Ngaio Marsh - Color Scheme

Barbara nodded. “Yes. I didn’t change before dinner because of the washing-up. Huia wants to get off. But that’s not what I mean about being happy…”

He cut in quickly. She must not be allowed to tell him the true reason for her bliss. “Haven’t you an idea who sent it to you?”

“None. Honestly. You see,” said Barbara conclusively, “we don’t know anyone in New Zealand well enough. You’d have to be a great friend, almost family, wouldn’t you, to give a present like that? That’s what’s so puzzling.”

Mr. Questing appeared from the dining-room in all the glory of a dinner jacket, a white waistcoat and his post-prandial cigar. As far as anybody at the Springs knew, he had not been invited to the concert, but evidently he meant to take advantage of its new and public character.

“What’s all this I hear about a new dress?” he asked genially.

“I shall be late,” said Barbara and hurried into the house.

Dikon reflected that surely nobody in the world but Mr. Questing would have had the gall, after what had happened by the lake, to attempt another three-cornered conversation with Barbara and himself. In some confusion, and because he could think of nothing else to say, Dikon murmured something about the arrival of an anonymous present. Mr. Questing took it very quietly. For a little while he made no comment, and then, with a foxy look at Dikon, he said: “Well, well, well, is that so? And the little lady just hasn’t got a notion where it came from? Fancy that, now.”

“I believe,” said Dikon, already regretting his indiscretion, “that there is an aunt in India.”

“And the pretty things come from Auckland, eh?”

“I don’t think I said so.”

“That’s quite all right, Mr. Bell. Maybe you didn’t,” Mr. Questing conceded. “Between you and me, Mr. Bell, I know all about it.”

“What!” cried Dikon, flabbergasted. “You do! But how the devil…?”

“Just a little chat with Dorothy Lamour.”

“With…?”

“My pet name for the Dusky Maiden,” Mr. Questing explained.

“Oh,” said Dikon, greatly relieved. “Huia.”

“Where do you reckon it came from, yourself?” asked Mr. Questing with an atrocious wink.

“The aunt, undoubtedly,” said Dikon firmly, and on the wings of a rapid flight of fancy he added: “She’s in the habit of sending things to Miss Claire who writes to her most regularly. A very likely explanation is that at some time or another Miss Claire has mentioned this shop.”

“Oh yeah?” said Mr. Questing. “Accidental-done-on-purpose, sort of?”

“Nothing of the kind,” said Dikon furiously. “The most natural thing in the world…”

“O.K., O.K., Mr. Bell. Quite so. You mustn’t mind my little joke. India,” he added thoughtfully. “That’s quite a little way off, isn’t it?” He walked away, whistling softly and waving his cigar. Dikon uttered a few very raw words under his breath. “He’s guessed!” he thought. “Blast him, if he gets a chance he’ll tell her.” He polished his glasses on his handkerchief and stared dimly after the retreating figure of Mr. Questing. “Or will he?” he added dubiously.

Although it had been built with European tools, the meetinghouse at the native settlement followed the traditional design of all Maori buildings. It was a single room surmounted by a ridged roof which projected beyond the gable. The barge-boards and supporting pillars were intricately covered in the formidable mode of Polynesian art. Growing out of the ridge-pole stood a wooden god with out-thrust tongue and eyes of shell, squat, menacing, the symbol of the tribe’s fecundity and its will to do battle. The traditional tree-fern poles and thatching had been replaced by timber and galvanized iron, but, nevertheless, the meeting-house contrived to distil a quintessence of savagery and of primordial culture.

The floor space, normally left clear, was now filled with a heterogeneous collection of seats. The Claires’ armchairs, looking mildly astonished at their own transplantation, were grouped together in the front row. They faced a temporarily erected stage which was decked out with tree-fern, exquisitely woven cloaks, Union Jacks and quantities of fly-blown paper streamers. On the back were hung coloured prints of three Kings of England, two photographs of former premiers, and an enlargement of Rua as an M.P. On the platform stood a hard-bitten piano, three chairs and a table bearing the insignia of all British gatherings, a carafe of untempting water and a tumbler.

The Maori members of the audience had been present more or less all day. They squatted on the floor, on the edge of the stage, on the permanent benches along the sides and all over the verandah and front steps.

Among them was Eru Saul. Groups of youths collected round Eru. He talked to them in an undertone. There was a great deal of furtive giggling and sudden guffaws. At intervals Eru and his following would slouch off together and when they returned the boys were always noisier and more excited. At seven o’clock Simon, Colly and Smith arrived with three more chairs from Wai-ata-tapu. Colly and Simon stood about looking self-conscious, but Smith was at once absorbed into Eru Saul’s faction.

“Hey, Eru!” said Smith, who had a pair of pumps in his pocket. “Do we wind up with a dance?”

“No chance!”

“No fear you don’t wind up with a dance,” said a woman’s voice. “Last time you wind up with a dance you got tight. If you can’t behave yourselves you don’t have dances.”

“Too bad,” said Smith.

The owner of the voice was seated on the floor with her back against the stage. She was Mrs. Te Papa, an old lady with an incredibly aristocratic head tied up in a cerise handkerchief. Over her European dress she wore, in honour of the occasion, a magnificent flax skirt. She was the leading great-grandmother of the hapu and, though she did not bother much about her title, a princess of the Te Rarawas. Being one of the last of the old regime she had a tattooed chin. From her point of vantage she was able to call full-throated greetings and orders to members of her clan as they drifted in and out or put finishing touches to the decorations. She spoke always in Maori. If one of the younger fry answered her in English she reached forward and caught the offender a good-natured buflfet. One of the oddities of contemporary Maori life may be seen in the fact that, though some of the people in outlying districts use a fragmentary and native-sounding form of English, yet they have only a rudimentary knowledge of their own tongue.

At half-past seven visitors from Harpoon and the surrounding districts began to appear. Old Rua Te Kahu came in wearing a feather cloak over his best suit and, with great urbanity, moved among his guests. Mrs. Te Papa rose magnificently and walked with the correct swinging gait of her youth to her appointed place.

At a quarter to eight a party of five white gentlemen, unhappily dressed in dinner suits and carrying music, were ushered into a special row of seats near the platform. These were members of the Harpoon Savage Club, famous throughout the district for their rendering in close harmony of Irish ballads. The last of them, an anxious small man, carried a large black bag, for he was also a ventriloquist. They were followed by a little girl with permanently waved hair who was dressed in frills, by her fierce mother, and by a firmly cheerful lady who carried a copy of One Day When We Were Young . It was to be a mixed entertainment.

An observer might have noticed that while the ladies of the district exchanged many nods and smiles, occasionally pointing at each other with an air of playful astonishment, their men merely acknowledged one another by raising their eyebrows, winking, or very slightly inclining their heads to one side. This procedure changed when the member for the district came in as he shook hands heartily with almost everybody. At five minutes to eight the Mayor arrived with the Mayoress and shook hands with literally anyone who confronted him. They were shown into armchairs. By this time all the seats except those reserved for the official party were full and there were Maoris standing in solid groups at the far end of the hall, or settling themselves in parties on the floor. With the arrival of their guests they became circumspect and quiet. Those beautiful voices, that can turn English into a language composed almost entirely of deep-throated vowels, fell into silence, and the meeting-house buzzed with the noise made by white New Zealanders in the mass. It became very hot and the Maori people thought indulgently that it smelt of pakeha , while the pakehas thought a little less indulgently that it smelt of Maori.