haven't."
"The captain believes every word of it."
"That's obvious; but you know that's not the part that interests me
most, whether it's true or not, and what it all means; the part that
interests me is that such things should happen to such people. I wonder
what there is in that commonplace little man to arouse such a passion in
that lovely creature. As I watched her, asleep there, while he was
telling the story I had some fantastic idea about the power of love
being able to work miracles."
"But that's not the girl," said Winter.
"What on earth do you mean?"
"Didn't you notice the cook?"
"Of course I did. He's the ugliest man I ever saw."
"That's why Butler took him. The girl ran away with the Chinese cook
last year. This is a new one. He's only had her there about two months."
"Well, I'm hanged."
"He thinks this cook is safe. But I wouldn't be too sure in his place.
There's something about a Chink, when he lays himself out to please a
woman she can't resist him."
VII
_Rain_
It was nearly bed-time and when they awoke next morning land would be in
sight. Dr Macphail lit his pipe and, leaning over the rail, searched the
heavens for the Southern Cross. After two years at the front and a wound
that had taken longer to heal than it should, he was glad to settle down
quietly at Apia for twelve months at least, and he felt already better
for the journey. Since some of the passengers were leaving the ship next
day at Pago-Pago they had had a little dance that evening and in his
ears hammered still the harsh notes of the mechanical piano. But the
deck was quiet at last. A little way off he saw his wife in a long chair
talking with the Davidsons, and he strolled over to her. When he sat
down under the light and took off his hat you saw that he had very red
hair, with a bald patch on the crown, and the red, freckled skin which
accompanies red hair; he was a man of forty, thin, with a pinched face,
precise and rather pedantic; and he spoke with a Scots accent in a very
low, quiet voice.
Between the Macphails and the Davidsons, who were missionaries, there
had arisen the intimacy of shipboard, which is due to propinquity rather
than to any community of taste. Their chief tie was the disapproval
they shared of the men who spent their days and nights in the
smoking-room playing poker or bridge and drinking. Mrs Macphail was not
a little flattered to think that she and her husband were the only
people on board with whom the Davidsons were willing to associate, and
even the doctor, shy but no fool, half unconsciously acknowledged the
compliment. It was only because he was of an argumentative mind that in
their cabin at night he permitted himself to carp.
"Mrs Davidson was saying she didn't know how they'd have got through the
journey if it hadn't been for us," said Mrs Macphail, as she neatly
brushed out her transformation. "She said we were really the only people
on the ship they cared to know."
"I shouldn't have thought a missionary was such a big bug that he could
afford to put on frills."
"It's not frills. I quite understand what she means. It wouldn't have
been very nice for the Davidsons to have to mix with all that rough lot
in the smoking-room."
"The founder of their religion wasn't so exclusive," said Dr Macphail
with a chuckle.
"I've asked you over and over again not to joke about religion,"
answered his wife. "I shouldn't like to have a nature like yours, Alec.
You never look for the best in people."
He gave her a sidelong glance with his pale, blue eyes, but did not
reply. After many years of married life he had learned that it was more
conducive to peace to leave his wife with the last word. He was
undressed before she was, and climbing into the upper bunk he settled
down to read himself to sleep.
When he came on deck next morning they were close to land. He looked at
it with greedy eyes. There was a thin strip of silver beach rising
quickly to hills covered to the top with luxuriant vegetation. The
coconut trees, thick and green, came nearly to the water's edge, and
among them you saw the grass houses of the Samoans; and here and there,
gleaming white, a little church. Mrs Davidson came and stood beside him.
She was dressed in black and wore round her neck a gold chain, from
which dangled a small cross. She was a little woman, with brown, dull
hair very elaborately arranged, and she had prominent blue eyes behind
invisible _pince-nez_. Her face was long, like a sheep's, but she gave
no impression of foolishness, rather of extreme alertness; she had the
quick movements of a bird. The most remarkable thing about her was her
voice, high, metallic, and without inflection; it fell on the ear with a
hard monotony, irritating to the nerves like the pitiless clamour of the
pneumatic drill.
"This must seem like home to you," said Dr Macphail, with his thin,
difficult smile.
"Ours are low islands, you know, not like these. Coral. These are
volcanic. We've got another ten days' journey to reach them."
