Orphan Island (27 page)

“It is quite absurd,” said Mr. Thinkwell, “to many minds. Some however, succeed in taking it seriously enough. In any case, it has a considerable variety of aspects and modes of life, so is not a monotonous spectacle.”

“I do wonder,” said Hindley, “how we shall all
get on! We egregious Smiths, in particular.
That
spectacle, anyhow, I shall completely enjoy. As for the rest, I find Smith Island entertaining enough for my purposes. I amuse myself very well always.”

“How do you pass the time?” Mr. Thinkwell inquired.

“Oh, I stroll about and talk to people. And play chess.”

“You have chess, then?”

“Oh, yes. My grandfather was very fond of it, and taught it to his children. I find it a very good game.… Then I take my meals, and rest, and chew berries, and write a little.”

“Indeed! What do you write?”

“All kinds of things. Prose and verse. It has always been my recreation.”

“I wish you would show me some of your writings.”

“By all means; there is nothing I enjoy more than showing off. That, too, has always been a favourite recreation of mine. I believe that I write rather well. I notice that most of those who write believe that. In any case, I enjoy my own things. But I dare say you will despise them. The arts, you see, haven't had many models to follow on Smith Island. We have had to rely on our natural gifts. I believe I am a little gifted. But far less so than my sister's son, young Peter Conolly, who paints pictures. I should like to show you those. That enchanting youth is a great favourite of mine; he has, I think, genius as well as beauty. I am half in love with him, and half with his Flora. An exquisite pair. It would seem a pity if they should ever marry, and become staid unromantic parents. I have a passion for celibacy; it is more elegant—don't you agree with me?”

“Really, I never thought about it,” said Mr. Thinkwell. He was not quite sure that he liked this suave, talkative man. Of course one met him elsewhere; he was an eternal type; one had met him in ancient Greece and Rome, and one met him in Cambridge, in Oxford, in London; even, it has been said, in Manchester, if not in Glasgow, and on this island that they all persisted in calling Smith. There was something rather tiresome about Hindley, in spite of his intelligence and his bland charm.

“I suppose,” said Mr. Thinkwell, “that there must have been a good deal of writing here, as in other places.”

“Oh, yes. It is a disease which a great many of our young men and women pass through; fortunately they mostly come safely out on the other side. Probably you have only heard from my uncles of the official library—that queer collection of out-moded books which my grandparents thought fit to bring to this island when they began life here. No one nowadays pays any attention to those old books; we have our modern literature, most of which the last generation despises.”

“Indeed! I remember little mention of literature in Miss Smith's journal.”

“No. My grandmamma regards modern literature as a vice. She used, in the days when she went about and cast her eye over all of us to see how we were behaving, to see some of us writing, but she called it wasting time, and said it was ridiculous to think that we could write anything with none of the great literary models before us. As to models—
that
was the sort of model she provided us with.” He pointed with his cane to
the stalwart trunk of a banian tree, down which was carved three stanzas of poetry.

“There is a dreadful Hell,

And everlasting pains;

There sinners must with devils dwell,

In darkness, fire, and chains.

Can such a wretch as I

Escape this cursed end?

And may I hope, whene'er I die,

I shall to Heaven ascend?

Then will I read and pray,

While I have life and breath,

Lest I should be cut off to-day

And sent to eternal death.”

“That,” said Hindley, “is my worthy grandmamma's idea of good verse. She says there are also the great English poets—Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, Gray, Dr. Akenside, Southey, Cowper, Mrs. Hemans, and Alfred Tennyson—but, beyond a little here and there, she didn't know them by heart or make us acquainted with them. And, as she thinks Dr. Watts, the author of that poem, good, I dare say those others aren't much better. So, you see, poets on this island have had to work on their own lines. Prose writers, too.”

“Have you much prose?”

