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If the doctor had diagnosed syphilis, Miss Dane couldn’t have felt more unclean. She dreaded meeting people, reading accusation page 302 in their faces. What if they knew?—but perhaps they did know, and certainly in a few weeks they would know. She felt especially guilty when she faced the children on the following morning.

She avoided Mrs Rae’s questions about what the doctor had said. She had hoped she might be able to pass them off with some bright joke but she couldn’t do it, and simply fumbled about with words that did not satisfy Mrs Rae. She slept that night because of the tablets. In the morning she was aware of Mrs Rae’s prying stares, though she couldn’t see how she could suspect anything. That evening she told her she would be able to sleep in her own room again, and Rae shifted back huffing and sighing.

And yet now that she knew, there was a new hardness in her. Though she accused herself for it, it seemed that at heart she had connived at her own fall, had accepted it and calculated on that basis. The obvious next step was to see Don, and strangely she did not dread the meeting.

But these times of bland energetic calculation alternated with moods of guilt and self-hatred. She did not know how she had got through the day teaching children and sharing in apparently normal conversation with the other teachers.

On the Tuesday afternoon Miss Dane went to Palmers’ hotel. She looked timidly towards the slide, but it was closed. There was no sound from the bar; it seemed to be locked up and empty. She was afraid to try the door in case she should find Don’s father there. She wanted to have this out with Don alone. Farther down the passage there was a door half-open and through it came a click of billiard balls. She looked through the door and saw at the far end of a billiard-table, Don’s head and shoulders. His eyes, squinting for a tricky shot, travelled down the cue and fixed on her in the door. He did not move or speak. She entered, and when she did not speak, he suddenly sent the ball rebounding from the walls of the table, and continued to move about the table as if she wasn’t there.

‘Mr Palmer,’ she said. ‘Mr Palmer, I’m afraid…. I wonder if I might have a word with you alone….’

‘No one about, is there?’ he said, shooting from behind his back, ‘This is alone enough, isn’t it?’

Miss Dane made a complaisant motion with her mouth as if to laugh. Don put down his cue and turned to face her, with an exaggerated expression of patience. ‘What is it now?’ he said.

‘Mr Palmer, you mustn’t breathe a word of this,’ she said, ‘I can’t bring myself to say it….’

‘Not another confession of love?’ he said.

‘Oh, Mr Palmer, please!’ she said, stamping her foot. She was page 303 trembling and had to clutch the side of the billiard-table. ‘You know I wouldn’t bother you if I didn’t have to…. It’s the baby, Mr Palmer! The doctor says I’m going to have a baby! You’re its father!’ She leant against the table, as if her nerves were exhausted.

Don lit two cigarettes and gave her one. She puffed deep and coughed. More calmly Don said, ‘Didn’t you do what I told you to do that night?’

‘What was that?’

‘Oh, Christ! I might have known. It’s too late to be arguing about that now…. You’ll want me to marry you then.’ He drew deep on his cigarette and contemplated the prospect, with wry whimsy. He too looked tired. ‘How long gone are you?’

‘The doctor said three months.’

‘Well, there’s enough time yet, old girl. What’re you worrying about?’ He moved to her and expertly put his hands at the sides of her shoulders. She was blushing deeply. ‘Look up,’ he said and carelessly jerked her chin up with his thumb. ‘Mr Palmer, stop it!’ she said. ‘I won’t have you being familiar with me again!’

‘Well, you want me to marry you, don’t you?’ he said. ‘You’re getting your wish, old girl.’

‘Don’t call me that!’

‘Well, I never did know your first name.’ She couldn’t bring herself to tell him now.

‘You’re getting your wish…. The second time in my life I’ve been trapped.’ He looked at her with an admiration that pleased her though she distrusted it. ‘By a bloody old schoolmarm too. I’d never have believed it. Well, I suppose it’s time I settled down again and got away from here. We won’t live in the Flat,’ he said.

Miss Dane was trembling. ‘Mr Palmer,’ she said. ‘You don’t mean to say you mean it? I mean, you aren’t going to agree?’

‘You sound as if you don’t want me to.’

‘Oh Mr Palmer, it’s much easier than I thought it would be.’

‘Call me Don.’

‘Oh, Don…. It’s too good to be true. I can’t believe it. I can’t!’

