Orphan Island (16 page)

“Service? Oh, I shan't go to that. I never do. Can't you show me the island during service?”

“Lord, no. We all have to be at church. You have the drollest ideas, Charles Thinkwell. Don't you have to go to church on Sunday where you come from?”

“Not after we grow up. Our places of education make us go; they are still mediæval in method.”

“I don't know what that means: never mind, don't tell me; I abhor being told the meaning of words. I shall like to live in England, shan't you, Heathcliff? Here there's a fine for not attending service.”

“Miss Smith said the island was the home of liberty. I heard her.”

“No doubt,” Heathcliff said. “You'll hear her again, if you listen. Liberty is one of her favourite words. She learnt it when she was a child. And, if you've not heard it yet, you'll soon hear that liberty doesn't mean licence.”

“One doesn't have to come to the South Seas to hear that. They tell us that at home. Also that freedom means freedom to do right. Do you have that too?”

“Oh, yes.… Our island and yours don't seem so very different, after all.”

“Well, you see, your nation and your Miss Smith are a British product.
Coelum non animum mutant
, I'm afraid.”

“That sounds like Latin,” said Flora. “Latin isn't allowed here.”

“Why in the world not?”

“I don't know; it's a rule. Something to do with my grandfather, I believe. He wasn't very good, you know, and taught the Orphans Latin phrases that grandmamma thought were improper. But, as she didn't know Latin, I don't know how she knew they were improper. I suppose she knew my grandpapa, and that was enough. Poor grandpapa, a shark had him, and we never mention him. Papa remembers him, and looks shocked if any one says his name. I think he must have been a rather agreeable rattle. So does Aunt Adelaide.”

“Well, look here,” said Charles, “will you show me the island after this service is over?”

“Oh, la la! We have to keep very quiet to-day, you know. It's Sunday.”

“You have the drollest ideas, Flora Smith. One would think it was a Jewish island and that this was Saturday. Anyhow, I don't see that you've kept so very quiet so far.”

“Ah, this is early, and no one much is about. I now put on my Sunday dress and my Sunday behaviour.”

“I shall keep on my bathing-suit,” said Rosamond. “So that I can easily go in and out of the sea.”

“My dear, I've told you you'll have to come to service. You can't come to service in your bathing-suit.”

“Can't I? Why not?”

“Well, do they do that on
your
island?”

Rosamond felt abashed, “I suppose not. But ours isn't a
desert
island. I should have thought that here we could have dressed as we liked.”

“We're not savages here, thank you,” Flora said sharply, and Rosamond saw that she was offended,
and turned red and unhappy. Charles was displeased with her too, and said, “It's Rosamond who's the savage. Forgive her rustic manners; she means no harm.”

But Rosamond felt that Flora did not forgive her just yet for her rudeness, and this depressed her so much that she left them, and joined William by the sea and picked up shells. Of course, she thought, she should have known that people on desert islands would be sensitive about it, and would try to be extra civilised and well-dressed and proper just because it was a desert island.

“What shells have you found?” asked William, and Rosamond, who liked shells but was ignorant of conchology, showed him a handful of the pretty, coloured things.

“I am looking,” he said, “for a chiton and a club-spined sea-urchin. You might tell me if you come across either.”

“I shouldn't know them.”

“Well, show me anything you find that looks odd.… See that oyster-catcher?”

The oyster-catcher had alighted on his toes quite close to them. Rosamond looked at him, and forgot Flora.

But presently she remembered, and said, “It must be nearly breakfast time. We must go and dress.”

“I'm not coming up,” said William, “until I have found a chiton.”

Rosamond went up from the beach. She met a great many people, all looking very well dressed in their Sunday costumes of dyed cloth or skin. Rosamond felt wet and bare and shy, and hurried
by along small wood paths until she reached the Yams. Outside house stood Mr. Albert Smith, who informed her that breakfast would be ready in ten minutes, and that he trusted she had slept well and felt better than when she had gone to bed last night. Rosamond had forgotten about last night, and how she had behaved in a manner not at all Smith, and she blushed and said that she had slept very well. Mr. Smith then inquired if she had been bathing, which Rosamond could not help thinking rather stupid of him, as she was in her wet bathing suit.

