Call of the Kiwi (8 page)

“A shame for our house,” Miss Coleridge declared, giving Gloria a few disciplinary marks. Gabrielle sneered.

Or Tuesday, when the headmistress had come to choir practice and insisted that the new arrivals sing for her. Miss Arrowstone wanted to know if the daughter of the celebrated Mrs. Martyn was really as hopeless as Miss Wedgewood maintained. Gloria had failed miserably. After being chastised for her poor posture at the podium, she broke off in the middle of the song and ran in tears from the podium to hide in the garden. She received more disciplinary marks when she only returned in time for dinner.

On Wednesday there had been the fuss about original sin.

On Thursday, Gabrielle had exchanged her sheet music for Gloria’s at her piano lesson. She did not even know where to start in the workbook for advanced students, and as punishment, Miss Taylor-Bennington made her play from memory. All her arduous hours of practice that week had been for naught.

She could not possibly report all of that back home. She could not even write it down without bursting into tears. When she finally reached for her pen, she dipped the nib so forcefully into the ink that the drops fell like tears onto her writing paper. And then she wrote the only words that came to mind: “Jack, please, please, come take me home!”

“So you see, Miss Bleachum,” Miss Arrowstone said. “Should we have sent this letter?”

Sarah gazed, stunned, at Gloria’s cry for help. She bit her lip.

“I understand the need to be strict,” she replied. “But I’m simply proposing a few additional French lessons. It will help Gloria integrate if she can follow along better in class.”

The headmistress softened her stance.

“Very well, Miss Bleachum. If the reverend has nothing against it.”

Sarah was piqued anew. What did Christopher have to do with her teaching Gloria? Since when did she need his permission to take on a pupil? But she maintained her composure. Nothing would be gained by further antagonizing Miss Arrowstone.

“Please tell him that was a lovely sermon on the place of women in the Bible,” the headmistress remarked as she showed her visitor out. “We were all deeply touched.”

Gloria arrived late to her first lesson that Saturday, shaken and in tears.

“I’m sorry, Miss Bleachum, but I had to write a letter first,” she apologized. “I have to give it to Miss Coleridge this evening. But
I . . .
”

Sarah sighed.

“Then we should go over it together first. Do you have the letter paper with you?”

Dear Grandmum Gwyn, Grandpa James, and Jack,

Greetings from England. I should already have written you, but I have a lot of studying to do. I have piano lessons and sing in the choir. In English class we are reading poems by Edgar Allan Poe. We are also memorizing poems. I am making progress in drawing class. On the weekends I see Miss Bleachum. On Sunday we go to church.

I love you all,

Your Gloria

7

T
he tutoring on Saturday afternoons soon became the highlight of Gloria’s week. Miss Bleachum did not confine herself to French lessons. They always dedicated their first hour to it with great concentration—Miss Arrowstone and Madame Laverne, the French teacher, were expecting to see progress, after all. But then Gloria would talk about her daily martyrdom at Gabrielle’s hand, and Sarah would give her useful tips for dealing with it.

“You don’t have to put up with everything, Gloria. There’s nothing improper about asking the housemother for help sometimes. Especially when it comes to pranks like ruining your blouses with ink. And if you don’t want to tell on her directly, ask the housemother to hold your things for you. Or stay up at night to see if the girl is up to anything, and swap your clothes for hers. Gabrielle will make quite a face when she finds the spots on her own blouse after you’ve already dressed and left. Or foist the dirty or wrinkled clothes on another roommate. Then Gabrielle will hear it from her. You’ll be playing a prank on the girl yourself for once.”

Gloria nodded despondently. When it came to antagonizing others, she lacked all imagination. Eventually, it occurred to her to let Lilian in on what was happening. Lilian and her friends were constantly playing pranks on teachers and classmates.

Lilian listened patiently to Gloria’s woes and smiled softly. “That’s the cow that told on us after the party, right? Well, of course I’ll come up with something.”

