sombre and attentive ennui, thought Mr. Fortune, is summed up in
those words! The goats might supply him with suppers and raiment,
but not with a cheerful thought. Their antics were wasted on him,
he observed them without a smile, without sympathy, as unresponsive
to natural history as the traduced Alexander Selkirk of Cowper’s
poem; for the real Alexander was a much more congenial character
who sometimes danced and sang with his troop of pet animals. True,
Robinson was fond of his dog, and kind to him, setting him on his
right hand at meal times even after he was grown “very old and
crazy.” He also gave a decent burial to the two cats. But these were
English animals, fellow-countrymen, assuring relics of the time when
he had been knolled to church with other Christians: and it was for
this he cherished them, clinging to them with a trivial and desperate
affection.
No! In spite of his adventurous disposition and his knowledge of the
world, he was not really suited to life on an island, this man who
is for all time the representative of island-dwellers. Of course,
his island was very different from Fanua: larger, not so beautiful
probably; certainly not so convenient. And no doubt the presence of
natives would have made a great difference to him. He was the sort
of man who would soon marry. “But to be honest with myself,” thought
Mr. Fortune, “though I came here to convert the islanders, except
for my Friday I don’t think I should miss their company if it were
withdrawn. My happiness is of a rather selfish and dream-like kind
and I take my life very much for granted. Why, I have not even walked
round the island. That would seem strange to some, they would not
believe in me. I should seem as absurd and idyllic as those other
Robinsons, that Swiss family, who whenever they needed anything found
it cast up on shore or growing on a tree. I should be even more
unlikely than Leila.”
And he began to ponder on how many years had gone by since he last
thought of Leila. She came in a book belonging to his step-sister,
and he had read it secretly and rather bashfully because it was a
book for girls. But he had been obliged to read on for the subject of
islands had always enthralled him. Leila was shipwrecked on a desert
island with her papa, her nurse, a spaniel, and a needle. One day
the needle was dropped by Leila and lost in the sand. Here was a sad
to-do! But the nurse, a very superior politic woman, bade the spaniel
Go seek; and presently he uttered a yelp and came running towards
them with the needle sticking in his nose.
A very thin story! Yet it might have happened for all that it was so
fortunate. Things do sometimes fall out as we would have them, though
perhaps not often, for it is always the happy coincidences which are
hardest to credit. Man, however gullible and full of high ideals
for his own concerns, is suspicious of good-fortune in general. If
Robinson had enjoyed himself on the island he would not have been
received as somebody in real life.
“But I am in real life,” thought Mr. Fortune, adroitly jerking a
limpet to assure himself of being so, “although I am so happy in my
lot. I am real too, as real as Robinson. Some people might even say
I was more real than he, because my birth is mentioned in the church
register, and I used to pay income-tax, whereas he was only entered
at Stationers’ Hall. But I don’t agree with them. I may seem to have
the advantage of him now, but it is only temporary. In twenty years’
time, maybe less, who will even remember my name?”
From such reflections he would be diverted by Lueli politely handing
him a long streamer of sea-weed, dripping and glistening, and freshly
exhaling its deep-sea smell--a smell that excites in one strongly and
mysteriously the sense of life--or beckoning to him with a brown hand
that held a silver fish. These advances meant that Lueli thought it
time for Mr. Fortune to bathe too, and to take his swimming-lesson--a
turning of the tables which the convert considered extremely amusing
and satisfactory. Mr. Fortune was a very poor pupil. As a child he
had never done more than to paddle about, and now he was too old to
learn easily. He did not lack goodwill or perseverance, but he lacked
faith. Faith which can remove mountains can also float. Mr. Fortune
had not enough of it to do either. In the depths of his heart he
mistrusted the sea, an ambiguous element. The real sea beyond the
reef he never dreamed of venturing in, he could imagine how the long
nonchalant rollers would pick him up and hurl him with their casual
strength upon the rocks. Even in this sheltered pool he could gauge
their force; for though scarcely a ripple traversed the surface, to
every leisurely surge that crashed on the reef the pool responded
throughout its depth with a thrill, a tremor, an impulsion, and the
streamers of sea-weed turned inland one after another as though they
were obeying a solemn dance music.
