“Sure and we do, luv.” She put a finger to his lips. “Later. Later we’ll talk all you wish. It’s been more than a fortnight since last I carried you, Robert. A lonely time.”
“What, with a thousand sailors roaming the streets?”
“As if a man among them could turn my head the way my Robert does. You know right well there’s only one coffin I’m bound to lie with.”
He tried to talk around her frantic kisses. “Someday you’ll truly be the death of us. Then such humor will lie heavily.”
“Lie heavily then, and I’ll die happy.” She was working the buttons on his shirt.
“I’m told,” he said lamely, helpless against her intensity, “that we had better weather at South Island than you did here. Most unusual.”
“So they say.” She yanked his shirt apart as easily as she’d split a slice of bread. “Two nights of storm we had, a wet fury that tore in off the Bay and like to blew the whole town a mile inland. Even the Maoris ran and hid from it. I’m surprised it missed you.” He smiled slightly and she grinned back. “Ah, now that’s better.”
“The weather,” he murmured. “We had a wizard with us. Old character name of Tuhoto. I gave him free passage and he claimed to have smoothed the way for us.”
“A real Maori wizard? Now that I would like to have seen.”
“Not ‘real,’ Mary. A convincing old fakir he was, but nothing more.” Though if that were so, he wondered, how had the Resolute avoided the storm which seemed to have smashed the rest of the islands?
It was difficult to think because of what she was doing with her hands, with those long, strong fingers, with her lips. Somewhere in the back of his mind another thought screamed a warning at him. It was obliterated by rising passion.
A devil, he thought wildly. The woman is a devil from her red hair to her painted toes. She has entrapped my soul.
He was unable to deny that he allowed himself to be trapped willingly.
8
Before the sun had fallen low enough in the western sky to suggest the onset of night, the first sounds of heightened revelry began to rise from the vicinity of The Beach. On the brass bed a naked Coffin lay on his back with Irish Mary Kinnegad slung sideways atop him. He’d been staring silently at the ceiling for some time before she sighed impatiently and turned to face him.
“You’re silent as the sea, Robert. It’s not like you. I want to hear all about South Island. They say there are mountains there high as the Alps, that fall straight down into the ocean. Some of the old Maoris who come into town claim monsters dwell in the mountain valleys, giant roosters big as giraffes.”
“What?” The image she’d unwittingly conjured up gave him a start by causing him to remember the huge feather old Tuhoto had worn in his hair. “You mean moas. The Maoris exterminated them centuries ago. All that’s left are bones.” But Tuhoto’s feather had looked fresh, he remembered.
More nonsense.
“The Maoris are as adept at lying,” he told her, “as they are at making war. You shouldn’t be taken in by their tales.”
“Oh, I don’t really believe any of it. I just like a good story, that’s all. Now tell me, Robert,” she whispered as she snuggled closer, “all about South Island.”
He pulled a pillow under his head. “Beautiful it is, and rugged and rough.”
“Very different from North Island?”
“From the Bay Islands, anyway. The place is cold, Mary. Colder than you’d believe, colder even than Ireland. If you were to turn Britain on its head and put Scotland at the bottom I think it would be much like this New Zealand. South Island’s damp as well as cold, with forests of ferns tall as trees, and mountains and gorges you can’t imagine. Fine harbors, too, where a man can bring his vessel right in to shore with ice hanging over his head. Beautiful indeed, but no place to live. There’s not enough flat land to grow a head of cabbage. Myself, I like to be warm now and then.”
“As if you had to tell me.” She snuggled close.
Enough! cried a resurgent voice inside his head. Tell her now, tell her quickly, before it’s too late. Before she learns of it in some grog shop from one of Langston’s garrulous employees or one of Perkins’s serving wenches. Before she strides up to the house itself and knocks on the front door.
“Mary, I said before we have to talk. There’s a—problem.”
She eyed him innocently. “If it be Flynn’s schooling that’s troubling you again I promise I’ll get him into the mission school and see to it the boy does his lessons.”
