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Rua got slowly to his feet. He turned away from the Springs side of the hill to the east and looked down into his own hamlet, now deep in shadow.
‘My people are well contented,’ he said. ‘We are not Arawas. We go our own way.’
‘And another thing. He’s been talking about having curios for sale. He’s been nosing round. Asking about old times. Over at the Peak.’ Smith’s voice slid into an uncertain key. He went on with an air of nervousness. ‘Someone’s told him about Rewi’s axe,’ he said.
Rua turned, and for the first time looked fully at his companion.
‘That’s not so good, is it?’ said Smith.
‘My grandfather Rewi,’ Rua said, ‘was a man of prestige. His axe was dedicated to the god Tane and was named after him, Toki-poutangata-o-Tane. It was sacred. Its burial place, also, is sacred and secret.’
‘Questing reckons it’s somewhere on the Peak. He reckons there’s a lot of stuff over on the Peak that might be exploited. He’s talking about half-day trips to see the places of interest, with one of your people to act as guide and tell the tale.’
‘The Peak is a native reserve.’
‘He reckons he could square that up all right.’
‘I am an old man,’ said Rua affably, ‘but I am not yet dead. He will not find any guides among my people.’
‘Won’t he! You ask Eru Saul. He knows what Questing’s after.’
‘Eru is not a satisfactory youth. He is a bad pakeha Maori.’
‘Eru doesn’t like the way Questing plays up to young Huia. He reckons Questing is kidding her to find guides for him.’
‘He will not find guides,’ Rua repeated.
‘Money talks, you know.’
‘So will the tapu of my grandfather’s toki-poutangata.’
Smith looked curiously at the old man. ‘You really believe that, don’t you?’ he said.
‘I am a rangitira. My father attended an ancient school of learning. He was a tohunga. I don’t believe, Mr Smith,’ said Rua with a chuckle. ‘I know.’
‘You’ll never get a white man to credit supernatural stories, Rua. Even your own younger lot don’t think much …’
Rua interrupted him. The full magnificence of his voice sounded richly on the evening air. ‘Our people,’ Rua said, ‘stand between two worlds. In a century we have had to swallow the progress of nineteen hundred years. Do you wonder that we suffer a little from evolutionary dyspepsia? We are loyal members of the great commonwealth; your enemies are our enemies. You speak of the young people. They are like voyagers whose canoes are in a great ocean between two countries. Sometimes they behave objectionably and are naughty children. Sometimes they are taught very bad tricks by their pakeha friends.’ Rua looked full at Smith, who fidgeted. ‘There are pakeha laws to prevent my young men from making fools of themselves with whisky and too much beer,’ said Rua tranquilly, ‘but there are also pakehas who help them to break these laws. The pakehas teach our young maidens that they should be quiet girls and not have babies before they are married, but in my own hapu there is a small boy whom we call Hoani Smith, though in law he has no right to that name.’
‘Hell, Rua, that’s an old story,’ Smith muttered.
‘Let me tell you another old story. Many years ago, when I was a youth, a maiden of our hapu lost her way in the mists on Rangi’s Peak. In ignorance, intending no sacrilege, she came upon the place where my grandfather rests with his weapons, and, being hungry, ate a small piece of cooked food that she carried with her. In that place it was an act of horrible sacrilege. When the mists cleared, she discovered her crime and returned in terror to her people. She told her story, and was sent out to this hill while her case was discussed. At night she thought she would creep back, but she missed her way. She fell into Taupo-tapu, the boiling mud pool. Everybody in the village heard her scream. Next morning her dress was thrown up, rejected by the spirit of the pool. When your friend Mr Questing speaks of my grandfather’s toki, relate this story to him. Tell him the girl’s scream can still be heard sometimes at night. I am going home now,’ Rua added, and drew his blanket about him with precisely the same gesture that his grandfather had used to adjust his feather cloak. ‘Is it true, Mr Smith, that Mr Questing has said a great many times that when he takes over the Springs, you will lose your job?’