‘Relax,’ he said. He drew her to him with wry tenderness. ‘Give your hubby a kiss,’ he said.

‘Oh, Mr… Don…. Oh, don’t, please…. What’ll people think?’

‘What’ll they think if you have a snork that’s got no father?’

‘Oh, Don … I can’t believe it. It doesn’t seem right somehow.’ There were tears streaming down her checks, when Mrs Palmer came in with a basket of dry washing.

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‘Here, son,’ she said, ‘you do your smoking somewhere else, What a stink Dad’d kick up if he knew.’

They disengaged themselves, Miss Dane, flushing and crying, looked at Mrs Palmer and then at the floor like a surprised culprit. Don blandly returned his mother’s stare. ‘Why, Miss Dane of all people!’ she said.

‘My future wife,’ Don said.

‘Oh, Don,’ Mrs Palmer said. ‘Don’t play with the girl’s feelings, That’s a dirty thing to do.’

‘I mean it, Mum,’ he said. ‘We’re going to get married.’

‘You never said anything to me, son,’ she said.

‘I only just made up my mind. I’m telling you now. I couldn’t have told you any sooner.’

‘You might have said something to your old Mum and Dad before you were so quick off the jump.’

‘Listen, Mum, I’ve grown up a bar since we were down in Central Otago. It’s not Myra this time. I know what I’m doing.’

‘What’s all the hurry, son?’ Mrs Palmer said. ‘Its sounds to me a if there’s something fishy going on. Now don’t forget Don, whenever you’re in trouble, there’s always old Mum to come to for help, I’d have thought you’d have known that by now.’

Don grimaced slightly. ‘I’m trapped again, that’s why,’ he said. ‘Miss Dane’s got a baby of mine inside her.’

‘Well, Don Palmer!’ Mrs Palmer said slowly, ‘were you as hard up as that?’ She turned to Miss Dane. ‘What do you mean going with my boy?’ she asked. ‘The cheek of you! You’re only fit to reach infants, not to bring them into the world. The cheek of you, going with my boy! You’ve got to have a bit of the old what-ho to catch my boy’s eye. You’ve got to have a bit of something up here.–She prodded Miss Dane’s slim breasts.–‘You’ve got to have a bit of style.’–Contemptously she felt the material of Miss Dane’s frock. –‘A bit of curve in the leg, a bit of gloss in the hair. Not grey flecks at the side. Not a hairy cheek, or crow’s feet round the eyes. You’ve got to be somebody with sex appeal for my boy–understand?’

‘Stop it at once, Mrs Palmer!’ Miss Dane cried and threw herself at her, jabbing at her with her fists, slapping her face, kicking her legs, and pushing with her knee. Mrs Palmer fought back, pulling Miss Dane’s hair, slapping her. ‘You’re a wicked woman!’ Miss Dane gasped, and, ‘You common little slut!. Mrs Palmer bellowed. Don got between them and pushed them apart. Miss Dane stood on one side of the billiard-table, panting, looking fierce as she rearranged her hairpins. Mrs Palmer flopped into a chair and moaned, ‘Get me a whisky, son. You’ve got the keys to the bar.’

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While Don was out of the room, she glared across the table at Miss Dane. ‘Oh, I know all about you cheap common little tarts,’ she said. ‘There isn’t a girl in town wouldn’t give everything she’s got for my boy. It happened once before. Oh, it’s an old trick getting a boy in the family way so he’ll have to marry you. And you put it over me! You cunning underhand little sly thing! We nursed one snake in our midst when Paul Rogers ratted on us. I didn’t think we’d have two. Why, if you hadn’t lived in this house I’d never have let you within a stone’s throw of the boy.’

Miss Dane didn’t reply. Mrs Palmer’s words made her furious, yet she felt an unusual satisfaction in her fury. She spoke as if she had the edge on Mrs Palmer. ‘There’s nothing you can do about it,’ she said. ‘Your son’s asked me to marry him. I’ve consented. You have no power in law.’

Dad came in. ‘What’s all the barney, Lil?’ he said.

‘Oh, Dad, I’m all done in,’ Mrs Palmer said. ‘It’s that boy again. He’s in trouble again. He’s no sooner rid of one bitch of a wife and he’s got another applicant.’ She laughed loudly and uneasily.

