Skylark (9 page)

Jack whistles one of Lily’s songs as he curries the flank of the big bay gelding belonging to one of the hotel guests. His hands take the rhythm of the chorus; the horse twitches his ears and blows softly.

‘So, my beauty,’ he says, ‘you like her song too, eh? You should hear it from her lips. All the town is singing Miss Rosie’s ditties.’

Jack is proud of Lily’s singing, the way she can draw the audience in and bring tears to the eyes of the most hardened journeyman. Everyone is homesick for the ‘green and gentle land’ of England — or Ireland, or Scotland. While the gentlemen actors sing comic songs in funny accents, ‘Miss Rosie’ always sings sweet, sad numbers that quieten the rowdy audience as they dream of families back home, of paved streets and green fields, of laden apple trees and country lanes. Miss Rosie sings them back to those memories.

But the plays are another matter. Jack combs more firmly, tightens his grip on the bay’s mane, thinking about the plays: the melodramas and particularly the bawdy farces. He nearly walked out of the theatre to see his sweetheart play a fallen woman, pregnant to a bullying landlord. And playing the part so realistically that he could believe it was all true. Then later in the same evening, there she was on stage in the farce, acting the part of a stupid, rude serving girl, lacking any manners or decorum. All the men around him — the audiences were
mostly men — laughed and jeered to see her. Jack hated her appearance — dirty smock, hair scruffy, face smudged — and the way she played up to them, thrusting a finger in her ear and wagging her head as if she had lost her senses.

‘But Jack,’ she had laughed later, as he walked her back to her boarding house, ‘that is just a good performance. If you hated seeing me like that, then I am doing well, don’t you see? I have fooled you into thinking that silly wench is me!’

Jack doesn’t see it like that. He wants to take her away from theatres and performances in front of drunken, rough audiences. He wants her to sing in parlours — his own parlour — for well-bred friends and neighbours, not for money. He wants her to marry him.

They get on well enough. They laugh together on Jack’s days off; explore the little town. Why won’t she accept his proposal? I’ll try again today, he thinks. She will see how the Baron trusts me; see how my prospects are improving.

Later that day, Jack and Lily, both mounted on Domino,
progress
along the waterfront past the fine new Custom House, towards the Watering Place. Though it is Monday, no one is at work. The Provincial Secretary has decreed two days of festivities to celebrate fifteen years of European settlement. Out on the harbour a flotilla of sailing boats tries to race in the windless air. Children shout and whoop while a sweating Wesleyan
superintendent
tries to organise them into sack races, egg-and-spoon races and hunt-the-thimble on the beach by their chapel. Family groups head around the shore towards Oriental Bay, Mother carrying the picnic basket, Father the rug and bottled ale, children running alongside.

Jack is leading a string of five horses from the Baron’s stables. Two of them are the Baron’s treasured thoroughbreds who habitually win prizes, competing along the beach or up at Te Aro Flat. Tomorrow they will need to be at their best for the anniversary races. The sun shines; this is a perfect summer’s day. Jack remembers holding Lily close like this, back in Whanganui
when she worked for the circus. Now they are courting and soon, he hopes, will be a married couple.

They walk past Te Aro pa, where several townsfolk are
inspecting
vegetables and fruit laid out for sale. Jack jumps down, pays a young native woman two pennies for a tiny basket of strawberries, and is back mounted before Domino can take it into his head to move. Their little cavalcade moves on towards the swampy place where the little stream flows down from Wellington Basin into the harbour: the Watering Place. The horses pick their way into the cool water, bend to drink or tear mouthfuls of watercress from the swamp. Jack and Lily, comfortable on Domino’s broad back, eat the sweet strawberries, greeting, with a nod or a wave, other carters and gentlemen watering their horses. Up on the town belt a flour mill, owned by a Maori family, clanks and grinds. Out on the harbour several sailing ships lie at anchor. At Baron Alzdorf’s jetty, men are fishing peacefully. No loading or unloading on this public holiday. Barrett’s jetty and the public jetty are similarly in holiday mood.

Jack heads the horses deeper up the swampy stream which will soon be turned, they say, into a canal, leading to a safe harbour up at the Basin. ‘And where will we water our mounts then?’ asks Jack aloud.

‘But think of the benefits, Jack.’ Lily is always quick with her views. ‘The town is growing fast and we need our shipping to be safe from these dreadful storms.’

