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

by Lark, Sarah

  “I’ll put her in our room,” Gwyneira said to assuage her son.

  “Perhaps Miss Witherspoon could take some responsibility for her future pupil,” James jeered.

  Open war had broken out between the tutor and James after his comment about her useless lessons.

  Heather did not dignify him with a glance.

  “In any case, Gloria will be fine,” Gwyneira said. “Though she’ll miss you, of course, Jack. Maybe you can bring her back a picture of a whale and then show her in the yard how big one is.”

  Jack was in high spirits when the riders finally set off. Gwyneira, however, was struggling with visibly low spirits. Her son had only just left, and she already missed him. The house did in fact seem to have lost some of its vitality. Jack’s cheerful chattering and his little dog who had always seemed to be in the way were greatly missed at dinner. The evening meals passed more formally than usual, now that the air between James and Heather had become perceptibly frosty, and William contributed little to conversation. One evening, James, sensing Gwyneira’s disheartened mood, went in search of a particularly good bottle of wine and suggested to his wife that they retire for the evening.

  Gwyneira gave him her first smile of the day, but then something disrupted their plans. A young worker in the stables needed help caring for one of the horses that had fallen ill. Normally he would have alerted Andy, but in his absence, the worker preferred to turn directly to the McKenzies rather than take a risk. James and Gwyneira left the table to go see what was wrong with the mare.

  Heather took the opportunity to pinch a bottle out of the normally locked cabinet.

  “Come along, William, let’s do what we can to have a pleasant evening,” she said enticingly as he was still deliberating over whether tagging along with the McKenzies might not be more conducive to familial peace. On the other hand, he was not exactly a specialist in equine illness—and he had already spent the entire day outside under the incessant rain. He’d had enough for one day.

  He was surprised when Heather did not lead him toward her room as usual but headed directly for the rooms he had once shared with Kura.

  “I’ve always wanted to sleep in this bed,” she declared blithely, placing the wine on the night table. “Do you remember when we selected it? I think that’s when I fell in love with you. We had the same taste, the same ideas; these are really our rooms, William. We should finally take possession of them together.”

  William did not especially care for that idea. For one thing, though he had very concrete memories of that bed, they had less to do with its selection than with the bliss that he had experienced with Kura there. To sleep in that same bed with Heather almost felt like a desecration. He sensed that his adultery would then be complete. Until that moment, he had used Kura’s refusal to sleep with him as an excuse for his relationship with Heather. But now—it did not feel right to him to intrude on Kura’s private rooms.

  Heather merely laughed and uncorked the wine.

  “Are there no glasses in here?” she asked, disbelieving. “Did the two of you never”—she giggled—“need a little encouragement?”

  William could have answered that he had never had to loosen Kura’s inhibitions with wine. But instead, he obediently went to fetch glasses. What would be the use of angering Heather, after all?

  He nevertheless made one attempt at retreat.

  “Heather, we really shouldn’t do it here. If someone were to come—”

  “Now, don’t be a coward,” Heather said, handing him a glass as she took a sip herself. The wine was exceptional. “And who’s going to come? Mr. and Mrs. McKenzie are in the stables, Jack is gone…”

  “Gloria might start crying,” William said, even though they would not have heard anything in that part of the house.

  “The baby is sleeping in their apartments. She said herself that she would take her in. So enough of this nonsense, William. Come to bed.”

  Heather undressed, which she did not normally like to do while the light was still burning brightly. In her room, she lit nothing more than a candle when they made love, and that was only right to William, who still dreamed of Kura as he caressed Heather’s body. In here, however, she let the gas lamp burn. It seemed that she could not get enough of admiring these rooms that she had decorated herself.

  William did not know what other objections he could raise. He took a deep gulp of the wine. Maybe it would help him forget the shadows Kura had left in the room.

