With a shower bath, a change of linen and the donning of dinner clothes,
Dan always felt a freshening of the spirit—rather as if the grime of
commercialism had been washed away. Whether he dined alone or with
guests he always dressed for dinner.
Sooey Wan, who added to his duties as cook those of general
superintendent of Dan’s establishment, in defiance of the authority
vested in Mrs. Pippy, and who was, on occasion, valet, counselor and
friend, came up to his room with another cocktail just as Dan finished
dressing. Also, he brought a cocktail for himself, and, while waiting
for Dan to adjust his tie, the old Chinaman helped himself to one of
Dan’s gold-tipped cigarettes.
Ordinarily, Sooey Wan permitted himself few liberties with his boss, but
upon occasions when his acute intuition told him that the boss was low
in spirits, Sooey Wan always forgot that Dan was his boss. Then Dan
became merely Sooey Wan’s boy, the adored male baby of the first white
man for whom Sooey Wan had ever worked. The years fell away and Dan was
just a ten-year-old, and he and Sooey Wan were making red dragon kites
in the kitchen and planning to fly them the following Saturday from Twin
Peaks.
Indeed, Pritchard, senior, had left to Sooey Wan a large share in the
upbringing and character-building of his only son, for Dan’s mother had
died that Dan might live. It had been Sooey Wan who had imparted to Dan
a respect for the inflexible code of the Chinese that a man shall honor
his father and his mother and accord due reverence to the bones of his
ancestors and the land that gave him birth. It had been Sooey Wan who,
inveterate gambler himself, nevertheless taught Dan that when a man
loses he shall take his losses smilingly and never neglect to pay his
debts. Into Dan’s small head he had instilled as much Chinese philosophy
and as much Chinese honor as he would have instilled into a son of his
own had his strange gods not denied him this supreme privilege.
Dan knew the old Chinaman for the treasure he was and nothing that Sooey
Wan might do could possibly have offended him. In thirty-five years of
perfect service to the Pritchards, father and son, Sooey Wan had bought
and paid for the few liberties he took—an occasional cigarette in their
presence and about six cocktails per annum.
What Sooey Wan realized his boss needed tonight was human society. Sooey
Wan felt fully equal to the task of supplying that rare commodity, and
he was in Dan’s room now for that purpose.
“My boy feelee little better, eh?” he suggested.
“Considerably. Life isn’t half bad, Sooey Wan. The world isn’t filled
entirely with muckers.”
“Oh, velly nice world!” Sooey Wan agreed. “Today I ketchum ten spot in
China lottery. I play fi’ dollar. Tonight Sooey Wan feel pretty damn
good, too.”
A silence while Dan sat down, lighted a cigarette and sipped his
cocktail. Then:
“Julia velly happy, boss. Captain’s girl give Julia velly nice plesent.
She come show me. Missie Pip velly sorry no can understand at first. No
ketchum pearl.” And Sooey Wan chuckled like a malevolent old gnome,
while Dan laughed with him.
“Missie Pip too high-tone’,” Sooey Wan decided. “Yeh, too muchee. No pay
muchee Missie Pip for be high-tone’. Sooey Wan don’t give a damn. Sooey
Wan ketchum pearl, all li’. No ketchum pearl, all li’. Ketchum ten spot
China lottery, velly good. Ketchum ten spot for Julia, too, but Julia no
playum heavy. Twenty-fi’ cen’s, two bittee limit.”
The Chinese lottery was then discussed, with Sooey Wan adverting with
delightful regularity to the fact that Mrs. Pippy was in a mood to kick
herself up hill and down dale because of her lamentable failure to
recognize a queen. The gift of all the pearls ever collected in the
South Seas could not have afforded the old Chinese schemer one-half the
delight this knowledge afforded him, and Dan quickly realized that for
the pleasure of this social visit from Sooey Wan he was indebted quite
as much to Mrs. Pippy’s misfortune as he was to Sooey Wan’s unfaltering
affection. He _had_ to share this joyous news with somebody who could
appreciate it!
Presently Sooey Wan grew serious. “I lookee thlough dining room door
when Captain’s girl go upstair,” he confided. “Velly pitty girl. Velly
damn nice, Missa Dan, you mally lady queen?”
“No, confound you, no. What put that idea into your fool head?”
“Captain’s girl velly nice. Bimeby, boss, you have fi’, six, seven,
maybe eight son! Sure, you have good luck. She give you many son.”
“I don’t want many sons. Just now I do not want any.”
“You klazy. What you think Sooey Wan stick around for, anyhow. You no
ketchum baby pretty quick wha’ for I workee for you? Hey? Me ketchum
plenty money. Me go China.”
“You’re an interfering, scheming old duffer, Sooey. Get back to your
kitchen.”
