“A woman and a cherry are painted to their own harm.”--_English
Proverb._
To understand the overwhelming military flavour in the society of Key
Island, it must be remembered that Port Victoria is girdled with the
garrison, and that the garrison is stationary, whereas the cruisers
only put in to coal, and at the best stay three weeks on one excuse
or another. The naval flavour, therefore, is general, but indistinct;
whereas one cannot get away from the smell of khaki, go where one
will. On the right, as one enters the harbour, is Teraka, the Gate of
Sunrise, and behind this, though unconnected with it, rises Maitso
Hill with its solid quarters for troops; on the left Tsofotra, or
the Sunset Gate, is flanked in the same way by the lower slopes of
Mitsinjovy. When the Lewins arrived in Key Island Maitso was occupied
by the Wessex, and the Gunners were in hurricane huts at Mitsinjovy,
pending the completion of their barracks, which were to accommodate yet
more batteries as soon as finished; add to this the usual percentage
of A.S.C., R.A.M.C., and A.P.D., and the result is that from nine
to twelve, when the men go out of uniform, Port Victoria is nothing
but a parade ground, and every man at afternoon tennis looks as if
he missed a stripe down his trousers. There are civilians, of course
(Leoline Lewin counted three that she knew after a residence of as
many weeks), but they are not enough to leaven the lump, and so the
social world remains Official and Military, and the aristocracy of the
place are always those who are most ferociously Army. Mrs. Lewin had
two great advantages, when she was introduced to the station, over
most of the young married women who fought a mental battle for their
rights before they established themselves in the uppermost seats of
the synagogue--Captain Lewin belonged to a very much smarter regiment
than either the Wessex or the Artillery then at Port Victoria; and also,
he was not attached to the garrison. Therefore Chum started with an
insured position that could not be torn from her, and yet rivalled no
other lady’s. Incidentally, she was also much better looking than any
other woman in the island, and she knew how to put on her clothes,
which is a gift quite apart from possessing the garments themselves,
or even the taste to choose them. When they had talked her over at the
club, from the ripples of her pretty hair to her openwork stockings
and American shoes, the married men did a shrewd thing, and waited for
their wives to mention her first, while the unmarried went to call
without waiting for Sunday--which is a great compliment, because by the
law of Port Victoria Sunday is the day set aside for visiting, it not
being etiquette to play polo or dance.
The Alaric Lewins took their married life as a huge joke, a point of
view which speedily communicated itself to Key Island, who proceeded to
laugh with them over the situation. They had been brought up together,
Mrs. Lewin’s father having been Alaric’s guardian, and an admiration of
Ally had been amongst the rudiments of Chum’s education. At intervals
Alaric had disappeared out of her life to Harrow, and Sandhurst, and
India, always to reappear a good deal handsomer and better mannered and
more travelled. His view of life was necessarily larger than her own
by forced experience; but the girl, left at home, knew more deeply by
theory than the man by practice. At twenty-six a woman who thinks is in
a very dangerous position if she has had no actual experience to reduce
her ideas of life to the level of reality. But Leoline looked innocent
enough of anything out of the common, when seen against the background
of her home. Captain Lewin was much influenced by surroundings; he saw
a solid position in the county, irreproachable frocks, popularity with
men and women alike, and a coveted possession by others of his kind,
while the unimportant item of a girl’s individuality, which was the
centrepiece of all this, he took for granted. Leoline, the victim of
her own theories, found the relations between them hardly altered after
the clergyman of the parish, who had hitherto behaved like a gentleman,
said very rude things to her from the altar rails, for which he had
scriptural authority. She congratulated herself that she was still
Ally’s “Chum,” and made their interests one with a touch of comradeship
in the wifehood. Her knowledge of the man she had married consisted
in the fact that he was nearly six feet in height and well built,
that he had a well-shaped dark head, and a handsome face, that he had
always had good manners and appearance, and that they were excellent
companions. Marriage, to Chum, meant a certain amount of mutual
toleration and avoidance of friction, whereby she called it a success.
It seemed to her that she and Ally had done the same thing from their
nursery days; they must certainly have learned all of each other that
there was to learn by now. But in an indefinite future she believed
that he was to do great things, because she could not imagine herself
the wife of a man who was a failure.
