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Promenade

VI

VI

Since Captain Chief Ropata had gone the right way to work by turning Te Kooti out of those legendary Urewera mountains made tapu by all the ancient gods, except to the fierce tribes dwelling there, Jerry thought we would have peace soon. “Ropata will run him to a standstill soon and give us peace,” said Jerry, feeling that his young life had never known the meaning of the word until he came to Bendemeer; that New Zealand (hard-driven maid) would never know it in the North … unless the Parliament removed to Christchurch.

Peregrine was content to leave it where it was. Wellington was a worthy frame for Lovels: expanding with decorum, filling with companies urgent to have as a director (at a salary) on their prospectus Sir Peregrine Lovel with his impeccable manners, his stainless reputation extending over thirty-odd years of difficult colonization. There were pickings from Auckland too, where he was an original shareholder of the Steam Navigation Company and other lucrative affairs, while his support of Julius Vogel in his very bold policy of public works had convinced many waverers that Vogel must be more farseeing than they suspected.

page 415

Peregrine had even learned how to make capital out of his mistakes, thought Jermyn, feeling that Vogel (really prime minister, only the country was still shy of that title) was borrowing too many millions from England.

“We'll end on pinnacles or penury, and I back the latter,” said Jermyn. But Peregrine considered that a Lovel should take risks as long as he could afford it, and had prepared for these gay and reckless 1870's by buying a new watered ribbon for his eyeglass and somewhat satisfying the sadist in himself by refusing Tiffany a trousseau.

So Sally took her own risks, turning with many “Please Gods” to tinkering with the household accounts, with much desperate lying to Mr Lovel (who would not remain Sir Peregrine in her mind) about this sudden extravagance in candles, towelling and preserved fish. The only thing I have ever been able to do for my children is to lie for them, thought Sally, transforming fish and candles into fine nainsook and lace, to be secretly shaped into shifts and nightgowns, secretly sent away to Canterbury. Yet since it's God's business to punish souls, and not Mr Lovel's, it is only God I'm going to tell about it, thought Sally, whose mind quite often tumbled Mr Lovel off his pedestal now … for how could any wife help it after more than thirty years? The care-free Sally who had romped with Darien in the long-ago chintz bedroom was so vanished that Sally would not know that laughing dimpled girl if they met. The Sally trembling at Mr Lovel's shadow on the wall was gone. Even her love for Jermyn had become staid, and Jermyn had no more passions.

We have grown old in making this new country, thought Sally; taking the daily promenade with Mr Lovel, feeling New Zealand still young and fractious and wild-haired, because she saw so many parliamentary debates. Down by the dark deep harbour, so different from Auckland's shimmering blue, they met Lucilla walking with her little girls.

page 416

“So Tiffany's being married to-day,” said Lucilla, a little patronizing. “I have sent her a telegram. I hope she gets it.”

It seemed likely, with 1600 miles of telegraph now in the country, but Sally was quite overcome. The expense! Such a dashing notion. Lucilla was dashing, with her full blue-and-white striped skirts and a little silk jacket and such a long blue feather in the side of her pork-pie hat. “We sent a musical-box that played three tunes by the last steamer. Mr Piper thought of it,” said Lucilla, looking hard at Peregrine.

“So very kind,” murmured Sally, being afraid to look at all at Mr Lovel, standing like a monument to himself, as she told Lucilla that the clergyman was coming all the way from Christchurch for the wedding. “They are building a cathedral in Christchurch now,” said Sally, flooring Mr Lovel with that.

“I hope Christchurch remembers that it has to help us pay for the war,” remarked Lucilla, passing on. Cathedrals sounded like a luxury when one needed railways and sanitary systems.

As the whole burden of the war and its vast aftermath had fallen on the colony since 1866, Christchurch had small chance to forget. Not the least corner of New Zealand, taxed and custom-dutied to the bone, could forget. Yet money trickled in from the gold-fields, from the kauri gum-fields in the far North, from the Waikato coal; Mr Swainson, that gay bachelor, still presented young lady guests with his choice scarlet camellias, as he had once done to Darien; and Jerry (writing Peregrine a letter, which he sat over for a whole evening) considered that the Plains country was rich with gold.

“It would be a sad pity to lose Bendemeer,” wrote Jerry, “but I could never handle this big place and all the men as Darien does … not for years anyhow. Perhaps she'd be content with half if you let her stay. She really has a remarkable eye for sheep and horses. It's a gift.”

page 417

Peregrine had less than no desire to add even half Bendemeer to Darien's gifts, but long consideration brought the belief that he'd better do it. Darien (coarse and vulgar, he thought, as she now must be) was not likely to marry again, and so in time it would all come back to Jerry, with Nick Flower's money added if Jerry played his cards well … which none of my children have ever been able to do, thought Peregrine, cutting a new pen preparatory to writing to Darien. Great Heaven! Had any man ever done so much for his family and been so ill-rewarded? Even Sally had a cold and had waked him last night by coughing.