by Ngaio Marsh
He felt Gaunt’s hand on his arm and hurriedly introduced him.
Mrs. Claire brought poise to the situation, Dikon realized, but it was the kind of poise with which Gaunt was quite unfamiliar. She might have been welcoming a bishop-suffragan to a slum parish, a bishop-suffragan in poor health.
“Such a long journey,” she said anxiously. “You must be so tired.”
“Not a bit of it,” said Gaunt, who had arrived at an age when actors affect a certain air of youthful hardihood.
“But it’s such a dreadful road. And you look very tired,” she persisted gently. Dikon saw Gaunt’s smile grow formal. He turned to Barbara. For some reason which he had not attempted to analyze, Dikon wanted Gaunt to like Barbara. It was with apprehension that he watched her give a galvanic jerk, open her eyes very wide, and put her head on one side like a chidden puppy. “Oh hell,” he thought, “she’s going to be funny.”
“Welcome,” Barbara said in her sepulchral voice, “to the humble abode.” Gaunt dropped her hand rather quickly.
“Find us very quiet, I’m afraid,” Colonel Claire said, looking quickly at Gaunt and away again. “Not much in your line, this country, what?”
“But we’ve just been remarking,” Gaunt said lightly, “that your landscape reeks of theatre.” He waved his stick at Rangi’s Peak. “One expects to hear the orchestra.” Colonel Claire looked baffled and slightly offended.
“My brother,” Mrs. Claire murmured. Dr. Ackrington limped forward. Dikon’s attention was distracted from this last encounter by the behaviour of Simon Claire, who suddenly lurched out of cover, strode down the steps and seized the astounded Colly by the hand. Colly, who was about to unload the car, edged behind it.
“How are you?” Simon said loudly. “Give you a hand with that stuff.”
“That’s all right, thank you, sir.”
“Come on,” Simon insisted and laid violent hands on a pigskin dressing-case which he lugged from the car and dumped none too gently on the pumice. Colly gave a little cry of dismay.
“Here, here, here!” a loud voice expostulated. Mr. Questing thundered out of the house and down the steps. “Cut that out, young fellow,” he ordered and shouldered Simon away from the car.
“Why?” Simon demanded.
“That’s no way to treat high-class stuff,” bustled Mr. Questing with an air of intolerable patronage. “You’ll have to learn better than that. Handle it carefully.” He advanced upon Dikon. “We’re willing,” he laughed, “but we’ve a lot to learn. Well, well, well, how’s the young gentleman?”
He removed his hat and placed himself before Gaunt. His change of manner was amazingly abrupt. He might have been a lightning impersonator or a marionette controlled by some pundit of second-rate etiquette. Suddenly, he oozed deference. “I don’t think,” he said, “that I have had the honour — ”
“Mr. Questing,” said Dikon.
“This is a great day for the Springs, sir,” said Mr. Questing. “A great day.”
“Thank you,” said Gaunt, glancing at him. “If I may I should like to see my rooms.”
He turned to Mrs. Claire. “Dikon tells me you have taken an enormous amount of trouble on my behalf. It’s very kind indeed. Thank you so much.” And Dikon saw that with this one speech, delivered with Gaunt’s famous air of gay sincerity, he had captivated Mrs. Claire. She beamed at him. “I shall try not to be troublesome,” Gaunt added. And to Mr. Questing: “Right.”
They went in procession along the verandah. Mr. Questing, still uncovered, led the way.
Barbara sat on the edge of her stretcher-bed in her small hot room and looked at two dresses. Which should she wear for dinner on the first night? Neither of them was new. The red lace had been sent out two years ago by her youngest aunt who had worn it a good deal in India. Barbara had altered it to fit herself and something had gone wrong with the shoulder, so that it bulged where it should lie flat. To cover this defect she had attached a black flower to the neck. It was a long dress and she did not as a rule change for dinner. Simon might make some frightful comment if she wore the red lace. The alternative was a short floral affair, thick blue in colour with a messy yellow design. She had furbished it up with a devilish shell ornament and a satin belt and even poor Barbara wondered if it was a success. Knowing that she should be in the kitchen with Huia, she pulled off her print, dragged the red lace over her head and looked at herself in the inadequate glass. No, it would never become her dress, it would always hark back to unknown Aunty Wynne who two years ago had written: “Am sending a box of odds and ends for Ba. Hope she can wear red.” But could she? Could she plunge about in the full light of day in this ownerless waif of a garment with everybody knowing she had dressed herself up? She peered at her face, which was slightly distorted by the glass. Suddenly she hauled the dress over her head, fighting with the stuffy-smelling lace. “Barbara,” her mother called. “Where are you? Ba!”
