In the Land of the Long White Cloud (8 page)

Yours
,

Helen Davenport

Helen had put her letter in the post first thing the next morning, and despite knowing better, her heart beat more quickly for days afterward whenever she saw the postman in front of the house. During this period, she could hardly wait to end the morning lessons so that
she could hurry into the salon where the housekeeper laid out the mail for the family and for Helen.

“You needn’t get so worked up. He can’t have written back yet,” George remarked one morning three weeks later, when Helen blushed and once again closed the books in a flustered state, having just discerned the letter carrier from the classroom window. “A ship to New Zealand can take up to three months to get there. For letters that means three months there, three months back. That’s if the addressee answers right away and the ship sails back directly. So you see, it could be half a year before you hear from him.”

Six months? Helen could have worked that out herself, but she was nonetheless surprised. How long would it take with these interruptions before she and Mr. O’Keefe came to some agreement? And how did George know?

“What makes you talk of New Zealand, George? And who is ‘
he
’?” she asked primly. “You’re so impertinent sometimes. As punishment, I’ll give you work enough to keep you busy all day.”

George laughed mischievously. “Maybe I can read your thoughts,” he said cheekily. “At least that’s what I’m working on. But something remains concealed. Oh, what I wouldn’t give to know who ‘
he
’ is. An officer of Her Majesty’s in Wellington’s division? Or a sheep baron from the South Island? The best would be a merchant in Christchurch or Dunedin. Then my father could keep his eye on you, and I’d always know how you were doing, miss. Though, of course, I shouldn’t be curious, certainly not about romantic things like this. So just go ahead and give me my punishment. I will accept it with all humility and crack the whip so that William keeps writing as well. Then you’ll have time to go out and check the mail.”

Helen had turned beet red. But she had to remain calm.

“You have an overexcited imagination,” she said. “I’m just waiting on a letter from Liverpool. An aunt of mine is sick.”

George smirked. “Please give her my best wishes for a speedy recovery,” he said stiffly.

Howard O’Keefe’s reply did indeed take nearly three months, and Helen was about to give up hope. Instead of a letter, however, she received a message from Reverend Thorne. He asked Helen to tea on her next free afternoon. He had, as he let it be known, important things to discuss with her.

Helen did not anticipate good news. In all likelihood, it had something to do with John or Simon. Who knew what they had done this time? Perhaps the deacon’s patience had worn thin. Helen wondered what would become of her brothers if they were expelled from university. Neither one of them had ever performed any kind of manual labor. So it could only be a question of finding them clerk’s positions, where they would start out as office errand boys. They would no doubt view that as beneath them. Once more Helen wished that she were far away. Why didn’t this Howard write back? And why were ships so slow when they were using steam power and no longer had to rely on advantageous winds?

The reverend and his wife received Helen warmly, as always. It was a glorious spring day, and Mrs. Thorne had set the tea table in the garden. Helen breathed in the scent of flowers and enjoyed the quiet. The Greenwoods’ park was, it’s true, much larger and more stylishly arranged than the reverend’s tiny garden, but she hardly had a moment’s peace there.

With the Thornes, she did not even have to speak. The three of them serenely enjoyed their tea, Mrs. Thorne’s cucumber sandwiches, and homemade cake. Then, however, the reverend came to the point.

“Helen, I’d like to be forthright. I hope you won’t think ill of me. Naturally, everything that takes place here is strictly confidential, especially the talks between Lady Brennan and her young…visitors. But, of course, Linda and I know what they’re about. And we would have had to be blind to let your visit to Lady Brennan escape our attention.”

Helen’s face flushed and paled by turns. So that’s what the reverend wanted to talk about. He must be thinking that she would bring shame to her father’s memory if she left her family and gave up her life here to take up an adventure with an unknown person.

“I…”

“Helen, we’re not your conscience’s keepers,” Mrs. Thorne said, laying a friendly hand soothingly on her arm. “I can even understand what might push a young woman to take this step, and we in no way disparage Lady Brennan’s work. The reverend would hardly let her use his rectory otherwise.”

Helen got a hold of herself a little. So no dressing down? But what did the Thornes want, then?

Almost reluctantly, the reverend spoke up. “I know that my next question borders on the indiscreet, and I hardly dare ask it. Now, Helen, has anything come of your…ahem, application with Lady Brennan?”

Helen bit her lip. Why, for heaven’s sake, did the reverend want to know that? Did he know anything about Howard O’Keefe that she needed to know? Had she been—Lord help her—taken in by a swindler? She would never get over a shame like that.

“I’ve answered a letter,” she said properly. “Otherwise, nothing has happened.”

The reverend briefly calculated the time that had passed since the advertisement appeared. “Of course not, Helen, that would be as good as impossible. For one, it would have taken more than a good tailwind on the way over. For another, the young man would practically have to have been waiting for the ship at the pier and would have had to give his letter straight to the next captain. The usual post route takes a lot longer, believe me. I exchange letters regularly with a fellow pastor in Dunedin.”

“But…but if you know that, what do you want from me?” Helen blurted out. “If something develops between Mr. O’Keefe and myself, it could take a year or longer. For now…”

“We thought we might speed things up a bit,” Mrs. Thorne explained. The considerably more practical-minded half of the couple, she got straight to the point. “What the reverend really wanted to ask was…did this Mr. O’Keefe’s letter touch your heart? Could you really see yourself making such a trip for the sake of this man and burning all the bridges behind you?”

