For Tiffany the passing days were brimming like magic cups for ever full of wonder. There was a sweet troubling beauty in the world, a mysterious consciousness of glories yet unwon. Because there was really so little of Dick Sackville to remember except laughing eyes and kisses, Tiffany clothed him in all the rich robes of her fancy, as unlearned girls have clothed their puppets ever since the world began. All wit, all wisdom spoke by others might so easily have been begotten by Dick, thought Tiffany, eagerly building her gilded pagoda higher, hanging it about with merry little bells.

“Colonizing,” said Jermyn, sitting in the chintz parlour with new-brought tales from the war, “seems to give the generation born to it such a different quality. The young Volunteers have a different quality from any Englishman; flouting tradition, looking forward instead of back.”

Dick could have said that, thought Tiffany, smiling over the blue shirt she was stitching. Bubbling with some private well of happiness. How does she do it in these unhappy days, wondered Jermyn, asking:

“Do you flout tradition, my nut-brown maid?”

“How can I? All my traditions are in the future,” said Tiffany, feeling how gloriously she would build them with Dick.

“There you are.” Jermyn turned for consolation to Sally. “No reverence for the past, these youngsters. I vow they understand their elders even less than ordinary children can do.”

And their elders understand them less, thought Sally, wistfully. And then Caroline (who always thought she page 312 understood everything) bustled in, filling the room with the odour of patchouli, with a sense of purple feathers and red cheeks. So difficult to remember that there was only one of Caroline pervading the air so, pulling Linda's rare and ill-spelt letters from a great purple reticule, reading them aloud.

Linda, who had three times made Caroline a grandmother, sounded very content. “I'm nearly the only lady on the Canterbury Plains and young station-owners bring me chocklits from Christchurch to make Andy jellus, but he only laughs and eats them,” wrote Linda. “Our Maori shearers are quite difrunt from your horrid fighting ones and bring their fat wives for picking-up, and baby Prudence has cut a tooth….”

“Like another world, it sounds so peaceful,” said Sally, sighing. Linda, said Caroline resentfully, was getting more than her share, and it was high time she invited some of her sisters down to the chocolates and young station-owners—only there was no means of transporting them.

“But I still try to believe in Providence,” Caroline said, composing with the aid of a wall-mirror the proper expression for a lady who trusted in Providence under such provocation. “When will the war be over, Jermyn?”

The war, said Jermyn, would never be over, since the general sent from Australia to take supreme command spent all his energies sapping up to pas which were empty when he reached them, and had now refused to take his men into the bush where they so continually got lost.

“Stalemate,” said Jermyn, shrugging. Life was producing so many stalemates now, though Sally had somehow rid herself of her haggardness and persisted in drawing a man's eyes.

“Tamihana,” cried Tiffany, always ready to say a good word for the Maoris, “is doing his utmost to keep the Waikato out of the war. He is the greatest help England page 313 has. Why does Parliament say such dreadful things about his king-movement?”

“Why does it persist in sitting all the time, which is the most dangerous thing it could do,” returned Jermyn, who had just offended Peregrine by writing in the Chronicle: “The amount of ability in our Parliament is truly remarkable, and the way it is used more remarkable still.”

“You should let us youngsters talk to them, we understand the Maori,” said Tiffany saucily. And it might come to that before they were through, thought Jermyn, going discomfortably away.

Yet, with the help of Bishop Selwyn and Judge Martin, Tamihana did contrive to arrange a truce in spite of Parliament; so, after a year of war, the Maoris went off to dry fish and fill the storehouses in preparation for another one, and the country sat back to lick its wounds and consider an amount of destruction which would put settlement back several decades.

“All the young bucks will be home to marry you now, Tiffy,” said Jermyn, going up to Lovel Hall, where joy had everyone by the hair, and Tiffany was running about, her very crinoline riotous with excitement, and Sally airing the best linen sheets for the boys whom she would really see again.

“No, no,” cried Tiffany, going scarlet to the ears. Then she laughed, her fluttering hands making benedictions. “Herewith I solemnly bestow them upon Sophia and Maria,” she said, running away.

“M'm,” said Jermyn. “A woman's reticences are so much more stimulating than her confidences, but I'd like to know the name of Tiffy's special young buck, Sally. I hope he's a worthy gentleman?”

“I don't know.” Sally was distressed. “I fear it isn't Hew, but Mr Lovel….”

“… Forgets that Tiffy is both a Lovel and a colonial,” page 314 said Jermyn. Likely to be wigs on the green when that special young buck returned.

Tucking up the yards and yards of her sprigged cambric, Tiffany slid down into the fern-gully, where the Maori god was long overgrown with weeds, and the ferntrees stood so high that sunlight fell but rarely on the brown creek and the maidenhair. But flax and fern still kept their austere sweetness. The kind of scent angels might use, thought Tiffany, washing her hands in the pure water, washing the world off (although knowing it wouldn't stay off) before she raised them to pray for Dick to all the listening gods.

So soon now Dick would be back to take away for ever the little persisting feeling that she had done wrong. With anyone else it would have been wrong, but not with him, thought Tiffany, her mind swinging in great circles, heavenly spirals taking her and her paladin higher, higher to the skies….

