Song of the Spirits (6 page)

Elaine shrugged. But her eyes had brightened as expected at the mention of his legal studies.

“Not as well as I should. We’ve always lived rather far from the nearest tribe. But my mother and father speak it well; back in the plains, they went to school with Maori children. I only really see any Maori when there’s a conflict between them and the
pakeha
here and my father has to arbitrate. And that’s thankfully rare. Did you really study law?”

William described his three semesters in Dublin in vague terms. But the two had to go their separate ways at that point anyway. When they’d entered the hotel, the draft had set a melodious wind chime ringing. Mary and Laurie appeared at once, happily twittering at William and Elaine. One twin took the laundry from William
and could hardly restrain her excitement at his aid, while the other explained to him that his bath was ready. He had to hurry, however, because dinner would soon be served; the other diners were already there and would undoubtedly not want to wait.

William politely took his leave of Elaine, whose disappointment was clearly visible. He had to make another move soon.

“What does one do in Queenstown when one would like to invite a young lady to partake in respectable amusement?” he inquired of the younger of the two bankers just before dinner a short time later.

He would have preferred that Mrs. O’Keefe not overhear, but the old lady had sharp ears. She seemed to focus her attention inconspicuously but still noticeably on the two men’s conversation.

“That depends on how respectable,” the banker sighed. “And on the lady in question. There are ladies for whom no amusement is virtuous enough.” The man knew what he was talking about. He had been trying for weeks to court their housemate, the young teacher. “You can accompany those girls to church on Sunday at most… which is not necessarily amusement. But you can invite normal young ladies to the community picnic if there’s one taking place. Or maybe even to a square dance when the housewives’ association puts one on. Daphne’s has one every Saturday, of course, but that is not exactly respectable.”

“Just let little Miss O’Keefe show you the town,” remarked the older banker. “She would no doubt be happy to do that. She grew up here, after all. And a walk is an innocent undertaking.”

“As long as it does not lead into the woods,” Mrs. O’Keefe interjected drily. “And if the young lady in question really does happen to be my granddaughter, and therefore a very special young lady, you might want to obtain her father’s permission first.”

“What exactly do you know about this young man?”

Although it was a different dinner, the subject was the same. In this case, Ruben O’Keefe was questioning his daughter. Because
although William had yet to dare to issue an invitation, Elaine had run into him again the very next day. Once more purely “by chance” of course, this time in front of the entrance to the undertaker’s. A poorly chosen meeting place, but Elaine could not think of any other place that would do the trick on short notice. Not only was Frank Baker, the undertaker, an old friend of her father’s, but his wife was a chatterbox. As a result, the whole town knew about Elaine O’Keefe’s relationship with William Martyn—“A fellow from the gold-miners’ camp,” as Mrs. Baker would no doubt have put it.

“He’s a gentleman, Daddy. Really. His father has an estate in Ireland. And he even studied law,” Elaine declared, the last bit not without pride. That was her ace in the hole.

“Aha. And then he emigrated to look for gold? There are too many lawyers in Ireland, is that it?” Ruben asked.

“You wanted to look for gold once too!” his daughter reminded him.

Ruben smiled. Elaine would not have been a bad attorney herself. He found it difficult to be strict with her because, as much as he loved his sons, he worshipped his daughter. Elaine was, after all, simply too much like his beloved Fleurette. Aside from the color of her eyes and her mischievous little nose, she took entirely after her mother and grandmother. The red shade of her hair differed a bit from that of her female relatives, Elaine’s hair being darker and perhaps even finer and curlier than Fleurette’s or Gwyneira’s. Ruben had passed on his placid gray eyes and his brown hair to his sons alone. Stephen in particular was “just like his father.” His youngest, Georgie, was the adventurous one. By and large they fit together wonderfully: Stephen would follow in Ruben’s footsteps with regards to jurisprudence, while Georgie dreamed of opening branch offices of the O’Kay Warehouse. Ruben was a lucky man.

“There was a scandal involving William Martyn,” Fleurette remarked casually as she set a casserole on the table. They were having the same thing for dinner as the guests at Helen’s hotel, since Fleurette had asked Mary and Laurie to make her a dinner to take home.

“Where did you hear that?” Ruben asked as Elaine almost dropped her fork in surprise.

“What do you mean by ‘scandal’?” she mumbled.

A glow passed over Fleurette’s still-elfish face. She had always been a talented spy. Ruben could still recall all too well how she had once revealed to him the secret of the O’Keefe and Kiward Stations.

“Well, I visited the Brewsters this afternoon,” she said offhandedly. Ruben and Fleurette had known Peter and Tepora Brewster since they were children. Peter was an import-export merchant who had once built up the wool trade in the Canterbury Plains. But then his wife, Tepora, a Maori, had inherited land in Otago, and the couple had moved there. They now lived near Tepora’s tribe, ten miles west of Queenstown, and Peter directed the resale of all the gold extracted there across the globe. “They are entertaining visitors from Ireland at the moment. The Chesfields.”

“And you thought this William Martyn would be well-known throughout all Ireland?” Ruben inquired. “Where did you get that idea?”

“Well, I was right, wasn’t I?” Fleurette replied mischievously. “All joking aside, of course there was no way for me to know that. But Lord and Lady Chesfield belong unmistakably to the nobility of English origin. And based on what Helen had already found out, the young man comes from similar circles. It’s not as though Ireland is all that big.”

“And what has Lainie’s sweetheart been up to?” Georgie asked inquisitively, grinning impishly at his sister.