  The horse in the stables had colic, and Gwyneira and James spent quite a while getting it to take a purgative, massaging her stomach, and leading her around to get her bowels working again. After more than an hour, the worst had passed and Gwyneira was suddenly struck by the thought that no one in the house was looking after Gloria. Usually she could count on Jack, but she knew that neither William nor Heather Witherspoon would think to keep an eye on the child, and Moana and Kiri had already left for the evening before the McKenzies had been called to the stables.

  Gwyneira left further care of the mare to James and the young worker and ran back to the house to check on Gloria. The girl was almost a year old and slept through the night most of the time, but she might be missing Jack and upset because of that. When Gwyneira arrived, she did, in fact, find Gloria awake but not crying; she was merely murmuring contentedly, as though having a conversation with herself. Gwyneira laughed and picked her up.

  “Well, and what are you telling your doll?” she asked sweetly, handing Gloria her toy. “Wild stories about whales eating our little Jack?” She rocked the baby, enjoying her warmth and scent. Gloria was a sweet and easy child. Gwyneira remembered that Kura had cried so much more, even though Marama had carried her everywhere, whereas Gloria spent, if anything, too much time on her own. Kura had always been demanding. And even as a baby unusually attractive. She had not passed that on to Gloria. Though the baby was sweet, she was not as adorable as her mother had been at that age. Gloria had porcelain-blue eyes, and it seemed rather certain that they would stay that color. Her still-scant hair did not seem able to decide, however, whether it wanted to be dark blonde or light brown. There was not the smallest hint of red in it, and it was not straight and strong, as Kura’s had already been when she was an infant, but curly and downy soft. There was nothing exotic about her features; instead, she showed a slight resemblance to Paul and Gerald Warden. Her resolute chin was most definitely a Warden inheritance. Otherwise, her features were rather softer than those of her grandfather, evidence of William’s features pushing through.

  “You’re pretty enough for us,” Gwyneira teased her great-granddaughter, rocking her gently. “And now you’re coming with me. We’ll take your basket along, and you can sleep in your grandmum’s room tonight.”

  As she carried the child out of the room and crossed the dark hall, she was unable to miss the light coming from Kura’s rooms.

  Gwyneira frowned. William had apparently already come upstairs, since she had not seen anyone in the salon. But what was he doing in Kura’s rooms? Reviving old memories? His own bedroom was located at the other end of the hall.

  Gwyneira chided herself for her nosiness and was about to continue on to her own quarters when she thought she heard moaning and giggling coming from the rooms. William? Suddenly she remembered James’s mistrust of Heather Witherspoon. Until that moment, she had always thought his suspicion absurd, but now…

  Gwyneira wanted to know. Whoever was enjoying herself in there was not allowed to do so. This was still her house.

  Gwyneira put the basket down but kept Gloria in her arms. Then she yanked the door open. She heard the whispering and moaning much more clearly now. In the bedroom.

  Gloria began to howl when her great-grandmother opened the bedroom door, and the light shone brightly in her eyes, but Gwyneira could not concern herself with the baby just then. Almost in disbelief, she stared at William and Heather in Kura’s bed.

  Heather froze. William slid hastily out from under her and tri
ed to cover his nakedness.

  “Gwyneira, it’s not what you think.”

  Gwyneira could have burst out laughing. She was tempted to make a snide remark, but her fury won the upper hand.

  “I don’t need an explanation, thank you. I just got one. Is that why Kura left, William? Did she discover what was going on right under her nose?”

  “Kura…” William did not know how to formulate his explanation. He could hardly tell his mother-in-law that Kura had been refusing him. “She, she didn’t want…”

  Gwyneira looked at him coldly. “Spare yourself your excuses. I know, and I could slap myself for not realizing it sooner. It was the same with Elaine, after all, wasn’t it, William? You cheated on her with Kura, and now you’re cheating on Kura with this… Start packing your things, Miss Witherspoon! This instant. I want you out of this house tomorrow as well.”

  “As well?” William asked, confused.

