almost; even saying the name, one feels a kind of thrill. I’m so glad to have seen one. I feel almost touched. And how wonderful, that they guard the mouth of the harbour like they do! How’s that for an omen—for a gold town! I heard them calling—that was what roused me—and I came topside because I couldn’t place the sound. I thought it was pigs at first.’
Anna looked at him sidelong. Was the boy making an overture of friendship? He was speaking as if they were close familiars, though in fact they had not exchanged more than perfunctory greetings on the journey from Sydney—Anna having kept largely to the women’s quarters, and the boy, to the men’s. She did not know his name. She had seen him from a distance, of course, but he had not made any particular impression upon her, good or bad. She saw now that he was something of an eccentric.
‘Their calling roused me too,’ she said, and then, ‘I suppose I ought to go and wake the others. It’s too perfect a sight to be missed.’
‘Don’t,’ the boy said. ‘Oh, don’t. Would you mind? I couldn’t bear to have a crowd of people jostling about. Not at this hour. Somebody’s bound to say “Instead of the cross, the albatross”, or “he stoppeth one of three”, and then the rest of the journey would be quite lost to argument—everyone trying to piece together the poem, I mean, and quarrelling over which pieces go where, with each man trumping the next, and showing off his memory. Let’s just enjoy it for ourselves. Dawn is such a private hour, don’t you think? Such a solitary hour. One always hears that said of midnight, but I think of midnight as remarkably companionable—everyone together, sleeping in the dark.’
‘I am afraid I am interrupting your solitude,’ Anna said.
‘No, no,’ the boy said. ‘Oh, no. Solitude is a condition best enjoyed in company.’ He grinned at her, quickly, and Anna smiled back. ‘Especially the company of one other soul,’ he added, turning back to the sea. ‘It’s dreadful to feel alone and really
‘Birds always make me think of ships,’ Anna said.
He turned to her, eyes wide. ‘
Anna blushed under his direct attention. The boy’s eyes were a deep brown. His brows were thick, and his lips very full. He was wearing a felt cap with a flat brim; beneath it, his hair was a dark gold, rather unruly where it curled around his temples and over his ears. Clearly it had been cropped close some months ago, and he had not returned to the barber since.
‘It’s just a fancy,’ she said, becoming shy.
‘But you must follow through,’ said the boy. ‘You must! Go on.’
‘Heavy ships are so graceful in the water,’ Anna said at last, looking away. ‘Compared to lighter crafts, I mean. If a boat is too light—if it bobs about on the waves—there’s no grace to its motion. I believe that it’s the same with birds. Large birds are not buffeted about by the wind. They always look so regal on the air. This fellow. Seeing him fly is like seeing a heavy ship cut through a wave.’
They watched as the albatross circled back to make his pass again. Anna stole a look at the boy’s shoes. They were brown leather, tightly laced, neither too shiny nor too worn—giving her no clues about his origin. In all likelihood he was coming to make his fortune on the Otago goldfields, like every other man on board.
‘You’re quite right,’ the boy cried. ‘Yes, indeed! It’s not at all like watching a sparrow, is it? He’s weighted —exactly like a ship, exactly so!’
‘I should like to see him in a storm,’ said Anna.
‘What a peculiar wish,’ said the boy, delighted. ‘But yes, now that you say it, I believe I feel the same way. I should like to see him in a storm as well.’
They lapsed into silence. Anna waited for the boy to offer his name, but he did not speak again, and presently their solitude was interrupted by the arrival of others on deck. The boy doffed his hat, and Anna dropped a curtsey; in the next moment, he was gone. Anna turned back to the ocean. The colony was behind them now, and the grunts and squeals of the albatrosses had dwindled to nothing—swallowed by the deep thrum of the steamer, and the great roaring hush of the sea.
MERCURY IN PISCES; SATURN CONJUNCT MOON
In which Cowell Devlin makes a request; Walter Moody shows his mettle; and George Shepard is unpleasantly surprised.
Since the night of the autumnal equinox both Anna Wetherell and Emery Staines had remained incarcerated in the Police Camp gaol. Anna’s bail had been set at eight pounds, an outrageous sum, and one she could not possibly hope to pay without external help. This time, of course, she had no fortune sewn into her clothing to use as surety, and no employer who might consent to pay the debt on her behalf. Emery Staines might have stood her the money, had he not been remanded in custody on a charge of his own: he had been arrested, on the morning following his reappearance, on charges of fraud, embezzlement, and dereliction. His bail had been set at one pound one shilling—the standard rate—but he had opted not to pay it, preferring, instead, to remain with Anna, and to await his summons to the Magistrate’s Court.
Following their reunion, Anna’s health began to improve almost at once. Her wrists and forearms thickened, her face lost its pinched, starved quality, and the colour returned to her cheeks. This improvement was noted with satisfaction by the physician, Dr. Gillies, who in the weeks after the equinox had visited the Police Camp gaol-house nearly every day. He had spoken to Anna very sternly about the dangers of opium, expressing his fervent hope that her most recent collapse had cautioned her never to touch a pipe again: she had been lucky twice now, but she could not expect to be lucky a third time. ‘Luck,’ he said, ‘has a way of running short, my dear.’ He prescribed to her a decreasing dosage of laudanum, as a means of weaning her, by degrees, from her addiction.
To Emery Staines, Dr. Gillies prescribed the very same: five drams of laudanum daily, reducible by one dram a fortnight, until his shoulder had completely healed. The wound was looking much better for having been sewn and dressed, and although the joint was very stiff, and he could not yet raise his arm above his head, his health was likewise very rapidly improving. When Cowell Devlin brought the jar of laudanum into the Police Camp gaol-house each night, he watched eagerly as the chaplain poured the rust-coloured liquid into two tin cups. Staines could not account for his sudden and inconsolable thirst for the drug; Anna, however, did not seem to relish the daily dosage at all, and even wrinkled her nose at the smell. Devlin mixed the laudanum with sugar, and sometimes with sweet sherry, to allay the tincture’s bitter taste—and then, under the physician’s strict instruction, he stood over the two felons as they drank their twin measures down. It rarely took long for the opiate to take effect: within minutes they sighed, became drowsy, and passed into the underwater moonscape of a strange, scarlet-tinted sleep.
They slept, over the coming weeks, through a great many changes in Hokitika. On the first day of April, Alistair Lauderback was elected as the inaugural M.P. for the newly formed electoral district of Westland, achieving the majority by a triumphant margin of three hundred votes. In his speech of acceptance he praised Hokitika, calling the town ‘New Zealand’s nugget’; he went on to express his great sorrow at the prospect of quitting the place so soon, and assured the voting public that he would take the best interests of the common digger with him to the new capital city the following month, where he would serve his term in Parliament as a faithful Westland man. After Lauderback’s speech the Magistrate shook his hand very warmly, and the Commissioner led three rounds of Huzzah.
On the 12th of April, the walls of George Shepard’s gaol-house and asylum went up at last. The felons, Anna and Emery included, had been transferred from the temporary quarters at the Police Camp to the new building upon the terrace of Seaview, where Mrs. George was already installed as matron. Since Ah Sook’s death she had been kept very busy hemming blankets, sewing uniforms, cooking, tabulating stores, and making up weekly rations of tobacco and salt; she was seen, if possible, even less frequently than before. She spent her evenings in the Seaview graveyard, and her nights in the residence alone.
On the 16th, Francis Carver and Lydia Wells were finally married, before a crowd that, as the society pages of the
