by Lark, Sarah
The old Elaine had always expressed her anxiety through unceasing chatter. She simply talked and laughed away her fear. That evening, she tried to do just that. The restraint she had shown since William’s scandalous departure was gone. Elaine joked with Jenny Greenwood and her brother, let Georgie tease her, and allowed Søren to lead her in a dance.
Thomas quickly put a stop to that, however. Smiling coolly, he stepped between the pair, who were happily horsing around on the dance floor.
“May I steal my wife away from you?” he asked politely, but Søren could see the serious expression in his eyes.
The young Swede tried to maintain his jocular tone.
“Like you said, she’s yours!” he said amicably, releasing Elaine and bowing to her formally. “It has been a pleasure, Mrs. Sideblossom.”
When Elaine heard her new name for the first time, she was so delighted that she did not even notice Thomas’s bad temper.
“Oh, Thomas, isn’t the party wonderful?” she babbled breathlessly. “I could keep dancing forever.”
“You’ve danced enough,” Thomas remarked, leading her ably through a waltz while ignoring her attempts to lean into him affectionately. “And with enough men. You’re not behaving in a ladylike manner, and it doesn’t suit you. It’s time we retired.”
“Already?” Elaine asked with disappointment. She had hoped there would be fireworks. Georgie had implied as much, and her parents likewise knew that she had always dreamed of fireworks at her wedding.
“It’s time,” Thomas repeated. “We’ll take the boat. I already talked it over with my father.”
Elaine knew that was the plan. She had also learned that Jenny and Stephen had spent the whole morning decorating the boat with flowers. The nocturnal boat ride was supposed to be romantic, and Elaine was looking forward to it, but she was nevertheless saddened to think that she would not be taking Banshee along to Lionel Station. The mare was looking after her foal, a beautiful little stallion. The black pony was stocky and sound, and he could have made the journey to Lionel Station alongside his mother without any trouble. Thomas thought the mare and her foal would hold up the trip, but Elaine did not see it that way, since the party would not be moving all that quickly anyway. Her father was sending a freight wagon with her trousseau and a few purchases the Sideblossoms had made, and Zoé would be riding in a coach. On the largely unpaved paths between Queenstown and the farm, the coach would, in fact, hold them up a good deal more than a strong cob foal and her mother. Thomas, however, persisted in his opinion, and Elaine relented. John could bring the mare after his next visit to Queenstown. On this trip, Elaine would be accompanying Zoé in her comfortable chaise.
Elaine said good-bye to no one. Only Inger smiled encouragingly at her as Thomas led her to the boat hung with flowers. The ride down the river that followed was very romantic—in part because fireworks were being set off at Nugget Manor. Elaine was delighted by the colorful cascades of light and the showers of stars bursting above the dark trees. She could hardly restrain herself from singing the praises of the lights reflected in the river.
“Oh, what a wonderful idea, Thomas, to watch the fireworks here on the water, just the two of us! Hasn’t it been a wonderful evening? We should make love right here, out in nature like the Maori do. My grandmother Gwyneira tells such romantic stories. When she was young, she always rode along when the sheep were being herded and… Oh, I would like to do that too, Thomas! I’m so looking forward to life on the farm, with all the animals, and Callie is a wonderful sheepdog. You watch, Callie and I will do the work of three men.” Elaine radiated with joy and tried once again to snuggle close to Thomas, as she once had with William. He pushed her away.
“What an idea! Sheepherding! You’re a woman, Elaine. It is out of the question for you to go fooling around in the stables. Really, I hardly recognize you today. Has the champagne gone to your head? Now move over to your seat and sit still until we get there. This exuberance of yours is unbearable.”
Elaine withdrew, soberly, to the bench across from Thomas.
But then music coming from the riverbank broke the tension between the young couple. The boat was just passing the landing by Stever Station. Elaine’s Maori friends, who had returned to the area for the upcoming herding, had gathered on the river to serenade the newlyweds.
Elaine recognized a haka, a sort of musical play in which the action was represented in dance while men and women sang and played traditional instruments, including the koauau, the nguru, and putorino flutes.
“Oh, can’t we stop, Thomas?” Elaine asked enthusiastically. “They’re playing for us.”
