II

True English colonists, prepared to run their heads against any wall in preference to hunting for gates like a swineherd, egad, continued to vociferate against Grey, who probably felt that England was asking rather much of one spare gentleman in frock-coat and checked trousers. With an empty treasury he could buy no land for distribution. With Maoris everywhere engaged in private warfare he could get no titles clear. With the Waitangi Treaty (that inviolate Magna Carta of the Maoris) hanging over his head, he could not even grab. And all over the country little settlements—chiefly housed in tents or on wheels so that they could move on when the Maoris claimed the land—were declaring themselves with loud cries, often protesting that they had been there for years, and nobody cared.

Grey, who had been born a dictator and had made himself another, sent military expeditions to tell the settlements that, being unauthorized, they did not exist.

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And the expeditions, much encumbered by forty-pound packs, high chokers and long flintlock Brown Besses, got lost in the towering bush for weeks, discovered settlements which had been discovered so often that they were tired of it, enraged the Maoris who suspected them of putting down survey-pegs, and then returned to be very drunken in barracks and write long Home letters mentioning mosquitoes and steaming wet infernos. Meanwhile they cost the country so much that Auckland was going quite bankrupt and gentlemen's top-hats were losing their gloss, while as for the ladies (dear souls) the number of turned gowns and little unexpected bows hiding spots testified to the state they were in.

Yet since, no one must carp at his family, Peregrine took Sally and Darien round to Commercial Bay by row-boat (only gentlemen walked the rough track over the hill) and there spent the worth of his latest-built cutter on such fallals, such quantities of white silk-muslin and soft blue satin the colour of Sally's eyes that Sally was overcome by remorse to the extent of kissing his cheek and then overcome much further by his surprise. “I … I only wanted to show my appreciation,” she faltered.

“Quite unnecessary,” said Peregrine, really annoyed, because Darien was present at the scene. “Such demonstrations suggest that you imagine I doubt your appreciation and affection. I assure you I never do that.”

Such a new outlook on conjugal felicity comforted Sally amazingly. Now she need never kiss a man again until she and Jermyn kissed in Eternity. She shut her eyes with a little shiver. Eternity was so far away. Further even than Jermyn, who was being so noble in never coming to see her that one could almost wish he wasn't … only one mustn't, thought Sally, getting very mixed over rights and wrongs.

So the little seamstress who was so skilful she could talk with her mouth full of pins came daily, and the morning-room frothed and billowed with endless flounces page 105 and laces and ribbons, and Darien always in a dressing-gown. Such a tall slender Darien, overtopping Sally; Darien with her glorious head of curls, her skin like rose-leaves, her lovely curving arms. How happy Sally would be to have Darien calling her Sal-volatile again; and Darien looking so hard at her sometimes that she felt herself going red right down her neck.

She's got a lover, thought Darien, quite excited. I'll find out who he is when I have time. So Sally could wait while billows were piled on snowy billows, while petticoats swelled and foamed with delicate lace, and ribbons and roses looped up the billows and ran into patterns on a filmy scarf.

At last the white satin slippers went on over the cotton stockings, the white rosebud wreath was pinned among her curls, and Darien stood before the long mirror with every lamp and candle in the house about her and declared she felt like a choir of angels in a shrine.

“Oh, I wish I were a man for a minute so I could kiss me,” she cried. “Sal-volatile, did you ever see anyone so ravishing before?”

Butter, she felt, had indeed been served her in a lordly dish, and all the young bucks' heads would soon be around her feet on chargers. But Jermyn's head she would take upon her breast … that white firm young breast which Caroline (magnificent in an orange velvet gown and party-colour gauze turban) declared to be most immodestly revealed.

“Your shoulders are too thin, Darien,” she said, conscious how voluptuous (without indelicacy) were her own. “And I always think your colour quite consumptive. You should take brimstone-and-treacle and catnip tea. I'm giving it to all the girls now. They have such shocking boils.”

