In the Land of the Long White Cloud

whose best years were far behind him. He saw the well in the yard—apparently, Helen still had to carry her water into the house by bucket—and the chopping block for the firewood. Did the master of the house see to the supply himself? Or did Helen have to reach for the ax herself if she wanted to keep warm?
    “Come, the school is on the other side,” Gwyneira said, tearing George from his thoughts and already moving behind the blockhouse. “We have to go through the bush a ways. The Maori built a few huts in the copse between Helen’s house and their own village. But you can’t see them from the house—Howard doesn’t like to have the children too close by. He doesn’t like the idea of the school to begin with; he’d prefer to have more help around the farm. But in the end it’s better this way. If Howard needs somebody desperately, Helen sends one of the older boys. They much prefer that sort of work.”
    George could picture that. He could even manage to picture Helen doing housework. But Helen castrating lambs or helping with a cow’s birth? Not in this lifetime.
    The path to the grove was well worn, but even here George could see signs of the farm’s lamentable condition. A few of the rams and ewes stood in pens, but the animals were in terrible shape—thin, their wool patchy and dirty. The fences looked worn down, the wire was poorly laid, and the gates were at sharp angles. There was no comparison with the Beasleys’ farm or Kiward Station. Taken all together, it was beyond bleak.
    Still, children’s laughter could be heard from the grove. The tone there seemed to be happy.
    “In the beginning,” a high voice read in a funny accent, “God created the heavens and the earth,
rangi
and
papa
.”
    Gwyneira smiled at George. “Helen is wrestling with the Maori version of the creation story again,” she remarked. “It’s rather colorful, but now the children always present it this way so that Helen no longer blushes.”
    While one student talked explicitly and with obvious pleasure about the love-hungry Maori gods, George peered through the brush at the open huts covered with palm branches. The children sat on the ground, listening to the little girl read aloud about the first days of creation. Then it was the next child’s turn. And then George saw Helen. She sat, upright and slender, at an improvised lectern at the edge of the scene, just as he remembered her. Her dress was threadbare but clean and high necked—at least from this angle she was every inch the proper, self-assured governess he remembered. His heart beat wildly as she now called another student to the front, turning her face in George’s direction as she did so. Helen…to George she was still beautiful, and she always would be, regardless of how she changed or how much older she looked. This last notion frightened him though. Helen Davenport O’Keefe had aged markedly in the last few years. The sun that had bronzed her once carefully maintained white skin had not been kind, and her once slender face now looked sharper, almost haggard. Her hair, however, remained the same shining chestnut color as before. She wore it in a long, thick braid that fell down her back. A few strands had freed themselves, and Helen brushed them carelessly out of her face as she joked with the students—more than she had with William and himself, George noted jealously. Helen appeared overall more flexible than before, and the interaction with the Maori children seemed to delight her. And her little Master Ruben was obviously good for her as well. Ruben and Fleurette were just sneaking in. They arrived late to class, hoping that Helen wouldn’t notice. Of course she did. Helen interrupted class after the third day of creation.
    “Fleurette Warden. So lovely to see you. But don’t you think a lady should say a polite hello when she takes her seat at a gathering? And you, Ruben O’Keefe—are you feeling ill? If not, why is your face so green? Run to the well quickly and wash up so you look like a gentleman. Where is your mother, Fleur? Or did you come with Mr. McKenzie again?”
    Fleur attempted to shake her head and nod gravely at the same time. “Mummy is at the farm with Mr.…something Wood,” she letslip. “But I ran here fast because I thought you were reading more of the story. Our story, not the stuff and nonsense with
rangi
and
papa
.”
    Helen rolled her eyes. “Fleur, you should listen to the creation story at every