‘He can have it for mine,’ said Smith angrily. ‘That’ll do me all right. He doesn’t have to talk about the sack. When Questing’s the boss down there, I’m turning the job up.’ He dragged the whisky bottle from his pocket and fumbled with the cork.
‘And yet,’ Rua said, ‘it’s a very soft job. You are going to drink? I shall go home. Good evening.’
IV
Dikon Bell, marooned in the Claires’ private sitting-room, stared at faded photographs of regimental Anglo-Indians, at the backs of blameless novels, and at a framed poster of the Cotswolds in the spring. The poster was the work of a celebrated painter, and was at once gay, ordered, and delicate – a touching sequence of greens and blues. It made Dikon, the New Zealander, ache for England. By shifting his gaze slightly, he saw, framed in the sitting-room window, a landscape aloof from man. Its beauty was perfectly articulate yet utterly remote. Against his will he was moved by it as an unmusical listener may be profoundly disturbed by sound forms that he is unable to comprehend. He had travelled a great deal in his eight years’ absence from New Zealand and had seen places famous for their antiquities, but it seemed to him that the landscape he now watched through the Claires’ window was of an early age far more remote than any of these. It did not carry the scars of lost civilisation. Rather, it seemed to make nothing of time, for it was still primeval and its only stigmata were those of neolithic age. Dikon, who longed to be in London, recognised in himself an affinity with this indifferent and profound country, and resented its attraction.
He wondered what Gaunt would say to it. He was to return to his employer next day by bus and train, a long and fatiguing business. Gaunt had brought a car, and on the following day he, Dikon and Colly would set out for Wai-ata-tapu. They had made many such journeys in many countries. Always at the end there had been expensive hotels or flats and lavish attention – amenities that Gaunt accepted as necessities of existence. Dikon was gripped by a sensation of panic. He had been mad to urge this place with its air of amateurish incompetence, its appalling Mr Questing, its incredible Claires, whose air of breeding would seem merely to underline their complacency. A bush pub might have amused Gaunt; the Springs would bore him to exasperation.
A figure passed the window and stood in the doorway. It was Miss Claire. Dikon, whose job obliged him to observe such things, noticed that her cotton dress had been most misguidedly garnished with a neck bow of shiny ribbon, that her hair was precisely the wrong length, and that she used no make-up.
‘Mr Bell,’ said Barbara, ‘we were wondering if you’d advise us about Mr Gaunt’s rooms. Where to put things. I’m afraid you’ll find us very primitive.’ She laid tremendous stress on odd syllables and words, and as she did so turned up her eyes in a deprecating manner and pulled down the corners of her mouth like a lugubrious clown.
‘Comedy stuff,’ thought Dikon. ‘Alas, alas, she means to be funny.’ He said that he would be delighted to see the rooms, and, nervously fingering his tie, followed her along the verandah.
The wing at the east end of the house, corresponding with the Claires’ private rooms at the west end, had been turned into a sort of flat for Gaunt, Dikon and Colly. It consisted of four rooms: two small bedrooms, one tiny bedroom, and a slightly larger bedroom which had been converted into Mr Questing’s idea of a celebrity study. In this apartment were assembled two chromium-steel chairs, one large armchair, and a streamlined desk, all of rather bad design, and with the dealer’s tabs still attached to them. The floor was newly carpeted, and the windows in process of being freshly curtained by Mrs Claire. Mr Questing, wearing a cigar as if it were a sort of badge of office, lolled carelessly in the armchair. On Dikon’s entrance he sprang to his feet.
‘Well, well, well,’ cried Mr Questing gaily, ‘how’s the young gentleman?’
‘Quite well, thank you,’ said Dikon, who had spent the greater part of the day motoring with Mr Questing, and had become reconciled to these constant inquiries.