God, it seemed, proposed, for there was chance of a permanent peace now; but Governor Gore Browne, his fat neck redder than ever, disposed. Possibly he felt that now the Prince Consort was dead it was improper for the Queen to have an unattached king within her boundaries. Possibly he felt just exactly what he said: “The Queen's authority must be upheld at any price.” So he stoutly went to work issuing proclamations against Tamihana and his king; demanding unconditional submission and the payment of land and moneys, and would undoubtedly have added (if he had thought of it) the sending of a dozen shirted chiefs with halters round their necks, like the citizens of Calais.

Parliament, staggering under the effects of one war which had crippled the infant colony for a generation, shrieked aloud to any who would hear, and Peregrine endeavoured to cling to his dignity among members who were losing theirs all the time and talking about stringing Gore Browne to lamp-posts … only there were none.

page 315

Caroline did her best for everybody by standing up in her bath if the girls happened to play “God save the Queen,” and Sophia did her best for herself by jettisoning the Vestal Virgins (who remained too virgin altogether) and petitioning returning officers for curios.

“Maori axes, anything you like to give me,” said Sophia to gentlemen unable to conceal their dislike to giving her anything. Poor Sophia, making her collections in the belief that everything ugly (including herself) must be interesting.

England began a tentative shuffle with regiments. Some, it seemed, would still be necessary, but those of long service would be exchanged. Tiffany's heart felt so terribly unstable. To go anywhere with Dick would be heaven; but to leave her own New Zealand, to leave mamma and darling Roddy—“The soul would have no rainbows had the eyes no tears,” she thought; smiling because she had written that once to Dick, smiling about the house and presently encountering a portentous papa, looking as though he had a hand-grenade up his black coat-sleeve. Papa requested Tiffany to come into the study, where she was glad to sit in one of the great leather chairs, since her legs seemed suddenly weak. Dick? But papa didn't know about Dick….

Peregrine looked with approval on this slim thing thing sitting so quietly with her widespread skirts of flowered muslin, her pretty hands obedient in her lap, her pretty russet ringlets rolled away into the newfangled net which gave such charming sleekness to a young woman's head and neck.

“My dear,” he said, “you look very well. I fancy Hew—” So it was Hew, whom Tiffany had quite forgotten. It was so much Hew that he was coming to see her this evening to add her consent to that already given by papa. Hew, it seemed, was an excellent young man with a first-class knowledge of farming and other like attributes to endear him to any girl. The war, unfortun- page 316 ately, had interfered with plans during the past year, but there was no reason for further delay. A speedy marriage and then Canterbury where, it appeared, Hew was much needed. “He was somewhat diffident, as is becoming in a suitor, but I assured him that you could have no reason for objection.”

“I do object,” said Tiffany, as well as she could for the throbbing in her throat. Peregrine was prepared for this. Indeed, any other answer would have been immodest.

“That is quite natural, my dear. It will pass.”

“It won't,” said Tiffany, coming out louder than she expected.

Peregrine stiffened. Good Heavens, was a man of many troubles always to have contention in his own household?

“May I ask your reasons?”

“I—I don't love him.”

“Tut! A girl's answer. A child's answer. Love will come.”

Tiffany was losing her temper in her fear. She would not see Hew, who might guess too much.

“It has come. But not for Hew.”

“By Heavens! You dare to tell me that you have loved without my permission.” His daughter's eyes began to twinkle with laughter and he hastily controlled himself. This minx should not get the better of him again. “All young ladies are always in love with some young gentleman and such sentimentality becomes them. Marriage, my dear, is based upon sounder qualities, and Hew—”

“I agree that one would not become sentimental over Hew,” said Tiffany, standing up. “And I think it's very likely that he is a good farmer since he has so little else to recommend him. When I said I loved someone else I meant it, papa, and he will soon come back to tell you about it.”

“You dare—” But daring had never got him anywhere page 317 with Tiffany. “I desire to know his name,” said Peregrine, trying to keep his head.

“He will tell you when he comes.” Never never would she tell it. So much she had promised Dick, who had pleaded for the pride of doing the telling himself.

“Do you defy me, Tiffany?” (This, thought Peregrine uneasily, had a familiar sound. Roddy, Tiffany; so often, so incredibly had they defied him, and he couldn't put either over his knee now.)

“Yes, papa,” said Tiffany sweetly.

“Then go to your room.” This also was familiar. But she always had to come out of it sometime. What man would have children, thought Peregrine, pacing up and down, wondering what he should say to Hew, even unbosoming himself to Jermyn coming in. Jermyn stared.

“Where are your eyes, man? Everyone else has seen that she's head over ears in love. That's what has given her such uncommon beauty lately, for she's not really handsome,” said Jermyn.

“Pray do not talk like a lovesick fool. I shall thrash this indecent nonsense out of her.”

“The dullness of parents always amazes me,” said Jermyn, flinging his cloak over a chair and admiring the new crimson lining. “Can you tell me why a stubborn father should not expect to find that stubbornness transmitted to his children?”

“I am in no mood for riddles,” said Peregrine, marching out. All his life he had tried to do everything for the best, but, it seemed, nobody ever supported him.

II

Gore Browne assuredly did not. In the face of all opposition he was steadily preparing for his Waikato war, asserting that he intended to make a clean sweep of all kings, chiefs and other Maori trouble-makers. But they, cried desperate gentlemen in Parliament and at the page 318 Institute, were nothing to the trouble-making of Gore Browne.

