LadyCalthorpe's entertainments lacked formality … which was so pleasant that gentlefolk brought up on good old-fashioned principles secretly felt they must be rather wicked and took care never to miss one of them.

Since to-night's dinner celebrated Darien's own birthday (a sufficiently immodest notion) Caroline was shocked to find that Darien had provided paper-caps for the gentlemen to wear during dessert as an offset to the ladies; and by the time the caps were on there was so much good food and drink below them that young Mr Courtney began playing a tune on wine-glasses that no one could guess, and Darien was asking everybody riddles, and Lord Calthorpe grinning all the time out of his mob-cap with blue paper strings.

How the Calthorpes did it on nothing but debt Caroline couldn't imagine. Anyone less moral than herself would suspect Darien of a lover who paid the bills. I wonder who he is, she thought, staring at all the laughing gentlemen. A saddle of mutton too. So vulgar. And crimson roses scattered all over the damask among the meats and jellies. Though probably there to hide holes they looked improper, thought Caroline, feeling that Linda should not be here. Yet, since Mr Andrew Greer had suddenly appeared again to sit next her, of course she had to be. Such a royal fish for Linda's little hook.

“Here's to our fair queen of the night,” cried Sir Winston, raising his glass to Darien. “Egad, Lady Calthorpe, your head should be on one of those new postage-stamps instead of Victoria's.”

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“How would you have me? Like this? Or this?” asked Darien, quite ready to offer enraptured eyes dazzling views of white shoulders rising from green foam, of gay little profile and auburn curls where the matron's cap had shrunk to a jaunty scrap of gold lace and couldn't behave itself even then. Mr Greer, who, though beside Linda, was dumb to the point of imbecility, suddenly grabbed a rosebud and put it in his buttonhole, looking at Darien.

Caroline was so frantic that she forgot to see if the rosebud had covered a hole. Once that immodest creature got him there was no hope for Linda.

“I always think,” she cried, rushing into battle, “that we should speak reverently of the dear Queen who has contrived by the postage-stamps to link us so closely to her and all the world.”

“Not to the Crimea,” said O'Reilly, who had missed his chance there.

“La, sir! Don't mention the Crimea. It makes me ill to think of that abandoned female of a Miss Nightingale going out to nurse the soldiers.”

“Much more original than if she'd gone with the intention of marrying them,” retorted Darien, looking wickedly at gentlemen so well aware of Caroline's intentions for Belinda, while Sir Winston, seeing his chance, remarked:

“‘Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above rubies.’ “

“I wish it was. I'd put myself up to auction,” cried Darien … which was so shocking that Caroline would have led Linda from the table if there had been any hope of Mr Andrew Greer following.

Jermyn looked at Sally. Did the knowledge that one's price was far above rubies console a woman for a lonely life? Sally had not turned into a plump comfortable matron. She had grown more slender and remote, as though secretly dreaming of that crown of life which she page 240 had refused. For what? To be a figurehead to Peregrine's lordly ship. That's all she was, this quiet Sally, who could have been so bounteous with love and laughter.

Now Mr Greer was gloomily admitting to Peregrine that Christchurch had certainly been very sick with typhoid among its flax-swamps, but the situation was entirely changed since they had found artesian water.

“In fact, now all is well, said Sir Winston, ogling Darien, who threw a biscuit at him, declaring that the monster cracked puns as easily as other folk cracked walnuts. Caroline (concerned for Linda's future) was anxious to know what typhoid did to you, but Mr Pinshon was loudly hoping that we would not soon all have our heads cracked by Maoris.

“No sense blaming them,” declared Major Henry, who rarely did anything else. “England has made them the world's richest landowners, and now they are not the honest men they were. We gave 'em too many varieties of laws and religions, so now they've got indigestion and thrown up the lot.”

The Major was getting shocking coarse, thought Caroline, asserting that England certainly should have had more sense at her age. “I fear the Waitangi Treaty was a mistake,” said she to gentlemen who felt they had known that seventeen years ago.

“It's sending her old laws and customs into a new land where everything is so different—” began Hew Garcia, blushing at his boldness.

“We have to send you our troops and money at any rate, young sir,” said a portly colonel, anxious to get his men away from Maori marriages.

“Legislation,” remarked Jermyn, “is merely a sop to the sycophant and a bribe to the toad-eater.”

