Ignoring fleas, mud, smells, pigs, the papers, its little scattered houses peering hopefully out of scrub, and the dirty streets of rough black scoria, Auckland still contrived to feel itself the very pink and pearl of civilization. Caroline wrote Home reams about Linda's marriage to “one of our millionaires” when she had been in such excellent bravura voice that she had never sung

Come unto these yellow sands
And then take hands….

better, and ignored how sulky Andrew had been over singing:

The breath of morn bids hence the night;
Unveil those beauteous eyes, my fair,
For till the dawn of love is there I feel no day, I own no light,

although Linda (placed there by Caroline on purpose) had stood by with her eyes unveiled, helping him to feel anything.

But she's married anyway, and that's the chief thing, thought Caroline, going on to impress England with the festivals held by dear Sir John Logan Campbell in his fine house (which you might almost call a palace), and the afternoons for young ladies provided by dear Mr Swainson (our gay bachelor Attorney-General); and how, because Auckland was the headquarters of the bishopric, the military, the Roman Catholics, and the banking gentry, there was such a whirl of amusement that dear Sophy and Maria, who had come out together at the last ball, were nearly run off their feet….

page 261

Tiffany had come out at the ball too, but there was no need to mention her, thought Caroline, who, having just sent Tiffany a blue-and-red silk handkerchief for her eighteenth birthday, felt that she had done her part by Tiffany.

Others had also done their part, so that the breakfast table at Lovel Hall was heaped with cards and bouquets from appreciative partners, and Sally was still gathering up parcel wrappings from the floor.

“More than your share of scalps, Tiffy,” cried Darien, pretending to be jealous and wondering whose card Tiffany had blushed so red over. When Tiffany did love (and she seemed slow at it) she'd ride her passion as she rode a horse at a fence. But here was Peregrine, preening himself in Tiffany's popularity but pragmatic as ever.

“I beg you not to put foolish thoughts into Tiffany's head. Let us leave her to her maiden dreams.”

“You probably wouldn't if you knew what they were,” retorted Darien. And at that Tiffany fairly ran out of the room, glowing like a damask rose.

“Really,” said Peregrine, much annoyed, “I regret that you so let your tongue run away with you, Lady Calthorpe.”

You'll regret it much more when somebody runs away with Tiffany, Darien nearly said, but she had no mind to warn that stiff black rig. When she had time she'd make a little candle-wax image of him, and stick it full of pins and melt it away before a slow fire. Then Sally would be free—poor Sally, still so meekly at her virtuous' promenade.

And Tiffany would be free too. Tiffany whom Peregrine would certainly marry off to the highest bidder unless she kicked … which I hope and pray she will, thought Darien, walking down to the gate with Sally and cursing crinolines which grew bigger every year and picked up such a mort of flies and daddy-long-legs to buzz in one's page 262 petticoats. “Just like these tester beds. So trying in a hot country, and far too intimate,” said Darien.

In her attic room Tiffany sat on the bed, afraid to pull out the card she had hid in her pocket downstairs, her heart was thumping so. Now she knew that she had really come to the end of her childhood at last. This great hot tide of life rushing along so swiftly, rushing her with it, half-drowned in doubts, compliments, new gowns, nosegays and dance-music … never would it let her scramble out to the flowery banks of her childhood again. For weeks now she had felt life clutching her with imperious hands, pressing her against the mould into which all women have to go. Softly she pulled out the card, feeling her fingers cold, her cheeks burning….

Such a plain bit of pasteboard, which couldn't have guessed how infinitely glorious it was to be made by the lettering. Tiffany drew long breaths. “Capt. Richard R. Sackville, 58th Reg.” Nothing those old leather books could offer held the miracle of this.

And down in a corner in a black careless scrawl: “With comps. R. S.” R. S., oh, wonderful initials, conjuring up Captain Sackville with forage-cap over his ear, with brown face full of laughter, with his whole well-set-up self so breezy with devil-may-care gaiety that there had never been anything like him. Tiffany, turning her gaze from old yellow-skinned Buddha and Confucius, had known them drop to dust at one roving glance from a pair of laughing grey eyes.

