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

by Lark, Sarah

  The mine owner winked at Elaine. As he moved on to the third-place finisher, he said, “But after this, you’ll dance with me.”

  Timothy knew that it would never happen. She would not come within a mile of the dance floor. Under no circumstances would she allow a man to put his arm around her.

  He met her a short while later by the horses. He had broken away from the others as quickly as he could—which had not been easy since everyone wanted to drink with him that day—and it was just as he had expected. Elaine had given Banshee an hour to catch her breath and was saddling her again.

  “Are you going home already, Miss Keefer?” Timothy asked cautiously at the entrance to the tent that had been put up in lieu of stables. He had not wanted to startle her, but he did anyway. “Fellow will be lonely without Banshee.”

  “The… the pub isn’t open today,” Elaine remarked in an apparent non sequitur.

  But then Timothy understood what she meant. She wanted to avoid having him accompany her home.

  “I know,” he said. “But I thought… There’s going to be a dance this evening.”

  “There’s a band playing. They don’t need me to play piano.”

  As Elaine spoke, she kept her gaze averted. She was intentionally misunderstanding him.

  Timothy didn’t let it go. “I would have liked to dance with you, Miss Keefer.”

  “I don’t dance.” Elaine fastened her saddle girth hastily.

  “Can’t or won’t, Miss Keefer?”

  Elaine did not know how to respond. She stared at the floor before looking up helplessly as though looking for a way out and knowing that there wasn’t any.

  Like an animal in a trap…

  Timothy yearned to free her.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Keefer. I don’t want to impose on you.”

  What he wanted was to go to her, take her in his arms, and remove all her fears, to stroke and kiss away everything that weighed so heavily on her. But that would have to wait. As would the dancing.

  Elaine bridled her mare. Then she hesitated. She had to pass Timothy to leave the stable. Her face drained of color again, and her eyes flickered.

  Timothy moved away from the door. He calmly walked over to Fellow, intentionally leaving space between himself and the girl.

  Elaine relaxed visibly. She led Banshee out, and then stopped once she believed herself be out of harm’s way.

  “Mr. Lambert? About before… with your father. Thank you.”

  She did not give him a chance to reply or ask her any questions. Timothy could only watch as she swung up on her horse in front of the tent and rode off.

  A strange girl. But Timothy was almost happy as he returned to the festival grounds. She had spoken to him. And someday he would put his arms around her and dance with her. At their wedding.

  9

  Kura Martyn had realized long ago that she’d made a mistake. It had been wrong of her to snub Gwyneira, and running away had made everything worse. She had taken to cursing her stupid pride every day. She could have long since been in England, either performing or continuing her study of music. Either way, she would not have been wasting her time struggling on her own through the South Island’s most remote backwaters. It was no longer a matter of artistic fulfillment, but of sheer survival. Kura did not plan any more concerts or have any more posters printed. Most of the small towns she passed through did not even have town halls or hotels through whose rooms well-reputed citizens led their festively attired wives. As a rule, there was only a pub—that with luck would boast a piano. Kura hardly even got upset anymore when the instrument was desperately out of tune. Sometimes there was not even that. In those cases, she would sing without accompaniment or, recalling her Maori roots, she would play the drum or the koauau flute between her vocal performances. This music was considerably better received by the small-town locals than her operatic repertoire.

  Once, a few Maori shepherds even invited her to sing and play for their tribe. Kura enjoyed this concert, which took place in conjunction with the tribe’s tohunga. Accompanied by musicians on putorino flutes, she performed various haka. At the end, the tribe honored her with a gift of a putorino of her own, and from then on, Kura incorporated the unusual instrument into her performances as well. She had learned to play it from her mother, and she could even conjure the wairua voice. The elusive technique had always come easily to her, but then again, she had begun as a little girl.

  Unfortunately, her listeners were not very appreciative of the artistry involved. Because even if they preferred Maori music to opera, what the men really wanted to hear whenever Kura entered a pub were the songs of their homeland. So Kura sang ballads and Irish and Welsh drinking songs, irritated by her audience, which occasionally sang along or danced. The money she made from her efforts was only enough to keep her and her horse alive.

