town with its granite houses Lawson realised how much it meant to him to
live once more among his own people. He looked back on the three years
he had spent in Apia as exile, and returned to the life that seemed the
only normal one with a sigh of relief. It was good to play golf once
more, and to fish--to fish properly, that was poor fun in the Pacific
when you just threw in your line and pulled out one big sluggish fish
after another from the crowded sea--and it was good to see a paper every
day with that day's news, and to meet men and women of your own sort,
people you could talk to; and it was good to eat meat that was not
frozen and to drink milk that was not canned. They were thrown upon
their own resources much more than in the Pacific, and he was glad to
have Ethel exclusively to himself. After two years of marriage he loved
her more devotedly than ever, he could hardly bear her out of his sight,
and the need in him grew urgent for a more intimate communion between
them. But it was strange that after the first excitement of arrival she
seemed to take less interest in the new life than he had expected. She
did not accustom herself to her surroundings. She was a little
lethargic. As the fine autumn darkened into winter she complained of the
cold. She lay half the morning in bed and the rest of the day on a sofa,
reading novels sometimes, but more often doing nothing. She looked
pinched.
"Never mind, darling," he said. "You'll get used to it very soon. And
wait till the summer comes. It can be almost as hot as in Apia."
He felt better and stronger than he had done for years.
The carelessness with which she managed her house had not mattered in
Samoa, but here it was out of place. When anyone came he did not want
the place to look untidy; and, laughing, chaffing Ethel a little, he set
about putting things in order. Ethel watched him indolently. She spent
long hours playing with her son. She talked to him in the baby language
of her own country. To distract her, Lawson bestirred himself to make
friends among the neighbours, and now and then they went to little
parties where the ladies sang drawing-room ballads and the men beamed in
silent good nature. Ethel was shy. She seemed to sit apart. Sometimes
Lawson, seized with a sudden anxiety, would ask her if she was happy.
"Yes, I'm quite happy," she answered.
But her eyes were veiled by some thought he could not guess. She seemed
to withdraw into herself so that he was conscious that he knew no more
of her than when he had first seen her bathing in the pool. He had an
uneasy feeling that she was concealing something from him, and because
he adored her it tortured him.
"You don't regret Apia, do you?" he asked her once.
"Oh, no--I think it's very nice here."
An obscure misgiving drove him to make disparaging remarks about the
island and the people there. She smiled and did not answer. Very rarely
she received a bundle of letters from Samoa and then she went about for
a day or two with a set, pale face.
"Nothing would induce me ever to go back there," he said once. "It's no
place for a white man."
But he grew conscious that sometimes, when he was away, Ethel cried. In
Apia she had been talkative, chatting volubly about all the little
details of their common life, the gossip of the place; but now she
gradually became silent, and, though he increased his efforts to amuse
her, she remained listless. It seemed to him that her recollections of
the old life were drawing her away from him, and he was madly jealous of
the island and of the sea, of Brevald, and all the dark-skinned people
whom he remembered now with horror. When she spoke of Samoa he was
bitter and satirical. One evening late in the spring when the birch
trees were bursting into leaf, coming home from a round of golf, he
found her not as usual lying on the sofa, but at the window, standing.
She had evidently been waiting for his return. She addressed him the
moment he came into the room. To his amazement she spoke in Samoan.
"I can't stand it. I can't live here any more. I hate it. I hate it."
"For God's sake speak in a civilised language," he said irritably.
She went up to him and clasped her arms around his body awkwardly, with
a gesture that had in it something barbaric.
"Let's go away from here. Let's go back to Samoa. If you make me stay
here I shall die. I want to go home."
Her passion broke suddenly and she burst into tears. His anger vanished
and he drew her down on his knees. He explained to her that it was
impossible for him to throw up his job, which after all meant his bread
and butter. His place in Apia was long since filled. He had nothing to
go back to there. He tried to put it to her reasonably, the
inconveniences of life there, the humiliation to which they must be
exposed, and the bitterness it must cause their son.
"Scotland's wonderful for education and that sort of thing. Schools are
good and cheap, and he can go to the University at Aberdeen. I'll make a
real Scot of him."
