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Promenade

Chapter IX

page 169

Chapter IX

For Caroline life was on two planes—hers and the rest of the world's—and she rarely ceased her efforts to lift the world up to her. For weeks she tried earnestly to lift Sally up; sitting in the pretty chintz parlour with black ringlets bobbing out of her big bonnet and black eyes rounding while she spoke of Mr Flower's iniquities (which seemed to include swarms of wives) and the duty we owe to our sex, Sally dear.

“Yes,” said Sally, stitching blue muslin frills and not listening very much to Caroline—who at last had to take to prowling of evenings along the sweetbriar hedge dividing the sections in the hope of discovering something that would help poor Peregrine.

Tiffany, making her last good-nights to phlox and wallflower and poppy-buds, sometimes saw her with her cap gleaming like a toadstool and thought of ogresses, and found her dislike of all such unpleasant things crackling out into spiky derisive rhymes after she was in bed.

Already Tiffany had discovered that the mind's best protection against such invasions is to jest at them, though Roddy was always annoyed when she jested at papa. A woman's weapon, said Roddy, certain that it was wrong to say things behind people's backs. So she only said them to Roddy, who was just part of herself.

Caroline found prowling very difficult for a lady of her bulk. But reward came at last on a hot night when Peregrine went out, swinging his cane jauntily as though his house were not falling about his ears, and Leta Baizey called with her brother to take Darien to a Small and page 170 Early, and the children were in bed. Just the night for an assignation, thought Caroline, with even the garden so immoral in the languorous sweetness of its scents and its dim white bosses looking more like female bosoms than Mrs Simpkins pinks.

She wound her head in a black veil and her body in a long dark shawl, followed the little path to the wicket-gate, and let herself through into Sally's garden, which was breathing out such fragrance of heliotrope and roses that it was far more immoral than her own … to say nothing of the dim flitting of little moths everywhere. I am so sensitive, thought Caroline, crossing the lawns and pausing under the parlour window, which was shut of course, since night air is so dangerous and she was taking great risks herself.

Cramp caught her presently, standing there. But Sally must be snatched from the burning, though she wished the assignation would soon begin. It did begin. The opening of a door, a low laugh from Sally, a low answer in the unmistakable voice of a man. Only sin spoke so low. Indeed, after listening in vain for ages, after trying in vain to peer through the curtains, Caroline, quite wearied in well-doing, had to give it up and go home. But she had enough to feed on, feeling almost too full-fed when next morning she took the children to Lovel Hall for the opening of the Christmas box from England, and almost, though not quite, afraid to look at Sally, whose very face must be blazoning her wickedness.

But Sally, in crisp blue cambric with full white muslin under-sleeves and a little blue bow in her cap, was quite shameless; lifting out layers of straw and paper after Jermyn had wrenched away the bands of iron and prized open the lid; telling Roddy to bring Aunt Caroline a chair; laughing with Major Henry, so jovial in loose tussore with his tall hat over his ear; laughing with Jermyn sitting on the steps with the sun catching his dandy little whiskers.

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“Isn't it a huge box?” cried Sally. “So vastly good of Miss Clorinda.”

Everyone was waiting with shivers of excitement for Peregrine to begin. Magic events, the English boxes, to exiled English, to children especially whose only contact with England they were. They smelled different from anything else, thought Tiffany, glowing and sniffing. And they were different; particularly Lovel boxes, with old Aunt Clorinda alternately believing that her relatives were living in the laps of savages or of luxury and trying to provide for both contingencies.

Everything feels so Christmassy, thought Sally, grateful to Jermyn for being so kind last night helping her tie up Christmas presents and never frightening her at all. And he had spoken so beautifully about Zoroaster's belief in the coexisting principles of Good and Evil which enjoy using man as their battle-ground that (although she didn't understand very well) she felt Zoroaster must be helping him. And after Darien came back they had hung a piece of mistletoe in the veranda, Jermyn promising to kiss Caroline under it to-day…. Mr Lovel was beginning to unpack at last, though how he could have waited so long with all those eager eyes on him….

“Shoes for the little girls,” read Mr Lovel, slowly. “I hope they fit. My aunt is apt to forget that children grow. Put then down, Tiffany. You cannot try them on now.”

“Oh, Roddy! Look!” cried Tiffany, holding up the shining things while Sophia screamed: “Straps! I've always wanted straps!”

