Promenade
IV
IV
Pardonably stimulated by the consciousness that they had got through their first Parliament without murder pioneers began to talk familiarly of Steam. Steam would drive piles for such a wharf as the various lines of steamers now beginning to call regularly could visit without turning the air blue with curses. Steam might even tear down these abominable spurs jabbing into Auckland harbour in all directions, to the great detriment of expansion.
Yet stone walls, post-and-rails, and hawthorn hedges enabled the town to sprawl for over a mile across the Isthmus, assisted by grass and clover paddocks domestic with herds. So Forts Britomart and Albert became sturdy bones of contention. Being in the town centre, cried gentlemen, they would assuredly draw the fire of hungry nations coming to grab this Pearl of the Ocean, as it was now correct to call New Zealand, never forgetting to allude to governors as the swine.
For ladies there were weightier matters, since a hardware firm had lately imported from Birmingham a curious instrument called a chainstitch sewing-machine, renting it out to enterprising females who seldom found their seams come undone if only they remembered to tie the ends properly. Caroline hired the machine for three days, and Sophia won respect for the first time by never forgetting to tie the ends.
So many ravishing materials now—cashmeres, merinos, poplins, moires antiques, crapes, taffetas in strong bright colours—brought by the steamers who would forget how poor Auckland really was; and gentlemen were daily tempted by plush and satin vests, Berlin smoking-caps, Boswell's Life of Johnson, Mr Dickens, and especially Jane Eyre—not considered suitable for females although unfortunately produced by one.
So now Caroline could contrive more gowns for Linda, taking her to walk in search of a husband through the Government House Gardens when the band played. Linda, all a bright bubble with excitement, had really weathered her first ball with honour, and knocked over several very young subalterns with her giggles and her round eyes and mouth of delight. Detrimentals, thought Caroline, anxiously warning them off. Really the military were all detrimental until you got as high as majors, who were usually otherwise disposed of, thought Caroline, being so voluptuously cordial to majors that several were forced to hide behind the tree-boles. And here was Major Henry, who was of no use at all though naturally charmed with Linda in a set-back blue bonnet and blue silk brides hanging over flaxen ringlets.
“Well, miss,” said the Major with his best bow, “whose heart did you break last with your pretty pug's tricks?”
“Oh, fie, sir! The child don't begin to think of such things yet. La, the crowd here to-day makes me feel quite conspicuous. Let us find a quiet corner,” cried Caroline, plumping down on a seat in the centre of the lawn.
“What a charming tune the band plays,” she added, retrieving the Major as he tried to edge away.
“La Figlia del Regimento,” cried Linda, sighing to feel how painfully she was in love with all the military. Lieutenant Silk had written her a sonnet comparing her to a Dresden China Shepherdess—which proved how upset the poor man was, and if he didn't shortly ask mamma Linda felt she'd die. “Being in love is the greatest joy in life. I hope I may never be out of it,” she had written a dozen times in her diary, conscious that though the object might have to change with the constant changing of regiments the sentiment could still remain the same.
“The parent stem supported by its bud,” declared Sir Winston, who wanted to speak to Major Henry. “Gad, madam, how do you manage to keep off the bees?”
“Go away, you naughty man,” said Caroline, making room for him beside her, since the presence of a few gentlemen often encouraged the shyer of their sex. “Who is that dark young man in tweeds just passing?”
“Aha! Imagination's airy wing repress when you speak of him,” said Sir Winston, letting both his own fly. “That's Andrew Greer—one of Canterbury's richest sheep-kings.”
Caroline went almost pale with agitation. Here was Linda's husband come just like a bolt from the blue, she felt; and she plunged into a perfect foam of questions, while Lieutenant Silk tentatively aproached and (seeing Caroline so occupied) took the few inches of seat beside Belinda and presently took also the plump little mittened hand straying under her shawl.
“Major, did you hear that some Canterbury feller, John Deans by name, has imported a vehicle with springs? A dog-cart,” cried Sir Winston, endeavouring to shelve Caroline who swallowed lies so fast that it was quite exhausting to supply them. “What are we about that we can't make roads fit for springs?”
“Here's our Town Council Chairman. Ask him,” said Major Henry, bowing to Sally approaching with Peregrine.
“Why ain't our roads fit for springs, sir?” demanded Sir Winston, thumping his umbrella. “Why are they all like Dante's Inferno, doose take 'em?”
Peregrine found Sir Winston in a tight grey frock over a very spotted orange satin waistcoat topped off by a royal-blue tie almost as offensive as his words. Distantly he requested his friend to remember that there were already five miles of macadam in the direction of New-market, and that Auckland's Provincial Council had lately paid a subsidy of $P$5,000 for a monthly mail service from Sydney. In the present state of the country one could not expect miracles.
Under cover of the noise Lieutenant Silk was whispering: “You are so lovely, you know. I … I know I have no money or … or anything … but you are so lovely. If you could smile on me—”
“I do,” whispered Linda, doing it as far as her round button of a mouth allowed.
“Oh, my angel. You are my angel, you know. D-do you think … if I might call to-night on your mamma?”
“To-morrow night. Papa will be home then,” murmured Linda. Papa, though not much of a buffer, was better than none.
