The Luminaries

esteem?’
    ‘He loves me,’ she said, and then after a moment, she said it again. ‘He loves me.’
    Devlin studied her critically. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘Has he made an avowal of his love?’
    ‘No,’ Anna said. ‘He doesn’t need to. I know it, just the same.’
    ‘Do you get these feelings frequently?’
    ‘Very frequently,’ she said. ‘He thinks of me all the time.’
    Devlin nodded. The situation was at last becoming clear to him, and with this dawning clarity his heart was sinking in his chest. ‘Are you in love with Mr. Staines, Miss Wetherell?’
    ‘We spoke of it,’ she said. ‘The night he vanished. We were talking nonsense, and I said something silly about unrequited love, and he became very serious, and he stopped me, and he said that unrequited love was not possible; that it was not love. He said that love must be freely given, and freely taken, such that the lovers, in joining , make the equal halves of something whole.’
    ‘A passionate sentiment,’ Devlin said.
    This seemed to please her. ‘Yes,’ she said.
    ‘But he did not declare his love for you, after all that.’
    ‘He didn’t make any vows. I said that.’
    ‘And nor did you.’
    ‘I never got another chance,’ she said. ‘That was the night he disappeared.’
    Cowell Devin sighed. Yes, he understood Anna Wetherell at long last, but it was not a happy understanding. Devlin had known many women of poor prospects and limited means, whose only transportout of the miserable cage of their unhappy circumstance was the flight of the fantastic. Such fantasies were invariably magical—angelic patronage, invitations into paradise—and Anna’s story, touching though it was, showed the same strain of the impossible. Why, it was painfully clear! The most eligible bachelor of Anna’s acquaintance possessed a love so deep and pure that all respective differences between them were rendered immaterial? He was not dead—he was only missing? He was sending her ‘messages’ that proved the depth of his love—and these were messages that only
she
could hear? It was a fantasy, Devlin thought. It was a fantasy of the girl’s own devising. The boy could only be dead.
    ‘You want Mr. Staines to love you very much, don’t you, Miss Wetherell?’
    Anna seemed offended by his implication. ‘He does love me.’
    ‘That wasn’t my question.’
    She squinted at him. ‘Everyone wants to be loved.’
    ‘That’s very true,’ Devlin said, sadly. ‘We all want to be loved—and need to be loved, I think. Without love, we cannot be ourselves.’
    ‘You’re of a mind with Mr. Staines.’
    ‘Am I?’
    ‘Yes,’ Anna said. ‘That is precisely the sort of thing that he would say.’
    ‘Your Mr. Staines is quite the philosopher, Miss Wetherell.’
    ‘Why, Reverend,’ Anna said, smiling suddenly, ‘I believe you’ve just paid yourself a compliment.’
    They did not speak for a moment. Anna sipped again at her sugared drink, and Devlin, brooding, looked out across the hotel dining room. After a moment Anna’s hand went to her bosom, where the forged deed of gift still lay against her skin.
    Devlin looked sharply at her. ‘You have ample time to reconsider ,’ he said.
    ‘I only want a legal opinion.’
    ‘You have my clerical opinion.’
    ‘Yes,’ Anna said. ‘“Blessed are the meek”.’
    She seemed to regret this impudence immediately; a violent blush spread across her face and neck, and she turned away.Suddenly Devlin wanted nothing more to do with her. He pushed his chair back from the table, and placed his hands on his knees.
    ‘I will accompany you to the Courthouse door and no further,’ he said. ‘What you do with the document in your possession is no longer my business. Know that I will not lie to protect you. I will certainly not lie in a court of law. If anyone asks, I shall not hesitate to tell them the truth, which is that you forged that signature with your own hand.’
    ‘All right,’ said Anna, rising. ‘Thank you very much for the pie. And the cordial. And thank you for all that you said to Mrs. Wells.’
    Devlin rose also. ‘You oughtn’t to thank me for that,’ he said. ‘I let my temper get the better of me there, I’m afraid. I wasn’t at my best.’
    ‘You were marvellous,’ Anna said, and she stepped forward, and put her hands on his shoulders, and kissed him very nicely on the cheek.

    By the time Anna Wetherell arrived at the Hokitika Courthouse, Aubert Gascoigne had already