Call of the Kiwi (23 page)

“Why had Florence sent Ben away?” Elaine inquired. Lilian still had not come home, but Elaine was not concerned. The girl often went for long rides, and Elaine still knew nothing about the confrontation between father and daughter that morning.

But now Tim had appeared at his usual time—apparently ready to give his daughter a piece of his mind. Elaine hadn’t told him that Lily wasn’t home yet since she knew he would only grow more agitated when he learned that she was off on a ride instead of reporting for the house arrest he had imposed that morning. That was why Elaine had steered him toward the garden. She wanted to gain some clarity on what had happened before he discovered Lily was gone.

“Well, why do you think?” Tim asked. “The good Mrs. Biller naturally got wind of the rumors too. Rumors like that spread like wildfire. It’s a mystery to me how you haven’t heard it yet.”

Elaine shrugged. She preferred not to tell her husband that she and Charlene had met Madame Clarisse, the brothel owner, for tea that afternoon. The three women had maintained their old friendship over the years, but it was better if Matt and Tim did not learn of the relationship between their wives and the prostitutes. Though Madame Clarisse was a great source of gossip, her information arrived at night; during the day, while the honorable women chatted, the beauties of the night tended to be asleep.

“I have no doubt Florence is even more worked up about it than I am,” Tim continued.

“Even more?” Elaine asked mockingly.

“She just called me. And if one could pour fire and brimstone down the telephone line, my office would have been reduced to ash. According to her chauffeur’s testimony, our Lily dragged their Ben by the hair into a glade where sh
e . . .
” He stopped.

Elaine giggled. “The poor boy!”

“Lainie, please, take this seriously. Our relationship with the Billers is already strained enough. Lily mustn’t make it worse.” Tim finally sat down in one of the garden chairs.

“But Tim, what exactly is she going to do? If I’ve understood you correctly, she met the boy in Cambridge. They flirted a bit, and now Lily is beside herself because chance has brought them together again. You know how she is; she has a weakness for romance. Making a production of it is silly. On the contrary, you’re only going to encourage her.”

“They met secretly,” Tim insisted.

“In broad daylight behind the church. So secretly they didn’t even notice Mrs. Tanner was there.”

“That makes it all the more worrisome,” Tim grumbled. “They must have been awfully wrapped up with each other.”

Elaine laughed. “Which is completely normal for young love. Believe me, Tim, the best thing would be to ignore it. And still better would be to condone their friendship openly. If the two of them meet secretly, they’ll feel like Romeo and Juliet. But if the Capulets had invited young Montague to dinner, Juliet would soon have figured out that the boy only thought about sword fights and was too dimwitted to carry out simple instructions without stabbing himself right away.”

Tim had to laugh despite himself. “The Capulets would have caused the dinner to end in a bloodbath, though. At least if they had Florence Biller’s sensibilities. That’s why it doesn’t really matter how we feel about it. She won’t tolerate their friendship under any circumstances. Besides, I already promised her I’d forbid Lilian from having any contact with her son.” He stood up with great effort, in an effort to demonstrate his authority.

Elaine rolled her eyes.

“Well, we’ll see how far you get with that.”

“Florence, please, what awful thing did he do?” Caleb Biller tended to avoid confrontations with his wife, but he couldn’t ignore this. He was sipping his second whiskey of the evening—the first had been to give him courage, the second so he could hold on to it when things got rough. But when Florence had stormed into the salon and started in on her accusations against Ben, he had almost dropped the costly crystal glass.

Florence Biller generally looked immaculate in her office “uniform”—never even betraying sweat marks in the height of summer—but this evening, her face was mottled, locks of hair had come loose from her bun, and her proper little blue hat sat crooked in her hair.

“He met with a girl,” she declared in outrage, pacing the room. “Against my express instructions.”

Caleb smiled. “Is this about girls writ large, about a very specific girl, or about the instructions?”

Florence glared at him. “It’s about all of it. He is to obey my instructions. And as for the girl, of all the girls in the world, it just had to be Lilian Lambert. That impertinent little beast of more than questionable pedigree.”

Caleb frowned. “Little Lilian is undoubtedly a bit unusual,” he responded vaguely. In truth, he only knew the girl by sight, as well as from Florence’s outbursts about her impertinence on the telephone. “But what’s questionable about Timothy Lambert’s pedigree?”

“You know as well as I do that Elaine O’Keefe used to be one of Madame Clarisse’s girls. And Lilian was born only a few months after she married Tim Lambert. Need I go on?”

Caleb sighed. “Lainie was never a prostitute. She played the piano in the pub, nothing more. Tim’s paternity is absolutely uncontested.”

“Elaine O’Keefe shot her first husband dead.” Florence played her trump.

“In self-defense, as I recall.” Caleb hated to dig up old stories. “In any event, Tim is doing well. She didn’t make a habit of it, and that’s hardly something that can be passed on. Besides, Ben’s only met Miss Lambert once. It’s hardly like there’s talk of marriage.” Caleb poured his third whiskey.

