The Luminaries

by Eleanor Catton

  ‘A passionate sentiment,’ Devlin said.

  This seemed to please her. ‘Yes,’ she said.

  ‘But he did not declare his love for you, after all that.’

  ‘He didn’t make any vows. I said that.’

  ‘And nor did you.’

  ‘I never got another chance,’ she said. ‘That was the night he disappeared.’

  Cowell Devin sighed. Yes, he understood Anna Wetherell at long last, but it was not a happy understanding. Devlin had known many women of poor prospects and limited means, whose only transport out of the miserable cage of their unhappy circumstance was the flight of the fantastic. Such fantasies were invariably magical—angelic patronage, invitations into paradise—and Anna’s story, touching though it was, showed the same strain of the impossible. Why, it was painfully clear! The most eligible bachelor of Anna’s acquaintance possessed a love so deep and pure that all respective differences between them were rendered immaterial? He was not dead—he was only missing? He was sending her ‘messages’ that proved the depth of his love—and these were messages that only she could hear? It was a fantasy, Devlin thought. It was a fantasy of the girl’s own devising. The boy could only be dead.

  ‘You want Mr. Staines to love you very much, don’t you, Miss Wetherell?’

  Anna seemed offended by his implication. ‘He does love me.’

  ‘That wasn’t my question.’

  She squinted at him. ‘Everyone wants to be loved.’

  ‘That’s very true,’ Devlin said, sadly. ‘We all want to be loved—and need to be loved, I think. Without love, we cannot be ourselves.’

  ‘You’re of a mind with Mr. Staines.’

  ‘Am I?’

  ‘Yes,’ Anna said. ‘That is precisely the sort of thing that he would say.’

  ‘Your Mr. Staines is quite the philosopher, Miss Wetherell.’

  ‘Why, Reverend,’ Anna said, smiling suddenly, ‘I believe you’ve just paid yourself a compliment.’

  They did not speak for a moment. Anna sipped again at her sugared drink, and Devlin, brooding, looked out across the hotel dining room. After a moment Anna’s hand went to her bosom, where the forged deed of gift still lay against her skin.

  Devlin looked sharply at her. ‘You have ample time to reconsider,’ he said.

  ‘I only want a legal opinion.’

  ‘You have my clerical opinion.’

  ‘Yes,’ Anna said. ‘“Blessed are the meek”.’

  She seemed to regret this impudence immediately; a violent blush spread across her face and neck, and she turned away. Suddenly Devlin wanted nothing more to do with her. He pushed his chair back from the table, and placed his hands on his knees.

  ‘I will accompany you to the Courthouse door and no further,’ he said. ‘What you do with the document in your possession is no longer my business. Know that I will not lie to protect you. I will certainly not lie in a court of law. If anyone asks, I shall not hesitate to tell them the truth, which is that you forged that signature with your own hand.’

  ‘All right,’ said Anna, rising. ‘Thank you very much for the pie. And the cordial. And thank you for all that you said to Mrs. Wells.’

  Devlin rose also. ‘You oughtn’t to thank me for that,’ he said. ‘I let my temper get the better of me there, I’m afraid. I wasn’t at my best.’

  ‘You were marvellous,’ Anna said, and she stepped forward, and put her hands on his shoulders, and kissed him very nicely on the cheek.

  By the time Anna Wetherell arrived at the Hokitika Courthouse, Aubert Gascoigne had already departed for the Reserve Bank, the envelope from John Hincher Garrity snug in the inside pocket of his jacket; Alistair Lauderback had likewise long since left the building. Anna was received by a red-faced solicitor named Fellowes, whom she did not know. He directed her into an alcove at the far side of the hall, where they sat down on either side of a plain deal table. Anna handed him the charred document without a word. The lawyer placed it on the table before him, squaring it with the edge of the desk, and then cupped his hands around his eyes to read it.

  ‘Where did you get this?’ Fellowes said at last, looking up.

  ‘It was given to me,’ Anna said. ‘Anonymously.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘This morning.’

  ‘Given how?’

  ‘Someone slipped it under the door,’ Anna lied. ‘While Mrs. Wells was down here at the Courthouse.’

