SETTLING DOWN.
So much I remember of my reading, and I slowly bring it back to life,
with much help in concentration from one of the rafters of yellow wood
with which my chamber is roofed. I am steadily gazing at the rafter,
as I have been any time this hour past, when I hear a knock at the
door, give the familiar pass-word, and receive Victoria’s unembarrassed
‘Good-morning’ as she walks majestically in, and takes a seat on the
edge of the bed. I watched her savage cheek for the trace of a blush,
but there was none. I hope she did not watch mine.
‘Must we call you “Lord”?’ she inquired, with grave politeness. ‘Father
says we ought, but I thought I would ask you first.’
I set her mind at rest on this point, and then she became herself of
yesterday, protecting and calm.
‘I came to call you. How long have you been awake? Did you sleep well?’
So many questions, one might say, out of an Ollendorffan First Course
in the language of the island.
‘Delightfully,’ I replied. ‘I hope I have not kept breakfast waiting.’
(Exercise No. 2.)
‘Oh, we have had breakfast long ago,’ said Victoria, now beginning real
talk, ‘and they have all gone to work; but I stayed at home to look
after you.’
‘What kind of work?’
‘Well, work in the plantations--how do you suppose we get our yams?’
‘What else?’
‘Listen’--and I heard a muffled sound of beating from the back of the
house. I had heard it before, but it had passed unnoticed--‘Can’t you
guess what they are doing there?’
‘Not in the least.’
‘They are making cloth, tappa cloth. See, here is some of it;’ and she
showed me the snowy counterpane of my bed. ‘We make it from the bark
of a tree. I’ll show you, by-and-by. We like English cloth better,
though, when we can get it. I always dress in English cloth.’
‘So you have done no work to-day, Victoria, all because of me.’
‘Oh yes, I have. I have cooked your breakfast, and caught it too. Do
you like fish?’
‘What fish?’
‘Squid.’
‘I hope I do,’ I said fervently--‘I am sure I do.’
‘Such fun! I had to go in three times for him, and was washed off
twice.’
‘I don’t quite understand.’
‘In the surf, you know. They cling to the rocks; and you have to catch
them before the sea comes back and catches you.’
I remembered my dismal attempt to rule the waves the night before last,
and was silent with humiliation.
She must have read my thoughts with her clear eye. ‘Oh, none of _you_
can swim; and no wonder--you have such nice ships to swim for you. I
must give you a few lessons. We will go right round the island--I will
look after you. But not till you are stronger. Are you strong to-day?’
asked Victoria, with the tenderest solicitude, looking down on me as on
a babe in its cot.
Upon my word, I thought she was going to offer to dress me. ‘As a
lion,’ I returned, determined to resist this last indignity to the
death.
‘Well, make haste, and get up,’ said Victoria, and she rose and walked
out--no better enlightened as to the proprieties, I am afraid, than
when she came in.
I was soon in the next room; and for some minutes I had it to myself.
This gave me time to look round. It was a long chamber, with windows
on one of the longer sides, or rather unglazed openings that might be
closed with a shutter. On the opposite side were two beds in recesses
facing the light, and screened by sliding panels that made each recess
a tiny bed-chamber. Portholes in the wall above the beds would admit
light when the panels were closed. They were not closed now; and the
beds, with their coverlets of spotless tappa, formed no insignificant
part of the furniture. It appeared to be the great common room of the
house, serving all purposes by turns. My breakfast things, spread on a
white cloth, stood on the table. There was a large clothes press in one
corner, of home make, I should say, but still the work of a craftsman.
An old-fashioned writing-desk, in another corner, was evidently from
Europe. Floor, walls, and ceiling were of the yellow wood already
noticed. There was no fireplace; but a well-stored bookcase hung over
what might have been the mantel. In other respects, the place was like
a cabinet of curiosities. There were articles of use or ornament that
must have come out of the old scuttled ship, with others that were, as
clearly, recent gifts from Europe. Some of the gifts were useful; a few
would have been purely ornamental, even in the boudoir of a duchess.