Sooey Wan departed in huge disgust, slamming the door. A moment later he
opened it a couple of inches and looked in. “Lady queen leady for
dinner. Look velly nice. Missa Dan, you listen Sooey Wan. Captain’s girl
velly nice.”
Dan threw a book at him and descended to dinner.
At the foot of the stairs he met Tamea, attended by Mrs. Pippy and
Julia. Mrs. Pippy was a being reincarnated. She beamed, she seemed
fairly to drip with the milk of human kindness. The simple Julia stood,
grinning like a gargoyle, head on one side and hands clasped under her
chin, presenting a picture of pride personified.
“Look at her now, Misther Pritchard, an’ the day you got her,” said
Julia.
Tamea looked up at him pridefully. She was wearing a white dress, white
silk stockings and white buckskin shoes. Her hair, caught at her nape
with a scarlet ribbon, hung in a dusky cascade down her fine straight
back.
The combination was startling, vivid, amazingly artistic, and Dan stood
lost in admiration. If Tamea could only have managed a smile that
predicated happiness rather than sadness, Dan told himself she would
have been ravishingly beautiful.
“You’re tremendous! Perfectly tremendous!” he assured Tamea. “But that
stunning dress——”
“I took the liberty of telephoning Miss Morrison,” Mrs. Pippy gurgled.
“I sent Graves over after some things of hers I thought might fit Miss
Larrieau.”
“I am extremely grateful to you, Mrs. Pippy.” In the back of his head
the words of Sooey Wan were ringing: “Missie Pip velly sorry no can
understand at first. No ketchum pearl.” Whatever the reason behind her
present cordiality, she was making a strenuous effort to overcome the
unfortunate impression she had made upon Tamea a half-hour previous.
Sooey Wan appeared in the dining room entrance and beamed cordially upon
the guest. “What Sooey Wan tell you, boss? Velly nice, eh? You bet.
Dinner leady.”
Dan silenced the wretch with a furious glance, took Tamea by the arm and
steered her into the dining room. Sooey Wan retreated, but paused at the
entrance to the butler’s pantry and grinned his approval before
disappearing into the kitchen to pass out two plates of soup for Julia
to serve. Mrs. Pippy disappeared.
Having tucked Tamea’s chair in under her, Dan took his place opposite.
Tamea looked around the dining room with frank approval. She appeared a
trifle subdued by the somber richness of it, the vague shadows cast by
the warm pale pink glow of the four candles in four old silver
candlesticks, the dark bowl, flower-laden, in the center of the table.
Dan was aware that she was watching him; not until he had selected his
soup spoon from among—to Tamea—a bewildering array of silverware, did
she imitate his action. Her host instantly realized that the niceties of
hospitality would have to be dispensed with for the sake of Tamea’s
education; consequently, when Julia entered with some toasted crackers
and approached Tamea with the intention of serving her first, Dan caught
Julia’s eye and directed her to his side.
“You will serve me first,” he whispered and helped himself. Tamea did
likewise.
“Now, her French father taught her to break her crackers into her soup
and partake of the soup without regard to the resultant melody. I will
see if she is a victim of habit,” he decided.
He waited. Tamea set the crackers on her butter plate, as she had
observed him do; like him, she made no movement to eat them. Dan took up
his butter knife and buttered a cracker. Tamea instantly searched out
her butter knife—Dan would have been willing to wager considerable she
had never seen one before—and buttered her cracker. Bite for bite and
sip for sip she followed his lead, her smoky glance seldom straying from
him. Observing that she was not using her napkin, Dan flirted his, on
pretense of straightening it out, and respread it. Immediately Tamea
unfolded her napkin and spread it.
“She’ll do,” Dan soliloquized. “Doesn’t know a thing, but has the
God-given grace to know she doesn’t know and is smart enough not to try
to four-flush. That girl has brains to spare. She speaks when she is
spoken to, but tonight silence is not good for her. She must not think
too much about her father.” Aloud he said: “Tamea, what was your life in
Riva like?”
“Very simple, Dan Pritchard. While our family ruled Riva we were rulers
with little ruling to do. Ten years ago my mother’s father died. After
that my mother and I spent many months each year with my father aboard
the Moorea. My mother did not speak good French, but my father would
speak to me in no other tongue. He taught me to read and write French
and English, and when I was twelve years old he brought a woman from
Manga Riva to be my governess. She was half Samoan and half English, and
she had been educated in England. The island blood called her back. She
played the piano and was lazy and would get drunk if she could, but she
feared my father, so she taught me faithfully each day when sober. My
father paid her well—too well.”
“What became of her, Tamea?”
“She is dead. Influenza in nineteen eighteen. Our people do not survive
it, although I was very ill with it. My father said it was his blood
that saved me.”