But for all his mistrust he enjoyed bathing, indeed the mistrust put
a tang into his enjoyment. And with looks of derring-do he struck
out into the middle of the pool, his teeth set, his eyes rolling,
splashing horribly and snorting a good deal, labouring himself along
with uncouth convulsions, while Lueli swam beside him or round him
or under him as easily as a fish and with no more commotion, seeming
like a fish to propel himself and change his direction with an
occasional casual flip.
The further half of the pool, under the wall of rocks whence Lueli
used to dive, was extremely deep. Whenever he had got so far Mr.
Fortune was afraid and not afraid. He had a natural fear but he had a
reasonable trust; for he knew that while Lueli was by he would never
drown. It was sweet to him to be thus relying upon his convert--that
was part of the pleasure of bathing. On shore it was fit and proper
that Lueli should look up to him and learn from him; but every
affectionate character even though it be naturally a dominant one,
spending itself by rights in instruction and solicitude, likes
sometimes to feel dependent. People, the most strong-minded people,
perfectly accustomed to life, being ill may discover this; and as
they lie there, passive, tended and a little bewildered, may be
stirred to the depths of their being by finding themselves wrapped
once more in the security of being a good child. Mr. Fortune bathing
in the pool did not go quite so far as this. His dependence was not
quite so emotional and he was too busy keeping himself afloat to
analyse his feelings very carefully; but he liked to depend on Lueli,
just as he liked Lueli to depend on him.
Though so ready to learn swimming from Lueli he was less favourably
inclined to another of his convert’s desires: which was to oil him.
He would not for the world have had Lueli guess it but at the first
proposal of these kind offices he was decidedly shocked. Lueli oiled
himself as a matter of course, and so did everybody on the island.
They also oiled each other. Mr. Fortune had no objection. It was
their way. But below all concessions to broadmindedness his views on
oiling were positive and unshakable. They were inherent in the very
marrow of his backbone, which was a British one. Oiling, and all that
sort of thing, was effeminate, unbecoming, and probably vicious. It
was also messy. And had Hector and Achilles, Brutus and Alexander
detailed before him, all of them sleek and undeniably glistening as
cricket-bats, he would have been of the same opinion still.
“No, thank you,” he said, firmly putting aside the flask of scented
coco-nut oil (scented, too!). Or: “Not just now, Lueli, I am going
for a walk. Exercise is the best thing after bathing.” Or again:
“Unfortunately oil has a very painful effect on my skin.”
But he knew all the time that sooner or later he would have to
muffle up his prejudices and give in, for every day Lueli began to
look, first more hopeful and then more hurt, and was perpetually (if
figuratively) standing on his head in the attempt to produce some
unguent which could not injure his friend’s sensitive skin. So when
he sprained his knee jumping off a rock he welcomed the pretext with
feelings intricately compounded of relief and apostasy. For some
weeks he confined the area of effeminacy to his left knee, and on one
occasion he was base enough to lacerate the flesh in secret with a
fish-hook in an attempt to justify the statement about his skin. But
Lueli was so piteously full of compunction and so certain that if he
climbed a yet higher tree or went in a canoe to another island he
would be able to procure a balm entirely blameless that Mr. Fortune
was ashamed of the prank and counterfeited no more. Indeed he was
beginning to enjoy what he assured himself was not oiling, nothing
of the sort, but a purely medicinal process. And by the time he had
finished with the sprain it struck him that something of the same
kind might be good for his rheumatism. After all there was nothing
but what was manly and might quiet him in Elliman’s Embrocation--used
extensively by many athletes and as far as he could remember by
horse-doctors.
