by Dorothy Eden
“I prefer the potato unsweetened.” The old lady shifted her position and stated in her definite voice, “The Maori trouble in the north will blow over. No woman with any spirit would be afraid to live there.”
“Of course you lived through that dreadful siege in India,” Aunt Charity murmured admiringly.
“One acquires the necessary courage when the emergency arises. Well, Mrs. Carruthers, where are these two nieces I’ve heard so much about?”
Aunt Charity’s face was a mixture of excitement, apprehension and nervousness. So it really was true that Saul Whitmore was interested in Sophia. It must be Sophia, because Prudence in her present lovelorn state wouldn’t interest the merest mouse.
What a triumph it would be to write home to England to report that Sophia had annexed the most eligible parti in the whole of the island. She had had her hopes, to be sure, but she privately hadn’t thought even Sophia, let alone that silly moping Prudence, would interest a man of Saul’s distinction and dash. And experience, one had to add to oneself, regrettably.
“I’ll call the girls,” she fluttered. “They’re resting. Such a gay life they’re leading.”
Oriane Whitmore sat erect to observe the girls as they came in.
They curtseyed gracefully enough, eyes downcast, cheeks prettily flushed. But they were what she had expected, plump, healthy-looking creatures reduced to gaucheness by her deliberate stare. And young. So young!
The younger one could be dismissed at once. She had a meek, long-suffering look that would drive a man like Saul to fury. But it was Sophia, the elder, in whom he had expressed interest, so it was Sophia on whom she bent her intense regard. Not beautiful, but pretty enough with those flushed youthful cheeks and wide blue eyes. Good-tempered, one would imagine. Vain, obviously, because of the fussiness of her toilette, but a little vanity did a woman no harm. It helped to keep her pride under difficult conditions. Garrulous, indeed (one could see her chafing already under her enforced silence) but there again Saul was sometimes too silent, and a little frothy chatter would be good for him.
Intellectual? A man did not need intellectuality in a wife. He wanted a healthy attractive body, good temper, and the ability to keep a comfortable well-run house.
Mrs. Whitmore nodded ever so slightly to herself.
“Now perhaps,” she said, looking at Aunt Charity, “if I may accept your very kind offer of tea. It was hot walking today.”
“Indeed, yes,” cried Aunt Charity. “If you will excuse me a moment. Polly—Briar—” In an uncharacteristic twitter, because of all days Polly should choose this one to beg for an hour to visit her mother, and once again there was only Briar who was so much better with her sewing needle than with tea trays, Aunt Charity vanished.
Mrs. Whitmore turned her undivided attention to Sophia.
But afterwards she walked home more slowly than usual. The hot summer sun had taken the springiness out of her step. Was she right in forcing this decision on Saul? No, not forcing it because he would never be forced, but presenting it as not only an emotional obligation, but a necessity.
The girl had been right enough. At least she hadn’t fidgeted and threatened to burst into tears. She had looked back at Mrs. Whitmore fearlessly enough and answered all her questions in a pleasant if naïve manner. But she was far from adult. Those eyes had been the clear blue eyes of a romping schoolgirl. How would she be, living the lonely isolated life of a pioneer’s wife? How would she behave in a Hauhau attack?
Mrs. Whitmore stamped impatiently up the dusty road. One could be over-critical. And Saul must marry. She would be enthusiastic in her report of Sophia. And if one wished those round blue eyes had been less empty, and more steady, like the darker ones of—whose had they been, those bright dark green eyes which had stared at her with cool assessment?
Good heavens, they had belonged to the maid who had brought in the tea. How extraordinary!
After Mrs. Whitmore’s departure Sophia was in a whirl of excitement. “Aunt Charity, what shall I do? I believe Saul means to propose!”
“That’s how it looks, my love,” Aunt Charity said complacently.
“But what shall I do? Oh, I like him well enough. He’s got that dark dangerous look that’s really too exciting. But I like Peter, too. He says nice things, and a girl likes to be flattered. Oh, dear, what shall I do?”