Jack snorts. ‘The town cannot grow without horses. How would we manage to get about? How get the goods from ship to store? How mount Colonel McCleverty’s cavalry in times of war? The town — and the whole country — cannot run smoothly without good horseflesh. You will see, I have chosen a trade that is vital. I will prosper, Lily.’

Lily speaks with her face half turned away from him as the horses wander further into the swamp. ‘Dear Jack, I know you have. I love the proud way you sit on a horse, and your careful, tender way with them. I know Baron Alzdorf trusts you with his best mounts. But …’ Lily breaks into a little laugh. ‘… Now
you are going to propose to me again, I can feel it coming!’ She turns, as agile on horseback as he, to place a finger on his mouth. ‘Don’t. Let’s not spoil this lovely morning.’

They walk in silence up to the Baron’s field on Te Aro Flat. Jack dismounts, detaches the lead reins from the five horses and smacks them, a little too roughly, on their shining rumps. They trot away, willingly enough. When Jack turns back, there is his sweetheart standing on Domino, her feet planted firmly behind the saddle! As he watches she urges Domino forward, pirouetting gently, carefully as he walks. Jack daren’t speak for fear she will fall. Domino is not some circus pony, trained in fancy footwork. But Lily surely knows this. Before disaster strikes, she jumps down from his back, landing upright on the soft grass, her skirt billowing and her dark curls flying in the air. Oh, what a wilful beauty she is! Jack runs to her, his heart beating, so full of conflicting emotions he can’t speak.

He holds her tight. ‘You could have been killed! My dear, dear Lily …’

Her eyes are shining. ‘I can still do it! I just wanted to see …’

And later, when they have spread their blanket and eaten their picnic, Lily speaks, her eyes serious, her words loving.

‘I will marry you, Jack, but not yet, not for a while. Can you bear that? I love what I do. I love the theatre. I know you think it a rough and disreputable sort of life, but there is skill in what I’m learning. I bring pleasure to people, as you do to horses. I love to learn new lines and take on the character of strange people — pitiable, or laughable, or heroic. I love it when you feel the audience draw in — holding their breath for fear of losing a single word. If I marry you now, there will soon be babies. Not even Mrs Foley will put a lady who is expecting on stage. It’s the worst kind of luck.’

Jack bites back his response. He kisses her gently and she returns the favour. At least she has made a promise of sorts. He looks around him, at the horses grazing peacefully; the blue, windless sky; his Lily, her skin golden in the sun, sitting beside him on the rug. I must remember this day, he thinks: the first
time she pledged herself to me. I must remember every minute. Was it a premonition of the trials and difficulties ahead that made him take careful stock of the moment? Or simply that such great pleasure drew itself indelibly on his memory, waiting to be taken out and polished again and again in later years?

And recounted, so much later, to his son.

He kisses her again. Lily smiles and pulls at his ear. For a while, holding each other on that sunny morning, they are completely happy — Jack is sure she feels the same. It is only time, thinks Jack. She is growing into womanhood; I must be patient. Then, leaving the Baron’s horses to graze, they remount and trot back to the beach where races and competitions for the adults will soon begin.

The second day of the holiday, Tuesday, is the other side of the coin entirely. A cold wind blows, choppy waves on the harbour play havoc with the sailing races, and at midday a squalling rain puts a temporary halt to the horse races. The Baron is in a bad mood. His best thoroughbred has pulled up lame halfway through the first furlong; the groom is blamed for not preparing the horse better. Jack knows this is unfair. The rider, a young settler and a protégé of the Baron’s, rode Daylight too hard. Jack could have done better himself. But the Baron cannot be coached into his usual genial smiles.

‘How can we show this sad little town how to run a good race, if the wind will blow sand into the horses’ eyes, and the natives shout so loud? How?’

Even his plump, laughing wife, resplendent in purple silk, cannot break his mood. Another premonition?

‘Go back to the hotel,’ he orders Jack, ‘and see to our patrons’ mounts. They will be leaving soon if this weather does not better become.’ As if to underline his words, the weather throws a driving rain from the north, sending the holiday crowds rushing for saloons and homes or back into their shanties and whares. Jack trudges back to the stables along muddy, windy Lambton Quay. He’d like to go to see Lily at the theatre tonight but there’s
little chance the Baron will grant him free time, given the mood he’s in.

