Tamar (21 page)

It was, however, the younger man who caused Tamar to swallow her sherry the wrong way and choke painfully. Peter patted her absently on the back as she leaned forward to hurriedly put her drink down. Recovering, she regained her composure but could not prevent herself from staring. Kepa was quite possibly the most beautiful man she had ever seen. She remembered her manners and lowered her eyes, but not before his image seared itself into her mind and her very soul.

‘Right, then,’ announced Frank Coulthard jovially. ‘We’re all here now so shall we go in to dinner?’ He offered his arm to his wife and led his guests into the dining salon, a smaller but equally elegant room off the wide hall.

They were seated at a huge oval dining table and chatted amongst themselves while they waited. There was an ornate silver epergne holding a low but extensive floral arrangement in the centre of the table, flanked by two pairs of silver candlesticks and five or six small fluted silver dishes containing relishes and sauces, and a bewildering array of cutlery. Tamar was seated with Thomas Beck on one side and a short, corpulent man whose name she had forgotten on the other. Peter sat opposite between Te Kanene and one of the female guests, and Kepa was seated further down on Peter’s right. When Tamar looked over at the young Maori he was staring openly back at her. She blushed and quickly looked away.

Te Kanene, missing nothing, leaned back in his chair and motioned to his nephew. ‘
E tama! Kaue e tiromakutu. He whakatoi
!’ he hissed. Kepa, well aware that staring was indeed rude, lowered his eyes briefly.

First came tiny mussel fritters, then a huge tray on which rested a rack of lamb surrounded by roasted potatoes and yams, followed by several dishes of minted peas, squash and tiny carrots, and a basket of warm, fresh bread rolls. Several bottles of wine were also brought to the table. Again, Tamar was pleased to see Peter place his hand over his unused wine glass and indicate he would prefer water.

She felt a little out of place surrounded by people she did not know and who were obviously much more at ease with the social situation, but she managed not to scatter her peas across the fine damask tablecloth and kept a surreptitious eye on which piece of cutlery Thomas Beck used with which dish. She noted Te Kanene’s table manners were considerably more polished than her own. Peter seemed quite at home but she wished he had warned her the evening would be so formal. He seemed to forget she didn’t come from the same social stratum and was not yet practised at the level of etiquette required at such occasions.

She was therefore horrified when she stuck her fork into a slightly under-cooked yam and it shot off her plate and disappeared under the gracefully arching leaves of the floral arrangement. Oh God. Should she retrieve it and put it back on her plate, or ignore it? She looked around and saw Kepa smiling directly at her, clearly amused. She felt a terrible urge to laugh and bit her lip hard to stop herself.

She was saved, however, by Thomas Beck, who speared the yam deftly with his fork, popped it into his mouth and said chattily, ‘I’m particularly partial to yams myself. Thank you so much for putting it to one side for me, Mrs Montgomery.’

‘You are welcome, Mr Beck. They
are
very tasty, are they not?’

‘Indeed,’ he replied, smiling broadly. ‘You, my dear, are simply stunning. I am surprised your husband has not introduced you to Auckland society before now.’

‘Thank you, Mr Beck. We have not long been married, and we spend much of our time on Peter’s block in the Waitakeres. Perhaps you know it?’

‘No, never been out your way, we’re further up near Kumeu, but I know Peter. Quite well, in fact. Everything going well now, is it?’ he asked.

‘Yes, it is, thank you,’ she replied, not quite sure what he was implying.

Thomas Beck elaborated. ‘The financial side of his business, I mean. I see the loan as an investment really, although I am aware of course that what he’s already borrowed from the bank will have to be repaid first. But I hear that’s a good little block of land. If Peter’s plans for its development come to fruition, I should see my money doubled, I expect.’

Loan? Bank? What plans? Tamar was mystified and beginning to feel slightly foolish. ‘Yes, yes,’ she replied vaguely. ‘I expect you will. I hope so, anyway.’ What had Peter been up to now?

