Transcriber’s note: Italicized text is surrounded by underscores:
_italics_.
MR. FORTUNE’S
MAGGOT
_By the same author_
LOLLY WILLOWES
OR THE LOVING
HUNTSMAN
1926
MR. FORTUNE’S
MAGGOT
“MAGGOT 2. A nonsensical or perverse
fancy; a crotchet.” N. E. D.
_By_
SYLVIA TOWNSEND
WARNER
NEW YORK
THE LITERARY GUILD
OF AMERICA
1927
_Printed in the United States of America_
_Copyright, 1927, by_
THE VIKING PRESS, INC.
_To_
THEO
The scenes and characters of this story are entirely imaginary. In
the island names the vowels should be pronounced separately with the
Italianate vowel-sounds. Words of three syllables are accented on the
second: Fanùa, Luèli.
I am greatly obliged to Mr. Victor Butler for his assistance in the
geometrical passages, and for the definition of an umbrella.
MR. FORTUNE’S MAGGOT
Though the Reverend Timothy Fortune had spent three years in the
island of Fanua he had made but one convert. Some missionaries might
have been galled by this state of things, or if too good to be
galled, at least flustered; but Mr. Fortune was a humble man of heart
and he had the blessing which rests upon humility: an easy-going
nature. In appearance he was tall, raw-boned and rather rummaged
looking; even as a young man he had learnt that to jump in first
doesn’t make the bus start any sooner; and his favourite psalm was
the one which begins: My soul truly waiteth still upon God.
Mr. Fortune was not a scholar, he did not know that the psalms
express bygone thoughts and a bygone way of life. In his literal way
he believed that the sixty-second psalm applied to him. For many
years he had been a clerk in the Hornsey branch of Lloyds Bank, but
he had not liked it. Whenever he weighed out the golden sovereigns
in the brass scales which tacked and sidled like a yacht in a light
breeze he remembered uneasily that the children of men are deceitful
upon the weights, that they are altogether lighter than vanity itself.
In the bank too he had seen riches increase. But he had not set his
heart upon them; and when his godmother, whose pass-book he kept,
died and left him one thousand pounds he went to a training college,
was ordained deacon, and quitted England for St. Fabien, a port on an
island of the Raritongan Archipelago in the Pacific.
St. Fabien was a centre of Christianity. It had four missions: one
Catholic, one Protestant, one Wesleyan, and one American. Mr. Fortune
belonged to the Protestant mission. He gave great satisfaction to his
superiors by doing as he was bid, teaching in the school, visiting
the sick, and carrying the subscription list to the English visitors,
and even greater satisfaction when they had discovered that he could
keep all the accounts. At the end of ten years Archdeacon Mason was
sorry to hear that Mr. Fortune (who was now a priest) had felt a call
to go to the island of Fanua.
Fanua was a small remote island which could only be seen in
imagination from that beach edged with tin huts where Mr. Fortune
walked slowly up and down on evenings when he had time to. No
steamers called there, the archdeacon had visited it many years ago
in a canoe. Now his assistant felt a call thither, not merely to
visit it in the new mission launch, but to settle there, and perhaps
for life.
The two clergymen strolled along the beach in the cool of the
evening. The air smelt of the sea, of flowers, and of the islanders’
suppers.
“I must warn you, Fortune, you are not likely to make many converts
in Fanua.”
“What, are they cannibals?”
“No, no! But they are like children, always singing and dancing, and
of course immoral. But all the natives are like that. I believe I
have told you that the Raritongan language has no word for chastity
or for gratitude?”
“Yes, I believe you did.”
“Well, well! You are not a young man, Fortune, you will not expect
too much of the Fanuans. Singing and dancing! No actual harm in that
of course, and no doubt the climate is partly responsible. But light,
my dear Fortune, light! And not only in their heels either.”
“I am afraid that none of the children of men weigh altogether true,”
said Mr. Fortune. “For that matter I have heard that many cannibals
are fond of dancing.”
“Humanly speaking I fear that you would be wasted in Fanua. Still,
if you have felt a call I must not dissuade you, I won’t put any
obstacles in your way. But you will be a great loss.”
The Archdeacon spoke so sadly that Mr. Fortune, knowing how much he
disliked accounts, wondered for a moment if God would prefer him to
wait still in St. Fabien. God tries the souls of men in crafty ways
and perhaps the call had been a temptation, a temptation sent to try
his humility. He turned his eyes towards where he knew the island of
Fanua to lie. What his superior had said about it had not displeased
him, on the contrary he liked to think of the islanders dancing and
singing. It would be a beautiful estate to live among them and gather
their souls as a child gathers daisies in a field.
But now the horizon was hidden in the evening haze, and Fanua seemed
more remote than ever. A little cloud was coming up the heavens,
slowly, towards the sunset; as it passed above the place of Fanua it
brightened, it shone like a pearl, it caught the rays of the sun and
glowed with a rosy rim. Mr. Fortune took the cloud to be a sign.
