It was a blessing to be so busy and the familiar pattern of the station homestead provided a kind of solace to Geraldine. It was safe, known, requiring no thought to let her slip easily into the to and fro of constant toil—and there lay the rub. Her mind was not distracted, could not escape from the one image that dogged her all day and far into the night. Bas riding off, back as straight as if on a hunt field, slowly disappearing into the haze of dust. She had kept careful watch over each departing footfall of his horse.
Never once had he turned to look back.
The early morning found her lying sleepless in her bed, sightless eyes in the dusk staring into the future. It was bereft of light. For a long while she lay there, slowly recounting the tale of their time together. From that first fantastical meeting, through the adventures in the hills, to the drudgery of his saloon and the magic of the Christmas night. There had been sad times, fraught times, times when the tension lying between them could almost be seen. But then there were also those moments of astonishing joy. Delights she must now live without forever. Somehow she must dredge up from painful depths the will to endure it. To do otherwise was unthinkable. Neither her own pride nor the laughing image of Bas Deverill in her head would let her.
It was pride alone that got her through the next day, and the one after that, and then all those ones that still came after that. Three weeks later, and it was stretched ragged. The Smiths were kind, remembering, they said, the early days of their own marriage, when to be apart had been a sore trial. “But your good man will be back soon,” they would say, with knowing smiles on their faces.
After a few more days of such kindness, she knew she must leave. To follow Bas was a choice barred to her and she knew her Aunt Shonagh well enough to anticipate the dismay with which that good woman would greet her arrival.
She had only one choice; her father’s home. Having made her decision, she lost no time in acquainting the Smiths with her decision.
“Mr Deverill told me that if he could not conclude his business within three weeks, it would likely take quite a time longer. We agreed, therefore, that I should go on to my father’s house. I certainly cannot impose myself upon your hospitality any longer.”
“But this is your home,” cried Esme. “You grew up here. It is the land of your father and your dear departed mother. You cannot impose on us in a place that is yours by right. Far more so than that great house your new Mama got your father to build down on those flat plains of Canterbury. You’re so far from the hills there!”
Her husband shushed her, looking at Geraldine’s face in that quiet scrutiny of his that she had learnt concealed a wealth of wisdom. Robert Smith was a man of few words, but those he did speak were worth the listening.
“I had thought you and your man might settle here.” He pulled out his pipe, slowly poking a matchstick into the glowing embers then replacing it and taking a long draw. He reached up to take it from his mouth again. “Old Tom is leaving in the morning to pick up some supplies from the port in Timaru. I’ll send the cadets with him and they can take you safely up to your father’s new house. I need to send him copies of the latest tallies anyway.”
She knew better than to argue or feel any guilt that she would be depriving the station of hands at a time when all were needed. Robert Smith had said they would go, and no more was to be said on the matter.
Chapter 13
The New Place. Her father had lived here five years now and the official name was Strathdene, but it was still known simply as ‘The New Place’. After his second marriage, her stepmother had lasted just a year at Loch Máire. It was too isolated, too primitive, she said. He was a wealthy man and must fill the position that was demanded of him in the new colony. Yet how could they do that marooned so far from the society whose company she craved? With the birth of a son less than a year after the marriage, her father could deny the mother of his heir nothing.
Geraldine had watched in bewilderment as the strong father of her childhood had become first a shattered phantom after her mother’s early death, then the compliant appendage of this woman who seemed so much the opposite of all her mother had been. She looked hard for it, but never did Geraldine see the sudden kindling in his eyes when he looked at her step-mama that had been there whenever her mother walked into the room. Instead, there was the studied ritual of marriage, the outward display of a proper husband and wife. Only when either looked into the face of her little half-brother did she see any of the emotion that her early childhood had led her to expect in a family.
Caught up in her newly burgeoning womanhood, Geraldine could only dimly guess it was fear of loneliness that drove her father. All she knew was that suddenly she did not seem to belong to him and that, within months of the birth of her brother, they must leave the home and the countryside she loved to move to this flat land far from the mountains within a mere matter of hours’ ride from the growing town of Christchurch. In a matter of weeks, her step-mama had miraculously recovered from the rigours of birth and removal and was planning their entrée to the select society of Canterbury runholders. They were soon plunged into a round of soirees, balls and other entertainments. The only gains that Geraldine could see were the easing of the lines on her father’s face as his wife at last found satisfaction, and her own enchantment, she must admit, with her little brother. He had seemed to inherit only the best of both parents, and brother and sister had fallen under a mutual spell within minutes of the baby’s opening his eyes.
She had last seen him over a year ago, on her last visit home, and he would probably have forgotten her.
“Gerry, Gerry!” A small boy was hurtling down the steps of the big house even as the wagon drew to a lumbering halt, and was already swarming up the side even as Old Tom looped the reins about the front brake. A flailing bundle of arms and legs flung themselves into Geraldine’s lap and it was some minutes before she got her breath back enough to speak.
“James Edward MacKenny. What do you think you are doing?” she laughed.
