‘In this matter I am the expert, and you are the layman,’ said Lydia Wells. ‘You ought to remember that—no matter your poor opinion of realms.’

Her arm was extended between them limply, as a lady extends her rings to be kissed, and Gascoigne repressed the urge to snatch it up, and kiss it.

‘You are right,’ he said, squeezing her hand again. ‘You are quite right.’

He released her, and she moved away to the mantel.

‘I will reward you with a fact,’ she said, ‘but on the condition that you must take me very seriously—quite as seriously as you would take any other man.’

‘Of course,’ Gascoigne murmured, becoming solemn. He sat back.

‘Here it is,’ said Lydia Wells. ‘Next month will be a month without a moon.’

‘Dear me!’ said Gascoigne.

‘It will never wax completely full, is what I mean. February is a short month. There will be a full moon just prior to the first, and another just after the twenty-eighth—and so, no full moon in February.’

Gascoigne smiled at her. ‘And does it fall so—every year?’

‘Not at all,’ said Lydia. ‘The phenomenon is very rare.’ She ran her finger along the plaster moulding.

‘Rare implies a value, does it not? Or a danger—?’

‘It happens only once every score of years,’ Lydia continued, straightening the carriage clock.

‘And what does it prophesy, Miss Lydia—a month without a moon?’

Lydia Wells turned to him, and placed her hands upon her hips. ‘If you give me a shilling,’ she said, ‘I’ll tell you.’

Gascoigne laughed. ‘Not yet,’ he said. ‘I don’t yet have proof of your expertise. I shall have to test you before I part with any money, or anything else that belongs to this realm. The cloud will be down tonight—but I will check the Monday papers, and look up the tides.’

The widow gazed at him, impenetrably. ‘I’m not mistaken,’ she said. ‘I’ve an almanac, and I am very skilled at reading it. The moon is waxing now, above the cloud. It will be full by Monday night, and on Tuesday it will begin to wane. Next month will be a month without a moon.’

CONJUNCTIONS

In which poor impressions are restored; the invitations multiply; and the past rolls forward to touch the present hour.

The Reverend Cowell Devlin had remained in the dining room of the Palace Hotel until the middle hours of the afternoon, whereupon he began to feel thick-headed and slow, and his reading ceased to be profitable. Judging himself to be in need of fresh air, he drained his coffee, stowed his pamphlets, paid his bill, turned his collar up against the rain, and set off along the beachfront, heading north. The afternoon sun was bright above the cloud, lending to the scene a silvery glow that leached the sea of colour and picked out points of white light in the sand. The very raindrops seemed to shimmer in the air; the wind, blowing chill from the ocean, carried with it a pleasant, rusty smell. All this did much to dispel Devlin’s torpor, and in very little time at all he was red-cheeked and smiling, his wide-brimmed hat clamped tight to his head with the palm of his hand. He decided to make the most of his perambulation, and return to Hokitika via the high terrace of Seaview: the site of the future Hokitika Gaol, and Devlin’s own future residence.

Upon gaining the crest of the hill he turned, panting slightly, and was surprised to see that he was being pursued. A young man, clad only in a twill shirt and trousers, both of which were plastered wetly to his body, was ascending the track to the terrace at a great pace. The man’s head was down, and he was not immediately identifiable; it was not until he came within twenty yards of Devlin that the latter recognised him. Why, he thought, it was the man from the Arahura Valley: the Maori man, friend of the late Crosbie Wells.

Cowell Devlin had not trained as a missionary, and had not journeyed to New Zealand for that purpose. It had been quite to his surprise when he discovered that the New Testament had been translated into Maori some twenty years prior to his arrival; he was even more astonished to learn that the translation was available for public purchase at the stationer’s on George-street in Dunedin, at a very reasonable price. Turning the pages of the translated document, Devlin had wondered how the holy message had been simplified, and at what cost. The unfamiliar words in their truncated alphabet seemed infantile to him, composed of repeating syllables and babble—unrecognisable, like the nonsense of a child. But in the next moment Devlin chastised himself; for what was his own Bible, but a translation of another kind? He ought not to be so hasty, or so prideful. In penance for his unvoiced doubt he took out his pocketbook and made a careful note of some key verses from the Maori text. He aroha te Atua. E Aroha ana tatou ki a ia, no te ea ko ia kua matua aroha ki a tatou. Ko Ahau te huarahi, te pono, te ora. Hone 14:6, he wrote, and then, marvelling, from the epistles of Paora. The translator had even changed the names.

The Maori man looked up; seeing Devlin standing on the ridge above him, he stopped, and from a distance of several yards they regarded each other, saying nothing.

A sudden gust of wind flattened the tussock around where Devlin stood, blowing his hair back from his temples. ‘Good afternoon,’ he called.

‘Good afternoon,’ returned the other, squinting slightly.

‘I see that we are neither of us deterred by a spot of foul weather!’

‘Yes.’

‘The view is rather compromised; that’s the only shame,’ Devlin added, throwing out his arm to include the shrouded vista before them. ‘It seems that we might be anywhere on earth, when the clouds come down—do you not think? I fancy that when they clear again, we shall find ourselves in an altogether different place!’

The terrace of Seaview, aptly named, had a singular prospect of the ocean, which, from this height, was a featureless expanse, a fat band of uniform colour, with the sky a lighter shade of the same. The shoreline was not visible from the terrace, owing to the steepness of the cliff below—the edge gave out abruptly into a scree of loose stones and clay—and the blankness of this vista, trisected into earth, water, air, with no trees to interrupt the level, and no contour to soften the shape of the land, alarmed one’s senses to the point that one was soon compelled to turn one’s back upon the ocean altogether, and to face the eastern mountains instead—which were obscured, today, by a shifting curtain of white cloud. Below the terrace, the clustered roofs of Hokitika gave way to the wide brown plain of the Hokitika River and the grey curve of the spit; beyond the river, the coastline bore away southward, blurring with haze and distance until it was swallowed absolutely by the mist.

‘It is a good vantage,’ said the Maori man.

‘It most certainly is; though I must say that I have yet to come across a view I did not like, in this country.’ Devlin descended several steps, thrusting out his hand. ‘Here: my name is Cowell Devlin. I’m afraid I don’t remember yours.’

‘Te Rau Tauwhare.’

‘Te Rau Tauwhare,’ Devlin repeated solemnly. ‘How do you do.’

Tauwhare was not familiar with this idiom, and paused to puzzle over it; while he was doing so, Devlin went on. ‘You were a very good friend of Crosbie Wells, I remember.’

‘His only friend,’ Tauwhare corrected.

‘Ah: but even to have one good friend, a man should count himself lucky.’

Tauwhare did not respond to this at once. After a moment he said, ‘I taught him korero Maori.’

Devlin nodded. ‘You shared your language. You shared the stories of your people. It is a fine friendship that is built from that kind of stone.’

‘Yes.’

‘You called Crosbie Wells your brother,’ Devlin went on. ‘I remember it: you spoke the very word, that night at the Police Camp—the night before his body was interred.’