‘Well, he’s a grown man,’ Dad said, ‘If he wants to get married again, we can’t stop him.’

‘Look at it!’ Mrs Palmer said. ‘Prospective wife to my son! That shrivelled up little schoolmistress!’

‘Now, Lil, take it easy,’ Dad said. ‘This is for Don and Miss Dane to settle, whatever it is.’

‘Mr Palmer,’ Miss Dane said with what dignity she could muster, ‘if I can trust you to be silent on this matter, I’m going to have a baby and your son is the father, and Mrs Palmer’s been very cheap about it.’

‘Well, he’s only got himself to blame then!’ Dad said with unusual anger, neither directly to Miss Dane nor to his wife. ‘Christ knows he’s had one warning. We can’t be expected to mollycoddle him all his life.’

‘Your son has agreed to marry me,’ Miss Dane said.

‘So he bloody well should,’ Dad said. ‘He’s not going to run away from it.’

‘That’s not the point, Dad,’ Mrs Palmer said. ‘It means he’ll be leaving us.’

‘Are you the first mother that’s happened to?’ Miss Dane asked.

Don came back with two whiskies. He offered one to Miss Dane who refused it. ‘Dad?’ he said. His father ignored the offer. ‘You been letting your cock run away with you again? Once should ha’ been enough, shouldn’t it?’

‘Mr Palmer!’ Miss Dane said, as if struggling against her shame page 306 at his immodesty. ‘It’s not quite fair to blame your son altogether. It’s only fair I should tell you that I encouraged him….’

‘There! Didn’t I tell you?’ Mrs Palmer said. ‘Didn’t I say so? Oh, you common little slut, angling for a husband because you couldn’t get one on the open market.’

‘Cut it out, Lil,’ Dad said, ‘Don’t get yourself worked up again.’

‘I was as much to blame as anyone,’ Don said.

‘It takes two to make that sort of a party,’ Mrs Palmer said. ‘You’re no more to blame than Miss Dane.’

‘Well, you two will have to settle it between you,’ Dad said.

‘You’re not leaving me, son,’ Mrs Palmer said. ‘Oh, Dad, I couldn’t stand it. First, Paul’s gone, now Doris has turned on us. Flora’s acting funny lately, coming home at all hours.’

‘Young Rogers was never anything to us,’ Dad said. ‘He’s in his own trouble now. There’s nothing wrong with Flora, it’s your imagination.’

‘They’ll take Donnie away from us,’ Mrs Palmer said. ‘It’s not fair to hand the boy over to this woman—his teacher!’

‘Your can have Donnie, Mum,’ Don said. ‘We won’t grudge you the boy’s bringing up. You know I’m grateful for that.’

‘There’s no point in arguing further,’ Miss Dane said.

‘I couldn’t stand it, Dad,’ Mrs Palmer cried in terror. ‘There’s not much more the old war-horse can stand. It’s not fair to you to have an invalid wife on your hands in your old age. I might be in the nut-house yet…. No, Dad,’ she said gently and firmly. ‘Don’t try to quieten me…. I’ve had these warnings before. I know my own system. I know when I’ve got to rest and recuperate. But this time there won’t be any recuperating. We haven’t had a year like it before, Dad. Everything’s going to pieces at once. If Don goes I’ll go to pieces. I can’t help it. There it is.’

‘Mrs Palmer,’ Miss Dane said as if she couldn’t quite take her seriously. ‘If Don doesn’t marry me, what do you suppose will happen to me?’

‘You?’ Mrs Palmer said. ‘No one’s worrying about you. Blood’s thicker than water, Miss Dane. When your own are in trouble you don’t worry about other people.’

‘Oh, Mum,’ Don said. ‘You’ll get over it. You got used to Myra didn’t you? It isn’t as if you won’t see me again.’

‘I didn’t think my own boy would sign me over to the mad-house,’ Mrs Palmer said. ‘Just like that. ‘Course, it just goes to show how much gratitude there is in this world. I used to think, well, human nature isn’t up to much, but at least your own are dependable. Well, we live and learn. I’ll feel a lot easier for it when I’m too daft to page 307 remember it.’ Her face already had a faraway look. Miss Dane looked at her with scorn, waiting till the scene was over.

‘She means it,’ Dad said to Don. ‘Come on, Lil, you’d better get up to bed.’