Mr. Fortune kept his rheumatism up and down his back, but inevitably
a little of the embrocation slopped over his shoulders. By the end of
six months he was stretching himself out for Lueli’s ministrations
as methodically as when in the old days at the corner of the Hornsey
Parade he offered one foot and then the other to the boot-black. It
did him a great deal of good and improved his appearance tenfold,
though that did not matter to him. Nothing could make him fat, but he
began to look quite well-liking. The back of his hands grew smooth
and suent, he ceased to have goose-flesh on his thighs, and one day,
regarding himself more attentively than usual in the little shaving
mirror, he discovered that somehow his expression had changed. How
and why he would not stoop to examine into; but Lueli could have
told him. For when he came to the island his face was so parched
and wrinkled that it was like a mask of rough earthenware, and his
eyes being the only surface in it that looked alive, also looked
curiously vulnerable. But now his face had come alive too and instead
of wrinkles had rather agreeable creases that yielded and deepened
when he laughed. And his eyes were no longer vulnerable, but just
kind.
But if Mr. Fortune had altered during his three years on the island,
Lueli had altered a great deal more. Not in character though--he was
still the same rather casual compendium of virtues and graces; nor in
behaviour--for he still hung affectionately and admiringly round Mr.
Fortune with a dependence which for all its compliance and intimacy
yet remained somehow gaily and coolly aloof, so that the priest felt
more and more that what he was rearing up was in truth a young plant,
a vine or a morning glory, which while following all the contours
of the tree it clings to draws from its own root alone a secret and
mysterious life in which the very element of dependence is as secret
and mysterious as the rest.
In the beginnings of an intimacy one seems to be finding out day by
day more about another person’s inner life and character. But after
a certain stage has been reached not only does further exploration
become impossible but things which one thought were discoveries
become suddenly meaningless and irrevelant and one finds that one
really knows nothing about them, nothing at all. They sit beside one,
they turn their heads and make some remark, and the turn of the head
and the tone of the voice and even what they say seem all familiar
and already recognized in one’s heart: but there can be no knowing
why they turned and spoke at that moment and not at another nor why
they said what they did and not something totally different. Though
one might expect this realization to be agonizing it is so much part
of the natural course of things that many people do not notice it at
all and others, whilst acknowledging that something has happened,
account for it perfectly to their own satisfaction by hypotheses
which are entirely inapplicable.
Mr. Fortune, for instance, finding that he knew no more of Lueli than
at the moment when he first beheld him kneeling on the grass, said to
himself that he now knew him so well that he had grown used to him.
In the same breath he was able to rejoice in a confidence that no
phase of Lueli’s development could catch him napping; and he plumed
himself on his acuteness in observing that Lueli was growing older
every day and was now of an age to assert himself as a young man.
For all that, Mr. Fortune could never quite compass thinking of
him as such. Time in this pleasant island where the seasons passed
so lightly and where no one ever showed the smallest sense of
responsibility was like a long happy afternoon spent under the acacia
with the children. However, Lueli was grown up (or would be, the
moment he noticed the fact himself) and something would have to be
done about it. Something, particularly--for in matters of this sort
it is best to go straight to the point--must be done about providing
him with a wife.
A Christian wife. And of late he had made several inspections of the
village with this end in view, keeping an open eye for all the young
women, scanning them as searchingly as Coelebs, artfully devising the
like cheese-paring tests for them and pondering which would be the
most eligible for conversion and holy matrimony. There were plenty
of charming possibles--by now he had quite got over his empirical
aversion to them as bevies--though at first sight they seemed more
eligible for holy matrimony than for conversion, for one and all
they were smiling, wholesome and inclined to giggle. But of course
convertibility was the prime consideration. Perhaps by catching his
hare and making a special effort? Mr. Fortune admitted that during
this last year his labours as a missionary had been growing rather
perfunctory.
Not that he loved his flock less. Rather he loved them more, and to
his love was added (and here was the rub) a considerable amount of
esteem. For seeing the extraordinarily good hand they made at the
business of living to their own contentment--a business that the wise
consider so extremely laborious and risky--and reflecting that for
all their felicity they yet contrived to do nobody any harm, he felt
some diffidence in his mission to teach them to do better.
And then he would pull himself up with a jerk and remember fiercely
that they were loose livers and worshipped idols. Moreover they had
rejected the word of God, and had made their rejection if anything
worse by making it with such flippancy and unconcern. The seed he
scattered had fallen into a soil too rich and easy so that the weeds
sprang up and choked it. Alas, all their charming good qualities
were but a crop of fragrant and exotic groundsel and their innocence
was like the pure whiteness and ravishing classical contours of the
blossom of the common bindweed, which strangles the corn and looks up
from the crime with its exquisite baby face.
