Orphan Island (19 page)

“Our library,” he said; “including mamma's journal, which she has consented to your reading. Now, where will you read?”

Mr. Thinkwell selected a shady corner of the woods, beneath a spreading banian tree, and settled himself for a comfortable Sunday afternoon. Mr. Smith left him, to pay a visit to a married daughter and her new baby.

An odd collection, indeed, thought Mr. Thinkwell, turning the pages of the dilapidated copy of
Wuthering Heights
. This strange, storm-ridden epic of Yorkshire, this wild vision of the lonely parson's daughter, was all the presentment that the Orphans had of family life in England. On this domestic tale they were reared; its odd, savage, lonely beings seemed to them typical English men, women, and children. How surprised, how relieved, they would be on arriving in England! (If, indeed, they should ever, by mischance, arrive there.) Perhaps they were already surprised, at the comparatively composed, cheerful, and amiable manners of their visitors from Cambridge. Or possibly they thought that the one represented town life, the other country. Or, more likely still, these islanders had as much good sense as dwellers in other countries, and knew that people in books were a strange race apart.

Then there was the
Holy War
. An odder society still! Mr. Thinkwell turned the pages at random, opening on the trial of the Diabolonians, with Mr. Know-All witnessing against Mr. Lustings, and Mr. Hate-Lies against Mr. Forget-Good.

“My lord, I have heard this Forget-Good say that he could never abide to think of goodness, no, not for a quarter of an hour.

Clerk:
Where did you hear him say so?

Hate-Lies:
In
All-base Lane
, at a house next door to the sign of the
Conscience-seared-with-a-hot-iron
.

Then said the Clerk, Come, Mr.
Tell-True
, give in your evidence concerning the Prisoner at the bar, about that for which he stands here, as you see, indicted by this honourable Court.

Tell-True:
My Lord, I have heard him often say, he had rather think of the vilest thing than of what is contained in the Holy Scriptures.

Clerk:
Where did you hear him say such grievous words?

Tell-True:
Where? In a great many places, particularly in
Nauseous Street
, in the house of one
Shameless
, and in
Filth Lane
, at the sign of the
Reprobate
, next door to the
Descent into the Pit.”

And so on, and so on. This, no doubt, was the Orphans' idea of an English law court. “Poor, crude stuff,” said Mr. Thinkwell, whose distaste for John Bunyan was only very slightly modified by his having lived two centuries ago. He took up next a small volume entitled
Mixing in Society, or Everybody's Book of Correct Conduct
. Here, decided Mr. Thinkwell, was Miss Smith's Bible of Manners, the code which summed her attitude toward life and conduct. Even in the raging storm she had clasped this volume to her bosom (and that in preference to the Bible of the Jews) before she consigned herself to the deep. Mr. Thinkwell opened it at random, and saw passages heavily scored. It was divided into different sections—the Duties of Life, the Pleasures of Life, Dress and
the Toilet, the Studious Part of Life, the Formation of Habit, Conversation, Letters, the Heart and Conscience, and so on. Under each heading and sub-heading was set forth the correct path to pursue and the incorrect. Mr. Thinkwell learnt that it is the correct thing to marry for love; to appear fully dressed in the morning, but in a totally different style from that adopted in the evening; to choose at meals what is already on the table unless it is positively disagreeable to you; not to betray that you do not care about your dinner-partner; to eat and drink with moderation at dinner, but to remember that this is the repast
par excéllence
and to treat it as such; it is
not
correct, however, to let your host see that you have only come for the food. It is never correct for ladies to walk unaccompanied in London, except to church, nor for gentlemen to make use of classical quotations in the presence of ladies without apologising for or translating them (this was heavily scored). Gentlemen should remember that ladies are not interested in politics, and religion is a subject which should never be introduced in general society, as it is the topic upon which persons are least likely to preserve their temper. (“I notice no particular signs that Miss Smith has studied that rule,” said Mr. Thinkwell.) As to books, it is the correct thing to remember that there are books which blight and destroy the mind and soul (underlined, and commented or with a pencilled “Indeed yes!”) On the next page, Mr. Thinkwell read that the most refined pronunciation of English was taught at Eton and Oxford. As he himself had been taught English at Rugby and Cambridge, he perceived that this book was foolish, and put it away.

