Marianne, rightly attributing his silence to excess of emotion, had forgotten her weariness in ecstatic happiness as the beautiful scene unfolded below her. The settlement was still lonely and small, but had grown since William had first seen it. The houses of the white men, built of kauri wood, thatched with reed, the native houses made of the intertwining elastic stems of the raupo plant padded with green flax, had looked that evening an integral and beautiful part of the landscape about them. The gardens of the kauri houses had been gay with flowers that glowed in the sunset, and beyond the gardens the fields and farm buildings had looked peaceful and homelike. The crowing of cocks had come up to them in the still air, the lowing of cattle, and the sound of the creek flowing over the stones in its bed as it made its eager way down to the sea. It might almost have been an Island village, Marianne had said, had it not been for the immense height and luxuriance of the ferns that edged the creek, and washed like a green sea right up against the wooden palisade that protected the settlement against the encroaching forest. But the extraordinary clarity of the atmosphere, the depth and darkness of the forest, and the majesty of the mountains that rose beyond it, had struck no note of earthly familiarity; rather it had brought to remembrance the landscape of dreams, “thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth on men, and fear and trembling, and a spirit passes . . .” Marianne had suddenly seemed glad to fasten her gaze within the palisade that man had built, and to cry out again in pleasure as the colors shone and sparkled in the light that streamed through that great gash in the western mountains toward which the creek unrolled itself like a ribbon of gold through the fern.
The wagon had rumbled over the wooden bridge that crossed the creek and jolted up the rough cart track beyond toward the roomy house with the wide verandah that William had built for Marguerite, choosing a southerly aspect that would have given her, as she sat sewing in her rocking chair at the top of the verandah steps, a view so breathtakingly lovely that she would have had to sing out loud as she rocked and sewed. Through all the long months during which he had labored at the house he had heard her singing, and heard the swish of her blue skirts and the creak of the rocker, and sometimes he had spoken out loud to her. “I am putting a shelf for your books, Marguerite, beside the bed, and a hook for your bonnet behind the door. Your bedroom window looks west toward the sea, but the parlor has a window that looks east to the forest, and you’ll sit there and watch for me at evening when I come home.”
He had pulled up at the garden gate, jumped down, and thrown the reins over the hitching post. Then he had lifted Marianne to the ground, offered her his arm and laughed, and the man who stood waiting for them in the shadows of the verandah had lifted his head, startled, as though the laughter was one of the most unpleasant sounds he had ever heard. But Marianne, walking up the garden path on her husband’s arm, had been intent upon the flowers, growing in this subtropical climate in a glory and profusion that outdid even the Island. “William! William!” she had cried. “Did you plant all these for me?” And she had turned on the garden path and flung her arms impulsively round his neck.
“We are not alone, you know,” he had said coldly, for if she had kissed him at that moment he would surely have struck her.
She had swung round again and seen Tai Haruru coming down the steps, dark, contorted, full of somber power. She had caught her breath as she looked up into the dark eyes that had flashed suddenly as though they had recognized her, then darkened again as he gave her the formal greeting of a stranger. “Welcome, ma’am,” he had said, and William had felt her tremble on his arm as if the rough, deep echoing voice had plucked at her nerves as though they were harpstrings that must vibrate to his will. He had taken her small gloved hand very gently, yet once his fingers had tightened about hers, she had seemed powerless to withdraw her hand. William had realized that with a sudden panic of fear, a stab of hatred, she had known that this man was stronger, more subtle, than she was, that his power over her husband was infinitely greater than her own, and that she was going to be intolerably jealous of him. She had given him her most accomplished smile, she had met his glance unflinchingly, and she had left her hand confidently in his, since it was not in her power to withdraw it. But William knew that she had not deceived Tai Haruru. He had released her with a smile that had recognized her worth as an antagonist but yet had not been troubled as to the final outcome. Then, having bowed and wished her happiness, he had gone away to his own home further down the creek.
