The Luminaries

by Eleanor Catton

  Repetition is a fortification like no other. Over time Löwenthal’s conception of the story of his past had become fixed and (by virtue of its fixity) unassailable. He lost the capacity to talk about his life in any other terms but those he had prescribed: that he was a moral man; that he was a man confronted with paradox; that he was a man who had done the right thing, who did the right thing, who would do the right thing. All of his choices, in his mind, had been moral choices. He ceased to be able to distinguish between personal preference and moral imperative, and he ceased to accept that such a distinction was possible. It was as a consequence of all of this that he chastised Charlie Frost so freely now.

  Frost’s eyes were lowered. ‘I can be discreet,’ he said quietly. ‘You needn’t worry about me.’

  ‘I will go and speak to Tom myself,’ Löwenthal said, crossing the room in two strides, and holding open the door for the banker to leave. ‘I thank you for the invitation. I shall see you tonight, at the Crown.’

  Dick Mannering, upon returning from Kaniere, had gone at once to the Gridiron Hotel, where he found Edgar Clinch alone in his private office, sitting at his desk. The magnate sat down without invitation, talked for some time about the afternoon’s occurrences, and very swiftly described the proposed conference that was to take place that evening. The men had decided, for reasons of prudence, to meet upon neutral ground, and the smoking room of the Crown Hotel, as the least attractive room of the least popular establishment in all of Hokitika, had seemed to all the assembled company to be a very sensible choice. Mannering talked with great exuberance, for he liked the idea of a secret council very much; he had always longed to be a member of a guild, the kind possessed of arcane histories, and feudal rankings, and a code. Presently he became aware, however, that the hotelier did not appear to be listening very closely. Clinch had placed both palms of his hands flat on the desk before him, as though to steady himself against a wind, and during Mannering’s long speech he had not once altered his posture, though his gaze darted anxiously around the room. His usually florid face was very pale, and his moustache was twitching.

  ‘You look as if something’s on your mind—I declare it,’ said Mannering at last, and in a rather sulky tone, for he was sure that whatever this preoccupation was, it could hardly be as exciting as his afternoon in Chinatown, or the prospect of a secret conference to discuss the perplexing disappearance of a very wealthy man.

  ‘The widow was here,’ said Edgar Clinch, hollowly. ‘She had business with Anna, she said. She went upstairs—and not half an hour later, she was back down again, with Anna in tow.’

  ‘Lydia Wells?’

  ‘Lydia Wells,’ Clinch echoed. In his mouth her name was like a curse.

  ‘When?’

  ‘Just now,’ said Clinch. ‘They left together, the very moment before you got here.’ He fell silent again.

  Mannering made an impatient noise. ‘Don’t make me beg you for it.’

  ‘They know each other!’ Clinch burst out. ‘They know each other—Lydia and Anna! They’re the best of friends!’

  This revelation was not news to Mannering, who was a frequent patron of the House of Many Wishes in Dunedin, and had seen the two women together at that place before: in fact it was at the House of Many Wishes that Mannering had first engaged Anna Wetherell to work for him. He shrugged. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘What’s the problem?’

  ‘Thick as thieves,’ Clinch said mournfully. ‘And thieves is right, Dick. Thieves is what I mean.’

  ‘Who’s a thief?’

  ‘They’re in on it together!’ Clinch cried.

  Really, Mannering thought, Clinch could be terribly irksome when he was vexed; he became altogether unintelligible. Aloud he said, ‘Is this about the widow’s appeal?’

  ‘You know what I’m talking about,’ Clinch said. ‘You know.’

  ‘What?’ Mannering said. ‘Is it about the fortune? What?’

  ‘Not the Wells fortune. The other fortune.’

  ‘What other fortune?’

  ‘You know!’

  ‘On the contrary: I have not the least idea.’

  ‘I’m talking about Anna’s dresses!’

  This was the first time Clinch had ever mentioned the gold he had discovered in Anna’s dress the previous winter—when he carried her upstairs, and lowered her into the bath, and he picked up her gown, and felt a heaviness along the seam, and broke the thread of the hem, and withdrew, in his fingers, a shining pinch of it. The pressure of a long-time concealment lent an almost crazed aspect to his outburst now; for he was still convinced that the magnate was embroiled in a scheme of some kind, although he had never figured out, exactly, what this scheme might properly entail.

