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Promenade

II

II

With an empty treasury, and everybody in turned gowns and napless top-hats, and young bloods envying the habitually frock-coated (such a concealing garb) Auckland still contrived to be gay for arriving officers. And amazing kind, with the barracks on Britomart Hill receiving daily bombardments of embroidered carpet-slippers and smoking-caps, watch-chains of soft brown or black or golden hair, book-markers worked in bright silks with “Fair fare the days for thee, Courage is a soldier's armour” and such other legends as might occur to innocent minds. Seasoned gallants, turning out boxes-full, occasioned much merriment at the mess-table, where Captain Richard Sackville offered to bet his collection against all comers. Even for Auckland it was somewhat remarkable, and Sackville held the floor triumphantly between whisky and bumpers of milk-punch until challenged to produce an offering from Tiffany Lovel.

“Lovel? By all means. Slippers? … no; a watch-chain? I'm selling off my brown hair watch-chains cheap. Bartie, you can have this one for a bob.”

“That's Sophia's,” said Bartie, who had cause to know.

“Eh? So it is, by Jove. Sophia and her Vestal Virgins are pretty constant. Look here, I'll sell you a dozen Sophias for….”

“Where's a Tiffany?” said an inexorable voice.

“He ain't got one. Nobody has. She can't sew,” said Bartie.

“That my eye! Every girl can sew. She just don't page 269 like men,” affirmed a lieutenant who had been lately snubbed by Tiffany.

“Break that news gently, boys,” said Sackville, sinking into a chair. “For years I have prayed for a girl who don't like men. Is my future friend red-haired?”

“Coppery. Just meant for watch-chains. But you'll never get one. Bet you a pony you don't,” said the lieutenant.

A pony was a lot of money. Darret must be doosed sure, thought Sackville, refusing to bet. He began to think that it might be worth while to get more than watch-chains from this Tiffany Lovel … whom he couldn't remember meeting, but there were so many girls. And so many good fellows to have a lively time with before he was punted off on campaign again.

“Let's drink to her anyway. Bumpers. To the elusive lady,” he cried, grinning at the lieutenant.

He remembered Tiffany again when he went next day to check over some information with Jermyn Lovel, who knew so much about this confounded country, and told of abnormal vendetta fighting, of settlers leaving their ploughs to run for shelter, of thousands of families being evacuated across the strait to Nelson. “Time you fellows got to work,” said Jermyn, telling dryly of lively young Maori bucks divesting drunken whites of their trousers, which they flew as derisive flags in their pas.

Sackville, who had been sent down the coast to inform clamouring Poverty Bay settlers that the Government couldn't help them, complained that he had never felt such a fool in his life. “‘What the devil are you doing on your side of the mountains?’ they asked. And I'm damned if I could tell 'em. Nobody could,” said Sackville, ruefully.

“We're just waiting for the conflagration. To put it out before it gets a good start was never the English habit,” said Jermyn, going on to discuss Gore Browne, page 270 one of those honest and unlucky gentlemen who manage to do so many right things in the wrong way.

Sackville knew all about Gore Browne's recent journey into the Taranaki with the intention of settling some thousands of sturdy Devon and Cornish immigrants on the rich land they had crossed the seas for. Like all else it had been a mistake; for Gore Browne, told by everybody that all his anxious adjusting and temporizing was merely making him a by-word of inefficiency, had taken a high hand.

With no land court or Parliament to advise him he had plunged valiantly into the delicate intricacies of Maori pride and immemorial custom, and bought quantities of land from a chiefling called Teira, over the proud head of Wi Kingi, chief of all the Ngatiawa tribe. Wi Kingi, protesting bitterly against this invasion of his country, felt that the building of a pa on it would be an excellent counter-stroke, while Gore Browne kept all the Auckland clerks busy hunting for unprocurable land-titles and set surveyors (who never had enough work anyway) to cutting survey-pegs.

“Everyone knows that Teira only sold in order to be revenged on the seducer of his wife,” said Jermyn, shrugging. “To embroil an enemy with the pakeha is the Maori's most exquisite form of utu, and our Governor has most amiably made himself Teira's cat's-paw. So this pretty little domestic comedy is almost certainly the wartrumpet we're looking for … blown by Governor Gore Browne.”

“What a merry world if every cuckold could revenge himself as gloriously as Teira,” said Dick Sackville. He went off whistling “The Shan Van Voght.”

