Song of the Spirits (62 page)

Timothy nodded seriously. “Yes, Lainie. I’ve decided to marry you.”

Elaine, who had been just about to take a sip of tea from her whiskey glass, almost dropped it.

“Why?” she asked flatly.

Timothy rescued the glass. “Watch out for that good whiskey of yours. I think I might have to order you a real one. You look a little pale.”

“Why?” she repeated. The continuous alternating of her face between flush and pale reflected her inner turmoil.

“Well,” Timothy finally said, his eyes twinkling as he spoke, “I’ve had my eye on you for a few weeks. You’re beautiful, you’re smart, you’re brave, you’re the woman I’ve dreamed about my whole life. I’ve fallen in love with you, Lainie. Should I get down on my knee in front of you now, or shall we wait a bit?”

Fear shone in Elaine’s eyes, which she suppressed only with great effort.

“I’m not in love,” she blurted out.

Timothy nodded.

“That’s what I thought,” he said calmly. “But that will change. And I’m not looking for a straw fire. Just take your time falling in love, Lainie. Don’t get all worked up.”

“Not in this lifetime!” Elaine’s voice now sounded a bit shrill. She hid herself behind her curtain of hair and lowered her head over the piano keys. Timothy was concerned. If he didn’t manage to draw her out of her reserve now, he was afraid she would withdraw back into her shell.

Timothy pursed his lips, but his eyes smiled. “That makes things a little more difficult, of course,” he said. “I’ll have to talk to the priest about our prospects for getting married after the resurrection. Perhaps we’ll exchange our vows on a cloud? And yet I imagine a married
life like that would be rather monotonous. And indiscreet. I wouldn’t care to have the whole world eyeing me on the cloud.”

He cast a side glance at Elaine, who was sitting up straight now.

“So it might work out better if we picked a different religion,” he continued. “One that grants us more than one life. They believe in reincarnation somewhere. In India, right?”

Elaine blinked behind her hair. “But you’d probably be born again as an animal. As a horse or a dog.”

Her voice sounded normal again. She had clearly decided not to take Timothy and his proposal seriously.

Timothy sighed with relief and laughed. “That would be pretty romantic too. I can picture it now: a couple that doesn’t find its way together in life on two legs is reunited in the stables. Like Fellow and Banshee.”

Elaine had gotten ahold of herself and found her wit to boot. She brushed her hair from her face and gave Timothy Lambert a sweet if dishonest smile. “Then watch out that someone doesn’t make a gelding out of you by mistake,” she said loudly.

Timothy let the roaring laughter of the men wash over him and ignored all the other mockery brought on by his apparently hopeless flirting. He lived for these moments, when Elaine’s true self flared up from behind her facade. Lively, intelligent, and mocking, but sensual and loving too. Her defensive walls would collapse someday. And Timothy would be there when they did.

“Who’s going to sacrifice himself and go spy on the Wild Rover?” Madame Clarisse was asking around just as Timothy sat down at his regular table where Ernie, Jay, and Matt were already sitting.

All the customers could talk about that day was the mysterious new pianist in the pub down the street. It was supposedly some Maori girl with the voice of an angel. That seemed as strange to Madame Clarisse as it did to those few among her customers who had seen a bit more of the world than most miners. Maori girls did not generally
learn to play the piano, and they rarely traveled alone outside of their tribe. Even in the brothels, one rarely came across a Maori girl, though there were a few girls of mixed birth with tragic histories.

Madame Clarisse’s curiosity had been awakened. The restless bordello owner set a pitcher of beer down in the middle of their table and filled the men’s glasses, grinning at them. “Of course, I’m only speaking to the morally sound and devoted regulars of the Lucky Horse. Anyone else exposed to Paddy Holloway would run the risk of falling into gambling. I could never look the pastor in the eye again if I let that happen.” Madame Clarisse clutched her hand to her heart theatrically.

“That the boys might become regulars over there never crossed your mind, of course,” Matt teased her. “You’re only worried about our eternal souls, isn’t that right, Madame Clarisse? Thank you, we appreciate the concern.”

“But what about fornication, Madame Clarisse?” Jay inquired. “Isn’t that a sin too?” The smith looked at her with apparent sincerity, clutching his hand fearfully to his own heart.

Madame Clarisse could only shake her head disapprovingly. “Where is this fornication happening, Jay?” she demanded with a note of moral outrage. “I only see a group of marriageable young gals gettin’ to know in their openhearted way a group of marriageable young men. I manage a highly successful matchmaking service. Just last month, I lost another girl. And what’s with you and Charlene, Matt? There’s sparks there; admit it. And don’t forget Mr. Lambert and Lainie.”

The men snickered. Charlene, who had just been about to sit down next to Matt, blushed. Something did indeed seem to be developing there.

Timothy raised his beer glass to Madame Clarisse. “In that respect,” he said with a grin, “Mr. Gawain and I are sound enough for an evening at Paddy Holloway’s. Tomorrow we’ll embark on a secret mission.”

Elaine only caught scraps of the conversation, but she too had heard of the Maori singer at the Wild Rover, of course, which caused the image of her cousin to flash unavoidably before her eyes. But that
could not be. Kura lived with William on Kiward Station. And she would never lower herself to singing in a bar for coal miners.

Kura derived little joy from her job at the Wild Rover. The customers were difficult. The men drank more as the weekend approached, making them correspondingly importunate. Paddy Holloway only halfheartedly kept them from touching her. He evidently didn’t want to offend anyone and was very lenient with the boys as a result. Kura had to fend him off too when she didn’t manage to slip out of the pub with the last wave of guests at closing time.