Across the table, Kepa was talking to Abigail Coulthard. Tamar watched him out of the corner of her eye and was again struck by how extraordinarily attractive he was. Not conventionally handsome, but somehow wild and very, very alive. He wore his black shoulder-length hair tied back in a short, tightly plaited queue and his left ear was pierced with a small greenstone stud. His nose was well defined but straight and quite narrow, although its lines suggested he may come to resemble Te Kanene as he grew older. His lips were full and curved, almost arrogant, and his dark eyes rimmed with long, thick black lashes most women would kill for. A small, fine scar running from his hairline into his left eyebrow did not detract from his appearance. He was not tattooed and was clean-shaven, and seemed to have very little facial hair, although he was clearly beyond boyhood. He was darker than Riria, his rich skin colour accentuated by the white
shirt and pale gold waistcoat he was wearing. When he smiled his teeth were strong and white in his dark face.

‘I say, this is a nice drop,’ said Harold McLeod, the rotund man sitting next to Tamar, holding up his glass of red wine and squinting at it. ‘You can’t beat a good Frog burgundy. Whoops, I hope no one here’s a Good Templar? Or French?’

‘I’m neither,’ said Frank Coulthard. ‘I suspect being a Prohibitionist would be no fun at all, so I don’t mind if my soul is damned by the indulgence of my sensual appetites. If drinking wine like this is a sin, then I’m going straight to hell, I’m afraid.’

James Wallace, a man in his late thirties sitting on Abigail Coulthard’s right, announced, ‘I read somewhere the other day that the Prohibitionists are saying the fight for temperance is one of class more than anything else. You know, the humble working man against “the luxuries and appetites, the financial greed and moral inertia of the well-to-do”, I think the wording was.’

‘That’s silly,’ said his wife Mary, from the other end of the table.

‘That’s us, isn’t it?’ added Julia Beck, sounding faintly bemused.

‘It’s those poor natives I feel sorry for,’ said Ena McLeod patronisingly. She was as round and as tactless as her husband. Tamar winced and glanced at Te Kanene. Mrs McLeod barged on regardless. ‘You see them lying drunk in the street, it’s disgusting. Even the women. They don’t seem able to control themselves. It must be dreadful to have a such a debilitating character defect.’

There was a brief, embarrassed silence and Peter avoided Tamar’s eye.

Kepa spoke up. ‘But who is selling it to them? That is the question that should be asked.’

‘Oh, unscrupulous
Pakeha
traders. As usual,’ replied Frank Coulthard. ‘They trade it in exchange for land, and it wouldn’t surprise me if it’s officially condoned. Covertly, of course, but I suspect the Native Land Courts. Either that or the poor buggers
are plied with alcohol until they don’t know what they’re doing, pardon my language ladies, then when they awake the following day, they find they’ve signed away their tribal lands for next to nothing. Or they get into debt and lose it anyway.
That
is what is dreadful, Mrs McLeod, not the occasional intoxicated Maori in the street. And there are plenty of European drunks rolling around in the gutters as well. Mind you, I understand in the Hawke’s Bay and on the East Coast there are just as many sly grog shops run by Maoris as there are by
Pakeha
.’

‘That is true,’ agreed Te Kanene benignly, cutting into a slice of pink lamb.

‘You hail from there, do you not?’ asked Abigail Coulthard.

Te Kanene nodded. ‘Our
iwi
is Ngati Kahungunu and our ancestral lands reach from Wairoa to Wairarapa.’

‘Te Kanene is in coastal shipping,’ explained Frank Coulthard, deftly changing the subject. ‘And a bit of overseas trade as well, I believe. I understand your people have been in the business for decades. What is it you haul?’

‘Timber and gum, and anything else that will go on a clipper, a schooner or a scow,’ replied Te Kanene. ‘Many types of cargo. From sheep and wool to cattle and foodstuffs, passengers and their household goods. It will be a scow that will transport Mr Montgomery’s timber from Paratutae in a week or so.’

‘So how many vessels do you have?’ asked Harold McLeod curiously.

‘Seven,’ answered Te Kanene, a measure of undisguised pride in his voice.

‘And it’s a family business?’

‘Yes. I am training my
iramutu
, my nephew Kepa here, to take over the management. I am becoming too old to spend my days at sea and I wish to have my feet on firm ground in my advancing years. He is grown enough and I will pass the responsibility to
him soon. He has a good head for business.’

Abigail Coulthard said, ‘Frank tells me your wife often accompanies you on your voyages. She must be a remarkable woman.’

‘She does, yes, and she is,’ responded Te Kanene. ‘Although she too is growing tired. She would like to spend more time with her
mokopuna
, so it will suit both of us.’

