In the Land of the Long White Cloud

wants to be a gentleman, but under all that genteel affectation hides a rather rough character. Yesterday he beat Mr. Brewster at blackjack. What am I saying—‘beat’—he cooked his goose! The other gentlemen accused him of cheating, and he wanted to challenge Lord Barrington to a duel over it. They might as well have been in any common harbor gin shack! Finally the captain himself had to ask the men to calm down. In reality, Kiward Station is probably a blockhouse, and I’ll have to milk the cows myself.”
    “That would suit you!” Helen laughed, having gotten to know her friend well during their trip. “But don’t fool yourself. You are and will remain a lady, in a cow stall if it comes to it—and that goes for you too, Daphne. Don’t sit about looking slatternly, with your legs spread, just because I’m not looking. You can do Miss Silkham’s hair instead. You can tell by that alone that she misses her maids. Seriously, Gwyn, your hair curls as if someone had taken a curling iron to it. Do you ever comb it?”
    Under Helen’s guidance and with some supplementary advice from Gwyneira on the latest fashions, Dorothy and even Daphne had grown into rather skilled chambermaids. Both were polite and had learned to help a lady dress and do her hair. Sometimes Helen had reservations about sending Daphne up to Gwyneira’s room alone because she didn’ttrust the girl. She thought it entirely possible that Daphne would take advantage of any opportunity for theft. But Gwyneira reassured her.
    “I don’t know if she’s honest, but she’s certainly not dumb. If she steals here, we’d find out. Who else could it be, and where would she hide the stolen goods? As long as she’s here on the ship, I’m quite certain she’ll behave.”
    The third-oldest girl, Elizabeth, proved just as ready to help and was irreproachably honest and loveable. She did not, however, demonstrate an abundance of skill. She preferred reading and writing to working with her hands. As a result, she was a source of anxiety to Helen.
    “She should go back to school and perhaps then to a teaching college,” she remarked to Gwyneira. “She would like that too. She likes children and has a lot of patience. But who would pay for it? And is there even something like that in New Zealand? She’s a hopeless case as a housemaid. When she’s supposed to scrub a floor, she floods half of it and forgets the rest.”
    “Maybe she’d be a good nanny,” Gwyneira considered, ever practical. “I will probably need one soon.”
    Helen reddened at this observation. With regard to her coming nuptials, she only thought reluctantly about childbearing, especially conception. It was one thing to marvel at Howard’s polished writing style and bask in his admiration, but the thought of letting a complete stranger touch her…Helen had only a vague inkling of what transpired between men and women at night, but she anticipated more pain than joy. And here was Gwyneira talking so matter-of-factly about having children. Did she want to talk about it? And did she maybe know more about it than Helen herself did? Helen wondered how she could broach the topic without violating propriety from the very first word. Of course, this was a conversation that could take place only if none of the girls were nearby. Breathing a sigh of relief, she established that Rosie was playing with Cleo beside them.
    In any case, Gwyneira could not have answered Helen’s pressing question. Though she spoke openly about having children, she had not given a thought to the nights with Lucas. She had no idea whatto expect from them—her mother had only shamefully hinted that it was just part of a woman’s fate to endure these things submissively. In return for which she would, God willing, be rewarded with a child. Gwyneira sometimes wondered whether a screaming, red-faced baby could truly be a reward, but she was not under any illusions. Gerald Warden expected her to bear him a grandchild as soon as possible. She wouldn’t refuse him that—not once she knew how one went about it.

    The sea journey dragged on. In first class, people battled with boredom; all the pleasantries had been exchanged, all the stories told. Meanwhile, the passengers in steerage wrestled with the increasing difficulty of daily life. The paltry, monotonous diet led to sickness and symptoms of deficiency, while the narrowness of the cabins and the now constant warm weather created a perfect breeding ground