Song of the Spirits (36 page)

It was late afternoon by the time Elaine decided to turn back. As she did so, Khan suddenly raised his head and whinnied. As other horses answered, several dogs barked, and Callie greeted them in turn. Elaine peered in the direction of the whinnying and recognized John and Thomas and their crew. They had returned much sooner than Elaine had thought they would.

Despite her earlier sense of contentment, the usual shudder of fear and mistrust shot through her when she saw Thomas coming toward her. Her instinct was to flee. The men might not yet have seen her, and Khan was fast. Then she chided herself for the thought. These people were her family, and she had done nothing wrong. There was no reason to run away. It was time for her to stop acting like a terrified rabbit in Thomas’s presence. Elaine put on her friendliest smile and rode toward the men.

“Now this is a surprise!” she called out cheerfully. “I would never have expected to run into you here. I didn’t think you’d be back until tomorrow.”

Thomas looked at her coldly. “What are you doing here?” he asked slowly, drawing out each word, and not bothering to acknowledge her greeting.

Elaine forced herself to look him in the eye.

“Riding, what else? I thought I’d explore the area a bit, and since my horse isn’t here yet, I borrowed Khan. That was all right, wasn’t it?” The last question came out like a whisper. It was not easy to act self-assured when Thomas assumed that inscrutable mien. Elaine did not appear to be the only one who felt threatened by the situation. The Sideblossoms’ men, almost all young Maori, withdrew perceptibly.

“No, that was not all right!” spat Thomas. “That stallion has hardly been broken in, and that’s not even taking into account the fact that it’s no horse for a lady. Something could have happened to you. Besides, it’s not ladylike, you riding around here alone.”

“But Thomas,” Elaine said. Despite the tension, his argument was so ridiculous that she almost had to laugh. “There’s no one here to see. Since leaving Lionel Station, I’ve yet to run into anyone who
could
find my behavior unladylike!”

“
I
find it unladylike,” Thomas said coldly. “And that’s the only one who matters. I have nothing against the occasional ride—together with me on a gentle horse. But you won’t be leaving the farm alone anymore. Do we understand each other?”

“But I’ve always ridden out alone, Thomas. Even as a child. You can’t lock me up!”

“Oh, can’t I?” he repeated coldly. “I see that we’re playing the usual little game. Who knows whom or what you were looking for here. But come along now. We’ll discuss this further later.”

The men let Elaine into their midst as though she were an escaped prisoner who had to be led back under guard. Suddenly she no longer found the landscape so intoxicatingly beautiful or sublimely expansive. Instead, the mountains felt as though they were closing in on her like a prison. Thomas did not say so much as a word to her, and the three-hour return trip passed in a dreary silence.

Arama and Pita, who had been waiting for her in the stables, took Khan from her. On Arama’s face in particular, Elaine detected a look of deep concern.

“You should not have stayed out so long, Mrs. Sideblossom,” he said quietly. “I feared something like this, but I did not think the men
would return until tomorrow morning. Do not worry, we won’t say a word about your helping us with the sheep.”

Elaine would gladly have brushed the stallion down herself as she had done the day before, but Thomas indicated that she was to return to the house straightaway.

“Go change your clothes so that you will at least come to dinner looking like a lady!”

Elaine trembled as she fled into her dressing room. Pai had kept a dress of hers ready and quickly helped her to tie her corset tighter.

“Mr. Sideblossom is… angry?” she asked tentatively.

Elaine nodded. “I can’t take it,” she whispered. “He wants to lock me up. I can’t—”

“Shhh.” Pai caressed Elaine’s cheek with her hand as she put Elaine’s hair up. “Don’t cry. That won’t make it better. I know that from the orphanage. Sometimes the children cried, but it never helped. You get used to things, Mrs. Sideblossom. You can get used to anything.”

Elaine thought she would scream if she heard that phrase one more time. She would never get used to this life. She would rather die.

Zoé was waiting for everyone with a sanctimonious smile.

“And you’re back as well, Elaine! How nice. Perhaps you’ll be offering me a little more company over the next few days. Spending all your time with the workers and the dogs can’t be any fun.”

Elaine ground her teeth. Thomas gave her an icy look.

“I used to ride out a bit before too,” Zoé continued cheerfully as the food was brought out to them. That evening, she supplied most of the dinner conversation herself. Thomas was silent, and John seemed to find it interesting to observe the young married couple. “Just think, Lainie, I had a horse when I came. But I eventually no longer cared to go riding. Our men hardly have any time to accompany a lady on a ride anyway. Then John sold the horse.”

What was that? A warning? Or was Zoé already looking forward to the fact that Thomas would surely sell Elaine’s beloved Banshee as soon as the horse arrived at Lionel Station? Elaine now understood why the mare had not been allowed to join them for the journey.
It had not been about saving the foal from the long trip but about shackling Elaine to the house.

Emere served as silently as ever. But even she had her eyes on Elaine. That night she played the
putorino
flute. Elaine tried to shut the spirit voice out, but it sounded closer than ever, and not even the thickest curtains could block it out.

It was that ghastly night that Elaine tried the vinegar rinse for the first time. She groaned with pain as she washed herself. She could hardly walk to her bathroom as it was, after Thomas had driven the “little games” out of her more wildly and forcefully than ever. Emere’s eerie flute playing had only appeared to heighten his rage.