“Darien has no boils,” said Sally, indignant, and helping Darien worship that white bright vision in the pier-glass.

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“They occur at any moment,” asserted Caroline, trying to get in front of the glass herself. “Shall I wind this chain three times round my neck or leave it negligee? One can't be too careful with boils. Probably Darien has one coming now. I'll be bound she don't drench enough. I always keep my children thoroughly drenched.”

Caroline's little girls, thought Sally, had the pale drowned look of immature fish swimming deep. She glanced thankfully at sturdy sun-browned Tiffany sitting in adoration on the floor.

“Do we look nice, darling?” Sally asked a little wistfully.

Tiffany flushed. Little girls were so seldom expected to have opinions.

“I-I think you're like the Madonna in the big Bible, mamma. And Aunt Darien is a … a Christmas lily and the Fairy Queen.”

“And what am I?” demanded Caroline, adding an amethyst brooch to the three already so unhappy on the orange velvet.

“I'd rather not say,” murmured Tiffany, wishing the floor would swallow her up before she had to. But darling Aunt Darien was running across the room, dropping her the loveliest curtsy.

“Thank you, sweet, for sparing our feelings,” cried Darien. “We do what we can, but I know it's so little in the presence of such splendour.” You could pull Caroline's leg from here to Tophet and she never knew. So that danger was over, with Caroline kindly assuring them that they really looked very well, after all, and Tiffany ready to cry with the beautifulness of mamma and Aunt Darien muffling up in burnouses and shawls when papa came for them. She hurried Roddy up the stairs to her attic-room, imploring him with tears popping down her cheeks:

“Let's play something quick, Roddy. They're too lovely to live. I know they'll die.”

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Roddy, rumpling up his thick fair hair, considering her with his kind brown eyes, understood in a minute. “We'll play they're both Cinderella going to the ball. And Aunt Caroline is the three ugly sisters.”

“Oh, Roddy! And of course Uncle Jermyn is the Prince,” cried Tiffany. Would there ever be a trouble Roddy couldn't put right, she thought, offering gratefully to be Aunt Caroline, but Roddy said the towel-horse would do for her.

A beggared uncrowned prince Jermyn felt himself to be, entering the long military fodder-barn turned by that magician, Governor Grey, into the most elegant of ballrooms; with marquees and out-buildings for supper and sitting-out, and ten pounds of the best sperm candle scraped upon the floor, and Governor Grey and his lady up on a red dais sitting a little higher than the chaperons. He knows that every man here to-night is cursing him and he don't care a damn, thought Jermyn.

“Gad! There's a beauty,” said O'Reilly at his side. “A fine filly, sir,” agreed a fat colonel, and Jermyn looked up to see Darien sinking in a white foam before the Governor with that curtsy which was so shortly to become famous.

Jermyn's eyes rested on her absently. She looks well to-night, he thought; saw Sally standing a little apart and went to her like a needle to its magnet. “Oh, Jermyn! Isn't Darien glorious?” cried Sally, glowing out of her blue gown.

“Blast Darien! How many dances can I have?”

Sally began to tremble because Jermyn should be used to Eternity by now, and how could she ever be if he wasn't?

“I … I can't dance to-night, Jermyn. I'm chaperoning Darien, and a chaper——”

“Come, my dear,” said Peregrine, with Darien already on his arm. “Our seats are on the dais,” he added, quite gracious since, if the symptoms he saw around him were correct, this abominable girl would soon be off his hands page 108 for good. The expenditure had been justified, thought Peregrine, pulling up his stock and listening to the compliments (which were fashionably florid and lengthy), watching Darien being so modest with her big white feather fan while her programme filled up.

I must be careful, thought Darien, feeling excitement boil in her until she wanted to whoop and jump. This is heaven at last, she thought, beginning to glide in the arms of the Governor's aide who held her divinely close. After bumping round with Elvira, with Sarah Wells, who was so hot and hugging, this was heaven. Once she had thought she knew it with the dancing-master; but after he had tried to kiss her behind the whatnot that was the end of him. Darien didn't intend to have her reputation blown on before she had made it.