“We do our best to remain without it,” said Mr Pinshon, very dry, since responsible government, assembling in 1856 for the first time, had managed to dissolve itself three times in a fortnight. Yet it had done very page 241 well later, and if Gore Browne wasn't always sitting on the fence….

“‘Let the great world spin for ever down the ringing grooves of change’—Mr Tennyson,” cried Sir Winston.

“All this country's changes seem to be for the worse, sir,” said the colonel, sourly, while Darien went to collecting eyes in a hurry. Gentlemen talking politics were even more unprofitable than the politics themselves.

“Well, we can't all enjoy life, but apparently we can prevent others from enjoying it. Come, ladies, we'll enjoy ourselves without them.” Saucily she turned in the door, menacing gentlemen with her great green feather fan, her dancing eyes. “Monsters! I detest you all,” cried Darien, including them all in a smile which each man took for himself.

How lightly Darien treated such superior beings, thought Sally, overawed. Of course she had begun early. Her prentice hand she tried on man … and now she tried it on the women; setting Martha Pinshon and Linda to duets so that ladies could talk scandal more comfortably; praising Leta Baizey's new Jenny Lind cap (“That adorable pink! I fell in love with you all over again, darling”); praising Caroline for her clever notion of sending her Sunday dinner to the bakery so that all her family could attend church.

“Now everyone is doing it. I see quantities of little boys running home with smoking dishes done up in napkins after church. So good for our souls. I suppose bakers haven't any?” inquired Darien, very innocent.

“Ask the Bishop,” retorted Caroline, annexing Andrew Greer as he came in.

Andrew was willing, having just discovered that this powerful female with a sort of bird's-nest of coloured fluff and feathers on her oily ringlets was wife to Sir John Lovel, whose prize Hereford bull he had come all the way from Canterbury to buy. So far Sir John had refused to sell but this woman looked a good ally, thought Andrew, page 242 never leaving her side even when Darien got everyone romping through blindman's-buff.

Darien, leaning breathless against a wall, heard the old fogies talking in corners. Discovery of gold in Nelson … coal in the Waikato … the Wellington Chamber of Commerce … oh, the dullness of the old fogies…. And Jermyn not married yet. Even with the marks of wear on him he was still the handsomest man in the room. Though all men are fools one don't like them to escape, thought Darien, beckoning Jermyn to her.

“Look at Caroline calling Belinda to sit with her and the Greer man,” she said. “She means to make a marriage, and I think she's right. Linda has been on offer too long.”

“When Lady Lovel is right it is merely through a misunderstanding on her part,” said Jermyn.

“Oh—hasn't he any money?”

“I believe not. Manager for a syndicate or something.”

“Delightful!” cried Darien, clapping her hands. “Don't tell her, Jermyn. I'll make that marriage.”

He glanced at her with his shadowed eyes. How came this reckless creature to be own sister to Sally?

“Would that be kind?”

“Unquestionably. Life with Caroline is just a series of police-regulations. Linda would be happier with a husband … any husband.”

“Does any husband content a woman?” he demanded.

“If she has common sense. We're very accommodating, you know. Have to be. See how well Sally is getting along at her virtuous promenade with Peregrine,” cried Darien gaily. “I vow I never expected her to be so content with that mean black rig.”

“So she's content, is she?” said Jermyn, going away to find Martha Pinshon … who would surely be able to exorcise Sally's unwilling ghost now.

Darien watched his still slender graceful figure threading among shining shoulders, glossy ringlets, sun- page 243 browned faces of the younger sturdier men. She sighed. Because she could never attract Jermyn he was still desirable, even if her desire was only to break his heart. But his heart must be pretty tough by now. She went to sit by Sally for a minute.

“You should always wear that shade of grey, Sally. It makes you look like a dear little dove…. I'll be having Tiffany at my parties soon, I suppose. Who is she to marry?”

“Oh … We haven't thought of that yet,” said Sally, turning her eyes from Jermyn bending over Martha Pinshon.

“I'll be bound Peregrine has. He won't let her hang fire as Iinda is doing … and with Sophy and Maria prancing to be in the market, though who the dickens Caroline expects to marry them to…. Tiffy won't attract men as I do, but she'll probably ravish a few with that stand-offish manner of hers,” said Darien, feeling that Sally had grown rather stand-offish too. And she was never gay Sal-volatile any more. What had happened to that lover she once certainly had? Gone off after easier game, since Sally would be far too moral to keep him? Or sent to the Crimea and died there, perhaps?