Heartened by a novel certainty that he was doing the right thing he
disappointed the Archdeacon quite unflinchingly, and set about his
preparations for the new life. Since the island was so unfrequented
it was necessary to take with him provisions for at least a year. In
the ordinary course of things the Mission would have supplied his
outfit, but he had a scruple against availing himself of this custom,
because having kept the accounts he knew their poverty and their
good works, and also he was aware that the expedition to Fanua was
looked on as, at best, a sort of pious escapade. Fortunately there
was the remains of his godmother’s legacy. With feelings that were
a nice mixture of thrift and extravagance he bought tinned meats,
soup-squares, a chest of tea, soap, a tool-box, a medicine chest, a
gentleman’s housewife, a second-hand harmonium (rather cumbrous and
wheezy but certainly a bargain) and an oil-lamp. He also bought a
quantity of those coloured glass baubles which hang so ravishingly
on Christmas trees, some picture-books, rolls of white cotton, and
a sewing-machine to make clothes for his converts. The Archdeacon
gave him a service of altar furniture and the other mission-workers
presented him with a silver tea-pot. With the addition of some
plate-powder Mr. Fortune was now ready to embark.
In fancy he had seen himself setting foot upon the island alone
though he knew that in fact someone must go with him if only to
manage the launch. But that someone would be a sailor, a being so
aloofly maritime as scarcely to partake in the act of landing. He was
slightly dashed when he discovered that the Archdeacon, accompanied
by his secretary, was coming too in order to install him with a
proper appearance of ceremony.
“We cannot impress upon them too early,” said the Archdeacon, “the
solemn nature of your undertaking.” And Mr. Fortune hung his head, a
grey one, old and wise enough to heed an admonition or a rebuke.
The voyage was uneventful. The Archdeacon sat in the bows dictating
to the secretary, and Mr. Fortune looked at the Pacific Ocean until
he fell asleep, for he was tired out with packing.
About sunset he was aroused by the noise of surf and by peals of
excited laughter; and opening his eyes he found that they were close
in under the shadow of the island of Fanua. The launch was manœuvring
round seeking for an inlet in the reef, and the islanders were
gathered together to view this strange apparition. Some were standing
on the rocks, some were in the sea, others were diving from cliff to
water, in movement and uproar like a flock of sea-gulls disturbed by
a fishing-boat.
It seemed to Mr. Fortune that there must be thousands of them,
and for a moment his heart sank. But there was no time for second
thoughts; for behold! a canoe shot forward to the side of the launch,
a rope was thrown and caught, the Archdeacon, the secretary and
himself were miraculously jumped in, the sea was alive with brown
heads, everyone talked at once, the canoe turned, darted up the
smooth back of a wave, descended into a cloud of spray, and the three
clergymen, splashed and stiff, were standing on the beach.
Now Mr. Fortune was properly grateful for the presence of the
Archdeacon, for like a child arriving late at a party he felt
perfectly bewildered and would have remained in the same spot,
smiling and staring. But like the child at the party he found himself
taken charge of and shepherded in the right direction until, in
the house of the chief islander, he was seated on a low stool with
his hat taken off, a garland round his neck and food in his hands,
smiling and staring still.
Before dark the luggage was also landed. The evening was spent in
conversation and feasting. Everyone who could squeeze himself into
Ori’s house did so, and the rest of them (the thousands did not seem
above a few hundreds now) squatted round outside. Even the babies
seemed prepared to sit there all night, but at length the Archdeacon,
pleading fatigue, asked leave of his host to go to bed.
Ori dismissed the visitors, his household prepared the strangers’
sleeping place, unrolling the best mats and shooing away a couple
of flying foxes, the missionaries prayed together and the last
good-nights were said.
From where he lay Mr. Fortune could look out of the door. He saw a
tendril of some creeper waving gently to and fro across the star
Canopus, and once more he realized, as though he were looking at it
for the first time, how strangely and powerfully he had been led from
his native land to lie down in peace under the constellations of the
southern sky.
“So this is my first night in Fanua,” he thought, as he settled
himself on his mat. “My first night....”
And he would have looked at the star, a sun whose planets must depend
wholly upon God for their salvation, for no missionary could reach
them; but his eyes were heavy with seafaring, and in another minute
he had fallen asleep.
As though while his body lay sleeping his ghost had gone wandering
and ascertaining through the island Mr. Fortune woke on the morrow
feeling perfectly at home in Fanua. So much so that when he stood
on the beach waving farewell to the launch he had the sensations of
a host, who from seeing off his guests turns back with a renewed
sense of ownership to the house which the fact of their departure
makes more deeply and dearly his. Few hosts indeed could claim an
ownership equally secure. For when the Archdeacon, visited with a
sudden qualm at the thought of Mr. Fortune’s isolation, had suggested
that he should come again in three months’ time, just to see how
he was getting on, Mr. Fortune was able to say quite serenely and
legitimately that he would prefer to be left alone for at least a
year.
Having waved to the proper degree of perspective he turned briskly
inland. The time was come to explore Fanua.
The island of Fanua is of volcanic origin, though at the time of
Mr. Fortune’s arrival the volcano had been for many years extinct.
It rises steeply out of the ocean, and seen from thence it appears
disproportionately tall for its base, for the main peak reaches to
a height of near three thousand feet, and the extremely indented
coast-line does not measure more than seventy miles. On three sides
of the island there are steep cliffs worked into caverns and flying
buttresses by the action of the waves, but to the east a fertile
valley slopes gently down to a low-lying promontory of salt-meadow
and beach where once a torrent of lava burst from the side of the
mountain and crushed its channel to the sea; and in this valley lies
the village.