“‘Howl, ye inhabitants of the isles, for the wringing of the nose bringeth forth blood,’” declared Sir Winston, abandoning secular quotation for the Bible as being more suitable for these times of wrath.

“Why don't your wretched Parliament stop him? Damme, what d'you think we have you for?” demanded Major Henry, turning apostate at last to Lovels. So Peregrine reminded him that Parliament had made all possible representations to England for the abolishment of Gore Browne before he got everyone else abolished by Maoris, and that they were living in daily hopes of another governor.

“He'll only be worse. They always are,” said Major Henry.

Difficult days for Peregrine, trying to walk the tightrope of expediency and fearing the collapse of everything, including Lovels. Difficult days for Tiffany, secluded in her room and writing long letters to Dick, who never sent any answers.

“I am taking counsel of the Buddhists, who believe in transmigration,” she wrote. “What shall you and I come back as, my swashbuckler? Shall we be butterflies, and dance all day in the sun and sleep all night in the heart of a red poppy? But I think I would rather be myself again so long as you were you. What better could I want? I sew sheets for mamma and pretend that they are my trousseau, and so I am very happy….”

I fear that is a lie, she thought, slipping on her ring for comfort. Two lines, even one, from Dick would help so much.

Regiments drifted and sifted, but Dick Sackville's, it appeared, was not one of them. With the country preparing once more to topple over the edge of ruin, ladies gallantly became gayer than ever, speeding the parting and coming guests with no end of balls, routs, and croquet- page 319 parties … the last being specially designed by Providence for the purpose of flirtations.

Roddy returned, assuring an anxious Peregrine that Brian would be sure to turn up some time, and tackling Hew with indignation. “She don't want you, man. Be decent and marry another girl. Swarms of 'em about,” said Roddy, who, being already Don Rodrigo and certain to be Sir Roderick some day, was much enjoying the swarms. But what with the hope of Tiffany and Canterbury, Hew couldn't be decent; so Roddy talked to Peregrine as man to man (which was sufficiently impertinent and disconcerting) asking how Hew could be expected to press his suit with Tiffany if he never saw her?

“That floored our anxious parent, my love,” said Roddy, who certainly had learned a thing or two at the gold-fields. “You are to come out now, and if you're wise you'll string Hew a bit till Sackville comes back to settle him.”

Tiffany sat on the bed, looking pale and serious. Stringing unwanted lovers was, Roddy feared, not her line. Too honest for this world, he thought, knowing that by the law of nature woman must spend her life in little trickeries and genteel evasions … and man too, egad, unless he is stout enough to go his own way.

“I think war may go on for ever,” said Tiffany. She sang softly:

O, were I Queen of France, or still better, Pope of Rome,
I would have no fighting men abroad, no weeping maids at home.
All the world should be at peace, or if men must show their might,
Then let those who make the quarrels be the only ones to fight.

“They're the only ones who never do,” said Roddy, kissing her. Lord, this love! So destructive to a sense of humour while it lasted! How tragic he had found life until he ceased to love Eriti—if he ever had loved her. page 320 Perhaps it was the ghost of some long-dead Bible maid he had loved, thought Roddy, going off to flirt with Emily (who was quite handsome in the rustic daisy manner) so that she presently fell head over heels and was so constantly drowned in sentimental dew of her own making that Sophia couldn't abide her.

“I hope I'd have more pride than to cry for him. He flirts with everyone,” said Sophia, busy on a book-mark calculated to make Roddy consider another flirtation. Caroline did all she could. Since Roddy liked music, she almost nightly brought Emily to Lovel Hall, setting her down to “The Harmonious Blacksmith,” with variations which, in Emily's hands, were so much more varied than they were ever meant to be, while gentlemen lay in long chairs on the veranda with their meerschaums and cheroots and glasses of grog trying to bear it. Rod Lovel's music and songs, when no women were by, were of a somewhat different quality from any evoked by unwaked girls.

Now Caroline was crying to Roddy coming with his flute: “Emily will play your accompaniments, Emily, my love!”

Emily, thought Roddy, was very well for kisses, being so plump and soft and warm. But not among his music, he felt, proceeding to make it so divinely that Tiffany went off under the orange-trees, unable to endure it in the light.

Leaning against the wall among the crushed scents of jasmine and verbena, she never knew what he played, except that it stirred her to joy and agony. His own wilful soul, perhaps, loving beauty and licence, hating law; the spirit of this new old land, with its sunken mysteries of strife and loveliness and despair; the march of the crowding years; the whispers of lovers, the laughter of happy children in golden fields of corn….

“Thank you. That was very nice. I always think music is so nice, but needing piano-accompaniment,” said page 321 Caroline, crocheting very fast at a green-and-purple mat for the immigrants. “What's the name of the piece, Roddy?”

“I don't know. Some wild fellow made it,” answered Roddy, knowing himself for the wild fellow and watching Hew going off after Tiffany. Heaven send she had sense enough to handle him, though one doubted it. Tiffy seemed to imagine there was only one man in the world. Hew, dark, stocky, and so lamentably in earnest, would come later with his miseries.

“I've loved her so long. I swear I'll never give up until she's married to someone else….”

“Why give up then? She's more likely to want a change.”