Thank heaven I don't care who dies so long as I don't, thought Darien, running off to the welcoming crowd again. All this adulation was vastly delightful, but it wasn't near enough. I've got to grow old and lose this, thought Darien shrewdly. I must be remembered for something better than this. What a shame women cannot be in the Parliament.

II

The peacocks walking on the green velvet lawns of Lovel Hall had all moulted; and now, spreading their forlorn tails to a glowing golden sunset, they looked so like abandoned women that Sally couldn't bear to see them, she had page 244 been feeling so abandoned herself since Jermyn took Martha Pinshon home last night.

Where were they all gone, those visions which had once upheld her life? That vague beautiful hovering vision which had carried her through the hard early days of slavery; of bearing and suckling her children; when she had seen young men going with bright eyes and the strong tread of an army out over the waste places of the world, seen young mothers singing as they rocked the cradles. Young men, young mothers … all mine, she had felt sometimes, seeing herself divided a thousandfold and yet all one. Like God, she had thought, reverent for the glory of motherhood….

Mr Lovel had taken that away, making of her children what he chose, thought Sally, putting branches of crab-apple blossom into tall blue vases and wondering that their beauty should so hurt her. Then there had been the shining vision of Eternity with Jermyn. Was that miracle gone too? Oh, please God, prayed Sally, I don't think I can bear that….

Yet since God worked miracles he might even now be working one on Mr Lovel. Feeling quite unable to stand without the knowledge that God was helping her somehow, Sally took her embroidery and the little basket of bright silks, and went to sit in the back room with Mr Lovel. Very dull and impressive, the back room, furnished by Mr Lovel with an eye to future generations, and filled with heavy leather chairs and massive tables. Very dull and impressive, Mr Lovel, sitting among his papers with light from the solid cut-glass chandelier making a little pale ring round his long nose and neat black side-whiskers. Such an excellent and successful gentleman, Mr Lovel. Such a self-contained soul, rotating continually on its own axis.

The miracle didn't seem to have happened, but it might have. Oh, Mr Lovel, her heart pleaded, won't you help me? I have been a good wife to you, but it page 245 hasn't been easy. It has been very hard, Mr Lovel, and I'm so tired. Couldn't we talk together a little and try to understand … ?

“Mr Lovel,” she ventured, breaking a long silence with her soft little voice. Peregrine ran his finger down a row of figures, recorded the result, looked round with eyes that did not immediately focus. Canterbury land, young Greer had said, was magnificent sheep-country. Fortunes in it; but since the Government was now putting all pre-empted land up for sale it was necessary to buy it in.

Some men, Greer had said, were already buying and fencing large sections all over the Plains, hoping to squeeze the rightful owners out, and the only way to circumvent them was to pay in a lump sum the extra demanded by Government. “Don't let an acre of your pre-empted land go, sir,” urged Andrew, saying that Peregrine would be a millionaire yet.

After anxious hours of figuring, Peregrine had discovered that he could just do it, letting the land for grazing until Roddy went down next year. He must go out and ask John about Roddy; advance money for John to get merino rams from Tasmania, since Greer said half-bred merinos were best, and Roddy must learn about them first.

“I beg your pardon, my dear,” he said mechanically. Then his eyes focused on the fair wistful face leaning out of the shadows, and he blinked once or twice. Nick Flower, in that unpleasant interview for which Peregrine had never forgiven Caroline, had said that Sally was above reproach … though of course he had always known it without that impertinent comment. She was more. This charming creature of shining hair and gentle eyes, this modest delicacy of soft flesh and muslins and laces was his, even to her wedding-ring. A quite worth while investment for a Lovel who had always taken royal chances … who would take more….

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Somewhat giddy over thinking of being a millionaire he drew Sally on to his knee with a kindly word of approval, jigged her up and down, rumbling in his deep bass:

Lavender's blue, diddle-diddle. Lavender's green.
When I am King, diddle-diddle, you shall be Queen.

“Now what does a handsome little wife say to that? Yet it may be—or something like it,” he added, hedging a bit, since it was never safe to let females get above themselves. “What, my love—crying?”

“Everything's so f-funny,” gasped Sally. Oh, this silly Sally, who had expected God to go on working miracles.

Peregrine set her back on her chair with a bump. Jove may occasionally nod, but it is not for Venus to mock him. He was deeply hurt.