Coffin shook his head slowly. “It’s not Flynn’s schooling. Not this time. It’s something else.” He didn’t look away from her now. Desire had been replaced by determination and he plunged on. “Two days ago my wife and son arrived here from England.”
He waited for a reaction but she just lay there next to him, silent and unmoving. Eventually she sat up, her smooth back resting against the brass headboard, and stared thoughtfully down at him. Just stared, as if waiting.
When it became clear she wasn’t going to be the one to break the silence he went on. “I want you to know that I didn’t send for them. You must understand that. They arrived here unexpectedly and without seeking my consent.”
“Sure and that’s fine, that is.” No warmth in her voice now, only a crackling sharpness. “Since they’ve done this thing without your leave, you won’t feel bad when you send them back again.”
“I can’t do that, Mary. They intend to stay. My wife wants to make a home here. The boy is sickly and there’s hope the climate here might do him some good.”
“Keep the boy, then, and be rid of the woman.”
“She won’t go and I can’t force her. It wouldn’t work in any event, since she’s sold the family home in London.”
“What care I for her damned problems!” Mary screamed it, unable any longer to control herself. “A pox on her and her life that’s been and her life to come! As for the house sold, you can bloody well afford to buy her another!”
“It won’t work, Mary. She’s a strong-willed, stubborn woman. She won’t go back.” He tried to calm her as best he could. “Don’t be angry. There’s no reason for us not to continue as we have, with me providing for, you and Flynn and Sally. This isn’t London, but a man may still maintain both wife and mistress. There’s no sin in it.”
“Don’t speak to me of sin, Robert Coffin! You who go to church but rarely and then only when it suits your business.”
“I believe in a God,” he countered, hurt that she’d speak to him thus.
“And I believe in love,” she shot back, “and it’s you I love, Robert Coffin. I’ll not share you with another. Unless,” and the smile that spread over her face was positively feral, “yes, wife and mistress, so be it! Divorce the bitch and marry me and let her play the role of mistress!”
“Mary, the die was cast years ago. I was a child when I married her but what’s done is done. I can’t change the past. Would you have that destroy a happy future?”
“Happy? Happy for whom?” She slid off the bed and began pacing tautly back and forth, all the while gesturing with her hands, her hair flying, quite oblivious to her nakedness. At another time the sight would have aroused Coffin, but not now. Arousal was replaced with anxiety and a desire only to have peace between them. There was also a still slight but growing anger. He wasn’t used to being on the receiving end of such a tirade.
“I’ve not given myself to you these past years, have not born you two fine children, to be suddenly put aside like old silver because some dried-up hag from England has decided it’s time for her to act the wife!”
“She always thought it was time.” He spoke softly. She didn’t sense the change coming over him. “It was I who always refused her permission to come here. Finally she has decided to come without that permission. Nor is she a ‘dried-up hag.’”
Kinnegad halted abruptly and turned to face him, hands on hips. It was a pose fit to defrock a priest. “Oh, so she’s pretti
er than me, is it?”
“Not prettier, no,” he conceded, “but equal in a different manner. There’s some of you in her and some of her in you.”
“I want none of her in me! But I see how your mind is working. You want both of us, is that not it? What a fine world you men make for yourselves, playing with women as if we were toys.”
“I’ve never thought that of you, Mary. You know that I’ll never foreswear my responsibility to you or the children.”
“No, but you won’t give us your name, either.”
“That name’s already been given. I cannot change that. But there is no reason why we cannot be happy together as well.”
“We? Or you, Robert? What happiness would we have? Oh, sure and there’s no doubt you would be happy. But what of me? How long do you think you could maintain such a duplicity, anyway?” She gestured toward the town outside. “In this whole country there are less than two thousand settlers. How long before your secret became common knowledge? No, Robert Coffin, I’ll not be laughed at behind my back by every man and woman striding self-righteously down the streets!”