The grin on the face of the wee urchin was almost as wide as the one on her face and her arms locked convulsively about the small body.
“James! That is quite enough of such behaviour.” The sharp voice came from the large front porch. Geraldine clung tightly to the little body as she looked up to the top of the wide porch steps.
“Hello, Step-mama.”
The pale-haired woman standing there straightened, her little bud-like mouth screwing into an unattractive pout. Slowly Geraldine released her little brother’s arms and climbed down from the high seat of the wagon. She turned back to thank Old Tom warmly and took the single bag he passed her. She placed the bag carefully by her feet, then reached up for James, swinging him down with a kiss to his unruly mop before turning back to face the house, her brother’s little hand firmly clasped in hers as together they mounted the steps. The other woman said not a word.
Geraldine was on the last step. The woman had still not moved, blocking the head of the stairs, and Geraldine was forced to come to a halt. For once, she must look up at her stepmother. The woman’s faded, china blue eyes scanned her, from her scuffed workboots up the workmanlike gown to her sun-kissed face and the tousled strands of hair sticking out from the serviceable bonnet.
“Geraldine. You have seen fit to discover yourself to us again, then.”
The excited voice of her little brother saved her from replying. “Gerry’s back, Mama. She’s come home again. Won’t Papa be pleased? And she’s going to stay here this time, forever and ever. Aren’t you, Gerry?” The little hand was pumping hers up and down.
She couldn’t help but smile down at the small face, a junior image of her father’s but with a sweetness that must have been his mother’s before the petulant droop took hold of her face.
“Perhaps, James. It depends.”
“On what?” he immediately wanted to know.
“On many things,” she replied.
“That will be enough, James. I’m sure y
our sister is very tired after her journey and will want to change and freshen up before appearing in the drawing room.”
Geraldine suppressed a small smile and leaned down to kiss her brother’s cheek, promising to see him later. She watched him run off, then decided it was time to end this charade of her stepmother’s. She set one foot up the step and onto the top of the porch, forcing the other woman to move back or face an ignominious jostle for position. It was an old and tired game she must play with the second Mrs MacKenny, once simply known as Miss Sophie Fleming. On almost their first meeting, the woman had tried to adopt the role of mother to the girl she obviously viewed as wild and unmannered.
“The poor child has had no chance to know better,” she had once heard her new Mama remark to one of their acquaintances. Unfortunately, the other woman had known Geraldine’s mother well, and was only too aware that by birth and education, Máire MacKenny had far surpassed little Miss Sophie Fleming. Geraldine did not think her stepmother had ever forgiven the curt set-down that had resulted, and which in some mysterious fashion was Geraldine’s fault.
“Am I still in the same room?”
Her stepmother looked even crosser. “Of course. As if your father would let it be altered.”
“And where is Father?”
“He is busy in the office.”
Geraldine could only nod, reaching down to pick up her bag.
“Leave that. One of the staff will bring it up for you. Please endeavour to remember some of the manners I tried to instil in you.”
As if I could forget, mused Geraldine, but all she said was, “Aunt Shonagh values self-reliance and humility. I have learnt to manage for myself these last months.”
“Yes, well, we can discuss all that when you meet your father,” said her stepmother, flushing an ugly red. “And do try to find something respectable to wear. There are some of your old gowns in your room, though I dare say they are all far too small now.”
“And no longer appropriate.”
That did silence her stepmother, and Geraldine was left in peace to make her way inside and up the stairs, very glad to finally reach the haven of her old room. Firmly, she shut the door and turned to sink on to the bed, shutting her eyes as a sudden wave of despair swept across her. Was this to be her whole life?
Too soon, she must open them and let her gaze travel round the room.
Nothing had changed. From the portrait of her mother over the dresser to her very first sampler, framed by the door, it was all exactly as she had left it.
How long she lay there, she could not tell, but her solitude was finally broken by a soft touch on the door. Hurriedly she scrubbed at her eyes and sat up, straightening her dress.
“Come in.”
A large, red head appeared at the door and a tentatively smiling face advanced into the room.
“Father!”
She was off the bed and flinging herself into the arms that opened wide. In minutes, the tears broke and the firm arms of her childhood were clamped about her in a protective citadel.
It was quite some time before she could lift her head, then slowly draw back.
“Ah, mo cridhe, where have you been to? I was half-frantic with worry when your Aunt Shonagh said you had gone, and Old Tom would only say that you had come from Loch Máire. Is that where you have been hiding?”
She could hear the hope hidden in her father’s voice. Slowly, she drew off the riding gloves she had worn here.
“Not quite,” she said, taking his hands in hers. Her wedding band gleamed on her finger and she felt the weight of it pressing against his fingers. He looked down, startled.
“I went to the goldfields and found myself a husband.”
Years later, she would look back at her younger self and recognise the guilt that coloured her perceptions of that moment. But now, to her eyes, her father’s face aged ten years in front of her. His eyes looked at her and saw more of the truth than she ever wished him to know.
