In the Land of the Long White Cloud (54 page)

“There you go,” Gwyneira said amiably to her servant. “You will make yourself more useful in the village than here. Just go. Mr. Warden is not feeling well.”

She breathed a sigh when the door closed behind the butler. Moana and Witi wouldn’t waste any time, except to perhaps tidy up the kitchen. They would gather up their things and be gone within minutes.

“A sherry to calm your nerves, my love?” Lucas asked.

Gwyneira nodded. She wished, not for the first time, to be able to drink just once with the same lack of restraint as men. But Gerald did not give her a moment to enjoy her sherry. He had gulped down his whiskey and now stared at both of them with bloodshot eyes.

“So this Maori hussy is pregnant now too. And old O’Keefe has a son. Everyone around here is fertile; everywhere there’s bleating and screaming and yelping. Only you two can’t seem to make anything happen. Where’s the problem, Miss Prude or Mister Limp Dick? Who’s the problem?”

Gwyneira looked into her glass, mortified. The best thing to do was simply not to listen. The drums could still be heard outside. Gwyneira tried to concentrate on those and to forget about Gerald. Lucas, on the other hand, tried calmly to placate him.

“Father, we don’t know what the problem is. It must be God’s will. You know that not every marriage is blessed with many children. You and Mother only had one child, you know.”

“Your mother…” Gerald reached for the bottle again. He no longer even made the effort to pour himself a glass, and instead raised the bottle directly to his lips. “Your wonderful mother thought only of you, boy, you…she gave me an earful every night; that would drive the lust right out of even the best cocksman.” Gerald cast a hateful glance at the portrait of his dead wife.

Gwyneira looked on with growing fear. The old man had never let himself get this carried away. Until this moment, Lucas’s mother had always been mentioned with the highest regard. Gwyneira knew that Lucas had deified her memory. She looked for an excuse, but there was nothing she could do. Gerald would not have listened to her anyway. He turned once again to Lucas.

“But I didn’t fail,” he said, slurring. “Because you’re male if nothing else…or at least look the part. But are you really, Lucas Warden?” Gerald stood up and approached Lucas in a threatening manner. Gwyneira saw the rage blazing in his eyes.

“Father…”

“Answer, limp dick! Do you know what I’m saying? Or are you a bugger like they whisper in the stables? Oh yes, they whisper, Lucas! Little Johnny Oates claims you’re making eyes at him. He can hardly keep you off him…is that true?”

Gerald raged at his son.

Lucas’s face went beet red. “I don’t make eyes at anyone,” he whispered. At least he had not done so intentionally. Could it be that those men had caught a whiff of his most secret, sinful thoughts?

Gerald spat before turning his attention to Gwyneira.

“And you—my prude little princess. Don’t you know how to get him going? But you know how to turn a fellow on. I still think often of Wales, how you would look at me…a li’l hussy, I thought, such a shame for an ol’ aristocrat in England…she needs a real man. And in the stables they make eyes at you, princess. All the boys’re infatuated
with you. Did you know that? You encourage ’em, eh? But you’re cold as ice to your genteel husband.”

Gwyneira sank deeper into her chair. The burning gaze of the old man shamed her. She wished she had put on a more conservative dress. Gerald’s gaze wandered from her pale face to her neckline. If he looked closely, he might notice…

“And what’s this?” he intoned scornfully. “Not wearing a corset today, princess? Are you hoping that a real man’ll come by when your limp dick husband is lying in his bed?”

Gwyneira leaped up as Gerald reached for her. Instinctively she backed away. Gerald followed her.

“Aha, when you see a real man, you run away. I thought as much…lady! You’re making me beg. But a real man don’t give up.”

Gerald lunged for her bodice. Gwyneira stumbled as he pressed into her. Lucas threw himself between them.

“Father, you forget yourself!”