  But Mannering only looked confused. ‘What?’ he said. ‘What’s all this about?’

  Clinch was scowling. ‘Don’t play stupid.’

  ‘Excuse me: I am doing no such thing,’ Mannering said. ‘What are you talking about, Edgar? What do a whore’s fashions have to do with the price of anything at all?’

  Studying him, Edgar Clinch felt a tremor of doubt. Mannering’s bewilderment seemed perfectly genuine. He was not behaving like a man exposed. Could that mean that he had not known about the gold hidden in Anna’s gowns? Could Anna have been colluding with quite another man—behind Mannering’s back? Clinch felt bewildered also. He decided to change the subject.

  ‘I meant that mourning gown,’ he said, clumsily. ‘The one with the stupid collar that she’s taken to wearing this past fortnight.’

  Mannering waved his hand. ‘She’s just being pious,’ he said. ‘Giving herself airs. It’ll blow over.’

  ‘I’m not so sure,’ Clinch said. ‘Last week, you see, I told her she had to make good her debts before she quit walking the streets—and we had words, and I suppose I got angry, and I threatened to turn her out of the hotel.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with Lydia Wells?’ said Mannering impatiently. ‘So you lost your temper. What’s that got to do with anything?’

  ‘Lydia Wells just paid Anna’s debt,’ Clinch said. At last he lifted his hands from the desk: beneath them, slightly damp from the pressure of his palms, lay a crisp banknote, made out for a sum of six pounds. ‘Anna’s gone over to the Wayfarer. Indefinitely. Got a new profession, she says. Won’t answer to the name of whore.’

  Mannering looked at the banknote, and did not speak for a moment.

  ‘But that’s her debt to you,’ he said at last. ‘That’s just for rent. She owes me a hundred pounds—and then some! She’s in the red—and she’s in it deep—and she answers to me, d—n it! Not to you, and certainly not to Lydia bloody Wells! But what do you mean—won’t answer to the name of whore?’

  ‘Just that,’ said Edgar Clinch. ‘She’s done with the profession. So she says.’

  Mannering’s face had turned purple. ‘You can’t just walk out on your own job. I don’t care if you’re a whore or a butcher or a bloody baker! You can’t just walk out—not when there’s a debt outstanding!’

  ‘That’s the—’

  ‘In mourning, she said!’ Mannering cried, leaping up. ‘For a time, she said! Give a girl an inch and she takes a bloody mile! Not on my watch, all right! Not with a hundred pounds against her name! No indeed!’

  Clinch was looking at the magnate coldly. ‘She said to tell you that Aubert Gascoigne has the money for you,’ he said. ‘She said to tell you that it’s hidden underneath his bed.’

  ‘Who in hell is Obur Gaskwon?’

  ‘He’s a clerk at the Magistrate’s Court,’ Clinch said. ‘He filed the widow’s appeal on Crosbie Wells’s fortune.’

  ‘Aha!’ said Mannering. ‘So we’re coming back around to that, are we? I’ll be God-d—ned!’

  ‘There’s another thing,’ Clinch said. ‘Mr. Gascoigne was up in Anna’s room this afternoon, and shots were fired. Two shots. I asked him about it afterwards—and he countered by mentioning the debt. I went up to look. There’s a hole in Anna’s pillow. Ri
ght through the middle. The stuffing came out.’

  ‘Two holes?’

  ‘Just one.’

  ‘And the widow saw it,’ Mannering said.

  ‘No,’ Clinch said. ‘She came later. But when Mr. Gascoigne left, he did say that he was going to talk to a lady … and then she showed up about two hours after that.’

  ‘What’s the other fortune?’ Mannering said suddenly. ‘You said there was another fortune.’

  ‘I thought—’ Clinch dropped his gaze. ‘No. It doesn’t matter. I made a mistake. Forget it.’

  Mannering was frowning. ‘What obligation does Lydia Wells have, to pay off Anna’s debt?’ he said. ‘Where’s her profit there?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Clinch said. ‘But the two of them seemed very intimate this afternoon.’

  ‘Intimate—that’s not a profit.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Clinch said again.

  ‘They were on each others’ arms? They were in good spirits? What?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Clinch. ‘They were linked at the elbow—and when the widow spoke, Anna leaned in close.’