The lower slopes of the mountain are wooded, and broken into many
deep gorges where the noise of the cataract echoes from cliff to
cliff, where the air is cool with shade and moist with spray, and
where bright green ferns grow on the black face of the rock. Above
this swirl and foam of tree-tops the mountain rises up in crags or
steep tracts of scrub and clinker to the old crater, whose ramparts
are broken into curious cactus-shaped pinnacles of rock, in colour
the reddish lavender of rhododendron blossoms.
A socket of molten stone, rent and deserted by its ancient fires
and garlanded round with a vegetation as wild as fire and more
inexhaustible, the whole island breathes the peculiar romance of a
being with a stormy past. The ripened fruit falls from the tree, the
tree falls too and the ferns leap up from it as though it were being
consumed with green flames. The air is sleepy with salt and honey,
and the sharp wild cries of the birds seem to float like fragments of
coloured paper upon the monotonous background of breaking waves and
falling cataract.
Mr. Fortune spent the whole day exploring, and when he felt hungry
he made a meal of guavas and rose-apples. There seemed to be no end
to the marvels and delights of his island and he was as thrilled
as though he had been let loose into the world for the first time.
But he returned with all the day’s wonders almost forgotten in the
excitement and satisfaction of having discovered the place where he
wanted to live.
It was a forsaken hut, about a mile from the village and less than
that distance from the sea. It stood in a little dell amongst the
woods; before it there was a natural lawn of fine grass, behind it
was a rocky spur of the mountain. There was a spring for water and a
clump of coco-palms for shade.
The hut consisted of one large room opening on to a deep verandah.
The framework was of wood, the floor of beaten earth, and it was
thatched and walled with reeds.
Ori told him that it could be his for the taking. An old woman had
lived there with her daughter, but she had died and the daughter,
who didn’t like being out of the world, had removed to the village.
Mr. Fortune immediately set about putting it in order, and while
he worked almost everyone in the island dropped in at some time or
other to admire, encourage or lend a hand. There was not much to do;
a little strengthening of the thatch, the floor to be weeded and
trodden smooth, the creepers to be cut back--and on the third day he
moved in.
This took place with ceremony. The islanders accompanied him on
his many journeys to and from the village, they carried the crate
containing the harmonium with flattering eulogies of its weight and
size, and when everything was transported they sat on the lawn and
watched him unpacking. When he unpacked the tea-pot they burst into
delighted laughter.
Except for the lamp, the sewing-machine and the harmonium Mr.
Fortune’s house had not an European appearance, for while on the
island he wished to live as its natives did. His bowls and platters
and drinking-vessels were made of polished wood, his bed (Ori’s
gift) was a small wooden platform spread with many white mats. When
everything was completed he gave each of the islanders a ginger-bread
nut and made a little formal speech, first thanking them for their
gifts and their assistance, and going on to explain his reasons for
coming to Fanua. He had heard, he said, with pleasure how happy a
people they were, and he had come to dwell with them, and teach them
how they might be as happy in another life as they were in this.
The islanders received his speech in silence, broken only by
crunching. Their expressions were those of people struck into awe
by some surprising novelty. Mr. Fortune wondered if he were that
novelty, or Huntley and Palmer.
He was anxious to do things befittingly for the Archdeacon’s
admonition on the need for being solemn still hung about the back
of his mind. This occasion, it seemed to him, was something between
a ceremony and a social function. It was a gathering, and as such
it had its proper routine: first there comes an address, after
the address a hymn is sung, then comes a collect and sometimes a
collection and after that the congregation disperses.
Mr. Fortune sat down to his harmonium and sang and played through a
hymn.
His back was to the islanders, he could not see how they were taking
it. But when, having finished the hymn and added two chords for the
Amen, he turned round to announce the collect he discovered that
they had already dispersed, the last of them even then vanishing
noiselessly and enigmatically through the bushes.
The sun was setting behind the mountain, great shafts of glory moved
among the topmost crags. Mr. Fortune thought of God’s winnowing-fan,
he imagined Him holding the rays of the sun in His hand. God winnows
the souls of men with the beauty of this world: the chaff is blown
away, the true grain lies still and adoring.
In the dell it was already night. He sat for a long time in his
verandah listening to the boom of the waves. He did not think much,
he was tired with a long day’s work and his back ached. At last he
went indoors, lighted his lamp and began to write in his diary. Just
as he was dropping off to sleep a pleasant thought came to him, and
he smiled, murmuring in a drowsy voice: “To-morrow is Sunday.”
In the morning he was up and shaved and dressed before sunrise.
With a happy face he stepped on to his lawn and stood listening to
the birds. They did not sing anywhere near so sweetly as English
blackbirds and thrushes, but Mr. Fortune was pleased with their
notes, a music which seemed proper to this gay landscape which might
have been coloured out of a child’s paint box.
He stood there till the sun had risen and shone into the dell, then
he went back into his hut; when he came out again he was dressed in
his priest’s clothes and carried a black tin box.