“Pull yourself together!” Aunt Charity’s voice was tart. She was mistress of herself and her home again now that strange disturbing woman, Oriane Whitmore, had gone. “Act sensibly. Saul’s much the better match.”
“But I’d have to live in the wilds!”
“He’s second in line to the earldom,” said Aunt Charity. “You may be a countess one day.”
“I’d be so bored in the country. No parties. And I might not even have enough servants. I might have to do my own housework!” Sophia was deliciously torn between this embarrassing plentitude of prospective husbands. “But to be a countess,” she murmured, and suddenly her face was as speculative as Aunt Charity’s.
“That wouldn’t be much use to you if you’re tomahawked,” said Prudence, whose own uncertain chance of happiness was already making her grow acid. “Or if you’re baking your own bread. Pioneer women have to work.”
“Even as Peter Fanshawe’s wife you might have to do that,” Aunt Charity told her. “You girls have been spoiled so far. I wanted you to be, until you had settled down. But you’ll find most of the women who come to the balls and parties have come from their kitchens. They’re not all as fortunately situated as I am. And scarcely one of them has a personal maid. You won’t be able to keep Briar for ever, either of you.”
“One hardly expects to,” Sophia said cheerfully. “She’s sure to marry, anyway. Haven’t you noticed how the gardener’s boy looks at her already? All the same I can’t imagine what Prue or I will do without her. I want her to sew some new ribbons on my bonnet. I bought them this morning. I must show you.”
She went bouncing upstairs, and burst into the bedroom. “Briar! What are you doing with that dress?”
Briar flushed crimson. Sophia had come so suddenly that she had not had time to put the dress back in the wardrobe. But in a moment she had regained her composure.
“I noticed it needs a stitch at the hem, Miss Sophia. You must have torn it at the ball the other night.” She gathered a fold of the gleaming brocade in her hand, carefully not displaying the imaginary tear.
“Oh, how tiresome! One of those clumsy young men must have stood on it.”
“What gown do you wish to wear to Miss Maxwell’s ball?” Briar inquired softly.
“Oh, that isn’t a very grand affair, and the first dance is to be this quite terrifying marriage one. It has to be the first before the young men recognize us by the dresses we’re wearing. We’re all ushered in very secretly. It’s really awfully daring Perhaps it will help me to make up my mind, too. Though one doesn’t have to take it seriously, of course. I think all it does is prompt the bashful young men into proposals they’ve been too shy to make. Oh, I’ll just wear my blue muslin for that, Briar.”
“Very well, Miss Sophia,” Briar replied sedately. “I’ll take the brocade to my room to mend. I’ll do it this evening.”
“That’s very good of you, Briar. What would we do without you? I’d turn into a frump, I’m sure. And Prue is practically one already. She’s been in floods of tears because the Mary Louise has sailed with her precious Edmund. Well, perhaps the marriage dance will solve her problem, too.”
Very few of the Wellington residents had yet been able to build houses large enough in which to hold balls. As a general rule the local hall was hired for the occasion, and decorated lavishly with bunting, ferns and the long plumy toe toe grass to hide its deficiencies. The pianist and a pair of fiddlers sat on a raised platform at the end, and chairs were provided around the walls for chaperons, and any young lady who might inconceivably be sitting out a dance. Though this was such a rarity that she would almost have had
to be physically deformed. The youthful male population was very much in the majority.
Sometimes during the festivities an inquisitive dark tattooed face might appear at the window, gazing with naïve pleasure and bewilderment at the strange behavior of the pakeha. Shellfish, in plaited green baskets, or kumaras, cooked and smoking hot, might be brought to the door for sale. But these were seldom necessary, for the hostess, as a matter of pride, would have seen that there was an abundance of food.
This was the setting for Sarah Jane Maxwell’s ball.
Briar, arriving on foot and alone, was able to make her carefully planned entrance just as the other girls were being shepherded, blindfolded and giggling, from the adjoining building which served as dressing-rooms to the main hall.