Julia Beck turned to her right. ‘And will
your
wife accompany
you
, Kepa?

The young Maori man looked her steadily in the eye. ‘I do not have a wife.’

‘No? Surely you must be quite a catch for some young maiden?’ she replied, ignoring her husband’s stern look of disapproval.

‘Perhaps,’ said Kepa. ‘But I am not ready for marriage. I have not yet met the woman I wish to spend my life with.’

‘We have tried to marry him off,’ interjected Te Kanene. ‘But it seems he has his own ideas about what a wife should be. But he is only twenty and is young. There is time.’

Peter, who had noticed Kepa gazing openly at Tamar, was uncomfortable with talk of the young Maori’s marital status. ‘So which ports do you trade from, apart from the Manukau?’ he asked abruptly, deliberately changing the subject.

‘Those on the East Coast and the Hawke’s Bay,’ answered Te Kanene quickly, observing Peter’s irritation. ‘Sometimes we come up north as far as Moehau, or the Coromandel as you call it, and the Waitemata, and now and then to Paratutae or Whatipu or Kaipara on the West Coast for the timber trade. But we generally ply from the ports of Auckland and Tauranga to Dunedin, and more often between Te Kaha and Oamaru. I have also taken clippers to the Americas and to England in the past, although I am unsure at this time if we will continue to venture so far afield. That will be up to Kepa.’

Peter said, ‘I thought most of the coastal shipping was in
European hands now. You still seem to have a fairly robust business. How is that?’

‘We change with the times, despite the fact we still use sail and not steam. You may be aware Maori coastal traders are denied access to steam-powered vessels.’ Te Kanene said this in the blandest of tones but did not drop his gaze. ‘We also have considerable capital. It has therefore not been easy for other traders to put us out of business, although it has been tried. So, unlike other Maori ventures, our line has remained solvent and successful. Of course, the coming of the railway may change that.’

After dessert, the women were escorted by Abigail Coulthard to the parlour for tea, coffee or cocoa, while the men retired with her husband to the drawing room for port and cigars.

The women discussed fashions, the theatre, children, interior decorating and, incongruously, the latest attempts to discourage prostitution and rescue the city’s fallen women from their immoral and slavish profession. There was already one refuge for such unfortunates in the city, financed by Auckland’s social and financial elite, but the problem was still rife. Tamar wondered briefly if Myrna’s ears were burning, but she doubted it; she knew Myrna’s views on what she termed ‘interfering do-gooders,’ and they were not generous, although she believed the refuges were a good idea for street girls who either needed a rest or wanted to get out of the business.

‘I do think we should be sympathetic of the poor creatures,’ Mary Wallace announced fervently. ‘They are victims of social injustice and poverty. We have an unfair economic system and these women are suffering because of it. It is an abomination.’

The other women in the room looked at her in mild surprise.

‘I had not realised you were one of these new feminists, Mary dear,’ commented Ena McLeod, straining the seams on her already protesting evening gown by reaching for the sugar bowl. ‘How fascinating.’

‘I am not a feminist. I simply feel we should concentrate less on punishing the poor wretches and direct our energy more towards their rehabilitation. They should not be blamed for what has befallen them.’

‘That is of course true,’ responded Julia Beck wryly. ‘If men were not so keen to pay for the services of these women, there would not be a problem, would there?’

‘Oh, but it’s only the poorer sorts who have to pay for that sort of thing in any case,’ insisted Ena McLeod. ‘Gentlemen never do.’

There was an incredulous silence. Julia Beck snorted indelicately. I must tell Myrna, thought Tamar. Her business will be ruined.

‘Yes, well,’ said Abigail Coulthard, and changed the subject to that of the City Council’s plans for a new design competition to upgrade Albert Park.

Tamar tried to pay attention but her mind kept wandering back to the young Maori, Kepa. What was it about him? Why did she find him so hypnotic? She felt confused, guilty and rather shocked. Tamar had not formed the same derogatory opinion of the race Peter had, but still, to be so physically attracted to a native man was disturbing. One heard about European men who fell in love with Maori women and sometimes even married them, but for a white woman to have those sorts of feelings towards a Maori man was indecent. The idea of what those physical stirrings might lead to conjured an image of herself Tamar had never considered or even suspected. The vision was frightening, but uncomfortably exciting.