Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson (Illustrated) (446 page)

“Well, is that all?” I asked, when a pause came.

“Come along,” says he, mopping his face; “I’ll tell you outside.”

“Do you mean they won’t take the taboo off?”  I cried.

“It’s something queer,” said he.  “I’ll tell you outside.  Better come away.”

“I won’t take it at their hands,” cried I.  “I ain’t that kind of a man.  You don’t find me turn my back on a parcel of Kanakas.”

“You’d better,” said Case.

He looked at me with a signal in his eye; and the five chiefs looked at me civilly enough, but kind of pointed; and the people looked at me and craned and jostled.  I remembered the folks that watched my house, and how the pastor had jumped in his pulpit at the bare sight of me; and the whole business seemed so out of the way that I rose and followed Case.  The crowd opened again to let us through, but wider than before, the children on the skirts running and singing out, and as we two white men walked away they all stood and watched us.

“And now,” said I, “what is all this about?”

“The truth is I can’t rightly make it out myself.  They have a down on you,” says Case.

“Taboo a man because they have a down on him!” I cried.  “I never heard the like.”

“It’s worse than that, you see,” said Case.  “You ain’t tabooed — I told you that couldn’t be.  The people won’t go near you, Wiltshire, and there’s where it is.”

“They won’t go near me?  What do you mean by that?  Why won’t they go near me?” I cried.

Case hesitated.  “Seems they’re frightened,” says he, in a low, voice.

I stopped dead short.  “Frightened?” I repeated.  “Are you gone crazy, Case?  What are they frightened of?”

“I wish I could make out,” Case answered, shaking his head.  “Appears like one of their tomfool superstitions.  That’s what I don’t cotton to,” he said.  “It’s like the business about Vigours.”

“I’d like to know what you mean by that, and I’ll trouble you to tell me,” says I.

“Well, you know, Vigours lit out and left all standing,” said he.  “It was some superstition business — I never got the hang of it but it began to look bad before the end.”

“I’ve heard a different story about that,” said I, “and I had better tell you so.  I heard he ran away because of you.”

“O! well, I suppose he was ashamed to tell the truth,” says Case; “I guess he thought it silly.  And it’s a fact that I packed him off.  ‘What would you do, old man?’ says he.  ‘Get,’ says I, ‘and not think twice about it.’  I was the gladdest kind of man to see him clear away.  It ain’t my notion to turn my back on a mate when he’s in a tight place, but there was that much trouble in the village that I couldn’t see where it might likely end.  I was a fool to be so much about with Vigours.  They cast it up to me to-day.  Didn’t you hear Maea — that’s the young chief, the big one — ripping out about ‘Vika’?  That was him they were after.  They don’t seem to forget it, somehow.”

“This is all very well,” said I, “but it don’t tell me what’s wrong; it don’t tell me what they’re afraid of — what their idea is.”

“Well, I wish I knew,” said Case.  “I can’t say fairer than that.”

“You might have asked, I think,” says I.

“And so I did,” says he.  “But you must have seen for yourself, unless you’re blind, that the asking got the other way.  I’ll go as far as I dare for another white man; but when I find I’m in the scrape myself, I think first of my own bacon.  The loss of me is I’m too good-natured.  And I’ll take the freedom of telling you you show a queer kind of gratitude to a man who’s got into all this mess along of your affairs.”

“There’s a thing I am thinking of,” said I.  “You were a fool to be so much about with Vigours.  One comfort, you haven’t been much about with me.  I notice you’ve never been inside my house.  Own up now; you had word of this before?”

“It’s a fact I haven’t been,” said he.  “It was an oversight, and I am sorry for it, Wiltshire.  But about coming now, I’ll be quite plain.”

“You mean you won’t?” I asked.

“Awfully sorry, old man, but that’s the size of it,” says Case.

“In short, you’re afraid?” says I.

“In short, I’m afraid,” says he.

“And I’m still to be tabooed for nothing?” I asked

“I tell you you’re not tabooed,” said he.  “The Kanakas won’t go near you, that’s all.  And who’s to make ‘em?  We traders have a lot of gall, I must say; we make these poor Kanakas take back their laws, and take up their taboos, and that, whenever it happens to suit us.  But you don’t mean to say you expect a law obliging people to deal in your store whether they want to or not?  You don’t mean to tell me you’ve got the gall for that?  And if you had, it would be a queer thing to propose to me.  I would just like to point out to you, Wiltshire, that I’m a trader myself.”