They had called him Andrew. Lawson wanted him to become a doctor. He
would marry a white woman.
"I'm not ashamed of being half native," Ethel said sullenly.
"Of course not, darling. There's nothing to be ashamed of."
With her soft cheek against his he felt incredibly weak.
"You don't know how much I love you," he said. "I'd give anything in the
world to be able to tell you what I've got in my heart."
He sought her lips.
The summer came. The highland valley was green and fragrant, and the
hills were gay with the heather. One sunny day followed another in that
sheltered spot, and the shade of the birch trees was grateful after the
glare of the high road. Ethel spoke no more of Samoa and Lawson grew
less nervous. He thought that she was resigned to her surroundings, and
he felt that his love for her was so passionate that it could leave no
room in her heart for any longing. One day the local doctor stopped him
in the street.
"I say, Lawson, your missus ought to be careful how she bathes in our
highland streams. It's not like the Pacific, you know."
Lawson was surprised, and had not the presence of mind to conceal the
fact.
"I didn't know she was bathing."
The doctor laughed.
"A good many people have seen her. It makes them talk a bit, you know,
because it seems a rum place to choose, the pool up above the bridge,
and bathing isn't allowed there, but there's no harm in that. I don't
know how she can stand the water."
Lawson knew the pool the doctor spoke of, and suddenly it occurred to
him that in a way it was just like that pool at Upolu where Ethel had
been in the habit of bathing every evening. A clear highland stream ran
down a sinuous course, rocky, splashing gaily, and then formed a deep,
smooth pool, with a little sandy beach. Trees overshadowed it thickly,
not coconut trees, but beeches, and the sun played fitfully through the
leaves on the sparkling water. It gave him a shock. With his imagination
he saw Ethel go there every day and undress on the bank and slip into
the water, cold, colder than that of the pool she loved at home, and for
a moment regain the feeling of the past. He saw her once more as the
strange, wild spirit of the stream, and it seemed to him fantastically
that the running water called her. That afternoon he went along to the
river. He made his way cautiously among the trees and the grassy path
deadened the sound of his steps. Presently he came to a spot from which
he could see the pool. Ethel was sitting on the bank, looking down at
the water. She sat quite still. It seemed as though the water drew her
irresistibly. He wondered what strange thoughts wandered through her
head. At last she got up, and for a minute or two she was hidden from
his gaze; then he saw her again, wearing a Mother Hubbard, and with her
little bare feet she stepped delicately over the mossy bank. She came to
the water's edge, and softly, without a splash, let herself down. She
swam about quietly, and there was something not quite of a human being
in the way she swam. He did not know why it affected him so queerly. He
waited till she clambered out. She stood for a moment with the wet folds
of her dress clinging to her body, so that its shape was outlined, and
then, passing her hands slowly over her breasts, gave a little sigh of
delight. Then she disappeared. Lawson turned away and walked back to the
village. He had a bitter pain in his heart, for he knew that she was
still a stranger to him and his hungry love was destined ever to remain
unsatisfied.
He did not make any mention of what he had seen. He ignored the incident
completely, but he looked at her curiously, trying to divine what was in
her mind. He redoubled the tenderness with which he used her. He sought
to make her forget the deep longing of her soul by the passion of his
love.
Then one day, when he came home, he was astonished to find her not in
the house.
"Where's Mrs Lawson?" he asked the maid.
"She went into Aberdeen, Sir, with the baby," the maid answered, a
little surprised at the question. "She said she would not be back till
the last train."
"Oh, all right."
He was vexed that Ethel had said nothing to him about the excursion, but
he was not disturbed, since of late she had been in now and again to
Aberdeen, and he was glad that she should look at the shops and perhaps
visit a cinema. He went to meet the last train, but when she did not
come he grew suddenly frightened. He went up to the bedroom and saw at
once that her toilet things were no longer in their place. He opened the
wardrobe and the drawers. They were half empty. She had bolted.
He was seized with a passion of anger. It was too late that night to
telephone to Aberdeen and make enquiries, but he knew already all that
his enquiries might have taught him. With fiendish cunning she had
chosen a time when they were making up their periodical accounts at the
bank and there was no chance that he could follow her. He was imprisoned
by his work. He took up a paper and saw that there was a boat sailing
for Australia next morning. She must be now well on the way to London.