At her next violin lesson Gabrielle confronted an instrument that was completely out of tune. She usually plied a highly talented little violinist in Lilian’s class with sweets to ensure her violin was in tune before her lessons. This time, however, she was forced to do it on her own before the eyes and ears of Miss Taylor-Bennington. The disgrace was complete, and Lilian giggled.

The successful prank filled Gloria with a sort of triumph, but no actual joy. Gwyneira would have attributed her need for harmony to her Maori ancestors; her grandmother Marama had a similar nature. But at Oaks Garden Gloria’s peaceful demeanor was viewed as a weakness.

Only during her afternoons with Miss Bleachum did the happy Gloria who was interested in the world reawaken. In order not to be overheard, the two went on long walks after French lessons. Gloria fished for tadpoles in a pond, and Sarah found a hidden place in Mrs. Buster’s garden where they could mature in a glass. Gloria observed the pollywogs’ development with fascination, and Mrs. Buster almost died of fright when she discovered twenty spirited little frogs hopping through her flower beds. It took Sarah hours to gather them up and take them back to their pond, and she received another mild chiding from the reverend.

“That wasn’t very ladylike, my love. You should spend more time thinking about how to be a role model for the parish women.”

“So will you be marrying the reverend soon?” Gloria asked one day during the summer holidays. The girls who remained at Oaks Garden were not closely supervised, so Gloria stole into town almost every day to visit Miss Bleachum.

She had no easy answer to Gloria’s question.

“I don’t know,” she said finally. “Everyone assumes so, bu
t . . .
”

“Do you love him, Miss Bleachum?” This impertinent question came from—who else?—Lilian. She, too, was spending part of her vacation at school, though she would be traveling to Somerset with a friend’s family the following week.

Sarah blushed again, though less violently than a few months before. She had gotten used to the constant talk of her impending marriage.

“I think so,” she said quietly, but she was not sure. The honest answer would have been that Sarah did not know because she still could not properly define the term “love.” She used to believe she had a deep affinity with Christopher, but since she had come to England, her doubt had grown appreciably. It was becoming increasingly clear to her that she had little in common with the reverend. Sarah was striving for truth and definite knowledge. Faith was less important to her than truth.

Although the reverend was educated and intelligent, he cared more about being loved, admired, and respected than about knowledge and truth. He flattered the female members of the parish and refrained from critiquing the sins of the males. Sarah grew angry when Christopher merely placated yet another woman who came to lament that her husband had spent all their money in the pub and beat her when she protested.

Still—she had to admit that she was attracted to him. Given that everyone around her considered her to be practically engaged, she allowed him to pick her up and take her to picnics and on rides—if only to escape the crushing boredom of the village. When she was alone with him, she felt the charm with which he likewise captivated the parish women. He looked her in the eye, nodded intently at her observations, and sometimes, sometimes he touched her. It began with a gentle, almost accidental brushing of her hand when they reached for a chicken leg on the picnic blanket at the same time. It then became a conscious touching of the back of her hand with his fingers as if to emphasize a remark he had just made.

Sarah shivered at these intimacies. One day he reached for her hand to help her over a muddy spot on a walk, and she felt the safety and strength in it. He let go when the difficult spot had been overcome, but as Sarah gradually relaxed, he kept her hand in his, playing delicately with her fingers, and telling her how pretty she was. That unsettled Sarah, but she wanted to believe it, and how could anyone lie who held her hand like that? She began to look forward to his overtures. She no longer trembled with nervous excitement but instead with anticipation at the thought of Christopher wrapping his arms around her and speaking tender words.

Then one day he kissed her, in the reeds by the pond where she had gathered tadpoles with Gloria. His lips on hers robbed her first of her breath and then of her reason. As Christopher held her in his arms, she could no longer think; she was all feeling and pleasure. This had to be love, this disappearing and flowing into the arms of another. A spiritual affinity was friendship, but thi
s . . .
this was something else altogether. Of course Sarah Bleachum knew the word “lust” too. But that was unthinkable in the context of Christopher, or herself. What she was feeling here had to be something good, something holy. Yes, it had to be love.

