Lechworthy, instructed by Dr Soames Pryce, caught fishes with names
like music and colours like the rainbow. Also, instructed by Dr Soames
Pryce, he mastered the management of his simple snap-shot camera and
learned developing and printing. Every day he was busy with King
Smith in working out the details of the scheme for a native Faloo and
preparing draft statements to advocate it in England. “My holiday!” he
exclaimed to Hilda. “Why, I’ve never had so much to do in my life. And
I like it.”
Hilda, on the other hand, did very little. She had been since her
illness quieter and gentler. She was listless and at times a little
melancholy. She let her management of her uncle slip through her
fingers, and even ceased to manage herself; she was ready for anything
that Tiva or Ioia suggested, unless, of course, it happened to be
something that she thought Dr Pryce would not like. Her uncle, vaguely
conscious of the change in her, said that she was still a little
weakened by her illness. Hilda put it all down to the enervating
climate. Tiva and Ioia, who had their own ideas, produced for her a
new music--songs in the native tongue that spoke also in the universal
tongue. They sang one moonlit night on the verandah outside Hilda’s
room, when she had just gone to bed. It was the music of ecstasy and
surrender. Hilda, in her night-gown, stepped bare-footed across the
room and pushed the plaited blind aside. “Tell me what the words of
that mean,” said Hilda.
Tiva hesitated. She threw her head back and her dark poetical eyes
looked up to the golden moon. “He mean,” she said in a voice that was
like a caress, “he mean ‘I love you pretty dam much.’”
“You darlings!” said Hilda. “Sing it all through once more, please.”
“Thank you so much,” she called when the music stopped, and gave one
long sigh. These island nights, she thought, were beyond words, too
beautiful, overpowering.
On the following morning Mr Lechworthy desired to speak with Dr Pryce,
and the two men walked in the garden together.
“Doctor,” said Lechworthy, “I’ve said very little so far about all
you’ve done for us. You haven’t let me,” he added plaintively.
“You see, Lechworthy,” said Pryce, “you do exaggerate the thing so.
If a bricklayer who had nothing to do came and laid a few bricks for
you, you wouldn’t think it anything to make a fuss about--especially if
he did it because he liked it. If an unemployed doctor does a little
doctoring for you, and enjoys doing it, that’s the same thing. It’s
what he’s there for. Really, Hilda’s case gave me some new and valuable
experience, and I’m very glad to have had it.”
The transition from Miss Auriol to Hilda had come at one point
of Hilda’s illness; it had come by natural evolution from the
circumstances. Afterwards, when Pryce resumed the “Miss Auriol,” Hilda
wanted to know if he was angry with her about anything, and the “Miss
Auriol” was then definitely abandoned.
“Well,” said Lechworthy, “that’s your way of looking at it. But you
must see my way of looking at it too. Now I don’t want to think about
the financial side.”
“There is none and can be none.”
“So you have decided, and I’ve submitted to it. But I tell you this--if
any doctor in London had done as much for me, my conscience would
not have let me sleep until I had paid him a very big fee indeed; and
even then I should have felt indebted to him every day of my life. If
I can pass over that financial side it’s because even in the very few
days that I have known you I have come to regard you as a friend. I do
not make friends easily. In questions of politics, and even, I fear,
in questions of faith, we are as far apart as the poles. But I--I’ve
formed a very high opinion of you, doctor, and I want your friendship.”
“Well,” said Pryce, “you force my hand. I thought it would come to it.
Before you say anything further, Lechworthy, there is something you
ought to be told. Sit down here, won’t you? At one time, to save the
men of the Exiles’ Club, I was ready and eager to murder you and many
others.”
“You meant,” said Lechworthy, “to sink the _Snowflake_?”
“I did.”
Lechworthy did not look shocked, nor even surprised. “Well,” he said,
“the King warned me not to give you a passage. We speak in confidence,
you and I; you will not let him know that I told you this and will not
show any resentment.”
Pryce smiled. “Of course not.”