“Please do not quarrel, children. Put them aside. A parcel for you, Sally. Do not open it now or we shall never be done. Another roll of brown and red checked gingham for frocks,” said Peregrine, reading the legend like a Lesson in Church amid the vocal anguish of the little girls.

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“Oh, we had that check last time. Oh, I did want something pretty….”

“Children!” Conscious of how much of his valuable time was being wasted, Peregrine quelled the clamour with his eyeglass. “What is this? Lavender? Imagine taking up important space with….”

“Oh!” cried Sally and Darien, bending flushed faces over it. Childhood, dear England for ever gone in this enchanted lavender.

“A … dear me, I cannot read this,” said Peregrine, blinded by the eyeglass.

“Confound it, boy,” exploded Major Henry, “don't you know that an English box should be all uproarious mirth and muddle? Here … let me at it.”

“I fear stooping might be dangerous at your age, sir,” said Peregrine, shortly. Brian lifted sardonic brows at that plump little bunch of a Belinda whom Caroline was lacing so unmercifully in an effort to produce the waist unintended by nature. She giggled, and Jermyn made an attempt to mend matters by tying himself into a brown woollen petticoat and topping it with a fragile bonnet of white lace and flowers.

“I fancy these must be meant to go together,” he said, mincing down the veranda while the children relieved their tension with shrieks of joy.

“If you have no consideration for the ladies,” said Peregrine, really angry, “I think you might show some for my aunt, who could not have expected her gifts to be so ridiculed.”

“Oh, certainly,” said Jermyn, staring with sudden solemnity under the bonnet. Peregrine was digging his own grave in this exhibition. No living woman could possibly bear it.

“Red flannel—ah—undergarments,” read Peregrine, putting aside a bundle smelling strongly of camphor. “Soap. Pears scented….”

“That's mine.” Caroline grabbed. Even pity for Pere- page 173 grine couldn't keep her back longer. “Aunt knows I can't abide unscented. And that violet pelerine must be meant for me … oh, here's a coat for John.”

It was a dreadful moment. Tiffany, going red as a damask rose, scarcely dared hope Caroline would win. But now Darien was into it, intent on holding more than her own, diving her bright curls into the box.

“You don't want these fashion-books, Caroline. You're far too original. Nor this sage-green scarf….”

“It would suit Sophia,” cried Caroline, hanging on.

“Not it. Here's something with spots for her. Oh, what an exquisite lace—”

“Peregrine,” screamed Caroline, almost scuppered by superior agility. “Do you mean to let this saucy piece take everything?”

“I don't want everything,” said Darien, beginning to enjoy herself immensely and flinging out a rain of socks, waistcoats, and stuff petticoats. “You can have all those,” she announced, burrowing deeper.

Knowing how wicked it was to laugh so at Mr Lovel hovering helpless, Sally mopped her eyes, hoping that no one saw. But Jermyn's laughing eyes did—

“No dollies?” pleaded little Lucilla, tugging at Peregrine's coat-tails. “Sir, please, ain't there no dollies for me?”

“Bless your heart, we'll find you some dollies, my poppet,” said Major Henry, beginning to haul out the bowels of the box by armfuls, scattering balls, dolls, knives, games into eager little hands while Tiffany danced like a mænad, tangling bright skeins of wool in her hair.

Peregrine turned on his heel and walked off. The despoilers went mad with glee then, and Major Henry and Jermyn kissed everyone under the mistletoe. But Caroline, taking her children home at last, couldn't forgive Peregrine who had let Darien steal that length of gold tissue. I shan't tell him about Sally until I fell inclined, she thought.

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The day's merriment gave Jermyn a grim night. For all her struggles he must get Sally out of this soon. Peregrine was simply indecent. So he took his troubles out to the dark where a chill wind was blowing and grey clouds flying, and looked down a cliff to the beach below where a whaler's crew squatted round a thirty-gallon cask of rum, prepared to drink it dry before they rose. In the capricious light of a great driftwood fire the fellows looked like tattered giants, like gnomes, with here and there a god. They shouted chanties, beating time with the tin pannikins; laughed, quarrelled, wept maudlin tears, lay helpless with their drink upon the sand.

