Restless Earth/Chapter 6

At the end of a wonderful hour Patricia sat up, stretched her arms to remove a slight cramp in them, reached for the hat which she had discarded, and, with constant reference to the small mirror attached to the flap of her handbag, drew it over the gleaming hair which she contrived to pat into some order.

The clear-cut lines of her face seemed softened, and unwonted colour heightened her beauty. She sighed happily.

“Having decided to postpone my departure from your charming town, Mr. Harley,” she said lightly, “it behoves me to look into the modiste’s business, which, of late, I have somewhat neglected.”

James Harley, lying stretched at full length upon the sand, his head pillowed upon his folded hands, looked lazily at her lithe, stooping back with indulgent amusement.

“Having languished so long, the business will stand another brief hour of neglect, surely?” he protested.

“It’s not so much the business as my conscience, Jimmy. I haven’t earned my salary for a month past; and I feel sure the girls are chafing under the strain. Besides, I feel in the mood to design things—evening ensembles and things like that. My fancy has become exuberant and the world a wonderful place to play in. I feel clever, silly, and joyful. That’s the sort of fool I am!”

“I understand. I feel inspired, too.”

“To write a real love story?” she asked, glancing at him mischievously.

“No, to lie here and enjoy myself.”

“Lazy!”

“Pat, you look wonderful to-day. Green suits you.”

“Perhaps. But this dress is blue.”

“Is it? So it is. Must be the light which gives it that green tinge. Doesn’t crease easily—that’s one ​good thing about it. But, it isn’t absolutely essential that you go back to town to-day?”

“I must, Jimmy. I have to attend to the Langham-woman’s fittings.”

“Confound the Langham woman! Let her wait. She has interfered in our affairs long enough.”

“I really must go———”

“But what am I to do with the remainder of this glorious afternoon?”

“Lie in the sun and dream, or wander these stretching miles of wind-swept beach in an agony of delicious loneliness,” she smiled.

Harley shook his head slowly.

“My wandering is finished,” he said softly.

Patricia leaned over him impulsively and kissed his ready lips.

“I hope it is, Jimmy. I hope it is.”

Her mood changed. She sat back upon her heels and looked at him with a slight frown.

“But, remember, I gave you your chance, Jimmy,” she said, her tones sharpened and her mouth firm.

He looked up at her gravely.

“I will remember,” he replied; “and I will remember that I took my chance, and be grateful all the days of my life.”

“You know I didn’t mean that, Jimmy———”

“Dear heart, the day is too precious to waste in vain argument,” he protested with a smile. “I’ll remember all you tell me. I’ll remember you were ready and willing to sacrifice yourself if it would have meant happiness for Grace and for me. Grace will remember, also.”

“Grace?”

“I intend to write and tell her all that has happened in this hour———”

“All?”

“All. Everything. It will be there in writing for her—a confession which will give her freedom.”

Patricia caught her breath sharply.

“It is only right, Pat,” he insisted apologetically, ​raising himself upon one elbow. “It is all I—we—can do for her. That, and pray that she find happiness somewhere.”

They were silent for some seconds, looking steadily into each other’s eyes and the future.

“But, what will people say?” she asked at last.

Harley smiled.

“Pat, I expected something more original from you,” he said in mild reproach.

“Don’t you care what they say?”

“No. Not a scrap.”

“But this is such a small town, Jimmy. Everybody knows you.”

“This is a small town, and nobody knows me,” he corrected. “I haven’t known myself until this last month. Heavens, woman! I am not ashamed! I’m proud! That for our local society!” He snapped his fingers. “How can its censure affect me? Am I dependent upon local society for my bread? And while I have you and bread, what else is there left for me to desire?”

“‘A book of verse, a jug of wine———’” Patricia suggested laughingly.

“Not at all. You are the book of verse and the jug of wine—and I’ll wager that old Omar said the same thing to his woman. Bah! Local society!”

He checked a forcible expression with difficulty.

“Say it,” urged Patricia, amused.

“I’ve said it—under my breath. Thank God, I’m independent of local society. Australia, England, America—I am paid for my work by every country but my own; and I care as much for local society as local society cares for my work. Let it say what it pleases as far as I am concerned. But you, Pat? Local society will be all for Grace. It will tear you to pieces.”

He sat up and took her hands, looking into her face anxiously.

​Patricia squeezed hlS fingers lightly and smiled defiantly.

“There is very little of me left that it has not already torn, my dear,” she smiled. “I am hardened against its teeth. Of course, it may affect the business———”

“I’m not worrying about the business, sweetheart. It’s you. You’ll not be in the business very long now———”

She rose to her feet as though his words were a sharp reminder of present neglect.

Harley did not release her hands. He twisted himself to his knees and remained thus, looking up into her face with an adoration which approached idolatry.

“Pat,” he breathed, “I have never loved anyone like this. I've been terribly ignorant of the meaning of the word———”

She smiled down upon him compassionately.

“Poor old Jimmy,” she said unsteadily. “The gods have dealt you a poor hand, I’m afraid.”

“I’m holding the Queen of Hearts,” he smiled in return, “and with that I can play the other cards to win.”

“Oh! Who dares accuse me of lack of originality ?” she cried teasingly.

“Why? Has any other man dared to call you that?”

“Hundreds!”

He groaned in mock dismay, kissed her fingers lightly and released them.

“This evening?”” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“I’ll ring you about seven o’clock, if necessary.”

“Why ‘if necessary’?”