“A good deal, yes. A long time ago a few people took to writing down the stories that were told in the evenings by the older people, and then to inventing others for themselves. Often they are about island life, often about what we imagine life in the wider world to be. You would find them
great nonsense, no doubt. As to myself, I used, when I was young, to write a great deal of verse, but for some years now I have only written prose. I began once a kind of satiric history of Smith Island, which I occasionally write up to date, and which might amuse you. I have an idea that it may possibly interest the world at large, now that we are to leave the island.”

“I should say it certainly would. That, published in combination with Miss Smith's journal, would make immensely interesting reading. Is much of the island literature preserved?”

“A good deal, and most of it not worth preserving. We write on skin or bark, you know. Of course there has always been a great quantity written and destroyed, or written on the sands, merely to pass the time. We have stories written that way, a piece every evening, for people to read, together with that ridiculous newspaper. But people are apt to preserve their own literary efforts so far as they can; we most of us have a curious tenderness for what we write. I am the island librarian, and take charge of such writings as are delivered to me. A great deal of it is sad rubbish, I fear.… Here we are in Hibernia. And there is my dear Peter, alone and looking a little cross. Perhaps he has had to extract a tooth. Shall we go and cheer him up by admiring his pictures? I can tell you that, whenever you see me looking sad, you can cheer me by reading, with suitable admiration, my works.… Well, Peter? How goes the world with you? I have brought Mr. Thinkwell, not to have his teeth out, but to see your pictures.”

Nogood Peter certainly did look sulky. He scarcely even brightened at the mention of his
pictures. However, he got up from the rock where he had been sitting, and accompanied his uncle and Mr. Thinkwell to a small dwelling close by. A good-looking, dark-haired, blue-eyed woman of about Hindley's age sat at the door idly, looking at the sea.

“Good-evening, Cathy,” Hindley said. “We are come to see Peter's pictures. Let me introduce to you Mr. Thinkwell. My sister, Mrs. Michael Conolly.”

Mrs. Michael Conolly nodded to Mr. Thinkwell.

“It's fortunate,” she said, “that you are come at last to rescue us. Fortunate for the Smith family, as well as for the Orphans.”

There was something bitter and grim in her voice and face, and, meeting her strange bright blue eyes, Mr. Thinkwell remembered that she was a Smith-Rimski, the daughter of a Pole, and therefore probably rebellious against the established order. She had, anyhow, married—or not married—a rebel. And her husband worked in ropes at Convict Cove.

“No politics now, my dear Cathy,” her brother blandly intervened. “This evening we are interested only in art. The paintings, Peter, please. Bring them out here, where the light is good.”

The young man went into the house, and came out shortly with a pile of fine stretched skins and smooth pieces of wood. He laid them on the ground, and Mr. Thinkwell looked at them. The paintings on them were mostly of island scenes; seascapes and landscapes painted in bright, pure colours, crudely and simply drawn, primitive and naïve, but with some force. Mr. Thinkwell did not know whether the painting was good, as painting; he was no art critic, and, further, he was, philosophically, something of a nihilist as regards the meaning
of the words “good” and “bad” in any sphere. What he did know was that this painting would, in England, have a tremendous and immediate success. Its very naïvété and originality, its break with tradition, would make an appeal, and European critics, for ever falling for new things, would fall most certainly for this. Mr. Thinkwell perceived that young Conolly need have no fears for his future: his success as an artist was sure. He would, no doubt, start a whole school of foolish imitators.

Mr. Thinkwell looked at the paintings one by one, in silence. He was a man of few words. All he said, when he had finished, was “Very interesting indeed. Very attractive.”

“I thought you would find them so,” Hindley said. “Will they be a success in England, should you say?”

Mr. Thinkwell did not care for talking of art (or anything else) in terms of success, and merely replied that, whether or no, they were uncommonly interesting. He took them up again in turn, and looked at them more closely, spending, indeed, such a great while over them that Mr. Smith-Rimski became a little bored, for he wanted Mr. Thinkwell to come to his house and admire his writings.

“Delightful, aren't they,” he said, switching his cane about. “How do they compare, pray, with modern European art?” (Hindley showed a less Britannic tendency than most of the islanders, by speaking less of England and more of Europe.)