“Come, my love,” said Caroline, finding the gentlemen so deeply sunk in the re-opening of the Coromandel gold-fields (Bishop Selwyn having gone down with the Governor and Judge Martin to interview the Maoris) that there were no more grains of knowledge for her. She favoured Lieutenant Silk with a stony glare, pinched Linda's arm under her shawl.
“No making eyes at that creature, you minx.”
“Oh, la! I wouldn't think of it, mamma,” cried Linda in a panic. The lieutenant would have to stand on his own feet and wits if he wanted to secure Linda.
“Gold! There ain't enough gold to put in your eye … and the country just about ready to go berserk,” vociferated Sir Winston.
“If you will come down and see the samples in my office,” said Peregrine, very courteous, “I think I can convince you to the contrary.” Seven-and-a-half million pounds worth of gold was to come out of that Thames district in the next fifty years, but unfortunately Peregrine could not foresee it, any more than he foresaw what he was doing when he summoned Jermyn to take Sally home…. “If you will be good enough … important business….”
So it was Fate, opening the starry door into the unknown, placing Sally's trembling fingers on Jermyn's arm, enfolding them with her warm flowing robes as they walked in silence back to the silent house. With Roddy gone Sally had found something alien in the house, as though it reproached her, like Tiffany's accusing eyes, for not standing by her children. But she had no power. It was only men who had power, thought Sally, feeling the house quite obliterated by this strange tight atmosphere which Jermyn had brought into it. In the pretty dim room of chintzes and flowers she laid aside bonnet and shawl, pulled gloves from hands suddenly grown so weak while Jermyn stood watching in an intense concentration that seemed drawing her soul out to meet it. She must break the spell.
“Oh, Jermyn, what can I do for poor Roddy?”
“You can do nothing for him,” said Jermyn. “You know very well that you can do nothing for any of them. What is done they must do for themselves. And you must do for yourself what you can if you want to save your soul alive. You must take from me all I can give, now.”
Oh, this human will! Hard as iron in Mr Lovel, so weak with doubts and longings and griefs in Sally … what was it in Jermyn? He held her closely now, speaking with a quiet sense of deep possession as though he knew her struggles were ended.
“I don't ask you to come away with me yet. That later. But neither of us is young now and we have missed so much. We must not miss any more. There is such a thing as relative values, dear. You may feel your duty to Peregrine, but do you owe me nothing after all these years?”
“Oh, I know … I … I do beg your pardon, Jermyn. But you have my … my very heart….” All that she had, all that was beautiful she had given him so long ago.
“I want more than that, Sally.”
There were strange ghosts moving in the dim room now. Those old gods … chaos behind the gods … was there God or nothingness behind that? Lightnings ran through her, warning her that this enforced calm of years was only crust above the fires of the essential Sally. And Jermyn was breaking through the crust, calling that starved lonely Sally up and out to all the gay rampageous loveliness of life….She put her hands up to enclose his face, and as she did so it seemed that a veil fell, and she saw beyond.
“Oh!” she gasped, covering her own face instead. No words, no earthly words to tell Jermyn how she had seen that bright beckoning vision wisp into blackness and fly on the wind, leaving her naked with Jermyn on the edge of nothingness. Eternal life which for so long had taken for its symbol Jermyn's shape would be annihilated if she touched it here. So much she knew, sobbing: “No, no. Never. Oh, I can't….” But these were not the words for Jermyn, asking in a strange voice:
“What do you mean? Do you mean that you want no more than this?”
No more? She could not speak, nodding her head.
“Listen to me, Sally. Are you sending me away?”
So it meant that? Again she nodded. Then she couldn't bear it. “Not f-for Eternity. We can have that.”
The word seemed to touch a spring, explode a mine in him. He did not rage and stamp as Mr Lovel occasionally did. His voice was low and very steady; an unending stream of red-hot lava let loose from his white lips, pouring over her, beating her down until she sank on a faldstool, her face hidden in her hands.
So this was woman, said Jermyn. Sucking a man dry, drawing the best of his life away for years and years … vampires sucking a man's soul out … giving nothing in return but words. What was Eternity to him, who didn't believe in it? Sally knew he didn't believe in it, and yet she had let him keep on, hoping, trusting…. A cat with a mouse … (finding Jermyn becoming so zoological, Sally began to sob softly). A sly, purring cat, keeping the mouse for ever under her velvet paw, caring nothing for its bodily and mental agonies. It was right to picture Nature as a woman, for there was nothing more relent- less. Cowards, all women; taking and taking and never paying…. But he'd had enough. Sally needn't imagine she was the only woman a man could love. There were as good fish in the sea….
“Oh, don't!” cried Sally.
Jermyn snatched hat and cloak and walked out, leaving her to them. This, he felt, wondering what was the matter with him that he could think of nothing that had not been said a million times, was the last straw. His brain seemed empty. He had had no words, no thoughts but the bald foolish words of a child. He felt like a child —lost and terrified, wanting to kneel like a little boy and say prayers at the lap of the woman whom he was now cursing in Major Henry's best Waterloo language.
A little of his ironic detachment returned later when he made on the margin of the article he was trying to write the sign which means on a whaler's chart: “Drawn irons. Lost whale.” Sally had made a fool of him. Never while he lived would she have the chance again. Here Jermyn upset the inkpot and went to bed.