She went in to where she had slept, and put on clothes and her white frock. She could not brush her teeth, as she had not got her toothbrush on the island, but she rubbed them with soap, combed her wet hair with a wooden comb which Mrs. Smith had lent her, and said her prayers, thanking God very much for her happy bathe and her beautiful island life, and asking him to confer on her more virtue and good sense, and on Flora Smith every imaginable happiness, and, if it should prove possible and consonant with his plans, to be so very good as to cause Flora to conceive for her some regard, however mild.

She then went out into the veranda, where breakfast was laid. When the Albert Smiths and Thinkwells (except William) were assembled round the table, Mr. Smith said grace, and they sat down. Mrs. Smith poured out a beverage of hot water which had stood on some kind of leaf till it was green and bitter, and which she erroneously called “tea.” They ate bread-fruit and roasted yams, honey, fish, and various kinds of fruits. The Thinkwells ate much more than usual, as one does on picnics.

“You seem to be quite recovered this morning, dear,” said Mrs. Smith kindly to Rosamond, as Rosamond ate her third piece of bread-fruit and honey.

In the middle of breakfast William arrived, clad in white drill again, but looking very wet and sandy and tousled, and carrying his basin full of small sea creatures. He sat down without either having brushed his hair or said grace, merely remarking that he had seen on the beach what looked remarkably like a marine amblyrhynchus, and if so, Darwin had been wrong in supposing this creature a native only of the Galapagos Archipelago.

“Darwin!” Mrs. Smith echoed. “Isn't he the man who was always wrong?”

“Comparatively seldom, I think,” Mr. Thinkwell said. “Charles Darwin, the scientist, my son means.”

“There is no reason whatever,” said Mr. Smith, firmly, to his wife, “to believe that this man was of a wrong way of thought.” He turned to Mr. Thinkwell. “Mrs. Smith means that the unhappy Catholic priest who sojourned with us for a short while some years since had much to say in condemnation of the teachings of Charles Darwin, who, he affirmed, was an atheist of the deepest dye. Unfavourable tradition about this scientist, therefore, has gone down among the Zachary Macaulays and others of low mental equipment who are infected by Catholic error. But Miss Smith maintained always that Darwin was an excellent person, who wrote admirable treatises on the lower forms of creation. No doubt he was a protestant, which was why our misguided and unfortunate friend the priest condemned him. But that is no reason why
we
should fall into the same error.”

Mr. Thinkwell remembered that, in 1855, the
Origin of Species
had not yet been published. It was quite a question what Miss Smith would have made of that. Mrs. Smith, looking confused, as she always did after having made a Roman Catholic remark, prayed Mr. Thinkwell to take some more food.

When they had all finished, they discussed how they would spend the day. Mr. Thinkwell said that, in the course of the day, a boat from the
Typee
would come to take him and his family back to the schooner, where they would collect such of their belongings as they would require for a short sojourn on the island, arrange their plans with Captain Paul, and return. The
Typee
was to go off to-day or to-morrow, finish her trading cruise among the islands, and return in ten days or a fortnight to pick up the Thinkwells and take them back to Tahiti, where they would make suitable arrangements for the transport of such of the inhabitants of Orphan Island as might desire removal. Mr. Thinkwell spoke with his usual precision, but for once his speech did not adequately reflect his thought. He felt that he was conceding too much to this notion of leaving the island, a romantic idea unworthy of a sociologist. What if a large number should desire removal? Where? To what? The cost, which he knew not who would defray, was the least of many difficulties. Delay, he trusted, would lead to a growth of common sense on this subject. Meanwhile, he trusted, in speech, that Mr. Smith would not allow him and his family to be a burden on their hospitality, but to shift for themselves as regarded food and lodging.