“I do not find everything funny. People who think rarely do. Now … unless you have something special to say—? I am particularly busy.”

But Sally had nothing to say except apologies for interrupting him, and he forgot her before she was out of the room. Females were very well for interludes, but they must not impinge on a man's work. If we can get the Government contract for the new wool-ship that would give me…. Always happiness in figures, so long as they were not human.

Despite routs, picnics, and dances Andrew Greer found the figure of John's Hereford bull by far the most desirable—and elusive. Sir John, a stubborn fellow, refused to sell, though anyone could see how hard-up he was. And that snowgrass hill-country edging the syndicate's great Canterbury station was made for cattle—which could feed as far back as they chose since there were no surveys on the ranges. Andrew could see great lusty mobs there; value beyond dreams that would soon win him a share in the station. And not anywhere had he seen a bull to equal Sir John's Hereford.

So he hung on; meeting Belinda everywhere and taking page 247 it for accident instead of Darien and Caroline; betting here and there at dog-fights, cock-fights, loo, and baccarat; and paying a somewhat reluctant call on Lady Lovel after a card-evening, all in happy ignorance that his bachelor bolt was shot.

“Ah, sir,” said Caroline archly, “I know who you're looking for, but she's not behind the piano. You naughty men are vastly subtle, but you can't deceive me.”

So sure she was that after a few surprised minutes Andrew became aware of his own vast subtlety in winning a heart without knowing it and began to be very distressed and apologetic. But Lady Lovel talked fast, wiping her eyes as she spoke of her adored little Linda's unhappiness.

“The trouble I had to get it out of her you wouldn't believe. But a mother's heart, you know…. How could I rest? Linda, I said, I insist on your telling me who you are dying for. You can imagine my amaze when she sobbed out your name.”

“Mine?” faltered Andrew.

Well, you young things will be at the marrying,” said Caroline, producing a second handkerchief from her voluminous pocket. “Though what I'll do without her I can't think, and I could never have brought myself to mention it if I hadn't seen the way you looked about the room just now. Where is she? you were thinking. Ah, you can't deceive me.”

“N-no, madam,” said Andrew weakly.

“I knew it,” cried Caroline. She advanced, enveloped him with six flounces of sage-green grenadine, kissed his cheek. “My dear Andrew! I simply must call you that. I never thought I could give my little darling rosebud to anyone, but since she worships you and I know you to be so steady….”

Andrew (whose head was certainly steady) was beginning to think. Sir John couldn't refuse him the bull now. He might get a young steer as well. A man must marry page 248 some day and the Lovel connection was more than he could have expected. He felt honoured, and so far as his staggered mind would allow he said so.

“Not a word,” cried Caroline, patting his arm. “A mother must make her sacrifices when Prince Charming comes by. Now, I know you're dying to see her—”

“Shouldn't Sir John….?” Between abasement at being called Prince Charming and hopes that if Sir John wouldn't sell the bull he could get out of marrying somehow, Andrew was in a panic. A wife! Good Lord, what would he do with a wife down in that rough bachelor establishment, with every man who rode by dropping in to spend a night or a week and smoking and drinking all day long?

“Sir John thinks as I do,” Caroline said. “Indeed, if he had not spoken so highly of you I doubt if—ah, there's my darling (or must I call her your darling now?) in the garden. Wait. I will bring her to you.”

She hurried out, finger archly at her lip, and Andrew sat down and faced it. If Sir John liked him he'd certainly get the bull, and if it had to be accompanied by a wife—well, some men get only the wife. There are always compensations, thought Andrew, who was a natural philosopher.

There were carnations and fat white magnolia-buds in the garden, and Linda (who really was slimmer and paler than she had been) cutting roses into a basket. Caroline advanced with determination. There must be no scenes, and Linda was quite capable of making them, she thought, putting a tender arm round the plump waist, speaking gentle words. But Linda was not inclined to be gentle, and Caroline's hand over her mouth barely stopped a shriek.

“Hush, my love. It's a chance in a thousand, as I am always telling you. You trust me, Linda?”

“I don't know,” gasped Linda, knowing very well that she didn't.

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“Silly puss! Of course you do. Such an estimable young man. So devoted—”

“Only to b-bulls,” quavered Linda, quite unable to visualize Mr Greer's devotion.

