Call of the Kiwi (34 page)

“Did it die?” Gloria asked quietly.

“Of course not, nothing like that. She’s a handsome little mare. And she’s doing well. But I gave her to Lilian. I’m so sorry, Gloria, but it didn’t look like you’d be coming home so soon. And you never wrote that you still rode like you used to.”

Gloria stared at Gwyneira with naked hatred in her eyes.

“When you can’t ride anymore, you’re dead. Didn’t you always say that? Was I, am I?”

“Gloria, I didn’t mean anything by it. It was just that the little mare had nothing to do, and Lilian got along well with her. Look, Gloria, all the horses in the stables belong to you. Frank can show you the young horses tomorrow. A few four-year-olds already run very nicely. Or maybe you’d prefer a nice three-year-old you can work with yourself.”

“Don’t they really belong to my mother?” Gloria asked coldly. “Like everything here? Including me? What if she wants me back? Will you just send me off again?”

Gwyneira wanted to embrace her, but the girl seemed enveloped by an icy wind.

“Oh, Glory,” Gwyneira sighed. She did not know what to say. She had never been the greatest diplomat, and this situation was entirely too much for her. She wished her friend Helen were here. Or James. They would know how to make clear to Gloria how welcome she was.

“We can simply put the blankets back on Princess,” she finally said. Gwyneira preferred to solve problems with actions not words.

“Can we go in?” Gloria asked, ignoring the offer. “Where am I to stay anyway? Is my room still there? Or did you give it to Lilian too?”

Gwyneira decided not to answer. Instead she walked slowly ahead of Gloria toward the Kiward Station kitchen. At the last moment it occurred to her that Gloria might misinterpret that too.

“You don’t mind that we, I mean, we could of course go in through the main entrance, but at my age it’s often too strenuous with all the steps.”

Gloria rolled her eyes.

“Grandmum, I’d like to go to my room. I don’t really care how I get there.”

But they were not able to retire so quickly. Kiri, Moana, and Gloria’s grandmother Marama were waiting in the kitchen.

“
Haere mai, mokopuna
. How nice to have you here again.”

Gwyneira observed how the Maori women danced zealously around Gloria, all of them greeting her as a granddaughter and making as if to rub their faces on hers in the traditional
hongi
. If they were as dismayed by the sight of Gloria as Gwyneira had been the day before, at least they knew how to hide it.

Marama took Gloria’s hands and said something in their language. Gwyneira did not understand it exactly, but she thought it was some kind of apology.

“Forgive your mother, my daughter,
mokopuna
. She never understood people.”

Gloria let the heartfelt greetings wash over her. She smiled only when Nimue, driven to ecstasy by the raucous joy of the women, began to run around barking.

“For now, rest. But tonight, good food,” Kiri declared. Perhaps she attributed Gloria’s lack of enthusiasm to her exhaustion. “We’ll make
kumera
, sweet potatoes. You surely not eaten since going away to England.”

Gwyneira finally led Gloria up to her room—the same one she had occupied before she left. She noted happily that the tension in the girl’s face relaxed when she entered the room. Gwyneira had changed nothing. Pictures of horses still decorated the wall, including the last photograph of Gloria with Princess, as did a few childishly awkward drawings.

“You see, we always expected you back,” Gwyneira said stiffly, but Gloria only smiled when she saw Marama’s present lying on the bed. As a child, she had often hastily thrown her breeches there in order “to turn into a girl,” as Jack had always called it, for dinner. And now there were brand-new breeches lying there, from the same old pattern Marama had tailored.

Gwyneira tried to return the smile. “So maybe tomorrow you’ll pick out a horse?” she asked tentatively.

The light in Gloria’s eyes went out.

“Maybe,” she said.

Gwyneira was relieved to close the door behind her.

Gloria walked around the room once, looking at all the pictures on the walls, the colorful rug, the pieces of jade and other colored stones she had collected with Jack. Then she threw herself down on the bed, Nimue in her arms, and cried. When her tears finally ceased to flow, the sun already stood high in the sky.

She had made it. She was back on Kiward Station. She knew she should be happy. The hard times were past. But she did not feel any joy.

She felt only rage.

3

T
he idea of eloping was a wonderful dream, and Lilian and Ben embellished the fantasy a bit more every time they met. Everything—news of the war, Gloria’s return—was eclipsed by Lilian’s thoughts of their romantic flight. Completely consumed by her love for Ben, she was fearless about the prospect of going through with it. Ben shared her dreams, but without really believing them. Until a bitterly cold evening in spring when events took a turn.

