Colour Scheme (6 page)

“So it is.”

“I see. But — Questing?”

“If you decide against the Springs,” said Dr. Ackrington, “you should convey your decision to my sister.”

“But,” Dikon repeated obstinately, “Questing?”

“Ignore him.”

“Oh.”

Steps sounded outside the window, and voices: Smith’s voice slurred but vicious; Colonel Claire’s high-pitched, perhaps a little hysterical; and Questing’s the voice of a bully. As they came nearer, odd sentences separated out from the general rumpus.

“… if the Colonel’s satisfied — It’s not a fair pop.”

“… never mind that. You’ve been asking for it and you’ll get it.”

“… sack me and see what you get, you — ”

“… most disgraceful scene — force my hand…”

“… kick you out to-morrow.”

“This is too much,” Colonel Claire cried out. “I’ve stood a great deal, Questing, but I must remind you that I still have some authority here.”

“Is that so? Where do you get it from? You’d better watch your step, Claire.”

“By God,” Smith roared out suddenly, “you’d better watch yours.”

Dr. Ackrington opened the door and stood on the threshold. Complete silence followed this move. Through the open door came a particularly strong wave of sulphurous air.

“I suggest, Edward,” Dr. Ackrington said, “that you continue your conversation in the laundry. Mr. Bell has no doubt formed the opinion that we do not possess one.”

He shut the door. “Let me give you another drink,” he said courteously.

“Five days ago,” said Gaunt, “you dangled this place before me like some atrocious bait. Now you do nothing but bemoan its miseries. You are strangely inconsistent.”

“In the interval,” said Dikon, wrenching the car out of a pothole, and changing down, “I have seen the place. I implore you to remember, sir, that you have been warned.”

“You overdid it. You painted it in macabre colours. My curiosity was stimulated. For pity’s sake, my dear Dikon, drive a little further away from the edge of the abyss. Can this mountain goat-track possibly be a main road?”

“It’s the only road from Harpoon to Wai-ata-tapu, sir. You wanted somewhere quiet, you know. And these are not mountains. There are no mountains in the Northland. The big stuff is in the South.”

“I’m afraid you’re a scenic snob. To me this is a mountain. When I fall over the edge of this precipice, I shall not be found with a sneer on my lips because the drop was merely five hundred feet instead of a thousand. There’s a most unpleasant smell about this place.”

“It’s the thermal smell. People are said to get to like it.”

“Nonsense. How are you travelling, Colly?”

Fenced in by luggage in the back seat, Colly replied that he kept his eyes closed at the curves. “I didn’t seem to notice it so much this morning in them forests,” he added. “It’s dynamite in the open.”

The road corkscrewed its way in and out of a gully and along a barren stretch of downland. On its left the coast ran freely northwards in a chain of scrolls, last interruptions in its firm line before it tightened into the Ninety Mile Beach. The thunder of the Tasman Sea hung like a vast rumour on the freshening air, and above the margin of the downs Rangi’s Peak was slowly erected.

“That’s an ominous-looking affair,” said Gaunt. “What is it about these hills that gives them an air of the fabulous? They are not so very odd in shape, not incredible like the Dolomites or imposing like the Rockies — not, as you point out in your superior way, Dikon, really mountains at all. Yet they seem to be pregnant with some tiresome secret. What is it?”

“Perhaps it’s something to do with the volcanic silhouette. If there’s a secret the answer’s in the Maori language. I’m afraid you’ll get very tired of that cone, sir. It looks over the hills round the Springs.” Dikon waited for a moment. Gaunt had a trick of showing a fugitive interest in places, of asking for expositions, and of growing restless when they were given to him.

“Why is the answer in Maori?” he said.

“It was a native burial-ground in the old days. They tipped the bodies into the crater. It’s extinct you know. Supposed to be full of them.”

“Good Lord!” said Gaunt softly.

The car climbed higher, and the base of Rangi’s Peak, a series of broad platforms and slopes, came into sight. “You can see quite clearly,” Dikon said, “the route they must have followed. Miss Claire tells me the tribes used to camp at the foot for three days holding a
tangi
, the Maori equivalent of a wake. Then the body was carried up the Peak by relays of bearers. They said that if it was a chief who had died, and if the air was still, you could hear the singing as far away as Wai-ata-tapu.”

“Gawd!” said Colly.

“Can you look into the crater and see…?”

“I don’t know. It’s a native reserve, the Claires told me. Very tapu of course.”

“What’s that?”

“Tapu? Taboo. Sacred. Forbidden. Untouchable. I don’t suppose the Maori people ever climb up the Peak nowadays. No admittance to the
Pakeha
, of course; it would be much too tempting a hunting-ground. They used to bury the chiefs’ weapons with them. There is a certain adze inherited by the chief Rewi who died about a hundred years ago and was buried on the Peak. This adze, his favourite weapon, was hidden up there. It had featured prominently and bloodily in the Maori wars, and had been spoken of in their oral schools of learning for generations before that. Rewi’s
toki-poutangata
. It has a secret mark on it, and was said to be invested with supernatural power by the god Tane. There it is, they say, a collector’s plum if ever there was one, somewhere on the Peak. The whole place belongs to the Maori people. It’s forbidden territory to the white hunter.”