‘Is this service,’ Mr Questing went on, waving his cigar at the room, ‘or is it? Forty-eight hours ago I hadn’t the pleasure of your acquaintance, Mr Bell. After our little chat yesterday, I felt so optimistic I just had to get out and get going. I went to the finest furnishing firm in Auckland, and I told the manager, I told him: “Look,” I told him. “I’ll take this stuff, if you can get it to Wai-ata-tapu, Harpoon, by tomorrow afternoon. And if not, not.” That’s the way I like to do things, Mr Bell.’
‘I hope you have explained that even now Gaunt may not decide to come,’ said Dikon. ‘You have all taken a great deal of trouble, Mrs Claire.’
Mrs Claire looked doubtfully from Questing to Dikon. ‘I’m afraid,’ she said plaintively, ‘that I don’t really quite appreciate very up-to-date furniture. I always think a home-like atmosphere, no matter how shabby … However.’
Questing cut in, and Dikon only half listened to another dissertation on the necessity of moving with the times. He was jerked into full awareness when Questing, with an air of familiarity, addressed himself to Barbara. ‘And what’s Babs got to say about it?’ he asked, lowering his voice to a rich and offensive purr. Dikon saw her step backwards. It was an instinctive movement, he thought, uncontrollable as a reflex jerk, but less ungainly than her usual habit. Its effect on Dikon was as simple and as automatic as itself; he felt a stab of sympathy and a protective impulse. She was no longer regrettable; she was, for a moment, rather touching. Surprised, and a little disturbed, he looked away from Barbara to Mrs Claire, and saw that her plump hands were clenched among sharp folds of the shining chintz. He felt that a little scene of climax had been enacted. It was disturbed by the appearance of another figure. Limping steps sounded on the verandah, and the doorway was darkened. A stocky man, elderly but still red-headed and extremely handsome in an angry sort of way, stood glaring at Questing.
‘Oh, James,’ Mrs Claire murmured, ‘there you are, old man. You haven’t met Mr Bell. My brother, Dr Ackrington.’
As they shook hands, Dikon saw that Barbara had moved close to her uncle.
‘Have a good run up?’ asked Dr Ackrington, throwing a needle-sharp glance at Dikon. ‘Ever see anything more disgraceful than the roads? I’ve been fishing.’
Startled by this non sequitur, Dikon murmured politely: ‘Indeed?’
‘If you can call it fishing. Hope you and Gaunt aren’t counting on catching any trout. What with native reserves and the damned infamous behaviour of white poaching cads, there’s not a fish to be had in twenty miles.’
‘Now, now, now, Doctor,’ said Questing in a great hurry. ‘We can’t let you get away with that. Why, the greatest little trout streams in New Zealand …’
‘D’you enjoy being called “Mister”?’ Dr Ackrington demanded, so loudly that Dikon gave a nervous jump. Questing said uneasily: ‘Not much.’
‘Then don’t call me “Doctor”,’ commanded Dr Ackrington. Questing laughed uproariously. ‘That’s just too bad,’ he said.
Dr Ackrington looked round the room. ‘Good God,’ he said, ‘what are you doing with the place?’
‘Mr Questing,’ began Mrs Claire, ‘has very kindly …’
‘I might have recognised the authentic touch,’ said her brother, turning his back on the room. ‘Staying here tonight are you, Bell? I’d like a word with you. Come along to my room when you’ve a moment.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ said Dikon.
Dr Ackrington looked through the doorway. ‘The star boarder,’ he said, ‘is returning in his usual condition. Mr Bell is to be treated to a comprehensive view of our amenities.’
They all looked through the doorway. Dikon saw a shambling figure cross the pumice sweep and approach the verandah.
‘Oh dear!’ said Mrs Claire. ‘I’m afraid … James, dear, could you …? ’
Dr Ackrington limped out to the verandah. The newcomer saw, stumbled to a halt, and dragged a bottle from the pocket of his raincoat.