“Coming!” Well, it would have to be the floral.
But when, hot and desperate, she had finally dressed, and covered the floral with a clean overall, she pressed her hands together. “O God,” she thought, “make him like it here! Please, dear God, make him like it.”
“Can you possibly endure it?” Dikon asked.
Gaunt was lying full length on the modern sofa. He raised his arms above his head. “All,” he whispered, “I can endure all but Questing. Questing must be kept from me.”
“But I told you—”
“You amaze me with your shameless parrot cry of ‘I told you so,’ ” said Gaunt mildly. “Let us have no more of it.” He looked out of the corner of his eye at Dikon. “And don’t look so tragic, my good ass,” he added. “I’ve been a small-part touring actor in my day. This place is strangely reminiscent of a one-night fit-up. No doubt I can endure it. I should be dossing down in an Anderson shelter, by God. I do well to complain. Only spare me Questing, and I shall endure the rest.”
“At least we shall be spared his conversation this evening. He has a previous engagement. Lest he offer to put it off, I told him you would be desolated but had already arranged to dine in your rooms and go to bed at nine. So away he went.”
“Good. In that case I shall dine en famille and go to bed when it amuses me. I have yet to meet Mr. Smith, remember. Is it too much to hope that he will stage another fight?”
“It seems he only gets drunk when his remittance comes in.” Dikon hesitated and then asked: “What did you think of the Claires, sir?”
“Marvellous character parts. Overstated, of course. Not quite West End. A number-one production on tour, shall we say? The Colonel’s moustache is a little too thick in both senses.”
Dikon felt vaguely resentful. “You captivated Mrs. Claire,‘’ he said.
Gaunt ignored this. “If one could take them as they are,” he said. “If one could persuade them to appear in those clothes and speak those lines! My dear, they’d be a riot. Miss Claire! Dikon, I didn’t believe she existed.”
“Actually,” said Dikon stiffly, “she’s rather attractive. If you look beyond her clothes.”
“You’re a remarkably swift worker if you’ve been able to do that.”
“They’re extraordinarily kind and, I think, very nice.”
“Until we arrived you never ceased to exclaim against them. Why have you bounced round to their side all of a sudden?”
“I only said, sir, that I thought you would be bored by them.”
“On the contrary I’m agreeably entertained. I think they’re all darlings and marvellous comedy. What is your trouble?”
“Nothing. I’m sorry. I’ve just discovered that I like them. I thought,” said Dikon, smiling a little in spite of himself, “that the tableau on the verandah was terribly sad. I wonder how long they’d been grouped-up like that.”
“For ages, I should think. The dog was plainly exasperated and young Claire looked lethal.”
“It is rather touching,” said Dikon and turned away.
Mrs.
Claire and Barbara, wearing their garden hats and carrying trowels, went past the window on tiptoe, their faces solemn and absorbed. When they had gone a little way Dikon heard them whispering together.
“In heaven’s name,” cried Gaunt, “why do they stalk about their own premises like that? What are they plotting?”
“It’s because I explained that you liked to relax before dinner. They don’t want to disturb you. I fancy their vegetable garden is round the corner.”
After a pause Gaunt said: “It will end in my feeling insecure and ashamed. Nothing arouses one’s self-abasement more than the earnest amateur. How long have they had this place?”
“About twelve years, I think. Perhaps longer.”
“Twelve years and they are still amateurs!”
“They try so terribly hard,” Dikon said. He wandered out onto the verandah. Someone was walking slowly round the warm lake towards the springs.
“Hullo,” Dikon said. “We’ve a caller.”
