The Luminaries

‘You can spare me the pantomime,’ said Devlin, who was becoming angry. ‘You don’t care two straws for that girl. You’ve no more concern for her than you do for anyone—and from what I have heard about you, that’s a paltry kind of concern indeed.’

‘Another terrible accusation,’ said Lydia Wells. ‘And from the chaplain of a prison, no less! I suppose I ought to try to clear my name. Anna, tell the good Reverend what you did while you were in Dunedin.’

There was a pause. Devlin glanced at Anna, his confidence faltering.

‘Tell him what you did,’ said Lydia Wells again.

‘I played the serpent in your household,’ said Anna.

‘Meaning what, precisely? Tell him exactly what it was you did.’

‘I lay down with your husband.’

‘Yes,’ said Lydia Wells. ‘You seduced my husband, Mr. Wells. Now tell the good Reverend this. What did I do, in retaliation?’

‘You sent me away,’ Anna said. ‘To Hokitika.’

‘In what condition?’

‘With child.’

‘With whose child, please?’

‘With your husband’s child,’ Anna whispered. ‘Crosbie’s child.’

Devlin was astonished.

‘So I sent you away,’ the widow said, nodding. ‘Do I still maintain that my reaction was the right one?’

‘No,’ Anna said. ‘You have repented. You have begged for my forgiveness. More than once.’

‘Are you quite sure?’ said Mrs. Wells, feigning astonishment. ‘According to our good Reverend here, I have no concern at all for the welfare of others, and presumably still less for those who have played temptress beneath my roof! Are you quite sure that I am even capable of begging your forgiveness?’

‘Enough,’ said Devlin. He raised his hands. ‘Enough.’

‘It’s true,’ Anna said. ‘It’s true that she has asked for my forgiveness.’

‘Enough.’

‘Now that you have insulted my integrity in virtually every way imaginable,’ said the widow, picking up her teacup at last, ‘would you mind telling me, without falsehood this time, what you are doing in my parlour?’

‘I was delivering a private message to Miss Wetherell,’ Devlin said.

The widow turned to Anna. ‘What was it?’

‘You don’t have to tell her,’ Devlin said quickly. ‘Not if you don’t want to. You don’t have to say a single word to her.’

‘Anna,’ said Lydia Wells, dangerously. ‘What was the message?’

‘The Reverend showed me a document,’ Anna said, ‘by the authority of which, half of that fortune in Crosbie’s cottage belongs to me.’

‘Indeed,’ said Lydia Wells—and although she spoke coolly Devlin thought he saw a flash of panic in her eye. ‘To whom does the other half belong?’

‘Mr. Emery Staines,’ said Anna.

‘Where is this document?’

‘I hid it,’ said Anna.

‘Well, go and fetch it out,’ Lydia snapped.

‘Don’t,’ Devlin said quickly.

‘I won’t,’ said Anna. She made no move to touch her bodice.

‘You might at least do me the courtesy of telling me the whole truth,’ Lydia said. ‘Both of you.’

‘I’m afraid we can’t do that,’ Devlin said, speaking before Anna could have a chance. ‘This information, you see, pertains to a crime that has not yet been fully investigated. It concerns, among other things, the blackmail of a certain Mr. Alistair Lauderback.’

‘Pardon me?’ said Lydia Wells.

‘What?’ said Anna.

‘I’m afraid I can’t disclose anything further,’ Devlin said—observing, to his great satisfaction, that the widow had become very pale. ‘Anna, if you wish to go to the Courthouse directly, I will escort you there myself.’

‘You will?’ Anna said, peering at him.

‘Yes,’ Devlin said.

‘What on earth do you think you’ll be doing at the Courthouse?’ said Lydia Wells.

‘Seeking legal counsel,’ said Anna. ‘As is my civil right.’

Mrs. Wells fixed Anna with an impenetrable look. ‘I consider this a very poor way to repay my kindness,’ she said at last, and in a quiet voice.

Anna went to Devlin’s side, and took his arm. ‘Mrs. Wells,’ she said, ‘it is not your kindness that I mean to repay.’

JUPITER IN CAPRICORN

In which Aubert Gascoigne is very much amused; Cowell Devlin abdicates responsibility; and Anna Wetherell makes a mistake.

The Hokitika Courthouse, home of the Resident Magistrate’s Court, was a scene of robust but much- approximated ceremony. The courtroom had been cordoned with ropes, rather like a shearing yard. District officials sat behind a row of desks that protected them from the milling crowd; when the court was in session, these desks would form a kind of barricade between the figures of the court and the public, who was required to stand. The magistrate’s seat, currently vacant, was only a captain’s chair on a raised dais, though the chair had been draped with sheepskins to give it a more dignified aspect. Beside it stood an outsize Union Jack, hung on a stand that was rather too short for the size of the flag. The flag might have pooled on the dusty ground, had an enterprising soul not thought to place an empty wine cask beneath the bottom of the stand—a detail that served to diminish, rather than enhance, the flag’s effect.

It had been a busy morning in the petty courts. Mrs. Wells’s appeal to revoke the sale of Crosbie Wells’s estate had been approved at last, which meant that the Wells fortune, formerly held in escrow at the Reserve Bank, had been surrendered to the Magistrate’s purse. Harald Nilssen’s four-hundred-pound commission had not likewise been revoked, for two reasons: firstly, because the sum constituted his legal payment for a service adequately rendered; and secondly, because the commission had since been donated, in its entirety, to assist in the erection of the new gaol-house at Seaview. It was unseemly, the Magistrate declared, to revoke a gift of charity, especially when the gift was such a handsome and selfless one; he commended Nilssen, in absentia, for his benevolence.

There were sundry other legal expenses to be itemised, most of which reflected the many hours the Magistrate’s office had spent on the project of trying to find the late Mr. Wells’s birth certificate. These expenses would come out of Mrs. Wells’s inheritance also—which, less the estate taxes and fees, and after these many corrections had been made, now totalled a little over ?3500. This sum was to be made payable to Mrs. Wells as soon as the fortune had been cleared by the Reserve Bank, in whatever form of currency the widow desired. Did Mrs. Wells have anything to say? No, she did not—but she gave Aubert Gascoigne a very broad smile as she swept away from the Courthouse, and he saw that her eyes were shining.

‘Oi—Gascoigne!’

Gascoigne had been staring into the middle distance. He blinked. ‘Yes?’

His colleague Burke was in the doorway, a fat paper envelope in his hand. ‘Jimmy Shaw tells me you’ve a flair for maritime insurance.’

‘That’s right,’ said Gascoigne.

‘Do you mind taking on another job? Something’s just come in.’

Gascoigne frowned at the envelope. ‘What kind of a “something”?’