“The French are on the sea,” eh? Before he went to meet them he must find time for another pretty little comedy. This Miss Tiffany Lovel who thought herself too fine to be kind to lonely soldiers must be taught her lesson, the proud jade. Watching her promenading on the page 271 new Wynyard Street pier, standing aloof from her at parties, he considered the best means of approach. A handsome huzzy and quite clearly a proud one. I wonder if I could make her cry, thought Sackville, who had made so many women cry without wanting to.

Ladies rode in bullock-drays to country dances, with a frieze of attendant young bucks sitting uncomfortably on the frame, sometimes feeling with a tentative foot for a soft groping hand among the scented cloud of veils and shawls and murmuring laughter at the bottom. Hew Garcia, seeking Tiffany's hand and getting Sophia's, could hardly have borne it but for a recent interview with Mr Lovel. Most surprisingly it seemed that Mr Lovel would welcome Hew as a son-in-law.

“I desire that all my children should settle in this country which I have made my own,” said Mr Lovel, looking as much as possible like Sir George Grey. “The land is the backbone of New Zealand, and I have long felt that intelligent young men such as yourself are the backbone of the land. I will inform Tiffany of my wishes at—ah—the next convenient moment.”

“It's only right to tell you that I'm afraid she don't love me yet, sir,” said Hew nervously. But Mr Lovel had waved that aside.

“No girl of Tiffany's age knows her own feelings. It is for you to teach her, my dear Hew…. No, do not thank me. I have had this project in my mind for long. Look to the matter.”

So Hew went to the dance in Mr Harrington's barn hoping to teach Tiffany, though how to set about it he had no notion, having tried so many unsuccessful ways. Gaily the big brown barn invited him with bunting, with the tuning-up of accordions and violins, the red Turkey twill laid on grain-sacks round the walls for seats. Already chaperons were taking their places, arranging white lace shawls and flowery caps, setting their fans waving. Already bright crinolines and scarves were revolving down page 272 the floor, and still Hew, his brown honest face getting anxious, went seeking Tiffany. Then he saw her glowing in Dick Sackville's arms, and sat down resignedly by Sally. Not Sophia nor another should pry him from Sally until Tiffany returned to her again.

Tiffany, floating in silent ecstasy, felt that she would never return to where she had been before this miracle swept her up with it. A stray word here and there and his laughing eyes were all she knew of Captain Richard Sackville, but they were enough.

Lovels, said Major Henry, were intense, and joy and sorrow had always come intensely to Tiffany. Just now she was hardly conscious of joy, only of an intensity of living such as she had never guessed at before, a splendour in the world as though some inner eye had suddenly opened, showing dazzling light where before had been only shadows.

Captain Sackville kept his hand on her arm when the dance ended, leading her, not to Sally and the Turkey twill, but out through the great doors to the bush-clearing, sweet with the familiar mysterious sweetness of night.

“I didn't write you a note, Miss Lovel,” he said in that easy laughing voice. “I wished to thank you personally for your charming present.”

“My … . ?” Tiffany was stunned. “I sent you no present, sir.”

“Please don't jest with what has given me so much happiness,” he said, rather sternly. “I mean that silken book-mark with ‘God keep you’ made of your lovely hair,” he added gently. If this wasn't a really ingenious way of approach he didn't know what was.

“But … I don't understand. I never sent you anything,” gasped Tiffany in a panic near to tears. What, oh what would he think of her? “Never. Never. I would not send a gift to any man. You know I would not.”

He was watching her closely in the faint starlight. The tears had come quicker than he expected. They were page 273 sparkling on her dark lashes. The distress of a girl, he thought, the pride of a woman so finely mixed, so piteously, indignantly holding him off. For the first time in his gay careless life Richard Sackville was ashamed of himself. But he had never been unable to get out of a fix yet.

“Of course I know, since you tell me so. Most earnestly I ask your pardon. If I can only feel that you grant me your forgiveness, Miss Lovel.”

“Yes, yes. I mean—there's nothing to forgive. Someone must have used my name. I—I don't understand.” Oh, it was terrible to hear the gladness go out of his voice, to see him stand with bent head asking forgiveness.

“Nor I.” No, he couldn't go on with that. This story would never be told at the barracks after all. “No one shall make free with your name again if I can help it, Miss Lovel.” And most sincerely for the moment he meant it.