“Now, stop this nonsense,” said Caroline, putting her foot down. “I've told you a dozen times you're to marry him, and you ought to be down on your knees with thankfulness for the chance. Think of your poor sisters who can't come out till you're engaged, and don't be so wickedly selfish. Stop that snivelling. You know your nose swells when you cry. Now … a white rose in your hair and think of all he can give you. Jewels … fine clothes … trips to Sydney,” panted Caroline, dragging Linda along. “Here's my foolish girl, Andrew. So shy … so overcome with happiness.”

With the white rose in her hair and such mind as she had dazed into submission, Linda suffered Andrew to take her hand, while Caroline heartily pronounced a blessing over the bewildered pair, who, even when they parted, hardly knew what had happened to them. When they read the papers next day they knew, for Caroline had no intention of being beaten at the post. “An early marriage has been arranged….”

Arranged, thought Andrew, accepting congratulations rather dryly, was the right word.

III

Roddy (said Jermyn) loved an old song's lady, or a phantom, or his own dreaming face mirrored in little clear pools. He cradled infinity in his palms, unaware that he must lose it. He drove John to unnatural curses over his dislike of killing a sheep, and would stop the long heavy line of ploughing bullocks to watch the big bronze wood-pigeons wheel against the sun, or to listen to the blue-feathered scarlet-legged pukeka calling in a warm flax-swamp so resembling the mere where Bedivere threw page 250 Excalibur that Roddy's arm ached to draw Arthur's sword for all that was good and pure. And then Uncle John, sowing seed out of a creel behind him, would roar like an angry lion.

Roddy, companioning with Helen of Kirconnel Lea, Kilmeny (who had seen with the fairies what she couldn't declare, though Roddy was always trying to declare it on his flute), Marmion's injured Constance and other delectable ladies—Roddy was unconscious of the exact period when, as was natural in the bush of which she was an emanation, these dear dead women began taking the form and colour of Eriti Fleete.

Golden-tawny like honey of Hymettus, Eriti; like the young curling bracken-fronds—soft sisters of her little fingers and toes, dusky-lipped as the crimson rata-flower, straight and supple as lance-wood saplings in the wind—Roddy found comparisons for everything except her voice. Bellbirds at dawn, tuis in rapturous chorus were not to be compared with Eriti singing old Maori waiatas of love and sorrow while he lay steeped in that vision which is beyond sight, beyond sound, which shows itself but once to youth's innocent chastity and flies for ever from the groping hands of passionate man.

Eriti, riding long rough miles through bogging swamps and tangling bush until her poor little body was numb with weariness and only the bursting longing of her heart held her up, had always known Roddy for a god—which was why she had been a modest girl and not given him long ago the ropa, the hand-squeeze of invitation. One does not take liberties with gods but meekly awaits their pleasure, felt Eriti, as Roddy lifted her off the horse's bare backbone at the door, he looking so clean, so white and golden that she hastily tried to comb her hair with her fingers, to straighten her cotton frock, before following him in with the mail of papers and letters which were always her excuse for coming.

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Then Roddy made damper, and Sir John poured milkless tea into pannikins—between them they had broken all the china. So youth supped on nectar and ambrosia, and afterwards there was music out under the tree-ferns like fairy tents, the cabbage-trees like Maori warriors in their rustling mats, the stars … old enchantments closing in with the old magic through the great bush-silence, the sharp sweetness unlocked from earth and leaves….

John, dozing over the Times of four months back, with his great boots to the embers, found himself still resentful of Linda's man who had taken his Hereford bull and gone off at once with it in a brig sailing for Wellington. From there he would pick up something else to take him down the coast to Canterbury, but his bride would have to travel by way of Sydney in a boat with cabins, said Andrew, sailing away.

“He won't come back; it was only the bull he wanted,” John told Caroline who, wishing for no inquiries into that matter, crushed him with: “Pray remember that I have still four daughters to marry off and don't hinder with your nasty insinuations, though I have long since given up expecting help.”

Yet she was sufficiently anxious to make Linda write almost daily to Andrew, telling about her trousseau and the presents already coming in and promising to be ready as soon as he could come for her. Though what with these newfangled postage-stamps and letters having to go round by Sydney, twelve hundred miles away, who could tell if he would ever get them, thought Caroline, pestering John each time he came to town for more money for Linda.

Why in the name of common sense do men want to marry? thought John, conscious that he had never lived so peacefully before. He cast his mind back to his wooing of the black-eyed burgeoning Caroline and sighed.

