In the Land of the Long White Cloud (71 page)

“Good evening, Grandfather, good evening, Mummy! I’m an itty bit late today because I was an itty bit wrong about how much time it would take to…uh, to…”

Stupid that she couldn’t think of an excuse off the top of her head. She could not possibly say she had spent the day herding Howard O’Keefe’s sheep.

“To help your beau hunt down his sheep?” Paul asked with a sardonic expression on his face.

Gwyneira blew up. “Paul, what is that supposed to mean? Do you always have to tease your sister?”

“Did you or didn’t you?” Paul asked insolently.

Fleurette blushed. “I…”

“With whom were you hunting down sheep?” Gerald inquired. He was pretty drunk. He might not have made a scene but something about what Paul said had caught his attention.

“With…um, with Ruben. A few rams had gotten away from him and Mrs. O’Keefe and…”

“From him and that nice father of his, you mean to say,” Gerald scoffed. “How typical of old Howard to be too stupid or too tightfisted to pen up his animals. And that dandy has to ask a girl to help him herd them.”

The old man laughed.

Paul frowned. This wasn’t going as planned.

“Fleur does it with Ruben!” burst out of him, earning a few initial seconds of stunned silence.

Gwyneira was the first to react. “Paul, where do you learn these expressions! You will excuse yourself this instant and—”

“Wai…wait a moment!” Gerald interrupted her in an unsteady but loud voice. “Wha…what is the boy saying? She’s…doing it…with the O’Keefe boy?”

Gwyneira hoped that Fleurette would simply deny it, but she only needed to look at the girl to see that Paul’s malicious assertion had at least some truth to it.

“It’s not what you think, Grandfather!” Fleur said, trying to reassure herself. “We…well, we…uh, don’t do it with each other, of course. We…”

“Oh, no? What
do
you do, then?” Gerald thundered.

“But I saw it! I saw it!” Paul sang.

Gwyneira ordered him sternly to be silent. “We…we’re in love. We want to get married,” Fleur explained. There. At least she had said it—even though this was hardly the ideal moment for that announcement.

Gwyneira attempted to ameliorate her daughter’s position.

“Fleur, my sweet, you’re not even sixteen. And Ruben’s going off to university next year.”

“You want to do what?” Gerald roared. “Marry? O’Keefe’s brat? Have you completely lost your mind, Fleurette?”

Fleur shrugged. Whatever else may be said of her, she could not be accused of cowardice. “It’s not something you choose, Grandfather. We love each other. That’s how it is, and no one can change it.”

“We’ll just see if it can’t be changed!” Gerald sprang up. “You are not to ever see that boy again. No more school—I’ve been wondering what that O’Keefe woman has left to teach you anyway. I’m going to ride to Haldon and settle things with O’Keefe right now. Witi! Bring my gun!”

“Gerald, you’re overreacting,” Gwyneira said, trying to remain calm. Perhaps she could convince Gerald to give up the crazy idea of going after Ruben—or Howard—before he did anything rash. “The girl isn’t even sixteen and is in love for the first time. No one’s even talking about a wedding.”

“That girl is set to inherit a portion of Kiward Station, Gwyneira!
Of course
old O’Keefe’s thinking of marriage. But I’ll clear that up once and for all. You lock up the girl. This instant! She doesn’t need anything more to eat. She should fast and think about her sins.” Gerald reached for his gun, which a terrified Witi had brought, and slipped into a waxed jacket. Then he stormed out.

Fleurette moved to follow him. “I have to go warn Ruben!” she exclaimed.

Gwyneira shook her head. “Where do you expect to find a horse? All the riding horses are in the stables, and I won’t let you take one of the ponies into the wild without a saddle…no, you’d break your neck and the horse’s too. Gerald would overtake you anyway. Let the boys sort it out for themselves. I’m sure no one will get hurt. If he
runs into Mr. O’Keefe, they’ll yell at each other, maybe break each other’s noses…”

“And if he runs into Ruben?” Fleur asked, turning pale.

“Then he’ll kill him!” Paul rejoiced.