“Don’t underestimate my resources, Mary. It could be managed. I could move you away from Kororareka, away from prying eyes. I have land in the interior and I’m planning to acquire more. I could set you and the children up in safety and quiet. A small farm, perhaps.”
She could hardly contain her derision. “A farm! Me, on a farm?” In truth it was hard to envision Irish Mary Kinnegad, with her love of dancing and drinking and a good time, pining away her days caring for chickens and hogs. Coffin tried another tack.
“A boat, then, equipped with all the comforts of home, anchored safely by an island out in the Bay.”
“Oh, you’re a sweet talker you are, Robert. You’d have me well and truly marooned, would you?”
His voice rose impatiently. “I’m trying to find a solution to this, damn you!”
“I’ve already given you the solution. Send the witch back to England. Stay with me, Robert,” Her tone softened slightly. “I won’t insist that you marry me. But I’ll not share you.”
“I can’t marry you. I’ve told you that before this.”
“Aye, but I had hopes—perhaps someday.…”
“Such hopes were never encouraged by me. I’ve never concealed knowledge of this marriage from you, Mary, not from the first day we met. You’ve known about it all along. There were no attempts to deceive you. If there’s been any deception in this it’s you who’ve deceived yourself.”
“Have I now?” she yelled. “Have I!” She searched for something to throw at him. The pillow she heaved didn’t make him flinch. “Lived my own deception, have I? False hopes—maybe you think my love’s been a deception too? My love for you is real, Robert Coffin!”
“And mine for you, Mary. It can stay thus.”
“The Hell it can! Not unless that woman goes back where she came from and leaves us be. Let her find another, Robert. She’s not for the likes of you.”
She wasn’t pretty when she sneered, he thought.
“I can see her, here.” She tapped the side of her head, by her flashing right eye. “Genteel she is, pouring her tea while her pinky flutters about like a little pink worm. Flying into a tizzy if the silver’s not set all proper on the table. Sits with her back rigid as a foremast and wouldn’t dare be caught dead naked before a man in the daylight.”
“You wrong her,” Coffin responded tightly. “Holly’s a good person. Her patience these past years proves it. What little she’s done the few days she’s been here confirms it. I will no more abandon her than I would abandon you.”
“Well now Mister high-and-mighty Captain Coffin, that’s not your choice to make, is it? If there’s any abandoning to be done here it’s I who’ll make the decisions. Go on, go back to her, get out of my house and my sight!” She turned and picked up a porcelain candlestick that had come all the way from Shanghai. Coffin had made a gift of it to her years ago.
“Get out, I say! Stay away from me and my children. We don’t need your kind of help. I’ve never needed any man’s help!”
The candlestick exploded on the wall behind his head as he ducked. He started climbing into his clothes, keeping his eyes on her as she searched for another missile.
“I know you’re upset now, Mary, but think about what you’re saying when you’ve had a chance to calm down. You know your temper.”
“Aye, I know my temper, and my resolve as well, Robert Coffin. ‘Think’ about it? I think I can’t stand the sight of you anymore. What do you think of that?” She threw a boot, but this time he was waiting for it and dodged easily as it bounced off the headboard. He edged toward the door.
“Come back to me when you’ve decided that I’m the woman for you,” she growled. “I’ll not have half a man. There isn’t a one in Kororareka, nay, in all the Pacific who wouldn’t sacrifice his life’s blood for me if I but requested it of him. I won’t take less from you, Robert Coffin!”
“Say what you will, I’ve an obligation to the children. No matter how you feel about me I’ll continue to provide them with support.”
“Hang your support! I don’t want your filthy money. I never wanted your money. It’s you I want, Robert Coffin, and by Heaven I’ll have you! You’ll see, you’ll be back. I know what I have to offer and you can’t resist that any more than any other man!”
She might have been right about that—at one time, he thought. She might have been right save for one thing: Robert Coffin was not “any man.” What he was, was the type of man who reacts instinctively and strongly to anything resembling a threat.