Helen shrugged. “The letter was so lovely,” she confessed and could not stop a smile from playing on her lips. “I read it again and again,
every night. And, yes, I could see myself starting a new life overseas. It’s my only chance for a family. And I pray that God will lead me…that He was the one who had me read this notice…that He was the one who had me receive this letter and not another.”

Mrs. Thorne nodded. “Perhaps God really is directing things just as you think, child,” she said softly. “To wit, my husband has a suggestion for you.”

When Helen struck out for the Greenwoods’ from the Thornes’ home an hour later, she did not know whether she should dance for joy or square her shoulders against her own audacity. Her stomach fluttered with butterflies because everything was now set: there was no going back. In approximately eight weeks her ship would leave for New Zealand.

“It’s about the orphan girls whom Mrs. Greenwood and her committee are bent on sending overseas.” Helen could still hear every word of Reverend Thorne’s explanation. “Half of them are children—the oldest is thirteen, the youngest just turned eleven. The girls are already scared half to death by the prospect of taking a position here in London. And now they’re to be shipped all the way to New Zealand, to work for total strangers! Of course, it doesn’t help that the boys in the orphanage don’t have anything better to do than tease the girls. They talk all day about sinking ships and pirates who kidnap children. The littlest is utterly convinced she’ll end up in some cannibal’s stomach, and the oldest has some crazy notion that she might be sold as some oriental sultan’s playmate.”

Helen laughed, but the Thornes remained straight-faced.

“We find it funny too, but the girls believe it,” said Mrs. Thorne with a sigh. “Even disregarding the dangers of such a voyage, the route to New Zealand is traveled from beginning to end exclusively by sailing ships since it’s too far a stretch for steam ships. So you’re dependent on good wind. There might be mutinies, fires, epidemics…I can entirely understand why the children are afraid. They become
more hysterical as each passing day brings them closer to departure. The oldest has already asked for her last rites before setting sail. The ladies on the committee don’t understand any of this, of course. They have no idea what they’re doing to the children. I, on the other hand, do know, and it weighs on my conscience.”

The reverend nodded. “No less on mine. That’s why I gave the ladies an ultimatum. The home belongs
de facto
to the parish, that is, nominally at least, I’m in charge. The ladies, therefore, need my agreement in order to send the children off. I have made my agreement contingent on their sending a guardian along. And that’s where you enter, Helen. I’ve suggested to the ladies that we let one of the young women the Christchurch parish sent for as brides-to-be travel along at the parish’s expense. In exchange, the young woman would take responsibility for the girls. A corresponding donation has already been taken up, so the necessary amount is assured.”

Mrs. Thorne and the reverend looked at Helen, silently begging for approval. Helen thought of Robert Greenwood, who’d had a similar idea only the week before, and wondered from whom this donation had come. But ultimately it didn’t matter. There were more pressing questions.

“And I should act as guardian?” she asked unsurely. “But I…like I said, I haven’t heard back from Mr. O’Keefe…”

“It’s no different for the other women, Helen,” Mrs. Thorne remarked. “Besides, most of them are still green behind the ears, hardly older than the charges themselves. Only one of them, who supposedly worked as a nanny, has any experience with children. Which makes me wonder what good family employs someone who is barely twenty as a nanny! In general, many of these girls seem to me to be of…well, rather doubtful reputation. Lady Brennan has not yet decided whether she will give all of the applicants her blessing. You, on the other hand, are entirely dependable. I have no reservations about entrusting the children to you. And the risk is small. Even if you don’t end up coming to a marriage agreement, a young woman with your qualifications will find a new position right away.”

“You’ll be taken in by my colleague in Christchurch when you arrive,” Reverend Thorne explained. “I’m sure he can help you find employment in a good house in case Mr. O’Keefe turns out not to be such the…er, man of honor he claims to be. You just need to decide for yourself, Helen. Do you really want to leave England, or was the idea of emigrating just a product of your imagination? If you agree now, you’ll leave from London on the eighteenth of July for Christchurch on the
Dublin
. If not…well, then this conversation never took place.”

Helen breathed in deeply.

“Yes,” she said.

G
wyneira did not react half as badly to Gerald Warden’s unusual proposal as her father had feared. After her mother and sister had responded with fits of hysteria to the mere suggestion of marrying the girl off in New Zealand—they seemed unsure whether the poor alliance with the bourgeois Lucas or the exile to the wilderness represented the worse fate—Terence Silkham had anticipated tears and lamentations from his youngest daughter. But, if anything, the girl had seemed rather entertained when Lord Terence revealed the outcome of the fateful card game.

“Of course, you don’t have to go,” he said, in an effort to lessen the magnitude of his news. “Something like this is not the least bit customary. But I promised Mr. Warden to at least weigh his offer.”

“Well, well, Father,” Gwyneira chided, threatening him with her finger while she smiled at him. “Gambling debts are honor debts. You can’t get out of it that easily. At the very least, you’d have to offer him my value in gold—or a few extra sheep. He’d probably prefer that. Give that a try!”

“Gwyneira, you need to take this seriously!” her father exhorted her. “Do you really think I haven’t already tried to talk the man out of it?”