“What blest spot has had the joy of harbouring you until now?” murmured the aide, bending a stiff pomatumed head.

“Why … I have just left school,” said Darien with wide innocent eyes.

“A school for scandal, eh? I'll wager all the masters fought duels over the chance of just one smile from those fair lips.”

“Oh, sir!” murmured Darien, looking down. This was such fun that she almost forgot Jermyn—who was probably speechless with admiration and jealousy in some corner. I shan't keep those dances for him much longer, she thought; enjoying the quadrille almost better, with so many eager hands reaching and lingering, so many languishing eyes, so many inspired young bloods doing the pigeonwing in homage to that seduction which Nick Flower had told her would be the curse of men.

It was a pity Nick Flower was not here to see her conquest, but perhaps someone would tell him about it. In the meantime she had never dreamed that anyone could be so happy; that a brass band could so fill the world with page 109 melody, that a man's arm about her waist could twitch and tighten and keep on tightening….

If I could dance for ever it seems to me I wouldn't have to wear stays, thought Darien, panting a little in the gallop and wondering if she were perspiring. No, Mrs Williams said that ladies didn't perspire. Well, anyway, she was doing all that ladies were allowed to do.

The regimental band swung from quadrille to waltz and back again. The long room gleamed; white arms and shoulders gleamed, colour was a delirium of azure, pink and pearly-white, and a thousand brilliancies more—of floating scarves entangling in epaulettes and being released with pretty shrieks, of scarlet jackets, black coats, jewels, ringlets floating glossily, perfumed side-whiskers going off with the ringlets to supper, champagne bubbling in crystal glasses, gentlemen being very merry at the buffet, Caroline bouncing like a stray orange down the centre with the Governor in Sir Roger….

But many gentlemen were not entirely happy because, being unable to quarrel about Grey while drinking the man's wine, they had to find another topic. Old Barnes supplied one with the Harbour Board, which was attempting to get Auckland out to deep water by casting spoil from the hills over the mud-flats and laying streets atop to keep it there.

“A child's game. We need new blood, sir,” he bellowed at Peregrine, who had been Chairman of the Board for a year. “Yes, an' we'll put it in at the next election, too. Flower … you know Nick Flower, all of you? (So many gentlemen looked uncomfortable that it was presumed that they did.) Well, he's the sort. Sticks at nothin'. Dredges, he says, and I'll lay it's gotter be dredges. At this rate our grandchildren may see deep-water ships berthing at our wharves. We never will.”

Talk of Flower always stiffened Peregrine. Will nothing rid me of this traitor, he thought, longing for Wol-sey's slayers. He said affaby—for let a man think you page 110 agree with him and he is half-won already: “Dredges would be excellent. I have already inquired for English estimates. We might get a suitable one delivered here for about five thousand pounds, but I fear we would need at least three.”

“Ur,” said old Barnes, his lip dropping. More taxes, eh? Not for him.

“Get that scoundrel Flower to pay for 'em with the money he's making by smuggling war material,” said Major Henry, beginning to bubble with the champagne.

“When Greek meets Greek….” began Sir Winston, but the gun-running was always so many red rags to bulls. They all began roaring together, so Major Henry went away to talk to Sally—who was not on the dais where she should have been. Jermyn … ? he thought with a stound of fear. But Jermyn (also so palpably not where he should be) was equally likely to be where he should not.

Alarm and champagne strove in Major Henry. Jermyn had no conscience, and Sally … the Lord help her, thought the Major; but (being aware by now that the Lord seldom hurried) he set about doing it himself, interrupting three proposals and a quarrel in green bowery out-houses and marquees, and never finding Sally engaged in one of them. Terrible, he thought, searching frantically. No breath allowed on female Lovels, egad, though the males might (and did) give a fillip to life now and then.

