The Luminaries

penny lather that was the standing order of most Hokitika men—a guess that was further confirmed when Clinch moved his hand, and Löwenthal saw a reddish spray of irritation upon the man’s soft cheeks. Discreetly, Löwenthal looked the hotelier up and down. Clinch’s jacket had been brushed, and his collar starched; the shirt he was wearing seemed very white, and the toes of his boots were freshly blackened.
Oh
, Löwenthal thought, with pity:
he made himself handsome, for Anna.
    ‘So she only named the father after the child was dead,’ Clinch said at last, and in a very harsh voice. ‘That’s a whore’s honour—that’s all that is.’
    ‘Perhaps you’re right,’ Löwenthal said, more kindly. ‘Let’s drop the subject.’

    ‘Mr. Walter Moody—Mrs. Lydia Wells,’ said Gascoigne. ‘Mr. Moody is come to Hokitika from Scotland, Mrs. Wells, to make his fortune in the gorge; Mrs. Wells, as you will know, Mr. Moody, is the mistress of this establishment, and a great enthusiast of realms.’
    Lydia made a very pretty curtsey, and Moody a short but respectful bow. Moody then paid the necessary compliments to his hostess, thanking her very nicely for the evening’s entertainment, and praising her renovations of the old hotel. Despite his best efforts, the compliments came out very flat: when he looked at her, he thought only of Lauderback, and Crosbie Wells.
    When he had finished speaking she said, ‘Do you have an interest in the occult, Mr. Moody?’—a question which Moody could not answer honestly without risking offence.
    He paused only a moment, however, before replying, ‘There are many things that are yet arcane to me, Mrs. Wells, and I hope that I am a curious man; if I am interested in those truths that are yet unknown, it is only so that they might, in time, be made known—or, to put it more plainly, so that in time, I might come to know them.’
    ‘You are wonderfully free with one verb, I notice,’ the widow returned. ‘What does it mean for you, Mr. Moody, to
know
something ? I fancy you put rather a lot of stock in
knowing
—judging from the way you speak.’
    Moody smiled. ‘Why,’ he said, ‘I suppose that to know a thing is to see it from all sides.’
    ‘To see it from all sides,’ the widow repeated.
    ‘But I confess you catch me off guard; I have not spent any time working on the definition, and should not like to hear it quoted back to me—at least not until I have spent some time thinking about how I might defend it.’
    ‘No,’ the widow agreed, ‘your definition leaves much to be desired. There are so many exceptions to the rule! How could onepossibly see a
spirit
from all sides, for example? The notion is incredible.’
    Moody gave another short bow. ‘You are quite right to name that as an exception, Mrs. Wells. But I am afraid I do not believe a spirit can be known at all—by anyone—and I certainly do not believe a spirit can be seen. I do not mean to impugn your talents in the slightest—but there it is: I do not believe in spirits, categorically .’
    ‘And yet you applied for a ticket to the
séance
this evening,’ the widow pointed out.
    ‘My curiosity was piqued.’
    ‘By the particular spirit in question, perhaps?’
    ‘Mr. Staines?’ Moody shrugged. ‘I have never met the man. I arrived in Hokitika some fortnight after he disappeared. But since then I have heard his name many times, of course.’
    ‘Mr. Gascoigne says that you have come to Hokitika to make your fortune.’
    ‘Yes: so I hope.’
    ‘And how will you make it?’
    ‘By dint of hard work and good planning, I expect.’
    ‘Of course, there are many rich men who work little, and plan nothing at all.’
    ‘Those men are lucky,’ Moody said.
    ‘Do you not wish to be lucky also?’
    ‘I wish to be able to call myself deserving of my lot,’ Moody said carefully. ‘Luck is by nature undeserved.’
    ‘What an honourable answer,’ said Lydia Wells.
    ‘And a truthful one, I hope,’ said Moody.
    ‘Aha,’ said the widow. ‘We are back to “truth” again.’
    Gascoigne had been watching Lydia Wells. ‘You see how her mind is working,’ he said to Moody. ‘She will swoop down in a moment, and savage your argument. Prepare yourself.’
    ‘I hardly know how to prepare to be savaged,’ Moody said.
    Gascoigne was right. The widow lifted her chin and said, ‘Are you a man of religion, Mr. Moody?’
    ‘I am a man of philosophy,’ he rejoined. ‘Those aspects ofreligion