“You make a jest of everything, confound you,” cried Hew in a temper. “I believe she just don't know her own mind. If Mr Lovel would put up the banns she'd come round all right. Girls never know what they want.”

Hew (thought Roddy, rather concerned) wasn't behaving like a gentleman; and since Tiffy could show no basis for her asserted affection in the way of an attendant cavalier or even a letter to be intercepted by papa, there really might be danger. So he rode out to ask Darien, who was rather curt about it. Thanks to Nick Flower making such an idiot of himself, she had had to buy Lincoln ewes elsewhere; so she had got nothing out of the trip, and it was simply imbecile of Tiffy to let herself be pestered.

“Tell her to announce her marriage and wear her ring,” said Darien, dragging that dreadful old black hat over her curls and rolling her skirts up on red flannel petticoats. “I can't stay, Rod. I'm busy lambing.”

What the devil was wrong with women that they always ran to death the thing that interested them at the moment, wondered Roddy, riding home to find that another woman was apparently running herself to death page 322 with himself as the interesting thing. It was Emily, said Tiffany, her beautiful brown eyes so grave with reproach to Roddy. She had given confidences….

“She would,” said Roddy, shrugging. Poor Tiffy, with her sense of humour gone so shockingly astray, would never understand philanderings. “It's the kind of thing that should be said between gentlemen, ain't it, Tiffy? But since perhaps you consider neither of us a gentleman can it be said as between ladies?”

“She—she tells me you kiss her very often, Roddy.”

“Quite right. I do.” Lord! if all his easy kisses were remembered against him in the end they'd never be through with the Last Judgment.

“But you have not asked for her hand?”

“Oh, my dearest girl!” He began to laugh, lying in the fern-gully, dropping twigs into the stream. There they went, all his kisses, bobbing round the corner out of sight.

“I don't understand,” cried Tiffany, going white. “You wouldn't kiss her unless you loved her, and if—”

Tiffy, felt Roddy, would be the death of him yet. For the first time he felt sorry for Dick Sackville.

“I love so many, Tiffy. All the fair women who ever lived and died for love. They seem to have the monopoly of that, by the way. Men don't do it. I love all the phantoms going by in the night and unveiling their dear faces just for me. And since I can't kiss them I have to make the best of … Emilys.”

“Then you are very cruel,” cried Tiffany, sitting up.

“Yes. I didn't mean to be. Or perhaps I did.” So many silly moths always insisting on flying into candles. “I do sometimes,” said Roddy candidly.

Tiffany was bewildered. Could every man be cruel … except Dick?

“You see, Tiffy”—only he knew she wouldn't see—“physical love that we snatch at so fiercely … of its very nature it has to die. It is the vision … the impossible perfection…. Oh, I can't put it into words; but I don't page 323 think we could go on living without the knowledge that there is something we can never touch and soil … for we do soil most things we get our clutching hands on, Tiffy.”

No, she couldn't see it, this poor dear Tiffy so besotted about Sackville, who'd certainly teach her if he wasn't better than most men, thought Roddy, advancing Darien's opinion that she should declare her marriage. “It's not really fair, Tiffy. I know there are several hankering.”

“But I promised Dick—”

“He didn't foresee conditions. And since it was only to pleasure him, don't you think he'd be better pleased if Hew stopped making love to you?”

“I never thought of that. Yes. He would. I'll do it, Roddy,” cried Tiffany, jumping up in her eagerness to please Dick.

“Lord, how you do rush your fences. Wait your opportunity, my dear,” said Roddy, feeling very wise and imagining Tiffy blurting it out to an irritated papa hungry for his dinner. “You are so very young,” said Roddy.

Talking after dinner, he felt that papa also was very young, expecting sons always to do as they were bid. The Canterbury station, explained Peregrine, was a different proposition now, thanks to Andrew Greer. A manager and a sprinkling of sheep. Roddy could go down with Hew and Tiffany and knock matters into shape. Build a good house. All the sheep-kings must have elegant houses.

“I'm obliged, sir,” said Roddy, not sounding very much so and hoping Tiffy wouldn't break her news at present. “Jerry would be better at that. And I'm going to the Southland gold-fields.”

“You are what, sir?” demanded Peregrine, his bleak nose and eyes coming forward out of the shadows.

“I just told you. That Southland country is almost unknown. Pioneer work. Always something new over the page 324 hill,” said Roddy, feeling already among those snowy ranges, those icy peaks beckoning to unseen horizons. Emily would not be with him there but Burd Helen would, and Mary Hamilton, and a hundred more tender ones to come at the call of his flute in the camp-fire smoke.

“I have done all the pioneering necessary for my family, Roddy.”

“Not mine,” said Roddy, lighting his pipe. “I intend to do my own, sir.”

What hard-working father scheming for an ungrateful family would not have been justified in losing his temper? Great Heavens, how did he come to have such children, wondered Peregrine, embarking on a heated panegyric about the necessity of upholding the glory of the Lovel name.

“Names ain't going to count for much in this country,” explained Roddy, as his sire paused for breath. “I daresay they did very well along with a number of old notions in England, but they're not going to work here. I learned that on the gold-fields. It's a man's self and not his name will always tip the balance here.”

“You cursed iconoclast! You will one day be Sir Roderick Lovel.”