“Doubtless. What did you do all day in Riva?”
“In the morning, early, I swam in the river or to the lagoon. The tiger
shark seldom comes inside the reef. Then breakfast and lessons for two
hours, then some sleep and more lessons late in the afternoon, followed,
perhaps, by another swim. Then dinner and after dinner some music and
song and perhaps a dance. Twice a year, sometimes three times a year, we
would have a big feast when some schooner would call for water and
supplies and offer trade for our copra. But my father controlled that.”
“Were you happy, Tamea?”
“Oh, yes, very!”
“When your mother died, was your father in Riva?”
“No, he came two months later. When he left I went with him, to go to
school in Tahiti. I have lived two years in Tahiti, and studied English
and French with a school teacher from Australia. She was governess to
the children of a Frenchman who was a good friend of my father.”
“So that’s why you speak such good English.”
She smiled happily. “You think so, Monsieur Dan Pritchard?”
He nodded. “And do not call me Monsieur Dan Pritchard,” he suggested.
“Just call me plain Dan.”
“As you like, Plain Dan.”
Julia, listening, burst into a guffaw, caught herself in the middle of
it and was covered with confusion. Tamea looked at her very
suspiciously, but Julia’s quick Celtic wit saved her. She pretended to
have a violent fit of coughing.
“Do you think you will be happy in San Francisco, Tamea?” Dan queried,
in an effort to stimulate conversation.
“Who knows? Where one is not known, where it is cold and there is
neither singing nor dancing nor laughter nor love——”
“Oh, that will come after you get acquainted! The first thing you must
do is to become familiar with your surroundings and outgrow a very
natural feeling of loneliness and, perhaps, homesickness. Then you shall
be sent to a boarding school and become a very fine young lady.”
The suggestion aroused no enthusiasm in his guest, so he tried a new
tack and one which he felt assured would appeal to the eternal feminine
in her.
“Tomorrow I shall ask Miss Morrison to go shopping with you and buy a
wonderful wardrobe for you, Tamea.”
“I will take this woman Julia instead, if you please, Plain Dan,” she
replied.
“Call me Dan,” he pleaded. “Just one word—Dan.”
She nodded. “How long will I stay in your house, Dan?”
“Why, as long as you care to, Tamea.”
Again the grateful and adorable smile. “Then I shall stay here with you
always, Dan.”
“Do you think we can manage without quarreling?”
“There will be no quarreling.”
“But you will obey me, Tamea. You will recognize my authority and do
exactly what I tell you to do.”
She sighed.
“Privately she thinks that’s a pretty large order,” Dan decided.
Slowly Tamea sipped a glass of light white wine and pecked, without
enthusiasm, at a lamb chop. She sighed again.
“I am very tired, Dan,” she said wearily. “I cannot eat more. I would
sleep.”
Dan nodded to Julia, who set her tray on the sideboard and stood
prepared to escort her charge to bed. Tamea rose, walked around to Dan’s
chair, put her arms around his neck and drew his head toward her until
her cheek rested against his.
“You are a good father and kind. I shall love you, _chéri_,” she said
softly. “You will kiss your little girl good night? No? But, yes, I
demand it, _mon père_. There, that is better. . . . Good night. In the
morning I will be brave; I will not be sad and oppress this household
with my sorrows.”
She kissed him. It was not a mere peck but it was undoubtedly filial,
and Dan indeed was grateful in a full realization of this.
“Good night, Tamea, dear child,” he said, and watched Julia lead her
away.
He was still watching her as she crossed the entrance hall to the foot
of the stairs, when the door of the butler’s pantry squeaked very
slightly. Dan turned. Sooey Wan’s nose was at the aperture, and one of
his slant eyes was bent appreciatively upon Dan.
“Get out,” Dan cried. “What are you spying for, you outrageous heathen?”
“Velly nice. Captain’s girl velly nice. Heap nice kissee, eh? You bet!
Velly nice!”
Dan was instantly furious. “Sooey Wan,” he roared, “you’re fired!”
“Boss,” retorted Sooey Wan in dulcet, honeyed tones, “you klazy.”
The door slid back into place and Sooey Wan returned chuckling to the
domain where he was king.
An hour later, as Dan finished his first postprandial cigar, he decided
that after all there might be a modicum of truth in Sooey Wan’s
assertion. Sane he might be now—that is, moderately sane—but for all
that a still small voice had commenced to whisper that the extraordinary
events of this day were but a preliminary to still more extraordinary
events to follow. And that night he dreamed that a Chinese infant, with
a tuft of white ribbon tied in a bow at his midriff and armed with bow
and arrow, climbed up on the footboard of his bed and shot him, crying
meanwhile:
“Velly nice! Velly, velly nice!”