The happy valley set

Chapter 4 - henry�s farm

Once his little house was built and a mud track established, Henry ordered some seeds to be sent over from England. On his land was a little native village, he learned. He did not want to be hostile with them. He had every right, as he saw it, to evict them from 'his' land. This was land that the villagers had lived on for centuries. They did not consider the land as 'theirs'. It certainly did not belong to lord Sumner. The land and everything upon it belonged to The Great Creator.
Henry did not want to evict the villagers as he saw them as a commodity to exploit. He could use their labour to work the land and look after his animals. He would pay them a wage and make them more civilised. He would insist they wore proper clothes too. He would encourage them to built proper houses for themselves instead of tiny mud huts.
He would teach them English, educate them by teaching them how to read and write. In the mean time, he used their knowledge to learn more about the native animals. They led him into the bush on shooting expeditions so that he could acquire specimens to stuff and hang on his wall. The elephant Ivory was a valuable commodity. He sold most of it. The rest of it he kept for when he was ready to extend his house. His house did not feel like a home yet. He needed his family around him for that. In the meantime, he employed native servants to cook, clean and generally look after him.
He gradually learned how to speak their language and learned a little about them. They kept a strange looking cattle with long horns and a stretched neck. They would drain the cattle's blood and drink it. They would milk the cows and make strange concoctions with it. He allowed them to keep a large slice of his land for grazing their cattle. He saw this as important to them. They had to live on something, after all.
He soon learned that the natives were an athletic wiry breed. They revered one person in the tribe over everyone else. She was their healer, a Witch doctor, who knew about the land of the spirits and the healing properties of herbs. She was a large woman, who rarely left camp. She had others going out to forage for her. Henry supposed it was a woman like her who had helped him when he had the fever.
After looking upon mainly black faces for the best part of a year, Henry found the local witch doctor very attractive. He invited her to his house to discuss his intentions with the tribe. He treated her as a guest, but she did not know how to behave as one. He had to teach her proper manners. How to sit at the table and hold a knife and fork, how to hold a glass of wine. He showered her with gifts and eventually took her as his mistress. Her name was Mjunga. He called her Sarah.
Sarah lived in an inbetween world. In a trance, she could journey to the land of the dead, bringing messages back for living relatives. She could journey amongst the land of the animals with her totem leopard by her side, showing the way. Now her life in the real world was divided too, divided between her tribe and the Englishman. She was curious about him. She had not seen anyone with such creamy white skin before. His blue eyes and straight hair fascinated her. He showed her nothing but kindness, although she had seen how cruel he could be, disregarding their customs completely and killing animals in a somewhat random fashion for nothing but sport. Sarah thought it best to stay close to a man like that. Stay close to your freinds, but even closer to your enemies, so the old phrase went.
Within her own tribe, Sarah was an outsider. She had been since the day she was chosen to be a medicine woman. She had first been taken on as an apprentice. The old medicine woman had taught her all she knew. When she was sixteen or thereabouts, they had made an arduous trip across country to a gathering of healers. There, she had spent twelve weeks in a hut preparing for her life of healing. A medicine woman had to have an air of importance. A medicine woman had to look different. A medicine woman had to be fat!
For twelve weeks, she had sat in the fattening hut, or just outside it. The other medicine women took it in turns to watch over her and make sure she did what was required.
She was not allowed to go running off in the jungle exploring. She had to wear uncomfortable wooden shoes that made even standing very painful. She was given an enriched creamy drink and made to drink it all. The taste was not unappealing, but after only one bowl of it, she'd had enough. She was forced to drink four of them. If she didn't drink, the medicine woman watching her would beat her with a stick. With a swollen, tight belly and four bowls of the liquid inside her, she was allowed to rest. She had to consume seven meals a day, each meal she drank four bowls of the creamy liquid. Every week, the bowls got bigger.
By the time the twelve weeks was over and she was allowed back into the regular tribe, she had doubled in size. Walking while carrying so much extra weight on her was so much more difficult. Luckily, now she was a fully fledged medicine woman, she could get other tribe members to fetch and carry for her.
Henry treated her well. She did not mind his company. As a medicine woman, she was not allowed to marry or have a child, but being with Henry satisfied a giant hole within her. She still had her reservations about him. He was too different. There was so much she could not understand. He never carried out any mundane jobs. He would order someone else to do that. He called himself a farmer, yet he never got his hands dirty.

Henry had lived in Zenithia for over two years before he decided it was time to go home to England.
There, he joined the government's campaign to encourage people to move to the colonies. Not only would they be escaping the grim English weather, but they would find a prosperous life there. They would be able to live a life of luxury that they could not afford at home... if they worked hard enough.

One harsh British winter was enough to send Henry back to the island. He was unable to persuade his wife and family to join him.
He decided to spend his winters in Zenithia, then return to England in the summer when the heat there became unbearable.
He did this for six years before he persuaded his wife to come with him.

In that time, Henry had tried to grow several crops on his farm. All of them failed. He did not consider that British crops had evolved to grow in a temperate climate. He would have been much better off trying to grow native species.
He spent thousands of pounds importing merino sheep from New Zealand, with the idea that he could breed them with local breeds to produce an animal used to the climate that would grow a good quality wool.
Unfortunately, the merino sheep, with their thick layer of wool all died within weeks of landing on the island.
Henry's interest diversified as the local population was boosted by the incoming British. He built a club for them on the outskirts of town where they could drink cocktails and dance to the music from a small orchestra.
He built a racetrack and a polo club, then added a cricket pitch, a rugby pitch and a casino.
His house, was now a substantial estate. The main building was a bungalow surrounded with cooling verandas. He had a bathroom with hot and cold running water, which included a filter to keep creepy crawlies out. The house was ran on electricity, which, not only ran the lights, but ran the giant ceiling fans to try to keep everything cool.
He had a pretty little garden around the house, with a whitewashed picket fence to keep out any visiting native animals. Beyond the fence, were outhouses where the native staff lived and stables that kept his horses. He kept two to ride himself. A stocky bay hunter, who could gallop at a good pace almost all day and tackle any fence and a handsome Anglo-Arab chestnut who he rode into town. He liked to prance and show off and knew that when he arrived in town everyone turned their head to look at them!
He kept a dappled grey mare for his wife and each of his children had a pony suitable for their size. In addition he kept four carriage horses two of which could also do heavy farm work. The other two were suitable mounts for visitors or staff who needed to get into town.

Sarah hated henry's wife. She was not as important to him any more. She thought his wife a very frail, skinny little thing. She did nothing but sit around all day, making polite conversation and sewing embroidery. Occasionally, she would venture into town, but never stayed long.
She though Henry no longer loved her because his wife was slimmer, prettier and gentle. She planned to exact her revenge by changing that!