“Indeed,” Mr. Smith said, “you would be no burden. But, if you would prefer it. I could arrange
that an empty house, with service, could be put at your disposal. As to subsequent arrangements, I do not know that a vessel of any great size will be required. We are not contemplating the wholesale transportation of our little nation, you know!”

“You'll find the little nation are contemplating it, papa,” said Flora. “No one is going to be left behind. I don't think!” (This was a vulgar expression she had picked up from the Orphans.)

“Your views, my child, were not, I believe, requested,” said Mr. Smith, who took it out of his children as his mamma took it out of him. “You had better go now and take Miss Rosamond for a short stroll before service. But you must walk very quietly; remember what day it is.”

Flora rose impatiently, said, “Come on then, Rosamond,” and the two girls went out into the woods together.

Mr. Smith said to Mr. Thinkwell, “A wild, pert girl indeed! I wish your little daughter may get no harm from her. I see it must be true what my mother has always said, that in Great Britain children are better behaved and more submissive to their elders than many of them, in this generation, are here.… But to return to our plans. I am not so shut off from the world as not to know that this is going to be an expensive business, the burden of which you cannot be expected to bear. In confidence, I wish you to know that we have a considerable store of pearls laid by (my mother saw to that, and gave me some idea of their value), more than enough, I should think, to cover any expense we are likely to be put to. It is understood, then, that you provide the necessary transport, while all costs are a Smith matter. Not a word, however, about the pearls to any one.

Proceed as if you were doing everything. But I must really beg you to keep in mind that we—and particularly my mother—don't desire any widespread emigration of the common people. My mother, I ought to add, in confidence, regards with some misgiving the thought of leaving the island herself. She is very old, and the island is her home and her property, which she believes it would be a betrayal of her responsibilities to desert. She is, as you no doubt observed, a trifle confused in her mind as to her identity.”

“I perceived,” said Mr. Thinkwell, relief moving him to a jest, “that she seemed to regard herself as the late Queen Victoria. All the more reason why she should wish to return to Great Britain. Well, every one will have to decide for himself and herself whether they go or stay. I observed that the old Scottish lady was eager to come.”

“Jean's going,” said Mr. Smith gravely, “will, of course, depend on my mother's. Jean knows her place and her duty too well to desert Miss Smith.… However, all this can be discussed later. I must tell you that at eleven o'clock we all assemble for divine service on the shore. To-morrow, when we are more at leisure, I should like to show you something of the island. You will, I think, be interested in some of our institutions and customs, particularly our parliament and laws. Sunday we keep very quietly, as you do in Great Britain, and I will, if you please, introduce you to our small library, where you may perhaps find something to interest you.… My dear boy, pray do not take your net out with you again to-day. We never fish on Sunday.”

William looked disappointed. “Oh, is Sunday a close day for sea-fish here? I never heard of that before anywhere.
What a pity. All right, I'll go and look for that amblyrhynchus. Come on, Charles.”

Flora and Rosamond, the one in scarlet feathers for Sunday, the other in her white cotton frock, climbed a winding path up a thicketed slope. Humming birds darted about them, threading the green gloom with brightness. A mocking-bird called from a mahogany tree; a bird of paradise flaunted its tail from a silver-leaved candle-nut. There were scents of pears, of cloves, of spices, of almonds hot in the sun. Giant iguanas they met, and tiny geckos; hurrying tortoises and quiet, drowsy monkeys; silent cockatoos and crying lizards; kind little scorpions, parrots perched on the coils of snakes, great crabs climbing palm trees and plundering the cocoa-nuts, plants that spurted at them milky juice which stung.

To Rosamond these sights, sounds, and scents were not surprising but natural, and it was Cambridge that was strange.

Flora, humming a tune, switched with a willow wand she carried at the flowers, trees, and birds. Rosamond once cried, “Oh—you hit the hummingbird.”

Flora turned on her her wide, amused stare.

“It likes it,” she said, and resumed her little song.

So Flora too, like William, thought animals easily pleased.

They climbed up out of the thicket on to a small, rocky plateau, and here Flora stopped, and waved her switch nonchalantly at the sea below.

“A view,” she said. “If you care for views.”