Ah, well, I suppose we just can't help it when the time comes, he thought, picking up the Times again.

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IV

It seems, on examination into colonial history, that when an English statesman was made head of the Colonial Department he inquired reluctantly into a condition which proved quite as repulsive as he had feared. Convicts and cannibals. With such unsavoury baubles did the English choose to toy at the ends of the earth; but such, said the Colonial Office firmly, are not on our visiting list. It realized the delicacy of its position. To annoy the solemn conclaves at Westminster with such squibs and crackers as constantly arrived from the Antipodes was not to be thought of, and yet there must be some correspondence to place before committees. Regrettably the Antipodean end of the correspondence was so consistently abusive that the Colonial Office was simply goaded into replies. And if New Zealand called these replies so many monkey-wrenches thrown into the machinery what was to be done with such ungrateful people (who couldn't possibly have a machinery anyway) but persuade Westminster to give them responsible government and let them try to manage themselves.

So New Zealand thanked God publicly and became very lively in her responsible government. Our sins be on our own heads now, they said. So they were, and in the papers too, where every gentleman was encouraged to vilify his neighbour in print and be very bold anonymously. Sir Winston could always be detected, and Peregrine; but Pro Bono Publico remained a puzzle, and it was more than hinted that Lady Calthorpe was Paterfamilias.

Meanwhile the Maoris became exceedingly interested in learning the real character of their tenants—who, the Maoris thought, must have been all hatched from birds'-eggs—and Hemi's grandfather (who was of such royal vintage that his real name must not be mentioned and so he was called Te Patiti, meaning The Hatchet) was pleased when Hemi came down to the Waikato, because page 253 Hemi had the English and could read him all that the papers said.

Tiffany's cruel scorn had goaded Hemi into coming, but the very look and smell of the pa as he came in turned his stomach, just as all these dark crowding faces turned his heart back to the fair English face he could not claim as his own. Great reed-latticed gates to the pa, guarded by enormous and supremely hideous wooden figures with their tongues out. Split fish drying everywhere in the sun, green bundles of flax, scattered refuse where the dogs nosed, rancid odours of whale-oil, mutton-bird-oil, berry-oil, smells of pungent fern-root being scraped for food, musty smell of heaps of feathers for mats which the old hags were making … all blown and drifted together on the woody smoke from cooking-fires that never went out.

Oh, Tihane! thought Hemi, being greeted by drums and the long wooden trumpets as became the grandson of a mighty chief, why did you send me to this?

Te Patiti looked him over, thinking him unpleasantly pale and narrow in the beam. Hemi would never be able to carry his share of a war-canoe over the portages. But he was of the blood and could perhaps explain why these amazing English had degraded their Governor (chief of all head-chiefs) making it necessary for him to consult with lesser chiefs before saying Yea or Nay. Patiti had not signed the Treaty. He had never been to Auckland, and he was inordinately proud of his fortifications, which the cannon Hemi had seen on English warships would blow sky-high in no time.

So Hemi sat on a carved stool in the full ceremonial of the meeting-house to read from the newspapers which Patiti had been collecting for years; and on the dais beside Patiti were grouped his brown sons and grandsons, and round the intricately woven and coloured raupo walls squatted rows of silent warriors. The first paper dated back to 1856.

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“Our first ministry of responsible government, as distinct from a former lamentable effort when ministers were appointed by the Crown, has fully beaten cock-fighting,” read Hemi in slow colloquial Maori. “Magnificently it took the field under Mr Sewell, and after defeating itself within a fortnight did it not with equal magnificence take another field under the banner of Mr Fox? When, a few days later, a vote of want-of-confidence obliterated Mr Fox, was it discouraged? No, gentlemen. The word is not known to our brave pioneers who (whatever may chance) retain their gallant determination to say and do exactly as they choose. Now, with the assistance of Mr Stafford, it is thundering off down a third field, where, we have no doubt, it will continue to make history….”

Patiti scowled. Young warriors were grinning and nudging each other. This was not well. “Read more,” he ordered.

Hemi took a later paper, which lightly alluded to the Governor as a bric-a-brac fellow, which Hemi had to translate as egg-shell, thereby confirming Patiti's suspicions about birds'-eggs. “Governor Gore Browne,” read Hemi, “has seen fit to annul the embargo against selling ammunition to the Maoris, who are now buying in enormous quantities, undoubtedly with a view to future use upon ourselves….”