“I may see you before then. My work may take me in your direction———”

“Here? On the beach?”

​“Of course—I forgot. You are going to be lazy. All right. I must fly.”

“Sure you wouldn’t like me to come to town with you?”

“Silly! Do you want me to turn upon you suddenly and kiss you in the middle of the street?”

“Certainly. I daresay the worthy citizens would appreciate it, too.”

He half rose, but she toppled him over with a sharp push and hurried away laughing.

Harley, upon his knees, watched her with kindled eyes until she was hidden by intervening sand-dunes, then he sank forward, dropping his head upon his folded arms and stretching his long legs until he lay luxuriously comfortable. He closed his eyes and dreamed of Heaven—a heaven which Patricia filled to the exclusion of all else. Grace and Joan were entirely forgotten.

A sand-dune sheltered him from the rising westerly breeze; stout marram grass intercepted the lifting sand-grains which might have annoyed him; the sun shone warmly upon his broad back; a delightful lassitude enveloped him, and presently he slept.

****

Patricia entered the main street at a point where a number of shops broke the long line of residences, and immediately became aware that stirring tidings were abroad.

Shop-keepers were standing upon the side-walk conversing with each other and passers-by. Four men were eagerly discussing the contents of the afternoon daily paper which they held spread before them. Several women were looking at each other in awe and speaking in whispers as they crossed the street.

As she climbed into the waiting tram-car the motorman greeted her with the grave respect of one speaking to a person bereaved.

There were only four other passengers in the ​car—three men and a woman. They were separated from each other by expanses of vacant seats: they were evidently strangers to each other, yet they conversed freely.

“Must have been awful,” the woman was saying, as Patricia entered and took a seat near the front. “I’ve never seen the place—but I can imagine———”

“I have,” interrupted one of the men, evidently a commercial traveller—for whom Patricia had a discerning eye—“many a time. I was over there only last week, and it’s only by chance that I’m not there this week.”

The other two men and the woman eyed him with envy.

“Are you ‘on the road’?” asked one of the men, whose clothing was that of a labourer and whose moustache was stained yellow at the lower edge.

“Yes. I do all that district. I’ll have to rush over and see what’s left of our business there. Not much, by all accounts.”

“I can’t believe it yet,” stated the woman in shocked tones. “Thank Heaven, I have nobody over there.”

“It’s the best thing that ever happened to that town, in a way,” proceeded the commercial traveller judicially.

“How can you say such a thing?” demanded the woman. “With all those lives lost! You ought to be locked up!”

The traveller smiled at the men, who looked at him with disapproval.

“I mean, for the town itself,” he hastened to explain. “Of course, the loss of life is a terrible thing. Doesn’t bear thinking about. But it was time something happened to those narrow streets———”

“You wouldn’t say that if you owned property there, young man,” put in the third man, with a sourness which matched his appearance.

“I don’t know,” disagreed the traveller with a smile; “if the insurances were right I might.”

​The tramcar moved townwards, and Patricia could contain her curiosity no longer. She rose and spoke to the motorman.

“Excuse me.”

“Yes, Miss Weybourn?”

Patricia was well-known on the single tram-route. Her business took her to the suburbs often, and it was part of the motormen’s unwritten duty to know and be polite to all passengers. Patricia had not proved hard to know or remember, and her smile was a valued perquisite in the service.

“What has happened?”

The motorman looked his surprise.

“Haven’t you heard?”

“I’ve been out here all day. Is it this morning’s earthquake?”

“Yes. Napier and Hastings have been destroyed.”

Patricia blanched. She clutched at a stanchion to save herself from falling.

“Is that true?” she gasped.

“It came over the wireless, and the paper is full of it. The shake came without warning, and in five seconds the places were in ruins.”

The car stopped to pick up more passengers, and Patricia staggered weakly to her seat.

The car filled gradually on its journey to town, and the sole topic of conversation was the earthquake. Passengers described their sensations and predictions when the shake had come that morning, and all had supposed the tremor to have originated on the West Coast of the South Island. Not a single one had dreamed of associating it with the East Coast of the North Island. That region had never, in the memory of the white man, experienced more than an occasional gentle vibration. It was staggering, incredible. Strangers exchanged reminiscences of shakes experienced. One man, a known liar, professed to have been in the Murchison district and witnessed the actual subsidence of the hill which buried a valley farm completely.

​“———and as I come round the corner the whole hillside lifted up in the air and spread out like a fan. I saw the woman come running out the front door with a couple of kiddies after her; then all that rock come down on ’em—millions of tons of it—and buried ’em, house and all. I saw it—and I’ll never forget it as long as I live!”

The only inaccurate detail of the story was that the narrator had not witnessed the terrible incident, but the other passengers did not question anything. All were avid for earthquake horrors, and the wildest tales were given credence.

There was a strange hush in the town. Business was at a standstill. Motor-cars were parked thickly on each side of the single shopping street in defiance of all traffic . People stood in groups upon the side-walks and in the roadway, discussing, conjecturing, arguing in subdued tones. The two paper offices were besieged by orderly, silent crowds awaiting the scant news.

It was a moment of national disaster.

****

Patricia did not alight in the town. She continued on to her flat.

She packed a portmanteau and a small cabin trunk. Her face was set in grim determination, her lips a thin line, her brows drawn down, her cheeks colourless, her eyes glittering with an emotion sternly suppressed.

Grace was in Napier. Jimmy had told her so.

It was the moment for action.