He had not known. She would die if he ever knew. And perhaps die if he didn't. Cradling the little card on tender hands she told herself severely that his roses had not been very good, and began to cry because perhaps mamma hadn't put them in water and she herself hadn't dared. Then, having until now been unaware of what love can do to you, she cast herself face down on the pillow, the card pressed to her cheek.

“No. I won't be silly. I don't care. I don't,” she page 263 whispered, fiercely fighting off Captain Sackville, who so far had shown no intention of advancing. It was correct to send flowers to young ladies whose parents had offered entertainment. “I know he doesn't remember that he's ever been in the house,” said Tiffany, being very stern with herself.

Sophia knocked and hurried in. She was always in a hurry and always late.

“Your present, Tiffy,” she gasped. “I couldn't get it done before. Maria had toothache and I had to finish mamma's petticoat. But I did every stitch with horsehair out of horses' tails and I do hope you'll join our order now.”

Not being able to get rid of her spots, Sophia had “gone in for” religion in the company of several other unappreciated young ladies. They called themselves the Vestal Virgins (which gentlemen seemed to find monstrous funny), went to church fasting, and had a vast number of cabalistic signs among themselves, in addition to wearing jute sacking next their skins to remind them of the saints. The shapeless garment Tiffany unfolded was of jute and —whichever end you held up—equally repulsive.

“Once in Royal David's city I expect they wore them,” cried Sophia, the red spots glowing in her pallid face. “I wouldn't be without mine for all the conquering kings of the world. You can't realize the peace a hair-shirt gives, Tiffy.”

“I'd scratch so,” said Tiffany, doubtfully. One couldn't laugh at poor silly Sophy, but it was as well Aunt Darien wasn't there. “You don't like it. Oh, I'm so disappointed.” As usual Sophia dissolved into tears and hymns. “While others throng the House of Mirth and haunt the gaudy show,” she sobbed, “remember that your p-poor cousin is praying for you, T-Tiffy.”

“I'm monstrous grateful to you, Sophy dear,” said Tiffany, feeling that she had never needed prayers more, page 264 though Sophy's kind were not likely to be useful at present. “But even in flannel I can't stop wriggling. I'd scare the town in a hair-shirt.”

“Well, remember that the meek shall inherit the earth. Though I'm sure I'm meek enough,” cried Sophia, bursting out again, “and I don't seem to inherit anything except spots.”

“Poor dear,” Tiffany hugged her, bravely kissed the marred cheek with her fresh young lips. “Don't you think you might be better if you didn't take medicines all the time, Sophy?”

“Mamma orders it. Oh, Tiffany, you don't suggest that I should disobey mamma? A thankless child … ‘sharper than a serpent's tooth’….”

“But it's your insides, Sophy. Not hers.”

“All I have is hers. I wouldn't wish it otherwise,” cried Sophia in a perfect torrent of immolations. “My life, my soul … only she'd have to arrange that with the saints…. Oh, yes, if you hang it in your cupboard where you can see it every day I know you'll soon want to wear it.”

While Tiffany had her head in the cupboard there could be no harm peeking to see what she had pushed under the pillow in such a hurry…. Sophia went away much more composed. This must be an intrigue, and who knew that Captain Sackville hadn't a wife already? Far too many officers had. Woe, woe unto man whose days are few and evil—and Aunt Darien would probably be able to tell her how evil they were.

But when Sophia, very earnest under a white chip bonnet that made her look like a poached egg, inquired even Darien was shaken for a minute. This damned little town, so full of that spiritual blood-letting which seems necessary to some natures, and Sophy just the kind of idiot to set a scandal going. If Tiffany got in Darien's way she'd be trampled without compunction, but she was page 265 welcome to Dick Sackville if she could get him. Darien put on a mysterious air.

“Hush,” she whispered. “I mustn't tell secrets but … did you look at the other side of the card? No? There you are, then Have you never heard of a go-between?”

“Oh, b-but isn't that even more sinful? Two gentlemen.”