  Kura had to deal endlessly with presumptuous men who believed that a singer was naturally also a whore. She spoke with a silver tongue to honorable matrons who rented rooms, but not to “wandering entertainers.” She tried to convince pastors that she would introduce their flocks to valuable culture if she could use their church hall to that end, free of charge if possible. Sometimes she even gave concerts in village churches proper. Had she really once believed it beneath her dignity to give the Bach oratorio in Haldon?

  After almost a year on her own, Kura was worn-out. She did not want to be on the road anymore; she did not want to pull more clothes clammy from rain out of her mud-covered suitcase. And she did not want to negotiate with sleazy bar owners ever again.

  Occasionally, she considered settling down somewhere, at least for a few months. If only she could find a proper engagement. That was only an option, however, if she was prepared to entertain the men in other ways too.

  “Why don’t you just do it?” asked a girl in Westport who was probably twenty, but who looked forty. “A girl like you’d make money hand over fist. You could choose the fellows you went to bed with.”

  As far as that went, Kura sometimes felt almost tempted. She missed making love. She often yearned for a solid male body. She dreamed of William almost every night, and on long journeys across the country she daydreamed about him. Where could he be now? He had long since left Kiward Station. With Heather Witherspoon? Kura could not imagine that Heather Witherspoon would be able to hold onto him for very long. William had been a mistake for Kura too, and yet she still believed she could be happy with him. If only it had not been for that farm, goddamned Kiward Station. The farm had taken William from her.

  If it had just been the two of them, they would have settled in London ages ago, and Kura would be celebrating resounding success. She dreamed of performances in front of packed houses and nights in William’s arms. Roderick had never been able to hold a candle to him. Or Tiare. During her visit to the Maori camp near Nelson, stimulated by an evening of music and song, and, moreover, by the sensual dancing of the Maori, she had given in to her longing and shared her bed with a young man. It had been pleasant but nothing more. It did not compare to the ecstasy she had felt with William. As for the men at her concerts—the generally homesick sailors and miners who tried to impress her—a few had lovely, well-exercised bodies. But they were dirty from working in the mines or stank of blubber and fish. Kura had not yet been able to overcome her reluctance, though a few dollars more would sometimes have been extremely welcome.

  The girl in Westport took Kura’s silence for serious consideration. “This place here is the worst, of course,” she noted. “Not up to your class. I’m getting outta here soon myself. But there’s supposed to be a proper brothel in Greymouth. Belongs to some lady, they say, another moll naturally, but now she runs a hotel. She’s supposed to’ve whored out here herself before, but back when this place wasn’t so run-down.”

  Kura didn’t think “a proper brothel” would be falling all over itself for the Westport girl, but she didn’t say anything. Greymouth was already on her route, so she would hardly be able to a
void the woman’s pub anyway. She was hoping for something else from the town, however. She remembered Greymouth from her first tour with the ensemble. At the time, she had stayed in one of the nicer hotels on the quay. The town notables—mine owners and businessmen—had paid homage to her, and the group had received several standing ovations. And Kura most of all. The hotel owners might remember her.

  Kura headed into Greymouth in the best of spirits, but she had a very different impression of the place this time. Greymouth was no clean, idyllic town lined mostly with decent hotels and respectable bourgeois homes. Of course, Kura did not arrive by ferry from across the Grey River this time, but up the coastal road from Westport. As a result, the first thing she passed was the miners’ camps, followed by the dilapidated city center, which consisted of a meager row of wooden buildings, smaller stores, a barber, and a coffin maker. The whore in Westport had clearly exaggerated about the brothel—the Wild Rover looked just as inhospitable and seedy as the rest of the bars on the West Coast.