He could not prevent the sobs that were wrung painfully from him.
"I've done everything in the world for her," he cried, "and she had the
heart to treat me like this. How cruel, how monstrously cruel!"
After two days of misery he received a letter from her. It was written
in her school-girl hand. She had always written with difficulty:
_Dear Bertie:_
_I couldn't stand it any more._
_I'm going back home. Good-bye._
_Ethel._
She did not say a single word of regret. She did not even ask him to
come too. Lawson was prostrated. He found out where the ship made its
first stop and, though he knew very well she would not come, sent a
cable beseeching her to return. He waited with pitiful anxiety. He
wanted her to send him just one word of love; she did not even answer.
He passed through one violent phase after another. At one moment he told
himself that he was well rid of her, and at the next that he would force
her to return by withholding money. He was lonely and wretched. He
wanted his boy and he wanted her. He knew that, whatever he pretended to
himself, there was only one thing to do and that was to follow her. He
could never live without her now. All his plans for the future were like
a house of cards and he scattered them with angry impatience. He did not
care whether he threw away his chances for the future, for nothing in
the world mattered but that he should get Ethel back again. As soon as
he could he went into Aberdeen and told the manager of his bank that he
meant to leave at once. The manager remonstrated. The short notice was
inconvenient. Lawson would not listen to reason. He was determined to be
free before the next boat sailed; and it was not until he was on board
of her, having sold everything he possessed, that in some measure he
regained his calm. Till then to those who had come in contact with him
he seemed hardly sane. His last action in England was to cable to Ethel
at Apia that he was joining her.
He sent another cable from Sydney, and when at last with the dawn his
boat crossed the bar at Apia and he saw once more the white houses
straggling along the bay he felt an immense relief. The doctor came on
board and the agent. They were both old acquaintances and he felt kindly
towards their familiar faces. He had a drink or two with them for old
times' sake, and also because he was desperately nervous. He was not
sure if Ethel would be glad to see him. When he got into the launch and
approached the wharf he scanned anxiously the little crowd that waited.
She was not there and his heart sank, but then he saw Brevald, in his
old blue clothes, and his heart warmed towards him.
"Where's Ethel?" he said, as he jumped on shore.
"She's down at the bungalow. She's living with us."
Lawson was dismayed, but he put on a jovial air.
"Well, have you got room for me? I daresay it'll take a week or two to
fix ourselves up."
"Oh, yes, I guess we can make room for you."
After passing through the custom-house they went to the hotel and there
Lawson was greeted by several of his old friends. There were a good many
rounds of drinks before it seemed possible to get away and when they did
go out at last to Brevald's house they were both rather gay. He clasped
Ethel in his arms. He had forgotten all his bitter thoughts in the joy
of beholding her once more. His mother-in-law was pleased to see him,
and so was the old, wrinkled beldame, her mother; natives and
half-castes came in, and they all sat round, beaming on him. Brevald had
a bottle of whisky and everyone who came was given a nip. Lawson sat
with his little dark-skinned boy on his knees, they had taken his
English clothes off him and he was stark, with Ethel by his side in a
Mother Hubbard. He felt like a returning prodigal. In the afternoon he
went down to the hotel again and when he got back he was more than gay,
he was drunk. Ethel and her mother knew that white men got drunk now and
then, it was what you expected of them, and they laughed good-naturedly
as they helped him to bed.
But in a day or two he set about looking for a job. He knew that he
could not hope for such a position as that which he had thrown away to
go to England; but with his training he could not fail to be useful to
one of the trading firms, and perhaps in the end he would not lose by
the change.
"After all, you can't make money in a bank," he said. "Trade's the
thing."
He had hopes that he would soon make himself so indispensable that he
would get someone to take him into partnership, and there was no reason
why in a few years he should not be a rich man.
"As soon as I'm fixed up we'll find ourselves a shack," he told Ethel.
"We can't go on living here."
Brevald's bungalow was so small that they were all piled on one another,
and there was no chance of ever being alone. There was neither peace nor
privacy.
