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

by Lark, Sarah

  William made an effort to look appropriately enthusiastic, though in truth, he was not crazy about the prospect of a desk job. The post would have to be very well compensated to lure him off the road.

  “However, the board of directors in England—you know how those people are—think that after only a year’s experience, you might still be a little too… well, too green for such an assignment. Besides, the gentlemen seem to believe that the machines more or less sell themselves in cities like Auckland.”

  William wanted to object, but Daniel Curbage gestured with a conciliatory motion of his hand to stop. “You and I both know that’s not the case. But then again, we both come from the practical side of things. The directors, however…” The sales director’s expression made it clear what he thought of the pencil pushers in far-off London. “Well, it’s not worth talking about. All that matters as far as you and I are concerned is that I must now burden you with a sort of field test. Please don’t take this as an affront, let alone a punishment. On the contrary, consider it as a springboard. Your predecessor, Carl Latimer, recently received the commission to take over the training center on the South Island.”

  William’s thoughts raced. “Carl Latimer? Who used to travel the West Coast on the South Island?”

  Curbage nodded, beaming. “You have an excellent memory, Mr. Martyn. Or do you know him? You’re from the South Island as well, aren’t you? Well, perhaps you’ll be delighted then to return.”

  William bit his lip.

  “Mr. Curbage, Latimer blanketed the West Coast with sewing machines,” he dared to object. “The fellow is a genius. He put a Singer in the hands of practically every human being, even the ones who only looked feminine.”

  Daniel Curbage laughed. “Well, that leaves you the fifty percent of the population that’s male,” he joked. “And here in Auckland, you’ve already shown how that’s done.”

  William suppressed a sigh. “Do you know the West Coast, Mr. Curbage? Probably not, or you would have placed the male percentage higher. I think it’s more like eighty or ninety percent of the population. And those are tough Kiwis: seal hunters, whalers, coal miners, gold miners, and the like. As soon as they have a cent in their pockets, they take it to the nearest pub. None of them will take to the idea of a sewing machine, I guarantee you that. Where’s any ambitious business-minded fellow going to scrounge up enough seamstresses? If a girl’s not a prude, she makes a lot more in a cathouse.”

  “Another possibility for expansion, William,” Curbage said, switching over to a more familiar form of address. “Save these women from themselves! Make it clear to these girls that it’s infinitely more worthy of them to strive for a respectable life as a seamstress than it is for them to continue pursuing a life of sin. Besides, more and more coal miners are flocking to the area, some with their entire families. Their wives should be delighted at the prospect of making a little extra money on the side.”

  “Only they don’t have the hundred and fifty dollars for the machine. That’s how much they cost now,” William noted drily. “I don’t know, Mr. Curbage.”

  “Please, call me Daniel. And don’t look so gloomy. As soon as you get to know your new area, something will come to you. Besides, I’m working on a new payment option especially for miners’ families. Make the most of your new assignment, William. Make me proud. So, how about that drink now? I have some top-notch whiskey.”

  William felt a little deflated when he finally left the office. This new region had little appeal for him. And he would have to start all over again. Even if he were to take his horse and carriage along to the South Island, his fiery horse and sleek little chaise were ill suited to the muddy roads of the West Coast, as was his elegant, urban clothing. He would need to equip himself with boots, leather bags, and waxed jackets again. Three hundred rainy days a year and hardly any sheep farms with lonely mistresses—instead, he could count on hotels with exorbitant prices that usually only rented their rooms by the hour. William especially dreaded vermin-infested lodgings. However, he needed to put a positive spin on this new plan or he could forget about making any sales. After all, Carl Latimer had sold a reasonable number of machines on the West Coast, and the towns there were prospering. That meant there would be more women—and, therefore, more customers for William.

  The young man squared his shoulders. His competitive spirit had awakened. They probably would not leave him on the West Coast any longer than a year, and during that time he would do his best to top even Carl Latimer’s miraculous numbers. And what about the Maori? Had anyone ever tried to sell a Singer to a native?