“And not even one for you, eh? But why not two ladies? Why mightn't Tiffany be helping a friend? Miss Leta Baizey, for instance,” said Darien, sacrificing Leta with some relish.

“Oh!” said Sophia, turning the talk again to Maria's toothache and mamma's merino petticoat, while Darien tried to remember what she knew of Captain Sackville.

Good-looking enough in a brown muscular way, Captain Sackville. Rather standing off the women as though aware that those laughing eyes of his did more havoc than he wished, but monstrous popular with the men. Often Calthorpe brought her from the barracks fire the last racy story of Dick Sackville's. “Don't respect anything,” said Calthorpe, who worshipped the British Army with all its capitals, “but such doosed good company.”

That, it seemed, was all. Darien was disappointed in Tiffany. Probably Sophia imagined it, she thought, going off to dance with one and another on Mrs Pinshon's carpet and asking where was Captain Sackville to-night? Her shy subaltern was too enchanted by Lady Calthorpe's hair, her eyes, her whole glorious intoxicating self to be very coherent, but Darien gathered that Sackville had gone with choice company to climb Jacob's Ladder— three dizzy flights of a hundred steps each, without handrail, that went up by Graham's Bond to Britomart Point.

“A regular moonraker, Sackville. Nothing that fellow won't do,” said the subaltern. Darien reflected that there was still one thing left for Sackville to do. He might break his neck, and she rather hoped he would, going herself to the buffet for a glass of wine.

page 266

Jermyn was there and Sir Winston and others, all being, as usual, very wise about England. “What did England want this wretched country for?” demanded a captain who wished to go home to his wife.

“She don't want it,” explained Sir Winston. “But ‘Rule Britannia,’ y'know—Dibden … I think. She always has to kill out the savages. Can't leave any country to them. A crime in these days, egad.”

“There you have the whole ethics of civilization,” said Jermyn. “There's no enemy left to kill in England now … except the Government's ministers, and they would probably legislate against it.” Unpleasantly bitter, the Jermyn of these days, thought Darien. She didn't want him now. After a time, falling in love becomes merely an incident, and no man is worth a grande Dassion. Tiffy would probably have one, though. She was that sort.

Corny had persuaded Peregrine out into the garden. “Somethin' to tell you … damned important,” muttered Corny in his husky voice. So under the stars, from which Roddy had so often called down benediction on his love, Peregrine learned of it and, although much surprised, was less annoyed than Corny had expected.

“Her fault entirely, the little wanton,” said Corny handsomely. “Always ridin' out to the farm. I packed her straight off to the Waikato with her mother. She'll be married before the child comes, Lovel. Maoris think none the worse of a wife who's had an affair with a white man.”

“I am much obliged to you.” Peregrine was still some-what dazed. “Does Roddy know … about the child?”

“Eriti says not. Scared of losing him. But all half-castes are born liars. Don't seem English at all, some-how,” said Corny grimly. Twice Hemi had refused to return home. “I think the Maori cause is a lost one and so I must help it,” Hemi had written in his careful English. But if war came Corny would go down into the Waikato and fetch him.

page 267

“'Pon my soul, Lovel, I feel I owe you an apology….”

“Not at all, my dear fellow. Quite the other way,” said Peregrine, recovering. Corny had been very decent about Eriti, and it was pleasant to find Roddy was not the milksop he seemed. A thwarted love affair, even a Maori one, would stave off desire for a too-early marriage, thought Peregrine, quite ready to trample on all young hearts that needed it. He was really grateful to Corny's Eriti, and showed it by requesting that she have her lips tattooed at once.

“Eh? D'you think so? A half-caste, y'know. It's damned painful and ugly. I wouldn't let Haini be done,” protested Corny, who was really soft-hearted.

But Peregrine's assertion that nothing would quicker cool Roddy's ardour than thought of the thick blubber lips of the respectable married Maori women overruled him. “All right. I'll send Rupe down at once,” promised Corny, going back for the drink which he felt he richly deserved, while Peregrine went to watch Roddy and Tiffany dancing together.