  He fell silent, dwelling on the memory.

  ‘And you let her go!’ Mannering barked suddenly. ‘You let her go—without asking me—without calling me over? She’s my best girl, Edgar! You know that without me telling you! The others aren’t a patch on Anna!’

  ‘I could hardly have detained her,’ Clinch said, looking sour. ‘What would I have done—locked her up? And anyway, you were in Kaniere.’

  Mannering leaped up from his chair.

  ‘So Chinaman’s Ann is no longer any man’s Ann!’ He thumped his hat on his leg. ‘She makes it seem altogether simple—does she not? Quitting her profession! As if we could all just wake up one morning, and decide …!’

  But Edgar Clinch did not care to pursue this rhetorical line. He was meditating, sorrowfully, upon the fact that to-morrow was Sunday, and the first Sunday in many months when he did not have the drawing of Anna’s bath to look forward to. Aloud he said, ‘Maybe you ought to go and speak to Mr. Gascoigne about that money.’

  ‘Do you know what makes me angry, Edgar?’ Mannering said. ‘Second-hand news makes me angry. Picking up after other men makes me angry. Hearing all this from you—it makes me angry. What does Anna want me to do? Knock on the door of a man I barely know? What would I say? “Excuse me, sir, I believe there’s a great deal of money under your bed, and Anna Wetherell owes it to me!” It’s disrespectful. Disrespectful is what it is. No: as far as I’m concerned, that girl is still in my employ. She is still very much a whore, and her debt to me is still very much unpaid.’

  Clinch nodded. His energy had dissipated, and he wanted now to be alone. He picked up the banknote, folded it, and placed it inside his wallet, against his heart. ‘What time did you say, for the meeting tonight?’

  ‘Sundown,’ said Mannering. ‘Only you might want to arrive before or after, so we’re not all trooping in at once. You’ll find a fair clutch of men have come out of this business feeling like there’s someone to blame.’

  ‘Can’t say I care for the Crown,’ said Clinch, half to himself. ‘They skimped on glass, I think. The frontage windows ought to be wider—and there ought to be a roof over the porch.’

  ‘Well, it’ll be quiet, and that’s all that matters.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Mannering put his hat on. ‘If you’d asked me last week who was to blame for all of this madness, I would have guessed the Jew. If you’d asked me yesterday, I would have guessed the widow. This afternoon, I would have told you Chinamen. And now? Well, Edgar, I’m d—ned if I don’t lay my money on that whore. You mark my words: Anna Wetherell knows exactly why that money turned up at Crosbie Wells’s, and she knows exactly what happened to Emery Staines—God rest his soul, though I do speak prematurely. Attempted suicide, my hat. Mourning dress, my hat. She’s in to the teeth with Lydia Wells—and together, they’re up to something.’

  Sook Yongsheng and Quee Long stamped down the Kaniere-road towards Hokitika, identically clad in wide-brimmed felt hats, woollen capes, and canvas overshoes. Dusk was falling, bringing with it a rapid drop in temperature, and turning the standing water at the roadside from brown to glossy blue. There was little traffic save for the infrequent cart or lone rider making for the warmth and light of the town ahead—still some two miles distant, though one could hear the roar of the ocean already, a dull, pitchless sound, and above it, the infrequent cry of a sea-bird, the call floating thin and weightless above the sound of the rain.

  The two men were conversing in Cantonese.

  ‘There is no gold in the Aurora,’ Ah Quee was saying.

  ‘Can you be certain?’

  ‘The claim is barren. It is as if the earth has been already turned.’

  ‘Turned earth can be surprising,’ replied Ah Sook. ‘I know of many men who make their livings out of tailing piles.’

  ‘You know of many Chinese men who make their livings out of tailing piles,’ Ah Quee corrected. ‘And then they are beaten, even killed, by those men whose eyes were not as sharp.’

  ‘Money is a burden,’ said Ah Sook. This was a proverb he quoted often.

  ‘A burden that is felt most keenly by the poor,’ said Ah Quee. He glanced sidelong at the other man. ‘Your trade has also been slow, of late.’

  ‘It has,’ said Ah Sook, evenly.

  ‘The whore has lost her taste for the smoke.’

  ‘Yes. I cannot account for it.’

  ‘Perhaps she has found an alternate supplier.’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘You do not believe that.’