"In these parts that's almost like being in the next street at home,"
said Dr Macphail facetiously.
"Well, that's rather an exaggerated way of putting it, but one does
look at distances differently in the South Seas. So far you're right."
Dr Macphail sighed faintly.
"I'm glad we're not stationed here," she went on. "They say this is a
terribly difficult place to work in. The steamers' touching makes the
people unsettled; and then there's the naval station; that's bad for the
natives. In our district we don't have difficulties like that to contend
with. There are one or two traders, of course, but we take care to make
them behave, and if they don't we make the place so hot for them they're
glad to go."
Fixing the glasses on her nose she looked at the green island with a
ruthless stare.
"It's almost a hopeless task for the missionaries here. I can never be
sufficiently thankful to God that we are at least spared that."
Davidson's district consisted of a group of islands to the North of
Samoa; they were widely separated and he had frequently to go long
distances by canoe. At these times his wife remained at their
headquarters and managed the mission. Dr Macphail felt his heart sink
when he considered the efficiency with which she certainly managed it.
She spoke of the depravity of the natives in a voice which nothing could
hush, but with a vehemently unctuous horror. Her sense of delicacy was
singular. Early in their acquaintance she had said to him:
"You know, their marriage customs when we first settled in the islands
were so shocking that I couldn't possibly describe them to you. But I'll
tell Mrs Macphail and she'll tell you."
Then he had seen his wife and Mrs Davidson, their deck-chairs close
together, in earnest conversation for about two hours. As he walked past
them backwards and forwards for the sake of exercise, he had heard Mrs
Davidson's agitated whisper, like the distant flow of a mountain
torrent, and he saw by his wife's open mouth and pale face that she was
enjoying an alarming experience. At night in their cabin she repeated to
him with bated breath all she had heard.
"Well, what did I say to you?" cried Mrs Davidson, exultant, next
morning. "Did you ever hear anything more dreadful? You don't wonder
that I couldn't tell you myself, do you? Even though you are a doctor."
Mrs Davidson scanned his face. She had a dramatic eagerness to see that
she had achieved the desired effect.
"Can you wonder that when we first went there our hearts sank? You'll
hardly believe me when I tell you it was impossible to find a single
good girl in any of the villages."
She used the word _good_ in a severely technical manner.
"Mr Davidson and I talked it over, and we made up our minds the first
thing to do was to put down the dancing. The natives were crazy about
dancing."
"I was not averse to it myself when I was a young man," said Dr
Macphail.
"I guessed as much when I heard you ask Mrs Macphail to have a turn with
you last night. I don't think there's any real harm if a man dances
with his wife, but I was relieved that she wouldn't. Under the
circumstances I thought it better that we should keep ourselves to
ourselves."
"Under what circumstances?"
Mrs Davidson gave him a quick look through her _pince-nez_, but did not
answer his question.
"But among white people it's not quite the same," she went on, "though I
must say I agree with Mr Davidson, who says he can't understand how a
husband can stand by and see his wife in another man's arms, and as far
as I'm concerned I've never danced a step since I married. But the
native dancing is quite another matter. It's not only immoral in itself,
but it distinctly leads to immorality. However, I'm thankful to God that
we stamped it out, and I don't think I'm wrong in saying that no one has
danced in our district for eight years."
But now they came to the mouth of the harbour and Mrs Macphail joined
them. The ship turned sharply and steamed slowly in. It was a great
land-locked harbour big enough to hold a fleet of battleships; and all
around it rose, high and steep, the green hills. Near the entrance,
getting such breeze as blew from the sea, stood the governor's house in
a garden. The Stars and Stripes dangled languidly from a flagstaff. They
passed two or three trim bungalows, and a tennis court, and then they
came to the quay with its warehouses. Mrs Davidson pointed out the
schooner, moored two or three hundred yards from the side, which was to
take them to Apia. There was a crowd of eager, noisy, and good-humoured
natives come from all parts of the island, some from curiosity, others
to barter with the travellers on their way to Sydney; and they brought
pineapples and huge bunches of bananas, _tapa_ cloths, necklaces of
shells or sharks' teeth, _kava_-bowls, and models of war canoes.