“I shan't ever tell anybody, sir,” promised Roddy genially.

It was perhaps Tiffany's luck that she should bring her news and Sally out to the veranda just now; Sally like a little quaking ghost who had just been frightened by a moral (as indeed she had and expected to be more so in a minute); Tiffany excited and very proud. Roddy tried to stop her, but she had her ring on and that seemed to be spurring her to destruction.

Now we're in for it, thought Roddy, watching poor dear Tiffy flinging her thunderbolt and then standing gamely prepared to receive cavalry.

Peregrine met the thunderbolt like Jove, flinging it back page 325 with a bitter: “His name, madam? His name and at once.”

That, said Tiffany, her husband would tell him when he came. “I ask your pardon for being disobedient, papa, but it was you who made me so.”

“I? I? Have a care what you say, miss.”

Even his whiskers are bristling, thought Sally, despairing. Tiffany said:

“By trying to make me marry Hew when I loved someone else. Your children are human even if you are not, and I wanted to make my own life.”

“Did you indeed? A minor … defying her father. I insist on knowing the name of the scoundrel who tricked you into this. Who dared perform the ceremony? Where did it take place? Show me your marriage-lines at once.”

“Marriage-lines?” asked Tiffany, bewildered.

“Good God! Don't tell me you have none. This is just a pack of lies cooked up to hide your shame, is it? You have been wantoning with some loose barracks fellow, and now you dare—”

“Steady, sir, steady,” said Roddy, putting himself in front of Tiffany, since the old chap was looking really dangerous.

“I suppose my husband has the lines. I will write and ask him to-night, since you seem to be anxious for them,” said Tiffany, magnificently. What was a bit of paper when she had her ring? “And I think you forget that you are speaking to a lady, don't you?”

“Lady!” Peregrine choked. “You … you impudent strumpet!”

For the first and last time Sally forgot her duty to Mr Lovel.

“Please remember that you are in the presence of two married ladies who are not accustomed to such language,” she said, putting her arm round Tiffany.

If a mouse had roared at him Peregrine could not have been more dumbfounded. He collapsed in a chair, star- page 326 ing feebly at these females … these vipers whom he had nourished in his bosom.

“I have spent my life for you,” he said, almost in a whisper. “Slaved and planned … given you everything….”

“Except our souls. You never let us have them,” said Tiffany. “Ask Roddy.”

As a man Roddy felt it time to come to his parent's help.

“It will be all right, sir. Aunt Darien and Mr Flower were at the wedding.”

No sponsoring could have dismayed Peregrine more, if he had been capable of further dismay. He waved Roddy off, saying merely:

“Produce your marriage-lines and send the fellow to me the moment he arrives. Until then I beg you will have the decency to conceal your disgrace.”

“I think Hew should know, sir, since he seems to expect—”

“Oh, tell him. Tell the world. Shout it from the house-tops. You are all in league against me,” cried Peregrine, rushing off to his study and slamming the door, while Sally dissolved into sobs in Roddy's arms.

“Oh … oh, how wicked I have been. To defy papa—”

“You were in good company,” said Roddy, sitting down and pulling her on to his knee. “My poor little mammy, this is the best thing in the world for him. He has bullied us all our lives just as England has bullied New Zealand. Now we are going to stand on our own feet—ain't we, Tiffany?”

“What a magnificent nursery-governess was lost in papa,” said Tiffany, looking almost her own gay self again. Tiffy, thought Roddy approvingly, was always a fighter.

Sally moaned. Could these really be her children? “Oh, my duty!” she sobbed.

page 327

Duty was the one word that had never failed, but it failed now. Nothing to take hold of now, thought Sally, with Roddy rubbing his warm hard cheek against her soft faded one, telling her that since we certainly didn't always obey God it would be sacrilege to obey papa, as that would be putting him above God.

“Oh, Roddy, you do confuse me. You make everything sound so different. I don't think you can be right, dear, can you?” pleaded Sally. She was crushed beyond present repair. Her ingratitude, her wicked ingratitude to Mr Lovel, who had been planning and slaving for her all the time even though one would never have suspected it. “Oh, let us all go and beg dear papa's pardon,” she cried piteously.

With laughter they refused, shaking young bright heads, ready, eager for their own lonely adventurings. So Sally went, knocking softly on the door, creeping in with her face all smudged with tears. “Oh, Mr Lovel, can you ever forgive me?” whispered Sally, stretching out her pleading hands.

Amazed, Peregrine felt in himself a sensation that he dimly perceived to be gratitude. He was not wholly deserted. There was still one who knew her place … and his. He rose.

“A gentleman must make allowance for woman's weakness. I am willing to believe that a moment's agitation carried you away. I have been too lenient with my children and now I must suffer for it. We … we must meet this lamentable occasion as best we can, my dear,” said Peregrine, bowing over Sally's hand. But Tiffany (he decided) should go to Darien. One could not risk Sally getting out of her place again.

III

The world, it seemed, was overfull of lamentable occasions; for while ploughs turned up the brown earth and page 328 white gulls followed the furrow, while kowhais shook their golden lace to the sweet winds and ladies walked like somewhat faded flower-gardens topped by absurd little fringed parasols in the Government House Gardens, the country daily blundered towards a fiercer war.

