White Feathers (40 page)

‘It’s about you and Keely getting married. Andrew and I are delighted of course that you will be joining our family, but there are one or two things that I would like to clarify before that happens, at least in my own mind.’

Owen remained politely silent.

‘I’ll be direct with you, Owen. I’m aware that, well, no, let me rephrase that. I
suspect
that had Keely not found herself in the situation, or condition rather, in which she
has
found herself, you would not have offered to marry her.’

She waited for Owen’s response but as he seemed happy to remain annoyingly close-mouthed, she resorted to being even more direct.

‘Would you have asked her? Eventually?’

Owen pushed his hat further back on his brow and reached down to pluck a leaf off his boot, which he proceeded to examine intensely. He didn’t want to offend Tamar, but neither did he want to be dishonest. He suspected that of all the Murdochs, Tamar was the one least likely to accept half-truths of any kind.

‘No,’ he finally admitted in his deep, measured voice, ‘I’m not sure I would have. In fact, I’d have to say it would have been highly unlikely.’

Tamar felt irrationally disappointed. Wouldn’t this all be so much easier if it turned out that Owen had secretly been in love with Keely from afar from the moment he met her? But all she could say was, ‘Oh. Well.’

Owen felt terrible. ‘I’m sorry if you had hoped for something else.’

‘Well, yes, perhaps I had,’ Tamar admitted, adding briskly, ‘I suppose then that there’s no point in asking you whether you love her?’

Owen flicked his leaf away and considered his future mother-in-law.

‘Yes, there is a point in asking, and no, I wouldn’t say love, not at this point, but I think I could love her, in time. If she’ll let me.’

Tamar looked into his pleasant, open face: he was speaking the truth.

‘Are you saying …’

‘I’m saying that your daughter is the most contrary, bad-tempered, rude and infuriating woman I’ve ever met. And she fascinates the hell out of me. And no, I probably wouldn’t have asked her to marry me had she not become pregnant, simply because, more than likely, she would have refused me. But the situation has changed — she needs a husband, I want to be a father to my child, and both you and Mr Murdoch, I believe, approve of the match.’

‘Yes, we do. Andrew thanks God you did offer.’

‘And you don’t?’

‘I don’t thank God for anything any more.’

‘That’s not what I mean.’

‘No, I realise that. Of course I’m pleased, and I think Keely could have done a lot worse for herself, pregnant or not. I believe you’ll make her a fine husband.’ Tamar paused briefly and rubbed at a speck of dirt on the knee of her trousers. ‘If you can stay the course. Keely is rather, well, you know how she is.’

‘Yes, I do. She’s frightened, and she’s got lost somewhere along the line. I hope she’ll let me help her find her feet again. Well, me and the baby.’

But Tamar was still worried about Keely, who didn’t seem to be taking the idea of marriage seriously at all. When Tamar asked her why she had accepted Owen’s proposal, she replied that it saved having to change the monogram on her luggage.

‘What
are
you talking about?’ Tamar was perplexed.

‘The set of luggage you and Da gave me for Christmas a couple of years ago, before we went over seas; well, it has KM on it. When Owen and I get married, my surname will still start with M, so I won’t have to have it altered.’

Tamar was hard-pressed not to whip out a hand and slap her daughter.

‘Keely, this isn’t about
luggage
! This is about your life, Owen’s life, and a
child’s
life. The one you and Owen made
together
, remember? You can’t just ignore that.’

Keely looked at her mother with something approaching despair.

‘No, I know that, Mam, but it all just seems so, I don’t know, so
unreal
, somehow. It was bad enough before, when it was just me, but I’ll be someone’s mother soon! And by next week I’ll be a wife. It scares me, Mam, it
scares
me!’

Tamar nodded. ‘I understand that, love, but really, what’s the alternative? Raising the child on your own? It’s hard enough bringing up children when there are two parents. Although I’ve loved every minute of raising you and your brothers, I can’t say it’s been easy. And it would wreck your chances of marrying in the future, you must see that.’

‘You married after you had an illegitimate child.’

‘Yes, but no one knew about Joseph.’

‘Da did.’