The fourth book was a calf-bound Martial, and
bore the name Daniel O'Malley on its fly-leaf. It was not, obviously, among those of the doctor's books which Miss Smith had thought it her duty to destroy, or to seclude from the public eye, as its improprieties (which she had doubtless suspected) wore the decent screen of a tongue which she had resolutely refused to allow the doctor to teach to his children or to the orphans. No; Miss Smith had taken Martial and redeemed it to good uses, by using its blank pages, its wide margins, and the spaces between its epigrams for her pencilled journal, the first entry of which was dated January the first, 1856.

“We are come, by the mercy of heaven, to the beginning of another year. Through what perils, what trials, have we been preserved! How strange it seems to reflect on the peaceful tenour of my life this time a year ago! I have indeed been led along strange paths, and can only say, Marvellous are Thy ways, O Lord! Here we are, myself, Jean Fraser, Dr. O'Malley, and thirty-eight helpless orphan children (for two, alas, have perished of colic, having eaten poisonous berries. What loud calls are these, O Lord!) cast up on this abandoned reef, which yet has bounteously supplied us with the necessities of life, and here, it seems, we are for the present to make our home. The coming in of another year has occasioned in me much
solemn thought
. I could wish that the doctor had more sense of, and awe of, his Creator.
He
saw the New Year in in a condition I scarcely like to mention on paper. And Jean, alas, saying that it was Hogmanay, also partook too deeply of what the doctor had brewed. For my part, I refused even to sip the stuff, but retired early to rest, after solemn prayer.

“The doctor gives no time to prayer, but, when he is not employing himself in practical labours (besides fishing and killing birds for food, he is building shelters, or houses, for us to live in, also a boat), when not thus employed he eats, drinks, and amuses himself, and experiments with the fermentation of liquor from the palm trunks and the juice of various fruits. I fear he is a sad atheist. When sober he mocks at Catholicism as much as at Protestantism. And yet at any moment he, or any of us, may be called to our last account!”

There followed from time to time throughout January and February entries recording details of the island life; new foods discovered, different ways of cooking turtle meat, the making of cocoa-nut cloth (“so strangely and mercifully provided for us”) into garments for the children, the use of the candle-nut for lighting (it was not until some years later that they began to make candles and soap of cocoa-nut grease) expeditions about the lagoon in the boat which the doctor had made, the sight of sharks. (“Dear God, with what
dangers
hast Thou thought meet to surround us!”) The use of beaten-out bark for fabric was mentioned in March. Dr. O'Malley, Mr. Thinkwell observed, had obviously been a man of ingenuity and resource.

Miss Smith also recorded the instructions which she and Jean imparted to the children, who were being taught reading, writing, arithmetic, history, geography, and the Scriptures, with the help of the sand as a blackboard and the pliant switches of the mahogany tree as correctives.

Then, in April, came the entry. “The Doctor has asked me for my hand. I do not feel that I can consider such a proposition from such a man. I cannot believe that God intends that our lives,
so
different
in Purpose and Outlook, should be thus united. He cares for
none
of the things I hold sacred, and, indeed, makes mock of them. I have told him that it can
never be
.”

A little later. “The Doctor still persists in begging for my Hand and Heart. He has shaken me by saying, and, indeed, making me see, that our life together on this island, unsanctioned by Matrimony, is
compromising to the last degree
. Heavens! if, when we shall be rescued, the world speaks against my reputation! How could I bear that! Consulted Jean in the matter. Jean says I am bound to do it in the end, so the sooner the better. I know not what to do. I can but earnestly seek guidance from Above. If only my dear papa were here to advise me! I know only too well what would be his opinion of the doctor, but what would he think of my
position here
as the doctor's unmarried companion? And would he, perhaps, say that it was my duty to become this unfortunate man's wife, in order that I may both preserve my reputation and redeem him from drink?”