To Dikon, watching through the window, the intrusion of a drunken white figure into the native landscape was at once preposterous and rather pathetic. A clear light, reflected from the pumice track, rimmed the folds of his shabby garments. He stood there, drooping and lonely, and turned the whisky bottle in his hand, staring at it as if it were the focal point for some fuddled meditation. Presently he raised his head and looked at Dr Ackrington.
‘Well, Smith,’ said Dr Ackrington.
‘You’re a sport, Doc,’ said Smith. ‘There’s a couple of snifters left. Come on and have one.’
‘You’ll do better to keep it,’ said Dr Ackrington quite mildly.
Smith peered beyond him into the room. His eyes narrowed. He lurched forward to the verandah. ‘I’ll deal with this,’ said Questing importantly, and strode out to meet him. They confronted each other. Questing, planted squarely on the verandah edge, made much of his cigar; Smith clung to the post and stared up at him.
‘You clear out of this, Smith,’ said Questing.
‘You get to hell yourself,’ said Smith distinctly. He looked past Questing to the group in the doorway, and very solemnly took off his hat. ‘Present company excepted,’ he added.
‘Did you hear what I said?’
‘Is that the visitor?’ Smith asked loudly, and pointed at Dikon. ‘Is that the reason why we’re all sweating our guts up? That? Let’s have a better look at it. Gawd, what a sissy.’
Dikon wondered confusedly which of the party felt most embarrassed. Dr Ackrington made a loud barking noise, Barbara broke into agonised laughter, Mrs Claire rushed into a spate of apologies, Dikon himself attempted to suggest by gay inquiring glances that he had not understood the tenor of Smith’s remarks. He might have spared himself the trouble. Smith made a plunge at the verandah step shouting: ‘Look at the little bastard.’ Questing attempted to stop him, and the scene mounted in a rapid crescendo. Dikon, Mrs Claire and Barbara remained in the room, Dr Ackrington on the verandah appeared to hold a watching brief, while Questing and Smith yelled industriously in each other’s faces. The climax came when Questing again attempted to shove Smith away from the verandah. Smith drove his fist in Questing’s face and lost his balance. They fell simultaneously.
The noise stopped as suddenly as it had begun. An inexplicable and ridiculous affair changed abruptly into a piece of convincing melodrama. Dikon had seen many such a set-up at the cinema studios. Smith, shaky and bloated, crouched where he had fallen and mouthed at Questing. Questing got to his feet and dabbed at the corner of his mouth with his handkerchief. His cigar lay smoking on the ground between them. It was a shot in Technicolor, for Rangi’s Peak was now tinctured with such a violence of purple as is seldom seen outside the theatre, and in the middle distance rose the steam of the hot pools.
Dikon waited for a bit of rough dialogue to develop and was not disappointed.
‘By God,’ Questing said, exploring his jaw, ‘you’ll get yours for this. You’re sacked.’
‘You’re not my bloody boss.’
‘I’ll bloody well get you the sack, don’t you worry. When I’m in charge here …’
‘That will do,’ said Dr Ackrington crisply.
‘What is all this?’ a peevish voice demanded. Colonel Claire, followed by Simon, appeared round the wing of the house. Smith got to his feet.
‘You’ll have to get rid of this man, Colonel,’ said Questing.
‘What’s he done?’ Simon demanded.
‘I socked him.’ Smith took Simon by the lapels of his coat. ‘You look out for yourselves,’ he said. ‘It’s not only me he’s after. Your dad won’t sack me, will he, Sim?’
‘We’ll see about that,’ Questing said.
‘But why …’ Colonel Claire began, and was cut short by his brother-in-law.
‘If I may interrupt for a moment,’ said Dr Ackrington acidly, ‘I suggest that I take Mr Bell to my room. Unless, of course, he prefers a ring-side seat. Will you come and have a drink, Bell?’