“Since they have discovered that,” said Patiti, “why do they make it so easy for us to get it?”

Hemi didn't know. No one, he explained, knew a pakeha's reasons, but it was believed that they never had any. Patiti's scowl deepened. That was nonsense. Every man had reasons, and with the logic and cunning of the Maori he soon discovered this one. The ammunition must be bad, and the pakeha were taking Maori maize and kumeras and poakas for what was worth nothing. This was an ugly jest which Maori pride would like washed out with blood. Patiti glared down the length of the whare-rununga on his warriors … strong men bred of a page 255 race to whom fight is the only just breath in the nostrils, and he felt the old desire, the old ambition rise in him.

“Oh, my children,” he said, “it is not well. I shall go down into Taranaki and consult with those chiefs in their great new meeting-house. And I shall take this my son Hemi to read them what the pakeha are doing. For truly it is not well. This is all I have to say….”

Pioneers were finding plenty to say. They had got over the excitement of Canterbury sending its first wool-ship direct to London, and since others were following they could now thumb their noses at Australia's control of New Zealand commerce. They had weathered the wonder of reaping-machines pushed by horses to cut such grain as was not scattered in the process, and ceased to complain of the stench of Auckland's foreshore where reclamation was still going on intermittently, though gentlemen still spat when they had to go there and ladies did what they could.

And now they were breaking chairs at the Mechanic's Institute over this scandalous king-movement down in the Waikato, with Major Henry declaring that Chief Tamihana ought to be shot, and Sir Winston amending: “And that goat Gore Browne too.” Perhaps Nick Flower, going here and there among the Maoris, was almost the only white man who didn't blame Tamihana … who seemed to have put a fox in the hen-roost, all the same.

It was not (explained Tamihana to Nick Flower, spending a night at his pa) merely that tapu was being defied now by the young warriors; nor that they were everywhere setting up water-wheels to grind the flour they sold the pakeha in order to buy so many guns that little tribal wars couldn't satisfy them. Nor was it only that every Maori now despised the white Governor-Chief who had to ask permission of others before he did anything, nor that the military was beginning to drive a wide road down into the Waikato. “But put all these together, my friend, and they make a large sum,” said Tamihana, page 256 who was a good Christian and had been to England and really wanted peace.

“You'll never get peace until the chiefs can rule their men again,” said Flower, knowing they wouldn't get it then.

“We think that,” said Tamihana. “What we need is a king who will rule us all in the Maori way without harming anybody. So I will go to Auckland, and talk to your Governor, although a chief who cannot say Yea or Nay out of his own head is not of much use.”

Gore Browne was of even less use than Tamihana expected, for he never saw him. A clerk denied him entrance at the new Government House, and someone set the dogs on him as he strode down the drive in his best mat of ceremony, and little white boys in the town called “Nigger” after him.

Tamihana went back to the Waikato and sent out tenders for a king.

This was less easy to arrange than one might think, for many of the chiefs were already kings in their own territory and took no interest in foreign titles. It was like offering to knight The Macintosh. At last Tamihana persuaded Te Whero Whero, who had sat with that old conquistador Te Rauparaha in Auckland Domain and was now too old to mind anything much.

But Te Whero Whero had a reputation second to none, and he was not a Treaty man. So they made him king with many beautiful and mystical ceremonies, and prayed earnestly for Queen Victoria, to whom they assigned equal right to rule, though explaining that she couldn't be expected to understand Maori ways. Then they named Te Whero Whero by his shorter title of Potatau, whipped ceremonial tops all over the place, set up their own new flag beside the Union Jack, and saluted both.

“Now we shall be happy,” said Tamihana, immediately taking charge of everything with old Potatau as complacent figurehead and hoping for the best. But the best he page 257 got was a fierce tribal war against those who preferred the slack English rule and plenty of drink to the stern rigour of Maori law; while Gore Browne, demented at the notion that divided rule was better than none, denounced the king-movement savagely and sent for more troops.

This was very pleasant for the ladies, who hadn't had a new regiment since the dear knows when; and (since Andrew Greer, having disposed of his bull, had come back in a hurry and carried Linda off almost before she had time to say “I will”) Caroline hastily put Sophia and Maria on the market and began to tighten Emily's stays. “La,” cried Caroline, “what with Linda's trousseau and these Immigrant Bazaars that never have enough clothes for the babies that sea-voyages seem to produce in such quantities, I declare I'm just worn to a shadow.”