He walked across the dell to where there was a stone with a flat top.
Opening the box he took out, first a linen cloth which he spread on
the stone, then a wooden cross and two brass vases. He knelt down and
very carefully placed the cross so that it stood firm on the middle
of the stone. The vases he carried to the spring where he filled
them with water, and gathering some red blossoms which grew on a bush
near-by he arranged them in the vases, which he then carried back
and set on either side of the cross. Standing beside the stone and
looking into the sun, he said in a loud voice: “Let your light so
shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your
Father which is in heaven.”
The sun shone upon the white cloth and the scarlet flowers, upon the
cross of wood and upon the priest standing serious, grey-headed and
alone in the green dell all sparkling with dew as though it had never
known the darkness of night.
Once more he turned and went back to the hut. When he came out again
he carried in either hand a cup and a dish which shone like gold.
These he put down upon the stone, and bowed himself before them and
began to pray.
Mr. Fortune knelt very upright. His eyes were shut, he did not see
the beauty of the landscape glittering in the sunrise, the coco-palms
waving their green feather head-dresses gently to and fro in the
light breeze, the wreaths of rosy mist floating high up across the
purple crags of the mountain; and yet from the expression on his
face one would have said that he was all the more aware of the beauty
around him for having his eyes shut, for he seemed like one in an
ecstasy and his clasped hands trembled, as though they had hold of a
joy too great for him. He knelt on, absorbed in prayer. He did not
see that a naked brown boy had come to the edge of the dell, and was
gazing at him, and at the stone which he had decked to the glory
of God--gazing with wonder and admiration, and step by step coming
softly across the grass. Only when he had finished his prayer and
stretched out his hands towards the altar did Mr. Fortune discover
that a boy was kneeling at his side.
He gave no sign of surprise, he did not appear even to have noticed
the newcomer. With steadfast demeanour he took from the dish a piece
of bread and ate it, and drank from the cup. Then, rising and turning
to the boy who still knelt before him, he laid his hand upon his
head, and looked down on him with a long look of greeting. Slowly and
unhesitatingly, like one who hears and accepts and obeys the voice of
the spirit, he took up the cup once more and with the forefinger of
his right hand he wrote the sign of the cross upon the boy’s forehead
with the last drops of the wine.
The boy did not flinch, he trembled a little, that was all. Mr.
Fortune bent down and welcomed him with a kiss.
He had waited, but after all not for long. The years in the bank, the
years at St. Fabien, they did not seem long now, the time of waiting
was gone by, drowsy and half-forgotten like a nightwatch. A cloud
in the heavens had been given him as a sign to come to Fanua, but
here was a sign much nearer and more wonderful: his first convert,
miraculously led to come and kneel beside him a little after the
rising of the sun. His, and not his. For while he had thought to
bring souls to God, God had been beforehand with His gift, had come
before him into the meadow, and gathering the first daisy had given
it to him.
For a long while he stood lost in thankfulness. At last he bade the
kneeling boy get up.
“What is your name?” he said.
“Lueli,” answered the boy.
“I have given you a new name, Lueli. I have called you Theodore,
which means ‘the gift of God.’”
Lueli smiled politely.
“Theodore,” repeated Mr. Fortune impressively.
The boy smiled again, a little dubiously this time. Then, struck with
a happy thought he told Mr. Fortune the name of the scarlet blossoms
that stood on either side of the cross. His voice was soft and
pleasant and he held his head on one side in his desire to please.
“Come, Theodore, will you help me to put these things away?”
Together they rinsed the cup and the dish in the spring, folded the
linen cloth and put them with the cross and the vases back into the
black tin box. The flowers Mr. Fortune gave to the boy, who with a
rapid grace pulled others and wove two garlands, one of which he put
round Mr. Fortune’s neck and one round his own. Then discovering that
the tin box served as a dusky sort of mirror he bent over it, and
would have stayed coquetting like a girl with a new coral necklace
had not Mr. Fortune called him into the hut.
In all Lueli’s movements there was a swiftness and a pliancy
as though not only his mind but his body also were intent on
complaisance and docility. A monkey will show the same adaptability,
deft and pleased with its deftness, but in a monkey’s face there
is always a sad self-seeking look, and their eyes are like pebbles
unhappily come alive. A bird, or a squirrel, or a lizard whisking
over a stone have a vivid infallible grace, but it is inherent, they
are made so, and however much one may admire or envy them, they do
not touch one into feeling grateful to them for being what they are.
As Mr. Fortune watched Lueli folding up the priestly clothes, patting
them smooth and laying them in their box, he felt as though he were
watching some entirely new kind of being, too spontaneous to be
human, too artless to be monkey, too sensitive to be bird or squirrel
or lizard; and he wished that he had been more observant of creation,
so that he could find out what it was that Lueli resembled. Only some
women, happy in themselves and in their love, will show to a lover or
husband this kind of special grace; but this Mr. Fortune, whose love
affairs had been hasty and conventional, did not know.
While they were breakfasting together in the verandah the missionary
had a good look at his convert.
