‘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”,’