Dikon thankfully accepted, leaving the room in a gale of apologies from Mrs Claire and Barbara. Questing, who seemed to have recovered his temper, followed them up with a speech in which anxiety, propitiation and a kind of fawning urgency were most disagreeably mingled. He was cut short by Dr Ackrington.
‘Possibly,’ Dr Ackrington said, ‘Mr Bell may prefer to form his own opinion of this episode. No doubt he has seen a chronic alcoholic before now, and will not attach much significance to anything this particular specimen may choose to say.’
‘Yes, yes. Of course,’ Dikon murmured unhappily.
‘As for the behaviour of Other Persons,’ Dr Ackrington continued, ‘there again, he may, as I do, form his own opinion. Come along, Bell.’
Dikon followed him along the verandah to his own room, a grimly neat apartment with a hideous desk.
‘Sit down,’ said Dr Ackrington. He wrenched open the door of a home-made cupboard, and took out a bottle and two tumblers. ‘I can only offer you whisky,’ he said. ‘With Smith’s horrible example before you, you may not like the idea. Afraid I don’t go in for modern rot-gut.’
‘Thank you,’ said Dikon, ‘I should like whisky. May I ask who he is?’
‘Smith? He’s a misfit, a hopeless fellow. No good in him at all. Drifted out here as a boy. Agnes, my sister, who is something of a snob, talks loosely about him being a public-school man. Her geese are invariably swans, but I suppose this suggestion is within the bounds of possibility. Smith may have originated in some ill-conducted establishment of dubious gentility. Sometimes their early habits of speech go down the wind with their self-respect. Sometimes they keep it up even in the gutter. They used to be called remittance men, and in this extraordinary country received a good deal of entirely misguided sympathy from native-born fools. That suit you?’
‘Thank you, sir,’ said Dikon, taking his drink.
‘My sister chooses to regard him as a sort of invalid. Some instinct must have led him ten years ago to the Spring. It has proved to be an ideal battening ground. They give him his keep and a wage, in exchange for idling about the place with an axe in his hand and a bottle in his pocket. When his cheque comes from home he drinks himself silly, and my sister Agnes gives him beef tea and prays for him. He’s a complete waster but he won’t trouble you, I fancy. I confess that this evening I was almost in sympathy with him. He did what I have longed to do for the past three months.’ Dikon glanced up quickly. ‘He drove his fist into Questing’s face,’ Dr Ackrington explained. ‘Here’s luck to you,’ he added. They drank to each other.
‘Well,’ said Dr Ackrington after a pause, ‘you will doubtless lose no time in returning to Auckland and telling your principal to avoid this place like the devil.’
As this pretty well described Dikon’s intention he could think of nothing to say, and made a polite murmuring.
‘If it is of any interest, you may as well know you have seen it at its worst. Smith is not always drunk and Questing is not always with us.’
‘Not? But I thought …’
‘He absents himself. I rejoice in the event and deplore the motive. However.’
Dr Ackrington glared portentously into his glass and cleared his throat. Dikon waited for a moment, but his companion showed no sign of developing his theme. Dikon was to learn that Dr Ackrington could exploit with equal mastery the embarrassing phrase and the disconcerting silence.
‘Since we have mentioned him,’ Dikon began nervously, ‘I confess I’m in a state of some confusion about Mr Questing. May I ask if he is actually the – if Wai-ata-tapu Springs is his property?’
‘No,’ said Dr Ackrington.
‘I only ask,’ Dikon continued in a hurry, ‘because you see I was approached in the first instance by Mr Questing. Although I’ve warned him that Gaunt may decide against the Springs, he has been at extraordinary pains and really very considerable expense to – to alter existing arrangements and so on. And I mean – well, Dr Forster’s note suggested that it was to Colonel and Mrs Claire that we should apply.’
‘So it is.’
‘I see. But – Questing?’
‘If you decide against the Springs,’ said Dr Ackrington, ‘you should convey your decision to my sister.’
‘But,’ Dikon repeated obstinately, ‘Questing?’
‘Ignore him.’