Yet after all, he consoled himself by thinking, the apparent
reluctance of the Fanuans to become Christians might all be part of
God’s dealings. God proceeds diversely in divers places, and where
His servants had prepared the ground for wheat He may overrule them
and set barley. In some islands He may summon the souls with a loud
immediate thunderclap; in others He would go about it differently,
knowing the secrets of all hearts. God’s time is the best. And
perhaps it was his intention in Fanua to raise up a people from the
marriage of Lueli as He had prepared Himself a people in the seed
of Abraham and Sarah. At this thought Mr. Fortune went off into one
of his dreams and he grew cold with emotion as he gazed into the
future, seeing in a vision Lueli’s children and grandchildren and
great-grandchildren, mild and blessed, stretching away into the
distance like a field of ripened wheat which the wind flows over
and the sun shines on. They would remember him, for their fathers
would have told them. But no, he thought, there was no need for
them to remember him. For it is only the unsatisfied who want to be
remembered: old Simeon in the fullness of his joy, beholding the
light and the glory had no plea but to depart in peace.
Meanwhile, which girl? Ori’s tall daughter, gentle Vaili, or the
little plump one who laughed so much that he could never remember
her name? It occurred to him that since it was Lueli’s wife he was
choosing Lueli might well be consulted.
Lueli was out fishing. Mr. Fortune sat till dusk by the spring,
thinking out what he would say and choosing his metaphors and turns
of speech with unusual pleasure and care as though he were preparing
a sermon.
The long shadows had merged into shadow and the western sky was
a meditative green when Lueli returned. In one hand he held a
glistening net of fish and in the other a bough of fruit, so that he
looked like some god of plenty, a brown slip of Demeter’s who had not
got into the mythology.
Mr. Fortune admired the fish and admired the fruit; but inwardly he
admired Lueli more, this beautiful young man smelling of the sea. He
gave a little cough and began his speech.
Marriage, he said, was a most excellent thing. It was God’s first
institution, and in the world’s loveliest garden the flowers had
asked no better than to be twined into a wreath for the bride.
Men’s stories commonly end with a marriage, but in God’s story the
marriage comes at the beginning. The ancient poets when they would
celebrate the sun compared him to a bridegroom, the saints could
find no tenderer name for Christ than the spouse of the soul, and
in the vision of the last things John the Evangelist saw the church
descending out of Heaven like a bride, so that God’s story which
begins with a mortal marriage ends with a marriage too, but an
immortal one.
What did Lueli think? Did he not agree that marriage was a good thing?
Lueli nodded. His face wore an admiring and far-away expression, as
though he were listening to the harmonium.
Marriage, Mr. Fortune continued, is a gracious act, a bestowal, and
a token of man’s gratitude to his Maker. When we are happy we needs
must give; Lueli himself was always giving, be it fruit or fish,
a strand of sea-weed or a flower. These gifts are transient and
incomplete; the weed begins to lose its gloss from the moment it is
taken out of the ocean, the fish and the fruit (unless, of course,
eaten) go bad, the flower is broken from the stem, its petals will
discolour and fold up in death; but whoever begets children gives
life itself, gives that from which all gifts are drawn.
The procreation of children is the first end for which marriage is
ordained. But that was not all. There was also the love of man and
woman and the pleasure they had in one another’s company. When he
was a young man, Mr. Fortune said, he had often wished for a wife to
be merry with. Now he was too old to think much of such things but
none the less marriage did not seem to him less desirable, for now
he understood as he did not and could not in his youth how sweet it
would be to have the faithful company of one with whom he had shared
his best days if it were only, as a celebrated English Divine once
expressed it in a sermon, that he might have someone to whom he could
say: “How our shadows lengthen as our sun goes down!”
Mr. Fortune stopped. Lueli’s silent consenting and his own thought
had led him too far. He had not meant to introduce such serious
considerations into a discourse on marriage, and the mournful sound
of his own voice alone in the shadow of night suddenly revealed to
him that he was sorrowful, although he had not thought he was.
