sheep barons and notables of Christchurch anyway. After all, he had only “married in” and had no real claim to the land on which he worked. Several of those men had even come after him as a rustler many years before. Running into each other at society functions only caused both sides embarrassment. Besides, James spoke fluent Maori.

  “I truly hope that they will be happy,” Marama whispered to him in her melodious voice. She’d had no objections to William, though she felt snubbed by his behavior that day. “And that he won’t stand in his own way like Paul did.” Marama had loved Paul Warden with all her heart, but her influence on him had always been limited.

  “I have heard the name Paul a little too often in connection with this Martyn boy,” Tonga remarked grimly.

  James could only nod.

  William floated through his wedding celebration. He was deliriously happy. Naturally, there had been a few unpleasant moments, including the Maori’s unplanned performance and the strong handshake of the young man who represented the O’Keefe family. “Best wishes—from my sister too,” Stephen had said, looking William coldly in the eye. He was the first young man William had seen who had no reaction whatsoever to Kura’s beauty. Although she smiled at him, he wished her well just as coolly as he had William. And then there had been his piano playing. There could hardly have been anything less suitable than “Amazing Grace.”

  All of that, however, was more than offset by the sheep barons, who heartily accepted the newcomer into their ranks. William got along beautifully with Barrington and Richland, and he hoped he’d made a good impression on George Greenwood when he was introduced to him. He was utterly content with the way the celebration had turned out. The meal was exquisite, the wine first-class, and the champagne flowed in rivers. Even Gwyneira’s domestics had proved themselves well trained, though the Maori cooks and maids—as well as the peculiar majordomo Maui, an older Maori man—were somewhat too willful for his taste. But he could see to that. He would talk to Kura about it soon.

  In the meantime, the musicians had arrived from Christchurch and began to play. It was time for the dancing to get under way, and William and Kura opened with a waltz. The bride, however, seemed to have had quite enough of the celebration.

  “When can we retire?” she whispered, rubbing her body so provocatively against his that the guests could not have helped but see. “I can’t wait to be alone with you.”

  William smiled. “Watch yourself, Kura. You can hold out for another couple of hours. We have to make the rounds here. It’s important. After all, we’re representing Kiward Station.”

  Kura frowned. “Why do we suddenly have to represent this farm? I thought we were going to Europe.”

  William spun her in an elegant turn to give himself time to think. What was she talking about? She didn’t really believe that he was going to…

  “Everything in good time, Kura,” he said soothingly. “For now we’re here, and I’m as anxious as you are.”

  That, at least, was the tru
th. He dared not let himself think about taking possession of Kura that night. That would surely draw embarrassing looks. Just his close proximity to her while dancing aroused him.

  “We’ll stay until the fireworks; then we’ll disappear. That’s what I discussed with your grandmother anyway. None of us wants to hear the bawdy comments that will come when we leave.”

  “You discussed when we would go to bed with my grandmother?” Kura asked indignantly.

  William sighed. He was crazy about Kura, but she was behaving so childishly.

  “We have to follow the proper etiquette,” he said calmly. “Let’s go get something to drink. If you keep rubbing against me like that, I’m going to have my way with you right here in the middle of the dance floor.”

  Kura laughed. “Why not? The Maori would be thrilled. Take me in front of the whole tribe!” She pressed herself even more firmly against him.

  William rebuffed her energetically. “Behave yourself,” he whispered. “I don’t want people talking about us.”

  Kura looked at him, disbelieving. She wanted people to talk. She wanted to be a star, her name on everyone’s lips. She loved how the European gazettes wrote about famous singers like Mathilde Marchesi, Jenny Lind, and Adelina Patti. Some day she, too, would travel through Europe on her own luxury train.

  Determined to get her way, she threw her arms around William’s neck and kissed him right in the middle of the dance floor. A long, deep kiss that no one could miss.

  “She’s beautiful, isn’t she?” Jenny Greenwood repeated her remark, this time to Stephen. She had found him for the first dance, as promised. As Kura kissed William passionately—in anticipation of their wedding night, it seemed—Jenny vacillated between exhilaration and discomfort. The scene was visibly embarrassing for the groom. He looked as though he wanted to disappear and went so far as to rudely push his young wife away from him. A few unkind words followed. It was not a very harmonious start to a marriage.