Lueli was of the true Polynesian type, slender-boned and
long-limbed, with small idle hands and feet: broadminded
persons with no colour prejudices might have described him as
aristocratic-looking. This definition did not occur to Mr. Fortune,
who had no dealings with aristocrats and was consequently unaware of
any marked difference between them and other people; but he reflected
with satisfaction that the boy looked very refined for one who had
been so recently a heathen. His eyes were rather small and his nose
was rather snub, but these details did not mar the general good
effects of regular features and a neatly-shaped head. Though when
he talked he pulled very charming faces, in repose his expression
was slightly satirical. In colour he was an agreeable brown, almost
exactly the colour of a nutmeg; his hair was thick but not bushy and
he wore it gathered up into a tuft over either ear, in much the same
manner as was fashionable at the French Court in the year 1671.
In spite of his convert’s advantageous appearance and easy manners
Mr. Fortune judged that he was not the child of anyone particularly
rich or distinguished; for in these islands where the poorest are
scrupulously clean and the richest may wear for sole adornment
the sophisticated elegance of freshly gathered flowers, social
standing may yet be deduced from the degree of tattooing. Lueli
had greaves and gaiters of a pattern of interlacing bamboo-shoots,
and in addition a bracelet round his left wrist and on his right
shoulder-blade an amusing sprig. But this was all. And from the
elegance of the designs and their wilful disposition it seemed as
though he had been decorated for no better reason than the artist’s
pleasure.
When Mr. Fortune came to make enquiries he found that he had judged
rightly. Lueli was one of a large family, which is rare in these
islands. His mother was a fat, giggling creature, without a care in
the world; even among the lighthearted people of Fanua she and her
brood were a bye-word for their harum-scarum ways. Their dwelling was
a big tumble-down hut in which there was scarcely ever anyone at home
except a baby; and though they had no apparent father or other means
of sustenance that was no obstacle to well-being in this fertile spot
where no one need go hungry who could shake fruit off a tree or pull
fish out of the water.
All of the family were popular; Lueli in particular, for his beauty
and amiability, was a regular village pet. But, whether it be that
an uncommon share of good looks like a strain of fairy blood, sets
their owners apart, or whether beautiful people are in some way
aware of the firebrand they carry with them and so are inclined to
solitariness, Lueli, like other beauties, had for all his affability
a tincture of aloofness in his character. Although he was a pet, it
was not a pet dog he resembled, solicitous and dependent, but a pet
cat, which will leap on to a knee to be fondled and then in a moment
detach itself, impossible to constrain as a beam of moonlight playing
bo-peep through a cloud. So when he deserted the village and attached
himself to the new-comer no one was hurt or surprised, they took it
for granted that he would go where he pleased.
This complaisance had slightly shocked Mr. Fortune, particularly
as it fell in so convenient to his wishes. It was most desirable,
indeed almost necessary, that his convert should live with him, at
any rate for the present, in order to assure and perfect the work of
conversion. Afterwards the finished product could be let loose again,
a holy decoy, to lure others into salvation’s net. But good men do
not expect silver spoons to be slipped into their mouths. Easy
fortune finds them unprepared and a trifle suspicious.
Mr. Fortune sought to inoculate his good luck by a scrupulous
observance of formalities. He put on his black felt hat and went to
pay a call on Lueli’s mother. On the fourth visit he happened to find
her at home. Taking off the hat and bowing he addressed her with a
long speech in which he drew a careful distinction between obedience
to God and obedience to lawful authority. Lueli, said he, having
become a Christian any attempts on her part to discourage him would
be tempting Lueli to disobey God, therefore as God’s priest it would
be his duty to oppose them. On the other hand as Lueli’s only visible
parent and lawful guardian she had an absolute right to decide
whether Lueli should remain at home, and if she wished him (Lueli)
to do so, far from opposing her, he (Mr. Fortune) would enforce her
authority with his own and insist upon the boy’s return.
Lueli’s mother looked rather baffled, and crumpled her face exactly
as Lueli crumpled his in the effort to follow Mr. Fortune’s
explanation. But when he had finished she brightened, said that it
was all a very good scheme, and asked if Mr. Fortune would like a
netful of shrimps.
He spoke a little longer of his affection for the boy, and his
plans for teaching him, explaining that though perhaps an European
education might not be much use in Fanua, wherefore he was not
proposing to trouble him with much arithmetic, yet a Christian
education is useful anywhere and so Lueli must soon learn the
Catechism; and then carrying the shrimps he set off to visit Ori.
Ori was the chief man of the island and it would be only civil and
politic to consult him. Besides, there was always the chance that
Ori might put a spoke in his wheel, a chance not to be missed by any
conscientious Englishman. But when Ori had listened to the speech
about obedience to God and obedience to lawful authority which Mr.
Fortune delivered all over again (with of course suitable omissions
and alterations) he also said that it was all a very good scheme.
Wouldn’t Mr. Fortune like a girl too?
Mr. Fortune refused, as politely as his horror would allow; for
he had had more than enough of the girls of Fanua. He wished them
no harm, it was his hope to live in charity with all men, girls
included, and he had no doubt that when they were converted they
would become as much better as they should be. But in their present
state they were almost beyond bearing. Once upon a time when he was
still a bank clerk and had leisure for literature the phrase “a bevy
of young girls” had sounded in his ears quite pleasantly, suggesting
something soft as “a covey of partridges” but lighter in colour.