“Huh? I forget myself? No, my dear boy.” The old man struck Lucas with a hard blow to the chest. Lucas did not dare strike back. “I was out of my mind when I bought this thoroughbred pony here for you. Such a shame for you, such a shame…shoulda took ’er straightaway for myself. Then I’d have a stable full o’ heirs.”

Gerald bent over Gwyneira, who had fallen back into her chair. She tried to stand up and flee, but he knocked her to the ground with one blow and was on top of her before she could sit up.

“Now I’ll show you two,” Gerald wheezed. He was three sheets to the wind, and his words failed him, but not his strength. Gwyneira saw the naked lust in his eyes.

In a state of panic, she tried to remember. What had happened in Wales? Had she provoked him? Had he always felt that way about her, and had she only been too blind to see it?

“Father…” Lucas seized him halfheartedly from behind, but Gerald’s fist was faster. Drunk or not, his blows struck true. Lucas was knocked back and lost consciousness for several seconds. Gerald tore his pants open. Gwyneira heard Cleo barking on the terrace. The dog was scratching on the door in alarm.

“Now I’ll show you how, princess…now I’ll show you what it’s like.”

Gwyneira whimpered as he ripped apart her dress, shredded her silk underwear, and brutally thrust himself into her. She smelled whiskey, sweat, and the sauce that had been spilled on his shirt, and was overcome with disgust. She saw hate and triumph in Gerald’s glowing evil eyes. With one hand he held her down; with the other he kneaded her breasts as he kissed her neck greedily. She bit him when he tried to shove his tongue down her throat. After the initial shock, she began to fight back, defending herself so desperately that he seized both her hands in order to hold her down. But still he kept thrusting into her. The pain was all but unbearable. Now she knew what Helen had meant, and she clung to her friend’s words: “At least it’s over quickly.”

Despairing, Gwyneira held still, listening to the drumming outside and to Cleo’s hysterical barking. Hopefully she wouldn’t attempt to jump over the half door. Gwyneira forced herself to remain calm. It had to be over soon.

Gerald noticed her resignation and took it for consent. “Now…you like that, eh, princess?” he wheezed, thrusting harder. “Now you like it! Can’t even…get enough, eh? It’s different…a real man, like me, eh?”

Gwyneira did not have the strength to curse him. The pain and humiliation seemed to have no end. Seconds stretched into hours. Gerald moaned, wheezed, and spewed incomprehensible words that merged with the drumming and barking in a deafening cacophony. Gwyneira could not even have said herself whether she screamed or endured the torture in silence. She just wanted Gerald to get off her, and if that meant him…

Gwyneira felt a final wave of revulsion as he finally emptied himself into her. She felt soiled, defiled, degraded. She turned her head away in despair as he sank down on top of her, wheezing as he pressed his hot face into her neck. His heavy body pinned her to the ground. Gwyneira felt like she couldn’t breathe. She tried to push him off her, but she could not manage it from beneath him. Why wasn’t he
moving? Did he die on top of her? She would not have been sorry if he had. If she had had a knife, she would have stabbed him in the gut.

But then Gerald stirred. He picked himself up without looking at her. What was he feeling? Satisfaction? Shame?

The old man stood there swaying, and reached for the bottle.

“Let that be a lesson to you two,” he said halfheartedly. Not triumphantly, but as though he were now remorseful. He cast a side-glance at Gwyneira, who lay below him whimpering. “Too bad if it hurt. But in the end you liked it, right, princess?”

Gerald stumbled up the stairs without looking back. Gwyneira wept silently.

Finally Lucas bent over her.

“Don’t look at me! Don’t touch me!”

“But I’m not doing anything to you, my love.” Lucas moved to help her up, but she drove him away.

“Get out of here,” she said, sobbing. “It’s too late now; you can’t do anything now.”

“But…” Lucas faltered. “What was I supposed to do?”

Gwyneira could have thought of quite a few things. He would not even have needed a knife—the fire iron right next to Lucas would have been enough to strike his father down.