Tamar sighed in exasperation. ‘I doubt there are many men out there as big-hearted and as understanding as your father. And Joseph wasn’t public knowledge.’

‘He was eventually, though.’

‘Yes, and we soon found out who our friends were then.’

‘I don’t remember that.’

‘Keely, stop being so deliberately obtuse! You weren’t even born at the time. Look, Owen is a good man, surely you appreciate that?’

‘Yes, he is. And he’s not bad-looking, and he’s clever and all those other things “good catches” are supposed to be.’

‘Yes, so what’s so bad about marrying him, especially given your predicament?’

‘But Mam, I don’t
love
him.’

‘Perhaps not at the moment, but you might, given time.’

‘And I might not, too. What then? Surely you don’t want me stuck in a loveless, unhappy marriage for the rest of my life?’

‘Of course I don’t, but I really don’t think you have a lot of choice in the matter. And if things go well for you, you might eventually find marriage to Owen Morgan far from loveless.’

Keely rested her hands on her stomach and closed her eyes for a moment. Then she opened them again and said wearily, ‘Yes, I know you’re right. It’s just not the way I thought things would turn out, that’s all. Owen’s a good man, I know that, but he’s not, well, he’s not the man I wanted.’

Tamar felt a rush of sympathy for her daughter. She moved over and gathered her to her breast.

‘My darling, Ross McManus belongs in another part of your life, a part that’s over and done with. I understand how you feel, believe me, I really do, but you have to let him go.’

Keely nodded, her face cool against the silk of Tamar’s blouse. ‘But it’s so hard, Mam.’

‘I know, sweetheart, I know.’

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-ONE

November 1918

T
he final visitor to Kenmore in 1918 arrived silently and unannounced, and at first no one even noticed.

Keely and Owen had been married for almost four weeks, and had taken up residence in one of the larger bedrooms upstairs. Both Erin and Keely were faring well with their pregnancies, although Erin was having a tougher time with morning sickness. Not that she complained to anyone, but she was often pale and needed a rest by lunch time. Jeannie and Tamar both assured her that the nausea would pass very soon, and Erin had to admit that she wouldn’t be at all displeased when it had. It was rather irritating, having to lie down in the middle of the day, as there were plenty of other things she would much rather be doing, such as sewing for the new babies and decorating the room she and Joseph had designated as the nursery.

She also cooked for Joseph, of course, although there were occasions when he had to feed himself if she wasn’t feeling up to handling raw meat or anything similarly stomach-turning. It made her feel guilty, although he insisted he was more than happy to prepare food for both of them, despite the joking accusations of unmanliness from the visiting shearing gang.

Keely, on the other hand, didn’t appear to be lifting a finger in terms of housework, although Mrs Heath did a lot of it any way. Owen was not comfortable living in the big house, but the idea of Keely relocating to one of the shearers’ cottages was absurd.

Keely did, however, seem to have found a certain, rather unexpected contentment in being pregnant. It certainly suited her; her face had filled out and she had colour in her cheeks at last, she was sleeping extremely well and seemed much calmer within herself than she had for a long time, for which everyone was very grateful. And, at only four months, her belly was already a very full, round bump. Erin had a belly too, of course, but it wasn’t nearly as obvious as her cousin’s. Tamar had a sneaking suspicion and a subsequent desire to ask Owen whether there were twins in his family, but decided to put that possibility aside; the idea of one baby was probably enough for Keely at the moment.

On the 8th of November, Tamar was in the garden cutting flowers after lunch when the tranquillity of the early summer day was shattered by the sound of a truck back-firing noisily up the dusty driveway, and a cacophony of horn-blowing and cheering from what appeared to be a group of larrikins hanging precariously off the back. The dry crunch as the truck skidded to a halt in the gravel was followed almost immediately by a fevered knocking on the front door, and Tamar hurried inside to see what on earth the fuss was about. Andrew was already in the hall, trying simultaneously to calm Mrs Heath, whose feathers were severely ruffled by such improper behaviour, while also attempting to get some sense out of the revellers, who were all shouting at once on the front porch.

Suddenly, his face lit up as he realised what they were saying.