As the evening darkens, the remaining horses in the stables become restless. Daylight, the lame thoroughbred, is particularly skittish. He blows and snorts, turning this way and that in his stall, jerking at his tether. When Jack tries to sooth him the wretch gives him a nasty nip. This is so unlike Daylight that Jack studies the horse carefully, looking for signs of a deeper injury.

At that moment, as if a giant horseman has laid a whip across the backs of the four beasts, they all whinny in unison. The sound of their hooves knocking the walls of the stalls is like a roll of thunder. Jack is frightened. What on earth is going on? He pulls tightly on Daylight’s rein, trying to steady his tossing head. But the thunder of the hooves is suddenly swallowed by a deafening crack and the world splits apart. Jack is flung to the floor while four terrified horses race out into the night, galloping madly through a heaving, shattering town.

Jack tries to pick himself up, but is flung to the floor again. Harnesses fly through the air; a dog-cart which had been stowed neatly, tipped and tied against the wall, breaks free and rolls down the length of the empty stable. The stack of hay bales topples; two of the bales land neatly in the rolling dog-cart, steadying its progress. And all the while the grinding, roaring noise under his sprawling body: the heave and toss of an angry, vengeful earth.

As the shaking subsides, Jack realises that this must be an earthquake. Now he hears screaming in the street, and an enormous whump as a building somewhere collapses. Out, out, he must be out in the open air! Like the horses, he feels the need to run. Jack stumbles down the alley, past the groaning, swaying hotel and into Willis Street. There, the Baron, who experienced the 1848 quake, is marshalling his frightened patrons.

‘It will all be over soon!’ he shouts. ‘Stay, stay here in the street! Keep close by me! See!’ he gestures grandly at Baron’s Hotel. ‘See how firm she stands? A few glasses and crocks are all that break. A moment, dear friends, to wait.’

At that very moment another shock begins to build and the street is filled again with screams and shouts. The Baron slaps his forehead dramatically. ‘My darlink wife! She is all alone inside. My dear brave wife, she knows how safe the Baron’s Hotel is. Stay, stay all friends, while I go to comfort her, bring her out!’

And in he runs, staggering as the aftershock rocks the building again. Jack hears another crash around the corner in the Quay, and then a nearer, quieter rumble. The crowd groans in awe as the hotel’s huge double chimney folds up as if it were paper and disappears down through the roof.

As the dust settles a ghostly figure runs out into the night air. Her face, her hair, her plump cheeks shine in the moonlight as whitely as her nightgown. It is the Baroness Alzdorf herself, screaming for her husband.

‘But he just ran in!’ says a lady guest. ‘He is inside!’

The Baroness turns to gaze at the swaying building. All stare at the grand door, waiting for him to emerge. For a moment the crowd is still. The earth quietens too. The silence is immense. Then a new danger appears. Slowly a crack opens along the street and through it pours a sticky, heaving mass of mud, spewing like vomit from the open maw of the fissure. It flows silently, spreading along the street and into doorways. Suddenly everyone is shouting and running. Lanterns bob this way and that. The Baron is forgotten in this new terror from beneath the earth.

Jack runs too. It is all more horrible than he can bear. Along Lambton Quay he runs, past the new Union Bank, which has lost its whole elegant front, the walls of the offices open to the sky; past the Government Offices — or what
was
that building. The sentinel, who should be calling the hour, stands dazed in front of the rubble. No ‘Ten o’clock and all’s well!’ will sound tonight. In front of the Council Chambers, also a ruin of stone and brick, a storm of papers and journals is whirling in the wind. What records will be lost tonight? What will it matter anyway, in this madness? Surely this will be the end of Wellington.

Jack stops suddenly and lies flat as another shock rips through the earth. Lily. What is he doing? Lily, Lily, he thinks. I am
running in the wrong direction. She will be at the theatre. As he rises unsteadily and starts walking gingerly back along the Quay, he sees, lit by ragged, racing moonlight, the sea coming in. Slowly it surges towards him, rising over his shoes, his ankles. He sees people run from their houses, run across the street and up towards Wellington Terrace. Oh God, will this nightmare have no end? The Quay is under water, but not deeply so. Jack wades on, and into Willis Street, which is still dry. A small crowd has gathered again in front of Baron’s Hotel.