“What do you mean? Be very careful, now. I’ll see no one, remember.”
“I don’t think it’s for us, sir,” Dikon said. “It’s a Maori.”
It was Rua. He wore the suit he bought in 1936 to welcome the Duke of Gloucester. He walked slowly across the pumice to the house, tapped twice with his stick on the central verandah post and waited tranquilly for someone to take notice of him. Presently Huia came out and gave a suppressed giggle on seeing her great-grandfather. He addressed her in Maori with an air of austerity and she went back into the house. Rua sat on the edge of the verandah and rested his chin on his stick.
“Do you know, sir,” said Dikon, “I believe it might be for us, after all. I’ve recognized the old gentleman.”
“I won’t see anybody,” said Gaunt. “Who is he?”
“He’s a Maori version of the Last of the Barons. Rua Te Kahu, sometime journalist and M.P. for the district. I’ll swear he’s called to pay his respects.”
“You must see him for me. We did bring some pictures, I suppose?”
“I don’t think,” Dikon said, “that the Last of the Barons will be waiting for signed photographs.”
“You’re determined to snub me,” said Gaunt amiably. “If it’s an interview, you’ll talk to him, won’t you?”
Colonel Claire came out of the house, shook hands with Rua and led him off in the direction of their own quarters.
“It’s not for us, after all, sir.”
“Thank heaven for that,” Gaunt said but he looked a little huffy nevertheless.
In Colonel Claire’s study, a room about the size of a small pantry and rather less comfortable, Rua unfolded the purpose of his call. Dim photographs of polo teams glared down menacingly from the walls. Rua’s dark eyes rested for a moment on a group of turbaned Sikhs before he turned to address himself gravely to the Colonel.
“I have brought,” he said, “a greeting from my hapu to your distinguished guest, Mr. Geoffrey Gaunt. The Maori people of Wai-ata-tapu are glad that he has come here and would like me to greet him with a cordial Haere mai.”
“Oh, thanks very much, Rua,” said the Colonel. “I’ll tell him.”
“We have heard that he wishes to be quiet. If however he would care to hear a little singing, we hope that he will do us the honour to come to a concert on Saturday week in the evening. I bring this invitation from my hapu to your guests and your family, Colonel.”
Colonel Claire raised his eyebrows, opened his eyes and mouth, and glared at his visitor. He was not particularly surprised, but merely wore his habitual expression for absorbing new ideas.
“Eh?” he said at last. “Did you say a concert? Extraordinarily nice of you, Rua, I must say. A concert.”
“If Mr. Gaunt would care to come.”
Colonel Claire gave a galvanic start. “Care to?” he repeated. “I don’t know, I’m sure. We should have to ask him, what? Sound the secretary.”
Rua gave a little bow. “Certainly,” he said.
Colonel Claire rose abruptly and thrust his head out of the window. “James!” he yelled. “Here!”
“What for?” said Dr. Ackrington’s voice at some distance.
“I want you. It’s my brother-in-law,” he explained more quietly to Rua. “We’ll see what he thinks, um?” He went out to the verandah and shouted, “Agnes!”
“Hoo-oo?” replied Mrs. Claire from inside the house.
“Here.”
“In a minute, dear.”
“Barbara.”
“Wait a bit, Daddy. I can’t.”
“Here.”
Having summoned his family, Colonel Claire sank into an armchair, and glancing at Rua gave a rather aimless laugh. His eye happened to fall upon a Wild West novel that he had been reading. He was a greedy consumer of thrillers, and the sight of this one lying open and close at hand affected him as an open box of chocolate affects a child. He smiled at Rua and offered him a cigarette. Rua thanked him and took one, holding it cautiously between the tips of his fingers and thumb. Colonel Claire looked out of the corners of his eyes at his thriller. He was longsighted.
“There was another matter about which I hoped to speak,” Rua said.
“Oh yes?” said Colonel Claire. “D’you read much?”
“My eyesight is not as good as it once was, but I can still manage clear print.”
“Awful rot, some of these yarns,” Colonel Claire continued, casually picking up his novel. “This thing I’ve been dipping into, now. Blood-and-thunder stuff. Ridiculous.”