When he finally left her, Elaine would have most liked to crawl under her blankets until the pain eased, but then she remembered Inger’s directions for avoiding an unwanted pregnancy. For she would not have a child. Not ever.

W
illiam and Kura’s marriage had taken a very strange turn ever since Kura learned she was expecting. The young woman appeared to take offense at practically everything the residents of Kiward Station did. She spent most of her day alone, or with Heather Witherspoon, if necessary. She hardly played the piano anymore, and had not sung for weeks. Though Gwyneira was worried, James and Jack found it restful.

“Peace and quiet!” James said happily, sprawled in an armchair on the evening of his return from Queenstown. “And I used to like music so much too! But now… oh, don’t make a face like that, Gwyn! Let her sulk. Maybe it’s because of the pregnancy. Women can behave very strangely when they’re expecting, they say.”

“Thank you very much,” Gwyneira returned. “Why didn’t you bring that to my attention earlier? When I was expecting Jack, you always said that pregnancy made me more beautiful! There was no talk of ‘strange’ behavior.”

“You remain the notable exception,” James said, laughing. “That’s why I fell in love with you at first sight. And Kura will calm down again too. She probably only just realized that marriage isn’t a game.”

“She’s so dreadfully unhappy,” Gwyneira sighed. “And she’s furious at all of us, me most of all. Though I did give her the choice.”

“Having our wishes fulfilled doesn’t always make us happy,” James said wisely. “But there’s nothing to be done. I almost feel sorry for William. He must bear the brunt of it. But it does not seem to bother him much.”

This equanimity mostly had to do with the fact that Kura’s bad temper and reclusive tendencies were limited to daylight hours. She
seemed to forgive William everything at night and was at times an even more exciting lover than before. It was as though she were saving up all her energy to give herself and William the greatest possible satisfaction at night, and so one climax followed another. During the day, William saw to the work on the farm—which he felt quite a bit better about. Gwyneira mostly left him in peace these days. Even if something did not suit her, she generally took William’s side, sometimes even in confrontations with James McKenzie. James was by nature an easygoing person, and he had never thought of Kiward Station as his, so he accepted William’s occasional poor decisions without commentary. The young man would most likely be the master of the farm one day, so James might as well get accustomed to William bossing him around.

Poker Livingston, however, retired. He claimed that his wounded arm kept him from doing any more hard work, and he moved in with his friend in town. William took Poker’s place triumphantly, overseeing the maintenance and repair work that had to be done over the course of the summer. Shortly thereafter, the Maori tribe that resided on Kiward Station departed on a long journey. James merely rolled his eyes and hired white farmhands in Haldon.

“This grandson of yours is expensive,” he said to Gwyneira. “Maybe you should have encouraged a Maori father for Kura’s baby after all. Then the tribe wouldn’t be fleeing now. And if they were, they might have just dragged Kura along, and we wouldn’t need to see that accusing face of hers every day. She acts as though
we
were the ones to get her pregnant!”

Gwyneira sighed. “Why is it that William can’t get along with the Maori? Back in Ireland, he had trouble because he was too nice to his tenants, but here he disrupts the natives.”

James shrugged. “Our William likes for people to be grateful to him. And that is well known to be an alien sentiment to Tonga. Not that he owes William anything. Look at the facts straight, Gwyn. William can’t deal with people on his own level. He wants to be the boss, and woe to anyone who doubts him.”

Gwyneira nodded despondently, but then managed a smile. “We’ll send the two of them off to the sheep breeders’ conference in Christchurch,” she said. “Then our country gentleman can feel important. Kura will enjoy a change of scene, and you can mend the fences. Or did you want to go the conference yourself?”

James waved that suggestion away. He thought livestock breeders’ conferences totally unnecessary. A few speeches, a few discussions about current problems, and then plenty of drinking, during the course of which the proposed solutions to said problems became increasingly nonsensical. The year before, Major Richland had actually voiced the idea of starting a drag hunting society to fight the rabbit plague. The fact that drag hunting did not actually involve hunting animals—but merely following an artificial trail—had completely escaped him.

James, for one, did not need any of that—not to mention that the Livestock Breeders Society of Christchurch had first convened to deal with a certain livestock thief. A circumstance that Lord Barrington invariably brought up after his third glass—if not sooner—in James McKenzie’s presence.

“Well, I hope they don’t talk William into any dumb ideas,” James murmured. “Otherwise, we might soon find ourselves breeding hunters rather than sheep.”

William enjoyed the trip to Christchurch, and seemed two inches taller upon his return. Kura had spent a fortune at the tailor’s, but was otherwise in even worse spirits than before. William’s friendly and natural acceptance into the circle of sheep barons had finally opened her eyes to the truth: her marriage and her child shackled her to Kiward Station. William had never had any intention of following Kura through the opera houses of Europe as a sort of male muse for her. Perhaps as a vacation sometime in the future, but certainly not for a longer stay, and never for her to study at a conservatory. During the long, lonely daylight hours, Kura raged against her husband and herself—only to sink back into William’s arms again at night. When William kissed
her and caressed her body, she forgot all her other wishes and needs. His worship was equal to the applause of the masses, and when he pushed into her, he fulfilled her more than the elation she derived from any singing. If only it weren’t for the endless days, and if only she were not forced to watch with a wary eye as her body changed. William thought that pregnancy had made Kura even more beautiful, but she hated her new roundness. Everyone assumed she must be overjoyed about this baby, but Kura was indifferent about it at best.