She had had to lay her plans like a military maneuver, reconnoitering the previous day to see how long it would take her to walk from Aunt Charity’s, how the hall was situated, and whether she could, at the last minute, mingle unnoticed with the legitimate guests.
Everything had gone amazingly well. She had finished Sophia’s and Prudence’s toilettes well ahead of time, to the accompaniment of Sophia’s grumbles that Briar was being very clumsy that evening, pulling her hair and dragging at her gown.
“Anyone would think you were going to the ball yourself, you’re in such a tizzy,” she said good-naturedly. And then, with unexpected perceptiveness, had added, “I suppose you would like to go to a ball one day. Well, perhaps you will. Goodness knows, some of the people one meets have had little enough background. But they’ve made money, or been clever in some way, so all seems to be well. Even the Governor meets them. Who knows? one day even you might curtsey to His Excellency.”
“Yes, Miss Sophia,” said Briar composedly. “Is that all you require now?”
“I think so. But you’re in an awful hurry tonight. What are you going to do while we’re away? You’re not planning a clandestine meeting with some man, are you?”
“I was going to finish mending your white brocade, Miss Sophia.”
“I scarcely believe you, you know. You look as if you have a secret. Anyway, you don’t need to sew all the evening. Read a book for some of the time.”
Briar didn’t, as it happened, need to sew at all, for the dress was ready, taken in at the waist and shoulders where it had been too big, so that now it fitted her as if it had been made for her. She had tried it on in her room late last night when she was unlikely to be disturbed. In the small cloudy mirror, by the wavering light of her candle, she had seemed to hover like a white ghost. She had nearly wept with exasperation because she could not see herself clearly.
When everyone had gone tonight and the other servants were in the kitchen, she had planned to slip up and look at herself in the long mirror in Aunt Charity’s room.
But she hadn’t been able to do that either, for Polly had been walking about, and once cook had called to her. It was too risky to go through the house in the shining dress. She had had to climb out of her window at last, and slip across the garden, holding her skirts up from the dewy grass.
She had covered herself with her dark cloak, and when she was on the road leading to town she had wrapped it around herself and prayed she would not meet anyone who recognized her, or who thought it strange that a young woman in a ball dress should be walking alone.
She wasn’t nervous, for she was on fire with excitement. The beautiful dress had brought back confidence in her own physical beauty, and she knew that her slender body and high proud head were the equal, if not the superior, of any she would see tonight.
When Peter Fanshawe stripped off her mask and saw her glowing face, her narrow white shoulders, her body embellished with the clothes that were its due, he must fall in love with her, or at least be intriguingly aware of her beauty. If he did not, he would surely be far too courteous to ignore the implication of this particular dance.
A young man who did not do so, it was reputed, was labeled a cad. For the very fact of joining in it meant that he was more than half serious.
Nor was there any cheating possible, for the blindfolding of the girls was strictly supervised, and they held hands as they walked in their slow dark circle. Almost all the candles in the hall were put out. It was, they said, almost like an incantation, a spell, with the slowly moving girls, the thin sound of the fiddles, and the tense waiting young men.
But Briar was not going to be blindfolded by any hands but her own, and she meant to leave herself a generous peephole. She would drop her cloak in the bushes as she arrived at the ball, tie the scarf around her eyes, and then, as the giggling girls fumbled their way to the door, unobtrusively join them.
She was tense with anticipation. At last something was happening to her, and she was making it happen. She was, as she had always meant to do, creating her own destiny.
It never occurred to her for one moment that it could go wrong.
VII
SAUL HADN’T MEANT to take part in this foolish game. But before presenting himself at the ball he had drunk fairly liberally at Cooper’s, and his mood now was one of recklessness.
He needed a wife, he must take a wife. Sophia Carruthers, who pleasantly stirred his senses though she did not, unfortunately, touch his heart, was the obvious choice. Sophia, who was garrulous and gay and almost as reckless as himself, would certainly not be left out of the fun of this childish and daring game. If she should be claimed by some other man, in the excitement of the moment who knew that she would not accept him on the spot?