Gore Browne, frenziedly demanding reinforcements, got Sir George Grey instead, to take the reins out of his hands; and Grey, walking about Auckland again in a double-breasted black waistcoat and large blue bow-tie, was quite clearly prepared to be more autocratic than ever.

“Which he never shall be,” shouted Sir Winston, thumping his umbrella until clouds of dust flew through the Institute. “He'll have to reckon with responsible government now. ‘The sinking statesman's door Pours in the morning worshippers no more’—Sam Johnson.”

“Well, don't vote your responsible government out of office too often,” said Jermyn, rather sorry for Gore Browne, who was a most excellent and honest gentleman, if a thought too one-idea'd for a country with so many ideas.

The centre of the island (felt gentlemen, going gallantly to dinners and dances) was still a powder-magazine, since the Waikato had replied to Gore Browne's demand for submission by refusing the passage of pakeha boats on the rivers and by putting a large army into the most startling uniforms ever seen outside opéra bouffe. So Grey had to do what he could by temporizing, which never suited him.

“Can't the condemned fool realize what he's doin' in settin' soldiers to drive a road into the Waikato?” demanded Major Henry. “Expectin' the Maoris to believe his intentions peaceful, with that military encampment at Epsom growin' all the time and every Maori knowin' that Romans always began with roads when they meant to conquer a country. Thinks himself a Roman emperor, does he?”

page 329

“Our respected Governor sees nothing black or white, but only Grey,” said Jermyn.

Sally sighed. Gore Browne had pervaded the soup, and Parliament the fish. Now here came Grey with the roast mutton, and gentlemen would never let him go again. She was missing Tiffany and Roddy; and Brian, returned at last, was too elegant to seem like a son, somehow … and so full of opinions.

Brian was blaming the newspapers. For Parliament, trying to help Grey with his temporizing, had found newspapers calling it the peace-at-any-price ministry so often that it had resigned in a pet, and the new one had suddenly become very high-handed along with Grey.

“Newspapers are far too ready to kick any dog that offers,” pronounced Brian, bending his black brows on Jermyn.

“Linda writes that the South Island wishes to secede,” remarked Caroline, very important with three tiers of coloured gauze instead of a cap. “It is Eldorado now and don't see why it should be taxed to pay for our wars. Linda don't neither,” ended Caroline; looking round impressively on the company.

“By God, ma'am,” burst out Major Henry, “the South Island's a renegade, and so you can tell it with my compliments. Why, the wretched place would never have been discovered but for us.”

“Possibly it would have been better if we had never discovered ourselves,” said Mr Pinshon gloomily. And no one contradicted him, which proved the state of mind the country was in.

“Well,” said Caroline, “I consider that a lady owes it to civilization—”

“Civilization is just as big a fight as savagery and not so different,” said Darien, who had ridden in for the monthly cattle sales. “You should know that, though nothing much seems to come of it,” she added, looking round on Sophia and Emily and Maria. She had been page 330 very pleased to have Tiffy instead of that little minx Lucilla, though all her sisters (who had such fingering minds) were most anxious to know the reason for the change. This virtuous and consequently suspicious family, she thought; feeling what a tattle there would be when Sackville came back.

He was so very long in coming that Tiffany, helping Darien with the sheep, walking with John behind the plough, began to be afraid to count the days. So long … so very long … then he came; tapping on the door one bright afternoon when Tiffany was busy in the kitchen and the others busy in the sheep-yards, and Tiffany, running to the door in her big apron, fell back against it because her heart seemed suddenly to have stopped.

“Can I see you alone?” he asked, not offering to touch her. She could not speak or see for this rush of abounding joy. Dick … Dick!

“I must speak to you alone,” he said more sharply.

She led the way to her bedroom, shut the door, and suddenly turned shy; waiting for his words, his arms, his kisses.

“I only got in yesterday. I have come at the first opportunity,” he said, and even through her daze of gladness she was conscious of sudden fear. “I … I have discovered that our … the marriage was not legal. I came to tell you at the first opportunity.”

She sat down suddenly on the bed, staring with her big brown eyes.

“Not legal,” she repeated dully.

“No. The priest was not fully licensed. He could only help officiate. I took the trouble to hunt him up afterwards, for I had my suspicions at the time.”

“You had your suspicions?” she said.

“Yes.” Damn it, those eyes were making him nervous. “You see, I happen to know French. He was juggling with both services … didn't dare give the whole of either. I wonder Lady Calthorpe didn't spot it. But she page 331 was making eyes at Flower. I … I'm monstrous sorry. Puts you in a hole.”

“You … didn't tell me … then.”

“Oh, my dear girl! Spoil our pleasant little party! I mean…. Tiffy, don't look like that. I wasn't certain. 'Pon honour I wasn't….”

“Dick….” This first stunned feeling was passing. “Dick, it isn't you speaking like this, is it? Not you? Oh, my poor poor boy, have you been fretting over it all this time? I … I don't really mind so much, dear. Papa wouldn't object now. He knows I'm married.” She held out her hands, beginning to smile. “Don't feel that you've been so very wicked.”

He fidgeted, not looking at her. Why had he been fool enough to come when he might have done it by writing? But then she would have probably gone rushing up to the barracks. Good Lord, if only women knew how they do for themselves when they chase a man!

“Can't any woman keep a secret?” he said sulkily. “You promised not to tell.”