A week in Key Island revealed the inner workings of its life, as Halton
had said it would, but the Lewins still knew different sides of it.
Alaric’s duties tied him to Government House as he had predicted, but
he escaped to play tennis and to ride and bathe after the manner of
his kind. There was an heroic effort at a polo ground too, but things
being on an eternal slant in the island, the game had to be played on a
gentle slope. Gentlemen of the home clubs, who swear at a daisy tuft,
think of the pathos of this, and see how exiled brothers can follow the
sport abroad! Leoline, by the grace of Hafez and Abdallah, was free
early in the day, but squandered her liberty in reducing her house to
order. She did not care to ride out to tennis much before the hour when
her husband could arrive there also, and it even sometimes happened
that she would for preference go for a gallop through the cocoanuts
up and down Mitsinjovy Straight, so that he had got home and changed,
and was at their mutual destination before her. This happened one day
about a week after their arrival; Mrs. Lewin had ordered her pony for
four o’clock, but the day clouded over, and the sky over Maitso was so
threatening that she gave up her gallop and half hesitated about going
to the further garrison. As, however, tennis was on at Mrs. Churton’s
this afternoon, and as Ally liked Mrs. Churton, she decided to ride
up to Maitso, anyhow, and cantered soberly away, past the gates of
Government House, and, leaving Port Victoria to the right, began to
climb the hill.
It was a steep climb, and the pony sobered at once to a walk. No
Key’land pony can trot--either he walks or he canters, and even that
he does in a manner peculiarly his own, using three of his legs to
the distinct saving of the fourth. As Liscarton dug his toes into the
dust and hitched his lean quarters upwards, Mrs. Lewin turned in the
saddle and looked down at the view, which was gaining an indefinite
fascination for her--the town, the harbour, and the gates. The two
cone-shaped rocks had a threatening appearance to-day, with the low
loose clouds nearly touching their crests, and there was a sullen
light upon everything. Even the sun-soaked green of the hills cuddled
round Port Victoria were draped with passing veils of rain that were
being blown over them and down towards the town. It was not as yet wet
at Maitso, though it had been threatening all day, and the Lewins’
bungalow, being on a level with Government House, had also escaped with
an angry shower.
“Shall we have a storm, boy?” said Chum, as she rode into the Churtons’
yard and delivered her pony to a loafing servant. The groom nodded,
and murmured an assent in Arabic or Malagasy--she had not yet learned
to know which--but with so obvious a disbelief in the weather that she
hastened her steps into the house in consequence. He was right, for the
first large drops splashed on to the roof of the stoep, even as the
butler bowed her into the drawing-room through one of its many doors;
and the clouds darkened the day so that the carefully shaded room was
really dusky after the outside world.
Mrs. Churton happened to be crossing the room, and greeted Mrs. Lewin
on the way. She was of a type that wears the regimental badge as a
waist-buckle, and seems proud of a weather-beaten skin as proof that
she has followed the drum through many climates. Chum glanced at the
hair that Ally had said was “All right,” and saw that Diana Churton had
tightened a coiffeur in the _Queen_ into a form entirely unbecoming
to her face. Her instinct could not approve, but her judgment meekly
followed Ally’s.
There were many people crowded into the little room who would have
spread themselves out comfortably upon the tennis courts, but thus
condensed seemed to Chum too complicated to be greeted in detail. So
she remained where she had drifted, near an open window, and watched
the storm. It had begun to rain, as it always does there, with
half-a-dozen great drops, like the first tears of a breaking grief,
and then as if a window opened in heaven and an angry God threatened
to drown the earth a second time. For some minutes it was impossible
to hear anything but the shouting of the rain as it drove past; but
after a few minutes it softened to a steady hissing whisper, and the
conversation in the room behind her caught Mrs. Lewin’s idle attention.
She wondered what was absorbing the party, and turned to hear. Mrs.
Churton had had a large volume in her hands when she spoke to her
latest guest, which she promptly deposited upon Ally’s knee--Chum had
recognised his flat shoulders and oval dark head, though his back was
towards her--and a minute later she gained the key to the mystery.