Yet the idea did not seem to even have crossed Lucas’s mind. Other things took precedence. “But…but you didn’t like it, then?” he asked softly. “You didn’t really…”

Every muscle in Gwyneira’s body hurt, but her rage enabled her to sit up. “And even if, you…you limp dick?” she blew up at Lucas. She had never before felt so insulted, so betrayed. How could this idiot believe she could possibly have enjoyed this humiliation? Suddenly she wanted nothing more than to hurt Lucas. “What if someone else really could do it better? Would you go up to him and challenge him to a duel, Fleur’s father? Yes? Or would you once again tuck your tail between your legs, like you just did for a fight with an old man? I’m sorry I’m such a burden to you! Like your father who’s too much for you! What exactly is a ‘bugger,’ Lucas? Or is that something else one prefers to keep a secret from ladies?” Gwyneira saw the pain in his eyes
and forgot her anger. What was she doing? Why was she taking out her anger toward Gerald on Lucas? Lucas could not help who he was.

“Fine, well and good, I don’t want to know,” she said. “Get out of my sight, Lucas. Disappear. I don’t want to see you again. I don’t want to see anyone. Get the hell out of here, Lucas Warden! Go away!”

Imprisoned by her misery and pain, she did not hear him go. She tried to concentrate on the drumming in order not to have to hear the thoughts beating in her brain. Then she remembered her dog. The barking had stopped; Cleo was now only whining. Gwyneira hauled herself to the terrace door, let Cleo in, and dragged the basket with the puppies over the threshold as the first drops fell outside. Cleo licked the tears from her face while she listened intently to the rain lashing at the tiles…
rangi
wept.

Gwyneira wept.

She managed to drag herself to her room as the storm dumped itself upon Kiward Station; the air became cooler and her head clearer. She finally fell asleep next to her dog and its litter on the fluffy pale blue carpet that Lucas had picked out for her so many years before.

She did not notice that Lucas left the house before dawn.

Kiri did not remark on what she saw when she came into Gwyneira’s room the next morning. She said nothing about the untouched bed, the torn dress, or Gwyneira’s dirty, blood-speckled body. Yes, this time she had bled.

“You bathe, miss. Then is better for certain,” Kiri said sympathetically. “Young master surely not meant it so. Men drunk, weather god angry, bad day yesterday.”

Gwyneira nodded and let herself be led to the bath. Kiri ran the water and moved to add some flower extract, but Gwyneira stopped
her. The nauseating scent of roses from the evening before was still too fresh.

“I bring breakfast to room, yes?” Kiri asked. “Fresh waffles, Moana made for saying sorry to Mr. Warden. But Mr. Warden still not awake.”

Gwyneira wondered how she was ever supposed to face Gerald Warden again. She felt somewhat better after she had soaped herself up several times, thoroughly washing Gerald’s sweat and stench from herself. But she was still sore and it hurt to move the least bit. That would pass, she knew, but the disgrace she would feel for the rest of her life.

Finally she wrapped herself in a light bathrobe and left the bathroom. Kiri had opened the window in her room, and the tatters of her clothes had disappeared. The world outside seemed freshly washed after the rainstorm. The air was cool and clear. Gwyneira breathed deeply, trying to bring her thoughts to rest as well. Yesterday’s experience had been abominable—but no worse than what happened to some women every night. If she worked at it, she would be able to forget it. She simply had to act as though nothing had occurred.

She nevertheless shrank back when she heard the door. Cleo growled, sensing Gwyneira’s anxiety. But it was only Kiri and Fleurette. The little girl was in a disgruntled mood. Gwyneira couldn’t blame her. Normally she woke the child herself with a kiss, and then she and Lucas had breakfast together with Fleur. This “family hour” without Gerald, who was generally still sleeping off his whiskey at that hour, was sacred to them, and all three of them seemed to enjoy it. Gwyneira had assumed that Lucas had seen to Fleur that morning, but apparently, the child had been left on her own. Her attire was correspondingly adventurous. She wore a skirt that she had pulled on over an incorrectly buttoned dress like a poncho.