George Greenwood was in town. He, Tim Lambert, and Matt Gawain had decided to announce the construction of the coke furnace. They had invited the Billers, the manager of the Blackburn Mine, and several other important businessmen to a celebratory dinner at one of the best hotels on the quay. There they planned to reveal that all the local mines would soon be able to have their coal worked into coke right in Greymouth. While the owners of the smaller mines would probably be delighted by the news, Florence Biller would likely be furious at not having summoned the courage and capital for the expansion herself. The investment would add huge profits for the Lambert Mine.

For Lilian and Ben, the occasion was also a milestone. For the first time in a year, their parents were bringing them together at a social event. George Greenwood had asked that his charming travel partner might be seated across from him.

“Well, how are things with that heart of yours?” he teased her good-naturedly when she sat down. She was wearing a new apple-green dress, her first real evening gown, and she looked enchanting. “Have you given it away or would you rather take over your father’s mine?”

Lilian turned a deep red. “I, uh, there is someone,” she said. Uncle George had always taken her seriously. Surely he would not behave as childishly as Ben’s parents and her own when he learned about her sweetheart. “But it’s still a secret.”

George smiled. “Then we won’t want to go into it,” he said, silently determining to talk to Elaine about it later. She had told him about Lilian and Ben’s puppy love, but she clearly thought it had passed. George, however, did not think that was the case. And unlike the others, he noticed that Lilian and Ben vanished at one point. Lilian had gone to fetch her mother’s stole from the car, and Ben slipped away while Florence was arguing with the business manager of the Blackburn Mine.

George decided this was the perfect moment to make the big announcement. He tapped his glass.

Ben reached Lilian just as she was closing the car door. He beamed at her.

“I had to see you alone, Lily.”

Lilian let him embrace her but looked concerned at how exposed they were. When an icy gust of wind blew down from the mountains, Lily suggested that they get in the car, and she slid into the backseat. Ben followed and began kissing her.

“Leave yourself something for the wedding night,” she teased him. “It’s almost your birthday. Do we want to wait here until then, or should we leave for Auckland before?”

Ben was startled but came up with a temporary loophole.

“We’d better wait. After all, where would we be able to stay before we were married?”

“We’ll simply look for a landlord who doesn’t ask for our marriage certificate,” she explained practically.

Ben blushed. “You mean, we, uh, we’re going to do it before?”

“I think so. Just to be on the safe side. In case things don’t fit or something.”

“What do you mean, ‘don’t fit?
’ ”
Ben asked.

It was Lilian’s turn to blush. “Well, as I understand it, it has something to do with putting things together.”

“But I think it always fits.”

“How do you know? Have you done it before?” Her countenance alternated between one of hope that he had some experience and bitter thoughts of infidelity.

Ben shook his head, outraged. “Of course not. I would never do that with anyone but you. But, bu
t . . .
the other boys at colleg
e . . .
”

Lilian understood. Ben’s fellow students had all been older. Naturally they had known more than he did.

“All right, good,” she said, “but it can’t hurt to try it out. You do want to, don’t you?”

“Here?” Ben asked. “Now?”

It was tempting. The car was pleasantly warm and much more comfortable than the stables. But Lilian didn’t think the time was right.

“No, it’s too early. But in Auckland.”

Ben began to kiss her more urgently. The thought of trying it there and then was irresistible.

“But then it will be too late. We wouldn’t be able to go back if it didn’t fit.”

Lilian thought for a moment. Then she let him pull up her dress and stroke her thighs. He had never done that before, but it surpassed all the joy she felt when he caressed her breast. She moaned languorously.

“It’ll fit,” she murmured.

Florence Biller seethed with rage. Again this Greenwood with his huge fortune. It had surely been Tim’s idea. Though she had considered doing the same, she would never have been able to do it secretly the way Lambert had. She would have needed an engineering office and to pursue outside investors. As it was, she got no help from Caleb, and Ben was proving to be as hopeless as his father. As her frustration mounted, she looked around for her eldest son. When she didn’t see him, she scanned the room for the Lambert girl.

Florence picked up her shawl to get some air. She knew she needed to calm down before anyone saw how angry she was. She thought she’d made her exit unobserved, but George Greenwood saw her out of the corner of his eye and tipped off Elaine.