The house that William had built was perfect. Tai Haruru and the lumbermen had made for it beautiful simple wooden furniture, and gay rugs of native weaving were on the floor. Susanna had seen to it that the crockery and pots and pans were all they should be, and she had bought the dimity curtains of cool green and white that hung in the windows, and the dainty flowered hangings for the big fourposter bed. A glorious log fire had roared on the hearth, with a kettle singing over it, and the table had been spread with a white cloth, decorated with a bowl of beautifully arranged flowers, and a dainty meal had been set ready; Tai Haruru had done all that he could to make William’s woman welcome. In the light of the glorious afterglow they had eaten their meal, and when the stars had shone out, those silver stars as big as moons of which Captain O’Hara had told them so long ago, they had lit the candles and sat before the fire and talked together of the future. At least Marianne had talked, full of ambition, while William had smiled and held her hand with all the gentleness that he could muster. Yet behind the talk and the smiles, the candlelight and the glowing warmth of the fire, she must have been aware all the time of something wrong, for suddenly she had seemed to find that she was talking for the sake of talking, and that William’s mechanical stroking of her hand was merely maddening. She had pulled it away, and bitten her lip upon impatient words, and sat listening in silence to the sound of the rising wind as it swept up the creek from the sea. He loved the New Zealand wind, but already it had seemed that she hated it. Sitting silently beside her he had known her thoughts. . . . She was thinking that this wind had none of the friendliness of the Island winds, and that its austere voice was combining with her husband’s strange stillness to try to silence the passion in her breast. But no voice, no indifference, would ever do that, she had thought. Her love would never be stilled. She had expected that she would hug it to her on this first night as an exquisite joy, and now it was a thorn that throbbed in her heart, but there was no power in the whole wide world that could pluck it out. . . . Half lost in the big chair, her little body had begun to shake all over, and he had jumped up and lifted her to her feet. “You’re tired out,” he had said gently. “I was a selfish ass to keep you up so long. Come to your bed, my dear.”
He had taken her to her room, lit her candles, helped her to unpack what she needed, and waited upon her with great kindness but with a clumsiness that must have strained her taut nerves almost to breaking point. Then he had taken her in his arms and once again, as on board the Green Dolphin, he had kissed her. “Sleep well, Marianne,” he had said, and then he had left her. He did not know how she had slept that night. Sitting slumped before the dying fire in the next room, he had listened fearfully for the sound of weeping; but if she had made any sound, the wind had folded it within its own lamenting, for he had heard nothing.
3
The great trees thinned out, and the ocean of green fern flung itself frustrated against the palisade that protected the vegetable garden. William unlatched the gate and went in. It had no lock, for everyone, Maori and white man alike, was William’s friend. He went slowly along the winding paths between the English vegetables that grew here with such amazing luxuriance. There was a riot of runner beans, their flowers like scarlet tongues of flame in the golden sunset light, a sea of purple and white potato flowers, raspberry canes, strawberry beds, pumpkins of an enormous size, thyme and mint and marjoram. In the flower garden New Zealand and English flowers ran riot together, the white feathery raupo j
ostling the tall hollyhocks, and a Scotch rose blooming at the foot of a great pohutakawa tree covered with crimson blooms.