American sailors, neat and trim, clean-shaven and frank of face,
sauntered among them, and there was a little group of officials. While
their luggage was being landed the Macphails and Mrs Davidson watched
the crowd. Dr Macphail looked at the yaws from which most of the
children and the young boys seemed to suffer, disfiguring sores like
torpid ulcers, and his professional eyes glistened when he saw for the
first time in his experience cases of elephantiasis, men going about
with a huge, heavy arm or dragging along a grossly disfigured leg. Men
and women wore the _lava-lava_.
"It's a very indecent costume," said Mrs Davidson. "Mr Davidson thinks
it should be prohibited by law. How can you expect people to be moral
when they wear nothing but a strip of red cotton round their loins?"
"It's suitable enough to the climate," said the doctor, wiping the sweat
off his head.
Now that they were on land the heat, though it was so early in the
morning, was already oppressive. Closed in by its hills, not a breath of
air came in to Pago-Pago.
"In our islands," Mrs Davidson went on in her high-pitched tones, "we've
practically eradicated the _lava-lava_. A few old men still continue to
wear it, but that's all. The women have all taken to the Mother
Hubbard, and the men wear trousers and singlets. At the very beginning
of our stay Mr Davidson said in one of his reports: the inhabitants of
these islands will never be thoroughly Christianised till every boy of
more than ten years is made to wear a pair of trousers."
But Mrs Davidson had given two or three of her birdlike glances at heavy
grey clouds that came floating over the mouth of the harbour. A few
drops began to fall.
"We'd better take shelter," she said.
They made their way with all the crowd to a great shed of corrugated
iron, and the rain began to fall in torrents. They stood there for some
time and then were joined by Mr Davidson. He had been polite enough to
the Macphails during the journey, but he had not his wife's sociability,
and had spent much of his time reading. He was a silent, rather sullen
man, and you felt that his affability was a duty that he imposed upon
himself Christianly; he was by nature reserved and even morose. His
appearance was singular. He was very tall and thin, with long limbs
loosely jointed; hollow cheeks and curiously high cheek-bones; he had so
cadaverous an air that it surprised you to notice how full and sensual
were his lips. He wore his hair very long. His dark eyes, set deep in
their sockets, were large and tragic; and his hands with their big, long
fingers, were finely shaped; they gave him a look of great strength. But
the most striking thing about him was the feeling he gave you of
suppressed fire. It was impressive and vaguely troubling. He was not a
man with whom any intimacy was possible.
He brought now unwelcome news. There was an epidemic of measles, a
serious and often fatal disease among the Kanakas, on the island, and a
case had developed among the crew of the schooner which was to take them
on their journey. The sick man had been brought ashore and put in
hospital on the quarantine station, but telegraphic instructions had
been sent from Apia to say that the schooner would not be allowed to
enter the harbour till it was certain no other member of the crew was
affected.
"It means we shall have to stay here for ten days at least."
"But I'm urgently needed at Apia," said Dr Macphail.
"That can't be helped. If no more cases develop on board, the schooner
will be allowed to sail with white passengers, but all native traffic is
prohibited for three months."
"Is there a hotel here?" asked Mrs Macphail.
Davidson gave a low chuckle.
"There's not."
"What shall we do then?"
"I've been talking to the governor. There's a trader along the front who
has rooms that he rents, and my proposition is that as soon as the rain
lets up we should go along there and see what we can do. Don't expect
comfort. You've just got to be thankful if we get a bed to sleep on and
a roof over our heads."
But the rain showed no sign of stopping, and at length with umbrellas
and waterproofs they set out. There was no town, but merely a group of
official buildings, a store or two, and at the back, among the coconut
trees and plantains, a few native dwellings. The house they sought was
about five minutes' walk from the wharf. It was a frame house of two
storeys, with broad verandahs on both floors and a roof of corrugated
iron. The owner was a half-caste named Horn, with a native wife
surrounded by little brown children, and on the ground-floor he had a
store where he sold canned goods and cottons. The rooms he showed them
were almost bare of furniture. In the Macphails' there was nothing but a
poor, worn bed with a ragged mosquito net, a rickety chair, and a
washstand. They looked round with dismay. The rain poured down without
ceasing.
"I'm not going to unpack more than we actually need," said Mrs Macphail.
