Orphan Island (29 page)

As to Rosamond, she was rather shy, and, though she liked dancing and games and watching tortoises race, she did not, any more here than in Cambridge, care for that kind of party at which one stands about and talks, and consumes now and then some trifling article of food or drink. And banquets were only doubtfully agreeable, though the food was exciting, for you had to make talk with your neighbours. However, Rosamond, in order not to seem rude and ungrateful, often had to attend these functions. The smaller islands, she was discovering, had their social obligations, their unwritten laws, no less than larger ones, and Polynesia and Cambridge were in many ways alike.

It did not greatly matter. There was the island, with its palm trees, its monkeys, its humming-birds and bread-fruit, its honey-sweet woods, its blue lagoon, its coral reef and the illimitable Pacific beyond.

Also there was Flora, who, Rosamond was beginning breathlessly to hope, might one day love and marry Charles. Poor Nogood Peter; one pitied him dreadfully, but still, Flora did seem to like Charles better now she knew him, and there it was. To have Flora for sister; to show her England, theatres, fields of cowslips, the Zoo … what felicity!

Rosamond's island days were as cups of sweet golden wine, running over at the brim. She counted them, giving to each as it died the tribute of a
sigh. One more day gone; one fewer to come before the returning
Typee
bore them away.

Rosamond formed within her mind a scheme, too splendid, probably, to occur. Why should not Flora sail away with them, before the others were fetched? Flora and Heathcliff, perhaps. Flora would then see England first. She could even, directly they got to Cambridge, marry Charles.…

Rosamond was too shy to suggest this plan to Flora, but she mentioned it to Charles, who thought it sound, but did not imagine that the Albert Smiths would allow Flora to precede them.

“Shall you ask her to marry you, Charles?” said Rosamond. “I hope you will. Do you think she would?”

Charles bade her mind her own business.

“Well,” said Rosamond, “she seems to like you a lot. Aren't you awfully pleased?”

Charles told her not to be a little donkey. Rosamond looked at him with new admiration, because Flora had honoured him with her regard.

The birthday of Miss Smith was approaching—the anniversary of the day on which she first saw the light, not that official birthday which she also observed in her capacity as Queen Victoria. It would fall on the day on which the
Typee
was due to return. Extensive preparations for its celebration were going forward.

It was to be a public holiday; there was to be a free banquet for the Orphans, and a paid for banquet (better food and drink) for the Smiths. Even the convicts were, this year, to have a treat,
for Miss Smith had arranged for them to be rowed out to the
Typee
when she was returned, and to be taken for a short sail.

On the question of the transportation of the Orphans, Miss Smith seemed to have come round. She sent for Mr. Thinkwell to tell him so.

“As it seems,” she said, “to be the Almighty's will to take us all from the island, we will say no more. What the poor silly creatures will do in England, He who made 'em alone knows, but we must leave it to Him. I make no doubt they'll repent, and be soon wanting to come back. As to ourself, where our people go, we must go. So that's settled, Thinkwell, and off we all start for England when you send that liner.”

Mr. Thinkwell was not at all glad that she had come to this frame of mind. He had trusted in her, that she would have remained obstinate to the last, and have defended the islanders against themselves. She appeared quite genial and cheerful, and insisted that he should quaff a beaker with her to the success of the plan.

“Our plans,” she said, lifting her bowl, “ain't apt to fail. But we'll drink to this one, nevertheless.”

She drank well, set down the beaker, and chuckled.

“One more toast, Thinkwell. Drink to my birthday, and to the return of your ship. Deeply, man—no sipping!”

Mr. Thinkwell raised his bowl and Miss Smith hers. Together they drank the toast.

Miss Smith set down her empty goblet.

“That'll do, Thinkwell. You may go.”

Mr. Albert Smith said to Mr. Thinkwell, “My mother stems to have changed her mind, and to be
now contemplating the removal of the Orphans.” He did not look wholly pleased.

“I think they would be wiser to stay where they are,” he added, “and I still hope to induce many of them to do so.… I am not even sure that Miss Smith has been wise in deciding to take this great step herself. I fear the voyage, and the new conditions, may prove very trying to her. At her advanced age, one is not adaptable.…”

Mr. Thinkwell took what comfort he could from those reasonable views.