Now it sounded like a cross between “a pack of wolves,” “a swarm of
mosquitoes,” and “a horde of Tartars.”
The girls of Fanua always went about in bevies, and ever since his
arrival they had pestered him with their attentions. He had but to
put his nose into the village for a score of brown minxes to gather
round him, entangling him in garlands and snatching at his hat. If
he walked on the beach at sunset repeating to himself that sonnet of
Wordsworth’s:
“It is a beauteous evening, calm and free,
The holy time is quiet as a Nun
Breathless with adoration; the broad sun
Is sinking down in its tranquillity;
The gentleness of Heaven is on the sea”
long before he had got to: “Dear child, dear girl that walkest with
me here” he was sure to be interrupted by sounds of laughter and
splashing, and to find himself encompassed by yet another bevy, naked
from the sea, and begging and cajoling him to go bathing with them.
If he fled to the woods they followed him, creeping softly in his
tracks. When he thought himself safe and sat down to rest, a head and
shoulders would be thrust through the greenery; soon there would be
half a dozen of them watching him, commenting and surmising on his
person, and egging each other on to approach nearer. If he got up to
walk away they burst out after him and taking hands entrapped him in
the centre of a dance, wanton enough to inflame a maypole.
Once these nymphs surprised him bathing. Fortunately the pool he was
in was only large enough to hold one at a time, so while it continued
to hold him he was tolerably safe. But it was tiresome to have them
sitting all around gazing at him as though he might shortly turn
into a satyr. He told them to go away, he even begged them to do so,
for the water was cold and as modesty compelled him to sit with as
much of his person in the water as possible he was growing cramped.
But all was in vain; they sat there as expectant as a congregation,
and for once sat in silence. His zeal told him that, tiresome as it
all was, this opportunity for proselytizing should not be missed.
Accordingly he began to preach to them with chattering teeth, only
his shoulders appearing above the surface of the water, draped in a
sort of ruff or boa of water-weed. He preached for an hour and twenty
minutes, and then, seeing that they would neither be converted nor
go, he reared up out of the pool, strode over the shoulder of the
nearest girl and proceeded (the word is more dignified than walked),
blue and indignant, toward his clothes. Thank Heaven the young whores
had not noticed them!
The best thing that could be said for the girls of Fanua, (unless
judged as trials of temper, mortifications, and potential
stumbling-blocks, in which case they would have received very high
marks) was that they afforded an admirable foil to Lueli’s maidenly
demeanour. Day by day he unrolled such a display of the Christian
virtues, was so gentle, so biddable, so deft to oblige, so willing
to learn, and just sufficiently stupid to be no trouble, that Mr.
Fortune felt he could have endured even twice as many girls as the
price of being soothed by one such boy. He had never beheld, he had
never dreamed of such a conversion. Indeed if it had been his own
work he would have been uneasy, wondering if it were not too good to
be true. But he acknowledged it to be the Lord’s doing and so he was
prepared for anything.
But he was not prepared for his paragon to disappear without a word
of warning and stay away for three days and four nights. For the
first twenty-four hours he thought little or nothing of it: Lueli was
gone birding or gone fishing: he was playing with his friends in the
village, or he might be on a visit to his mother. Mr. Fortune had no
objection. On the contrary, he was rather pleased that the convert
should thus hie him back to the company of his old acquaintance.
There had been something disquieting almost, in the calm way Lueli
had given his former life the go-by. He would not like to think him
lacking in natural affection. So he slept through the first night and
dabbled through the first day without feeling any uneasiness; but on
the second night he dreamed that Lueli had come back, and waking from
his dream he ran out into the dell to see if it were a true one.
There was no one there. He called: at first loudly, then he thought
that Lueli might be hiding in the bushes afraid to come out lest
he should be angry, so he called softly. Then he sat down in the
verandah, for he knew there would be no more sleep for him that
night, and began to worry, imagining all the dreadful things that
might have befallen the boy, and reproaching himself bitterly for
having allowed so much time to slip by before he awoke to the
possibility of danger. Perhaps Lueli had been drowned. Mr. Fortune
knew that he could swim like a fish, but he thought of drowning none
the less. Perhaps running through the woods he had been caught like
Absalom, or perhaps he had broken his leg and now, tired of calling
for help, was lying snuffling with his face to the wet ground.
Perhaps he had been carried off in a canoe by natives from some other
island to serve as a slave or even as a meal.
“This is nonsense,” said Mr. Fortune. “The boy is probably somewhere
in the village. I will go down as soon as it is day, and enquire for
him. Only when I know for certain that he is not there will I allow
myself to worry.”
For all that he continued to sit on the verandah, shredding his mind
into surmises and waiting for the colour of day to come back to the
whispering bushes and the black mountain. “In a little while,” he
thought, “the moon will be in her first quarter and Lueli will not be
able to see his way back if he comes by night.”
As soon as he decently could (for he had his dignity as a missionary
to keep up) he walked to the village and made enquiries. No one had
seen Lueli; and what was worse, no one could be persuaded into making
any suggestions as to his whereabouts or being in the least helpful.