Mrs Davidson came into the room as she was unlocking a portmanteau. She
was very brisk and alert. The cheerless surroundings had no effect on
her.
"If you'll take my advice you'll get a needle and cotton and start right
in to mend the mosquito net," she said, "or you'll not be able to get a
wink of sleep to-night."
"Will they be very bad?" asked Dr Macphail.
"This is the season for them. When you're asked to a party at
Government House at Apia you'll notice that all the ladies are given a
pillow-slip to put their--their lower extremities in."
"I wish the rain would stop for a moment," said Mrs Macphail. "I could
try to make the place comfortable with more heart if the sun were
shining."
"Oh, if you wait for that, you'll wait a long time. Pago-Pago is about
the rainiest place in the Pacific. You see, the hills, and that bay,
they attract the water, and one expects rain at this time of year
anyway."
She looked from Macphail to his wife, standing helplessly in different
parts of the room, like lost souls, and she pursed her lips. She saw
that she must take them in hand. Feckless people like that made her
impatient, but her hands itched to put everything in the order which
came so naturally to her.
"Here, you give me a needle and cotton and I'll mend that net of yours,
while you go on with your unpacking. Dinner's at one. Dr Macphail, you'd
better go down to the wharf and see that your heavy luggage has been put
in a dry place. You know what these natives are, they're quite capable
of storing it where the rain will beat in on it all the time."
The doctor put on his waterproof again and went downstairs. At the door
Mr Horn was standing in conversation with the quartermaster of the ship
they had just arrived in and a second-class passenger whom Dr Macphail
had seen several times on board. The quartermaster, a little, shrivelled
man, extremely dirty, nodded to him as he passed.
"This is a bad job about the measles, doc," he said. "I see you've fixed
yourself up already."
Dr Macphail thought he was rather familiar, but he was a timid man and
he did not take offence easily.
"Yes, we've got a room upstairs."
"Miss Thompson was sailing with you to Apia, so I've brought her along
here."
The quartermaster pointed with his thumb to the woman standing by his
side. She was twenty-seven perhaps, plump, and in a coarse fashion
pretty. She wore a white dress and a large white hat. Her fat calves in
white cotton stockings bulged over the tops of long white boots in glacé
kid. She gave Macphail an ingratiating smile.
"The feller's tryin' to soak me a dollar and a half a day for the
meanest sized room," she said in a hoarse voice.
"I tell you she's a friend of mine, Jo," said the quartermaster. "She
can't pay more than a dollar, and you've sure got to take her for that."
The trader was fat and smooth and quietly smiling.
"Well, if you put it like that, Mr Swan, I'll see what I can do about
it. I'll talk to Mrs Horn and if we think we can make a reduction we
will."
"Don't try to pull that stuff with me," said Miss Thompson. "We'll
settle this right now. You get a dollar a day for the room and not one
bean more."
Dr Macphail smiled. He admired the effrontery with which she bargained.
He was the sort of man who always paid what he was asked. He preferred
to be over-charged than to haggle. The trader sighed.
"Well, to oblige Mr Swan I'll take it."
"That's the goods," said Miss Thompson. "Come right in and have a shot
of hooch. I've got some real good rye in that grip if you'll bring it
along, Mr Swan. You come along too, doctor."
"Oh, I don't think I will, thank you," he answered. "I'm just going down
to see that our luggage is all right."
He stepped out into the rain. It swept in from the opening of the
harbour in sheets and the opposite shore was all blurred. He passed two
or three natives clad in nothing but the _lava-lava_, with huge
umbrellas over them. They walked finely, with leisurely movements, very
upright; and they smiled and greeted him in a strange tongue as they
went by.
It was nearly dinner-time when he got back, and their meal was laid in
the trader's parlour. It was a room designed not to live in but for
purposes of prestige, and it had a musty, melancholy air. A suite of
stamped plush was arranged neatly round the walls, and from the middle
of the ceiling, protected from the flies by yellow tissue paper, hung a
gilt chandelier. Davidson did not come.
"I know he went to call on the governor," said Mrs Davidson, "and I
guess he's kept him to dinner."
A little native girl brought them a dish of Hamburger steak, and after
a while the trader came up to see that they had everything they wanted.
"I see we have a fellow lodger, Mr Horn," said Dr Macphail.