Then she saw the twisted expression on Thomas’s face. Anger? Pain? Hatred? Something seemed to be unleashing a rage in him that he was having difficulty controlling. She also detected a strange hint of fear.
Elaine drew back into her corner of the boat as Thomas seized the oars with a taut face. Though the river’s current was strong enough to carry them, Thomas rowed on urgently.
Elaine had a thousand questions, but she remained silent. Thomas was very different than she had thought, and she was slowly beginning to dread their wedding night. Up until then, she hadn’t been overly anxious about it. After talking with Inger and Maren and, moreover, after William’s caresses, she considered herself almost experienced. For some time now, she had let herself think of William again—almost without spite. She remembered his caresses and his kisses fondly. She had been more than willing to be touched and had become wet from excitement. That had been embarrassing for her at the time, but Inger had assured her that it was completely normal and made lovemaking easier for women to bear. As she had sat next to Thomas admiring the fireworks, she had felt that same warmth and wetness below, but the sensation had passed. What if Thomas did not succeed in arousing her again later? Did he even want to do so? At the moment, it looked more like he wanted to tear someone to shreds.
Elaine pushed the thought firmly away. Of course Thomas would take her in his arms, caress her, and be tender to her. And then she would be ready for him.
To her surprise, the twins were waiting for Elaine at Helen’s hotel. And yet they had both still been dancing at the wedding when Elaine and Thomas had left.
“Daph… er… your grandmother thought that we should come home early to take care of you, Miss O’Keefe,” Mary twittered.
“Someone has to help you get your dress off,” Laurie added. “And help with your hair.”
Thomas was not pleased and tried to rebuff them. “Thank you very much, but I would be happy to help my wife myself.”
But he had not counted on the obstinacy of the twins—who had, moreover, received clear instructions from Daphne O’Rourke.
“No, no, Mr. Sideblossom, that wouldn’t be decent,” Mary protested. “A lady’s husband must wait until she is ready. We have some nice hot chocolate for you right here.”
Thomas gnashed his teeth and kept control of himself only with great effort. “Why don’t you bring me a whiskey.”
Laurie shook her head. “No hard alcohol under Mrs. O’Keefe’s roof, only wine if you must. And we have a bottle here, but it’s for later. You can have a drink with Miss O’Keefe when—”
“Before or after…” Mary giggled.
Thomas clenched his hands into fists. Who did they think they were, ordering him around? First those flutes on the riverbank—the damned Maori!—which had awoken these feelings in him, these memories. And now these wenches. What did it matter to them what he did with his wife? And Elaine even appeared pleased about the delay.
“I’ll be right in, dearest,” she said and happily following the twins upstairs. Thomas sat down in a chair and forced himself to be patient. Starting tomorrow, no one would stand in his way.
Mary and Laurie made a grand production out of undressing Elaine, loosening her hair, and brushing it. Finally, Mary helped her into a richly embroidered silk nightgown while Laurie filled a princely goblet with wine.
“Her
e, drink up, Miss O’Keefe!” she ordered. “It’s excellent wine, a wedding present from Daphne.”
“Daphne sent you?” Elaine was suddenly nervous. Until that moment, she had believed that Helen had prepared this surprise.
Mary nodded. “Yes, Miss O’Keefe. And she told us you should drink at least one glass of wine first and then another with him before you… well, you know. A sip of wine makes it go more easily and nicely.”
Elaine knew that as a lady, she should have protested, and she had never needed alcohol to feel safe and comfortable in William’s arms. But Daphne undoubtedly knew what she was talking about. She politely drank up the wine, which had a sweet taste. Elaine smiled.
“Please tell Thomas…”
“That you’re ready!” the twins said practically in chorus. “We’ll do that, miss. Good luck!”
Thomas did not want any wine. Elaine had thought it would be lovely to present herself to him as a Roman goddess of love would have, in her becoming nightgown, her hair flowing down her back, and a chalice of wine in her hand to offer her beloved. But Thomas pushed the glass away—any harder and he would have slapped it from her hand.
“What’s this all about, Elaine? Are you playing a little game here? Lie down in bed like an obedient wife. I know you’re pretty. You don’t need to show yourself off like a whore.”