He turned to Tamar and exclaimed with utter delight, ‘The war! It’s over! They’ve signed an armistice in France!’ He snatched a copy of the
New Zealand Herald
out of the hands of a man with a
Union Jack tucked jauntily into his hatband, and waved it at her. ‘It’s in this morning’s paper! Just think, we might not have known until our mail arrived!’

Tamar immediately felt a knee-wobbling sense of relief that Thomas would finally be home soon, and a fresh and painful reminder that Ian never would.

But she pushed that thought away and exclaimed, ‘Really! How absolutely
wonderful
!’ and took the paper from Andrew, who was grinning like an idiot.

‘I must go down and tell the boys,’ he said, and hurried off.

He must have run across to the shearing shed as barely five minutes later Tamar heard the faint but unmistakably jubilant shouts of the shearing gang, the motley but efficient crew of men, boys and a handful of not too badly disabled returned veterans. Andrew declared the rest of the afternoon a holiday, and a small convoy of trucks was soon heading through the gate to join the celebrations in town. Andrew didn’t accompany them, grateful instead just to sit quietly with Tamar. Owen and Joseph stayed home too, but James joined the crowds in Napier.

When he arrived back that night, very late and rather the worse for wear, he entertained everyone with stories of constantly shrieking sirens and pealing school bells, Union Jacks run up every flagpole, vehicles decked out with bunting, children marching about banging tin cans and making the most of the opportunity to create as much noise as possible, ecstatic crowds dancing and singing in the streets, and strangers tossing formality aside and shaking hands and embracing.

The Kenmore household stayed up late that night, and no one started work until the extraordinarily late hour of ten o’clock the following morning. But then came the disappointing news that yesterday’s celebrations had been premature: although the war was almost certainly coming to an end, an armistice had not in
fact been signed yet. Apparently England and France, except for the town of Brest where the rumour of armistice had originated, had not begun to celebrate and were waiting instead for the official hour of ceasefire, which was to be at 11 a.m. on the 11th of November.

But only days later, jubilation at the end of the war ended abruptly as news began to spread of an influenza epidemic that was sweeping New Zealand at a horrifying rate. Everyone at Kenmore was shocked by the increasing newspaper reports of flu deaths in the cities, and as close as Napier, and terrified that the illness would reach them. They hoped, though, that they would be safe because of their distance from town. No more visitors were allowed at the station. They had enough basic food and other supplies to last them for months if necessary, even for the shearers who had been stranded at Kenmore when Andrew closed the gates, a well-stocked vegetable garden, their own water supply, and plenty to do without having to go off the station. They thought they were safe.

That was, at least, until Andrew began to cough on the evening of the second Thursday in November, and couldn’t stop.

15 November, 1918

He wasn’t the only one. By the following morning, four of the shearers had reported sick, and neither Lucy nor James could get out of bed: their limbs and heads ached and they had high fevers and racking coughs. Duncan was fine, but annoyed that his parents would not get up and play with him. Eventually Tamar removed him from the bedroom and sent him off with Liam to ‘help’ Mrs Heath with some baking.

Tamar was very worried, particularly about Andrew, who looked really very ill. His face had gone completely grey, except for two
flaming red spots high on his cheeks, his skin was burning and he was sweating profusely. He said his head hurt, and whenever he tried to speak it took him some time to get his breath. Erin and Keely had conferred and then administered an infusion of supplejack for the fever, a dose of Bonnington’s and a liniment of camphor to his chest to assist breathing. None of this helped, however, and by late that afternoon Andrew’s condition was clearly worsening.

During the day Erin and Keely had gone down to the shearers’ cottages to help there, much to the consternation of everyone else, particularly Joseph and Owen, who were both terrified that their pregnant wives would get sick themselves. Erin and Joseph had the first real argument of their marriage, which ended in Erin walking resolutely out of the back door of the big house with a bag of medical supplies under her arm and a very determined look on her face. Owen, who had learnt some time ago that Keely did whatever she pleased regardless of what anyone else thought, simply let her go. Any way, he privately suspected that the virus was already rife at Kenmore.