“Now at first, doctor, I said to myself that you must be a very wicked
man. I was horrified. And then--I thank God for it--I heard the voice
of conscience. That voice said, ‘Before you judge others, look at
yourself, Lechworthy.’ Now I’m going to tell you. Some years ago a
candidate for Parliament, a man not of my colour, asked permission
to address the men at my works in their dinner-hour. I ought to have
refused him altogether, or to have seen to it that he had a fair
hearing. I could have done either, and either would have been right. I
did what was wrong. I said that if he addressed them it must be at his
own risk, well knowing that he would take the risk. And then I dropped
a hint here and a hint there that if intruders said that they would
chance rough handling they could hardly grumble if they got it. That
was enough. The candidate turned up and was fool enough to bring his
wife with him. Stones were thrown, and the woman was seriously injured;
it was a chance that she was not killed. There’s a well-known saying,
doctor, ‘_qui facit per alium facit per se_.’ It’s true too. If that
woman had died it would have been I--and not the man who threw the
stone--who would have been in the sight of God her murderer. Some of
my men went to prison over that affair; when they came out I did what
I could to make up to them for it--because they had been punished for
my fault. That incident did me harm in my business and in my political
career, and that I could stand; but it also gave the enemy their
opening, and injured the good cause that I was trying to help. It’s
terribly easy to be misled by one’s political passions; when one is
doing evil that good may come one forgets that one is doing evil. That
was one of the things I had to keep in my mind when Smith gave me that
warning about you. But there were others. You won’t mind if I put it
plainly.”
“By all means,” said Pryce, rolling a cigarette.
“I thought about the Exiles’ Club. Here are these poor chaps, I thought
to myself, who have found a corner of the world to hide in. They no
longer constitute a danger to Society. They ask nothing but to be
left alone--to be hunted no longer. Can it be wondered at that they
thought my coming meant the loss of their liberty or their lives? I am
no hunter of men, but they didn’t know that. And if they thought that,
can it be wondered at that they were ready to take any step, however
desperately wicked, to get rid of the informer and save themselves? Ah!
and I thought something else, doctor, and it turned out to be right
too.”
“And what was that?”
“I thought to myself, the man who is to sink the _Snowflake_ must
face an almost absolute certainty of his own death. He must sacrifice
himself--body and soul--to help the others. If ever I see him I shall
see the finest man on the island.”
Pryce laughed. “This is becoming grotesque, Lechworthy. If you can
understand the line I took, and can forgive it because you understand
it, that’s far more than I have any right to expect, and I’m grateful.
But for goodness sake don’t try to put me upon a pedestal. It--it won’t
wash, you know.”
“Listen to me a bit, Pryce. Hilda fell ill. The King told me you were
the only man here who could save her--otherwise she would die. But he
pointed out that it gave you a chance--that there would be a great
risk.”
“That was nonsense. Smith’s a barbarian and doesn’t understand things.
I came to you as a doctor.”
“Anyhow, you came, and I saw you and talked to you. I’ve come across
many men in my life, doctor, and I make up my mind about them quickly
now. If Hilda had died I should still have been quite sure that you
had done your very best for her, and would have seen to it that the
King took the same view. But you saved her. Now I’ll tell you something
else; if Hilda had not fallen ill, and we had disregarded the King’s
warning and taken you aboard the _Snowflake_--well, I don’t know what
you would have done.”
“Don’t know myself,” said Pryce.
“But I do know that Hilda and I would have been safe. You would not
have carried out your intentions.”
“Possibly not.”
“And for telling me of those intentions, which you were not bound to
do, I respect you the more. You may have meant to be my enemy, but you
have been indeed my friend. And that brings me to what I wanted to say.
You’ve done more for me than I can say. Now then, what will you let me
do for you? Out of friendship tell me. I set no limit.”
“You’re a good man, Lechworthy,” said Pryce, “and you set no limit. But
though I’m not a good man, I do. I accept your friendship gladly and
I’m proud to have it, but we’d better let the rest go.”
“Well,” said Lechworthy, “I had an idea, but it’s rather difficult to
tell about it because I don’t want to put impertinent questions to you.
You might fairly tell me that your private history is no concern of
mine.”
“Yes,” said Pryce, “up at the club it is not etiquette to speak about
what happened before we came here. The chaps there have never shown any
curiosity as to my story, and they have never been told it. I think
I know what they imagine--something quite unspeakable and having, as
it happens, no basis in fact. It has never mattered to me. They don’t
care, and I don’t. And what was your idea?”
“I want to take you back to England with us. I believe in you, and I
can’t bear to see you wasting your life here. I don’t know what you’ve
done, but I can’t believe it is anything which can’t be cleared up and
put right. Anything that my influence and persistent exertions could
do for you would be done. Now, is there any reason against it?”