Elaine gulped. She stepped over to the bed like a whipped dog and lay down on her back. The sight seemed to please Thomas.
“That’s better. Wait while I take off my clothes. You could have helped me, of course, but not when you’re already half-naked. That wouldn’t be ladylike. Now wait.”
Thomas took off his clothes unhurriedly, laying his things neatly on a chair. But Elaine could hear his breathing quicken, and she was startled when she saw his member after he had removed his pants. Inger had said it would swell… but that much? Oh God, it would surely hurt when he pushed that into her. Elaine flinched, turned onto her side and scooted a little away from him. Thomas glared at her. He was breathing even more quickly. He seized her shoulder and pulled her sharply back into the right position. Then he threw himself on top of her.
Elaine wanted to scream as he thrust himself into her, but he covered her lips with his mouth. His tongue and member pushed into her at the same time. Elaine almost bit down in terror and pain. She whimpered as he began moving inside her, moaning with pleasure. As his movements grew faster and his breath ragged, Elaine could barely suppress her pain.
“Ah, that was good…” He said nothing more as he caught his breath.
“But…” Elaine mustered her courage as the pain abated. “Don’t you want… don’t you have to kiss beforehand?”
“I don’t have to do anything,” Thomas said coolly. “But if you want.”
He only needed a little time to recover; then he threw himself back on her. This time, he kissed her—first on the mouth, just as deeply and forcefully as before, then on her neck and breasts, which hurt because he bit her more than kissed her. It felt so very different than it had with William. Elaine seized up this time more than before. She groaned in pain as he pushed into her again, and he didn’t stop until he finally released into her. There was fluid again, as there had been first time. Elaine finally understood what the whores washed off with vinegar when they were forced to make love on unsuitable days. And the thought of a little vinegar, or soap and water at least, sounded very attractive to her just then. She felt sore, dirty, and disgraced as she lay rigidly next to Thomas, who soon fell asleep. Trembling, Elaine got out of bed.
The bathroom lay right next to her room. She hoped that no one else would need it; most of the hotel’s guests were surely still at the wedding. At her wedding.
To Elaine’s surprise, there were lamps burning in the room, and the twins were waiting for her with two buckets of hot water and scented soap.
Elaine burst into tears when she saw them. So that had been Daphne’s wedding present. She did not have to bear this all alone. And the twins obviously knew what they were doing. For once, they did not twitter, and instead spoke quietly and comfortingly to her as they removed her nightgown and washed her body.
“You poor thing! It will still hurt tomorrow, but then it’ll get better quickly.”
With a sponge, Laurie gently rubbed the spots that Thomas’s hungry sucking and biting had left behind, what he had called “kisses.”
“Is it always like that?” Elaine sobbed. “If it’s always like that, then I’d rather die.”
Mary pulled her close. “Of course not. You get used to it.”
Elaine remembered hearing that Daphne had never made the twins get used to anything like this.
Laurie gave her some more wine; indeed, Daphne had sent several bottles. Elaine drank it, thirsty as never before. She had heard you could drink to forget, but what good what that do? What had just happened would repeat itself again the next night.
“Say thank you to Daphne,” Elaine whispered when she finally left the twins and returned, laden with fear, her heart pounding, to the room where her husband slept.
“What we should we tell Daphne?” Laurie asked her sister as the women picked up their things. “He wasn’t very nice to her.”
Mary shrugged. “True. But how many of them are? Daphne didn’t ask if he was nice. She wanted to know if he…” She went quiet with embarrassment.
Laurie understood without the need for words. “You’re right. It just hurts me to see Miss O’Keefe so. But Daphne doesn’t need to worry herself about it. As far as anyone can tell right now, he’s normal.”
7
Elaine was very relieved that she did not have to ride the next day. In addition to the fact that her lower body hurt unbearably, she had slept poorly, rigid with tension, on the edge of the bed. She ached all over, and her face was bloated and blotchy from crying. Thomas did not comment on her appearance, however. Nor did Zoé, with whom Elaine would be sharing a carriage for the next few days and a house thereafter. Elaine had been hoping for a bit of kindness from her—the young woman had to know what she had been through the previous night, after all—but Zoé didn’t say a word. And there was no one else Elaine could confide in.