Second-hand devils they courted for their pleasure. And what was Jermyn's but a second-hand devil too? From the days of Solomon men had coveted their neighbours' wives and reaped the whirlwind of it. They had drunk themselves mad and sane again, and gone to virtuous living or back to the husks. And for all their wild hearts they had lain down in the grave in the end just like the dullest yokel who swallows his porridge and goes to sleep. Presently their skipper would round up these fellows below with a rope's end and clear for one of the little bays further down, where he would flog and bully and starve them back to their senses before they faced the black lonely seas about the Pole. What good would they have of their debauch then? What good did any man get of anything? Feeling unable to inquire beyond that, Jermyn gave it up and went home to bed.

II

NewZealand (it seemed) in her struggle to become the Land of Promise had only succeeded in establishing herself as the Land of Continual Probations. So loudly had she screamed for representative government that after a long hysteria of special sessions and the passing and repealing of many acts and ordinances England at last gave birth page 175 to a hybrid called the Constitution Act, and was now mopping her brows and hoping those imbeciles at the Antipodes would be content with that.

Governor Grey was so far from content that it was rumoured he would resign, and this, said everyone, was the most promising sign yet. But when gentlemen came to examine into the reservations of the Act more chairs were broken at the Mechanic's Institute, and Sir Winston was moved to talk about the soul.

So life went on much as usual through the bright weather. Great bronze pigeons cooed and black-and-white fantails flitted down in the bush-gully where Roddy made magic with his flute and found the harmonies taking the shape of Eriti surprisingly often. Tiffany continued to live in her own magnificent world of fancies wherein papa had no consequence, though her hands were making him a red-and-blue smoking cap. John chopped down more tall trees, burned more of the green shining slash with scarlet running fires, felt the hairy pasterns of the Clydesdales which he would presently sell to strain their great hearts out hauling the munition wagons, and was very happy living a bachelor at the farm.

Up at the barracks bugles blew and drums rolled; smart pipe-clayed regiments marched out in the blue service uniforms into the dark bush, and others returned, draggled and weary, with elbows out and mud on their eyebrows. On the English grass lawns of Lovel Hall and other handsome homes peacocks spread their dazzling tails to a challenging sun, and in the Government House Gardens ladies (unhappily powerless to grow new feathers so easily as the peacocks) spread their nets of sly glances and smiles for impressionable gallants.

The Harbour Board enclosed more of the grey mudflats preparatory to laying another street among the pervasive odours of drying and decaying refuse, and Belinda, who was to come out at the ball which everyone hoped would help the new Parliament to get properly on its feet, page 176 was laced so tightly by Caroline that her red cheeks paled and she fainted daily.

“Mamma says I'm to have no more milk or butter till I'm safely married,” sighed Linda, who loved her flesh-pots and plenty of fun and giggles. Darien, who couldn't really go off in an elegant flop yet though her waist was smaller than Linda's, was watching her recovery with critical eyes. It certainly did look a good way to a man's heart.

“I suppose it's because I have more character,” she thought, nightly provoking more ardencies at the little carpet-dances to accordion music which were so fashionable, and being provoked by Jermyn who so seldom seemed to be anywhere now.

Lord Calthorpe's company returned and, after an anxious time with barbers, hair-dressers and tailors, flung itself in pomatumed eagerness upon the town. Calthorpe, too red and much too surprisingly lively, flung himself on Darien, demanding instant marriage.

“We're for Van Diemen's Land next. Can't leave you behind, y'know.”

“I can't go without a trousseau,” said Darien, hedging in sudden panic.

“Bah! Tell that to the marines, my dear. A gal like you don't need clothes.”

“I must have seven complete sets of everything, and at least twenty gowns.”

“Eh? The devil you must? Doosed awkward that,” said the little lord, scratching his sandy head. “What for?”

In the next room Captain O'Reilly was singing:

Oh, Helen, fair beyond compare,
I'll make a garland of your hair….

Jermyn's song. Darien could hear the warm mellowness of his voice in the words. She sprang up with a swirl of pale green skirts and scarves.

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“I won't go at all. I won't marry you. I….”

“Go it, you cripple,” returned Calthorpe admiringly. “My eye, you're a beauty when you get in a wax, Darien.”

“I won't marry you,” cried Darien, stamping. Calthorpe shut his eyes.

“Look here, I've had enough fireworks for a few months. What's the game now? Stop showin' off, my good gal, and give me a kiss.”

“I shall never kiss you again … odious wretch!”