  ‘Down here at the Courthouse, receiving the news that her appeal has been revoked at last,’ Fellowes said, with a sceptical emphasis. He turned back to the document. ‘Crosbie Wells … and Staines is the fellow whom nobody’s heard from … and Miss Wetherell is you. Strange. Any idea who dropped it off?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Or why?’

  ‘No,’ Anna said. ‘I suppose someone wanted to do me a good turn.’

  ‘Anyone in mind? Care to speculate?’

  ‘No,’ Anna said. ‘I only want to know whether it’s good.’

  ‘It seems all right,’ said Fellowes, peering at it. ‘But it’s not exactly a cash cheque, is it? Not with things being as they are—eight weeks on, and Mr. Staines still missing.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Well. Even if this deed is valid, our good friend Mr. Staines no longer has two thousand pounds to give away. All of his assets have been seized, on account of his absence. Effective last Friday. He’d be lucky to scrape together a few hundred from what he’s got left.’

  ‘But the deed is binding,’ Anna said. ‘Even so.’

  The lawyer shook his head. ‘What I’m saying to you, my girl, is that our Mr. Staines can’t give you two thousand pounds—unless by some miracle he’s found alive, with a great deal of cash money on his person. His claims have been given over. Bought by other men.’

  ‘But the deed is binding,’ Anna said again. ‘It has to be.’

  Mr. Fellowes smiled. ‘I’m afraid the law doesn’t quite work that way. Think on this. I could write you a cheque right now for a million pounds, but that doesn’t mean you’re a million pounds up, does it, if I’ve nothing in my pocket, and nobody to act as my surety? Money always has to come out of someone’s pocket, and if everyone’s pockets are empty … well, that’s that, no matter what anyone might claim.’

  ‘Mr. Staines has two thousand pounds,’ Anna said.

  ‘Yes—well, if he did, that would be a different story.’

  ‘No,’ Anna said. ‘I’m telling you. Mr. Staines has two thousand pounds.’

  ‘How’s that?’

  ‘The gold in Crosbie Wells’s cottage belonged to him.’

  Fellowes paused. He stared at her for several seconds, and then, in quite a different voice, he said, ‘Can that be proven?’

  Anna repeated what Devlin had told her that morning: that the gold was found retorted, and bearing a signature that identified the origin of the gold.

  ‘Which mine?’

  ‘I can’t remember the name,’ Anna said.

  ‘What’s your source?’

  She hesitated. ‘I’d rather not say.’

  Fellowes was looking interested. ‘We could check the truth of it. The fortune was a component part of Wells’s estate, after all, so there should be a record somewhere at the bank. I wonder why it hasn’t come up before. Someone at the bank is keeping it back, perhaps.’

  ‘If it’s true,’ Anna said, ‘that means the fortune’s mine, does it not? Two thousand pounds of it belongs to me. By the authority of this piece of paper here.’

  ‘Miss Wetherell,’ Fellowes said, ‘this kind of money does not change hands so easily. I’m afraid it is never as simple as drawing down a cheque. But I will say that your coming here today is fortuitously timed. Mrs. Wells’s appeal has just been granted, and the share apportioned her is in the process of being released. I can place a hold on her claim very easily, while we figure out what to do with this paper of yours.’

  ‘Yes,’ Anna said. ‘Will you do that?’
<
br />   ‘If you will consent to take me on as your solicitor, I will do all that I can to help,’ Fellowes said, sitting back. ‘My retainer is two pounds weekly, with expenses. I charge in advance, of course.’

  She shook her head. ‘I can’t pay you in advance. I don’t have any money.’

  ‘Perhaps you might draw down a loan of some kind,’ Fellowes said delicately, shifting his gaze away. ‘I’m afraid that I am very strict on all matters of finance; I make no exceptions, and take nothing on promise. It’s nothing personal; it comes with the training, that’s all.’

  ‘I can’t pay you in advance,’ Anna said again, ‘but if you do this for me, I can pay you treble your retainer, when the money comes in.’

  ‘Treble?’ Fellowes smiled gently. ‘Legal processes often take a very long time, Miss Wetherell, and sometimes without results: there is no guarantee that the money would come in at all. Mrs. Wells’s appeal took two months to verify, and as you’ve shown very well, that business is not over yet!’

  ‘Treble, up to a ceiling of one hundred pounds,’ Anna said firmly, ‘but if you clear the funds for me within the fortnight, I’ll pay you two hundred, in cash money.’