“I am a little troubled in my mind. Disturbing rumours have reached me…”
“Oh?” Colonel Claire, still with an air of absent-mindedness, flipped over a page.
“… about proposals that have been made in regard to native reserves. You have been a good friend to our people, Colonel
“Not at all,” Colonel Claire murmured abstractedly, and felt for his reading glasses. “Always very pleased…” He found his spectacles, put them on and, still casually, laid the book on his knee.
“Since you have been at Wai-ata-tapu, there have been friendly relations between your family and my hapu. We should not care to see anyone else here.”
“Very nice of you.” Colonel Claire was now frankly reading, but he continued to wear a social smile. He contrived to suggest that he merely looked at the book because after all one must look at something. Old Rua’s magnificent voice rolled on. The Maori people are never in a hurry, and in his almost forgotten generation a gentleman led up to the true matter of an official call through a series of polite approaches. Rua’s approval of his host was based on an event twelve years old. The Claires arrived at Wai-ata-tapu during a particularly virulent epidemic of influenza. Over at Rua’s village there were many deaths. The Harpoon health authorities, led by the irate and overworked Dr. Tonks, had fallen foul of the Maori people in matters of hygiene, and a dangerous deadlock had been reached. Rua, who normally exercised an iron authority, was himself too ill to control his hapu. Funeral ceremonies lasting for days, punctuated with long-drawn-out wails of greeting and lamentation, songs of death, and interminable after-burial feasts maintained native conditions in a community lashed by a European scourge. Rua’s people became frightened, truculent, and obstructive, and the health authorities could do nothing. Upon this scene came the Claires. Mrs. Claire instantly translated the whole affair into terms of an English village, offered their newly built house as an emergency hospital and herself undertook the nursing, with Rua as her first patient. Colonel Claire, whose absence-of-mind had inoculated him against the arrogance of Anglo-Indianism, and who by his very simplicity had fluked his way into a sort of understanding of native peoples, paid a visit to the settlement, arranged matters with Rua, and was accepted by the Maori people as a rangitira, a person of breeding. He and his wife professed neither extreme liking nor antipathy for the Maori people, who nevertheless found something recognizable and admirable in both of them. The war had brought them closer together. The Colonel commanded the loca
l Home Guard and had brought many of Rua’s older men into his division. Rua considered that he owed his life to his Pakeha friends and, though he thought them funny, loved them. It did not offend him, therefore, when Colonel Claire furtively read a novel under his very nose. He rumbled on magnificently with his story, in amiable competition with Texas Rangers and six-shooter blondes.
“… there has been enough trouble in the past. The Peak is a native reserve and we do not care for trespassers. He has been seen by a certain rascal coming down the western flank with a sack on his shoulders. At first he was friendly with this no-good young fellow, Eru Saul, who is a bad pakeha and a bad Maori. Now they have quarrelled and their quarrel concerns my great-granddaughter Huia, who is a foolish girl but much too good for either of them. And Eru tells my grandson Rangi, and my grandson tells me, that Mr. Questing is behaving dishonestly on the Peak. Because he is your guest we have said nothing, but now I find him talking to some silly young fellows amongst our people and putting a lot of bad ideas into their heads. Now that makes me very angry,” said old Rua, and his eyes flashed. “I do not like my young people to be taught to cheapen the culture of their race. It has been bad enough with Mr. Herbert Smith, who buys whisky for them and teaches them to make pigs of themselves. He is no good. But even he comes to me to warn me of this Questing.” The Colonel’s novel dropped with a loud slap. His eyebrows climbed his forehead, his eyes and mouth opened. He turned pale.
“Hey?” he said. “Questing? What about Questing?”
“You have not been listening, Colonel,” said Rua, rather crossly.
“Yes, I have, only I didn’t catch everything. I’m getting deaf.”
“I am sorry. I have been telling you that Mr. Questing has been looking for curios on the Peak and boasting that in a little while Wai-ata-tapu will be his property. I have to come to ask you in confidence if this is true.”
“What’s all this about Questing?” demanded Dr. Ackrington, appearing at the doorway in his dressing gown. “ ’Evening, Rua. How are you?”
