In the Land of the Long White Cloud (48 page)

The next morning offered the opportunity for a much more thorough conversation with the young couple. Gerald did not come down for breakfast—at least not at the usual time. Bacchus demanded his tribute from the night before. Gwyneira and Lucas appeared much more relaxed. Lucas inquired about the cultural scene in London and was obviously overjoyed that George had more to say about it than “sublime” and “edifying.” Confronted with praise for his portraits, he seemed to swell with pride and invited their guest into his studio.

“You’re welcome to come if you like. I know you’re taking a look at the farm this morning, but this afternoon…”

George nodded uncertainly. Gerald had promised him a ride through the farm, and George was very interested in doing that. Ultimately all other business on the South Island would be measured against Kiward Station. But Gerald was nowhere in sight.

“Oh, I can ride with you,” Gwyneira offered spontaneously after George made a cautious remark to this effect. “Lucas too, of course…but I didn’t make it out of the house at all yesterday. So if my presence would be acceptable to you…”

“To whom would your presence
not
be acceptable?” George asked gallantly, though he did not expect much from a ride with the lady. He had been counting on informative commentary and a peek into the breeding and pasture management. He was therefore all the more astounded when he met Gwyneira in the stables a short while later.

“Please saddle Morgaine for me, Mr. McKenzie,” she instructed the foreman. “She desperately needs training, but when Fleur’s around, I don’t like to take her. She’s too impetuous.”

“Do you think the young man from London can handle your impetuosity, miss?” inquired the shepherd sarcastically.

Gwyneira frowned. George wondered why she did not give the brazen churl a dressing down.

“I hope so,” was all she said. “Otherwise, he’ll have to ride in back. He’s not going to fall off. Can I leave Cleo here with you? She won’t like it, but it will no doubt be a long ride, and she’s already pretty heavy.” The little dog that followed Gwyneira everywhere seemed to have understood her and tucked its tail between its legs.

“These will be your last pups, Cleo, I promise,” Gwyneira comforted her. “I’m going to ride with Mr. Greenwood as far as the stone warriors. We’ll see if we catch sight of a few rams. Can I take care of anything on the way?”

The young man seemed to make a pained face in response to one of her remarks. Or was he mocking her? Was that how he reacted to her offer to make herself useful with the farm work?

Though the young man did not answer, another farmworker answered her question as he was passing by.

“Oh yeah, miss, one of the little rams, the little charmer Mr. Warden promised to Mr. Beasley, keeps going off on his own. Runs around by the ewes and drives the whole flock crazy. Could you possibly herd him back? Or just bring along the two meant for Beasley; then we’ll have order up there. Does that sound good, James?”

The foreman nodded. “They need to be gone by next week anyway. Do you want Daimon, miss?”

When the word “Daimon” left his lips, a big black dog rose up.

Gwyneira shook her head. “No, I’ll take Cassandra and Catriona. We’ll see how they do. We’ve certainly trained them long enough.”

Both dogs looked like Cleo. Gwyneira introduced them to George as her daughters. Even her rather lively mare was the product of two horses she had brought from Great Britain. George noticed Gwyneira exchange looks with the foreman when he brought the mare out to her.

“I could have ridden with a sidesaddle,” Gwyneira remarked. She would have been willing to uphold decorum for their visitor from London.

Although George did not hear the man’s response, he did see that Gwyneira flushed with anger.

“Now come, too many people had too much to drink last night on this farm!” she burst out and urged her mare into a trot. George followed her, confused.

James McKenzie remained in the stables. He could have kicked himself. How could he have lost control like that? The impertinent comment he had just made played over again and again in his mind—“Forgive me. Your daughter said yesterday that she preferred a saddle for ‘grown-ups.’ But if my lady would like to play the little girl today and ride in a sidesaddle…”

It was unforgivable. If Gwyneira hadn’t figured out for herself what a catch this English fop might be, he had now most certainly shown her.

Once she had calmed down and reined in her mare so that his rental horse could keep pace with her, George was surprised by the amount of technical information Gwyneira gave him during their tour. Gwyneira obviously knew the breeding operation on Kiward Station forward and backward, and was able to supply him with detailed information regarding the pedigree of each animal and commentary on the successes and failures of breeding.

“We’re still breeding purebred Welsh Mountains and crossing them with Cheviots—that creates the perfect combination. Both are
a down type. With Welsh Mountains, you can get thirty-six to forty-eight strands per pound of raw wool; with Cheviots it’s in the range of forty-eight to fifty-six. They complement one another, and the wool quality is consistent. It’s actually not ideal to work with Merinos. That’s what we always tell people who want purebred Welsh Mountain sheep, but most of them think they’re smarter than we are. Merinos produce ‘fine wool,’ which means about sixty to seventy strands per pound. Very nice, but you can’t breed purebreds here; they’re not robust enough for it. And when combined with other breeds, there’s no telling what you’ll get.”

George understood only half of what she was saying but was impressed by the scope of her knowledge—and became even more so when they successfully reached the highlands where the young rams grazed freely. Gwyneira’s young sheepdogs first herded the flock together, then separated out the two animals that had been sold—which Gwyneira recognized straightaway—and started to steer them placidly back down to the valley. Gwyneira slowed her mare to ride in tempo with the sheep. George took the opportunity to finally move on from the subject of sheep and ask a question that lay much nearer and dearer to his heart.