  “Yes, ‘as well.’ Because I don’t want to see you around here anymore. And don’t you even dare mention your daughter. No judge will award her to an adulterer.” Gwyneira had begun to rock the child in her arms, which had calmed Gloria immediately. The little girl now looked at her father and Heather with curiosity. “It’s bad enough that she has to see this.”

  “But I love Kura,” whispered William.

  Gwyneira rolled her eyes. “Well, you certainly have a strange way of showing your love. Frankly, I couldn’t care less whom you love at the moment. If you think it would help, you can track Kura down and beg her forgiveness. But I won’t have you hanging around here, drinking my whiskey and seducing the staff. Go, get out of this room! And be gone from Kiward Station by daybreak!”

  “You can’t really—”

  “Oh, can’t I?”

  Gwyneira stood there with a rock-hard countenance until William and Heather had made themselves halfway decent. She even took the trouble of turning away while the two climbed out of bed and gathered their things. Then she turned out the light and locked Kura’s room behind them.

  “You’ll be gone by daybreak tomorrow,” she declared again. “Miss Witherspoon, I’ll leave your remaining pay on the table in the salon. I’m coming down to breakfast at nine. I don’t want to see either of you then.”

  With that, she walked off, leaving the humiliated couple to themselves. Gwyneira still needed to go to her office to count out Heather’s money. Then she needed a whiskey.

  James was just leaving the stables, tired and frozen through, as Gwyneira poured herself a glass. Gloria was asleep in the corner of a sofa with her thumb in her mouth.

  James cast an astounded look at his wife.

  “Did you knock the kid out with booze?” he asked with a grin.

  Gwyneira poured him a glass as well, and turned her pale face to his. “More like I’m trying to knock myself out. Here, take this. You’ll need it too.”

  Sleepless and chalky pale, Heather waited in front of the stables for William. When he arrived around six o’ clock in the morning with his saddlebags packed, he cast an astonished look at the young woman and her luggage.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked coldly. “Wouldn’t it be better to wait on the road to Haldon? Someone is sure to pass by today. If you’re lucky, they might even take you as far as Christchurch.”

  Heather looked at him in disbelief. “We… we aren’t traveling together?”

  William frowned. “Together? Don’t be ridiculous. How is my horse supposed to carry all this stuff?”

  Tears shone in Heather’s eyes. “You could rent a chaise. We…”

  William felt a surge of rage bubbling up inside him.

  “Heather, there is no ‘we!’ I’ve tried and tried to make that clear to you, but you don’t seem to want to understand that. I’m married, and I love my wife.”

  “She left you!” Heather yelled.

  “And I should have gone after her straightaway. Granted, we had our differences, but all that happened between you and me, that was a mistake. We shouldn’t make it any worse. Can I help you carry your luggage to the road?” William set his saddlebags down and reached for her suitcase.

  Heather flared up at him. “I can manage on my own, you…” She wanted to insult him, to scream and curse him, but people had instilled in her from a young age that a lady did no such thing, and so she could not even find the words to voice her rage.

  Heather convinced herself that at least she maintained her dignity that way. She bit her lip but did not cry as she dragged her bags down the road.

  “Good luck, William,” she managed. “I hope you find Kura and are happy.”

  William did not reply. By the time he reached the point in the road where it forked to Haldon or Christchurch half an hour later, Heather was gone.

  4

  Over the next few months, William learned a great deal about sheep, cattle, and panning for gold, but more than anything else, he learned about himself.

  His search for work that both suited him and brought in enough money to eke out a living led him throughout the entire South Island—and nearly beyond it, for at first he was pursuing his goal of finding Kura again. But the opera ensemble was in Australia, and William lacked the funds for the crossing—in addition to the fact that he did not possess a precise tour schedule and would therefore never have known how to locate Kura in that giant country. He comforted himself with the knowledge that the singers would return eventually. George Greenwood had received special prices for the boat trip from Christchurch to England, so Christchurch would be the certain end point of the ensemble’s tour. Since the singers would be visiting several other towns on the South Island, William only had to fill a few weeks.