“Look at 'em. You've given something to a new country there, Peregrine. Fresh an' sweet as a May mornin', egad,” declared Major Henry, who was becoming shocking sentimental in his old age.

Peregrine contemplated his son with new interest. So Roddy was a man now and would have to be shipped down to Canterbury before one of these young women caught him on the rebound. The best of John's merino rams must go with him before young Greer got them too, thought Peregrine, who had put Andrew down as a worthy enemy since he went off with the Hereford bull. But Andrew could advise and help Roddy, since their stations would not be far apart as distance went in that country.

I shall arrange everything before I speak to the boy, thought Peregrine, always a little uncomfortable before page 268 that strange bright bloom of innocence which seemed still to persist in Roddy, and going up to sit by Sally. Since the young Lovels seemed to have become the cynosure of all eyes it was only right that their parents should be where they too could be observed.

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.

III

After some ten days, with only John for company, music grew stale, the bush had no more magic, and Roddy rode breakneck over the rough track to discover what had become of Eriti. To Corny, very hot and unbuttoned in his untidy room, appeared Roddy, so white and pitiably frightened by the silence of the house, so young and gallant in the soiled duck trousers and blue jacket of his working days that Corny muttered in his grizzled beard, pouring the boy a tot of rum before he would hear him speak. These youngsters, making such a tragedy of love, which every sane man knew was only the goose-flesh of a moment, thought Corny, speaking to Roddy gently.

But Roddy would have none of his gentleness. He wanted the truth, sir. The truth…. So he got it, and his world went reeling round him, with Corny's red face like page 274 a sun in the middle. He clutched the table-edge, trying to steady his legs, his voice.

“You mean—you can't mean you've taken her away?”

“Now, now, Rod. Let's look at this as man to man.”

“What have you done with her?”

“Now, do sit down, Rod, and—”

“Curse you! Tell me, or by God, I'll make you.”

Oh, these melodramatics of youth, thought Corny, trying to remember his own and be tactful. There had been a blue-eyed Adeline centuries ago in England and he had nearly killed himself…. Young Rod mustn't do that.

“Well, she's gone to be married to a fine young Maori, who'll make her a good husband … which you didn't seem to be meaning to do, young man.”

“I did. Of course I meant to marry her. And I will…. Oh, God, sir,” cried Roddy, suddenly blind with tears, “you didn't think I just meant to harm her, did you? But I knew I was too young and my father … and in the meantime I … we….”

“I know all about those ‘meantimes.’ So did she when she went chasing you,” said Corny grimly. Looking at the boy sprawled in a chair with his head on the table he softened again. He would have dearly loved Peregrine Lovel's brood instead of the piebald lot his sins had given him.

“Come, come, Rod, old fellow, face it like a man. You couldn't have married her, you know. Only the kind of marriage I made, and there was some excuse for me, since I needed a chief's protection and there were damn few white women about in those days. Though I wish I hadn't now,” said Corny frankly. “It ain't fair to breed up half-castes that are neither flesh nor fowl … and the whalers have left plenty of them to get the sins of their fathers visited on 'em.”

Roddy was not listening. He looked up, feeling his page 275 face gone curiously stiff and old. “Tell me where she is, Mr Fleete, and I will go and marry her at once. My father can say what he likes.”

“You're both minors, Rod. No parson would do it without the consent of the fathers. And you won't get that, you know. Eriti's all right … much better off than she could be with you….” These youngsters! Never looking a foot ahead….

“She's not married yet? Not having her lips—” He couldn't say it. But Corny did.

“That is already being done, Rod.” Lovel had been right. The revulsion of disgust and horror on the boy's face showed it, and certainly Maoris had a queer taste to prefer the bloated seamed lips of tattoo to fresh young girlish ones. But of course they never kissed. Only rubbed noses. And it helped to keep women chaste. No Maori buck could possibly plead ignorance if he went poaching. “Here! for heaven's sake don't do that.”

But Roddy had already done it. Exhausted by want of food and sleep, by grief and shock, he had fainted flat on the floor like any young lady whose stays are too tight.

