The societies that are to be permanent grow without plan, much as a
coral island grows. The schemed Utopia never lives; it leaves no room
for compromise and becomes pot-bound; it guards with wise foresight
against numberless events which never happen, and the unforeseen event
blows in upon it and kills it.
The Exiles’ Club had never been planned at all. The first of its
members to arrive at Faloo--Sir John Sweetling--had not the slightest
intention of starting such a club. He was a man of considerable ability
and he had been clever enough to see that the smash of his tangled
operations was inevitable, and that any defence would be wasted
speciousness. Recalling to himself a voyage which he had once made
as a young man, he left before the smash came and while he still had
considerable means at his disposal, even if he had no legal claim upon
them. A chance of that early voyage had shown him Faloo, and it was
his intention to lie concealed in Faloo for two or three years and then
under a different name to resume his business career in San Francisco.
He found himself hospitably received by the priests of a small French
mission and by the King of the island. With the former he never became
on intimate terms, and he took occasions to tell them more than once
that he was by education and conviction a member of the Church of
England. But he found the King interesting--in his ambitions and
energetic character, as well as in his education and appearance,
totally unlike any island native of whom Sir John had ever heard.
Sir John noted, too, that the island had considerable natural
resources, and that these were capable of development; labour was in
any case cheap and plentiful, and, if he worked in with the King,
forced labour would also be available. The King was a poor man, owning
nothing but the land which he had inherited, within sight of wealth but
unable to reach it for want of the knowledge and capital without which
it was impossible to trade. Sir John had always assimilated quickly and
eagerly any kind of business knowledge, and he had picked up a good
deal of useful information about the island trade; his capital was safe
and at his command. Before long he had entered into a partnership with
the King, and had purchased from him land and plantations in one of the
most delightful spots in the island.
Of natural and inherent vice Sir John had very little. Crimes of
violence and passion were distasteful to him. A love of money and
position had drawn him gradually into a career of gross and abominable
fraud, but it is doubtful if he ever saw it as fraud himself--technical
error, committed with the best intentions, is how he would have
characterised it. In the days of his prosperity at home he had been
rather a generous man. A church in a London suburb boasted a pulpit of
coloured marble, which had been the gift of Sir John Sweetling, and
the munificence of the donor had been the subject of a complimentary
reference in a sermon; nor would it be safe to say that at the time he
made this presentation, though it was practically paid for with stolen
money, he was altogether a hypocrite. He loved decency and order. He
was always anxious that the proper form should be observed. He loathed
that slackness of fibre which leads men to unshaven chins or made-up
neckties. His orderly characteristics remained fairly constant, even in
a soft and enervating climate, although in other respects, as we have
already seen, circumstances and the Exiles’ Club considerably modified
him. At the time of his arrival at Faloo he did not realise that he was
cornered. He prepared a return to the outside world.
He was soon convinced that not in two or in twenty years would it
be safe for him to show himself. He had trusted friends in England
who knew at least where letters could be addressed to him, and they
kept him informed. At his own request he was sent copies of what
the Press had to say about his disappearance. He read it all with
amazement and with extreme but temporary depression. These writers, it
seemed to him, were actuated by spite and expressed themselves with
virulence. They ignored facts which should have told, more or less,
in his favour. They credited him with no honest desire to restore
money, had his speculations been more successful. They put the worst
constructions on these “technical” lapses. In the case of a prospectus
they seemed to be unable to distinguish between deliberate lies and an
overstatement incidental to a sanguine temperament. He had never said
to himself, “Let us steal this money”; he had merely said, “Let us
make this investment look as attractive as we can.” And does not every
tradesman try to make his goods look attractive? Is there any close and
ungarnished accuracy about the ordinary advertisement? Sir John felt
angry and sore at the view which had been taken; but he put his San
Francisco scheme aside.
And then gradually were interwoven the cords which bound him to Faloo
for ever. Two men, who had been personal friends of Sir John’s and
associated with him in business, skipped their bail and joined him
at Faloo. It was natural and convenient that the three men should
live together, and their house was the nucleus of the building which
afterwards became the Exiles’ Club. Through them came a further
widening of the circle. The secret was kept for the discreet, and
among them was a city solicitor. He knew when to talk about it. He had
among his clients families of the highest respectability, and all such
families have their black sheep. The Colonies might prove inhospitable
and America too inquisitive, but there was always Faloo--for people who
could afford to get there and to live there. To Sir John belonged the
prestige of the explorer and pioneer; it was to him that the new-comer
came for advice, and occasionally for investment. Sir John sold part
of his interest in the island trade to a syndicate, and part of his
land to the white community, taking in each case such profit as his
conscience allowed. His abilities, too, were admitted. He was a born
organiser. It pleased and amused him to undertake the work of providing
European luxuries in an almost unknown island hundreds of miles from
anywhere. His judgment was unerring in welcoming any desirable addition
to the fraternity and in arranging for the speedy deportation of the
undesirable. Men with no money or education were as a rule excluded.