  Kura was relieved when she found herself in the more respectable parts of town again and rejoiced when she came upon the facades of the elegant hotels. However, when she asked about work, she was quickly disappointed. One artist, on her own? Without the endorsement of some respected member of the community or a concert agent? A girl, granted a beautiful one, but in threadbare clothes with a few flutes for props? One after the other, the hoteliers turned her down with a thank-you and suggested that Kura would do better to try her luck in the miners’ quarter.

  Crestfallen and humiliated, Kura slunk away. She had hit rock bottom. It could hardly get any worse. She had to make a decision soon. To crawl back to Gwyneira on her knees or to sink even lower and sell her body.

  For the time being, she directed her step to the Wild Rover. She had to eat after all.

  The pub’s owner introduced himself as Paddy Holloway. His establishment was as shabby inside as out. The counter was sticky and grimy, the walls last painted many years before. The barroom stank of stale beer from the day before, and the piano looked like it hadn’t been played for a hundred years, let alone tuned. Paddy Holloway himself looked anything but well-groomed. He had apparently yet to shave that day, and his stubble revealed traces of grease, beer, and sauce. The only thing that set the short, rotund man apart from most of the other bar owners Kura had come across was his blatant enthusiasm for the idea of having Kura perform in his establishment. And for him, it actually seemed to be about the music. True, he looked at Kura lustfully, but almost every man did that. Kura had gotten used to being shown the door when she did not prove to be suitably compliant. Paddy Holloway, however, rushed about her as though he were receiving a visit from the Queen herself.

  “Of course you can sing here. It’d be a pleasure, miss. The piano’s not the best, but if you decide to extend your stay, I’d get you a new one right quick. You wouldn’t care for a longer… whaddaya call ’em… engagement! Would you?”

  Kura was astonished. Had she misheard or was the barkeep offering her a respite from the tiny shows and life on the road? Without any grand ulterior motives either, since it looked like he only operated a bar and not a brothel.

  “You see, I’ve been looking for a pianist for a long time,” he continued excitedly. “And then one blows right in through the door. And such a pretty one too. And you sing, miss? They don’t have that at the Lucky Horse! The boys’ll flock to us in swarms.”

  Kura was only half listening. She was tired and felt run-down. She would have liked to collapse straight into bed rather than sing at all that night. It was only a question of what bed. All of her instincts, honed by her time on the road, told her it was better not to sleep under the same roof as Paddy Holloway, even if he offered her a room just then. The fellow was an odd one anyway. Why was he looking for a girl who played piano? Most barroom pianists were men. If Paddy needed someone, he would only have had to advertise in Christchurch or Blenheim.

  The Lucky Horse seemed to be the only competition—probably the cathouse the girl in Westport had mentioned. Kura considered whether she should ask around there first before signing on with Paddy Holloway. But she was too exhausted for that. She would be happy enough if she succeeded in scaring up an acceptable room and entertaining the Wild Rover’s customers enough to be able to afford it.

  “Could you play something for me, miss?”

  Kura’s persistent silence seemed to be irritating the proprietor now. Was he buying a pig in a poke?

  Kura sat down on the rickety piano bench and played “Für Elise.” That did not appear to be to Paddy’s taste. So he wasn’t a true, highly educated music lover that fickle fortune had driven into this backwater. That hardly came as a surprise to Kura. She had long since stopped believing in such fairy tales. She mostly trusted her first impressions and was rarely disappointed that way. It did not matter what Heather Witherspoon had told her when she was a child. A frog was a frog, not a prince.

  The owner made a face and interrupted her performance.

  “Sounds a little dead,” he remarked. “Can’t you play anything livelier? Something Irish? ‘The Wild Rover’ maybe?”

  Kura had grown rather accustomed to people speaking to her overly familiarly after the third sentence and no longer got upset about it. Nevertheless, she marshaled all her pride once more and sang the “Habanera” from Carmen instead of the requested drinking song.

  Against all expectations, Paddy Holloway was rather taken by it.

  “You can really sing,” he said enthusiastically. “And you can play the piano too. I’d almost say even better than that timid little Lainie Keefer at Madame Clarisse’s. What do you say? Three dollars a week?”