“Lainie? I think our dear smoking-mad Mrs. Biller is missing her son.”

“So? He can’t have gone far.”

“Aren’t you missing someone?”

“Oh no. Did she say anything? Doesn’t matter, I’d better track them down before Florence does. Just what is that girl thinking?”

More amused than unsettled, Elaine made her way outside—just in time to witness Florence Biller ripping open the back of the Cadillac and tearing her son out of the car.

“Get out. Our business is going belly-up, and you’re amusing yourself with your little whore.”

“It’s not what you think,” stammered Ben. He tried to make sure, as surreptitiously as possible, that his pants were buttoned.

“And you, Miss Lambert.”

Elaine appeared behind Florence, and Ben attempted a sort of bow.

“I can explain, Mother, Mrs. Lambert. We want to get married.”

Elaine stared at her daughter, speechless, as Lilian moved to get out of the car.

“Don’t you have anything to say?” Florence raved. “Your little whor
e . . .
”

“Don’t take that tone with me, Florence,” Elaine roared at her. “Even if our children have perhaps, well, overstepped the boundaries of proper behavior, my daughter is no whore. Come on out, Lily. And make yourself halfway presentable. Maybe you should send your son home, Florence. After all, it is in everyone’s interest to avoid a scandal here. Lilian, go back inside and wash your face. Florence, we’ll have to talk to the two of them later. And maybe with each other too,” Elaine said, trying to maintain her composure.

“Talk? What’s there to talk about? But it figures, the daughter of a bar wench.” Florence snorted.

“Oh, and yet you had no compunctions about sleeping with the highest bidder,” Elaine replied. “Am I mistaken or weren’t you interested in my husband for a while? A cripple with a mine seemed ripe with opportunity, didn’t it? It’s just a shame for you that Tim’s head was still working, but in the end a queer with a mine was the winning ticket anyway.”

“Lainie, I think that’s enough,” Matt Gawain broke in. “And you calm down too, Mrs. Biller. Otherwise the whole town will be talking about you tomorrow. We’re already going to have to pay that porter over there for his silence. Lilian, your father is waiting for you, and Mr. Greenwood would like to dance with you.”

Elaine bit her lip. She rarely let herself be moved to such outbursts. But calling Lilian a “whore” crossed the line.

“Well, she’s not entirely wrong, now is she?” Tim Lambert thundered. It was late, and it would undoubtedly have been better to discuss Lilian and Ben’s interlude in the morning. But Tim had caught wind of something with George whispering to Elaine, and then to Matt, who had looked alarmed. Followed by the drained expression on Elaine’s face when she returned, the traces of tears on Lilian’s cheeks, and Florence and Ben’s disappearance. Tim was no fool. Though they managed to retain their composure for the rest of the evening, Tim pounced on Lilian as soon as they got home.

“If I’ve understood correctly, that little bastard took off your dress an
d . . .
”

“Nothing happened! We only cuddled a bit.”

“With his hands up your dress?”

“We want to get married.”

“Married! What utter nonsense. How old are you? Your mother might dismiss it as puppy love, but it’s clearly gone too far if you’re spreading your legs for him in my car.”

Tim Lambert wanted to give his daughter a good beating for causing a scandal on his big day. Now Florence Biller would try even harder to put obstacles in his path. Worst of all, they had lost the Biller Mine as an important client for the coke furnace. Florence Biller was guaranteed to be brooding over plans for her own addition even if it ruined her.

“
I . . .
”

Elaine came to Lilian’s aid. “Tim, unless it suddenly flared up again tonight—and Lilian assures me that isn’t the case—the children have been together for almost two years. Maybe they really do make a good couple. Florence has to se
e . . .
”

“Florence doesn’t have to do anything. Nor do we. Except send Lilian away as soon as possible. What if she were to go to your parents, Lainie? She could help in the warehouse. She’s got a knack for it. And your father will keep an eye on her.”

“I love Ben,” Lilian sobbed. “And I won’t be sent away. We’re going to marry an
d . . .
”

“You shut your mouth,” Tim ordered her.

“Lily, you should go to bed,” Elaine said. “We’ll talk about this tomorrow.”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Tim said.

Lilian fled to her room and cried herself to sleep while her parents fought bitterly. It rarely happened, but that night they came to an impasse, only reconciling in the early morning hours and sleeping through the hail of stones a desperate Ben Biller unskillfully aimed at Lilian’s bedroom window.