Elaine exploded. “He’s not my sweetheart!” She swallowed any further remarks though. After all, she, too, wanted to know what scandal clung to William Martyn.

“Well, I don’t know the specifics,” Fleurette said. “The Chesfields only dropped a few hints on the subject. In any event, Frederic Martyn is quite a powerful landlord. Lainie was right about that. William, however, does not stand to inherit anything. He’s the younger son. And the black sheep of the family besides. He sympathized with the Irish Land League—”

“That speaks rather well for the boy,” Ruben interjected. “What the English are doing over there in Ireland is a crime. How can you let half the population starve while sitting on full grain stores yourself? The tenant farmers work for starvation wages, and the landlords grow fat. It’s wonderful if the young man is advocating for the farmers!”

Elaine beamed.

Her mother, however, looked concerned. “Not when that advocacy degenerates into terrorist activities,” she remarked. “And Lady Chesfield hinted at something along those lines. William Martyn is supposed to have taken part in an assassination attempt.”

Ruben frowned. “When was this? As far as I know, the last major uprisings took place in Dublin in 1867. And there has been nothing in the
Times
recently about individual actions by Fenians or similar groups.” Ruben received English newspapers, though mostly with a delay of a few weeks, and he read them attentively.

Fleurette shrugged. “It was probably thwarted in time. Or it was only planned, what do I know. This William fellow isn’t sitting in prison, after all. No, he’s publicly courting our daughter using his real name. Oh yes, there was another name mentioned in connection with the matter. Something about a John Morley.”

Ruben smiled. “Then it’s surely nonsense. John Morley of Blackburn is the chief secretary for Ireland. He resides in Dublin, and he supports home rule. That means he’s on the side of the Irish. It would certainly not be in the interests of the Land League to kill him.”

Fleurette began to fill the plates. “Like I said, the Chesfields did not express themselves very clearly on the subject,” she said. “It could very well be that there’s nothing to the story. Only one thing is clear: William Martyn is now here and not in his beloved Ireland, which is strange for a patriot. When they emigrate of their own volition, it’s usually to America, where they meet like-minded people. An Irish activist in the gold mines of Queenstown strikes me as rather strange.”

“But not sinister,” Elaine declared fervently. “Maybe he wants to find gold to buy the land from his father and—”

“Very likely,” Georgie said. “Why doesn’t he just buy all of Ireland from the Queen?”

“We should, in any event, see the young man for ourselves,” Ruben said, bringing the subject to a close. “If he’s really to go walking with you”—he winked at Elaine, whose breath nearly caught at the prospect—“and that’s an intention he’s voiced, a little bird told me, you might invite him to dinner. There, and now on to you, Georgie. What did I hear this morning from Miss Carpenter about your math work?”

Her brother turned to find out what exactly he had heard from Miss Carpenter. Meanwhile, Elaine was so excited that she could hardly eat anything. William Martyn was interested in her! He wanted to go on a walk with her! Maybe even go dancing. Or even to church. Oh, this was marvelous. Everyone would see that she, Elaine O’Keefe, was a sought-after young lady who had managed to catch the eye of the only British gentleman to ever wander into Queenstown. The other girls would burst with envy. And her cousin most of all. This Kura-maro-tini whose beauty everyone spoke of endlessly. And whose visit to Queenstown hid some dark secret that definitely had something to do with a man. What others sorts of dark secrets were there, after all?

Elaine could hardly wait for William to ask her to go walking. And she wondered where he would take her.

Elaine finally did go for a walk with William—after he had artfully asked her if she would not mind showing him around town once. Elaine knew he didn’t need to be shown around. After all, Queenstown still consisted only of Main Street; and the barbershop, the smithy, the post office, and the general store did not really require further explanation. Daphne’s Hotel presented some excitement, but Elaine and William would naturally make a wide detour around that establishment. In the end, Elaine decided to extend the term “town” a bit and lead her romantic interest down the riverside promenade to the lake.

“Though it may not seem all that big because of the surrounding mountains, Lake Wakatipu is gigantic. It covers one hundred and fifty square miles, and it is continually in motion. The water is constantly rising and falling. The Maori say it’s the heartbeat of a giant who sleeps at the bottom of the lake. But obviously, that’s just a myth. The Maori have a lot of fairy tales like that, you see.”

William smiled. “My country also has a wealth of stories. About fairies and sea lions that take human form at the full moon.”

Elaine nodded excitedly. “Yes, I know. I have a book of Irish fairy tales. And I named my horse after a fey: Banshee. Would you like to meet Banshee sometime? She’s a cob. My other grandmother brought Banshee’s ancestors over from Wales.”

Though William pretended to listen to her intently, he was not especially interested in horses. Banshee would not have mattered any more to him if Gwyneira McKenzie had imported the horse’s ancestors from Connemara. He found it much more important that that evening, after this walk, he was to meet Elaine’s parents, Ruben and Fleurette O’Keefe. Of course, he had already seen and spoken briefly with them. After all, he had made all of his purchases in their store. But now he had been invited to dinner, and would therefore be socializing with them more intimately. He was in desperate need of that. That morning, Joey had dissolved their partnership. While the old gold miner had initially been patient with him, William’s “lack of drive,” as he called it, had gotten on his nerves after just a week. William, however, had found it completely normal to slow down after the first hard few days. The pain in his muscles needed to abate, after all. And there was time. William was in no hurry. Joey, on the other hand, had made it clear to William that, for him, every day without a gold find was a day lost. He was not dreaming of whisper-worthy sized nuggets, just a bit of gold dust to buy his whiskey and secure his daily portion of stew or mutton at the campfire.