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Promenade

II

II

Because a Wellington paper had sent him along as special reporter, Jermyn suffered with the Duke throughout New Zealand; endeavouring to describe a plethora of regattas, races, balls, processions, and speeches in becoming language and wondering what he was really made for. Peregrine was headed for a shrivelled old age ending somewhere in the nineties; but Sally wouldn't see it out. Nor shall I, thought Jermyn, feeling that the citadel which is the human frame is very imperfectly fashioned to withstand the batterings of the spirit within, and returning to Wellington to find batterings still going on everywhere.

Hau Hau had killed the valiant and picturesque Von Tempsky; and though Major Kemp with his Maoris and Whitmore with his Rangers were gradually cleaning up that mess it had broken out in a more dangerous form on the east coast, said young Jerry, invalided home after nearly eight years of war and unable to talk of anything else.

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But Peregrine could talk of something else. “What are the southern folk saying of this railway business, Jermyn?” he asked.

Jermyn said that, except for a slight variety in curses, they said the same as the North. Since the Government, instead of allocating Crown lands for railways, had allowed Provincial Councils to sell it to speculators, who were out to make everyone pay through the nose, gentlemen had little power left to them but speech. “What particular mistake are you all making now?” asked Jermyn pleasantly.

There seemed to be so many. What with taxation (really colossal), stagnation, recuperation, and invitation to the Waikato king (now sitting tight in the wild king country on the edge of the wilder Urewera) to come out and be introduced to his Queen's son, Government was at the end of its really brilliant wits.

“Give us back the Waikato and we will talk,” retorted the Waikato king. So that snub had to be tactfully conveyed to the Duke, who, thank heaven, didn't wish to meet Te Kooti.

Men were talking of Te Kooti as once men had talked of Napoleon.

“The one real soldier genius the Maoris have ever had,” said Jerry. “But such a devil….” Sally hid her eyes to hear Jerry talking of the forced march of the Rangers across the island after the massacre of white men, women, and children at Poverty Bay. “But we couldn't catch him, though we did our best for months,” said Jerry, staring out of blue hollow eyes. “He has made the Urewera his headquarters now.”

Young Jerry and his kind (one felt) deserved well of New Zealand, though all she was like to give their generation was a crushing load of debt. Voyaging to Auckland with the Duke, Jermyn would have liked to tell him of young Jerry, put something of the pioneer notion in his mind. But dukes get only the hors d'oeuvres, such as page 393 balls and race-meetings, and are apt to go home with the notion that the colonies might contribute a bit to Mother England's exchequer.

“Why the devil didn't we put all our sores foremost like the Italian beggars? We have plenty,” he complained to Major Henry.

“The English never do,” returned the Major, as though that was an answer. “For the Lord's sake, boy, tell me about some pretty women and any scrapes you got into.”

Jermyn did his best, with his mind on Sally, who could still wear a blue gown and a white fichu with any girl, could still meet such pleasures as life allowed (providing beef-tea and cushions for Jerry among them) with the simple happiness of a girl. If Jermyn could have been a Te Kooti, taking love for his mistress instead of war….

“Te Kooti—” he began. But that was a dangerous word to the Major, who damned Te Kooti until his gouty foot slipped off the stool and Sophia came in with a little cap on the back of her scared head.

“Oh, Uncle! Oh, how can you! When you promised me to stop swearing.”

“Eh? Damn it, so I did. But that bloody ruffian … blast it all, girl; get out if you don't like hearing me talk.”

Sophia's little cap over her drab hair and the little knitted shawl over her drab shoulders put her definitely into the ranks of those who believe that to be good is enough, and so revolted Jermyn that he could scarcely bear to see her being good to Major Henry, replacing his bandaged foot on the stool, bringing his medicine, telling him the Lord would soon stop the war.

“Te Kooti has Jehovah with him, and he's the God of Battles, ain't he?” retorted the Major, gulping his spoonful with a groan. “Oh, Lord, Jermyn, if you could only get me out for a night on the tiles again.”

But even Jehovah couldn't have done that. A reckless youth had the Major by the toes, and Sophia had him by what hair was left on his troubled head. How terrible page 394 for a woman when there is nothing left her but to do her best.

Auckland was plainly doing her best, with floating docks and wharves out to deep water at last, and buzzing ferries; and her empty houses were going down to the Thames gold-fields where, it seemed, everything was very lively. Now that magistrates had taken the place of missionaries there seemed little law anywhere, and Maoris collected their vast rents on the Thames fields with rather more than exactitude.

Yet gardens and houses were sprawling further in Auckland, and the scents of cherry-pie and magnolia filled the air when Jermyn went to dine with members of its Harbour Board and learned with a proper reserve that the town had a deep affection for Sir Peregrine Lovel, who had done so much for it in the early days. “His encouragement, his speeches in our Parliament….”

Ghosts companied Jermyn up to the nearly deserted barracks. Young gay ghosts, drinking half the night away, putting heads under pumps at dawn, toasting lovely women, who were now staid mothers of families. O'Reilly, that jovial blade, had greying whiskers now. But his regiment was soon going home. They were all going home, with a sour colonel asking what the country had got out of it all but twenty-five years of muddle and waste and debt.

“Well, we've seen some of the world's best fighters … and so have they,” returned O'Reilly. And since everyone had had too much war, they were soon talking women. Martha Pinshon was dead, and that damned little flirt Lulu Lacy gone Home…. And where was Lady Calthorpe now? Good God, what a woman, and how crazy we all were for her….

To the younger men Darien was no more than a legend, but to many she was a brilliant memory. So they toasted her with honours, and they toasted New Zealand. page 395 O'Reilly stood up to sing in a voice not so good as it once was:

The light of other days has faded,
And all its glory gone….

And gallant officers felt very sentimental indeed. What with pig-hunts, regattas, horse-racing, flirtations, and quantities of smoking-caps and slippers embroidered with holly-berries or forget-me-nots, the little country had been kind to them, in spite of the bush. Now the end of this year 1870 would see the last of the dashing whiskers, the jaunty forage-caps, the tight-waisted scarlet or blue uniforms. Only New Zealand's sons would serve her now, rolling the shirt-sleeves high on their young sinewy arms.

A whole epoch finishes with them, thought Jermyn, walking down the hill. The young ones, going with harder eyes and harder mouths, would never drink till dawn, never climb Jacob's Ladder for bets, never scatter I.O.U.'s lightly into Nick Flower's greedy hands. A heavy task for the youngsters, to haul New Zealand's stranded ship off the rocks again. No elegancies for the youngsters making their own traditions, cursing (like as not) the traditions of their elders.

Jermyn felt very much an elder, going back to Major Henry, to Sophia offering him a hot posset.