There was some sort of feast toward: people were hurrying from house
to house with baskets and packages, and the air was thick with
taboos. Mr. Fortune hung about for a while, but no one encouraged him
to hang on them. Presently he returned to the hut, feeling that the
Fanuans were all very heathen and hateful.
Anxious and exasperated he spent the greater part of the day roaming
about the woods, harking back every hour or so to the dell and the
bathing-pool on the chance that Lueli might have re-appeared. In the
dell the shadows moved round from west to east and the tide brimmed
and retrenched the pool; everything seemed to be in a conspiracy
to go on as usual. By sunset he had tormented himself out of all
self-control. His distress alternated with gusts of furious anger
against his convert. Blow hot, blow cold, each contrary blast fanned
his burning. At one moment he pictured Lueli struggling in the hands
of marauding cannibals: in the next he was ready to cast him off
(that is if he came back) as a runagate, and began to prepare the
scathing and renouncing remarks which should dismiss him. “Not that
I am angry,” he assured himself. “I am not in the least angry. I am
perfectly cool. But I see clearly that this is the end. I have been
deceived in him, that is all. Of course I am sorry. And I shall miss
him. He had pretty ways. He seemed so full of promise.”
And instantly he was ravaged with pity for the best and most
ill-prized convert the world had ever seen; and now, perhaps, the
world saw him no longer. Even if he had run away and was still
frolicking about at his own sweet will, there was every excuse to
be made for him. He was young, he was ignorant, he had not a notion
how much suffering this little escapade entailed on his pastor, he
belonged to a people to whom liberty is the most natural thing in the
world. And anyhow, had he not a perfect right to run away if he chose
to? “Good Heavens, do I want him tethered to me by a string?” So
his passions whisked him round again, and he was angrier than ever
with Lueli because he was also angry with himself for being ridden
by what was little better than an infatuation, unworthy of a man and
far more unworthy of a missionary, whose calling it is to love all
God’s children equally, be they legitimated or no. And he remembered
uneasily how in visiting the village that morning he had not breathed
a word of conversion.
The idea of having to worry about his own conduct as well as Lueli’s
agitated him so extremely that he fell on his knees and took refuge
in prayer, imploring that his deficiencies might be overlooked and
that his sins might not be visited upon Lueli; for it was no fault
of the child’s, he began to point out to the All-Knowing, that his
pastor had chosen to erect him into a stumbling-block. But he was
in too much of an upset to pray with any satisfaction, and finding
that he was only case-making like a hired barrister he opened his
prayer-book and set himself to read the Forms of Prayer to be Used
by Those at Sea, for these seemed appropriate to his case. Thence
he read on through the Form and Manner of Making, Ordaining, and
Consecrating of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, and had persevered
into the Accession Service when there was a noise behind him. He
leapt up to welcome the truant. But it was only a stray pig, looking
curiously in on him from the doorway.
“O pig!” Mr. Fortune exclaimed, ready just then to disburden himself
to anybody. But the emotion betrayed in his hurt voice was so
overwhelming that the pig turned tail and bolted.
He addressed himself once more to the Accession Service. The
prayer-book lay face-downward, something had fallen out of it, and
lay face-downward too. It was a little old-fashioned picture with a
lace-paper frame, one of those holy valentines that lurk in pious
prayer-books, and in course of time grow very foxed. He looked at it.
It was a print of the Good Shepherd, who with His crook was helping
a lost sheep out of a pit. Careless of His own equilibrium, the Good
Shepherd leant over the verge of the rocks, trying to get a firm grip
on the sheep’s neck and so haul him up into safety.
Smitten to the heart and feeling extremely small, Mr. Fortune closed
up the print in the prayer-book. He had a shrewd suspicion that
this incident was intended as a slightly sarcastic comment on his
inadequacies as a shepherd. But he took comfort too, for he felt
that God had looked on his distress, even though it were with a
frown. And all night (for he lay awake till dawn) he held on to this
thought and endeavoured to wait still.
Having been so tossed up and down, by the morrow he was incapable
of feeling anything much. He spent the day in a kind of stoical
industry, visiting the islanders and preaching to them, though they
heard him with even less acceptance than usual, for they were all
engaged in sleeping off the feast. During the afternoon he washed
his clothes and cleaned the hut and in the evening he practised the
harmonium till his back smouldered with fatigue; and all night he
lay in a heavy uncomfortable sleep, as though he were cased up in an
ill-fitting leaden armour.
He awoke stupefied to bright daylight. He could scarcely remember
where he was, or who he was, and his perplexity was increased by
finding a number of presences, cold, sleek, and curved, disposed
about his limbs. Serpents! In a panic that was half nightmare he sat
up. His bed was full of bananas, neatly arranged to encircle him as
sausages are arranged to encircle a Christmas turkey. Who had put
bananas in his bed? Could it be--? He went swiftly and silently to
the door and peered into the dell. There by the spring sat Lueli,
arranging shells round the water’s edge as though he were laying out
a garden. His back was turned, he was so absorbed in his game that he
did not discover that he was being watched. Presently he rolled over
and lay on his stomach, gently kicking his heels in the air.
Mr. Fortune had a good stare at him. Then he tiptoed back again and
began to dress.