  Those weeks, however, proved to be more difficult to fill than he’d expected, since his pride forbade him from asking for work in the area around Kiward Station. The sheep barons had known him as their equal, after all. So he directed his horse’s steps in the direction of Otago, toward the sheep farms around the McKenzie Highlands. There was always work to be had there, but William did not stay in any one place for long. It was as he had suspected on Kiward Station: he didn’t have a talent for handling the animals himself, and the farms’ owners either oversaw the work themselves or entrusted it to their long-standing farmhands. Besides, William could not stand the workers’ lodgings. He hated sleeping out in the open, and he found the men’s bawdy jokes, often at his expense, more insulting than entertaining.

  Thus he moved from farm to farm, even doing a stint at Lionel Station, where he learned the details of Elaine’s tragedy. William had come to regret the matter deeply. He knew that James McKenzie for one, and surely the rest of Elaine’s family as well, blamed him for her rash marriage. Elaine had never completely gotten over him. In addition, he had long since come to the conclusion that Elaine would have been the smarter match for him. Assisting in the O’Kay Warehouse had suited him much better that his work on Kiward Station, and though Elaine had not been as exciting, she had been much more reliable and far gentler than Kura.

  Nevertheless, his heartbeat quickened whenever he so much as thought about anything that was somehow connected to Kura. He had truly loved her—he loved her still, damn it! And he would have taken on anything, even the challenges of the farm, if only she had stayed with him. Why could she not be happy with what she had?

  He was surprised that Elaine had not found happiness, either. Though William found John Sideblossom repellent, Lionel Station was a beautiful property. And Elaine had always dreamed of living on a sheep farm.

  William did not stay on Lionel Station for long. The atmosphere was gloomy, and John paid poorly—it was no wonder, he had created his own stream of endlessly renewable cheap labor. Ever observant, William had immediately noted the similarities between the Maori workers and their employer. The man had more trouble producing legitimate children. Zoé Sideblossom’s first child had died during delivery, and she had just suffered a miscarriage.

  William had no luck at the gold mines of
Arrowtown. And seal hunting on the West Coast repulsed him more than it attracted him. Hunting seals had become a downright exhausting business anyway. The animals had become more skittish and ceased to wait on the beach by the hundreds for their hunters, as they used to do. William tried his hand helping out a coffin maker, but the work was too morbid for him. As it was, the coffin maker was the first boss to regret his departure. Once William had started advising the customers, they had begun paying considerably more money for beautiful and elaborate coffins.

  Finally, he was drawn to Westport, once again hoping to find Kura. Though he had heard that the West Coast would be one of the tour’s last stops, he saw nothing about any touring opera ensembles when he arrived. People were looking for workers for the coal mines. Though it was apparently well-paid work, William dreaded the prospect of backbreaking labor in the mines. In his view, you had to be born a coal miner. So, instead, he headed off with his gold-miner gear to the Buller River, where he finally had a bit of luck. He pulled about thirty dollars’ worth of gold dust from a stream in a single day. Since William had no claim himself, the owner of the claim pocketed half. Still, fifteen dollars was enough for a few nights in a hotel, some good whiskey, and access to a bathhouse. William moved into what was reputedly a properly well-run inn and ordered himself a drink first thing. While the owner filled his glass, he let his gaze wander over the room—and what he saw astounded him.

  The barroom was not full of men drinking whiskey and playing cards or darts, as was customary. That day, the center of attention was a man tinkering with a strange machine that he’d placed on a table. He was giving a presentation while running the rumbling little device by means of a crank on its side. His audience was even more astounding, for it consisted entirely of excitedly twittering women and girls. Respectable women, by the looks of them, wearing simple dresses. The older women kept an eye not only on the machine but also on their daughters, who had likely entered a pub for just the first time in their lives. The girls, however, couldn’t have been less interested in the pub decor or the few lonely drunkards in the corners. They only had eyes for the elegant young man, who was explaining the finer points of the machine.