Marianne had worked wonders in the garden as well as in the house. Her whirlwind energy called forth William’s astounded admiration even while it exhausted him almost to the point of hysteria. Her adaptability also amazed him. She arose at dawn and cooked, scrubbed, washed, ironed, sewed, dug and planted as though she had been doing these things all her life. Her homemade bread was a masterpiece, and her preserves melted in the mouth. Never had William been so well fed or so well and daintily cared for . . . and never had he been so miserable. If he let himself go in enjoyment of the superb cooking, elbows well out, jaws champing in the unrefined but efficient old-pioneer style that he had unconsciously picked up, the birdlike appetite and exquisite manners of his prim little wife silently reproached him for his coarse greediness. However much he wiped his feet on the mat, he always seemed to leave tracks on the floor. Whenever he moved, he seemed to knock something over. And he was not allowed to clear up the wreckage of his own disasters, it being Marianne’s opinion (well founded on experience) that he invariably made confusion worse confounded. Tight-lipped, she would push him out of the way and herself mop up the spilt milk or sweep away the broken china. She never let him help her in the house at all, though she was often utterly exhausted at the end of the day, worn out by the heat and the unaccustomed labor. Her fastidiousness could not endure that anything should be done otherwise than just so in her house, and William’s domestic labors were more remarkable for good will than for accuracy. There was no way in which she would let him serve her, and the milk of his human kindness had turned to a sour bitterness, and his tenderness to the first hatred of his life. To forget it, and to get his clumsy person out of Marianne’s way, he would go off at evening to the Maori village in the forest, or spend a night with Tai Haruru or Scant and Isaac, and gamble and lose a good bit of money, and get most gloriously drunk . . . and, the next day, drop things worse than ever, and have to listen to Marianne’s bitter, probing questions about the Maori women at the village, or her angry tirades against the friends who were making a wastrel of him, and hate her worse than ever because she hated them. How he loathed this hatred, and hated Marianne the more because she was the cause of it. Slowly and heavily he made his way through the vegetable garden, dreading, as always, those thoughts of the might-have-been that always came rushing in upon him when he came home in the evening to confront the what-was. He turned into the flower garden that he and Tai Haruru had made for Marguerite, and they were all about him like a flock of birds. . . . Marguerite sitting sewing in the parlor window watching for him, her wave and her smile when she saw him coming. Marguerite, less efficient than Marianne, finding her feet in a new way of life slowly, amusingly, making mistakes, letting him help her. Marguerite tired at the end of the day, letting him carry her to bed, letting him finish the washing up, only laughing at him if he did it wrong. Marguerite with her clear sight and quick sympathy, friendly to his friends, understanding that the suffering and hardship that had made of them hard-drinking, hard-swearing, gross-grained old blackguards would have deprived lesser men of reason or life or both. Marguerite in his arms at night, a part of himself, his true mate, their love equal and serene, asking no more than could be given with ease, yet getting all there was to get because for either to have given less than all to the other would not have been possible. Marguerite bearing him the child that he longed for. Yes, Marguerite would have had a child. She was no hater, with body and soul so hardened that life could not germinate within the iron earth. . . . He straightened his sagging shoulders and went resolutely up the steps to the empty verandah. Somehow or other they must get through this evening creditably. They owed it to the kind Kellys.
Susanna was laying the table in the parlor when he went in, and she smiled at him gently. She was allowed to help Marianne, for she also was an excellent housewife, and she was humble, nimble, and obedient. Marianne, though patronizing her as her social inferior in a manner that made William squirm, nevertheless almost loved her, and her voice, issuing her orders through the open kitchen door, was less harsh than usual.
But the harshness came back as she called out, “Is that you, William?”
“Yes,” said William heavily.
She left her labors for a moment and came into the parlor, squeezing her crinoline through the narrow doorway, sending Susanna away out of earshot to her own room with the cold flicker of a “go away” glance. The cooking of an elaborate meal at the end of a hard, hot day had tired her; there were dark lines under her eyes, and the droop at the corners of her mouth was more pronounced than usual. Yet beneath the big apron that she wore she was exquisitely dressed, and the smells that accompanied her through the kitchen door were delicious. She might hate Tai Haruru, but it was not in her to offer any guest less than the very best that she could do. There was not a single lazy bone in her body or a slatternly thought in her mind. Her striving for perfection in all things, while it exasperated him, yet stirred William’s admiration. For himself, for many years now, he had not bothered overmuch about the little niceties of living.
“Why are you so late?” demanded Marianne. “Supper will be ready in five minutes, and look at you! I’ve been slaving to prepare a dainty supper for your friends and you can’t even pay me the compliment of being ready for it.”
She held herself a little aloof from him, distastefully, and he blushed crimson, horribly aware of grimy hands and sweat-drenched clothes and the aroma of whiskey on his breath. It was quite impossible to fell trees all day long in this heat without wetting one’s whistle now and again, but she could never understand that. She said no word about the whiskey, but she gave him the look she always gave him when he had been drinking: a hurt, desperate look that acknowledged the fact that though she had been fighting his weaknesses for eighteen months, yet he was now in worse shape than when she had married him. What more could she do, her look demanded. If only he would love her . . . love her . . . love her.