As a rule, Mr. Fortune was rather careless about his appearance,
and compared to the islanders he was decidedly dirty, for whereas
they would bathe themselves three times a day or more he considered
that once was enough. But now he made his toilet with extraordinary
circumspection and deliberation. He shaved himself as minutely as
though he were about to attend an archidiaconal meeting, he parted
his hair, he fastened every button with a twitch, he pulled his coat
forward so that it should sit well on his shoulders, he wound up his
watch and knotted his bootlaces so that they should not come undone.
He even put on a hat.
All the while he had a curious sensation that he was dressing a man
of stone that must needs be dressed like a dummy for of itself it was
senseless and immovable. Yet _he_ was the man of stone, his fingers
that slowly and firmly pushed the buttons through the button-holes
and knotted the bootlaces were so remorselessly and stonily strong
that if he had not been managing them with such care they would have
ground the buttons to powder: and if he had allowed them for one
moment to tremble the bootlaces would have snapped off in his grasp
like black cotton threads.
Walking terribly and softly, and still in this curious stony dream,
he stepped into the dell and advanced on Lueli. Lueli turned round.
It seemed to Mr. Fortune that he was looking frightened but he could
not be sure of this for his eyes also were partaking of the nature of
stone, they did not see very clearly. He came up to Lueli and took
hold of him by the shoulder and jerked him on to his feet.
Then, still holding fast to Lueli’s shoulder he said:
“Where have you been?”
Lueli said: “I have been fishing with my two cousins. For three days
we went in our boats and at night we sang.”
But Mr. Fortune did not seem to have heard him, and said again:
“Where have you been?”
Lueli said: “We paddled round this island and away to the north-west
to an islet of shells. I have brought you back these--look!--as a
present.”
For the third time Mr. Fortune asked:
“Where have you been?”
But this time he did not wait for an answer. Putting his face close
to Lueli’s and speaking with his eyes shut and in a low secret voice
he began to scold him.
“Don’t tell me where you’ve been. I don’t care. Why should I care
where you go? You made off without asking my leave, so what is it to
me where you go to or how long you stay away? Nothing! For I cannot
allow myself to love a boy who flouts me. While you were good I loved
you, but that goodness didn’t last long and I don’t suppose it meant
much. Why did you run away? If you had told me, if you had asked my
leave I would have given it gladly. But of course you didn’t, you
went off without a word, and left me to worry myself half out of my
mind. Not that I worried for long. I soon saw that you didn’t care a
snap of your fingers for me. If you were sorry I would forgive you,
but you are not sorry, you are only frightened. I am very angry with
you, Lueli,--for I cannot call you Theodore now.”
Mr. Fortune’s eyes were shut but he knew that Lueli was frightened
for he could feel him trembling. After a minute he began again.
“I can feel how you tremble, but that is silly of you, it only shows
how little you understand me. You have no reason to be frightened,
don’t think I would punish you with blows for I would never do such
a thing, I don’t approve of it. But something I must do. I must tell
you when you do wrong, for it seems that you yourself don’t know the
difference between good and bad. Why did you run away without telling
me where you were going? Was that like a Christian? Was that like a
child of God? Do you suppose Samuel would have behaved so, whom you
pretend to take such an interest in?”
Mr. Fortune had almost talked himself out. He was feeling dazed by
the sound of his own voice, sounding so different too, and he wished
Lueli would take a turn. But Lueli continued to tremble in silence,
he did not even wriggle, so Mr. Fortune exerted himself to say a few
last words.
“Come now, Lueli, what is it to be? Don’t be frightened of me. I mean
you nothing but good. Perhaps I spoke too angrily; if so, you must
forgive me. I was wrong to scold; but you really are maddening, and
I have been very anxious about you and not slept much since you ran
away. Anxiety always makes people seem stern.”
Now he spoke almost pleadingly, but he still had his hand fast on
Lueli’s shoulder. At length he noticed this, for his hand was no
longer stone but flesh and blood which ached from the intensity of
its grip. He withdrew it, and in an instant Lueli had ducked sideways
and with a spring like a frightened deer he fled into the bushes.
Mr. Fortune was in a state to do anything that was desperate, though
what, he had not the slightest idea. But suddenly, and completely
to his surprise, he found himself convulsed with laughter. He did
not know what he was laughing at till in a flash he remembered
Lueli’s bolt for safety, and the ludicrous expression, half abject,
half triumphantly cunning, with which he had made off. To run away
again when he was in such disgrace for running away--this stroke, so
utterly unexpected, so perfectly natural, rapt him into an ecstasy
of appreciation. He forgave everything that had gone before for
leading up to this. And the brat had done it so perfectly, too. If
he had practised nothing else for years he could not have surpassed
that adroit, terror-stricken bound, nor the glance he cast over his
shoulder--deprecating, defiant, derisive, alive.
He had never been so real before.
Mr. Fortune propped himself against a tree and laughed himself weak.
He had laughed his hat off, his ribs ached, and he squealed as he
fetched his breath. At last he could laugh no more. He slid to the
ground and lay staring up into the branches with a happy and unseeing
interest. He was looking at his thoughts: thoughts that at a less
fortunate juncture might have pained him but that now seemed as
remote and impersonal a subject for consideration as the sway and
lapse of the fronds moving overhead.