  Fellowes raised his eyebrows. ‘Dear me,’ he said. ‘This is very bold.’

  ‘It comes with the training,’ Anna said.

  But here Anna Wetherell made a misstep. Mr. Fellowes’ eyes widened, and he shrank away. Why, she was a whore, he thought—and then it all came back to him. This was the very whore who had tried to end her life in the Kaniere-road, the very day of Staines’s disappearance, and Wells’s death! Fellowes was new to Hokitika: he did not know Anna Wetherell by sight, and had not immediately recognised her name. It was only at her brazen remark that he suddenly knew her.

  Anna had mistaken his discomfiture for simple hesitation. ‘Do you consent to my terms, Mr. Fellowes?’

  Fellowes looked her up and down. ‘I shall inquire at the Reserve Bank about this alleged retortion,’ he said. His voice was cold. ‘If the rumour you heard was a good one, then we will draw up a contract; if it was not, then I’m afraid I cannot help you.’

  ‘You are very kind,’ Anna said.

  ‘None of that,’ said Fellowes, roughly. ‘Where might I find you, say in three hours’ time?’

  Anna hesitated. She could not return to the Wayfarer’s Fortune that afternoon. She had no money on her person, but perhaps she could ask an old acquaintance to stand her a drink at one of the saloons along Revell-street.

  ‘I’ll just come back,’ she said. ‘I’ll just come back and meet you here.’

  ‘As you wish,’ Fellowes said. ‘Let us err on the side of caution and say five o’clock.’

  ‘Five o’clock,’ Anna said. She held out her hand for the charred document, but Fellowes was already opening his wallet, to slip the piece of paper inside.

  ‘I think I’ll hold onto this,’ he said. ‘Just for the meantime.’

  MOON IN ARIES, CRESCENT

  In which Te Rau Tauwhare makes a startling discovery.

  Te Rau Tauwhare was feeling very pleased as he leaped from stone to stone through the shallows of the Arahura River, making his way downriver towards the beach. He had spent the past month with a party of surveyors in the Deception Valley, and his purse was full; what’s more, that morning he had come upon a marvellous slab of kahurangi pounamu, the weight of which was causing his satchel to thump against his back with every step.

  Back at Mawhera it would be time to dig the crop of kumara from the ground: Tauwhare knew it from the appearance of Whanui in the northern sky, the star low on the horizon, dawning well after midnight, and setting well before the dawn. His people called this month Pou-tu-te-rangi—the post that lifted up the sky—for at nights Te Ikaroa formed a milky arch that ran north to south across the black dome of the heavens. It hung between Whanui, in the north, and Autahi, in the south, and it passed through the red jewel of Rehua, directly overhead: for a moment, every night, the sky became a perfect compass, its needle a dusty stripe of stars. At the dawning of Whanui the crops would be unearthed from the ground; after this was Paenga-wha-wha, when the tubers would be piled upon the margins of the fields to be classified and counted, and then taken to the store pits and storehouses, to be stacked for the winter months ahead. After Paenga-wha-wha, the year came to an end—or, as the tohunga phrased, it, ‘to a death’.

  He rounded a bend in the river, left the shallows, and mounted the bank. Crosbie Wells’s cottage was looking more forlorn with each passing day. The iron roof had rusted to a flaming orange, and the mortar had turned from white to vivid green; the small garden that Wells had planted had long since gone to seed. Tauwhare strode up the path, taking sorrowful note of these tokens of decay—and then halted suddenly.

  There was somebody inside.

  Slowly, Tauwhare came closer, peering through the open doorway into the gloom of the interior. The figure in question was curled on the floor, either dead or asleep. He was lying on his hip, with his knees angled close to his chest and his face turned away from the door. Tauwhare came closer still. He saw that the man was dressed in a jacket and trousers rather than digger’s moleskin, and as Tauwhare watched, the fabric over his rib moved very slightly, rising and falling with the motion of a breath. Asleep, then.

