It seemed, in those first few months, that nothing at all could dampen Clinch’s adoration for Anna. He was not repelled by the fact of her profession, though it did distress him to know that she was so frequently in danger of harm. When he learned that she was an opium eater, and took the drug nearly every day, he was likewise only grieved and fearful, rather than repulsed. (He reasoned that the drug was very fashionable, and that he himself took laudanum whenever he could not sleep; why, what was the difference, between opium that had been turned into a tincture, and opium that had been burned into a smoke?) The sorrier aspects of Anna’s life, far from driving Clinch away, only caused him sadness, and as a consequence he longed for her happiness all the more.
When it became apparent that Anna was expecting another man’s child, however, Clinch’s sadness acquired an edge of alarm. He began to wonder whether he ought now to make his feelings known to her. Perhaps he should make an offer of marriage. Perhaps, when the babe was born, he might adopt the little thing as his own, and care for it; perhaps they could become a family, of a kind.
Clinch was pondering this very question one midwinter afternoon when he heard a thud upon the hotel’s veranda, and a muted cry. He opened the sash window (he had been lighting the fires in the upstairs rooms) and peered down to see that Anna had stumbled on the short flight of stairs that led to the front door. As he watched, she lifted her arm, slowly, and began to cast about for the rail.
Clinch descended the stairs, crossed the foyer, and opened the door to admit her—in which time Anna had hauled herself upright and crossed the veranda. When Clinch stepped out, Anna, who had been upon the point of reaching for the latch herself, fell against him, and, to stop herself from falling, she reached up and wrapped her heavy arms around his neck. She turned her face into his collar, so that her nose and mouth were pressed against the skin of his throat; she seemed to sag against him. Clinch gave a murmur of surprise—and then he was very still. He felt that if he spoke, or moved too quickly, the moment might be shattered, and the whore might flee. He looked out, over her shoulder. It was a pale, bright Sunday afternoon, and the street was quiet. No one could see them. No one was watching. Clinch cupped Anna’s waist between his palms, and breathed, and breathed again—and then, in one swift movement, he folded Anna against him, lifted her up, and crushed his mouth against her cheek. He stayed there for a long moment, his lips against her jaw. Then he hoisted her higher, retreated back into the foyer, shut the door with the edge of his foot, turned the key in the lock, and carried her upstairs.
Anna’s bath had been set out in the room opposite the landing, and iron pots of water were waiting, covered, on the ledge beside the fire. Clinch, still with Anna in his arms, lowered himself down upon the sofa next to the bath. His heart was beating very fast. He drew back, to look at her. Her eyes were closed; her limbs were loose and syrupy.
Many months had passed since Anna had returned the rented purple dress to Dick Mannering, having purchased, in place of it, several dresses that were better suited to her frame. Today, however, she was not wearing the bustled orange gown with which she habitually advertised her trade—for the whores in Hokitika wore bright colours when they were working, and muted tones when they were not. She was dressed, instead, in a cream-coloured muslin frock, the bust of which was cut in the style of a riding jacket, and buttoned to her throat. Around her shoulders she wore a blue three-cornered shawl. From these clues, and from the fact that she was all but insensible from the effects of opium, Edgar Clinch deduced that she had just been in Chinatown: when she travelled to that place, she travelled incognito, in her dull-coloured clothes.
With shaking fingers Clinch eased the shawl from Anna’s shoulders and let it fall upon the floor. He then untied the bow at the back of her dress and loosed the strings of her corset, moving slowly and in stages. His fingers found her covered buttons, one by one, and unhooked the loops that secured them. She was compliant in his arms, and when he moved to ease the dress off her shoulders, she lifted her arms like a very small child. Next he detached her crinoline, and lifted her out of the uppermost hoop, so that the frame fell away, hitting the floor in a rattle of buckles and wood. He eased her down upon the sofa again—she was now undressed to her slip—and folded her shawl over her body. Then he stood, and began to fill the bath. She lay with her cheek against the back of her hand, her breast rising and falling with the fitful breath of sleep. When the water was ready Clinch returned to her, murmuring phrases of reassurance; he drew her slip over her head, gathered her naked body up, knelt, and lowered her into the tub.
Anna made a cooing noise when her body touched the water, but she did not open her eyes. Clinch arranged her so that the copper lip of the tub sat snug against the nape of her neck, ensuring that she could not slither down, and drown herself. He smoothed her hair from her cheek, and ran his thumb around her jaw. He had wet his sleeves up to the shoulders, in lowering her into the water; now he stood back, and held his dripping sleeves apart from his body, and looked down at her. He felt very lonely and very contented at once.
After a moment the hotelier knelt and picked up the muslin dress from the ground, meaning to shake it straight, and fold it over the back of the sofa. The dress was heavier than he would have imagined—why, it was only muslin and thread, now that the crinoline had been detached, and the bloomers and petticoats discarded! Why was the thing so very burdensome? He pinched the fabric, and as he did so, felt something strange beneath his hands. He turned the dress over—what was that, some kind of weight, spaced along the seam? It felt like a row of stones. He eased his finger beneath a thread and felt it snap, then wormed his finger and thumb into the tunnel of the hem. Perhaps it had been stuffed with something. He withdrew, to his astonishment, a pinch of pure gold.
Anna was still sleeping, her cheek against the lip of the bath. Clinch, his heartbeat racing, felt along the seams of the gown, and up the flounces to the bust. There were ounces and ounces—perhaps pounds—concealed within the fabric. And all of it pure! What had Anna been doing in Chinatown, to return half-addled with opium, her dress stitched up with ore? She must be trafficking the stuff somewhere—smuggling it, by the looks of things. Taking it into Chinatown? That did not make sense. She must be taking it out. In exchange for opium, perhaps! Clinch’s mind was moving very fast. He recalled now that concealing gold in the lining of one’s clothing was a common method of evading duty at the customhouse, though it was a risky business, for if one were caught, one faced heavy fines, and even time in gaol. But Anna herself was not a digger—she was a woman, for heaven’s sake!—and the gold could not be hers. Someone must have trusted Anna enough to hide this gold in her clothing. And Anna must have trusted that man enough to bear the risk on his behalf.
Then it came to him: Mannering. Dick Mannering owned nearly every Chinaman in Kaniere; they all worked his claims, in exchange for a salary of a kind. Mannering was also Anna’s employer. Why, of course! Mannering was known to be a dirty dealer—what whoremonger was not? And had he not declared, over and over, that Anna Wetherell was the very best of whores?