“How far away is it?”

“About eight miles.”

“It looks less than three in this uncanny atmosphere.”

“Kind of black, sir, isn’t it?” said Colly.

“Black and clear,” said Gaunt. “A marvellous back drop.”

They drove on in silence for some time. The flowing hills moved slowly about as if in a contrapuntal measure determined, by the progress of the car. Dikon began to recognize landmarks, He felt extremely apprehensive.

“Hullo,” said Gaunt. “What’s that affair down on the right? A sort of doss-house, one would think.”

Dikon said nothing, but turned in at a ramshackle gate.

“You don’t dare to tell me that we have arrived,” Gaunt demanded in a loud voice.

“Yes, sir.”

“My God, Dikon, you’ll writhe for this. Look at it. Smell it. Colly, we are betrayed.”

“Mr. Bell warned you, sir,” Colly said. “I daresay it’s very comfortable.”

“If anything,” said, Dikon, “it’s less comfortable than it looks. Those are the Springs.”

“Those reeking puddles?”

“Yes. And there, on the verandah, I see the Claires assembled. You are expected, sir,” said Dikon. Out of the tail of his eyes he saw Gaunt’s gloved fingers go first to his tie and then to his hat. He thought suddenly: “He looks terribly like a famous actor.”

The car rocked down the last stretch of the drive and shot across the pumice sweep. Dikon pulled up at the verandah steps. He got out, and taking off his hat approached the expectant Claires. He felt nervous and absurd. The Claires were grouped after the manner of an Edwardian family portrait that had taken an eccentric turn. Mrs. Claire and the Colonel were in deck-chairs, Barbara sat on the steps grasping a reluctant dog. Dikon guessed that they wore their best clothes. Simon, obviously under duress, stood behind his mother’s chair looking murderous. All that was lacking, one felt, was the native equivalent of a gillie holding a couple of staghounds in leash. As Dikon approached, Dr. Ackrington came out of his room.

“Here we are, you see,” Dikon called out with an effort at gaiety. The Claires had risen. Impelled by confusion, doubt, and apology, Dikon shook hands blindly all round. Barbara looked nervously over his shoulder and he saw with a dismay which he afterwards recognized as prophetic that she had gone white to her unpainted lips.

He felt Gaunt’s hand on his arm and hurriedly introduced him.

Mrs. Claire brought poise to the situation, Dikon realized, but it was the kind of poise with which Gaunt was quite unfamiliar. She might have been welcoming a bishop-suffragan to a slum parish, a bishop-suffragan in poor health.

“Such a long journey,” she said anxiously. “You must be so tired.”

“Not a bit of it,” said Gaunt, who had arrived at an age when actors affect a certain air of youthful hardihood.

“But it’s such a dreadful road. And you
look very
tired,” she persisted gently. Dikon saw Gaunt’s smile grow formal. He turned to Barbara. For some reason which he had not attempted to analyze, Dikon wanted Gaunt to like Barbara. It was with apprehension that he watched her give a galvanic jerk, open her eyes very wide, and put her head on one side like a chidden puppy. “Oh hell,” he thought, “she’s going to be funny.”

“Welcome,” Barbara said in her sepulchral voice, “to the
humble abode
.” Gaunt dropped her hand rather quickly.

“Find us very quiet, I’m afraid,” Colonel Claire said, looking quickly at Gaunt and away again. “Not much in your line, this country, what?”

“But we’ve just been remarking,” Gaunt said lightly, “that your landscape reeks of theatre.” He waved his stick at Rangi’s Peak. “One expects to hear the orchestra.” Colonel Claire looked baffled and slightly offended.

“My brother,” Mrs. Claire murmured. Dr. Ackrington limped forward. Dikon’s attention was distracted from this last encounter by the behaviour of Simon Claire, who suddenly lurched out of cover, strode down the steps and seized the astounded Colly by the hand. Colly, who was about to unload the car, edged behind it.

“How are you?” Simon said loudly. “Give you a hand with that stuff.”

“That’s all right, thank you, sir.”

“Come on,” Simon insisted and laid violent hands on a pigskin dressing-case which he lugged from the car and dumped none too gently on the pumice. Colly gave a little cry of dismay.

“Here, here, here!” a loud voice expostulated. Mr. Questing thundered out of the house and down the steps. “Cut that out, young fellow,” he ordered and shouldered Simon away from the car.

“Why?” Simon demanded.

“That’s no way to treat high-class stuff,” bustled Mr. Questing with an air of intolerable patronage. “You’ll have to learn better than that. Handle it carefully.” He advanced upon Dikon. “We’re willing,” he laughed, “but we’ve a lot to learn. Well, well, well, how’s the young gentleman?”