“My husband always takes about two hundred pounds worth with him for
exchange,” Mrs. Churton was saying. “There’s the variation, Captain
Lewin--see the difference between DIE I and II?”
“Oh, I’ve got this,” Ally’s voice chimed in. “DIE II has a clean
engraved cut under the eye, hasn’t it? But you’ve beaten me in shades.”
“I can get ten pounds for that one penny on five shilling dull rose
Barbadoes of mine!” broke in another voice.
“You’re a specialist, aren’t you, Mr. Lysle?”
“Yes, I only take the Portuguese colonies. A collector really has no
time for more than one corner of the world, if he does it seriously.”
Mrs. Churton laughed rather loudly. “I’m not serious enough to confine
myself to one country. I take anything that comes in my way--the more
valuable the better. Bute says he wouldn’t trust me with his own common
duplicates.”
“Stamps!” said Chum blankly, under her breath. It was so long since
she had helped to arrange those little coloured squares of paper in a
fancy album with Ally, that she had not realised that the usual boy’s
hobby had grown up into Philately--a fearsome disease that ravages both
Services all the world over. Not being a “collector” herself, she stood
by in amazed amusement while the jargon of the cult rang across the
room, until she became aware that Mr. Halton had appeared at her side,
without her having known him to be in the room.
“Disgusting weather, isn’t it?” he said, as they shook hands. “For
those who want to play tennis. I am afraid the crops want water so
badly that, as a government official, I must rejoice, however.”
“Is rain wanted?” said Mrs. Lewin, with interest. “What for? The cane?
I wish you would talk about Key Island a little, Mr. Halton!”
“Why?”
“Because it interests me. I have been trying to pump my husband for
information all the week, but he is an unsatisfactory person, and won’t
explain things to me. When one understands a thing oneself, it is
difficult to realise the ignorance of other people.”
The Commissioner looked at her beneath his drooping eyelids, and there
was some speculation in his glance.
“Perhaps he is like most Key’landers, and feels no interest in
the island himself?” he remarked drily. “Most of the victims whom
Government has chained here for three years think of nothing those
three years but getting away!”
“Yes, I know they do; but it seems rather silly, don’t you think? Why
should people always live in the future, or the past, when it is really
the present that matters? As I am in Key Island, I have a deep interest
in Key Island--I belong to her, and every move of the Government makes
me long to know their plans still more!”
“You should talk to the Administrator,” said Halton, laughing. “He
is the only man likely to encourage you. I must confess I have some
sympathy with the people who hate this place, though I can’t share
Gregory’s enthusiasms.”
“Ah, but you are only a passing compliment from the Colonial Office,
are you not? and we cannot expect to keep you! Major Churton told me
yesterday that they would hardly spare you from more important places
much longer. But why do you hate Key’land?”
Halton looked out of the window at the clearing sky. The rain had
ceased as suddenly as it had begun, and overhead was the pure deep blue
that Mrs. Lewin was beginning to associate with the place.
“It’s a rat-trap!” said the Commissioner, glancing up into the hollow
heavens. “One of the rat-traps that connect all the British Empire. And
already the rats are beginning to run round and round and find no way
of escape.”
But the words held no present meaning for Chum’s ears. She was
listening half-idly to the scraps of conversation in the room behind
her.
“I have got the Provincial issue for St. Thomas when they surcharged
the two cents on three cent stamps until the mail could get in with
more of the current issue!”
“By Jove! that’s ten shillings in the catalogue at least.”
“Yes, old man, but it isn’t in the market, as there’s no price quoted
for it!”
Then Ally laughed, and Chum smiled in sympathy. Ally’s sense of humour
was easily tickled, and his laugh was infectious. Mrs. Churton’s
metallic voice rang above the babel.
“Well, anyhow he had Zanzibar complete, and they say it’s worth a
thousand!”
“No, he hadn’t--he couldn’t get the one rupee unused slate, small
second, after all.”
“The only things to go for now-a-days are new issues--all the old ones
are too rare.”
“What’s that Turk’s Island twopence halfpenny on penny dull red, that
Mrs. Ritchie Stern had from Captain Tullock?”
