Page 56 of Possession Under the Southern Stars

The Uber snakes through the suburbs, which look affluent, the houses and gardens well-tended, playgrounds filled with children, as it’s not yet time for them to go back to school after their summer holidays. Eventually the car turns off and snakes along a wide drive with high elms standing protectively on either side. It turns a corner, and the drive opens up in front of a large house.

As Fraser said, it’s Georgian in style, single story, the front door flanked by symmetrical high windows with green shutters. Two dormer windows in the roof bring light into the roof space.In front of the drive is a large lawn circled by a variety of trees and colorful flower beds. It’s beautiful, and I can totally see why someone would want to get married here. Imagine having photographs taken beneath that oak tree with the house as a backdrop.

Our Uber follows the line of cars dropping off guests, and pulls up right out the front of the house. Fraser comes around to offer me his hand, and I let him help me out. We thank the driver, and he pulls away.

Fraser tucks my hand into the crook of his elbow, and together we approach the front door, where a man in a silver waistcoat is waiting with a smile to welcome us. Fraser produces his phone with the invitation on it bearing our names. The guy ticks us off a list, and then we follow the line of guests into the house.

The entrance hall is narrow and cool. The walls are white, and the floorboards are dark kauri wood that creak underfoot. An old-fashioned hat stand guards the front door like a butler, while a vase of hydrangeas sits on a side table, the aroma of their pale-blue and pink blooms mingling with the smell of beeswax polish.

Walking slowly, we pass a door into a drawing room. Soft light filters through lace curtains, falling across a well-loved Persian rug and elegant armchairs arranged around a fireplace. The mantle is decorated with silver candlesticks, while a grandfather clock ticks steadily in the corner.

Next is a dining room, which feels formal and a touch austere, high-backed chairs surrounding a long, polished table like soldiers lined up for inspection. A collection of crystal decanters and silver serving trays on a sideboard gleam in the artificial light.

On the wall hangs a large oil painting of a young Maori woman, standing in a garden, with what is unmistakably thishouse behind her. Her dress, with its tight bodice and full skirt, suggests it was painted in the late nineteenth century, but her hair is long and loose, and she has amoko kauae—a Maori tattoo on her chin. Her lips are slightly curved up, Mona Lisa style, as if she’s exchanging a secret smile with the painter. She’s quite beautiful.

We both stare at it. “Oh my God,” I whisper. “Is that Pania?”

Fraser leads me into the room. I follow him, and we circle the dining table and look up at the painting.

“I don’t know Richard’s work well enough,” I say. “Do you think he painted it?”

“I’ve only seen his landscapes,” Fraser replies. “But the lighting, and the brushwork… yes, I think it’s his.”

“She’s very young, and very beautiful.”

We look at it for a few more seconds, then turn to leave. It’s only then that we see a display cabinet on the inner wall. Two slanted glass panels reveal its precious contents: a bundle of letters, tied together with a red ribbon.

Excitement flows through me as we walk over and peer at the glass. “That’s them?”

He points to the label at the bottom that clarifies that yes, these are the love letters written by Richard Williams and Pania Te Hira.

I rest my hand on the wooden frame, my fingers itching to touch them. I try to open the panels, but they’re locked, of course. They’re not going to let just anyone take them out and handle them.

“They shouldn’t be on display like this, should they?” Fraser says.

“No… but there has to be a balance between conservation and display. We want to preserve our heritage for future generations, but equally we don’t want to lock everything away.Think about Monet’s Water Lilies, or Michelangelo’s La Pietà. It would be easy to remove them from display because they’re so precious, but everyone should be able to appreciate their beauty, don’t you think?” He told me that in the speech that Sebastian Williams witnessed, he argued that history should be available to everyone, rather than kept in private collections.

His lips twist. “Yes, I agree.”

“To be fair, they’re not in direct sunlight. It’s fairly dark here.” My fingers linger on the glass reluctantly, and then I continue walking with him out of the room and along the passageway. “It’s exciting to see them, though.”

He gives me a smile that suggests he likes my enthusiasm. “What do you think of the house?”

“It’s gorgeous.” I inhale, smelling baked bread and fresh herbs that suggest the kitchen is somewhere nearby.

But now we’re at the end of the house, and we walk out onto a wide veranda that overlooks the expansive back lawn. Wow. It’s been transformed into a glittering party venue. A white marquee stretches across most of the lawn. Beneath it sit tables dressed in crisp white linen. Strings of fairy lights are looped between the trees. Men in suits and women in beautiful gowns are drinking champagne from tall glasses, and the sound of laughter and soft music drifts through the air. The air smells of the sweet aroma of freshly cut grass and the scent of the rose bushes surrounding the veranda.

Two people—a man and a woman—are standing at the top of the steps leading down onto the lawn. “Adam and Isabel,” Fraser murmurs as we near them—Sebastian’s son and daughter, and my pulse picks up speed as we approach them. They’re being introduced to the guests as they arrive, and we wait behind another couple as we wait to be announced.

Adam is in his fifties, medium height, with silver hair that’s thinning on top. He looks tired and a little uncomfortable in histux, and I get the feeling he’d rather be anywhere else but here right now.

Isabel, on the other hand, looks as if she was born for this life—as tall as her brother, slender, and elegant, her silver hair cut in a bob so sharp she could cut herself on it. She’s beautiful in a cold, haughty kind of way, and even though we don’t have an English-style class system in New Zealand, her posture and manner illustrate that she considers herself above most people at this party.

It doesn’t surprise me at all that even though Adam wants to honor his father’s offer of a donation and the letters, Isabel is contesting it, and winning. We’re not going to be able to convince her, I think suddenly. There’s no way this woman is going to do anything she doesn’t want to do.

But it’s too late to back out; Fraser is showing our invitation to the guy standing next to them, who’s also in a silver waistcoat, and he announces, “Mr. Fraser Bell and Ms. Hallie Woodford, from the National Museum of New Zealand in Wellington.”

Oh well. Here goes nothing.

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