Song of the Spirits (35 page)

Elaine laughed and praised Callie effusively. The little dog was so proud that she could hardly contain herself. She jumped up on her mistress and then onto her new friend Pita. Callie had indeed found asylum in his lodging in the stables and seemed to be comfortable with the arrangement.

“That good, Mrs. Sideblossom! What wonder!” Pita was enthusiastic.

“Yes, madam! That was extraordinary. I’ve heard of such sheepdogs before, but Mr. Sideblossom’s animals don’t work half so skillfully,” the other boy said.

Elaine gaped at the boy in astonishment. The boy expressed himself as eloquently as Pai. And was she seeing things, or did they resemble one another? He was unquestionably a mulatto too, but something else about his squared features looked familiar. She had never seen anything like that before among the Maori. She could tell the Maori apart without much effort—which not every white person could manage right away—but she had never been able to identify family resemblances in the few Maori she had gotten to know before.

Wait a moment—family? Those sharp features were not a Maori trait! Elaine had a bad feeling. She had to learn more.

“My dog may herd sheep very well,” she said, “but your English is truly exceptional.”

“Arama, madam, call me Arama. At your service.” The young man bowed politely.

Elaine smiled.

“No need for the ‘madam,’ Arama. The word ‘madam’ always makes me think of a matron in a rocking chair. But do tell me where you learned such good English. Are you related to Pai?”

He looked like Pai. And Pai looked like Emere. Emere and…

Arama laughed. “Not that I know of. We were both orphans at the mission school in Dunedin. We were left there as babies. That’s what the pastor said anyway.” Arama winked. He had to be about twenty, so was no longer a child. He must have recognized the resemblance just as Elaine had. There may well be other boys and girls on the farm that were part of the same “family.”

Elaine was shocked. Not so much because John Sideblossom was clearly sleeping with, or had slept with, his Maori maids. But because it must have happened before his son’s eyes. Thomas must have witnessed at least two of Emere’s pregnancies. And had she not been his nanny? How could John have forced the woman to give the children to an orphanage?

Elaine turned pale. “Are there more?” she asked hoarsely.

Arama’s face took on a searching expression.

“Sheep?” he asked tentatively. “For the dog? A whole bunch. Please join us if you like and…”

Elaine did not answer but let her gaze rest seriously and expectantly on him.

“Mr. Sideblossom has taken five mulatto children from the mission school in Dunedin,” Arama said finally. “Two girls as maids and three boys as farmworkers. I’ve been here four years, and he trusts me. I’m in charge of the farm while he’s off herding the sheep with the others. And—”

“Does Thomas know?” Elaine asked without emphasis.

Arama shrugged. “I don’t know, and I don’t ask. You should do the same. Mr. Sideblossom is not very indulgent. Nor is his son. Would you like to help us with a few other sheep? We’re repairing the fences, and there’s still some herding to be done.”

Elaine nodded. She could think later about what she had just learned. And about what Zoé might know. And about the news Zoé had proudly shared with Elaine that morning: she was pregnant. Thomas would soon have a half brother or half sister—though apparently that was nothing new.

Elaine pushed aside her father-in-law’s unique method of increasing his staff and followed Arama and Pai to the other sheepcotes. There was not much work for a sheepdog of Callie’s caliber, since most of the sheep were in the highlands. Staying behind were only a few sickly sheep, a ewe that had been covered very late and hadn’t yet lambed, and a few dozen sheep that were to be sold. The latter were the most fun for Callie, because it was a larger herd, and the dog enjoyed the challenge. For the first time in a long time, Elaine, too, was something akin to happy when she made her way back to the house that evening.

“You smell like sheep,” Zoé complained when they ran into each other at the house’s entrance. “I cannot tolerate that in my condition.”

Elaine had already heard that remark twice at breakfast. First Zoé had not been able to tolerate the smell of coffee, then she had felt sick at the sight of scrambled eggs. If things continued in this manner, several difficult months lay ahead for Elaine and the female servants.

“I’ll wash up straightaway,” she informed Zoé. “And the baby should get used to the smell of sheep. Mr. Sideblossom is hardly going to raise his child to be a rose gardener.”

With that, Elaine rushed off to her own chambers. She was rather pleased with herself. She was slowly regaining her old quick-wittedness—though she had never been so cutting and mean in the past. Maybe I should be more patient with Zoé, Elaine thought, particularly if she’s drawn the same conclusions that Arama and I have. It had to rattle Zoé’s nerves to live in such close quarters with Emere. Zoé had no avenues of escape like Elaine did in the closed-off west wing. Zoé and John’s apartments included the manor’s common rooms and were adjacent to the kitchen. And Emere ruled over them all. Cold as ice, with her penetrating gaze. Zoé was probably in hell.

Elaine returned to the stables first thing the following morning. Arama and the few men who had stayed behind with him had more work for Callie. After they were done, around midday, Elaine decided to risk an afternoon ride. Arama offered to saddle the small black horse that she had been friendly with the day before.

