Orphan Island (25 page)

“Oh, yes, there is quite a party for it. Largely women, I believe.”

“Oh, women. Fortunately
they
don't count. Or where
should
we be? Not that our women here want anything so crazy as that, but still, you can't trust 'em.… That's all they're going to do with the Liquor Bill to-day. Now we have the Noxious Herbs, Roots, and Berries Bill.”

Mr. Thinkwell listened for a time to the discussion on this bill.

“Very paternal,” he commented. “Even impertinent.”

“Impertinent?”

“Certainly. It seems to be aimed at preventing
people from chewing or eating things they desire to chew or eat. That is what I call impertinent”.

“Well, you know, you can't let people make hogs of themselves as they please. Else where
are
you? They'll chew themselves stupid with these roots and berries and things. Lie about, you know, good for nothing, doing no work. We can't have that.”

“Why not? It seems their own business.”

“Well, 'pon my soul, that's a rum way to look at it. Is it the English way?”

“Not, unfortunately, the way of the English Government. Our Government is just about as impertinent as yours. Governments mostly are, I believe.… Dear me, how they do talk, to be sure! Here as there.… And on somewhere about the same level of intelligence. How long do they go on?”

“We stop in good time for three o'clock dinner, whatever point we may have reached by then.”

“That, at any rate, is more sensible than they are in London. It is very near three now.”

A few minutes later, in the middle of a rather rambling speech by an elderly member on palm-root chewing orgies, in the middle, in fact, of a sentence, the Speaker rose, said loudly, “The House is up,” and walked away.

“Capital,” said Mr. Thinkwell, as the House dispersed. “A capital end. We might well take example by it. There are very few of our speakers but would not be better for being cut short halfway.”

Mr. Lane agreed that the majority of speakers were like that. Then Mr. Albert Smith, looking parliamentary and important, and pleased that Mr. Thinkwell had seen him being a Prime Minister,
joined them, and invited Mr. Thinkwell to dinner. Mr. Thinkwell accepted.

“But later in the day,” he thought, “I must make acquaintance with some of the working people. All these Smiths—I should very much like to learn the point of view of their poorer neighbours about them. Another thing I must do shortly is to visit Hibernia, where there seems always to be so much trouble.”

WHILE Mr. Thinkwell observed the educational and constitutional customs of the island, Charles and Rosamond visited its commercial quarter, which they found to be on the eastern side, thus kept cool by the south-east trade winds, which blew for most of the season between March and October. This kept the fish, meat, and butter fresher than if they had been sold in the windlessness of the lee side.

Stalls for the sale of these provisions, as well as of fruits of all kinds, sweetmeats, cigarettes, roots for chewing, unfermented drinks, sugar, liquorice, soap, candles, oil, baskets, mats, screens, cocoa-nut and bark cloth, string, cushions, feathers, clothes, skin shoes, wooden toys, hats, skins, scents, and powders, pearls, medicines, coral and shell ornaments, tortoise shell, and many other useful and ornamental commodities, were set out in rows between the wood and the beach. The stall-keepers, of whom a considerable proportion had long and aquiline noses, smooth, sallow skins, and curly hair, pressed their wares on passers by, something after the manner of similarly featured shopkeepers in some districts of London.

The island was busy shopping, this Monday
morning. The Thinkwells saw Mrs. Albert Edward Smith, with a large basket, examining fish at the fish stall and prodding sucking-pigs at the meat-shop. She did not, apparently, trust such important errands to her servants, but, like a good housewife, did her own marketing. The Thinkwells heard her putting those mysterious inquiries made by food-shoppers—“Is pig nice to-day?” “Can you recommend your tortoise-meat?” “Is crab really good this morning?” and so forth.

At another stall Mrs. Smith-Carter, in her palanquin, her monkey on her shoulder, was looking at green parokeets, of which she desired to buy a pair for pets. Her manner of shopping was prouder and nobler than her sister-in-law's, and one remembered that she was Smith born, and Mrs. Albert Edward only Orphan. It is not really Smith to go shopping for food with a market bag; that is a servant's job. Mrs. Smith-Carter only shopped for luxuries.

“These are very poor birds, Isaacs. Twenty corals each? The idea! Just look at their plumage—no sheen on it at all. Here, take 'em away. Birds like that ain't any use to me. I want
good
looking birds, not scarecrows, I told you before. If you don't take more pains to get the right articles, Isaacs, I shall see that you lose your licence. Pray have the birds for me by to-morrow. And I shan't give twenty corals for them unless they're worth it. The bark cloth stall next, Zacharies.”