Calthorpe got up. His muscles, Darien discovered, were alarmingly stronger.

“Then I'll kiss you,” he said amiably. “Like this … and this … and this…. You've found a new scent, you monkey. Now, my charmer, come an' dance. You know damn well you couldn't give me up if you tried.”

“I won't marry you,” gasped Darien, being dragged along.

“O waly, waly, up the bank,” replied Lord Calthorpe cheerfully, handing her over to a seeking partner. Women's tantrums, though doosed amusin', grew troublesome after a vigorous life with men. Calthorpe, who never had much conversation, said at the buffet, “Goin' to be married next month,” and left it there.

Desperate, Darien made a final attack on Jermyn which yielded so little that she cried her eyes red, and then wrote in her diary:

“Hope is for ever fled for the present and I am engulfed in Disspair. I went as far as a girl should and much further but Jermyn is abcessed with honour so I'll marry the lord and perhaps I'll find a married woman can say more. It's a mercy my trousseau is nearly ready and I'll get that bolt of true Indian muslin out of Peregrine somehow … proud puffed-up cake.”

III

Now the country went into hysteria over elections to the Provincial Councils which, in Grey's usual manner of put- page 178 ting the cart before the horse, were to precede the first Parliament. Peregrine approved. Parliamentary members, so scattered by the geographical imp who had constructed New Zealand of two large and one smallish island attended by a multitude of satellite minute islands, couldn't be expected to meet often, while Provincial Councils, operating at once and in their proper places, would lay necessary foundations, he declared, going at once to the laying of his own.

So New Zealand's six provinces set to work; making magnificent speeches, since the country really had more than its share of erudition, while ladies did what they could for their candidates at routs and card-drums; and at Caroline's weekly musicales Tiffany and Belinda had to play “The Battle of Prague” so often that in the end they nearly knew it. Bullockies named their great patient beasts after candidates, giving the unpopular one all the whip, and every gentleman's son, including young Lovels, returned from school with bloody noses.

Everything, shouted the Major, full of brandy and speeches, was going excellently. But he deflated suddenly when Nick Flower's name came into prominence as opponent to Peregrine in his ward, and Lovels went hurriedly to the examining of Flower's credentials, finding them as elusive as the man himself.

“The dog's never in Auckland anyway. Put him in the stocks when he comes,” cried the gentlemen, while the Chronicle sarcastically welcomed this “Flower of our aristocracy,” and recommended the public to pluck it ere it withered at the hustings.

Rumours began spreading, none knew how. Flower, said agitated gentlemen buttonholing everybody in the streets, owned half Auckland. He owned most of the shares in Graham's Bond, that bluff stone building on the water-front which impressed newcomers with such certainty of Auckland's stability. The fine block of stables page 179 building for the military at Epsom was financed by him. He held the I.O.U.'s of half the men in town….

Some truth in this last anyway. So when Flower, mysterious fly-by-night that he was, appeared in Auckland, walking about just like a man and not the engine of destruction every one now felt him to be, gentlemen made haste to invite him to the clubs and even to their houses. Get the fellow drunk and talking, they said, and the prison authorities will soon relieve us of his presence. Only a life of unmitigated evil, they were sure, could make a man look so big and prosperous in the New Zealand of their day.

Not much trouble for Nick Flower to see through the gentlemen. Nor through Darien; handling her subjects royally at a carpet-dance, wearing a cheap muslin (nine-pence the yard, said his trader's instinct) with diamond ear-rings and lockets, wearing the rich impudence of her auburn curls tied up with a blue ribbon, and yet contriving to look more like a queen than a courtesan.

“So now you are grown up,” he said, making his clumsy bow. “I suppose I must call you Miss Vibart now.”

“So now you are invited to gentlemen's houses,” said Darien over her fan.

“Still the same Darien?” He laughed. “No, I shan't call you Miss Vibart.”

“Not worth while. I'm marrying Lord Calthorpe next week,” said Darien, watching him cautiously. If he were really as rich as people said….

“Yes. I heard that you too were a climber. It's hard work. If you had a heart I might be sorry for you.”

“I can take care of myself, thank you.”

“No woman knows how to do that. Who will buy your wedding-slippers? Will you give him a kiss for them?”

“Kisses don't mean much,” said Darien, reflecting. “I've had so many … and they mostly taste of brandy.”