  Tauwhare passed through the doorway, taking care that his shadow did not fall across the man’s body, and wake him. Moving softly, he edged around the wall behind him, to look down upon the sleeper’s face. The man was very young. His hair was darkly matted with dirt and grease; the skin of his face seemed almost white by contrast. His face would have been handsome had it not been so plainly ravaged by privation. The lids of his eyes were mottled purple, and there were deep shadows in the hollows beneath them. His breath was fretful and inconstant. Tauwhare cast his eye over the boy’s body. His dress had been worn almost to tatters, and apparently had not been changed in many weeks, for it was thick with mud and dust of all varieties. The coat had once been fine, however—that was plain—and the cravat, stiff with mud, was likewise of a fashionable cut.

  ‘Mr. Staines?’ Tauwhare whispered.

  The boy’s eyes opened.

  ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘Hello, there.’

  ‘Mr. Staines?’

  ‘Yes, that’s me,’ the boy said, speaking in a voice that was high and very bright. He lifted his head. ‘Excuse me. Excuse me. Is this Maori land?’

  ‘No,’ said Tauwhare. ‘How long have you been here?’

  ‘It’s not Maori land?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I need to be on Maori land,’ the boy said, struggling up into a sitting position. He was holding his left arm oddly across his chest.

  ‘Why?’ Tauwhare said.

  ‘I buried something,’ said Staines. ‘By a tree. But all the trees look the same to me and I’m afraid I’ve got myself into a bit of a muddle. Thank heavens you’ve come along—I’m ever so grateful.’

  ‘You disappeared,’ Tauwhare said.

  ‘Three days, perhaps,’ said the boy, sinking back again. ‘I think it was three days ago. I’ve been mixing up my days: I can’t seem to keep them in any sort of order. One forgets to mark the hours, when one’s alone. I say: will you have a look at this, please?’

  He pulled down the neck of his shirt and Tauwhare saw that the soiled darkness on his cravat was in fact the sticky tar of old blood. There was a wound just above his collarbone, and even from his distance of several feet Tauwhare could see that it was a very grave one. It had begun to putrefy. The centre of the wound was black, and fingers of red speared away from it in rays. Tauwhare could see black speckles of powder-burn, dark against the white of his chest, and deduced that it could only be a gunshot wound. Evidently somebody had shot Emery Staines at very close range, some time ago.

  ‘You need medicine,’ he said.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Staines. ‘Exactly right. Will you fetch it for me? I’d be most exceedingly obliged. But I’m afraid I don’t know your name.’<
br />
  ‘My name is Te Rau Tauwhare.’

  ‘You’re a Maori fellow!’ said Staines, blinking, as though seeing him for the first time. His eyes crossed, and then focused again. ‘Is this Maori land?’

  Tauwhare pointed east. ‘Up there is Maori land,’ he said.

  ‘Up there?’ Staines looked where Tauwhare pointed. ‘Why are you down here, then, if your patch is up there?’

  ‘This is the house of my friend,’ said Tauwhare. ‘Crosbie Wells.’

  ‘Crosbie, Crosbie,’ said Staines, closing his eyes. ‘He was euchred, wasn’t he? Lord, how that man can drink. Hollow legs, both of them. Where is he, then? Gone fossicking?’

  ‘He’s dead,’ said Tauwhare.

  ‘I’m exceedingly sorry to hear that,’ Staines mumbled. ‘What a terrible blow. And you were his friend—his very good friend! And Anna … You’ll accept my condolences, I hope … But I’ve forgotten your name already.’

  ‘It’s Te Rau,’ said Tauwhare.

  ‘So it is,’ said Staines. ‘So it is.’ He paused a moment, wretched with exhaustion, and then said, ‘You wouldn’t mind taking me there, would you, old fellow? You wouldn’t mind it?’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘To the Maori land,’ said Staines, closing his eyes again. ‘You see, I’ve buried a great deal of gold on Maori land, and if you help me, I wouldn’t be averse to giving you a pinch of it. I’ll stand you whatever you like. Whatever you like. I remember the place exactly: there’s a tree. The gold’s underneath the tree.’ He opened his eyes again and gave Tauwhare a beseeching, blurry look.

  Tauwhare tried again. ‘Where have you been, Mr. Staines?’

  ‘I’ve been looking for my bonanza,’ said Staines. ‘I know it’s on Maori land … but there’s nothing to mark Maori land, is there? No kind of fence to mark it. They always said a man could never get lost on the West Coast, because there’s always mountains on one side, and ocean on the other … but I seem to have got myself a little muddled, Te Rau. It’s Te Rau, isn’t it? Yes. Yes. I’ve been lost.’