“Very different, so far as I can judge,” said Mr. Thinkwell. The range of colours is small, of course.… But there is no object in making
comparisons. I hope,” he said to Peter, “that you will go on, and do a great deal more.”

Peter looked only moderately pleased. He had hoped for more admiration. He had hoped that Mr. Thinkwell would have told him he would be a great artist in England, and that he could have repeated this to Flora.

“Yes,” he said, rather moodily, “I shall go on. It's what I like doing.”

“He's always at it,” said his mother, also moodily. “Thinks of nothing else. I should like him to speak and write about the wicked laws and oppressions, that his father gave his freedom for—but Peter's not interested in anything but paint.”

“There, Cathy,” her brother soothed her. “Michael will soon be free now, you know.”

“Will he? How do I know they won't put him in prison in England?”

“As he has committed no crime against English law,” said Mr. Thinkwell, “that is most improbable.”

Her uncomfortably brilliant blue eyes burned on his face. She looked white and frail, and too young to be the mother of Nogood Peter.

“Well now,” said Hindley, “do you want to call on any one else in Hibernia, Mr. Thinkwell, or would you care to walk with me to my little place and see some of our literature? I have quite a library there. This isn't a good hour for visiting, because most people who aren't out fishing are on the shore over there watching that absurd news come out. I imagine you'll agree with me that we can dispense with that. A very stupid, tedious, vulgar performance.”

“Yes,” Mr. Thinkwell agreed. “I have enough of that at home. By all means I will come and see your library.”

Before leaving Hibernia they went down to its shore, where a small knot of persons was assembled, closely grouped round one who was writing on the sand with a stick.

“One of the unofficial journals that comes out in the evenings,” said Hindley. “Dull stuff. Nearly as tedious as the official news. It is mainly a catalogue of grievances, together with rousing addresses to the Orphans to withstand the Smith tyrannies.”

“What we call Red journalism.”

“Do you? I don't know why you call it that; but I have no doubt it thrives in all countries. On the other part of the island there are plenty of unofficial journals too; they are more amusing, but also more vulgar. Particularly on Sundays, when all the scandals, both among Smiths and Orphans, are chronicled. People seem to require particularly spicy literature on Sundays—I suppose from lack of other occupation. Are your Sunday journals like that?”

“I have never noticed it,” said Mr. Thinkwell, who saw the
Observer
and the
Sunday Times
, and did not know much about other Sunday papers.

“My house,” said Mr. Smith-Rimski.

The house of Mr. Smith-Rimski was a small, elegant building, its wooden walls tastefully plastered with oyster shells. Inside it was carpeted with plaited palm, and on the walls hung paintings. A table stood at one side, holding bowls of brilliant flowers and a chess-board with roughly-cut wooden pieces.

“I must,” said Hindley, “have beauty about
me. Also chess-men. Do you play? You must have a game with me some time. But now for this literature.” He gave Mr. Thinkwell a chair, and produced delicious drinks and the curious island cigars.

“Would you care to chew a nut?” he asked. “They have a stimulating and soothing quality all their own, these nuts. It is forbidden to sell them or possess them, but all these little difficulties are easily surmounted. You won't? But you won't mind if I do, I'm sure.” He took a long-shaped brown nut. like an almond, out of a box, and put it in his mouth.

“And now for the literature.”

He opened a mahogany cupboard, which contained shelves stacked with sheets of skin and bark. He took down a bundle of these and laid them on the table.

“These are my own little attempts, including the history. You'll find a good number of early poetic effusions among them. This kind of thing.” He handed Mr. Thinkwell a poem called
Wakefulness
, which began,—

“I wake and hear the amorous tortoise cry;

The ripe nuts tumble thudding from the tree;

I watch the moon, an evil golden eye,

Stare wanly at me o'er the purple sea.”

It had eight stanzas. Mr. Thinkwell read it through, and laid it down without comment.

“An early effort,” said Hindley, “and probably written after an evening of intemperance. A little morbid, you are thinking.”