A week later. “Have consented to marry the Doctor. Hope our Union may be blest. We shall be married in the Scottish way, before two witnesses and without a Clergyman, which seems very odd and sad, but there is no other way. We have fixed the day for June the first.”

The record for June 1st was brief. “Married the Doctor.”

In the course of that year the journal began to make more mention of the various beverages prepared by the doctor, and their recipes were noted. Miss Smith, as Mrs. O'Malley, was not becoming any less religious, but she seemed to be growing more earthly.

“This drink is
excellent
, and most
stimulating
,” she noted sometimes, after a recipe.

Then began the births of the children. The first was Caroline, who had a strong look of her father—(“I pray it may be only in face”). Almost from the first it was apparent that Miss Smith's children were carefully kept apart from the Orphans, trained, as it were, for a different station in life. She had been, obviously, a zealous and devoted mother, though severe in reprimand and chastisement. Spare the rod and spoil the child was her motto with her own offspring as well as with the Orphans, but, together with the rod and with much moral teaching as to humility and obedience, she had administered to her children precepts as to their superiority in station over the children about them. They were ladies and gentlemen, and must never demean themselves. They were not allowed to mix with the poor little riff-raff from East London. Very early, they were presented with little plots of land, and taught to cultivate them, for, wrote Miss Smith, the Almighty has given us the earth in order that we may produce the fruits thereof. But gradually the system seemed to change, and it appeared that the actual cultivation of the land was all done by the Orphans, though it belonged to the Smiths. “I think it very important,” wrote Miss Smith, “that my children should be instructed young in their duties as employers of labour, and learn to exercise authority over, and kindness towards, those beneath them.

There were some painful entries.

“Discovered the Doctor, quite drunk, teaching Latin verses out of this very book (which he calls
epigrams)
and phrases out of the Roman prayer-book, to Carrie and William. Remonstrated with
him, but it was of little use in his state of intoxication. Whipped the children, and told them they were never to listen to their papa when he said things in Latin to them, and were to forget all they had learnt. They cried heartily, and I do not think will forget the lesson.”

There were also reprimands recorded for undue familiarity with the Orphans, and punishments to the Orphans for impertinence to their little betters.

Occasionally, and with increasing frequency, there was scrawled an almost illegible entry, which Mr. Thinkwell imagined to have been inscribed with a hand unsteady through excess.

By the time the journal had reached the
Liber de Spectaculis
the pencil had given out, and a dark brown liquid was used, apparently with a fine quill. Miss Smith had the sloping, flowing hand of the ladies of her period, and often crossed and recrossed, working her entries in between the epigrams, sometimes even between two lines of one epigram, which had the effect of contrasting, occasionally very curiously, the remarks of Miss Smith and those of Martial.

Mr. Thinkwell observed with interest the record of the birth of Albert Edward, in 1863—“a fine Boy, whom I shall name after our dear Prince.”

A few years later, marriages began among the elder orphans, which were duly recorded.

On the 25th of March, 1870, in a hand much disturbed, came the entry, “What a day has this been! I can scarcely write of it. A day of the most fearful Revelations—revelations to me so
shocking
that I cannot, nay I will not, set them down. They were followed by a terrible judgment on that unhappy man who has wronged me so deeply, and who has now been called, all unfit, to
face his Creator. O Lord, what Judgments are Thine! A shark—I can Scarcely pen the horrid words—has ate the Doctor. He has been called away suddenly, without preparation, in strong liquor, insults to his wife” (“his wife” was erased, and “me” written over it) “hot upon his lips. What these insults were I can never repeat. I can only say that my duty is now plain—to forget the Doctor as soon as may be. The Orphans shall again call me Miss smith, and my children shall bear that name, and I will obliterate these shocking years from my life. When I reflect that my unhappy children are ——” Here a word was thickly blotted out, and the sentence left unfinished. “Of Jean, who knew all the time, I can never think the same again,” the day's entry concluded, leaving Mr. Thinkwell somewhat puzzled. What, he wondered, had occurred to upset the good lady so much—beyond, of course, the untimely death of her husband?