“Oh, a beauty! I offered her an old Pacific Steam Navigation stamp for
it, but she wouldn’t exchange.”
“Nonsense! It’ll be as common as Black English in a little while.”
“Isn’t that a lovely set--those Venezuelans! And do you notice that the
over-print is different in just one out of the whole sheet? I wrote to
the paper about it, and they took no notice. I’m positive there’s a
variation.”
Five heads were eagerly bent over a square half inch of printed paper,
while a chorus of indistinguishable argument arose that made Mrs. Lewin
laugh out loud.
“I never yet met any one closely connected with the Navy or Army
who did not possess a collection of stamps worth at least a thousand
pounds!” remarked Halton drily, following her glance.
“And did they ever realise the thousand pounds?”
“Oh no, not personally. You heard their ingenuous remarks about
catalogues and market prices! But then they never want to
sell--personally. They know some one, however, who did so. It is
generally Browne who had the _Taradiddle_ on the El Dorado Station,
unless it is Smyth of the 1,000!”
“I know so many men in that regiment!” said Chum sweetly, “and they are
all such nice fellows, too! The Duke of Humbug’s Own, isn’t it?”
“Yes; and the regimental motto is, ‘When you tell a lie, tell a good
one!’--the badge, a chimera seen in a mirage!”
They had no time to laugh, because Mrs. Churton’s voice was heard
across the room, earnestly expostulating with Ally.
“The colours on the red Brazilian unpaid letter-stamp won’t stand
steaming. You had better try wet blotting-paper.”
“Oh, come outside!” said Halton impatiently, pushing open the
shuttered window-frame, and holding out his hand to help his companion
over the step. Mrs. Lewin followed him down the stoep and into a
narrow path lightly flanked by logwood. Three ravenala palms stood
sentinel outside the quarters of the O.C.T., their split fans looking
like raised hands to her imagination. The ravenala is the “Traveller’s
Tree,” and is tapped for water by enterprising tourists; but it is too
common in Key’land to excite the inhabitants, who look upon it as any
other palm. To Mrs. Lewin it had become somehow symbolic of the place,
and she liked its solemn hands outspread above her head, and regretted
that there did not happen to be a single specimen at the bungalow.
Besides the ravenalas and the logwood, the Churtons’ quarters were
singularly treeless, but they owned one of the three tennis courts
in Port Victoria. Maitso and Mitsinjovy are not remarkable for flat
spaces of ground, and the Churtons were esteemed fortunate. All the
houses on Maitso Hill had been apportioned to married officers when
the troops were first quartered there, and as the paths zigzagged up
and down the steep incline, each sharp curve would reveal a small
bungalow, until the long line of actual barracks crowned the crest.
From a distance it looked as if one house were hung above another, tier
on tier in the green, but a nearer acquaintance proved the garrison
more rugged than picturesque. At Mitsinjovy the officers’ quarters,
being new and specially built for them, were of a more regular type,
and proportionately hideous; but Maitso had been a favourite residence
to the old planters, and when given over to the Wessex, they counted
themselves luckier than the Gunners. Halton and Mrs. Lewin sauntered as
far as the tennis courts, and there paused, looking down on the best
view of Port Victoria and the bay that Key Island affords, while they
talked in desultory fashion.
“So you are interested in Key’land!” said the Commissioner
meditatively. “Have you seen anything of the island yet?”
“Nothing but Port Victoria--and the docks!” said Mrs. Lewin, with a
laughing glance at the forests of masts far off in the bay.
“I am glad you give the Government hobby its chance--but you should
have said the Docks, the Harbour, the Coaling Wharves, and--Port
Victoria! That is the correct order. We are merely here on sufferance,
as Government House bears witness! Would you like me to take you out to
China Town, I wonder?”
“I am sure I should--if I knew anything about it. Where is China Town?”
“It is on the other side of that hill,”--he pointed up the valley to an
undiscovered inland. “It is the headquarters of the Chinese here, and
we suspect at the root of the mischief. They have got some place where
they brew this abominable form of hashish which sends the ordinary
native mad, and makes him get up riots and kill white people--you see?
But as yet we have not absolutely spotted John Chinaman brewing in any
large quantities, and we cannot condemn on isolated instances. You are
really interested, Mrs. Lewin!”
