The Luminaries Read Online Free PDF

Moody smiled as he took it up. He had a fondness for cheap news, and was amused to see that the town’s
Most Alluring Dancer
also advertised her services as the town’s
Most Discreet Accoucheuse
. A whole column of the paper was devoted to missing prospectors (
If this should reach the eyes of E MERY S TAINES , or any who know of his whereabouts
…) and an entire page to Barmaids Wanted. Moody read the document twice over, including the shipping notices, the advertisements for lodging and small fare, and several very dull campaign speeches, printed in full.He found that he was disappointed: the
West Coast Times
read like a parish gazette. But what had he expected? That a goldfield would be an exotic phantasm, made of glitter and promise? That the diggers would be notorious and sly—every man a murderer, every man a thief?
    Moody folded the paper slowly. His line of thinking had returned him to the
Godspeed
, and to the bloody casket in her hold, and his heart began to pound again. ‘That’s enough,’ he said aloud, and immediately felt foolish. He stood and tossed the folded paper aside. In any case, he thought, the daylight was fading, and he disliked reading in the dusk.
    Quitting his room, he returned downstairs. He found the maid sequestered in the alcove beneath the stairs, scrubbing at a pair of riding boots with blacking, and inquired of her if there was a parlour in which he might spend the evening. His voyage had wrought considerable strain in him, and he was in sore need of a glass of brandy and a quiet place to rest his eyes.
    The maid was more obliging now—her sixpences must be few and far between, Moody thought, which could be useful later, if he needed her. She explained that the parlour of the Crown had been reserved that night for a private party—‘The Catholic Friendlies,’ she clarified, grinning again—but she might conduct him instead, if he wished it, to the smoking room.
    Moody returned to the present with a jolt, and saw that Thomas Balfour was still looking at him, with an expression of intrigued expectation upon his face.
    ‘I beg your pardon,’ Moody said, in confusion. ‘I believe I must have drifted off into my own thoughts—for a moment—’
    ‘What were you thinking of?’ said Balfour.
    What had he been thinking of? Only the cravat, the silver hand, that name, gasped out of the darkness. The scene was like a small world, Moody thought, possessed of its own dimensions. Any amount of ordinary time could pass, when his mind was straying there. There was this large world of rolling time and shifting spaces, and that small, stilled world of horror and unease; they fit inside each other, a sphere within a sphere. How strange, that Balfour hadbeen watching him; that real time had been passing—revolving around him, all the while—
    ‘I wasn’t thinking of anything in particular,’ he said. ‘I have endured a difficult journey, that is all, and I am very tired.’
    Behind him one of the billiard players made a shot: a doubled crack, a velvet plop, a ripple of appreciation from the other players. The clergyman shook out his paper noisily; another man coughed; another struck the dust from his shirtsleeve, and shifted in his chair.
    ‘I was asking about your quarrel,’ Balfour said.
    ‘The quarrel—’ Moody began, and then stopped. He suddenly felt too exhausted even to speak.
    ‘The dispute,’ prompted Balfour. ‘Between you and your father.’
    ‘I am sorry,’ Moody said. ‘The particulars are delicate.’
    ‘A matter of money! Do I hit upon it?’
    ‘Forgive me: you do not.’ Moody ran his hand over his face.
    ‘Not of money! Then—a matter of love! You are in love … but your father will not approve the girl of your choosing …’
    ‘No, sir,’ Moody said. ‘I am not in love.’
    ‘A great shame,’ Balfour said. ‘Well! I conclude: you are already married!’
    ‘I am unmarried.’
    ‘You are a young widower, perhaps!’
    ‘I have never been married,