“You arrived alone,” was all he said, but it made her head drop and she would have pulled back her hands if he had not held them so tightly. It was the language he spoke that finally did for her; the soft, Highland Gaelic of her childhood. Her mother knew the Irish, but had never managed to pick up the sounds and differences of the Scottish version brought to Nova Scotia by her father’s people. Her father had taught it to her and it had become their own treasure, the language of the special words of a father and daughter. She could never lie to her father in the Gael, and he knew it. She had not spoken it since his second marriage, but it came back to her tongue with unbidden ease.
“He is a good man,” she said.
“Will he be joining you?”
“He had to leave to attend to unfinished business. He said he would return.”
“But you did not believe him?”
“No.”
He was quiet for long minutes and she could feel him studying her face. Then his hands softened in their clasp on hers and he led her to the small fireside chair, taking the larger one opposite for himself as on so many evenings of her childhood past.
“It seems you had better tell me the rest,” he said drily, and suddenly she knew it would be alright.
At first it came slowly. Then words began tumbling over words. The whole sorry story came out and the more she said, the more she wondered what had come over her. Yet even as she thought that, the memory of a man’s smile and a man’s lithe body lifting her effortlessly returned and she knew she regretted none of it.
Then it was ended and father and daughter fell silent. Her father had leaned back in his chair, gazing at the empty fireplace.
“So this man gave you his name to protect your honour?” One eyebrow had lifted in ironical query.
She nodded.
“A worthy notion.”
“It was at Sergeant Braddock’s prompting, and he is not a man you argue with.”
“Still, it is a legal matter and can be undone. Not easily, I admit, but I do know of someone in town who could assist us to deal with it discreetly.”
“It is not just a legal matter, Father.” A hot blush suffused her cheeks and her hands clung tightly together. “The marriage was a true one, under the law, and complete in all regards.”
“Oh.”
She had been staring into the fireplace also, but now she lifted her eyes and looked at the picture of her mother before turning to look straight into her father’s eyes. “As Mam was the one for you, Bas is for me,” she said.
“Hmmph. That’s as may be, but does he feel the same about you?”
A lopsided grin came unbidden to her face. “A gauche, naïve colonial Miss. I doubt it.”
She expected some sort of reply, but in the event her father said nothing. He merely looked her over, no doubt seeing the straggled hair, the untidy bonnet, the work-soiled hands and the plain gown, but he did not appear dissatisfied with what he saw. He merely patted her hand and suggested she rest and change her gown, sounding just like her stepmother. Then he rose, switching back to English.
“We’ll see you at dinner then.”
But as he left, he turned back at the doorway and added softly in Gaelic, “Bide a while, lassie. Let’s see what may come.”
When he had gone, she sat for a long time, not thinking, just remembering his smile and his words. Finally, a ghost of a smile traced her lips and she gave a short nod. She would follow her father’s counsel and wait for what might come.
As the weeks grew to months and never did he bring up the subject again, she sometimes wondered if she had imagined her father’s last words that day. She was addressed now as Mrs Deverill by the staff, but it was the only acknowledgement of her changed status. Yet again she was no more than the daughter of the house, the unwanted reminder to her stepmother of a warmer and more loving first marriage.
Only with her baby brother could she relax. He was unashamedly overjoyed to have her home and in no time at all, he had again woven the spell round her heart that he h
ad as a tiny baby. Even this her stepmother resented, but with Bas’s words echoing in her ears, she at last recognised the jealous grief that lay at its root and could bear the woman’s gibes more easily. With a newfound maturity, she also saw the pain their constant battles caused her father. She had always known that he loved his wee son as much as did she did and had felt glad of this one joy granted them both. But now she also saw the guilt he felt at his treatment of her, which was ever warring in him with a desperate fear of the loneliness that had beset him after her mother’s death. He could not face a return to that and was prepared to put up with much from his new wife to avoid it. How could she, enmeshed in the pain of a similar loss, begrudge her father his stab at happiness?
Over time, she made a place for herself in her father’s new home. There was no room for her within the workings of the house. Her stepmother may not be of an enquiring mind, but she ran the large house with a smooth efficiency that Geraldine could only marvel at. Beyond the pales of her house and garden, however, held no interest for Sophie, nor did the growing curiosities of a lively young boy. Geraldine gratefully stepped into the breach, taking over the lessons of her young brother and introducing him to the excitements of station life. By necessity, she had become a skilled stockwoman in the more primitive times of her childhood, when all and any hands were required to help out at times, and now by chaperoning her brother she could enter again without comment into the world of sheep and men that she loved. With her father and brother, she rode out to rediscover this new station that she had not seen since she had gone away to her aunt’s.
It was tamer, more civilised than her beloved home run of the inland Waitaki country, but there still remained here some of the native grasslands of her childhood, though they were rapidly being replaced in the pioneering cycle of burning and reseeding with English grasses to let them raise more sheep. The practical side of her agreed with the changes and welcomed the challenge of creating a new farm in these flat Canterbury grasslands, but a part yet mourned the loss of the plants she had grown up with and she was glad to hear of her father’s determination to keep some of the back paddocks unchanged.
Swift Runs The Heart Page 19