Out among the flax and manuka Jermyn was giving Sally so many fillips that she had nothing to meet them with but tears. She had come with him, thinking he had a message from Mr Lovel, but anything less like a message from Mr Lovel it was impossible to imagine. “Oh, don't, don't,” she wept while Jermyn's intensest convictions swept over her in a flood.

Love (declared Jermyn, who seemed quite beside himself) came from God and was not meant to be denied. Sally didn't know what love was. Peregrine did not. page 111 Jermyn, it seemed, was the only one who did, and he made such a beautiful destroying angel of it that Sally's little twitters about Eternity got her less than nowhere. Wouldn't Jermyn do all a man could do for her—and didn't he deserve anything for that? Wasn't he haunted by her day and night? And didn't he deserve anything for that? “Do you expect me to go to my grave in this torment?” demanded Jermyn of a trembling Sally seeing ancient Jermyns hobbling without their deservings into yawning vaults. “By God, it's true enough that a woman has no heart.”

“Oh, Jermyn, you must understand….”

But Jermyn, having so thoroughly let go of himself, was afraid to stop and understand. There were limits, he told her, to patience, to repression. Limits (it appeared) to everything but love. “I cannot do without you and I won't,” he cried, trying to take her in his arms.

She felt herself pushing him back with both hands on his breast. She felt as though pushing herself back too … back from the longing, the terrible aching longing … “Another word and I'll never speak to you again,” she cried, not believing that it was her own voice saying it, her own body that dodged suddenly under his arm and carried her at a run into the house, where she took cover among blue curtains in the ladies' dressing-room, explaining to the startled maid that she had a cold.

“A mustard bath is the best thing, madam,” said the maid to a Sally feeling mustard all over her burning skin, her burning eyes, her burning heart. Please God let him find comfort in Eternity, prayed Sally, unable to discover any there herself.

This, thought Jermyn, returning later to the brilliant barn, is how a whipped cur feels, I suppose. Tail between his legs and yet wanting to bite. A radiant Darien was the first person who presented herself to be bitten; dismissing her partner outside a marquee and walking Jermyn off. page 112 “I kept this dance for you,” said Darien, determined to have no more nonsense. “But we'll sit it out.”

“As you please,” said Jermyn wearily. His madness was spent, but he could see nothing but those little brown tendrils at the nape of Sally's neck twisting round his heart, strangling it, and Darien's chatter went by him on the wind.

Sitting with him on a puffy blue satin settee behind tree-ferns, Darien was perplexed that she did not swoon with joy at having got Jermyn to herself at last, disordered though he appeared. But so many gentlemen were disordered by this time of night, she thought, willing to make allowances. And that wild look, like a corsair or a pirate, became him monstrous well. Quite ready to be pirated by Jermyn she leaned toward him, laid her hand on his.

“Do I look nice to-night, Jermyn?”

The soft caressing touch sent shocks through him. Glancing round he saw radiance, warmth, a quite delirious enchantment of invitation shedding lovely benison on him. Fragrance of hair and sweet young flesh, ripe lips half-parted for the kissing. With a sighing groan he took what the gods and Darien offered. But even in the kiss those soft lips turned to Dead-Sea apples. They were not Sally's, and he let her go in confused anger as she cried:

“Jermyn, do you love me? Do you really?”

“No,” he said, getting up, alarmed to find how he was shaking. “No. I … I beg your pardon. I … I'm drunk, I think,” he said, conscious that he must soon be drunker or go mad.

“Well, I didn't really expect you to at once,” said Darien kindly. “But you soon will. It's my seduction, you know. Mr Flower said I had it, and I seem to be seducting everybody to-night.”

“Congratulations,” said Jermyn vaguely. He took her back to the ball-room and went home to Major Henry's page 113 rum-cask, which was three parts full. A brave and happy ending to a successful evening, he thought.