“So you've come shopping too?”

The clear, half mocking voice of Flora spoke behind the Thinkwells, and there she stood at a perfumery stall, idly turning over closed shells of scent with her slim brown fingers, and examining coloured powders and fragrant lotions.

“But those metal discs of yours won't go here, you know,” she added. “You'll have to go and get some money before you can shop. Come to the sweet stall and we'll buy sweetmeats. Rosamond likes sweetmeats, I know, and so do I. Better, really, than those silly lotions and powders. Do
you
like sweetmeats, Charles?”

Her light, cool, mocking glance held his; her dark eyes smiled at him between their fringes of black lash. Charles's heart melted in his breast like wax before flame, and he followed her to the sweet stall. Rosamond followed too; she also was as wax in the flame. Flora bought sweetmeats and fruit and green-leaf cigarettes.

“There,” she said, “I've finished my money—all I have with me. Now I've a mind to go sailing. Will you come, Thinkwells? Where is William? I enjoy William; he must come too. And Heathcliff shall come and row for us if the wind drops. The sea looks as smooth as—oh, as what, Charles? You're a poet, you should know.”

“As pearls,” said Charles. “As your voice.”

They went down to the sea, to where boats were pulled up on the shore—roughly made, almost square boats, of chestnut wood caulked with resin and pitch. Flora went up to one of them which had “Yams” painted on it, and carried a brown sail.

“This is ours. And there is Heathcliff on the isthmus, talking to—Oh, well, never mind him. Here is William coming down with his net. William, we are going for a sail. You'll come?”

“As far as the reef,” said William. “I want to
land on the reef and look for sea snakes. Mr. Lane told me there are plenty, and that they come into holes in the reef. I've been seeing his tortoises and pigs. But he went away to parliament; I don't know why. Are Heathcliff and Conolly coming? They're walking this way.”

“No,” said Flora coolly. “Come on, let's get off.”

They ran the
Yams
down through creaming ripples into the lagoon, climbed in, and in a moment were beating out from shore before a soft, light breeze, Flora holding the sheet.

Heathcliff's voice hailed them from shore.

“Where are you off to? Peter and I might come too.”

“You're too late,” Flora called back, without turning her head.

They made for the gap in the reef, half a mile out from shore. Beyond the line of surf that broke there with its eternal crooning song, the sea ran in a light swell beneath the south-east trade. But the lagoon was still and smooth, still and clear and the colour of aquamarine, lightly smudged with wind on the surface. In its opal depths and down on its bright weedy floor, seen through swaying green lights, strange fishes swam. Once a sharp dark fin broke the surface with eddies.

“There's a shark come in,” said Flora. “What a bore. That means we can only swim close to the shore till he's caught. Lord, how happy I shall be to bathe in English seas, with no sharks!”

“You won't be happy to bathe in English seas,” Charles said. “That gives no one happiness; it's like plunging about in drifts of snow. Brave, but not agreeable.”

“Snow?”

“Oh, a horrid white stuff we have over there. It falls from the skies and lies on the ground. Disgusting.”

“Of course, I remember; they had it in
Wuthering Heights
. A droll country, England must be. Still, I mean to enjoy it.… Do you want to be put down here, William?”

They sidled up close to the reef, where it shelved gently down to the lagoon. William stepped out of the boat, slipped on wet coral, clung on with his hands, got his footing, and hoisted himself on to the reef.

“Do you get off too, Rosamond?” Flora asked. She was casual and indifferent, but Rosamond, who had meant to go sailing, stood up and said “Yes,” and climbed on to the reef. “Here,” said Flora, “catch,” and flung them a box of sweets.

The
Yams
swung away, and made straight for the gap, running adroitly between the two surfing points and so out to sea.

William began to hunt in holes for sea snakes, Rosamond to walk and crawl along the reef. They were both very happy, like absorbed little boys.

Charles was happy too, bounding on the open blue sea before the light wind with Flora. They ran straight out to sea, then tacked, and sailed round the island.

“Are you anxious for a proper dinner, Charles?” Flora asked him.

“Not particularly. Why?”