He swore and turned away, barging like a great elephant through the kitchen, sending a plate crashing to the floor as he did so, and went out to the pump outside the back door to wash. As he sluiced he heard her voice, with an exhausted edge to it, scolding shrilly. “William, how dared you swear at me like that? Haven’t I enough to endure, with your drinking, and your frightful friends, and your abominable laziness—”
William straightened himself in sudden indignation. “Laziness?” he interrupted. “Good God, Marianne, if ever a man worked, I do! I sweat in that damn forest till I’m ready to drop.”
“You swing your axe hard enough,” said Marianne contemptuously. “But any idiot can do that. Do you ever use your mind? Never. Neither you nor Mr. Haslam. You’re both bone lazy. You’ll never get anywhere. You could be the leading timber merchants of the country if you wanted to be—between you you’ve the knowledge and the brains. But all he cares for is carving owls on pieces of stick, and the drink, and all you care for is gambling, and Maori women—and the drink.”
“And all you care for is making my life a hell with your perpetual nagging,” raged William.
“Nagging?” said Marianne, her voice rising. “Nagging? I never nag. If I didn’t speak to you for your good sometimes, you’d—”
“Oh, my!” interrupted a loud voice in the parlor, and then, exactly taking up her shrill hysterical tone, “Nag, nag, nag, nag!”
That parrot! Marianne wished to goodness she had never brought the wretched bird with her from the Island. If only he’d die! But parrots live apparently forever, and the climate of New Zealand suited Old Nick to perfection.
“Oh, be quiet, Nick!” she cried in exasperation. “Hold your tongue, you horrible bird!”
“Hold your tongue!” mimicked Old Nick. “ ’Orrible bird! ’Orrible bird!”
William chuckled, but Old Nick instantly extinguished his amusement. “You’re b
one lazy,” he told him in Marianne’s voice. “You’ll never get anywhere. Never get anywhere. Never get anywhere.” And the duck that Marianne was roasting spluttered suddenly as though in angry contempt. William pumped again with violence, gritting his teeth. It was hell to have an ambitious wife, he could not understand her longing for wealth and position. Materially speaking, what more did they want than what they had? They had enough to eat, enough to wear, a sound roof over their heads, a garden, incomparable beauty spread all about them. If they were to gain all that she longed for, she would still be unsatisfied, her eyes always beseeching him to love her, love her, love her, when he could not. He went to their bedroom by way of the garden, and climbed in through the window, so as not to have to pass through the kitchen and meet her eyes again.
4
Fifteen minutes later a strangely exotic little piece of festivity, called into being by the genius of Marianne, unfolded its petals in her parlor. Blooming here in the wilderness, thousands of miles from the ancient civilization that through centuries had shaped its form and content, it reminded Tai Haruru of a cactus flower blossoming strangely amid the arid contortions of the surrounding stalks and spikes. He leaned back in his chair, his thin brown fingers caressing the stem of one of the beautiful wine glasses that she had brought with her from England, and smiled at his hostess, the smile broadening as he met her glance of politely veiled but most intense dislike. Her hatred amused him, and disturbed him not at all. In fact he enjoyed it, as he enjoyed all manifestations of vitality. He liked the little woman. An artist himself, he understood and reverenced her passionate creativeness, expending itself so uselessly upon human material and so finely upon the trappings of life. Witness the mess she was making of her husband and the success she was making of this party. He wished that she would understand herself, would realize that the artists of this world make things, not people, cease her disastrous efforts to save William and give herself into his hands that he save her. Creators. Saviors. Comforters. It would save a lot of trouble, he thought, if every man and woman could realize at the outset which leaf of the triune clover claimed his allegiance, accept the limitation with humility, and not try to behave as though he—or she—had it in him to be the whole damn plant. But humility was not Mrs. William’s strong suit. Poor Mrs. William! He raised his glass and bowed to her.