  Kura thought about it for a moment. That was more than she usually made. If she stayed there for a few weeks, she could recover a bit and think her future through. There was only the question of suitable lodgings. And surely, there must be some money to be made on top of that.

  “Nothing less than four dollars,” she finally told the owner and did her eyelash-batting routine.

  Paddy Holloway nodded willingly. He would have offered her five dollars, no question.

  “And twenty percent of every drink the boys buy me,” Kura added.

  The bar owner nodded again. “But tea instead of whiskey,” he specified. “If you want real liquor, I won’t make anything.”

  Kura sighed. She did not want cold, unsweetened tea, but right at that moment, that didn’t matter. “Then we’re in business. But I still need lodging. I don’t intend to live here in the pub.”

  Paddy Holloway had no idea who was renting rooms in town. When he had customers who were on the road, he let them sleep in the stables—after an evening in the Wild Rover, they couldn’t tell a pile of straw from a bed anyway. He explained to Kura with a grin that the nearby “hotel” was out of the question, his facial expression telling her everything she needed to know. Kura had expected as much. When it came to hotels, she no longer hoped for respectable but affordable establishments like the White Hart in Christchurch.

  Since Paddy could not be of further help, she took her leave and set about looking for a place to stay. Maybe there would be a sign on the street somewhere that pointed the way to rooms for rent.

  Kura made her way slowly through town on her horse and quickly located the Lucky Horse. She noted its freshly painted colorful facade, well-swept porch, clean windows, and the sign over the entrance: Inn. The girl in Westport had been right. Though it was without question a pub with a whorehouse attached, it was decidedly among the best of its kind.

  Kura felt a pang of regret. The Lucky Horse looked a great deal more attractive than the Wild Rover. Could she never do anything right? She wearily guided her horse to the stables and arranged proper lodging for her horse at least. As in most towns, the stable owner was able to help her find lodging for herself. Kura thanked him, took her suitcase and sought out Greymouth’s two private renters. She felt good about her prospects, having had a good deal of e
xperience wrapping ladies like that around her little finger by then. She decided to see the widow Miller first, while holding Mrs. Tanner’s rooms in reserve. Mrs. Tanner was the barber’s wife after all, and married women were loath to take Kura into their homes.

  Mrs. Miller melted as the young woman described her triumphs as a singer. Mrs. Miller had once heard an opera in England when she was young and could still talk about it at length. The local priest, too, she assured Kura, was a great lover of music. No doubt he would he let her use the church for a concert. Of course, Mrs. Miller would rent this beautiful, well-bred girl a room. Kura didn’t mention the Wild Rover for the time being.

  It wasn’t long before the people of Greymouth were talking about her; her first evening in the pub created a furor. Kura was astounded. Sure, men ate from the palm of her hand; that had always been the case. She was all but drowning in song requests and double entendres. But more than anything, the men seemed to be making comparisons. Kura was so much prettier than Miss Keefer, some of them commented, and what was more, she could sing. Others seemed to be taking bets on whether the Rover would be filled with regulars of the Horse the following Saturday.

  “Even Tim Lambert will probably wander over,” one coal miner remarked, and the others could hardly contain their laughter. “This one sings. She by necessity opens her mouth twice as often as Miss Keefer.”

  Only one slender blond man seemed more interested in Kura’s music than how she compared with “Madame Clarisse’s timid little mouse,” as Paddy liked to put it. Kura had noticed him as soon as he entered. He was considerably better dressed than the other customers, and the miners, instead of greeting him amiably, eyed him with suspicion. The owner, on the other hand, welcomed him in a manner bordering on reverence.

  “Would you like to place any bets, Mr. Biller?” Paddy inquired. That, too, was strange. He had called all his other regulars by their first names. “We’re having a dogfight on Saturday. And there’s a race in Wellington on Sunday. I have the starting list right here. All of it is very reliable, as you know, sir. We’ll have the results by Monday evening. I still haven’t been able to convince Jimmy Farrier to tap out the telegrams on Sunday.”