From Christopher Bleachum’s perspective, his cautious approach to Sarah had been more hardship than delight. Of course he had known that she would be prudish. Teaching schools were hardly better than abbeys. Abstinence was expected of female educators, and the young women were closely supervised. But he had still hoped to draw her out of her shell more quickly. He was used to women leaping into his arms, and he knew how to read their slightest signal. A batting of the eye, a smile, a nod. It did not take much to set Christopher alight, particularly when the woman was pretty and presented inviting curves. Then he would begin a forbidden game of which he was a master. The reverend would launch into innuendo and little flatteries. He would smile when the women blushed, seemingly ashamed, before offering their hand and shivering languorously as he caressed them first with his fingers, then with his lips. In the end it was always the women who wanted more and who generally chose the discreet locations for their rendezvous. The secrecy of their interludes further aroused Christopher, and the women let him get quickly to the point. For that reason, too, he preferred experienced women. The slow induction of a virgin into the joys of love offered him no pleasure.

That, however, seemed to be exactly what Sarah demanded. It appeared that she knew just enough about physical love to fear it and, conversely, that enjoyment was connected to it. Despite their differences, he remained convinced that she was suited to the role of a pastor’s wife. Although she had yet to give him an emphatic yes, it seemed unlikely that she would change her mind now that he had introduced her to the whole parish as his future bride.

Sarah was smart and highly educated; if he just molded her a little, she could take on many of his responsibilities in the community. Although she could be stubborn—Christopher did not like it when she went about with that Martyn girl instead of interacting with the community—she was capable of compromise. Since their debate about Darwinism, she had been happy to withdraw from leading the religious upbringing of the Sunday school pupils. Instead she took them on nature walks to show them God’s beautiful world. The students were learning more about plants and animals than about loving one’s neighbor and penitence, but no one had complained.

Christopher was thoroughly optimistic that he could mold his somewhat bluestocking cousin into a well-mannered pastor’s wife. When it came to the bishop’s desire that she serve as a bulwark against assaults on the virtue of the handsome pastor, Christopher had less hope. Naturally he would try to be faithful, but Sarah and her laborious courtship were already boring him. Although Christopher felt neither love nor spiritual affinity for his cousin, marrying her was a practical choice based on reason.

“I don’t think the reverend is in love with Miss Bleachum,” Lilian said as she strolled back to school with Gloria.

“Why do you say that?” Gloria inquired. “Of course he loves her.” Gloria could not imagine anyone in the world not loving Sarah Bleachum.

“He doesn’t look at her like he does. Not like, well, not like, I don’t know. But he looks at Mrs. Walker like it. And Brigit Pierce-Barrister.”

“Brigit?” Gloria asked. “You’re crazy.”

A fellow student at Oaks Garden, Brigit Pierce-Barrister was older than most of them and completely filled out. The girls giggled about Brigit’s “swollen breasts” under the regulation school uniform.

“There’s no way the reverend could be in love with Brigit.”

“Why not? Brigit is in love with him. And Mary Stellington too. I heard them swooning over him. Mary made him a bookmark from pressed flowers and gave it to him for Saint John’s Eve. Now she’s always staring at his Bible, hoping he’ll use it and think of her. And Brigit says she’ll be allowed to sing in service next week. She’s afraid she won’t be able to make a sound with him there. Even the girls in my class rave about him.”

Gloria sighed. That anyone could swoon over Reverend Bleachum defied comprehension. First of all, he was much too old for all these girls. And besides, she still did not like him. Something about him seemed dishonest. Though he flattered her whenever they crossed paths, he never looked her in the eye. “He stands too close when he’s talking and always lays his hand on the person’s hand or shoulde
r . . .
”

“Personally, I wouldn’t marry him,” Lilian prattled on. “You’re right. Just the way he touches everyone. If I ever marry, my husband should only touch me and only say nice things to me, not to every woman he comes across. And he’ll only be allowed to dance with me. What do you bet Reverend Bleachum dances with Brigit at the summer festival?”