“We want gentlemen here,” said Sir John, and struck the right note at
once. But he saw the usefulness of that ex-waiter from the Cabinet
Club, and Thomas had no trouble in making good his position on the
island.
The position of director and adviser rather pleased Sir John; the
position of President of the Exiles’ Club pleased him far more and
sealed him to Faloo. It was a chance suggestion which led to the
formation of the club. Six men sat over their Sauterne and oysters one
evening and listened to the music of the surf. Presently one of them
(nobody afterwards remembered which one) said, “Sort of little club of
exiles, ain’t we?”
There was a moment’s pause, and then Sir John, already with a foretaste
of the presidential manner, said, “Well, gentlemen, it rests with you.
I’m ready to put my money down if you others are. The thing can be
done, and done well. Club-house and grounds, decent service, everything
comfortable and in order. Why not?”
They discussed it during the greater part of that night, and they all
worked very hard at it during the month that followed, planning and
superintending the construction of the only two-storied building on the
island. Sir John had always been a great gardener, and Blake, one of
the earliest arrivals, had made a hobby of his workshop. The special
knowledge proved very useful. Sir John was told that English turf was
impossible. “We shall have our lawn just the same,” said Sir John. And
ultimately, at great trouble and expense, they did have it.
The club never had any other President than Sir John. If Smith, as the
white men called him, was the hereditary king of the natives, Sir John
was by common consent the symbol of authority for the white men. Lord
Charles Baringstoke had not a respectful manner, and frequently alluded
to Sir John Sweetling as Jonathan Gasbags, but he would never have
dreamed of opposing his annual re-election to the presidency.
Customs grew as convenience demanded, and rules were made as they
were wanted. The rules were kept almost invariably by every member
of the club; a reprimand from Sir John was sufficient to prevent the
repetition of any lapse, and the feeling of the majority of members
was always against the transgressor. At first sight this may seem
extraordinary. There was but one man in the club who was not wanted by
the police. It included men like Lord Charles Baringstoke, who did not
possess, and never had possessed, any moral sense. There were others,
like Cyril Mast, who had killed what was good in them and become
slaves to the most ignoble indulgences. There were members who seemed
for ever on the verge of an outbreak of maniacal violence, and there
were some who were at times sunk in a suicidal melancholy. It might
have been foretold that such a club would be doomed to destruction by
the riot and rebellion of its own members. But that forecast would have
proved incorrect.
It is, after all, a commonplace that when anarchy has removed all
existing laws and government, the construction of a fresh government
and new laws will next have to occupy its attention. Those who had
rebelled against an elaborate legal system, bore with patience the
easier yoke which was devised for their own special needs, and often at
their own suggestion and instigation, in the island of Faloo. Too high
an ideal was not set for them. Every form of gambling was permitted,
except gambling on credit. Among the exiles there was neither bet nor
business unless the money was in sight. Intoxication was frequent with
some of the members, and was not condemned, but it was recognised
that its propriety was a matter of time and place. As ritual survives
religion, etiquette survives morality, and no member of the Exiles’
Club would have committed the offence of tipping a club servant; nor
would he have stormed at a waiter however bad the service might have
been, but would simply have backed his bill. There was no definite rule
against profanity, and its use was common enough, but there were two or
three men in the club--one of them murdered his own mother--in whose
presence the rest kept a certain check on their tongues. The principle
was generally accepted that the life of a member, so far as it
concerned other members, began with his arrival at Faloo. Confidences
were not sought; if, as rarely happened, they were volunteered they
were not welcomed, lest they should demand confidences in return.
Briefly, the men, troubled no longer with a complex civilisation, had
made for themselves their simple conditions of life, and such law as
was involved by those conditions they respected.
Two other considerations made for the permanence and well-being of the
club. Few of its members were habitual criminals; they were mostly men
who had ruined their lives with one thing, and in other matters had
been normally respectable, and even over the worst men in the club
the climate seemed to exercise a curiously quieting and mollifying
influence. Secondly, it was very generally realised that Faloo was the
last station, the jumping-off place. There was nothing beyond it, and
there was no other chance.