  ‘I do not know what to believe.’

  ‘You are suspicious of the chemist.’

  ‘Yes; among other men.’

  Ah Quee mused a moment, and then said, ‘I do not think that the fortune I uncovered ever belonged to Anna herself.’

  ‘No,’ Ah Sook agreed. ‘That is likely. After all, she did not remark its theft.’

  Ah Quee glanced at him. ‘Do you think of my action as a theft?’

  ‘I do not wish to impugn your honour,’ Ah Sook began, but then he hesitated.

  ‘Your implication goes against your wish, Sook Yongsheng.’

  Ah Sook ducked his head. ‘Forgive me. I am ignorant, and my ignorance shines brighter than my intent.’

  ‘Even ignorant men have opinions,’ said Ah Quee. ‘Tell me. Am I a thief to you?’

  ‘It is the wish for secrecy that defines a theft,’ the hatter said at last, somewhat lamely.

  ‘In saying so, you impugn the honour of more men than me!’

  ‘If I speak untruly, I will swallow back my words.’

  ‘You speak untruly,’ Ah Quee snapped. ‘When a man finds a nugget on the goldfields, he does not proclaim it. He hides it, and speaks nothing to his fellows. Here on the goldfields, every man has a wish for secrecy. Only a fool speaks of his discoveries aloud. You would be no different, Sook Yongsheng, if you came upon a pile.’

  ‘But the gold you speak of was not discovered on the field,’ Ah Sook said. ‘You found your fortune in a woman’s pocket; you took it from her person, not from the ground.’

  ‘The woman had no knowledge of what she carried! She was like a man who camps beside a river rich in gold, and sees nothing, suspects nothing.’

  ‘But the gold in a river does not belong to anyone; nor does it belong to the river.’

  ‘You have said yourself that the gold could not have belonged to Anna!’

  ‘Not to Anna; but what of the tailor’s claim upon it? What of the tailor’s purpose, in hiding such a sum in the folds of a woman’s gown?’

  ‘I had no knowledge of the tailor,’ said Ah Quee hotly. ‘When you come upon a silver penny, do you ask who forged it? No: you ask only who touched that penny last! I am not a thief, for taking something that was lost.’

  ‘Lost?’

  ‘Lost,’ said Ah Quee. ‘That fortune had been claimed by no one. It had been stolen befor
e me, and it has been stolen since.’

  ‘Forgive me,’ said Ah Sook. ‘I stand corrected.’

  ‘A whore is not a concubine,’ said Ah Quee. He was getting worked up; evidently this was a subject on which he had desired to defend himself for some time. ‘A whore cannot become respectable. A whore cannot become rich. All the prestige and all the profit belong to the whoremonger, never to the whore. Yes: the only one who truly profits from her trade is the man who stands behind her, purse in one hand, pistol in the other. I did not steal from Anna! What could I have stolen? She owns nothing. That gold was never hers.’

  They heard hoof beats behind them, and turned: a pair of riders, both sitting very low in the saddle, were heading for Hokitika at a canter; both horses were in a lather, and both riders were making very free with their crops, to urge them still faster. The Chinese men stood aside to let them pass.

  ‘Forgive me,’ said Ah Sook again, when they were gone. ‘I was mistaken. You are not a thief, Quee Long.’

  They resumed walking. ‘Mr. Staines is the true thief,’ said the goldsmith. ‘He stole with intent, and then fled without compunction. I was foolish to place my trust in him.’

  ‘Staines is in league with Francis Carver,’ said Ah Sook. ‘The Aurora’s records prove as much. That alliance is reason enough to doubt his worth.’

  Ah Quee glanced across at his companion. ‘I do not know your Francis Carver,’ he said. ‘I have never heard his name before today.’

  ‘He is a merchant trader,’ said Ah Sook, without expression. ‘I knew him in Guangzhou, as a boy. He betrayed my family, and I have sworn to take his life.’

  ‘This much I know already,’ said Ah Quee. ‘I should like to know more.’

  ‘It is a pitiful story.’

  ‘Then I will listen with compassion. A betrayal of any of my countrymen is a betrayal of me.’

  Ah Sook frowned at this. ‘The betrayal is mine to avenge,’ he said.

  ‘I meant only that we must help each other, Sook Yongsheng.’