  Later that same day, William asked about ferry connections to Blenheim. A week later, he handed over his region to his successor, selling the man his horse and carriage in the process. Then, his old demonstration model in hand, he set off for the South Island. Though there were more modern models on the market now, he did not want to exchange his machine for one of them. His old machine had brought him luck. William was determined to conquer the South Island. Surely, he would hear something from Kura there too. In fact, he could even write Gwyneira again and ask about Gloria. She would certainly know where Kura was these days. And she probably didn’t have a sewing machine yet.

  Gwyneira was open to almost anything—just not a sewing machine. She might have warmed up to the idea though, if William’s letter had contained even a hint of her granddaughter’s location. Still, she was quite pleased to hear that Gloria’s father made no further claims on the child. It was clear that William knew as little about Kura’s whereabouts as she did. The only thing they could be fairly certain of was that Kura had not traveled to England with the opera ensemble.

  “She doesn’t appear on my receipts,” George Greenwood had explained to her. “And Barrister would have tried to pawn her costs off on me, I guarantee you. That man knew all the tricks. If she did make the journey, she didn’t travel under her own name, at least according to the shipping company. Then again, she might have given a different one. They don’t register these things very exactly.”

  “But why should she do that?” Gwyneira had asked nervously. “Perhaps because she was still a minor?”

  “They would hardly have checked up on that,” George had mused, but he had promised to send out feelers in England.

  A few weeks later, he had brought Gwyneira the results of his inquiries.

  “There’s no Kura-maro-tini or any other Maori girl involved in the serious London music scene,” he informed her. “My people found Barrister at a rather seedy theater in Cheapside, and Sabina Conetti is singing in a musical—a kind of operetta, lighthearted entertainment. Two of the dancers from the ensemble ended up there too. But no news of Kura. She is definitely not in England. That leaves only the West Coast, the North Island, Australia, and the rest of the world.”

  Gwyneira had sighed. She worried about Kura almost as much as Elaine.

  James did not share her fears. “If it were about her virtue,” he’d said drily, “I could understand. But that’s not worth a damn. And when it comes to bare survival, I’m not worried about Kura. The girl is resilient, even if she was sheltered.”

  Gwyneira had admonished him for being heartless, but deep down, she hoped he was right. She could not care less about Kura’s virtue. She just wanted to have her back safe and sound as soon as possible.

  In the end, it was Marama who picked up a trace. Though Kura’s mother had mourned the disappearance of her daughter, she did not worry about her life.

  “I would know if anything happened to her,” she had said with conviction—and her expectations were finally proved correct. A migrating Maori tribe spoke of a tohunga who stayed for a few days in their village near Blenheim. Kura had sung beautifully, enjoyed herself with them, and told them about her heritage in Marama’s tribe. There could be no doubt about her identity. But what else she was doing, where she had come from, and where she was going, they had not asked. And when exactly the encounter had taken place the Maori no longer
knew.

  “The ferry to the North Island is in Blenheim,” Gwyneira said with resignation. “So Kura has probably crossed over. But what is she doing there? And what is she trying to prove? My God, she could just come home and—”

  “She’s not even nineteen yet,” Marama remarked. “She’s pigheaded and still a little childish. She wants to have everything, and when something goes wrong, she stamps her foot and screams. Never mind that she always plays the adult. At some point, she will come to her senses and return. You just have to wait patiently, Gwyneira.”

  Waiting had never been Gwyneira’s strong suit. But while Kura’s disappearance merely challenged her patience, the entire family was deeply concerned about Elaine. Ruben O’Keefe had a private detective searching for her on the North Island, with the utmost discretion.

  “We don’t want to play into Sideblossom’s hands—or the police’s, after all,” he sighed. “Old Sideblossom is looking for her too. There’s no way he’ll leave everything to the constable—at least not after what happened with James.”