Sir John had already stated at the election meeting some of the reasons
which bound him to Faloo. It may be added that he thoroughly enjoyed
his position. The society in which he lived was small, but it held
itself to be the superior society of the island, and it bestowed on him
the first place. He had been the great man of his suburb, and he found
it to be almost equally satisfactory to be the great man of Faloo. The
exploitation of a native king was work which was quite to his taste,
and at the same time it was easy work. Shrewd and educated though the
King was, he showed himself quite native, and pathetically ignorant at
first in matters of business. Sir John had but to say that this or that
was common form, or the usual European practice, and the King accepted
it at once. But the King learned quickly, and at a later period he had
about taken Sir John’s measure, as Sir John himself was aware.
Nor had Sir John any delusions about his fellow-members. His manner was
genial; he would gamble and drink (in moderation) with the sinners. But
in his heart he despised most of them. They had never had the great
idea and the Napoleonic collapse. Their weakness and not their strength
had been their ruin. It was not their mind but their body that had run
away with them. Sir John had not lived the life of an ascetic, far from
it, but his tastes were in favour of a decent reserve and a sufficient
moderation. From no man will the slave of the flesh receive more hearty
contempt than from the man of the world; and in the difficult task of
his reclamation it may be that the sneer of the worldling has sometimes
effected more than the tears of the spiritual.
Yet even in his contempt for many of his fellow-members he found
some source of gratification. He liked to wonder where on earth they
would have been without him, and to feel his sense of responsibility
increased. From their depth he could contemplate with the more
satisfaction his own eminence.
But there were a few members whom Sir John could regard with more
respect. Bassett, for instance, had worked admirably for the club,
and had shown something of Sir John’s own talent for organisation. He
had now lost his head in a crisis and acted, Sir John considered, like
a fool. However, he would get a good scare--Sir John doubted if the
King had really intended more than that--and would not be likely to
act on impulse again. Then there was Hanson, a quiet man and an ardent
chess-player. He had character and ability, and Sir John hoped that he
would one day replace the Rev. Cyril Mast on the committee. Mast had
a gift for public speaking, and owed his election to it, but Sir John
found him quite useless. Probably the man whom Sir John liked most,
respected most, trusted most and understood least was Dr Pryce.
The men were as different as possible. Dr Pryce had never shown the
slightest interest in the working of the syndicate which financed
Smith, although he was a member of it. He had been approached by Sir
John on the subject, had put down his money without inquiry, and
apparently had never thought about the subject again. In an ordinary
way Sir John would have taken this as evidence that the man was a
fool, but Pryce’s rather various abilities could not be doubted. The
doctor’s contempt for vain assumption sometimes wounded Sir John, who
habitually called his own vain assumptions by prettier names. Pryce
never pretended to be any better than his fellow-members, nor had
he that not uncommon form of perverted vanity which made a man like
Mast pretend sometimes to be the greatest of sinners. Sir John had
a sufficiency of physical courage for ordinary uses, but Pryce had
shown himself on many occasions to be absolutely reckless of his own
life. This had occurred not only in such forms of sport as the island
afforded, but more frequently in the practice of his science; the
island offered drugs that were not in the pharmacopœia, and Pryce,
in his enthusiastic study of them, did not stop short at experiments
upon himself. It was a great thing, Sir John felt, to have an able and
qualified doctor in the club, and with his customary generosity he
suggested that a consignment of drugs and apparatus from London for the
doctor should be charged to the club account. Pryce replied that his
little box of rubbish was paid for already, and changed the subject.
The present crisis in the club’s affairs brought out strongly the
changes in Sir John’s character. The cornered rat was showing fight.
Sir John contemplated the destruction of the _Snowflake_ and all aboard
her without the faintest feeling of remorse. But Pryce’s careless offer
to undertake the work did not satisfy him.
The man who scuttled the _Snowflake_ in mid-ocean would probably be
committing suicide; Sir John had no doubt about that. And Pryce was too
valuable to lose. Why, Sir John himself might be taken ill at any time.
There was a queer form of island fever, as to which he was nervous. The
King himself had suffered from it.
And on further consideration Sir John doubted the feasibility of the
scheme. By this time Lechworthy probably knew all about the Exiles’
Club, and would see for himself the danger that he represented to them;
Bassett’s attempt to murder him would have illuminated the question.
Under the circumstances it was unlikely that he would allow any member
of the club on board the _Snowflake_, unless possibly his religious
feelings were involved and that member played the part of a repentant
and converted sinner. And Sir John knew that Pryce would not do that.
“We’ll think about it, Pryce,” he said finally. “There may be some
other way. Something may turn up.”