‘Not till this thing’s settled, Dad,’ Mrs Palmer said. ‘I’d just like to know whether I’m still to be counted among the sane or not. Are you going to stay with us, son?’

‘How can I, Mum?’ Don said.

‘Well, it’s her or me, son.’

Mr Palmer said as if he had suddenly had all principle crumpled in him by circumstances beyond his control, ‘You see how it is, Miss Dane. Her or you. I know it’s tough. In any other circumstances I’d ha’ made bloody sure he married you. What would you do yourself? If Don stays with us, your life is ruined, I’m not trying to deny that. If he leaves you, my wife is an invalid, for all we know she might lose her reason. What would you do yourself, Miss Dane? It’s tough on you, but you can’t ask the boy to turn his mother barmy and you can’t expect me to force him to…. Don can do what he likes, but you can’t expect me to push him into it… You did say, you encouraged him.’

Miss Dane stared at them as if up till now she hadn’t comprehended.

‘Mr Palmer!’ she cried. ‘How can you be serious? Don’t you know what it means to me? If I don’t get married I’ll have to go through all that scandal. I’d lose my job. I couldn’t support the child myself, without working.’

‘I know it’s difficult for you,’ Dad said limply.

‘And your son will go scot-free! He won’t have to put up with the scandal. He can go anywhere. I’ll always have the baby. Don,’ she pleaded. ‘Ignore them. They don’t know what they’re saying.’

‘Don looked downcast. ‘I’m going to marry her, Dad,’ he said.

‘Oh, no, Don,’ Mrs Palmer said with great patience as if to a child who doesn’t understand things properly. Flora came in and stared at the scene without asking questions. ‘Oh, no, Don. It’s time some of you started thinking of your old mother a bit more. Doris pleased herself. I’ll only have old Dopy here left. It’s not that I object to your marrying, son, but I couldn’t see you throw yourself away.’

‘I can please myself about that,’ Don said.

‘Whatever’s all the fuss about?’ Flora said.

‘You go on with what you’re doing, pet,’ Mrs Palmer said. ‘We’re just settling something.’

‘Don’t stay, Flora,’ Dad said.

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But Flora didn’t go. More desperately Mrs Palmer said to Miss Dane, ‘I don’t cure how it affects you; you angled for it. You brought it on yourself. You’ve got your reward. You’ve got my son’s baby. That’s enough for you.’

‘Mrs Palmer,’ Miss Dane said. ‘I couldn’t have believed anyone could be so heartless and cynical. Well, let me tell you, I’m in no position to care what you think. Don’s agreed to give a name to that baby and a respectable home to me. And I’m going to see him honour his promise.’

Mrs Palmer ignored her, Flora said, ‘Oh Don, have you been? … Well, what’s all the trouble about? Why can’t you marry her? Miss Dane, don’t worry. He’ll marry you. Don won’t leave you like that.

Don didn’t reply, Dad said nothing. Mrs Palmer said, ‘Because if he does he’ll be pitching me into the home at Hokitika, that’s why. You don’t want to see me sent into a place like that, do you, Dopy? Visiting me.’

‘Really, your mother is quite ridiculous,’ Miss Dane said, ‘You’ll be able to see your son. You can’t have him all your life.’

‘Oh, Mum, you’re talking rot,’ Flora said. ‘How will it drive you mad? Didn’t Don get married before? And Doris? I’ll be leaving you some day too.’

‘You’re not likely to be leaving us for a while yet, Dopy.’

‘You’re talking silly about Hokitika,’ Flora said, as if humouring her. ‘Do you think we’d ever send you there?’

‘Hokitika or Timbuctoo or my own backyard!’ Mrs Palmer shouted. ‘I can feel it coming on, Flor. I know how much I can stand. I tell you, I won’t be responsible for my actions.’

‘She means it,’ Dad said bitterly. ‘It’s not right. But it’s the way it is. It’s you or her,’ he said to Miss Dane.

‘Do you think I’ll let you get away with this?’ Miss Dane cried, ‘If I have that baby, I’ll tell everyone who fathered it—everyone. Your name will be mud when I tell them how his parents didn’t have the decency to….’

‘Who cares what you say?’ Mrs Palmer said.