ROSAMOND, sleeping under a banian tree, was woken on the Birthday morning by the sharp talk of monkeys overhead, and by the scurry of a centipede across her face. These creatures had called her just in time, that she might see the Birthday rise, regal and golden, out of the Pacific. She sat up and looked at it. It was being proclaimed by flutings and pipings and trillings, and incensed by pollen-sweet drifts of wind. It was indeed a Birthday. Also, it was a Last Day, and had a bitter-sweet sadness.

Rosamond sipped some milk and bit the end off a banana. A little way off were the huddled forms of William and of Charles. Their light snores mingled agreeably with the other wood sounds, and with the light snoring of the ocean.

Rosamond thought she would bathe while no one was about; she liked to have the Pacific to herself. She stole into Belle Vue, where Mr. Thinkwell slept beneath a roof and between walls, as middle-aged gentlemen like to do. She got into her bathing-dress and went down to the lagoon.

But she was not as alone as she had supposed. On the grass plateau above the shore a bent old woman stood, and her dim, frowning stare searched
the Pacific, as though she were dragging the Birthday above the horizon.

Jean. Jean, impatient, presumably, for the Birthday. Jean, watching the sunrise—or watching, marooned old lady, for a sail.

Rosamond bade her good-morning as she passed her. She started.

“Guid-day tae ye, lassie, guid-day. This is a braw day we've got for it.”

“For the Birthday? Yes, isn't it?”

“The Bairthday!” Jean emitted a sound as of contempt. “I was no thinking of the Bairthday. For your wee ship, I'm meanin', that's comin' back the day.… Did your father tell ye, lassie, that he's promised tae tak me on the wee ship with ye, so as I sall see Scotland afore the gran' vessel can tak us?”

“Good,” said Rosamond politely. “Is—are any of the others coming, do you know?”

“I dinna ken. Mr. Thinkwell didna say. Forby, I'd as soon nane of the ithers did come. The young anes can bide a wee while longer, sin it's no their hames they're longin' tae set eyes on, but new lands only; and the auld anes have no my sair longin'. They can all bide for the Lord's guid time and the great ship.”

“I thought perhaps Flora …”

“Flora! The young limb. The less truck ye all have with Flora the better it sall be for ye. She'll bring ye nae guid. Dinna ye go runnin' after that wild lassie o' Bairtie Smith's; and dinna ye let that brither o' yours fix his hairt on her, for she's nae hairt hersel.' No, no, Flora Smith winna come on the wee ship with me; she'll bide with the ithers.… Rin on now, lassie, and tak your swim.”

Rosamond left her standing there, peering at the morning horizon.

The lagoon glimmered with the radiant rainbow sheen of spilt milk. Down through it Rosamond dived, till she was close to its floor, with its fantastic coral mosaics and beamy darts of light, that were sometimes shafts of the morning and sometimes fish. Rosamond clutched at them, grasped instead waving weeds, and shot up through swaying beams into clear air, air thin and sweet like some light golden wine.

She floated on her chest, arms spread, face towards the island, gazing as one gazes into the face of a departing friend.

To leave Orphan Island—Smith Island—whatever island it might be; to leave it on the morrow! To leave the lagoon, the reef, the shore, the woods, the valley with the green lake, the antics of monkeys, the humming-birds, scarlet and green and blue, the armadillos, the big thief land-crabs that climbed the Smiths' palm trees and stole their nuts, the little scarlet sea crabs that scuttled about the coral pools, the great sea turtles, the land turtles that crawled in the woods, the iguanas, geckos, tortoises, the mangos, bananas, bread-fruit, and figs, the paradise birds and the mocking birds, the little silver bird that was like the Holy Ghost, the cow-tree with its warm, gushing stream, the honey in the hollow trees, the trade winds sighing in the tree-tops and bearing bright pollen about the island, bearing scents of almond, of frangipani, of cloves, of wild roses, of vanilla, of frankincense and myrrh.…

To leave the island—it was too much.

Rosamond blinked away tears, with the salt Pacific, from her eyes.

As to Flora—well, whatever old Jean might say, Rosamond did not believe that Charles, far gone in love as he now was, would leave the island without Flora. Either Flora must come, or Charles would stay—one or the other.