Chum laughed a little, conscious that her wide eyes were alight with
the absorption of the moment, and Mr. Halton laughed too. It was one of
his chief attractions to her that he never paid her a compliment, or
made a personal remark; and yet his quiet admiration was as patent to
her as the noisy homage of duller men.
“I am extremely interested! Is that your theory as to the cause of the
rioting?”
“The real cause, certainly. The oppression and low wage that was
offered as an excuse is nothing to a logical mind dealing with
these people. There are the innocent hemp-crops, and there are the
wily yellow man and the fools of blacks. But as yet we have not the
connecting link. They complained of _corvée_ (forced labour), it is
always the plea--but we complain of ganja with much more reason!”
“And do these people profess to cultivate hemp for export?”
“A Chinaman, dear lady, will profess anything--save the truth. It is
all _pidgeon_ to use his own universal expression. But if you will get
up very early to-morrow--say be in the saddle by seven--I will take a
day off and expound the ethics of China Town to you, with spectacular
views as illustrations. Will you come?”
“With pleasure. But can’t you tell me--Ah! what a pity!”
The compliment contained in the genuine exclamation was perfect because
impromptu. It was caused by the arrival on the scene of Captain Nugent,
Mrs. Churton, and Ally, no longer talking of stamps but of tennis.
“Is it too wet to play, d’you think?” Diana Churton said to the
Commissioner and Mrs. Lewin long before she reached them. “That’s
the worst of grass--I wish we had gravel courts like that stuck-up
Mrs. Bertie used to tell us they had in the Cape. D’you remember her,
Brissy? My husband used to call her pea-hen!”
“Was she stuck-up? I thought she made herself rather
friendly,”--Captain Nugent’s voice was equally strident to Mrs. Lewin’s
ears. “She was telling some story about the _State_ theatricals very
first time I met her, and Jordan coming on the stage dead drunk! Rather
good tale she made of it too.”
Chum began to see that she would have to like Brissy in spite of
herself, if it were to be done at all. A sudden impatience of the
chatter round her seized her with the tantalising glimpse of more
exciting things to hear of from Halton. Five seconds later she
changed her mental attitude, and condemned herself for her own lack
of adaptability. It was one of her theories that the immediate thing
was the one to grasp and develop as best might be, which mental
schooling resulted in her becoming involved in a game of cat’s-cradle
with Captain Nugent, who was playing with a piece of string which had
been tied round the stamps album. Brissy had no conception of mental
flirtations undermining even a discussion on hemp-growing round China
Town; but he knew that if he got “fish-in-the-pond” his large hands
would very likely touch Mrs. Lewin’s in the manipulation of the string.
Ally had gone to find their ponies for the return home, and by the time
he reappeared the Commissioner had also extricated himself after his
quiet fashion and started with them.
“Then you will come for a ride to-morrow?” he said to Chum carelessly.
“I am going to show your wife China Town, Lewin--she displays such a
flattering interest, that Government cannot afford to allow it to die
for lack of cultivation. You were there yesterday, eh?”
“I was!” said Ally significantly. “The most beastly hot ride I ever
had. You had better be careful what time of day you go, Chum.”
“Mr. Halton says seven A. M.”
“I wish the Administrator had said seven A. M.!” said Ally, laughing
good-humouredly. “Instead of that he said twelve--at a minute’s notice.”
“He does not spare himself!” said Halton, with a shrug of his
shoulders. “And he sees no reason to spare other people. Our paths
divide here, I am sorry to say. Yours is the shorter cut, Mrs. Lewin.”
“Good-bye till to-morrow, then.”
She turned in her saddle, her face framed in by the Panama hat she
wore for riding, her eyes in the shadow, a new shade in which the
Commissioner had not yet surprised them. He reined his own pony’s head
round into the winding path that made a carriage-drive to Government
House, while the Lewins rode straight on. Their bungalow lay only a few
hundred yards further down the direct road, with a short cut through
their own plantation to Government House. It was by this private path
that Ally went to his work every morning and returned--the click of
the rough gate dividing the grounds being Chum’s signal for the first
luncheon bell; but visitors, or the residents of Government House
themselves, had a half-mile of winding path and tangled green before
they emerged opposite the long straight building where the Union Jack
flew above lines of blank window-frames and the straight pillars of the
stoep. There were two stories to Government House; it could accommodate
some thirty people independently of servants, and the Administrator and
Commissioner, alone in their glory, called it a useful barn.