“As I said before, you’re a good man, Lechworthy. But, unfortunately,
there is every reason against it. It would be quite impossible. Look
here, I’ll tell you the story. There was a woman who had been married
for ten years. They had been for her ten years of hell--a peculiar
and special hell that you know nothing about. And then her husband
fell ill, and I attended him. He was rather loathsome, but I did what
I could for him and he began to recover. One day I was called to the
house and was told that he was dead; I went up, satisfied myself as to
the cause of death, and said nothing. I never told the woman that I
knew what she had done, let her believe that I was deceived, and gave a
certificate that the man had died from his illness. You see, she was a
good woman by nature, but had been driven near to madness by ten years
of--well, only a doctor could appreciate it. I was a very young man,
and I was heartily sorry for her; her husband was better dead anyway.
Three months later this woman, being a woman, broke down and confessed
everything. Exhumation and discovery followed--arsenic was a stupid
thing to have used. There was my ruin ready-made.”
“So you came to Faloo?”
“Not then. It was not fear, but disgust, that drove me to Faloo. I
settled my little account with the law. They gave me a year in the
second division, and it was considered that I had been let off lightly.
When I came out, I found of course that I had been turned out of my
profession. Two stories were confidently believed about me, and both
were false. The first was that I had conspired with the woman to kill
the man--that had been distinctly disproved, but it made no difference.
The second was equally false but less easy to disprove. It was the
corollary that the knowing young-man-of-the-world always puts to such
a case--that the woman had been my mistress. The only reason why I
was not turned out of my clubs was because I had forestalled them by
resigning. Some old friends cut me, but I had expected that. The old
friends who did not cut me were more difficult to bear--I could not
stand the duffer who failed to hide that he was proudly conscious
of being merciful. I happened to hear from one of these men that a
desk-waiter at one of my old clubs had cut and run with a deal of the
club’s money. I remembered that waiter, and in many ways he wasn’t a
bad chap--he’s our head-waiter at the Exiles’ Club to-day. I hunted
out his wife, thinking she might need some help. I saw her through
a bad illness and gave her money, and she was grateful. She told me
about Faloo, and I decided that moment to come here. The good people
wouldn’t have me, so I thought I’d try the wicked. I’ve been here ever
since--and, by God, I’ve suffered less from the sins of Faloo than I
did from the virtues of my own country. It’s over now. The exiles must
leave this place, of course, and they know it. They are probably making
their plans now. The only plan I’ve got is never to set foot in England
again--never, never!”
It was in vain that Lechworthy argued. He did not pretend to condone
what the doctor had done. But he pointed out that after all it was done
under circumstances which would arouse some sympathy. The punishment,
apart from the legal punishment, had been slanderous, vindictive and
shameful; it might, if it were put before the public in the proper
light, produce a strong reaction in the doctor’s favour. He might be
reinstated in his profession.
“Lechworthy,” said Pryce, with rather grim good-humour, “when I was a
little boy I did not like to have my head patted. And nowadays I don’t
think I should like to be defended and excused; it doesn’t seem to me
to be the treatment for a grown-up man.”
“You’re too proud, doctor,” said Lechworthy. “Think of my position.
If I’d never come here you could have gone on undisturbed. I must go
on with the King’s great scheme. I’ve put my hand to the plough and
I can’t look back. The saving of a race is a grand thing, and I feel
called to do my utmost to help. It’s work almost comparable to the work
of Wilberforce, whose name I bear. But if it succeeds, then I drive you
from the island which you have made your refuge, and scatter the men
whom you have made your friends.”
“You may make your mind easy, Lechworthy. I’ve thought the thing
over at length now, and I don’t take quite the view that I did at
first. There are too many people in England to-day who know of Faloo,
therefore, sooner or later, the police would get to know of it. Faloo
may be an independent nation having no extradition or other treaties,
but in practice that would not amount to a row of beans. You do these
poor devils who have been my companions for the last few years no
disservice; if you put them on the run again, you at anyrate give them
a good start. You do me no disservice either, for I’ve grown pretty
restless of late and pretty sick of things. I shall be glad to start
wandering again.”
“Then there’s one thing you must let me do. When Hilda and I reach
Tahiti we must part from the _Snowflake_. We’ve got fond of her, and
we don’t want to sell her. We’d sooner a friend had her. You can well
afford to keep her. I shall send her back to Faloo, doctor, and in
future she will be yours. You will start your wanderings in her.”
Pryce reflected a moment. “Very well,” he said. “I shall sail in the
boat I meant to sink, but I don’t know that it matters. Thank you very
much, Lechworthy. I shall be glad to take the _Snowflake_ and to let
you be disproportionately generous to me.”
