The Larnachs Read Free Page A

children, I doubt if Seddon would encourage her to be active in politics. He is more conservative than William, or my late father, in his view of a wife’s role. Ballance, the premier, is not a well man, and William says Seddon is now the driving force.
    Joseph Ward is about my own age, and we have a good deal in common. He is very much the coming man. His wife Theresa, who is a decade younger, could pass for the daughter of William or Seddon. I wonder what she makes of them? She is tall, elegant and favours large, splendid hats. Although perfectly correct and agreeable company, she is not yet a confidante for me.
    Thomas Cahill remains William’s closest companion, and was often with us in Wellington. He is a handsome man with an easy and obliging manner. I like him. He is lively and interesting to talk to, but I see also that there is a certain calculation in his cultivation of William and other people of influence, and he receives significant official appointments. Because of his profession he is often called upon to attend the most bizarre and horrific deaths. This keeps his name in the papers, and also provides the stories on which he dines out. But he is no bore, and takes a sincere interest in the lives of his friends — unlike some who use them only as a sounding board for their own concerns. Thomas is also musical and well read, and has a fund of social gossip from his wide acquaintanceship for which he expects me, as a woman, to be avid. We enjoy our frequent talks, but, I feel, share a slight wariness of each other’s intelligence. As heis so close to William, it is important that I have him as my friend.
    ‘Can we be trusting towards each other?’ I asked him, when he came to visit soon after the honeymoon. ‘Surely we both want all that is best for William. You’re his closest companion, and I’m his wife. There’s no competition in that for me, and I hope you feel the same.’
    ‘I do indeed,’ he said. He appeared a trifle startled by my frankness, but he and I need an understanding, and I think we have begun well enough. He shares his love of poetry with me, and I imagine he writes it also. I will broach that with him when we know each other better.
    I hoped that, when we moved to Otago after the commission ended, William’s positive spirits would continue, that we could make a place for ourselves in the somewhat watchful community here, and that, more important, we would develop that intimate understanding that would make time together more meaningful than spending it with acquaintances.
    All, however, has been thrown into painful disarray by Kate’s death. William loves all his children, sometimes too unconditionally, but Kate was his favourite. Plain, sweet Kate, who I had hoped would come with us to Dunedin. Alice and Colleen dislike me not for myself, but because I am not their mother. Donald, a country away, I know feels the same, but perhaps because of fear that I threaten his prospects of inheritance. Well, maybe they dislike me personally as well, although, however amiable I am, it would make no difference to them.
    I was coming to share William’s love for Kate, and she and I spent much time together in Wellington after the honeymoon, butonly a few months later she caught typhoid and died within five weeks. A nurse herself, she was very brave. When I visited her in hospital she would insist she was getting better, talk of what changes should be made at The Camp when her father and I moved down here, or of musical events we could attend in the capital during our stays there. She enjoyed music, though, as for her sisters, too much money has been spent on poor teachers. Rossini was her favourite, which showed her innate taste was sound. One evening while we sat and waited for William to come from a bank meeting, she told me she was happy for us, for the marriage. ‘Father needs people to love, and to love him back, but can’t seem to say it,’ she said.
    ‘He loves you a great deal,’