“In Christchurch I was told that you know Helen O’Keefe,” he began carefully. In no time, he had a second rendezvous scheduled with the lady of Kiward Station. He would tell Gerald that he wanted to ride to Haldon the next day, and Gwyneira would offer to accompany him part of the way to take Fleur to Helen’s school. In reality, he would follow her all the way to the O’Keefe farm.

George’s heart beat in his throat. He would finally see her tomorrow!

I
f Helen had to describe her life over the last few years—honestly and without the pretty words she used to comfort herself and hopefully impress the recipients of her letters to England—she would have chosen the word “survival.”

While Howard’s farm had seemed a promising undertaking upon her arrival, it had only gone downhill since Ruben’s birth. While the number of sheep for breeding increased, the quality of the wool only seemed to be getting worse; the losses early in the year had been crushing. After seeing Gerald’s successful attempts with cattle, Howard had also tried his hand at raising a herd.

“Madness!” Gwyneira said to Helen. “Cattle need much more grass and fodder in winter than sheep,” she explained. “That’s not a problem on Kiward Station. Even counting only the land that’s already been cleared, we could sustain twice the number of sheep. But your land is meager and lies much higher up. Not as much grows up here; you barely have enough to feed the sheep you already have. And cattle on top of that! It’s hopeless. You could try goats. But the best thing would be to get rid of all the livestock you have running around and start again with a few good sheep. It’s about quality, not quantity.”

Helen, for whom a sheep had always just been a sheep, had initially been bored as she listened to these speeches on breeds and crosses, but she finally began to pay closer attention to Gwyneira’s lectures. If her friend was to be believed, Howard had fallen in with some dubious livestock dealers when he bought his sheep—or he had simply not wanted to spend the money for good quality animals. In any case, his animals were wild mixed breeds from which a consistent wool
quality could never be achieved, no matter how carefully one chose their food or managed their pastures.

“You can even see it in their color, Helen,” Gwyneira explained. “They all look different. With ours, on the other hand, you can’t tell one apart from another. It has to be that way if you want to sell large batches of good quality wool and receive a good price.”

Helen could see that and even attempted to broach the subject with Howard. He did not prove very open-minded about her suggestions, though, rebuking her curtly whenever she brought it up. He could not handle any criticism—which did not make him any friends among livestock dealers or wool buyers. He had fallen out with almost all of them by now—with the exception of the long-suffering Peter Brewster, who did not offer him top price for his third-rate wool, it was true, but took it off his hands all the same. Helen did not dare to think what would happen if the Brewsters moved to Otago. Then they would be dependent on his successor, and there could be no relying on diplomacy from Howard. Would the new buyer show any understanding or simply pass the farm over on future buying trips?

The family already lived hand to mouth. Without the help of the Maori, who were always sending food from the hunt, fish, or vegetables with the schoolchildren to pay for their lessons, Helen wouldn’t have known what to do. Hiring extra help for the stables and the household was out of the question—in fact, Helen was now required to do more of the farm work because Howard could not even afford a Maori assistant. But Helen generally failed woefully at her farm chores. Howard admonished her sternly when she blushed for the umpteenth time during lambing instead of rolling up her sleeves, or when she burst out in tears during the slaughter.

“Don’t act like that!” he would yell, forcing her to grab hold of the emerging lamb. Helen tried to swallow her disgust and fear to do what was asked of her. She could not bear it, however, when he treated their son that way, which happened more and more frequently. Howard could hardly expect him to grow up and make himself “useful” when it was already obvious that Ruben would not be any better suited to
farm work than she was. Though the child shared a few physical similarities with Howard—he was tall, with full, dark locks, and would no doubt grow up to be strong—he had his mother’s dreamy gray eyes, and Ruben’s nature did not fit the harshness of farm life. The boy was Helen’s pride and joy; he was friendly, polite, and pleasant to be around, and what’s more, very intelligent. At five years old, the boy could already read fluently and devoured tomes like
Robin Hood
and
Ivanhoe
on his own. He was astoundingly clever in school, solving the math problems assigned to the twelve-and thirteen-year-olds, and already spoke fluent Maori. Handiwork, however, was not his strong suit; even little Fleur was more adept at making and firing the arrows from the bows they had just carved for their Robin Hood game.

But Ruben was more than willing to learn. Whenever Helen asked him to do something, he always made every effort to master it. Howard’s gruff tone, however, scared him, and the lurid stories his father told him to toughen him up terrified him. As a result, Ruben’s relationship with his father grew worse with each passing year. Helen could already predict a disaster similar to the one between Gerald and Lucas on Kiward Station—alas, without the fortune that enabled Lucas to hire a capable manager.

When Helen thought about all this, it sometimes made her sorry that their marriage had not produced any more children. Sometime after Ruben’s birth, Howard had resumed his visits to her, but they never managed to conceive again. It may have had to do with Helen’s age or with the fact that Howard never slept with her again as regularly as he had in their first year of marriage. Helen’s obvious unwillingness, their child’s presence in the bedroom, and Howard’s increased drinking did not exactly set the proper mood. Howard now more often sought his pleasures at the gambling table in the Haldon pub than in bed with his wife. If there were women there too—and maybe some of his winnings went into a whore’s purse—Helen did not want to know.