He regained his courage with his senses. Breeding there clear enough, thought Corny, watching him ride off over the hill to Lovel Hall. I hope Lovel will treat him decently, thought Corny, doubting it and drinking the rum Roddy had ignored. Poor young devil. But no other way out for the future Sir Roderick Lovel.

Peregrine, meeting Roddy in the hall, inquired what he had come for, and was told with a violence that made him push the boy into the library and set his back to the closed door.

“You dare use such language to me, sir! Apologize instantly.”

“Go to the devil,” shouted Roddy, inflamed even to his eyes. “I know it's all your doing, you meddling old brute. You've ruined both our lives with—”

page 276

“Dear me,” said Peregrine caustically. “All this commotion about a vulgar liaison with a Maori girl.”

Here Roddy unexpectedly showed himself to be even more Lovel than Tiffany, and Peregrine (though righteously furious and shocked) realized that in some dim way he was rather pleased. Roddy would be a man yet. He held his own quite capably through the following storm which was so considerable that Darien, spending the afternoon with Sally, said that, though she couldn't hear words, it sounded as if Roddy were being rude to his father.

Sally, although soon reduced to weeping, knew that she hoped Roddy was; and then cried the more, for of course it was so wicked to hope it. But when Roddy went rushing through the hall to his room and slammed its door behind him she clung to Darien.

“I—I fear they're both Lovels,” she sobbed.

“Roddy has the better lungs,” said Darien, giggling. Peregrine had been reduced to squeaks. Sally couldn't giggle. This, she felt desolately, had been a quarrel between men. Her little boy had become a man, and so she dared not go kiss and comfort him.

Tiffany dared later, taking Roddy's hot hand as he lay on his bed in the shadows. “Don't touch me, damn you,” he said, jerking it away. Tiffany stood stricken. His hand was burning and below the tangled hair drops showed on his forehead. She went on her knees.

“Oh, darling … what is it? Tell your Tiffy,” she whispered, putting her soft lips to the wet forehead.

But this could not be borne. Eriti's lips … never never would he kiss those pouting duskily-pink lips again. In the dim room he saw them all the time, saw the sharp pipi-shell cutting thin line on line right back to the rosy gums, saw the merciless old tohunga squatting, the blood, the suffering Eriti lying moaning, with her gentle eyes…. His agonized imagination heaped horror upon horror. He hit out like a child.

page 277

“Get away. Get away. Get away!” he cried hoarsely. Never would he let himself be touched by a girl's hands or lips again. Roddy, so ridden by his ideals, so inflamed by Eriti for what she represented rather than for what she was, couldn't in this denied hour see the difference. He was certain only of the craving of his soul and body; certain as one can be at nineteen that life could never smile on him again.

In old Patiti's pa, Eriti, her mouth bloated like a bladder, was being delicately fed through the corner of it with a straw. She was feeling immensely important. The whole pa was serving this half-white grand-daughter of the great chief, come to be married to one of his chieftains —Koperoa. When the pain was very bad she cried a little for Roddy. But he could never have married her and her child would have been nothing. Now Koperoa would formally adopt it and she would be respected all the more because of its white blood … which was so very comforting, thought Eriti, rolling her eyes with gratitude towards Koperoa.

Already the women were making fine mats for Eriti's house, and the young men were putting their nets in the river and drying fish on scaffoldings for the wedding-feast. Later there would be expeditions after pig. A hundred pigs, twenty oxen, all the sheep they could get, and heaps of maize, gourds, and kumeras a hundred feet long, decided Patiti, sending runners round the country with the invitations. War might be near, and the pakeha of little account; but white blood was always a distinction. Besides, no Maori will miss any possible chance of giving a feast although (as often happened) the guests might eat him into penury.

Swamped with pride and honours, Eriti thought more and more of Koperoa, who had danced the whole night through with his warriors after she had given him the ropa, and was so strong he could walk easily with a sack page 278 of wheat under each arm—and so daily she thought less of Roddy.