And if Charles should stay … well, if Charles should stay, why should not Rosamond stay too, and await the coming of the liner? Why not indeed?

But when Rosamond had hinted as much to Mr. Thinkwell, he had said no, he certainly was not going to leave her behind; she would travel on the
Typee
with him. He had behaved like a father; he was decided, firm, an arbiter of destinies; there was no more to be said.

Turning seaward from the island, as one turns at last from the friend's face which breaks one's heart at parting, Rosamond saw that over the golden horizon there climbed a sail. A sail, a mast, a hull: in brief, a schooner. So the
Typee
had come back, punctual to the day; she had not foundered or deserted or split in two on some hidden reef. Here she was. It was the end of the party, and the carriage had called.…

A shrill cry rent the morning.

“The guid Lord be praised for His maircies! The ship is back!”

On she flew before a light, favouring wind that had sprung up since the dawn. Soon she would be at the gate in the reef. Rosamond, floating in the lagoon, watched her come. Mr. Thinkwell's carriage was cantering, so as to be in time to take Mr. Thinkwell, Miss Thinkwell, and the Masters Thinkwell from the party.

Jean's cry had brought other people down to the shore, all staring seaward, pointing, talking. Then,
because the Birthday had begun, trumpets and pipes sounded, ushering it in, welcoming also the
Typee
.

Jean wept. The tears chased down her aged face, her lips worked, and this was always the burden of her speech. “The Lord be thankit for this day! The guid Lord be thankit, that He has let me see Aberdeen ance mair afore I dee!”

There was to be a morning service on the Birthday. A brief service of thanksgiving, with hymns and short sermon, and every one was to attend. One was to give thanks for Miss Smith, who had so fortunately seen the light on this day ninety-eight years ago, and had so providentially been preserved. The service, it was announced by the crier, was to be in the middle of the wood, near Balmoral, at noon.

The
Typee
lay at anchor by the reef. Its boat had landed and rowed back again, leaving Captain Paul and Mr. Merton ashore, to spend the day there. To-morrow the
Typee
was to depart.

“I'm not coming to this service,” William said to Charles and Rosamond. “I shall catch crabs and filefish in the pools.”

But Charles and Rosamond thought they had better go to the service, so as not to annoy any one on their last day. Besides, Flora would be obliged to go.

Every one was to be there; Miss Smith had been very insistent on that. Every one, that is, but the convicts, who were to have their treat at this hour. They were to row out to the schooner and be taken for a sail. Miss Smith had arranged it
through Mr. Denis Smith with Captain Paul, who had sent orders to the crew by his own boat. They were to row out in two island boats, each boat in, charge of a warder. Only Captain Paul and the Thinkwells had been told of this treat; it was feared by Miss Smith that, if news of it got about, the island would be jealous.

“Mustn't tell Bertie,” Denis said. “Mamma don't want Bertie to know. Bertie'd think it silly.
'Tis
silly, too, that's a fact. But there, it's poor old mamma's birthday, and the kind thought does her credit, and the poor fellows don't get much fun in their lives, so there it is. It's to be during church, so people won't see.”

Mr. Denis Smith was, as usual, genial. He had, even thus early in the day, not wasted the Birthday.

So, when the trumpets blew at noon and the congregation took their places in the wood, every one but William and the convicts were there.

It was a happy and thankful service. Hymns of praise and gratitude for Miss Smith, who sat in her palanquin by the clergyman's side, rose among the trees, exciting the birds and monkeys from their noon rest, so that these flew in bright, twittering legions above the congregation's heads, and those eagerly cast down bananas and nuts, as if in tribute. There was a sermon, from the text, “And Deborah ruled in Israel three score years and ten, and did that which was pleasing in the sight of the Lord. And the Lord blessed Israel greatly in the days of Deborah.”

Mr. Maclean was towards the end of this sermon, when some one came breaking hurriedly through the wood, and William Thinkwell appeared in front of the congregation, stopping by Miss Smith's
palanquin, a wet, flushed, dishevelled figure, trousers rolled above the knees, field glasses in one hand and net in the other, his white pith hat at the back of his head.