That was a mistake. Now mother and daughter turned on him.

“You snitching little bastard!” Fleurette yelled. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done, you nasty rat? If Ruben is killed, then…”

“Fleurette, calm down. Your friend will survive just fine,” Gwyneira soothed her with greater conviction than she really possessed. She knew Gerald’s explosive temper, and he was once more three sheets to the wind. However, Ruben’s even-keeled nature gave her hope. Helen’s son was not about to be provoked. “And you, Paul, go to your room this instant. I don’t want to see you in the dining room again until the day after tomorrow at the soonest. You’re under house arrest.”

“Fleur is too, Fleur is too!” Paul would not let it go.

“That’s something very different, Paul,” Gwyneira said sternly, and once again she had trouble finding even a spark of sympathy for the child she had given birth to. “Grandfather is punishing Fleur because he thinks she’s fallen in love with the wrong boy. But I’m punishing you because you’re rotten, because you spy on people and tattle—and enjoy it too! No gentleman behaves that way, Paul Warden. Only a monster behaves that way.” Gwyneira knew the moment she said it that Paul would never forgive her for that word. But she had reached her breaking point. She felt only hatred for this child who had been forced on her, who had ultimately been the cause of Lucas’s death, and who was now doing his utmost to destroy Fleur’s life too and to upset the very core of Helen’s tenuous family harmony.

Paul looked at his mother, pale as a corpse, and saw the chasms in her eyes. This was no fit of anger like Fleurette’s; Gwyneira seemed to mean what she was saying. Paul began to sob, even though he had decided more than a year before to be a man and not to cry anymore.

“What’s taking you so long? Go!” Gwyneira hated herself for her words, but she could not hold them in. “Go to your room!”

Paul stormed out. Fleurette looked at her mother, stunned.

“That was harsh,” she remarked soberly.

Gwyneira reached with trembling fingers for her wineglass, then had another idea, and went to the wall cupboard, where she poured herself a brandy. “You too, Fleurette? I think we both need something to calm our nerves. We can only wait. Gerald will come back eventually, of course, if he doesn’t fall off his horse and break his neck somewhere along the way.”

She gulped the brandy down.

“And as for Paul…I’m sorry.”

Gerald Warden crossed the wilds as though possessed. His anger at young Ruben O’Keefe raged within him. Until that night, he had never seen Fleurette as a woman. She had always been a child to him, Gwyneira’s little daughter, sweet but of little interest. But the little girl had blossomed; now she threw her head back just as proudly as seventeen-year-old Gwyneira had back then, and she talked back with just as much self-confidence. And Ruben, that little shit, had dared to get close to her. A Warden! His property.

Gerald calmed down somewhat when he arrived at the O’Keefes’ farm and compared their shabby barns, stables, and house with his own. Howard could not possibly think that his granddaughter would ever want to marry into this.

He could see a light burning in the house’s windows. Howard’s horse and mule stood in the paddock in front of the house. So that bastard was at home. And his backsliding son too, for Gerald now saw three silhouettes at the table inside the hut. He carelessly threw his reins around a fence post and took his gun out of its case. A dog started barking as he approached the house, but no one inside reacted.

Gerald flung the door open. As expected, he saw Howard, Helen, and their son at the table where the evening stew had just been served. All three of them stared at the door in shock, too surprised to react. Using the advantage of surprise, Gerald stormed into the house and knocked over the table as he leaped on Ruben.

“Cards on the table, boy! What did you do to my granddaughter?”

Ruben wrenched in his grip. “Mr. Warden…can’t we talk…with each other like reasonable people?”

Gerald saw red. His own unfilial son would have reacted the same way to such a charge. He punched. His left knocked Ruben halfway across the room. Helen screamed. In the same moment, Howard struck Gerald—although to lesser effect. Howard had just returned from the pub in Haldon and was no longer sober either. Gerald shrugged off Howard’s blow without any trouble and turned his attention to Ruben again, who was picking himself up off the ground with a bloody nose.

“Mr. Warden, please…”

Howard put Gerald in a headlock before he could attack his son again.