But in town a startled community was for the moment thinking of no one else. Young Rod Lovel had disappeared. Dragnets in the harbour, hue-and-cry over the hills could not find him. Sir Winston seemed to have the rights of it when he declared that the heir of all the Lovels had passed away like the morning dew.

IV

Through all the hubbub Sally agonized with shame. She had been so wicked. In the night she had stolen money for Roddy from the housekeeping and sent him away with tears and blessings. “I will write under cover of Jermyn,” said Roddy, who had become such a man all at once that one couldn't protest. And now she was defying the Holy Immolation of Matrimony and Mr Lovel, since Roddy had ordered that papa was to think him dead.

Watching Mr Lovel preparing to think Roddy dead was so difficult that Jermyn, seeing her tending her roses in bright sunlight, was shocked into remembering that Sally was thirty-five—and looked more, egad—while he was barely in the height of his powers. So for the first time he felt pity for her instead of himself (which was quite rejuvenating), and went off so soon and so cheerfully that Sally stood looking after him with hanging hands. It was all over now. Quite over, and Jermyn's face had said it.

Peregrine fulfilled everyone's expectations by forbidding Roddy's name to be mentioned and by publicly announcing Brian as his heir. Brian, now in the shipyard with his long shrewd head and dandy ways, would help keep Lovel fortunes together until Jerry went to Canterbury next year with Hew and Tiffany, said Mr Lovel, dealing out his belongings like kings and jacks.

page 279

Jerry was willing. He haunted the stock-markets and could talk sheep with anyone. Although (since Eriti had sisters) it would not be safe to send him to stupid John, thought Peregrine, promenading with Sally in the Gardens where, despite poverty, gentlemen's fashionable loose trousers seemed also to be contemplating crinoline at no distant date. He could not let his house in these days, and Caroline at least served to keep the moth out, he felt, seeing her advancing with a daughter on either side. The moth (it seemed) had got instead into Sophy and Maria, who now wore Caroline's cast-offs, so that Jermyn called them her garb and garbage. “But as Lady Lovel it is my duty to have the best of everything; and since Roddy is gone should not Linda's son be heir? There is such a thing as Salic law,” said Caroline, feeling very convincing.

“Poor Lord Calthorpe is certain he'll be killed this time,” Caroline told Sally. Now that he was Darien's husband Calthorpe seemed to expect Fate to take special interest in him; but Caroline was more interested in hearing that Nick Flower had returned for the next meeting of the Council and intended to veto the grant for the Harbour Board.

Mr Flower, retorted Peregrine, was not the whole Provincial Council, and since he never chose to attend meetings he could not expect consideration.

Yet, for all Peregrine's elegance and eyeglass, he felt unhappy under Nick Flower's keen amused look when they met in the Council. Last time I saw you you were not so sure of yourself, it said. Nick Flower was apparently sure of himself. Vastly different from the civil trader of Kororareka, this prosperous bearded giant, pouring contempt on pioneers for their treatment of the Maoris, their imbecility in the papers (where the Maoris read every word), their horse-racing and regattas and petty squabbles, while every native in the country was working like the deuce to prepare for war.

Town Councils, said Flower, who seemed to have page 280 gained so much in size and vituperation, were merely tinkling symbols of inefficiency. Provincial Councils were a collection of rank individualists who never had the sense to get together and vote a reserve for the war which was certainly coming. They had allowed private trading vessels to smuggle ammunition to the Maoris for years….

Peregrine could scarcely believe it. The unparalleled impudence of this attack was too much. He rose to say that Mr Flower knew very well where suspicion lay in that matter.

“I know a good deal, as you are aware,” said Flower, coolly. Peregrine quaked, fearing that he would tell it. Good God, thought Peregrine, why didn't I simply choke Caroline instead of going to Flower on an affair so private, so sacred.

“If there has been smuggling, Mr Flower….”