“I don’t think I would talk of gall if I was you,” said I.  “Here’s about what it comes to, as well as I can make out: None of the people are to trade with me, and they’re all to trade with you.  You’re to have the copra, and I’m to go to the devil and shake myself.  And I don’t know any native, and you’re the only man here worth mention that speaks English, and you have the gall to up and hint to me my life’s in danger, and all you’ve got to tell me is you don’t know why!”

“Well, it
is
all I have to tell you,” said he.  “I don’t know — I wish I did.”

“And so you turn your back and leave me to myself!  Is that the position?” says I.

“If you like to put it nasty,” says he.  “I don’t put it so.  I say merely, ‘I’m going to keep clear of you; or, if I don’t, I’ll get in danger for myself.’”

“Well,” says I, “you’re a nice kind of a white man!”

“O, I understand; you’re riled,” said he.  “I would be myself.  I can make excuses.”

“All right,” I said, “go and make excuses somewhere else.  Here’s my way, there’s yours!”

With that we parted, and I went straight home, in a hot temper, and found Uma trying on a lot of trade goods like a baby.

“Here,” I said, “you quit that foolery!  Here’s a pretty mess to have made, as if I wasn’t bothered enough anyway!  And I thought I told you to get dinner!”

And then I believe I gave her a bit of the rough side of my tongue, as she deserved.  She stood up at once, like a sentry to his officer; for I must say she was always well brought up, and had a great respect for whites.

“And now,” says I, “you belong round here, you’re bound to understand this.  What am I tabooed for, anyway?  Or, if I ain’t tabooed, what makes the folks afraid of me?”

She stood and looked at me with eyes like saucers.

“You no savvy?” she gasps at last.

“No,” said I.  “How would you expect me to?  We don’t have any such craziness where I come from.”

“Ese no tell you?” she asked again.

(
Ese
was the name the natives had for Case; it may mean foreign, or extraordinary; or it might mean a mummy apple; but most like it was only his own name misheard and put in a Kanaka spelling.)

“Not much,” said I.

“D-n Ese!” she cried.

You might think it funny to hear this Kanaka girl come out with a big swear.  No such thing.  There was no swearing in her — no, nor anger; she was beyond anger, and meant the word simple and serious.  She stood there straight as she said it.  I cannot justly say that I ever saw a woman look like that before or after, and it struck me mum.  Then she made a kind of an obeisance, but it was the proudest kind, and threw her hands out open.

“I ‘shamed,” she said.  “I think you savvy.  Ese he tell me you savvy, he tell me you no mind, tell me you love me too much.  Taboo belong me,” she said, touching herself on the bosom, as she had done upon our wedding-night.  “Now I go ‘way, taboo he go ‘way too.  Then you get too much copra.  You like more better, I think. 
Tofâ
,
alii
,” says she in the native — ”Farewell, chief!”

“Hold on!” I cried.  “Don’t be in such a hurry.”

She looked at me sidelong with a smile.  “You see, you get copra,” she said, the same as you might offer candies to a child.

“Uma,” said I, “hear reason.  I didn’t know, and that’s a fact; and Case seems to have played it pretty mean upon the pair of us.  But I do know now, and I don’t mind; I love you too much.  You no go ‘way, you no leave me, I too much sorry.”

“You no love, me,” she cried, “you talk me bad words!”  And she threw herself in a corner of the floor, and began to cry.

Well, I’m no scholar, but I wasn’t born yesterday, and I thought the worst of that trouble was over.  However, there she lay — her back turned, her face to the wall — and shook with sobbing like a little child, so that her feet jumped with it.  It’s strange how it hits a man when he’s in love; for there’s no use mincing things — Kanaka and all, I was in love with her, or just as good.  I tried to take her hand, but she would none of that.  “Uma,” I said, “there’s no sense in carrying on like this.  I want you stop here, I want my little wifie, I tell you true.”

“No tell me true,” she sobbed.

“All right,” says I, “I’ll wait till you’re through with this.”  And I sat right down beside her on the floor, and set to smooth her hair with my hand.  At first she wriggled away when I touched her; then she seemed to notice me no more; then her sobs grew gradually less, and presently stopped; and the next thing I knew, she raised her face to mime.

“You tell me true?  You like me stop?” she asked.

“Uma,” I said, “I would rather have you than all the copra in the South Seas,” which was a very big expression, and the strangest thing was that I meant it.

