In the Land of the Long White Cloud (5 page)

Sighing, Gwyneira sat down at her dressing chair and steeled herself for a dull half hour. Then a nondescript paperback lying on the dressing table caught her eye.
In the Hands of the Redskins
read the lurid title.

“I thought my lady might wish for a little diversion,” commented the young maid and smiled at Gwyneira in the mirror. “But it’s really very scary. Sophie and me couldn’t sleep the whole night after we’d read it to each other!”

Gwyneira had already reached for the paperback. She wasn’t so easily scared.

Meanwhile, Gerald Warden was bored in the salon, where the gentlemen were having a drink before dinner. Terence Silkham had introduced Gerald to his son-in-law, Jeffrey Riddleworth. Lord Riddleworth, Terence Silkham explained, had served in the Indian Crown Colony and had returned to England highly decorated for his services there just two years before. Diana Silkham was his second wife, the first
having died in India. Gerald did not dare ask what of, but he was nearly certain that the lady had died of neither malaria nor a snakebite—that is, unless she had possessed a great deal more vim and vigor than her spouse. Jeffrey Riddleworth, in any event, seemed never to have left regimental quarters during his entire posting in India. He couldn’t say anything about the country beyond the fact that it was loud and dirty outside of the English sanctuaries. He thought the natives were all beggars, the maharajahs above all, and everything beyond city limits was infested with snakes and tigers.

“Once we even had a keelback in our quarters,” Jeffrey Riddleworth explained with disgust, twirling his well-groomed mustache. “I shot the beast straightaway, of course, although some coolie said it wasn’t poisonous. But, I ask you, can you trust these people? What’s it like where you are, Warden? Do your servants have these repugnant people under control?”

Gerald thought with amusement that Jeffrey Riddleworth’s shooting in a building had likely caused more damage than even a tiger could have wrought. Besides, he didn’t actually believe that the small, well-fed colonel could hit a snake’s head on the first shot. Regardless, the man had chosen the wrong country to make a name for himself.

“Our servants take…ahem, a little getting used to,” Gerald said. “We mostly employ natives to whom the English lifestyle is rather foreign. But we don’t have to worry about snakes and tigers. There aren’t any snakes in all of New Zealand. Originally there were hardly any mammals either. It was the missionaries who first brought work animals, dogs and horses and the like, to the island.”

“No wild animals?” Jeffrey asked, wrinkling his brow. “Come now, Warden, you don’t mean to tell us that before the settlers came it looked like it did on the fourth day of creation.”

“There were birds,” Gerald Warden reported. “Big, small, fat, thin, flying, walking…oh yes, and a few bats. Besides that, insects of course, but they’re not very dangerous either. You’d have to work hard if you wanted to be killed on New Zealand, sir. Unless you resort to dealing with bipedal robbers with firearms.”

“Presumably those with machetes, daggers, and krises too, eh?” Riddleworth asked with a chuckle. “Well, it’s a puzzle to me how one could volunteer to live in such a wilderness. I was happy to leave the colonies.”

“Our Maori are mostly peaceful,” Warden said calmly. “A strange people…at once fatalistic and easy to please. They sing, dance, carve wood, and don’t know how to make any weapons worthy of mention. No, sir, I’m sure you would have been rather more bored than afraid.”

Jeffrey Riddleworth wanted to correct him that he hadn’t lost a single drop of sweat to fear during his entire time in India. But the gentlemen were interrupted by Gwyneira’s arrival. The girl entered the salon—and looked around, clearly confused, when she saw that her mother and sister were not among those present.

“Am I early?” Gwyneira asked, instead of first properly greeting her brother-in-law.

Jeffrey looked suitably offended, but Gerald Warden could not take his eyes off her. The girl had struck him as pretty earlier, but now, in formal attire, he recognized her as a true beauty. Her blue velvet dress highlighted her pale skin and her vibrant red hair. Her more chaste hairstyle emphasized the noble cut of her face. Completing the effect were her bold lips and luminous blue eyes, which sparkled with a lively, almost provocative expression. Gerald was enraptured.

It was clear that this girl didn’t fit here. He couldn’t possibly picture her at the side of a man like Jeffrey Riddleworth. Gwyneira was more likely to wear a snake around her neck and tame tigers.

“No, no, dear, you are punctual,” her father said, glancing at the clock. “Your mother and sister are late. Likely they were once more too long in the garden.”

“Were you not in the garden, then?” Gerald Warden asked, turning to Gwyneira. Really he would have expected her to be out in the fresh air more than her mother, whom he had met earlier and considered rather dull and prim.

Gwyneira shrugged. “I don’t know much about roses,” she admitted, though in doing so she incurred Jeffrey’s displeasure once more
and surely that of her father as well. “Now, if there were vegetables or something else that didn’t prick…”

Gerald Warden laughed, ignoring the other men’s acerbic countenances. The sheep baron found the girl enchanting. Of course, she wasn’t the first girl he’d eyed surreptitiously on his trip through the old homeland, but so far none of the other young English ladies had opened themselves up so naturally and willingly.

“Now, now, my lady,” he teased her. “Do you really mean to confront me with the dark side of the English rose? Does the milk-white skin and copper hair hide only thorns?”

The term “English rose” for the light-skinned, red-haired girls common to the British Isles was also known in New Zealand.

Normally Gwyneira would have blushed, but she only smiled. “It’s safer to wear gloves,” she remarked, seeing her mother gasping for air out of the corner of her eye.

Lady Silkham and her oldest daughter, Lady Riddleworth, had just entered and overheard Gerald and Gwyneira’s short exchange. They didn’t know whether they were more shocked by their guest’s lack of shame or Gwyneira’s quick-witted riposte.