He removed his hat and placed himself before Gaunt. His change of manner was amazingly abrupt. He might have been a lightning impersonator or a marionette controlled by some pundit of second-rate etiquette. Suddenly, he oozed deference. “I don’t think,” he said, “that I have had the honour — ”

“Mr. Questing,” said Dikon.

“This is a great day for the Springs, sir,” said Mr. Questing. “A great day.”

“Thank you,” said Gaunt, glancing at him. “If I may I should like to see my rooms.”

He turned to Mrs. Claire. “Dikon tells me you have taken an enormous amount of trouble on my behalf. It’s very kind indeed. Thank you so much.” And Dikon saw that with this one speech, delivered with Gaunt’s famous air of gay sincerity, he had captivated Mrs. Claire. She beamed at him. “I shall try not to be troublesome,” Gaunt added. And to Mr. Questing: “Right.”

They went in procession along the verandah. Mr. Questing, still uncovered, led the way.

Barbara sat on the edge of her stretcher-bed in her small hot room and looked at two dresses. Which should she wear for dinner on the first night? Neither of them was new. The red lace had been sent out two years ago by her youngest aunt who had worn it a good deal in India. Barbara had altered it to fit herself and something had gone wrong with the shoulder, so that it bulged where it should lie flat. To cover this defect she had attached a black flower to the neck. It was a long dress and she did not as a rule change for dinner. Simon might make some frightful comment if she wore the red lace. The alternative was a short floral affair, thick blue in colour with a messy yellow design. She had furbished it up with a devilish shell ornament and a satin belt and even poor Barbara wondered if it was a success. Knowing that she should be in the kitchen with Huia, she pulled off her print, dragged the red lace over her head and looked at herself in the inadequate glass. No, it would never become her dress, it would always hark back to unknown Aunty Wynne who two years ago had written: “Am sending a box of odds and ends for Ba. Hope she can wear red.” But could she? Could she plunge about in the full light of day in this ownerless waif of a garment with everybody knowing she had dressed herself up? She peered at her face, which was slightly distorted by the glass. Suddenly she hauled the dress over her head, fighting with the stuffy-smelling lace. “Barbara,” her mother called. “Where are you? Ba!”

“Coming!” Well, it would have to be the floral.

But when, hot and desperate, she had finally dressed, and covered the floral with a clean overall, she pressed her hands together. “O God,” she thought, “make him like it here! Please, dear God, make him like it.”

“Can you possibly endure it?” Dikon asked.

Gaunt was lying full length on the modern sofa. He raised his arms above his head. “All,” he whispered, “I can endure all but Questing. Questing must be kept from me.”

“But I told you—”

“You amaze me with your shameless parrot cry of ‘I told you so,’ ” said Gaunt mildly. “Let us have no more of it.” He looked out of the corner of his eye at Dikon. “And don’t look so tragic, my good ass,” he added. “I’ve been a small-part touring actor in my day. This place is strangely reminiscent of a one-night fit-up. No doubt I can endure it. I
should
be dossing down in an Anderson shelter, by God. I do well to complain. Only spare me Questing, and I shall endure the rest.”

“At least we shall be spared his conversation this evening. He has a previous engagement. Lest he offer to put it off, I told him you would be desolated but had already arranged to dine in your rooms and go to bed at nine. So away he went.”

“Good. In that case I shall dine
en famille
and go to bed when it amuses me. I have yet to meet Mr. Smith, remember. Is it too much to hope that he will stage another fight?”

“It seems he only gets drunk when his remittance comes in.” Dikon hesitated and then asked: “What did you think of the Claires, sir?”

“Marvellous character parts. Overstated, of course. Not quite West End. A number-one production on tour, shall we say? The Colonel’s moustache is a little too thick in both senses.”

Dikon felt vaguely resentful. “You captivated Mrs. Claire,‘’ he said.

Gaunt ignored this. “If one could take them as they are,” he said. “If one could persuade them to appear in those clothes and speak those lines! My dear, they’d be a riot. Miss Claire! Dikon, I didn’t believe she existed.”

“Actually,” said Dikon stiffly, “she’s rather attractive. If you look beyond her clothes.”

“You’re a remarkably swift worker if you’ve been able to do that.”

“They’re extraordinarily kind and, I think, very nice.”

“Until we arrived you never ceased to exclaim against them. Why have you bounced round to their side all of a sudden?”

“I only said, sir, that I thought you would be bored by them.”

“On the contrary I’m agreeably entertained. I think they’re all darlings and marvellous comedy. What
is
your trouble?”

“Nothing. I’m sorry. I’ve just discovered that I like them. I thought,” said Dikon, smiling a little in spite of himself, “that the tableau on the verandah was terribly sad. I wonder how long they’d been grouped-up like that.”