She threw her arms about me, sprang close up, and pressed her face to mine in the island way of kissing, so that I was all wetted with her tears, and my heart went out to her wholly.  I never had anything so near me as this little brown bit of a girl.  Many things went together, and all helped to turn my head.  She was pretty enough to eat; it seemed she was my only friend in that queer place; I was ashamed that I had spoken rough to her: and she was a woman, and my wife, and a kind of a baby besides that I was sorry for; and the salt of her tears was in my mouth.  And I forgot Case and the natives; and I forgot that I knew nothing of the story, or only remembered it to banish the remembrance; and I forgot that I was to get no copra, and so could make no livelihood; and I forgot my employers, and the strange kind of service I was doing them, when I preferred my fancy to their business; and I forgot even that Uma was no true wife of mine, but just a maid beguiled, and that in a pretty shabby style.  But that is to look too far on.  I will come to that part of it next.

It was late before we thought of getting dinner.  The stove was out, and gone stone-cold; but we fired up after a while, and cooked each a dish, helping and hindering each other, and making a play of it like children.  I was so greedy of her nearness that I sat down to dinner with my lass upon my knee, made sure of her with one hand, and ate with the other.  Ay, and more than that.  She was the worst cook I suppose God made; the things she set her hand to it would have sickened an honest horse to eat of; yet I made my meal that day on Uma’s cookery, and can never call to mind to have been better pleased.

I didn’t pretend to myself, and I didn’t pretend to her.  I saw I was clean gone; and if she was to make a fool of me, she must.  And I suppose it was this that set her talking, for now she made sure that we were friends.  A lot she told me, sitting in my lap and eating my dish, as I ate hers, from foolery — a lot about herself and her mother and Case, all which would be very tedious, and fill sheets if I set it down in Beach de Mar, but which I must give a hint of in plain English, and one thing about myself which had a very big effect on my concerns, as you are soon to hear.

It seems she was born in one of the Line Islands; had been only two or three years in these parts, where she had come with a white man, who was married to her mother and then died; and only the one year in Falesá.  Before that they had been a good deal on the move, trekking about after the white man, who was one of those rolling stones that keep going round after a soft job.  They talk about looking for gold at the end of a rainbow; but if a man wants an employment that’ll last him till he dies, let him start out on the soft-job hunt.  There’s meat and drink in it too, and beer and skittles, for you never hear of them starving, and rarely see them sober; and as for steady sport, cock-fighting isn’t in the same county with it.  Anyway, this beachcomber carried the woman and her daughter all over the shop, but mostly to out-of-the-way islands, where there were no police, and he thought, perhaps, the soft job hung out.  I’ve my own view of this old party; but I was just as glad he had kept Uma clear of Apia and Papeete and these flash towns.  At last he struck Fale-alii on this island, got some trade — the Lord knows how! — muddled it all away in the usual style, and died worth next to nothing, bar a bit of land at Falesá that he had got for a bad debt, which was what put it in the minds of the mother and daughter to come there and live.  It seems Case encouraged them all he could, and helped to get their house built.  He was very kind those days, and gave Uma trade, and there is no doubt he had his eye on her from the beginning.  However, they had scarce settled, when up turned a young man, a native, and wanted to marry her.  He was a small chief, and had some fine mats and old songs in his family, and was “very pretty,” Uma said; and, altogether, it was an extraordinary match for a penniless girl and an out-islander.

At the first word of this I got downright sick with jealousy.

“And you mean to say you would have married him?” I cried.

“
Ioe
, yes,” said she.  “I like too much!”

“Well!” I said.  “And suppose I had come round after?”

“I like you more better now,” said she.  “But, suppose I marry Ioane, I one good wife.  I no common Kanaka.  Good girl!” says she.

Well, I had to be pleased with that; but I promise you I didn’t care about the business one little bit.  And I liked the end of that yarn no better than the beginning.  For it seems this proposal of marriage was the start of all the trouble.  It seems, before that, Uma and her mother had been looked down upon, of course, for kinless folk and out-islanders, but nothing to hurt; and, even when Ioane came forward, there was less trouble at first than might have been looked for.  And then, all of a sudden, about six months before my coming, Ioane backed out and left that part of the island, and from that day to this Uma and her mother had found themselves alone.  None called at their house, none spoke to them on the roads.  If they went to church, the other women drew their mats away and left them in a clear place by themselves.  It was a regular excommunication, like what you read of in the Middle Ages; and the cause or sense of it beyond guessing.  It was some
tala pepelo
, Uma said, some lie, some calumny; and all she knew of it was that the girls who had been jealous of her luck with Ioane used to twit her with his desertion, and cry out, when they met her alone in the woods, that she would never be married.  “They tell me no man he marry me.  He too much ‘fraid,” she said.