So that if one were to make sure of possessing her, one had to stand in that uneasy circle in the smoky darkened room and watch the long string of whispering giggling stumbling girls come in.
No one should have been able to be identified by her gown because they had not yet displayed them this evening. But Saul not only saw extremely well, even in the almost pitch dark, but had a good memory for women’s clothes. He recognized at once the white brocade Sophia had worn to the Government House ball the previous week. It shone faintly in the dark, and was unmistakable. Sophia, the devious little wretch, had planned this so as to be recognized, and claimed by the man who most wanted her. She was taking no chances after all.
Saul chuckled softly to himself. This was a game at which two could play. He fixed his eyes on the moving glimmer of the dress, and as the tension grew unbearable and one of the girls screamed, “Stop! Stop!” his acute ear warned him that the fiddles were drawing to a wailing stop. He moved swiftly, stuck out a deft foot, caught the young woman as she was passing him, and as the music ceased pulled her into his arms.
The noise was chaotic. Someone began to relight the lamps and candles. The light grew. Saul whipped off the silk scarf hiding his captive’s face, then gave an exclamation and both hands fell to his sides.
He was looking into a completely strange face. A young, brilliant-eyed, furious face.
“You!” the girl cried, on a note of disbelief. She turned her head like a caught hare. Her glance fell on Sophia, giggling hysterically in Peter Fanshawe’s arms, she suddenly clapped her hand to her mouth as if in acute pain and consternation. Then, before he could say anything at all, she turned and fled.
It was a very long way down the hall and out at the open door. Everything, to Briar’s dazed eyes, was a blur, a sea of faces lost in the yellow candlelight. She only knew she had to get out of here, away, away, where she could not see that dark, startled, lean and sardonic face looking down at her.
She heard Prudence’s intensely shocked voice. “It’s Briar!” And then she was out in the blessed cool dark night, running down the road, heedless now as to whether or not she dirtied the hem of Sophia’s gown.
She had nowhere to go except back to her own room, the only haven she knew. Down the dusty road she hurried, tripping on boulders, her hair tumbling down, tears of shock and dismay and intense humiliation already staining her cheeks. Through the front gates, standing open for the return of the carriage, around the house, across the garden where
the smell of roses and gum leaves mingled, smearing the dusty hem of the gown with dew so that it would be beyond wearing again. Tumbling through her open window, and then breathlessly dragging at the dress so that she could tear it off and forget it. Forget the whole nightmare had happened.
For it wasn’t only looking into Saul Whitmore’s strangely expectant face that had dismayed her. It was seeing Sophia so willingly in Peter Fanshawe’s arms.
She had gambled and she had lost. The odds against a girl with no name, no family, no background, had been too much, even in this country. Her life was over!
She was still crouched on the floor in her petticoat when there was a curious noise at her window, a tapping and then a swift lifting of the bottom frame.
In the darkness she saw a man silhouetted. He had already swung one leg over the sill.
She should have screamed. But even that, on this disastrous night, was not possible. Her dry throat gave no sound, and she crouched back against the bed staring helplessly.
“Let’s have some light,” said Saul Whitmore’s voice.
He swung the other leg over the sill, and was right in the room. He closed the window behind him, with the most complete assurance, and then struck a match and lit the candle on her bedside table.
The frail yellow circle of light showed him her face, upturned to him defenselessly. All he could see was the pallor of her cheeks, her tumbed hair and the enormous dark pools of her eyes.
“Well,” he said easily, “I believe you look better in your own petticoat than you do in your mistress’s dress. Don’t borrow other people’s plumes again. You don’t need to.”
“Get out of here!” she hissed. Her voice still had no volume, but it was full of fury. Her momentary appearance of defenselessness had been an illusion. This girl, he saw now, would never be defenseless.
And suddenly, although this was what he had come intending to do, he now did it with twice as much vigor.