“Come, come, don't be so uncivil as to pull the wool over these gentlemen's eyes, Mr Lovel. You know there has.” Flower was enjoying himself. A lost belief in saints left nothing to reverence, and Lovel's wife was probably very happy down her underground ways. Life was a witches' sabbath, and the god of vengeance the only real god, and since he needed Lovel's scanty boat-services no longer it was well to establish his integrity in the eyes of councillors who might prove useful when war came. This was the devil's unfailing joke … run with the hare, hunt with the hounds, keep a sharp eye over the shoulder for snapping jaws, thought Flower, contentedly watching Peregrine trying to snap and making rather a botch of it, since he was clearly afraid to provoke Flower too far. One slip, thought Peregrine, nearly frantic, can put one at a man's mercy for ever.

Councillors (so used to personal attacks) were amused but suspicious. Certainly there had been smuggling. Certainly it would be vastly dangerous if it continued during war. Certainly Mr Lovel had been the first to start regular trading down the coasts…. They agreed to look into the matter and went on to other pressing page 281 business, with Peregrine summoning all his forces to give efficient help, and Flower presently lounging away.

There would be some bungling kind of an inquiry, which wouldn't get anyone anywhere. But it would do Lovel harm, and his manner to-day would do him more. Some moral cowardice in Lovel had forced him to share suspicion of his wife with another. It would force him into other mistakes yet.

V

Lord Calthorpe, having invited Fate's attention to himself, had to suffer for it. A stray bullet found him on the edge of one of the tribal wars, and his widow sat in her house receiving shoals of commiserations, while Sophia eagerly offered her hair-shirt. “I told Darien I never wore it now,” she explained to Tiffany. “I'm sure it would be such a comfort. But she said it was the last thing she wanted.”

Darien was at first not certain what she wanted, but she soon knew. After shedding a few tears for Calthorpe and feeling that he might have been much worse, she investigated his papers and found that he couldn't possibly have been. Debts stood about his name like a strong stockade … and how could Darien pay them even if she wished, which she didn't? Why should she, since Calthorpe never had?

What I want, she said, is money, and I haven't a cent. She thought of Nick Flower. But he had never lent her that fifty pounds, and Calthorpe owed him thousands. Perhaps he'd marry her now…. But she wanted to taste her liberty and there would be monstrous little of it with Nick Flower. He'd take my diamonds to redeem that debt, she felt, knowing that was what she'd do herself. He'd take her, too, body and soul; and the independence growing in Darien revolted at that. Men always wanted so much.

Now was the chance, she thought, to make thousands out of wool and sheep. But (these hateful buts!) how do page 282 it without money? Sir John! She'd go and do her necessary mourning with Sir John, and perhaps the silly old dear would give her half his flock. Or she might find a rich farmer who would be easily managed. Feeling her spirits leaping again, Darien pulled off her widow's cap with its dangling tails (she'd be hanged if she would wear it at the farm), and sat down to write the Dowager Lady Calthorpe a sort of blackmailing letter saying she was penniless and begging a thousand pounds.

“Have you a stamp?” she asked of Tiffany coming in. “Good gracious, child, what's the matter?”

Tiffany was nearer a breakdown than anyone ever had seen her. Her warm colour was gone and there were dark lines under her eyes. But she stood her ground. This, she felt, was no time to be a coward. Papa, she said, wanted Hew to go down and manage the Canterbury property and take her with him as his wife.

“I swear to God I will never do it,” declared Tiffany, keeping her voice steady with an effort.

“H'm.” Darien pinched her lip. First Roddy and then Tiffany. Peregrine would get more than he bargained for yet. But what a chance for Hew, who had wanted Tiffy so long and would be out of the war when it came. “What does Dick Sackville say?” she asked. If signs meant anything Tiffany had cast a spell on that blithe rover.

Tiffany sank down with face in her hands, and Darien feared she was going to pray. Buddhist, Mohammedan, what did Tiffy think she was now?

“Oh, how could I tell him such a thing?” she sobbed, as though Sackville, of all men, should be kept in cottonwool.

“Bah!” said Darien, going over and turning up the sweet flushed face to kiss it. “Leave that to me, my dear.”

It was long, she felt cheerfully, since she had had her finger in such a pie as this promised to be.