There was a good timepiece, side by side with a machine for moistening
postage stamps. A copper tea-kettle divided the honours of a little
sideboard with a miniature chest of drawers, in morocco leather, for
the storage of cash--labelled ‘Gold,’ ‘Silver,’ ‘Notes,’ in letters
richly embossed. A huge shoehorn in ivory, tapering to a button hook
in polished steel, hung against the wall, near an old-fashioned native
club. Kind-hearted people at home seemed to have had happy thoughts
about the Pitcairn plunders while walking down Bond Street, and to have
rushed into the first fancy-shop, and bought the first thing that came
to hand. The islanders were none the worse for it; they had received
these gifts as so much European fetich, and reverently laid them by,
without attempting to discover their use.
I was still enjoying this strange feast of the eye, when the Ancient of
yesterday, the Governor of the Island, came in. He was between fifty
and sixty, tall, straight, and strong, and, in many points of look
and manner, a strange survival of the old-fashioned man-of-war’s man,
though he might never have trod a vessel’s deck. He was dressed like
a seaman, in blue pilot cloth with brass buttons, that must have come
from England. He had the inheritance of a pigtail and side locks, in
his way of trimming his hair. He was no swarthier than an English tar
who has seen service, in spite of his cross of native blood. He had
softer manners, however, than one would look for in his great original.
Yet, to say the best for him, he came somewhat short of the common
conception of a Governor. His face had something of the grave beauty of
Victoria’s, without any trace of its spiritual charm.
--‘Hope you are better, sir,’ said his Excellency, laying his hat
on the writing-desk, and holding out his hand. One thing especially
charmed me in him, as, afterwards, in all of them. He was as free as
a Spanish peasant from all subservience of manner born of a sense
of difference in social grade. None of them seemed to know their
station, although, strangely enough, this implied no ignorance of their
Catechism. The secret of my unfortunate position at home, as revealed
by the visiting card, made me an object of curiosity, but not in the
least of deference, still less, if possible, of ill will. They seemed
to feel without explanation--what I was at first so anxious to tell
them--that it was no fault of mine.
After compliments, he gave me his history, in reply to my eager
questions. He was the grandson of an English mutineer; and both his
father and mother were of mixed English and native blood. So, too, was
his wife--now dead. Victoria was his only child. The very mention of
her, I could see, brought a faint glow of pride to his bronzed cheek;
and when she came in, bearing a smoking dish for my breakfast, he
embraced her as lovingly as though they had not met for months.
‘Be careful, father, or you’ll upset the bird,’ said the girl, as she
laid a baked fowl on the table, which was quite a master-piece as a
colour study in luscious browns. It took three journeys to complete
her preparations; and then I was invited to sit down to the most
deliciously novel repast ever spread before me--grey mullet, and the
mysterious squid, now turning out to be the more familiar cuttle-fish,
to take off the sharper edge of appetite; the baked bird, with yams,
roasted breadfruit, and plantain cake to follow; bananas, oranges, and
cocoa-nuts for dessert. The liquors, I am bound to say, were a failure.
I was offered water with the fish, and cocoa-nut milk with the bird;
and, I suppose, my passing spasm of pain caught Victoria’s eye.
‘I knew he would never like it,’ she said to her father, ‘I must make
him some tea, this minute,’ and she flew outside once more.
I followed, with a bunch of bananas in my hand, to entreat her not to
execute her kindly intention, and then I discovered that the kitchen
was in the open air. It was the old Otaheite oven, described by
Cook--heated stones in a hole in the ground, the food laid on them, and
covered with more heated stones, which, in their turn, were covered
with leaves and cleanly rubbish to keep out every particle of cold.
Half an hour in this bath of hot air cooks a fowl to perfection. Other
things were new and strange to me. The houses stood about a yard above
the soil on huge sleepers of stone, and these sleepers, again, were
laid on low terraces of earth, for further security against damp. Each
house was surrounded by its own plot--a garden in front, and in the
rear a miniature farm-yard, and offices, including the oven, and a shed
for the making of cloth. The roofs were thatched with leaves, and most
of the dwellings had an upper floor.