He sat down beside her, leaning close. “Mine don't,” he said.

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Darien felt excited. A kiss from this man would be experiencing. But unluckily her wedding was too near for that now. She said, curious:

Why do gentlemen invite you to their houses? Is it because you've made so much money with your smuggling?'

He leaned back, crossing his legs as no gentleman would do in a lady's presence.

“Your tongue will get you into trouble some day, young lady.”

“It does … and gets me out again. I think I'll denounce you to the Governor as a smuggler.” (Unless you buy me off, she thought, feeling eager.)

“I should advise you not,” he said, amused. “Grey must have heard so much already that he is not likely to welcome further conversation on the subject without proof.”

“You're the proof.”

“Oh, my dear girl! Where's your logic? But you always did jump at conclusions … as you have jumped at little Calthorpe. Though I dare swear he won't be the conclusion of your career.”

“I don't mind your being a smuggler so much,” said Darien angrily, “but I do mind your not knowing how to talk to a lady.”

“I don't see how you know whether I can or not.”

Darien jumped up, her hands tingling to box his ears.

“You are an odious insulting wretch, Nick Flower. I shan't invite you to my wedding.”

“Then I needn't send you a wedding-present?”

That stopped her, by Jove. Always a greedy little pirate, Darien. A greedy courageous little pirate, sailing the world with every man's skull and cross-bones. He felt her looking him over and was ridiculously pleased that the tailor had done so well with his evening clothes although very complaining over his width of shoulder.

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“I want no presents from you, sir,” said Darien, hanging on to her pride with a struggle.

“No? I'll wager that's the first time you've said that to anybody. Well, I'll tell Lord Calthorpe not to invite me. We are old friends.”

Calthorpe redeemed some of his I.O.U.'s every time his remittances came in. In future it was not likely to be every time, for though the diamonds were palpably heirlooms Darien would be dressing up to them before long.

“Oh, do you know him? Don't send him the wedding-present, then. You knew me first … didn't you?”

“Yes,” said Flower with sudden gravity. “I knew you first.” Better than anyone else will ever know you, he thought. God, where couldn't he get to with this vital unscrupulous spirit to help him? With Peregrine Lovel's signet-ring on my finger I'd only have to hold it up, he thought, saying:

“You are the greatest opportunist I know … except myself. I'm glad it's not you I'm meeting at the hustings. I wish you happy,” he said, leaving her to Major Henry with a bow.

Darien was still savouring the salt of him on her tongue. Suddenly she was sick of compliments, of Jermyn being so haggard and honourable. She wanted to take a broom and sweep Jermyn out of her mind … but after all these years she'd feel so unfurnished without him, and he had given her a really beautiful candelabra all the way from Sydney, so the poor fellow must be dying of love. Nick Flower would never die of love.

Next day Nick Flower sent her twenty golden Spanish guineas in a little box. Now I can get those extra things I need so badly, thought Darien, hastily stuffing the box into the frilled pocket of her apron. If Peregrine saw he'd make her send them back with appropriate comments on the fellow's insolence.

A chill winter sun peered through the loopholes at St Paul's to see Darien walking up the aisle on Sir John's page 182 arm to be married to Lord Calthorpe, who was a small red splotch beside a larger one in the chancel. The air was full of the fresh cold scent of chrysanthemums and the heavy odour of flax-leaves waving in bunches at the end of every pew. The barrel-organ grinding out “Oh, God our help in ages past” was doing it for Darien. Sally, in a pale blue bonnet in the front pew, was crying for Darien. Everywhere ladies were crying and gentlemen murmuring admiration like a river … all for Darien. She tried to see Jermyn and Nick Flower, but these silly billows of white illusion got so in the way, and what should she do if she wanted to blow her nose?

Now Bishop Selwyn, looking like a great bank of clouds in his lawn sleeves, was booming away, and Calthorpe trying to put the ring on the wrong finger, and somebody (could it be herself?) making Darien's responses quite calmly, and Sarah Wells, who was chief bridesmaid, sobbing so loudly that she nearly drowned the barrel-organ as they all went into the vestry.

Lonely creatures, women. So seldom may they get drunk and ease their stuffed bosoms, thought Jermyn, watching Sally's piteous little face. Sally had been so occupied with Darien of late. And then there would be the elections. And then she will need me, thought Jermyn, his heart pounding.

