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didn’t call in every day for a chat, I would die of boredom.
    Now, Madam, as Bella would say. You are hiding the truth. This journal sets down the truth. No fancies. No romantic theories. I know perfectly well why I chose the drapery: the hourly rate was higher.
    New resolution: I will disregard the lure of the pounds, shillings and pence. There are other things in life besides wealth. (But I may still keep my savings safe and secret.)
     
    12 JANUARY 1900
    Yesterday Brennan told me about the old mine — how it nearly poisoned him. All day I have been thinking about it. That dark, warm, deadly place has nagged at the edges of my mind like a strand of forgotten music. As I cut flannel for Mrs Owens’s new baby, and parcelled it up, I wanted to be wrapped myself in that black place with my back to the slow burn of the mine. It is like the Sirens calling. Perhaps I will go and see for myself.
    Or perhaps I will lash myself to a bolt of black bombazine and stop my ears.

A Dangerous Impulse
    TWO MONTHS AFTER the concert Michael Hanratty’s public proposal has been forgotten in the general hurly-burly of life on the Hill. Forgotten by most, that is. Still remembered by Henry Stringer, for one, and for a reason no one on the Hill suspects. Henry is deeply, hopelessly infatuated — not with Rose, as is widely whispered, but with Michael Hanratty. Henry has never been happier than during the last year of Michael’s schooling, when he could see the beautiful boy every day, listen to his newly deep voice, encourage his mind. Since then Henry has made a habit of drinking his evening tot at Hanrattys’. A glimpse of Michael, or a word, will send him happy to bed. He savours for days a shared evening around the billiard table or an argument over politics. The headmaster knows his love is foolish. He is bookish, angular, uncoordinated. An unlovely and sometimes laughable man. Heknows that Michael will neither feel nor return the turmoil of emotions trapped inside his own chest. This is a hopeless love, but one to which Henry clings like a drowning man. He dreams about Michael, and longs to kiss that bright beautiful face, but he is also utterly aware that he would die rather than talk about this to anyone. No soul will ever know. Henry accepts this and is happy enough, in a tormented kind of way, as long as he can see Michael from time to time and count him a friend.
    So, as the bright new twentieth century arrives and Denniston steams into 1900, proud of its premier position as a coal producer, Henry knows he will stay in Denniston, though promotion could well call him elsewhere. Denniston is growing and so is the school roll. The Westport Coal Company is the largest coal producer in New Zealand, and Denniston the jewel in its crown. Henry is proud of the growth here. He realises, with a certain wry self-knowledge, that his infatuation (he prefers to call it love, but in more sober moments knows it for what it is) gives him an energy that is good for the school, good for his contribution to community life. These days there are 350 men underground who, each year, hew out 250,000 tons of bright, hard coal, excellent for steaming and consequently in great demand by shipping companies. Denniston, where Henry lives in the schoolhouse, is still the largest settlement on the Hill, but Burnett’s Face, the miners’ village, now boasts a population of 600, its own school, clubs and Mission Hall. New workers arrive every week; the Bins and the Incline rattle away day and night; a miner can earn 19/6 a shift, which is good pay and puts money into the whole fabric of society on the plateau. Henry hopes Denniston will continue to grow, becoming a major New Zealand town. A town in which the Hanrattys, and in particular Michael, will be solid citizens, and he the respected headmaster. Marriage to Rose could settle Michael on the Hill; for this reason Henry supports thematch, though with a certain anguish. What he does not yet realise is that