‘Don!’ Miss Dane pleaded. ‘Say it. Say it, to reassure me. Tell them you don’t care whether she goes mad or not. Tell her you’re going to marry me.’

‘She’s blackmailing you,’ Mrs Palmer said. ‘Threatening to tell everyone.’

‘Don, I can’t believe it!’ Flora said. ‘Mum! Dad! What’s gone wrong with you all so suddenly!’ She seized Mum by the arm. ‘Mum, tell us you’re only play-acting. Tell Don you can’t stop him marrying Miss Dane.’

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Mrs Palmer fended flora away gently. ‘You don’t understand, pet,’ she said. Flora grabbed at Dad’s coat. ‘Dad, what’s wrong with you? Tell Don it’s only right—he’s got to marry her!’ But Dad stared through her with downcast eyes. ‘Dad, look at me! Tell me what’s got into you all! … Don! It’s your decision anyway. Don’t listen to Mum, Don. She doesn’t mean it. You’ll have to marry her. Don’t you know how a girl must feel in a situation like that? You’re responsible for it. Don!’ But Don only said, ‘I wanted to, Flor. I offered to. But I can’t send Mum off her rocker at the same stroke.’

‘Oh, Mum,’ Flora said, ‘Mum’s weathered worse storms than that. She says these things. Miss Dane, don’t believe them. They’ve all gone off their rockers now, I reckon. But come back tomorrow and they’ll be right again, you’ll see. Come and ask Don tomorrow.’

‘What people!’ Miss Dane said bitterly. ‘The high and mighty of the town. They can’t even stand up for the elementary decencies of life. Selfish, wicked people, destroying other people’s lives!’ Then for the first time in her life she surrendered herself to a heaving fit of sobs. The noise was dismal. Don moved to support her but furiously she pushed him off and fell across the billiard-table, weeping on to the faded baize.

Flora stood as if she too were at bay. ‘I’ve never seen you like this before,’ she cried. ‘It is true, what Miss Dane says. You’re cruel and selfish. You don’t know what you’re doing to me! All the things you brought me up to believe in, you’re showing you don’t believe a word of them when your own turn comes. Miss Dane,’ she said, moving to her and putting her arm about her, stroking her hair, while Miss Dane accepted her comforting. ‘Don’t believe them. They can’t mean it…. If I was Miss Dane,’ she said furiously to Don, ‘I wouldn’t even let you marry me now. Not after this. Can’t you think of a girl’s pride? And I used to be proud of my brother. You’re spineless.’

Dad went to the two women and separated them. ‘Come on, Flora,’ he said. ‘There’s no help for it. You’ll do yourself no good getting yourself worked up like this.’ Flora stood apart still staring at them with hostility. ‘Of course we’ll settle with you,’ Dad said to Miss Dane, as if to his conscience, because it was obvious she wasn’t listening. ‘We’ll see you right if it costs our last penny. You can put the baby in a home.’

‘We could take the baby,’ Mrs Palmer said, already more in control of herself. ‘It’d give me something to think about. So long as it’s Don’s. It is yours, isn’t it, Don?’

‘’Course it’s mine,’ Don said irritably.

‘Then don’t worry, Miss Dane,’ she continued. ‘The baby page 310 couldn’t want for a better home than he’ll get here. You’ll be able to carry on with your schoolteaching when everything’s over. We’ll see to all the expense. You can trust Dad.’

‘They never knew if Miss Dane understood because she staggered out of the room, knocking into Don without recognition, and careless of her disarranged hair and scratched face, almost fell into her Morris Eight, still sobbing, and drove unsteadily down the main road. She did not stop at Raes’.

The two men watching her go looked surly and defeated. Mrs Palmer shook her head with an appearance of enigmatic wisdom. She said, ‘I don’t s’pose she’ll have much use for that car soon, Dad. It might be an idea to buy it for Don. You could pay her a good price for it, to help her along a bit.’

Flora came to them. ‘Cruel and spineless, that sums up the lot of you. Let me tell you something. I’ve been taking risks myself lately. Yes, with Paul! And Paul wouldn’t let me down the way you did. Would you like it if that happened to me? It’d serve you right if it did. Only it won’t.’

‘No one commented. They couldn’t face a new complication. Mum half collapsed and Dad supported her to her room. Ten minutes later Flora left, without good-byes, with a suitcase, for Doris’s.