They shook hands on it.
The meeting of the committee of the Exiles’ Club had been fixed for
the following day, but Pryce decided after all not to be present at it.
He wrote a short note to Sweetling telling him that he would agree with
any arrangements made for winding up the club, and that there was no
further news. He added that a general meeting would of course be called
and all the members informed.
That night, as on several previous nights, the King and Lechworthy
went to their work directly after dinner, and Hilda and Pryce were
left alone together. The air seemed hot and heavy, the smoke from the
doctor’s cigarette hung in lifeless coils.
“Hilda,” said the doctor, “it ought to be pleasant down by the pool
to-night. Shall we go there?”
“Yes,” said Hilda. “I should like that.”
The sky was powdered with stars. The falling water made an unending
melody, and here by the pool the air seemed cooler and fresher.
Hilda, lying at full length on the mat that had been spread for her,
spoke drowsily.
“To-night,” she said, “nothing that happened before is real or matters
a bit. I’ve always been here, lying by the pool and listening to the
water--here at the world’s end, out of all the trouble. Is there really
a place called London?”
“Wonder what’s going on there just now?” said Pryce. “Dawn perhaps. Did
you often see the dawn in London, Hilda?”
“Yes, driving back from dances, with the violin music still swinging in
my head, tired out and feeling as if I should never sleep again. The
dawn seems cruel somehow then. But you know.”
“It’s long since I was there, but I remember a dawn down by the river.
Spots of light were dotted across it where the bridges come. Then the
sky turned pale, without a touch of colour, and the lights on the
bridges went out. A mass of black in the Embankment gardens began to
sort itself out into shrubs and plants. About twenty minutes later you
could see the blue of the gardener’s lobelias. I hate lobelias.”
“So do I,” echoed Hilda. “So do I.”
“It was an anæmic, civilised dawn, different to the rush of glory we
get here. And the tattered derelicts that one met, trying to snatch
sleep on the seats, or wandering about and cursing God for having made
them another day. That was before I had ever heard of Faloo, but I
remember thinking even then that there ought to be a place somewhere
for the chaps who have gone under--a refuge for the people for whom
civilisation has been too much.”
“I want you to know,” said Hilda, “that I’ve heard your story. My uncle
told me. I made him.”
“My very disreputable story,” said Pryce, grimly. “Well, it’s better
not to sail under false colours, isn’t it?”
Her hand stole out and pressed his arm gently. “You must come back
to England with us,” she said, speaking quickly. “It’s too horrible
that you should have been wronged like this--punished and tortured and
maligned for an act of mercy. That’s a thing that must be put right.
These blind fools must be made to see. Oh, when I think about it, there
are people that I could kill.”
“You’re splendid, Hilda. But it can’t be. One must take the world as
one finds it. If doctors who gave false death-certificates were not
severely punished, that would open the door--‘open the door’ is the
recognised phrase, I think--to all manner of crime. You see it has to
be. And though you might make a few kind people forgive what I did
wrongly, you could never make the world forgive me for having been in
prison. I should never get back to where I was. But it doesn’t matter
much, you know. Somewhere in these islands I shall find my place. And
if I’m ever inclined to feel sore about it I can always remember that
I’ve met you, and what you thought and said, bless you!”
“You won’t come back to England?”
“Can’t, Hilda.”
She sat up now. She plucked a leaf, and pressed its cool surface to her
warm lips, and flung it aside. Then she looked steadily into his eyes
and spoke deliberately.
“Then I too ... am not going back.”
“What are you saying, Hilda?”
Her eyes closed. “Don’t you know? I know, though you have never told
me--said no word of it. I know that you love me just as surely as I
love you, dear. I know, too, why you have not told. It’s because you
saved my life, and because you think that if we went back to England
and you married me you would ruin it.”
“I should not have let you know; I’ve not played the game,” said Pryce.
“True? Why, it’s the only truth in my life. I love you, Hilda. I
worship you. I adore you. I know now that I could never have let you
go without telling you. But I know, too, that I am not even worthy to
speak to you--to kiss the hem of your garment.”
“Come to me,” she murmured almost inaudibly, and swayed towards him.
They lay side by side now, his arms about her, his lips on hers. For a
while neither spoke.
“Three more days,” he said at last. “Three more days in Paradise,
dearest.”
“Not only three more days, but all our lives,” she whispered.