"Well, there's no hurry. We shall be all right here till we find just
what we want."
It took him a week to get settled and then he entered the firm of a man
called Bain. But when he talked to Ethel about moving she said she
wanted to stay where she was till her baby was born, for she was
expecting another child. Lawson tried to argue with her.
"If you don't like it," she said, "go and live at the hotel."
He grew suddenly pale.
"Ethel, how can you suggest that!"
She shrugged her shoulders.
"What's the good of having a house of our own when we can live here."
He yielded.
When Lawson, after his work, went back to the bungalow he found it
crowded with natives. They lay about smoking, sleeping, drinking _kava_;
and they talked incessantly. The place was grubby and untidy. His child
crawled about, playing with native children, and it heard nothing spoken
but Samoan. He fell into the habit of dropping into the hotel on his
way home to have a few cocktails, for he could only face the evening and
the crowd of friendly natives when he was fortified with liquor. And all
the time, though he loved her more passionately than ever, he felt that
Ethel was slipping away from him. When the baby was born he suggested
that they should get into a house of their own, but Ethel refused. Her
stay in Scotland seemed to have thrown her back on her own people, now
that she was once more among them, with a passionate zest, and she
turned to her native ways with abandon. Lawson began to drink more.
Every Saturday night he went to the English Club and got blind drunk.
He had the peculiarity that as he grew drunk he grew quarrelsome and
once he had a violent dispute with Bain, his employer. Bain dismissed
him, and he had to look out for another job. He was idle for two or
three weeks and during these, sooner than sit in the bungalow, he
lounged about in the hotel or at the English Club, and drank. It was
more out of pity than anything else that Miller, the German-American,
took him into his office; but he was a business man, and though Lawson's
financial skill made him valuable, the circumstances were such that he
could hardly refuse a smaller salary than he had had before, and Miller
did not hesitate to offer it to him. Ethel and Brevald blamed him for
taking it, since Pedersen, the half-caste, offered him more. But he
resented bitterly the thought of being under the orders of a half-caste.
When Ethel nagged him he burst out furiously:
"I'll see myself dead before I work for a nigger."
"You may have to," she said.
And in six months he found himself forced to this final humiliation. The
passion for liquor had been gaining on him, he was often heavy with
drink, and he did his work badly. Miller warned him once or twice and
Lawson was not the man to accept remonstrance easily. One day in the
midst of an altercation he put on his hat and walked out. But by now his
reputation was well known and he could find no one to engage him. For a
while he idled, and then he had an attack of _delirium tremens_. When he
recovered, shameful and weak, he could no longer resist the constant
pressure and he went to Pedersen and asked him for a job. Pedersen was
glad to have a white man in his store and Lawson's skill at figures made
him useful.
From that time his degeneration was rapid. The white people gave him the
cold shoulder. They were only prevented from cutting him completely by
disdainful pity and by a certain dread of his angry violence when he was
drunk. He became extremely susceptible and was always on the lookout for
affront.
He lived entirely among the natives and half-castes, but he had no
longer the prestige of the white man. They felt his loathing for them
and they resented his attitude of superiority. He was one of themselves
now and they did not see why he should put on airs. Brevald, who had
been ingratiating and obsequious, now treated him with contempt. Ethel
had made a bad bargain. There were disgraceful scenes and once or twice
the two men came to blows. When there was a quarrel Ethel took the part
of her family. They found he was better drunk than sober, for when he
was drunk he would lie on the bed or on the floor, sleeping heavily.
Then he became aware that something was being hidden from him.
When he got back to the bungalow for the wretched, half native supper
which was his evening meal, often Ethel was not in. If he asked where
she was Brevald told him she had gone to spend the evening with one or
other of her friends. Once he followed her to the house Brevald had
mentioned and found she was not there. On her return he asked her where
she had been and she told him her father had made a mistake; she had
been to so-and-so's. But he knew that she was lying. She was in her best
clothes; her eyes were shining, and she looked lovely.
"Don't try any monkey tricks on me, my girl," he said, "or I'll break
every bone in your body."
"You drunken beast," she said, scornfully.