  John Sideblossom had wanted a much harsher punishment for James McKenzie after he had caught him rustling animals so long ago. However, James’s prison sentence had not been especially arduous, and then the governor had commuted his lifetime banishment. In the end, James had spent a little time in prison followed by a stint in Australia, but he had then returned. John Sideblossom had never gotten over that. He no longer believed in the justice system and would have loved to take the law into his own hands—in Elaine’s case as well. But there was still no trace of the girl.

  Fleurette O’Keefe lacked Marama’s rock-hard faith in the transcendental connection between mother and child. In her nightmares, she saw Elaine dead—sometimes lost and frozen in the mountains, sometimes struck dead and buried somewhere by John Sideblossom, sometimes abused and murdered in some gold-miners’ camp on the West Coast.

  “Sometimes I’d rather be sure than paint a new horror for myself every night,” she wrote to her mother and father, and James McKenzie nodded. He’d had his own dealings with the Sideblossoms, after all, and could well imagine what his granddaughter was running from.

  The first person William Martyn recognized on the South Island belonged to someone he thought had long been in England. But there could be no doubt: the young woman strolling along the coastal road with two pretty little girls holding her hands was indeed Heather Witherspoon. She turned her head immediately too, when, without giving it much thought, William called her name. At least there was no hatred in her eyes when she recognized him.

  “Redcliff,” she immediately said, correcting him with a certain degree of pride. “Heather Redcliff. I’ve married.”

  As William looked her over more closely, he saw that marriage suited her well. Heather’s face looked rounder and softer, her hair was no longer pulled back so tightly, and the style of her clothing had completely changed. She wasn’t wearing the gray or black skirts with silk blouses that she used to, and she no longer seemed as strict as an old spinster. In a pale-blue coat with a pink blouse underneath, she looked quite fashionable even. Her high-laced shoes had a small heel that made her stride look more graceful—and she was wearing proper gold jewelry.

  “You look wonderful,” William said. “But you could not possibly have two little girls already, though they do bear some resemblance to you.”

  Indeed, the children were also blonde and blue-eyed. The older one was on course to develop less washed-out-looking features than Heather, and the younger one had light curls that played around her round, childish face.

  Heather laughed. “Thank you. I hear that a lot. Annie and Lucie, be polite and say hello to Mr. Martyn. Don’t stare at him like that; it’s not ladylike. Now, Annie offer him that little hand of yours.”

  Though the little girl—she might have been five—still got her left and right mixed up, she proved compliant and offered William the correct hand after she had resolved her confusion. She slipped a bit on her curtsy, but Lucie, probably all of eight years old, greeted him in perfect form.

  “The girls are my stepdaughters—absolutely wonderful children. We’re very proud of them.” Heather ran her hand through the younger one’s hair. “But would you rather continue this conversation indoors? It will begin to rain again soon.”

  William nodded. He had just put a hellish crossing behind him and could now confirm all the horror stories he had heard about the unpredictable seas between the two islands. Some tea in a cozy room sounded perfect to him just then. But where did one take respectable ladies here?

  Heather had her own ideas about where they should go. “Just come along home with us. We only live two streets away. It’s a shame you won’t get to meet my husband, but he’s away on business. Will you be in town for a while?”

  William told her a little about what he’d been up to as he followed Heather and the girls down a peaceful residential street where the family lived in a mansion. William did not need to worry about Heather’s reputation either: a housemaid opened the door for the two of them, curtsied, and took his coat. Heather watched, rather pleased, as he deposited his card in the tray laid out for that purpose.

  “Bring some tea and cake to the salon, Sandy,” Heather instructed the maid. “The children will take their tea in their room. Please keep an eye on them after you have served us.”

  The maid curtsied. The entire scene struck William as a bit surreal.

  “It’s such a relief not to have to deal with Maori domestics,” Heather chattered as she led William into her expensively furnished salon. The room was at least as tastefully decorated as the rooms at Kiward Station, though he could tell that it had not been done by Heather herself. After all, William knew her taste from their work together on Kura’s apartments. She had truly found her golden-egg-laying hen in this Mr. Redcliff. “True, Sandy is a simple girl—she comes from a coal-mining family in Westport—but at least you can speak to her in English, and you don’t have to constantly be reminding her to put on shoes.”