"She's taken a room, that's all," answered the trader. "She's getting
her own board."
He looked at the two ladies with an obsequious air.
"I put her downstairs so she shouldn't be in the way. She won't be any
trouble to you."
"Is it someone who was on the boat?" asked Mrs Macphail.
"Yes, ma'am, she was in the second cabin. She was going to Apia. She has
a position as cashier waiting for her."
"Oh!"
When the trader was gone Macphail said:
"I shouldn't think she'd find it exactly cheerful having her meals in
her room."
"If she was in the second cabin I guess she'd rather," answered Mrs
Davidson. "I don't exactly know who it can be."
"I happened to be there when the quartermaster brought her along. Her
name's Thompson."
"It's not the woman who was dancing with the quartermaster last night?"
asked Mrs Davidson.
"That's who it must be," said Mrs Macphail. "I wondered at the time what
she was. She looked rather fast to me."
"Not good style at all," said Mrs Davidson.
They began to talk of other things, and after dinner, tired with their
early rise, they separated and slept. When they awoke, though the sky
was still grey and the clouds hung low, it was not raining and they went
for a walk on the high road which the Americans had built along the bay.
On their return they found that Davidson had just come in.
"We may be here for a fortnight," he said irritably. "I've argued it out
with the governor, but he says there is nothing to be done."
"Mr Davidson's just longing to get back to his work," said his wife,
with an anxious glance at him.
"We've been away for a year," he said, walking up and down the verandah.
"The mission has been in charge of native missionaries and I'm terribly
nervous that they've let things slide. They're good men, I'm not saying
a word against them, God-fearing, devout, and truly Christian men--their
Christianity would put many so-called Christians at home to the
blush--but they're pitifully lacking in energy. They can make a stand
once, they can make a stand twice, but they can't make a stand all the
time. If you leave a mission in charge of a native missionary, no matter
how trustworthy he seems, in course of time you'll find he's let abuses
creep in."
Mr Davidson stood still. With his tall, spare form, and his great eyes
flashing out of his pale face, he was an impressive figure. His
sincerity was obvious in the fire of his gestures and in his deep,
ringing voice.
"I expect to have my work cut out for me. I shall act and I shall act
promptly. If the tree is rotten it shall be cut down and cast into the
flames."
And in the evening after the high tea which was their last meal, while
they sat in the stiff parlour, the ladies working and Dr Macphail
smoking his pipe, the missionary told them of his work in the islands.
"When we went there they had no sense of sin at all," he said. "They
broke the commandments one after the other and never knew they were
doing wrong. And I think that was the most difficult part of my work, to
instil into the natives the sense of sin."
The Macphails knew already that Davidson had worked in the Solomons for
five years before he met his wife. She had been a missionary in China,
and they had become acquainted in Boston, where they were both spending
part of their leave to attend a missionary congress. On their marriage
they had been appointed to the islands in which they had laboured ever
since.
In the course of all the conversations they had had with Mr Davidson one
thing had shone out clearly and that was the man's unflinching courage.
He was a medical missionary, and he was liable to be called at any time
to one or other of the islands in the group. Even the whaleboat is not
so very safe a conveyance in the stormy Pacific of the wet season, but
often he would be sent for in a canoe, and then the danger was great. In
cases of illness or accident he never hesitated. A dozen times he had
spent the whole night baling for his life, and more than once Mrs
Davidson had given him up for lost.
"I'd beg him not to go sometimes," she said, "or at least to wait till
the weather was more settled, but he'd never listen. He's obstinate, and
when he's once made up his mind, nothing can move him."
"How can I ask the natives to put their trust in the Lord if I am afraid
to do so myself?" cried Davidson. "And I'm not, I'm not. They know that
if they send for me in their trouble I'll come if it's humanly possible.
And do you think the Lord is going to abandon me when I am on his
business? The wind blows at his bidding and the waves toss and rage at
his word."
Dr Macphail was a timid man. He had never been able to get used to the
hurtling of the shells over the trenches, and when he was operating in
an advanced dressing-station the sweat poured from his brow and dimmed
his spectacles in the effort he made to control his unsteady hand. He
shuddered' a little as he looked at the missionary.
"I wish I could say that I've never been afraid," he said.
"I wish you could say that you believed in God," retorted the other.