“Because, if you're not, let's picnic. We'll run into the lagoon from this side and land in that
cove there and picnic in the woods. There's plenty of food there, and we have sweets and fruit with us in the boat. I shall prefer it vastly to dinner at the Yams. How tired I do get, to be sure, of my papa and mamma! Do you get tired of yours, Charles? Does every one?”

“A good many people do. My mother's dead, and I don't live with my father now I'm grown up. But I quite like him. As fathers go, he's not at all bad.”

“No. Only rather queer and dry. I like him. Now mine is not to be endured. Could you endure him, if he was your papa?”

“Certainly not. I can never endure Prime Ministers. And a Smith Prime Minister.… Has he always been like that?”

“Since I knew him. That's twenty years.… England may improve him. He can't be Prime Minister there, I suppose, can he?”

“No. But even if he was he wouldn't be able to boss the whole island, as he does here. Is he looking forward to England?”

“Yes. I think he hopes to have some great position there.”

“Well, he won't.”

“Don't tell him that, or he may decide not to go.… Do you know, from what I heard papa saying to Uncle Denis yesterday, I don't believe grandmamma is a bit pleased by your coming.”

“She's an ungrateful old lady, your grandmamma. We noticed that. And selfish. Doesn't want the Orphans to be rescued, whoever is.”

“I beliexe she'd rather we all went on as we are. You see, she has everything her own way here. She'll never be so great again, poor grandma, and I suppose she half guesses it, in her clearer
moments, when she's not fancying herself Queen Victoria.”

They landed in the cove, and pulled up the boat on the sands, helped by two respectful fisher lads.

“Now for the woods,” said Flora. “It will be agreeable in the shade, I must say.… That brother and sister of yours will do very well without us; there are plenty of fishermen to row them in when they are tired of the reef.”

“Oh, they'll be all right. William never gets tired of looking for animals, nor Rosamond of scrambling about. I'm glad they stayed there; I don't want them with us, do you?”

“I don't care.… They amuse me, Rosamond and William, though they aren't chatterboxes like you. However.… Shall I make one of those men gather fruit for us to take up the hill? Johnson!”

A small lean man, engaged, with others, in extracting various products from the trees, came forward, touching his leaf hat.

“Miss?”

“We want fruit, Johnson. Bread-fruit; mangoes; bananas; no, no plaintains, I detest them. And a half-ripe cocoa-nut. Pierce it for us. Be quick, if you please.”

“Why not pick them ourselves?” Charles inquired.

“Why should we? What are the workmen for, if not to take trouble for us?”

“Well, I suppose they have their work. That man, for instance—what was he doing when you called him?”

“Johnson? Getting sago from a sago palm, it seems.”

“Sago! How disagreeable! I'm glad you
interrupted him. You don't escape sago, then, even in Polynesia.”

“No indeed. We are all brought up on it.”

“Tapioca, too?”

“I don't know that. Is it as bad?”

“Worse. The lumps are larger.… The palm trees seem to be great centres of industry. What are they doing over there with the trunks?”

“Oh, different things. Some are getting palm wine, some oil, some resin.… Look out, that nut only just missed you.… Palm trees give us (under Providence, as papa says) nearly everything we have—food, drink, light, clothes, soap, thatch, cups to drink from, everything. How one is bored at school, learning the products of the palm tree! You see all those workshops down there; they're making cloth in them and candles, and soap, and twenty other things.”

“There must certainly be work for every one here. You can't suffer from unemployment, as we do.”

“Unemployment? Not working? Do you call that suffering? In any case, the Orphans don't suffer from it; it's a Smith privilege, not working. Though grandmamma and all of them teach us how wrong it is to be idle, and bid us consider the ant, and so on, actually the Smiths have to be rather idle, because none of the work except being in parliament (if that's work) is Smith. Of course Smiths can't be expected to do Orphan jobs; it would be lowering.… Not that
I
don't work; I am sure I have a dozen things I ought to be doing at home this morning, if I weren't taking you out. All my hats want re-trimming, and I ought to be washing my hair and speaking to my dressmaker.… Thank you, Johnson, these will do
nicely. We'll put them in my shopping bag, and you can carry it, Charles. We'll climb to the top of the hill, and then we'll sit and eat, and you shall tell me more tales of England. There's a vast deal more I want to hear. … Take care—that's a scorpion by your foot. And that tree stings if you touch it. I am sure walks in England are not so painful.”