As Halton rode slowly along under the palms he was hardly thinking
of the ethics of China Town, being too busy in breaking the tenth
commandment. He was a man who had always hankered after the
unattainable, and been afraid to risk what he had for what he desired.
He had seen many pretty women, whom he thought of regretfully as
possible wives--after they had been married by other men. The old
process was beginning again in his mind, but the outcome of it was
merely a half-irritated remark to the Administrator across the
_tête-à-tête_ dinner-table.
“What on earth made you send Lewin out to China Town in the heat of the
day? It’s enough to kill a man!”
“There was no one else to send,” said Gregory simply, looking up in
momentary surprise from helping himself to fried banana. “I had a
message for Burton. _He’s_ a good man if you like.”
“And not to be wasted. It wouldn’t matter if Lewin were used up, eh?”
Gregory shrugged his shoulders. “What on earth did Government mean
by sending me a Mediterranean Station man?” he said in his repressed
tones. “Who am I to depend on when you go?”
“He may wake up.”
“He’ll play tennis.”
“I have an idea his wife may push him through,” said the Commissioner
slowly, poking a hard-back beetle with his forefinger as he spoke. He
was looking at the insect as he spoke, and not at his _vis-à-vis_.
Gregory’s lidless eyes were fixed on him, however, in their usual
direct fashion. “She is by way of being an ambitious woman.”
“Is she? I have no impression of her beyond the fact that she was
talking rather intelligently to Churton, on one occasion.”
“When was that?” Halton raised his eyes and spoke more quickly, still
mechanically keeping the beetle struggling on his back.
“Two days ago, at Mrs. White’s. I didn’t speak to Mrs. Lewin, but I
heard her talk.” He was unaware of the fact that Mrs. Lewin had been
conscious of him as an audience what time she quietly drained the
O.C.T. for information.
“I think she has brains. She is more attracted by Key Island than its
meagre diversions.”
“Pity the girl isn’t the boy, then!” said the Administrator cynically.
“This thing that sweats through a morning as my private secretary, and
then with a sigh of relief scrambles into his flannels, is cursed with
the curse of Reuben.”
“Your pet aversion. I think you might be worse off, myself. Lewin is
at least a gentleman--and his duties include an A.D.C.’s, as well as a
secretary’s.”
“Lewin has a pretty wife!” said Gregory bluntly. “That’s all about
it, Halton. I hope the lady will be so shrewd as to see which side her
husband’s bread is buttered, that’s all. I may get the report into some
form if she makes him work.” He rose in his usual irrelevant fashion,
pushing aside the last course offered him by the butler, and tossed
over some papers on a side table. “Ambroise had no news,” he remarked.
“So you need hardly have slipped off to Port Albert!” retorted Halton.
“I’ve an engagement to-morrow morning, by the way--I shan’t be on hand
to save friction between you and Lewin.”
The Administrator opened his lips as if to say something; but the
under-breathed words did not come. His hard eyes searched Halton’s
reticent face for a moment with intent, and in his mind he bore another
grudge against his Secretary for having a wife who could make a fool
of a Commissioner. Taff Halton was a clever man, too. They had worked
together in Central Africa. The devil take all women!
“Mrs. Lewin,” drawled Halton, “was wearing a blouse, this afternoon,
of a peculiar shade of grey-lavender, which seemed like a reflection of
her eyes. It’s a pity you don’t study colour effects, Gregory. You lose
so much pleasure.” He knew just where to plant his sting, for if there
was one thing that Evelyn Gregory loathed it was dilettantism. Halton’s
sleepy eyes saw the curbed impatience in Gregory’s face, and he dropped
back in his chair so happy that other relaxation was forgotten; and the
hard-back beetle, no longer kept helplessly clawing the air, crawled
away, and immediately married a lady he discovered in the shade of a
dessert dish. All grades of life are elementary in Key Island.