“There were reasons,” said Tiffany, wondering where her words came from. She didn't seem to be here, somehow. Where was she? “I didn't give your name.”

“Eh? Well, that's all right. We sail in a week, you see.” Before her silence, her watching eyes he stumbled on: a soldier's life … so uncertain … couldn't take her with him … might be India next … all so uncertain.

“You couldn't take me? You mean … this is the end?”

“Well, my dear, if you'd look at it sensibly … I'm a poor man—”

“You mean … this … is the end?”

“Well, yes, if you will have it,” he said shortly. Confound his susceptible nature. Always getting him into trouble with women, and the getting out so damned difficult.

page 332

Am I dead? thought Tiffany, looking at her hands. I can move my fingers.

“Since there's no harm done—” he began again, awkwardly.

Everything is dead, thought Tiffany. Yet something seemed to be burning in her although she did not know it for her pride. She stood up.

“Please go,” she said.

“'Pon my soul, I'm sorry, Tiffy. Such a mistake, your coming to Rotorua….”

“Please go.”

Curse it, he thought, trying to hide from himself, she had no right to come the tragedy queen over him who knew well enough that the chief fault was her own. If luck had not been with him he would have been caught instead of her, since he really had not been sure that night. If England and India hadn't been in the offing he might be caught again, for she was a handsome creature standing so still, with those great eyes, with that charming arrangement of her bright hair. He made a movement towards her; thought better of it. Then, since shame and remorse turn to spite in certain types, “Good-bye, Miss Lovel,” he said and went out.

Tiffany heard his feet echoing through the empty house, the slam of the door, the galloping hooves. How long she stood hearing them she did not know. She did not know anything until a sudden chilling shock told her that she was in the bath set there in readiness for morning, scrubbing herself with a fury that turned the white skin red. She dressed with quick hands that seemed to have a purpose of themselves, that dragged from under the bed the little box holding her sacred treasures, bundled them all together, wedding-gown and ring, the other clothes that she had worn….

Darien crossing the yard saw her coming through the back door with the white bundle, and called: “Wasn't page 333 that a horse I heard? Great Scott, Tiffy, what's happened?” she cried, rushing up.

“He came.” (Voice as well as hands and feet seemed to be doing things of their own volition.) “He says our marriage was not legal. He has gone.”

Then her feet took her running fast towards the bush, with Darien breathless after her.

“Tiffy … Tiffy … you're not going to kill yourself?”

“For that?”

The blaze of scorn leaping out of Tiffany almost scorched Darien. She stood, bewildered and rubbing her face, then set off again in the big boots after that flying figure. What the devil it was all about she couldn't yet make out, but since Tiffy had gone mad one must keep an eye on her.

By a little mossy stream in the bush Tiffany knelt down digging in the soft rich deposit of ages with frantic hands. When the hole was deep enough she flung the bundle in and covered it. Still on her knees she looked slowly round, clearing the loosened curls from her face with muddy fingers. Very quiet the bush with the evening light sifting through it, tenderly warm on the totara boles gilded on the edges of the great hinau flanges, faint and far and delicate where little ferns hung everywhere from boles and branches like a gentle rain. Up in the high dark canopy birds were going to bed with hushed sleepy calls. Tiffany laid her hand on the tall grey flange of a hinau that stood beside her like a bastion.

“Tane's trees,” she said softy—and fell forward on her face.

IV

There is always some meat which a man's stomach rejects, and Governor Grey's rejected the Maori flag although digesting the Maori king with a certain difficulty. So there were consultations, bribes, and what not which the chiefs (watching over Grey's shoulder the ar- page 334 rival of more troopships, the gradual penetration of the military road) rejected with less than their usual courtesy. Neither side trusted the other now, and the papers became so dangerous that Jermyn, after several bouts of verbal fisticuffs with the Chronicle, went to Sydney. There is such a thing as going too far, said Jermyn, discovering it about ten years too late.

Everybody was discovering it. But a section of the papers, butchering to make a Roman holiday, couldn't be stopped, and at the Institute gentlemen shook handfuls of the scurrilous stuff at each other, wanting to know what Parliament was doing about it. “I shall bring the matter up in the House,” said Peregrine, seriously upset at this ribald disclosure of Grey's private quarrel with the general commanding Her Majesty's forces.

“Listen. Good God, sirs, just listen,” gobbled Major Henry, who would still climb on chairs though finding it so difficult. He read above the anxious faces: “Our trusty general, being roughly manhandled by England for absorbing so many troops to no purpose, retorts that New Zealand has neglected to provide sufficient militia to assist him. Since the militia is Governor Grey's prerogative, the fat is now well in the fire, with our two head men conducting such a tidy little quarrel as threatens to deadlock everything except the Maoris.” “Bloody fools,” cried Major Henry, gone as plum-colour as his satin waistcoat, “don't they know the Maoris read every word?”

“I fear it has taken us too long to learn that,” said Mr Hawke, who had a fine property out in the Manakau direction. “But since our noble member intends to ventilate this scandal in the House we may hope for the suppression of these papers….”

Peregrine tried, and so did others; but Parliament was over-occupied by another matter. Tribal wars were raging with a severity which alarmed everybody; and London's Colonial Office, having got us into this bog through continual meddling, now wished to shovel the page 335 whole control of native affairs on to us, and did it, leaving Grey and General Cameron complete masters of the army, so that any salutary methods thought out by the House were rendered negative by the inability to back them with force.