“Tell me, Lueli, have you thought at all about whom you would prefer?”
“Vaili is a nice girl and her father would give her a good dowry----”
Lueli pressed up the tip of his nose with the tip of his finger and
spoke in a soft considering voice.
“Or there is Fuma, or Lepe who loves singing. But I think Vaili would
suit you best, so you had better marry her.”
“I marry! No, no, Lueli, you are mistaken, I was not talking of
myself but of you. It is your marriage I was thinking about.”
“Oh! Were you?”
“Wouldn’t you like a wife, Lueli? As you were saying, Vaili is a nice
girl. She is gentle and fond of children, we could soon teach her to
become a Christian if we gave our minds to it. I’m sure you could be
very happy with Vaili.”
A decided shake of the head.
“Fuma, then.”
Another shake.
“Well, what about Lepe or Tialua?”
Mr. Fortune proceeded to recite the names of all the girls on
the island, feeling not very respectable as he did so, but going
steadfastly on because he was in for it now, he could not go back on
his own sermon. But he might as well have recited the Kings of Israel
and Judah or the Queens consort of England from Matilda of Flanders
down to Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen for all the effect it had on
Lueli, who sat beside him listening decorously as though to a lesson
and silently waving away each one of Mr. Fortune’s nominees.
“But, Lueli, if you don’t approve of any of these, whom do you want?”
A terrible possibility had flashed upon him. Suppose like the
traditional young man, Lueli had placed his affections on some mature
married woman? What steps should he take, indeed what steps could he
take? He would not even have public opinion on his side.
“I don’t want anyone. I am quite happy as I am.”
“But Lueli, you are young and vigorous. This is not natural and I
don’t think it is at all advisable. Why St. Paul himself--” And Mr.
Fortune gave a short summary of St. Paul’s views on the marrying
or burning question, toning them down a little, for privately he
considered the saint’s conclusions a trifle acrid. But there was no
shaking Lueli, who continued to asseverate that he found chastity an
easier matter than St. Paul supposed, and in any case preferable to
the nuisance of taking a wife.
It seemed rather odd and improbable to Mr. Fortune. But he let the
matter drop and did not speak of it again. Lueli would change his
tune all in good time no doubt. Meanwhile things could go on as
before, and certainly nothing could be pleasanter. Of course, he was
properly desirous to see the beginnings of that Christian family
and he was much looking forward to becoming a godfather. He had
already settled that since the proper consecrated kind of mugs were
unprocurable the first child should have the tea-pot and the second
the sovereign he still kept for luck. After that he supposed he would
have to sacrifice the magnifying glass and the tuning fork, and after
that again--well, he still had time to think about it. Indeed at
present even the tea-pot seemed indefinitely postponed.
He was puzzled by Lueli, but he was not uneasy about him; when he
went off by himself he did not speculate as to what he was up to, nor
ask strategic questions on his return. He trusted the boy and he also
trusted himself. He did not think he could be deceived in Lueli.
And so things went kindly and easily on till the day when he was to
find out his mistake.
It was very hot weather. Mr. Fortune had been suffering from a severe
headache, and had spent the whole day lying down in the shade with
wet cloths on his head. About sundown he decided to go for a short
stroll, hoping that the dusk and the cool airs from the sea would
refresh him. He called for Lueli to come too, but Lueli was nowhere
about, so he set forth alone, crossing the dell and going down toward
the sea. As he went he admired the brilliance of the afterglow, a
marvellous rose-coloured bloom that seemed to hang on the air like a
cloud of the finest metallic dust. Perhaps his eyes were weakened by
headache and so more sensitive to light than usual; but as he roamed
up and down the shadowy strand, at each turn that brought him to face
the west he marvelled, thinking that in all his evenings at Fanua he
had never beheld the sky so vibrating with colour nor so slow to
fade; for sunsets in the tropics are fleeting things, but to-night
there was a strange steadfastness in the west. He admired it so much
that it was not possible for him to admire it for very long, and
there was still light in the sky as he turned homeward.