  Although William had never thought the Maori domestics on Kiward Station particularly uncivilized, he nodded encouragingly at Heather. Perhaps she would finally tell him how she had ended up in Blenheim.

  “Oh, it was just dumb luck,” she explained when the tea was finally in front of them, and they were nibbling on little cakes. “After you showed no interest in continuing to travel with me”—she gave him a cold look, at which William lowered his eyes guiltily—“I found a coach to take me from Haldon to Christchurch. I wanted to return to London, but the next ship wasn’t scheduled to leave for a few days, so I rented a room in the White Hart in the meantime. That’s where I met Mr. Redcliff. Julian Redcliff. He spoke to me in the breakfast room, exceptionally politely, only after having the hostess ask whether he might speak with me. Julian is very concerned that everything be done properly.”

  She gave William another meaningful look, who made an effort to look even more contrite, as he had quite understood her unspoken message: Unlike you, Mr. Redcliff is a gentleman.

  “In any event, he wanted to ask me to look after his daughters on the passage to London. They were scheduled to travel to England to attend a boarding school.” Heather fidgeted with her coiffure until a lock of hair broke loose and slid down over her right ear.

  She looked quite pretty. William dared an admiring smile.

  “The little girls?” he asked incredulously.

  “It broke Mr. Redcliff’s heart too, of course,” she declared energetically. “But his wife had died a short time before, and he works for the railroad.”

  “Not laying the tracks, I suppose,” William observed, letting his gaze wander over the room.

  Heather smiled proudly. “No, managing the construction. They’re now connecting the East Coast with all the coal-mining regions on the West Coast. It’s a massive project, and Mr. Redcliff works in a position of responsibility. Unfortunately, it means he must travel a great deal. It would be absolutely impossible for h
im to raise the children on his own.”

  William saw where this was going. “Unless he had a trustworthy, well-reputed governess.”

  Heather nodded. “He was delighted when he heard my references, and I was instantly taken with Annie and Lucie. They are…”

  … very different from Kura. William completed her thought in his mind. Heather’s fondness for her stepchildren was obviously real.

  “So we did not go to England, neither the children nor myself. Instead, I took over the management of Mr. Redcliff’s household, and our feelings for each other began to grow. After his year of mourning had passed, we married,” Heather concluded, beaming at William, who returned her smile. He thought about this Mr. Redcliff. He could hardly be the most passionate of men—if after all this time, he still could not get his wife to address him by his first name.

  “So you’re no longer mad at me?” he finally asked. He liked this house. It was warm, the bar was no doubt well stocked—and Heather was prettier than ever. Perhaps she would be interested in reviving their old acquaintanceship. William leaned a little closer to her. Playing with her hair, Heather released another lock.

  “Why should I be mad at you?” she replied. She seemed already to have forgotten the cool looks she had been giving him earlier. “Looking back, it was actually a very lucky twist of fate. If we had stayed together, where would I be then? The wife of a salesman?”

  It sounded a bit deprecatory, but William merely smiled. She was, of course, boasting about her new wealth. Now she was the owner of the manor. His station was beneath hers, no matter how well he sold sewing machines. He would probably never own such an estate himself—certainly not if he continued to climb the Singer hierarchy.

  He had other qualities, though. William laid his hand lightly on Heather’s and played with her fingers.

  “You would, however, have been one of the first women on the South Island to own a sewing machine,” he joked. “They’re little miracle workers, and unlike working with needle and thread, your hands remain as soft and delicate as they are.” He caressed each individual finger as he counted off in a soft voice how many stitches the latest Singer saved the manicured woman’s hand, and he finished by explaining to her more concretely, but with somewhat heavy breath, what other wonderful things a person could do with the time they saved.