“Mr. Warden, my daughter Diana, Lady Riddleworth.” Lady Silkham decided in the end to ignore the matter entirely. The man obviously did not possess any social grace, but he had agreed to pay her husband a small fortune for a flock of sheep and a litter of puppies. That would ensure Gwyneira’s dowry—and give Lady Silkham just enough leverage to marry the girl off quickly, before word of her sharp tongue got out.

Diana greeted the overseas visitor grandly. She had been assigned to Gerald Warden as a dining partner, for which she was soon sorry. Dinner with the Riddleworths dragged on, and was beyond dull. While Gerald expressed pleasantries and pretended to listen to Diana’s explanations about growing roses and garden exhibitions, he kept an eye on Gwyneira. Aside from her loose manner of speech, her behavior was impeccable. She knew how to behave in society and chatted with her dining partner, Jeffrey, politely, even if she was obviously bored. She dutifully answered her sister’s questions about her progress in French
conversation and dear Madame Fabian’s health, who deeply regretted having to miss the evening meal due to illness. Otherwise, she would have all too gladly spoken with her favorite former pupil, Diana.

Only when dessert was being served did Jeffrey Riddleworth return to his question from earlier. Apparently, the table talk had even gotten on his nerves. Diana and her mother had transitioned to chattering about shared acquaintances, discussing which ones they found completely “charming” and which had “well-off” sons, whom they evidently considered potential matches for Gwyneira.

“You’ve yet to tell us how the winds blew you ashore overseas, Mr. Warden. Did you go on business of the Crown? Or perhaps in pursuit of the legendary Captain Hobson?”

Gerald Warden shook his head, smiling, and let the servant refill his wineglass. Until that moment, he had only drunk a modest quantity of the excellent vintage. He knew that later there would be plenty of his host’s excellent scotch, and if he wanted to have even the slightest chance of pulling off his plan, he needed a clear head. An empty glass, however, would raise suspicion. So he nodded to the servant, but reached for his water glass.

“I sailed out a full twenty years before Hobson,” he answered. “At a time when things were still a bit rougher on the islands. Especially in the whaling stations and with the seal hunters.”

“But aren’t you a sheep grazier?” Gwyneira chimed in keenly. Finally an interesting topic! “You didn’t really hunt whales, did you?”

Gerald laughed grimly. “Did I ever hunt whales, my lady. Three years on the
Molly Malone
…”

He did not want to say more, but Terence Silkham now knit his brow.

“Oh, come now, Warden, you know too much about sheep for me to buy these pirate stories. You certainly didn’t learn all that on a whaling ship!”

“Of course not,” Gerald answered calmly. The flattery did not faze him. “In fact, I come from the Yorkshire Dales; my father was a shepherd.”

“But you sought adventure!” That was Gwyneira. Her eyes flashed with excitement. “You set out on a dark and stormy night, leaving land behind and…”

Gerald was amused and inspired at once. This girl was without a doubt the one, even if she was spoiled and had a completely unrealistic understanding of the world.

“I was, you see, the tenth of eleven children,” he explained. “And I didn’t like the idea of earning my living watching other people’s sheep. My father wanted me to take up the trade at thirteen. But I hired on a ship instead. Saw half the world. The coasts of Africa, America, the Cape…we sailed as far as the Arctic. And finally to New Zealand. And I liked it there best. No tigers, no snakes…” He winked at Jeffrey Riddleworth. “The land still unexplored to a large extent and a climate like the homeland. In the end one just seeks out his roots.”

“And then you hunted whales and seals?” Gwyneira asked again, incredulously. “You didn’t start right off with sheep?”

“Sheep don’t come free, little lady,” Gerald Warden said, smiling. “As I got to learn anew today. In order to purchase your father’s flock, you’d have to kill more than just one whale. And though the land was cheap, the Maori chiefs don’t exactly give it away for free.”

“The Maori are the natives, right?” Gwyneira asked with evident curiosity.

Gerald Warden nodded. “It means something like ‘moa hunter.’ The moas were giant birds, but apparently the hunters were too zealous and the beasts have all died out. Incidentally, we immigrants are also named after birds. We call ourselves ‘kiwis,’ which is a curious, stubborn, and vivacious bird. You can’t escape a kiwi. They’re everywhere in New Zealand. Don’t ask me who came up with the idea to label us kiwis, of all things.”

Only a few members of the dining party laughed, mostly Terence Silkham and Gwyneira. Lady Silkham and the Riddleworths were indignant that they were dining with a former shepherd boy and whaler, even if he had since acquired the title of sheep baron.

Lady Silkham soon brought the meal to a close and retired to the salon with her daughters. Gwyneira only reluctantly quit the
gentlemen’s circle. Finally the conversation had turned to more interesting subjects than Diana’s unspeakably boring roses and endlessly dull society. She longed to return to her room, where
In the Hands of the Redskins
awaited her, half-read. The Indians had just abducted the daughter of a cavalry officer. However, Gwyneira still had at least two cups of tea in her female family’s company ahead of her. Sighing, she resigned herself to her fate.

Meanwhile, Terence Silkham offered cigars to the men in the study. Gerald Warden’s connoisseurship in selecting the best variety of Cubans impressed him. Jeffrey Riddleworth simply reached into the case and picked one at random. Then they spent an endless half hour discussing the queen’s latest decision regarding British agriculture. Both Terence and Jeffrey thought it regrettable that the queen clearly sided with industrialization and trade over strengthening traditional industry. Gerald Warden said little on the topic. He didn’t know much about it, and he didn’t really care. However, the New Zealander perked back up when Riddleworth cast a regretful glance at the chessboard that waited, set up, on a little table nearby.