“Think carefully on what you say here, Mary Kinnegad. I’m not a forgiving one. If you throw me out now, in this manner, I won’t come back.”
“Then don’t come back, damn you!” This time it was a knife she threw. It imbedded itself in the wall not a foot from his face. He hadn’t seen her pick it up. It was a kitchen knife, but she’d thrown it like a sailor.
He stared long at it as it hung there, quivering in the wood of the wall. Then his gaze returned slowly to its owner. She stared unrepentantly back at him. There was no doubt she’d intended to put the steel into his neck.
“Have it your way, then,” he said quietly. “I’ve offered all I can offer. Spurn it at your own risk.”
“Your offer’s bilge, Robert Coffin! You know what it is I want.”
“I know, and I can’t give it to you. If we break like this now, remember always who fashioned the parting.”
“To the Devil with you, then! I’ll find me another man, and I won’t wait six years for him to marry me. Some dark cold night when your very proper English wife is snoring away in her thick muslin gown on her side of the bed you’ll remember me. Oh, how you’ll remember me! And remember what you gave up.”
“That may be.” His tone was so cold that for a moment her fury was muted. He glanced casually at the knife imbedded in the wall. “I’ll remember that as well, though it hasn’t cut as deeply as your words. Have a care, Mary Kinnegad. I loved you and would love you still, but if that’s not good enough for you.…”
“Not on your terms,” she snapped.
“Then let there be an end to it.” He pushed open the door. “Remember always this was not of my doing.”
“Oh, you’re so sure of yourself, you and your stinking righteousness!” She heaved a wash pan. It bounced off the door as he closed it gently behind him.
She was still screaming as he started up the street, not looking back. Her insults echoed in his ears as he strode purposefully away from the little house he’d had built for her and the children.
Her raving was soon lost amidst the rumble of The Beach. Coffin forced his mind away from the thoughts of the woman who’d been his close companion for half a dozen years. From this evening on, he vowed, he’d think of her no more. She’d made her choice. Let her live it.
The Crippled Raven was the nearest grog shop where a man could be sure of a tot of rum t
hat wouldn’t poison him. He angled toward it. In his mind there were no regrets. He intended it to remain thus. A few full mugs would help mightily.
“I tell you,” he found himself muttering much later to the shop’s manager, “there’s nothing you can do with them. Nothing!” He stared gloomily at the floor as he cradled his tankard between his hands. “No matter how you strive to accommodate yourself to their wishes there’s never an end to them.”
“And who might ‘they’ be, sir?” inquired the barkeep politely.
“Women of course, you damn fool! Where are your ears?”
“Your pardon sir. I should have divined your intention.”
Coffin guzzled from the tankard and wiped his lips with the back of a forearm. “She’ll not get another shilling out of me. She does this by her own hand. I thought Kinnegad many things these past years but never a fool. Not this kind of fool, anyways.”
“What’s that?”
Coffin ignored the comment.
“I said, what’s that?” The seaman now standing very close behind Coffin towered over everyone else in the shop. A small coterie of admirers bunched up behind him, nudging one another in the ribs and whispering like so many loquacious remoras hugging the belly of a shark in anticipation of its next kill.
“I’ve been listening to you, sir, for several minutes now. Do I understand that you be Robert Coffin, he of Coffin House?”
This time Coffin turned, curious. “I am that man.”
“The one who’s been squiring Irish Mary these past years?” Coffin nodded slowly. “And from your talk do I take it this is no longer the case?”
“You take it correctly, friend.”
The man let out a rough guffaw. “This is a shining day, indeed! For two years now I’ve dreamed of little but lying in that Irish whore’s bed. If you’ve no further claims on her, sir, then by God I intend to stake mine.” This sally provoked laughter from the knot of hangers-on.
Coffin studied the man so solemnly that his attendants quieted rapidly. In the silence that ensued one of them muffled a nervous cough. Then Coffin turned to stare into his tankard.
Maori Page 7