“All right, fine. Let’s talk like reasonable people,” Howard hissed. “What’s going on to make you barge in here, Warden, laying into my son?”

Gerald tried to turn around to look at him. “Your damned shit of a son seduced my granddaughter.
That’s
what’s going on!”

“You did
what
?” Howard released Gerald and turned to Ruben. “Tell me here and now that isn’t true.”

Ruben’s face spoke volumes, just as Fleur’s had.

“Of course I didn’t seduce her,” he said, which was true. “It’s just…”

“Just what? You just took a bit of her virginity?” Gerald thundered.

Ruben was pale as a ghost. “I have to ask you not to talk about Fleur in that manner,” he said evenly but firmly. “Mr. Warden, I love your granddaughter. I’m going to marry her.”

“You’re going to do what?” Howard boomed. “I can just see the little witch turning your head.”

“Under no circumstances will you marry Fleurette, you little fucker!” Gerald raged.

“Mr. Warden! Perhaps we could find a way to express ourselves less crudely,” Helen said in an effort to calm him.

“I will marry Fleurette no matter what, regardless of what either of you has to say about it.” Ruben spoke calmly and full of conviction.

Howard seized his son and held him by his shirt just as Gerald had done. “You’ll shut your mouth, boy! And you, Warden, get out
of here. Now. And you keep a grip on that little whore of a granddaughter. I don’t want to see her around here anymore, understand? Make that clear to her or I’ll do it myself, and then she won’t be seducing anyone.”

“Fleurette is not—”

“Mr. Warden!” Helen positioned herself between the two men. “Please go. Howard doesn’t mean it. And as for Ruben…all of us here have the greatest respect for Fleurette. The children have perhaps exchanged a few kisses, but—”

“You’ll never touch Fleurette again!” Gerald moved to strike Ruben again, but the boy hung so helplessly in his father’s viselike grip that he desisted.

“He won’t touch her again; I promise you that. And now out! I’ll sort it out with him, Warden; you can count on it.”

Helen suddenly did not know whether she really wanted Gerald to go. Howard’s voice sounded so threatening that she seriously feared for Ruben’s safety. Howard had already been angry before Gerald appeared. He’d had to herd the young rams together again when he came home because Helen and Ruben’s attempt at restoring the fence had not checked the animals’ desire for freedom. Howard had been able to herd the rams back into the pen before they fled back into the highlands, but this additional task had not improved his mood. Gerald cast a murderous glance at Ruben as he left the hut.

“So you’ve been doing it with the little Warden girl,” Howard established. “And you’ve got big plans, is that right? Just met Greenwood’s Maori boy at the pub, and he
congratulated
me that the university in Dunedin wants to take you on. For law school! Oh, you hadn’t heard? Letters like that you have sent to your dear Uncle George! But I’ll beat that out of you now, my boy! Be sure to count along, Ruben O’Keefe; you’ve certainly learned that much. And law, that’s the study of justice, right? Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. That’s the justice we’ll be studying now. This here is for the sheep!”

He struck Ruben a blow. “And this here is for the girl!” A hard right. “This is for Uncle George!” A hard left. Ruben fell to the floor.

“For law school!” Howard kicked him in the ribs. Ruben let out a moan.

“And for thinking you’re better than me!” Another brutal kick, this time in the kidneys. Ruben curled up. Helen tried to pull Howard away.

“And this here is for you because you always take the little shit’s side!” Howard landed his next blow on Helen’s upper lip. She fell, but still tried to protect her son.

Howard seemed to be coming to his senses. The blood on Helen’s face sobered him up.

“You two aren’t worth it…you…” he stammered and teetered over to the cupboard in the kitchen where Helen kept the whiskey. The good kind, not the cheap stuff. She liked to keep it on hand for guests; George Greenwood often needed a drink when he was done with Howard. Howard took several long gulps before putting it back. Yet when he moved to close the cupboard, he changed his mind and took it with him.

“I’m sleeping in the stables,” he announced. “I can’t look at you anymore.”

Helen sighed with relief when he disappeared outside.