“Oh, please God, don't let her ever find out she's made a mistake,” whispered Sally, hoping against hope. Jermyn could have had this, thought Darien, as Calthorpe put back her veil in the vestry and claimed his first marital kiss. Poor Jermyn! who must be feeling fit to kill himself.

Yet one couldn't bother long about Jermyn with the barrel-organ going bravely through its four tunes, and six little nieces, frilled out like pink peonies, to throw posies, and red ranks of soldiers making a dazzling arch of swords to pass under, and four splendid Clydesdales garlanded with the bridegroom's regimental colours to page 183 draw the nuptial bullock-cart to Lovel Hall, where the peacocks awaited them with spread tails.

“Oh, Sal-volatile, I hope all my weddings will be as fine as this,” cried Darien, still glowing with the toasts and compliments and wine, and kissing Sally out of her going-away green bonnet edged with swansdown. Swansdown on her green cloak too, and under her square white chin…. and what a tattle there'd be if folk knew that Nick Flower's gold paid for it, thought Darien, running down to scatter glances and last words among the brokenhearted young bucks crowding round; to hold up rosy pouting lips for Jermyn's kiss (she would have that anyway); to sail away with her little lord on the Ocean Queen to Sydney, where they would wait for the troopship to pick them up.

Calthorpe (somewhat unsteady in his hessians since the champagne had been so good and being married so doosed awkward) regarded her with an amorous if rather bleary eye.

“Thank the Lord that's over. Eh, my charmer?” he said.

“But everything's just beginning,” cried Darien radiantly. Adventures ahead now….

“'Pon my soul, Peregrine, you've done us uncommon well,” declared Major Henry, prowling round the remains of the wedding-breakfast, where great mounds of jellies, the pink enticement of hams, the flakiness of jam tarts in crystal bowls, and a hundred other delights still raised their heads among crisp slices of melon, cakes gay with icing, and the brown glow of sherry in cut-glass decanters. “Haven't had near enough. Too many toasts,” he announced, sitting down again while the children ranged here and there picking up delicacies like young pigeons. “Have a bite, my nut-brown maid,” invited the Major, offering half a mince-pie to Tiffany.

Peregrine, strolling with hands under his coat-tails, felt compensated. That abominable girl's wedding had cost page 184 him more than he could well afford; but he was done with her now, and it was a most effective riposte to any who might think that his I.O.U.'s were among Nick Flower's sheaves. He paused by Sally, who was gathering up the extra knives and trying to remember who had lent them, and spoke kindly, for she had been quite as retiring and efficient as a wife should be.

“A well-managed affair, my dear. I have just been speaking to the reporters. Will you be good enough to let them have the lists of gifts and guests presently? There are to be two columns in all the papers.”

“La, there you are, Peregrine,” cried Caroline. “There is something very unpleasant that I feel it only right to tell you … privately.”

Caroline was always feeling things like that. The Maori boatman drunk again, thought Peregrine, following her into the garden, where her red nose under a violet velvet bonnet was more than usually an assault to the senses.

“I've been holding it back,” gasped Caroline. “But a wedding … so sacred … so terrible for you … I feel it my duty … it's about Sally.”

Peregrine stopped dead, looking like a very high grey chimney wearing a buttonhole bouquet and an eyeglass.

“I do not discuss my wife with anyone, Lady Lovel.”

“La! Do you call it discussing to tell you she has a lover?”

“Have a care what you say, madam,” said Peregrine, feeling himself going white round the nostrils.

“Oh, I know what I'm saying….” Out it came in a torrent. Sally shamelessly going off with Mr Nick Flower in the middle of Auckland; admitting him to the house when she was alone; letting him stay for hours and hours…. In Caroline's mouth Sally became a convicted and habitual sinner, and indeed Caroline was quite persuaded of it by now … besides, don't even one straw show the way the wind blows? Peregrine was at first quite incapable of stopping her. He stared down at the white pinks, the page 185 blue forget-me-nots … there was a red-and-black ladybird crawling on a leaf…. Suddenly he put his hand up.

“Kindly leave me, Lady Lovel. And be thankful I do not put you in court for defamation of character … as I certainly shall do if this calumny goes further.”

“B-but …” Caroline burst into loud weeping. “I only wanted to help….”