“One thing leads to another. At any rate, she’ll put ideas in his head. I found this on his desk earlier.” She pulled a piece of paper from her pocket. “He’s writing poems.”

Caleb took the sheet and skimmed it quickly.
“ ‘
Lily of Cambridge, my boat is your breath, and I will wait for it to my very death.’ That’s disconcerting,” Caleb remarked and emptied his whiskey in one gulp. “He might be a good linguist, but I don’t see any literary talent.”

“Caleb, don’t make light of this. The boy is stubborn, and I will drive that out of him. The poetry too. He will learn to think like a businessman.”

Caleb reached for the whiskey bottle. “Never,” he said bravely. “He’s not born for that, Florence. No more so than I. He’s my son too.”

Florence turned to him. She smiled with ugly, curled lips, and Caleb shuddered when he recognized in her gaze the same contempt that he had so often seen in the eyes of his father.

“Clearly the root of the problem,” she remarked venomously. “Do you hear the door? I think he’s come home.”

Florence listened attentively. Caleb did not hear anything, but his wife threw herself into position. “It’s him. I’m going to go beat Miss Lambert out of him. And that poetry while I’m at it.”

She rushed out.

Caleb knocked back another glass of whiskey.

“Well, we’ll see how far you get with that,” he mumbled, recalling that night years ago when he had “proved his manhood” to Florence. For the first and last time.

Caleb Biller’s self-confidence had reached a low point when he asked Florence Biller for her hand. Caleb had desperately resisted the idea of getting married since he did not feel anything for women. Whenever he thought about love, male forms appeared before him, and he had only known excitement once. His roommate at boarding school in England had been his friend. More than his friend.

As the son of a mine owner in Greymouth, however, Caleb had no hope of living out his preference. Hoping for an heir for the Biller Mine, Caleb’s parents went ahead and arranged for him to marry Florence Weber. Florence and Caleb came to their own agreement. Since such a marriage would give her the opportunity to achieve her dream of becoming a businesswoman and managing the Biller Mine, she settled for a platonic marriage. For Caleb, it meant that his parents would leave him in peace.

What had been left unsaid was that Florence intended to pass the mine on to her own flesh and blood. Caleb was horrified when he noticed the appraising looks she cast at office employees and even miners. The apparent elect back then was her secretary, a man by the name of Terrence Bloom. In his darker hours Caleb would have undoubtedly held his peace and ignored it. But in the first few months after their wedding, his confidence began to return. Relieved of the pressure of having to bumble along managing the mine, he began writing articles for academic journals, which garnered great enthusiasm. Maori art being a largely unexplored field, the journals fell over each other to publish Caleb’s articles, and he soon found himself in a lively exchange of letters with various universities in the Old and New World. For the first time in his life, his crest was on the rise. He held his head up—he was not about to let some mining secretary make him grow horns.

Florence Biller lacked the sensitivity to recognize Caleb’s feelings. Moreover, she had allowed herself to fall mildly in love with this man, her first lover. One night, when Caleb returned home earlier than expected from a Maori celebration, he came upon Florence and Terrence entwined in each other’s arms. Although he was furious, he remained every inch the gentleman.

“Mr. Bloom, you will leave my house and my employ at once,” Caleb said. “I’d rather not see you in Greymouth again. If anyone else thinks of hiring you, I’ll bring my influence to bear. That would be very compromising for you because I must suppose you had hoped to enrich yourself, let’s say, financially, off my family. However, if you were to disappear post haste, my wife would no doubt write you a good referral.”

Terrence Bloom looked as taken aback by this speech as Florence did, but then he quickly got out of bed. Caleb did not grace him with a look as he hurried out, his clothes bundled in his arms.

“As for you, Florence.” Caleb inhaled deeply. “Did you love this fellow or was it about breeding?” He spat the last word at her.

Florence would not be intimidated. “You don’t really mean to deny me an heir? Your father would be very disappointed if it were revealed that yo
u . . .
” She cast a meaningful look at Caleb’s lower body.

Caleb took a deep breath. The evening with the Maori had not only satisfied him artistically but also awakened other longings. As always when he saw the men dance their war-
haka
, he felt his sex harden. He now attempted to thrust the image of those muscular dancers before Florence’s stocky, undressed body.

“I won’t disappoint either him or you,” Caleb said, opening his pants. He threw himself on top of her and worked up to thrusting by concentrating on the stomping rhythm of the
haka
, envisioning the play of muscles on the dancers. He thought of the strong hands of the men shaking their spears, their gleaming, sweaty bodies redolent of earth. Caleb thrust to the rhythm of the
haka
. He was the spear in the hand of his favorite dancer; he was enfolded, pressed, and finally released to strike the target; he was in harmony with the body and spirit of the warrior. As his weapon unloaded itself, Caleb collapsed on top of Florence.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

Florence pushed him away, stood up, and staggered into the bathroom.

“I should apologize,” she remarked. “What I did was unforgivable. What you did, well, let’s call it our duty.”