Not for us, said Parliament, driving the Colonial Office quite demented, since these benighted Antipodeans, always demanding power, would not take it when offered. What can be done with such imbeciles, complained London's distant Colonial Office, trying to understand everything and understanding nothing except this eternal cry for more troops.

English clubs and kettledrums discussed New Zealand with something more than aversion, and homesick officers' wives writing to their relatives received scant sympathy. Ridiculous nonsense. They are not trying to settle matters. Merely amusing themselves … and we have to pay, said the relatives back Home; dressing for the squire's ball, signing comfortable cheques for the maintenance of little Clara and Algernon at their select boarding-schools.

How we humans cling to our paltry little affairs with the world galloping to chaos about us, thought Jermyn, returning from Sydney to smoke a pipe with Major Henry and hear all the scandal of the town. But he sat up when the Major told about Tiffany. Tiffany, it seemed, had been very ill out at the farm, but she wouldn't allow folk in town to know. Then Darien, who couldn't hold her tongue and was asking everyone if they had seen Nick Flower, had let out something, and now all Auckland was saying that Tiffy had had an affair with some officer since returned to England on exchange.

“Peregrine won't have her home and I'd like to choke Darien,” said Major Henry, spilling snuff all over his increasing waistcoat with agitation.

Jermyn looked at the rows of old leather-covered volumes on the shelves, and thought of Tiffany chasing religions through them with face glowing and her bright page 336 bronze hair getting in a tangle with her clutchings at it.

Poor nut-brown maid, so ardent for life. “How does Sally take it?” he asked. Sally, as usual, was making a doormat of herself and getting no thanks, and Jermyn had better go up and see for himself, since the Major was heartily sick of the whole infernal business.

Jermyn went, through a primrose day fresh and pale and smelling of all sweetness as he came up the garden path between Sally's violets in great purple bosses and the young frail lilies of the valley. Their gentle delicacy seemed so much a part of Sally that when she came running in a flutter of sprigged blue muslin with the cap a little askew on her dear brown head he just took both her hands, saying: “Lord Palmerston waited thirty years for his wife, Sally. We have got through nearly twenty-five.”

“Oh,” cried Sally, trying to pull away because this sudden rush of happiness couldn't be real. “Won't Martha have you?”

“I don't like the feel of her hands. Too puddy. Yours are always cool. And firm. Such lady's hands despite all they have to do. So I am writing a book while I'm waiting, my dear.”

“Oh! Tell me about it.” Now she could get into the shadow, hide her glowing cheeks, her glowing heart, which shouldn't glow when poor Tiffy was so sad. But with sphinxes rising from their ashes … or was it phoenixes? Who cares, thought Sally, turning grave again when Jermyn spoke of Tiffany.

“I have read,” said Jermyn, “that of all the wrongs men inflict on women that of not marrying them is the one they should find it easiest to forgive. I should judge Tiffy was well rid of the fellow, dear.”

“Oh, yes. We are still trying to find Nick Flower. Darien says he will know. She is so monstrous angry with him,” said Sally, puzzled. “But I can't think he meant to be anything but kind, can you?”

Jermyn, being experienced, could think anything of page 337 anybody. But how was Tiffy taking it? “To the young the common cruelty of life is so very personal,” he said.

Tiffany, it appeared, had declared that she had only got what she deserved and forbidden further mention of the matter. She was quite well again and working very hard at the farm.

“I think perhaps all she learned from the Major's Buddhist philosophers is helping her,” said hopeful Sally, who would never be a philosopher and was just now rather frightened of this diligent reserved Tiffany.

Jermyn thought it sounded as though the nut-brown maid was getting bitter. These top-heavy tragedies of youth … and Peregrine setting up to be Lord Almighty and dividing the sheep and goats and putting poor Tiffany among the goats. He said he would not stay to meet Peregrine, who must be fully occupied with the state of his country … to say nothing of his daughter, and went away thinking of that little brown curl on Sally's white neck. Princes and principalities may rush to ruin, but there is always comfort so long as the sun shines and a woman is fair.

New Zealand undoubtedly was rushing to ruin. After walking round each other with tails up, like dogs preparing to fight, the two races could hold off no longer. Confusions had piled up, Pelion on Ossa, until Pelion tumbled of its own weight. A perspiring trooper galloped in with word that all the Waikato was going to march on Auckland, and that winter's night of July, 1863, saw the most agitated of all the agitated debates its Parliament had known. Consultations continued till daybreak, and next day the papers came out with it.

“Cameron will march at once into the Waikato. It has been decided to take the offensive. Again we are at war.”

By tremendous effort, Tamihana had held the truculent Rewi back from Auckland, but now it was of no use. “Now,” wrote Tamihana to his pakeha friends, “the page 338 Maoris are really angry. This time they will give no quarter. I am very sorry.”

Caught in a cleft stick, he stood aloof from the first fierce battle, in which the Maoris were slaughtered and driven back. “May God help us all!” said Tamihana, going out to throw all the weight of the kingship on the side of the men of his own blood.

“Alas, alas,” said the Maori women, “the land is swept with war's red tide….”