The only bright spots were the almost daily visits of Caleb Biller—though the young man still puzzled her as much as ever. Caleb always appeared early in the evening, apparently drinking to give himself more courage before coming over to join her in playing music. If the pub was not packed, and the men did not protest, Paddy allowed Kura to play the
putorino
while Caleb took over the piano accompaniment or to sing traditional Maori songs that Caleb would take and transform into ballads. Kura’s respect for Caleb grew from one day to the next. He was highly gifted without question. He was quite a decent pianist, but as an arranger and composer, he had an extraordinary talent. Kura liked working with him and wondered whether there might be other opportunities to do so away from the sleazy Wild Rover and its out-of-tune piano.

One Friday afternoon, several hours before the pubs would open, Kura made her way to the Lucky Horse. From outside she could hear someone playing the piano—though it wasn’t exactly what she would have expected to hear in a pub. Someone was practicing church songs. Rather ambitiously too. The pianist was attempting Bach’s
Easter Oratorio
—and doing a mediocre job of it. A few months earlier, Kura would have accused it of being “horrendous.” Since then, however, she had learned that she had always set the bar too high. Most people did not share her pursuit of artistic perfection. Kura had always known that, but it no longer filled her with pride and disdain. Perfect pitch
and musical perfection did not sell around here. She had been blessed with a gift no one knew how to appreciate. And so there was no reason to puff herself up about it too much.

Kura pushed the swing door open and entered Madame Clarisse’s establishment. Everything was as tidy and clean as she had expected, the tables scrubbed, the floor swept—and off to the side, a red-haired girl was sitting at the piano.

Kura did not believe her eyes. She froze, but the pianist seemed already to have noticed her.

Elaine turned. She blinked, as though hoping to drive away an illusion. But the girl standing before her in a worn-out red traveling outfit was Kura, without a doubt. A little slimmer perhaps, somewhat paler—her face no longer as haughty but more determined and harder. But her skin tone remained flawless, her hair glossy, and her eyes as captivating as ever. Her voice, too, was as finely modulated as always.

“You?” Kura asked, her eyes widening in surprise. “I thought you were married somewhere in Otago?”

“And I thought you were living happily ever after with William on Kiward Station!”

Elaine was determined not to let Kura browbeat her. Her first impulse had once more been to act small and humbled, but then she felt her long-suppressed anger rising within her, against Kura, the cousin who had so casually destroyed her life.

“What do you want, Kura Warden? Or rather, Kura Martyn? Let me guess. You don’t like it over at the Wild Rover. First you took my lover, and now you want my job!”

Elaine glared at her.

Kura rolled her eyes.

“You’ve always been too sentimental, Lainie,” she said, sneering. “And a little too possessive. ‘My lover,’ ‘my job.’ And yet William never belonged to you. And this job here…” Kura let her gaze pass derisively over the furnishings of the Lucky Horse. “Well, it’s not exactly the most prestigious post in the British Empire, wouldn’t you say?”

Elaine did not know how to reply. She felt only a surge of instinctual rage, and for the first time since that awful morning on Lionel Station,
she wished she had a weapon. Although this was the moment she most needed her confidence, she instead found herself begging—and she hated herself for it.

“Kura, I need this job! You can sing anywhere.”

Kura smiled. “But maybe I want to sing
here
,” she answered. “And the wife of Thomas Sideblossom certainly doesn’t need a job in a whorehouse.”

Elaine balled her fists helplessly. But then she heard a sound on the stairs. Charlene was on her way downstairs and must have caught those last words.

Elaine’s blazing fury turned into ice-cold terror.
The wife of Thomas Sideblossom
. If Charlene had heard those words and told Madame Clarisse…

Charlene, however, only looked Kura up and down, using the steps to full advantage. The buxom, dark-haired harlot assessed the potential competition mercilessly and without shame.

“Who’s this, Lainie?” she asked nonchalantly, without deigning to greet the newcomer. “The replacement for Chrissie Hamilton? I’m sorry, dear, but Madame Clarisse is looking for a blonde. We have enough black-haired girls. Unless you can do something special.” Charlene licked her lips.

Kura flared up at her. “I’m a singer,” she said, incensed. “I don’t need to—”

“Aha, the Maori girl who bangs away on the piano at Holloway’s.” Charlene rolled her eyes. “That is, of course, the springboard for international success. You know how to pick your jobs, sweetness, I’ll give you that. You clearly have excellent taste.”

Kura had regained her composure. She had never been shy, and in Roderick’s ensemble she had learned to make herself heard. Especially among women.

“I’d be happy to play for you if you have any say in what happens around here,” she said. “I fear, however, that you’re just another whore.”

Charlene shrugged. “And you’re just another piano player. Sure, we might be better than average, but the customer’ll only notice in
bed. In my case anyways; he won’t notice at all in yours. For the boys here, one set of ivories is as good as another. So don’t get melodramatic. Scoot off to your dream job now. Madame Clarisse won’t have anything to do with girls who make scenes as soon as they step through the door.”

Kura turned around, her head raised regally. “I’ll be seeing you, Elaine,” she said.

Just then Charlene flew down the remaining stairs with lightning speed, flitted past her, and blocked Kura from walking out the door. Her gaze was cold with anger, her fingers bent into claws.

“Her name is Lainie,” she said calmly. “Lainie Keefer. She isn’t anyone’s wife, never was. So don’t be spreading lies, and we won’t talk about you, either. Because you’re running from something too, same as all of us, lovely. And if I want to, I’ll rat out what it is you’re running from. Besides,” Charlene extended her claws, “beauty isn’t everlasting.”