“You'll have clothes to make for Linda's babies soon,” promised Darien, turning to Corny who was declaring that Gore Browne's attempt to placate the Maori by taking off the ammunition embargo was having just the result that might have been expected.

“We always do things the wrong way, make them think us blasted fools. A shockin' mess we're in now,” complained Corny, staring with his puzzled bloodshot eyes.

Did Corny and his kind know what a shocking mess they were making by breeding up a mixed race? wondered Darien. Not likely. Here and elsewhere gentlemen seemed content to leave those kinds of mistakes to God—as old Sir Roderick Lovel had left Nick Flower. Had Corny seen Flower lately, she asked. Corny hadn't, but Hemi wrote that he had. Hemi had gone for a trip to his grandfather in the Waikato, explained Corny, but if war came he'd have to fight for England. “All my sons shall fight for England or I'll shoot 'em with my own hand,” declared Corny.

“Quite the best method of persuasion,” said Darien, cheerfully. “And what about your daughters?”

Corny took no interest in his daughters. But Darien page 258 did. Last time she had taken a big riding-party out to the farm dull old John had let it out how regularly Eriti Fleete brought the mail, and Darien had turned sharply to look at Roddy, who had gone as red as fire. Very gay and good-looking just now, this Roddy with his absurd fluffy upper lip catching the sun like gold, very scornful about Peregrine's notion of sending him down to Canterbury.

“Let him send Brian,” said Roddy, standing big against the slab wall. “I am very content here.”

“By God,” swore Brian, who was so like Peregrine that Darien always wanted to give him the slappings Peregrine had deserved so long. “I'll pink you if you suggest that, Rod. Me go down to that filthy country! No, thanks. A gentleman's life for me.”

“But, Roddy, you hate this place so,” cried Tiffany. “I think you'd like Canterbury much better. And then I could come and live with you, perhaps,” she said, her brown eyes so appealing that Hew Garcia was at her side in a minute.

“He'll go if Mr Lovel tells him to, Tiffy,” promised Hew.

“I'll be shot if I do,” declared Roddy, very bright-eyed and aggressive.

Darien was charmed. It was Eriti of course; and good luck to Roddy who had the wit to make something out of the negations with which Peregrine had always surrounded him. Peregrine would never allow the heir of all the Lovels to wive until he had chosen him a suitable helpmate; and meantime what were Maori girls for but to assist a young man to sow his wild oats, thought Darien, going with John to look at his merino rams.

“There's money in rams,” she said, even more charmed than with Roddy. “I wish I had them.” There, she thought, was the way to become famous. Build up the finest flocks in all the world, send thousands and thousands of ships brimming with wool all over the clamouring page 259 world. “I shall marry a farmer when I can get Calthorpe to divorce me,” she told a shocked and delighted John. “New Zealand has a divorce court now, you know.”

Tiffany rode home sadly with long shadows racing before her as the sun set over the Waitakeres. For the first time in all her life Roddy didn't want her; and so the bottom was out of everything and cattle-bells, goat-bells in the tall bracken rang a dirge. Far ahead on the height of Karangahape Road Partington's mill caught the red light of its vanes. A landmark for maniners, a useful servant which ground Auckland's corn and provided hard-tack biscuits for the army, but to Tiffany it was the haunted place where she had so often sat with Roddy, who tilted at it not with Don Quixote's spear but with wild music until it seemed to spin faster and faster, giddy with ecstasy.

I shall never do that again, she thought, turning the knife in her wound with the ruthlessness of the young. That has gone for ever … like Hemi … like the Beach. Tragic irretraceable steps one has to take in growing up.

Ahead Darien and the young bucks round her were singing catches.

I 'listed in life for a soldier,
Oh, who would not sleep with the brave….

sang Darien, slanting her naughty eyes round on the officers.

Tiffany came thundering past at a gallop, with Hew Garcia after her and shouting: “Stop her! She'll be killed.” But there was no stopping Tiffany, who took the tall post-and-rail in her wild flight and tore on towards the town. Hew got off to open the gate, angry now that his fear was past. He had only tried to take Tiffany's hand, edging his horse up beside her, and she had gone mad like this! Unaccountable creatures, females, thought Hew.

“Tiffany,” remarked Darien with satisfaction, “will never be daunted by locked gates.”