He fancied that Mrs Brevald and the old grandmother looked at him
maliciously and he ascribed Brevald's good-humour with him, so unusual
those days, to his satisfaction at having something up his sleeve
against his son-in-law. And then, his suspicions aroused, he imagined
that the white men gave him curious glances. When he came into the
lounge of the hotel the sudden silence which fell upon the company
convinced him that he had been the subject of the conversation.
Something was going on and everyone knew it but himself. He was seized
with furious jealousy. He believed that Ethel was carrying on with one
of the white men, and he looked at one after the other with scrutinising
eyes; but there was nothing to give him even a hint. He was helpless.
Because he could find no one on whom definitely to fix his suspicions,
he went about like a raving maniac, looking for someone on whom to vent
his wrath. Chance caused him in the end to hit upon the man who of all
others least deserved to suffer from his violence. One afternoon, when
he was sitting in the hotel by himself, moodily, Chaplin came in and sat
down beside him. Perhaps Chaplin was the only man on the island who had
any sympathy for him. They ordered drinks and chatted a few minutes
about the races that were shortly to be run. Then Chaplain said:
"I guess we shall all have to fork out money for new dresses."
Lawson sniggered. Since Mrs Chaplin held the purse-strings if she wanted
a new frock for the occasion she would certainly not ask her husband for
the money.
"How is your missus?" asked Chaplin, desiring to be friendly.
"What the hell's that got to do with you?" said Lawson, knitting his
dark brows.
"I was only asking a civil question."
"Well, keep your civil questions to yourself."
Chaplin was not a patient man; his long residence in the tropics, the
whisky bottle, and his domestic affairs had given him a temper hardly
more under control than Lawson's.
"Look here, my boy, when you're in my hotel you behave like a gentleman
or you'll find yourself in the street before you can say knife."
Lawson's lowering face grew dark and red.
"Let me just tell you once for all and you can pass it on to the
others," he said, panting with rage. "If any of you fellows come messing
round with my wife he'd better look out."
"Who do you think wants to mess around with your wife?"
"I'm not such a fool as you think. I can see a stone wall in front of me
as well as most men, and I warn you straight, that's all. I'm not going
to put up with any hanky-panky, not on your life."
"Look here, you'd better clear out of here, and come back when you're
sober."
"I shall clear out when I choose and not a minute before," said Lawson.
It was an unfortunate boast, for Chaplin in the course of his experience
as a hotel-keeper had acquired a peculiar skill in dealing with
gentlemen whose room he preferred to their company, and the words were
hardly out of Lawson's mouth before he found himself caught by the
collar and arm and hustled not without force into the street. He
stumbled down the steps into the blinding glare of the sun.
It was in consequence of this that he had his first violent scene with
Ethel. Smarting with humiliation and unwilling to go back to the hotel,
he went home that afternoon earlier than usual. He found Ethel dressing
to go out. As a rule she lay about in a Mother Hubbard, barefoot, with
a flower in her dark hair; but now, in white silk stockings and
high-heeled shoes, she was doing up a pink muslin dress which was the
newest she had.
"You're making yourself very smart," he said. "Where are you going?"
"I'm going to the Crossleys."
"I'll come with you."
"Why?" she asked coolly.
"I don't want you to gad about by yourself all the time."
"You're not asked."
"I don't care a damn about that. You're not going without me."
"You'd better lie down till I'm ready."
She thought he was drunk and if he once settled himself on the bed would
quickly drop off to sleep. He sat down on a chair and began to smoke a
cigarette. She watched him with increasing irritation: When she was
ready he got up. It happened by an unusual chance that there was no one
in the bungalow. Brevald was working on the plantation and his wife had
gone into Apia. Ethel faced him.
"I'm not going with you. You're drunk."
"That's a lie. You're not going without me."
She shrugged her shoulders and tried to pass him, but he caught her by
the arm and held her.
"Let me go, you devil," she said, breaking into Samoan.
"Why do you want to go without me? Haven't I told you I'm not going to
put up with any monkey tricks?"
She clenched her fist and hit him in the face. He lost all control of
himself. All his love, all his hatred, welled up in him and he was
beside himself.
"I'll teach you," he shouted. "I'll teach you."