“Get back to your house,” said Peregrine, chasing her like a stray dog, slamming the wicket-gate on her. Then he stood still on the path.

In the Lovel Hall parlour Leta Baizey and Sarah Wells were singing, “The Captain with his whiskers took a sly glance at me,” and young bucks who had had too much champagne were laughing and clapping. Peregrine walked off to his study and locked his door. As yet only two things were clear in his mind. He believed Caroline's story with its wealth of silly detail because she hadn't the wit to invent it. And next week he must meet Nick Flower at the hustings.

IV

Since Mr Swainson, the Attorney-General, had decided that “spirits poor enough to need screening by secret ballot” were not fit to share in government, the voting for the Provincial Councils was to follow the good old lines, with everyone free to break everyone's head and be ridden about in barrows and jump on hats, while brawny labourers looked to the handles of their spades and shovels and got some useful practice on the waterfront when the names of their candidates came up.

Nick Flower, who had done his work already down his underground ways, did not appear again until the day of the voting. But Peregrine was everywhere; dragging Sally out to Howick, Onehunga, and other settlements, where she kissed the babies and talked to the women, dragging her to all his speeches in schools and halls and page 186 church-porches. Never (felt Sally, climbing wearily into bed) had Mr Lovel wanted her so much or seemed to like her so little when he had her. Yet she did her best, even under those cold glittering eyes that so frightened her.

Jermyn says he'll be normal again when this is over, she thought, lifting on her elbow to see him sleeping with the nightcap tassel on his brow like a decoration. Major Henry always said Mr Lovel was headed for drums and decorations…. Distressfully Sally thought how almost all she knew of Mr Lovel's feelings came from others. Never had he told his feelings to her….

Peregrine twitched in his sleep. His dreams rode him like witches; ancient superstitions which no man can escape moved in his sleeping blood with ghostly reasonings. Reasons why he had always so loathed Nick Flower. Reasons why he had never really loved a woman. Reasons why his boys were so infinitely dear…. “Cushion it. Cushion it,” he muttered, dreaming of his boys, of the proud Lovel name.

The Maoris (to whom dignity usually means more than life) were puzzled anew at their white rulers when they saw them at the hustings on that evening of noise and red flaring torches and the weak yellow light of oil-lamps in the booths. Battle they understood, and laughter; but not the two so shamelessly combined, defiling both. There was more than surprise in watching would-be orators hauled off a platform by their kicking legs and then drinking with their assailants out of the same bottle; more than disapproval when a hearty dingdong with spades and shovels ended in everyone binding up the bloody heads. Sticks, rotten eggs and cabbages flew; curses, laughter and hurrahs rocked the murky air.

Major Henry, making a last speech that no one could hear, was offered bottles from all directions and drank from all. Sir Winston, bellowing a last burst of quotations above the roar, declared that the seals of office already glittered in Peregrine's eyes. There were cheers for page 187 Colonel Wynyard, Auckland's first Superintendent, howls for Cordery, rotten eggs for old Barnes….

Nick Flower, thrusting his great height everywhere, was received with loyal shouts. He was smiling, knowing how well Swainson's decision had served him. So many men in his hands, so many might be that there was little likelihood of danger in an open vote. Peregrine (who knew that he would have been better at home but couldn't bring himself to it) stood immobile in the flickering lights with Jermyn beside him. Jermyn was almost sorry for Peregrine who seemed on the verge of collapse. Yet why make such ado? He could quite easily engineer a by-election and get in on that.

“The counting must be almost finished now,” said Peregrine with dry lips.

Then the roars went up, the huzzahs and howls as a clerk read out the list of names. Halfway down it Flower, leaning with hands in pockets against a platform, heard his own. He had beaten Mr Peregrine Lovel by forty votes.

He dodged round the platform to escape; but he was hoisted up, made to speak, made to submit to being carried round on heaving shoulders, to the accompaniment of accordions, whistles, songs. As he came down he saw Peregrine Lovel's dark lean face on a level with his own. There was moisture on the high forehead and round the mouth, and Flower tasted fully the triumph he had set out to gain. The seat on the Council meant nothing to him. Probably he would never use it. But this meant very much.

“Congratulations, Mr Flower,” said Peregrine, courteously. He held out his hand, drew Flower closer to mutter at his ear: “I shall expect you at nine o'clock to-morrow evening in my Shortland Street office. I do not expect you to fail me.”