“His name is Khan,” Arama said. “He’s just three years old, and has only been ridden for a few months. You can ride, can’t you?”

Elaine nodded and told him about Banshee. “My father will send her as soon as her foal can handle itself. I can hardly wait. I miss her a great deal.”

Arama looked skeptical, which astonished Elaine. Did he not trust her horsemanship? Or did the thought of a white mare in these dark stables bother him? Elaine did not plan to lock up her horse anyway. Banshee was used to pasturing.

She erased any concerns Arama might have had about her riding ability in short order. She climbed nimbly onto Khan’s back without help, and laughed when Arama told her regretfully that he could not offer her a lady’s saddle.

“Zoé Sideblossom does not ride,” he said.

Now why did he say that so portentously?

No matter. Elaine was not going to read anything into Arama’s words. Instead, she set off to investigate her new surroundings. Riding
Khan proved to be a real pleasure. The stallion was spirited but easy to ride, and Elaine, unaccustomed to Arabians, enjoyed the feeling of lightness. When her grandmother’s cobs galloped, the earth beneath their hooves seemed to quake. Khan, however hardly seemed to touch the ground.

“I could get used to this,” Elaine remarked, patting the horse’s throat. “Let’s do it again tomorrow.”

On her first ride, she had limited herself to the area immediately around the farm, examining the pastures around the house and the shearing sheds. Lionel Station had two, both of which were of an imposing size. There was no cattle breeding, as on Kiward Station, because the terrain was too rocky. She knew that cattle only made a good return on expansive grassy flatlands like the ones in the Canterbury Plains, since they could not be driven up into the highlands in the summer like sheep.

The next morning Elaine set out early after packing a lunch for herself. She wanted to ride along the river in the direction of the mountains and explore the foothills of the McKenzie Highlands. It was her family history, in a manner of speaking. She giggled when she thought of her grandfather and the breakneck ride that had brought her mother to safety back then. Fleurette had come across James while fleeing John Sideblossom—and both of them had nearly fallen into the same trap.

Elaine enjoyed her excursion tremendously. The weather was grand: dry and sunny, with a light breeze, ideal for riding. Khan set off energetically but was more even-tempered than the day before and no longer took advantage of every opportunity to go at a gallop. Elaine could therefore concentrate on the landscape and take in the panorama of the high mountains on both sides of the Haast River. Callie ran happily beside her, only leaving her occasionally to lay fervent chase to a rabbit—which she really should not have done since sheepdogs were normally discouraged from hunting. But the rabbit problem in New Zealand had grown so dire in the last few years that even purists
like Elaine’s grandmother Gwyneira didn’t reprimand their dogs for engaging in a bit of hunting. Brought to New Zealand on some ship, rabbits had multiplied explosively due to a lack of natural predators. In some parts of Otago, they were even making grass scarce for farm animals. Entire plains that would otherwise have served as pastureland for sheep had been eaten clean by the long-ears. The desperate settlers had finally introduced foxes, lynxes, and other rabbit hunters into the wild. But there were still nowhere near enough predators to significantly reduce the rabbit population.

The rabbits had nothing to fear from Callie, however. True, she set after them enthusiastically, but she never caught any. Gwyneira liked to say that border collies were more likely to herd the rabbits together than to eat them.

Around midday Elaine rested by a stream that flowed down a little waterfall into the Haast River. While Khan and Callie splashed about in the water, Elaine took a seat on a rock. She set her lunch on another, since the stones were arranged like a table with chairs around it. The Maori would like that. Elaine wondered if Rahera’s tribe often camped here, but she did not see any trace of them. Well, she would not be leaving any behind herself—the Maori treated the land with care, and Fleurette and Ruben had taught their children to do the same. Khan ate a bit of grass, of course, and his hooves left imprints in the tall grass, but they would be gone in a day. Elaine did not even light a fire.

After eating, she lay in the sun a little longer, enjoying the clear, bucolic day. Where the landscape was concerned, she liked her new home. If Thomas would only behave normally! What did he enjoy so much about torturing and humiliating her? Perhaps there was some kind of fear driving his behavior. She considered trying to speak to him again, to make her point of view clear. If he could only bring himself to confide in her! Here in the sunshine—far from the gloomy apartments she had come to view as a nightmare, and after three days of freedom without Thomas—her situation no longer felt as hopeless.

Filled with renewed optimism, she climbed back onto Khan. She knew that she should start riding back to Lionel Station, but she gave
in to the temptation to explore one more bend of the river, just to see what lay behind it. She told herself that she had been going almost entirely uphill, so she would make considerably faster progress on the return downhill. The river now lay far below her in a canyon. It looked as though someone had split the landscape with a knife and then poured water in the gouge. Elaine took in the spectacular view with delight, laughing at Callie who was standing on the ledge and peering down curiously at the river. She wondered where the McKenzie Highlands began and where the famous pass was, through which her grandfather had herded the sheep and where he had kept himself hidden from every pursuer’s eyes for so long.