The Sideblossoms wanted to get an early start. Elaine only had a chance to embrace her parents briefly. Naturally, Fleurette could see that something was amiss, but there was no time for questions. Only Helen had a moment alone with her when Elaine helped carry the breakfast dishes into the kitchen. She immediately recognized Elaine’s stiff, painful movements.
“Was it bad, child?” she asked sympathetically.
“It was terrible.”
Helen nodded understandingly. “I know, dear. But, believe me, it gets better. And you’re young. You’ll get pregnant quickly. Then maybe he’ll leave you in peace.”
Elaine spent the whole of that first morning in the carriage making hectic calculations to determine whether the experience the night before could lead to the conception of a child. Everything inside her bristled at the thought that she could have conceived a child that night. In the end, though, she calmed herself. Her last menstruation had been only four days before and, according to Inger, conceiving at this time was not possible.
Although Zoé’s chaise was quite well cushioned, the roads around Lake Wakatipu were in poor condition. Elaine groaned every time they lurched across one of the countless deep potholes. She tried desperately to start a conversation with Zoé, but the young woman did not seem to have any interests other than housekeeping and the various luxury objects with which she had decorated Lionel Station. She spoke at length about the furniture and drapes, but never thought to ask about Elaine’s taste or preference. After a few hours, Elaine became determined not to let her husband limit her to the house. She would perish of boredom in Zoé’s company. She would have to assert herself and establish her role on the sheep farm. Her grandmother Gwyneira had done it, after all. Lost in thought, she stroked Callie, who could tell that her mistress was in need of comfort.
Zoé eyed the animal critically. “I hope you don’t intend to bring that mutt into the house.”
Elaine felt a wave of anger swelling up inside her.
“She’s no mutt. She’s a Kiward border collie. They are the most celebrated sheepdogs in New Zealand. The people of Christchurch even wanted to make a monument to Friday, her grandmother. They descend from the Silkham collies, which are famous throughout Great Britain.” Elaine drove the point home. “If only every immigrant had such a pedigree.”
Zoé’s lovely face twisted into a grimace of rage. Elaine had not wanted to offend her personally—her remark was meant as a joke—but Zoé had evidently not had the most respectable ancestors.
“I don’t want animals in the house! And nor does John!” she informed Elaine.
Elaine bristled. If Zoé wanted to fight for dominance…
“Thomas and I will have our own rooms, of course,” she said. “I will arrange those as I choose. You may as well know that I don’t like flouncy valances.”
Silence reigned in the chaise for the next few hours. Elaine concentrated on the beauty of the landscape. At first, the road followed the lake, but then they turned off and crossed a plain in the direction of Arrowtown. The grassland was similar to that of the Canterbury Plains, though the land was not as wide or as flat and a greater variety of vegetation grew there. It was a center of sheep breeding—or at least was supposed to become one—before a sheepshearer named Jack Tewa found gold almost thirty years before. Gold miners had been flocking to the area ever since, and the town of Arrowtown had grown quickly. Elaine wondered if there really was gold in the passing streams and rivers, whose bucolic wooded banks looked so inviting.
Thomas had told her they would spend the night in Arrowtown, but in reality they rested at a sheep farm whose owner the Sideblossoms knew. The house had little in common, however, with either Kiward or Lionel Station. It was simple, and the guest rooms were tiny. The owner proved to be, like virtually all farmers in New Zealand, an excellent host nonetheless. Garden Station lay rather far from town, after all, and visitors were rare. Elaine did her best to satisfy Mrs. Gardner’s need for news from Queenstown and Otago, even though she was not especially in the mood to chat. Indeed, she was both exhausted after the journey and fearful of the upcoming night with Thomas. Her husband had hardly exchanged a word with her, either that morning or during the trip, and even now, the male Sideblossoms conversed exclusively with Mr. Gardner. The women kept to themselves, and Zoé was no help at all. She ate the proffered food without a word. Elaine’s fatigue and anxiety prevented her from eating much of anything as she regaled Mrs. Gardner with her stories. Finally, Zoé asked permission to retire. Elaine joined her only too willingly. Mrs. Gardner looked a little disappointed, but showed herself understanding.