The Mask of the Enchantress (22 page)

ll these years,said my mother, e had to hide the truth. Now there are no more secrets. Oh, how glad I am to be done with them.

She spoke to me very frankly. would do it all again, Suewellyn,she said. ithout your father life would have been barren for me. I often wonder about Jessamy and little Susannah. She will be about your age now a little older, but not much just a few months. I wonder about Esmond and Emerald, and Elizabeth too and then those boys, Garth and Malcolm. It must all have changed when David died. The old man must be dead by now. That means Esmond will have the estate. I have thought so much of Jessamy. She is my only deep regret. She must have been desolate. She lost her husband and the one who was supposed to be her best friend at one stroke. Jessamy is the one I think of most. She is the one who has made peace of mind impossible for me as his brother David has for your father. We made a compromise, we two. We had each other, but there were always shadows between us. Happiness was there but memory took it away. Happiness has just been an hour or two now and then sometimes a whole day. But remorse is a bitter enemy to happiness. That is why your father wants to build this hospital. Kings in the past used to expiate their sins by endowing monasteries and convents. Your father is a king of a man, Suewellyn. He was born to distinction, born to govern and rule. Like a king of old, he is going to expiate the murder of his brother by building a hospital here. He has such plans, and I am going to help him. We shall do this, and I think it will bring him peace. He is going to put everything into it. You know how we have lived here. He has a good friend in England, a banker who has been of great service to him. He is selling everything your father has in England and the money will go into this hospital. We can live on the profits from the plantation. Your father would like to get someone out from England or Australia to help him. He wants to make a sort of colony here. He wants it to be prosperous. But his heart is in the hospital. He wants to bring doctors and nurses out here. Oh, it is a great undertaking. That is how he is going to expiate his sin.

My mother was a great talker and since her revelation it was as though floodgates had been opened.

She had always been the most important person in my life ever since the days when she came to Crabtree Cottage as Miss Anabel, but now that she seemed so vulnerable I loved her more than ever. I knew that she was regretting my growing up because she believed that I must be given every chance to have some other life than the island could offer me.

I went to the Halmersagain for the short half term and I was disappointed because Philip was not there. He was working in Sydney, they told me, and it would not be long before he qualified.

I was determined not to be idle and I insisted on going into the great stone-floored kitchen and helping there. It was the busy time of sheep shearing and there were many men to be fed besides the normal hands; and there were the sundowners who came for a meal and a night lodging in return for their services. I learned how to make crusty loaves, dampers and johnnycakes. I learned various methods of cooking mutton, for there was a great deal of that on the property. I watched with awe the great pies that came in and out of the ovens. And the days slid by.

I talked to the jackeroos and the aborigines who worked round the property and I enjoyed every minute of it. I loved the tall eucalypts, the yellow wattle and the passion fruit which grew in the garden Mrs. Halmer tended with such care.

I liked the family; I liked their rather casual acceptance of me and the way they welcomed me in the best possible way by almost ignoring me, which meant treating me like one of the family.

I was delighted when Philip came home especially to see me. We rode together for miles. It was all the family property, he told me, and went on to explain how he looked forward to being a qualified doctor so that he could begin to do the work he loved doing.

He asked a great many more questions about my father and I told him more about the hospital. His interest was growing every time we talked.

t the kind of project which appeals to me,he said. o have left England to come out here and do that work is wonderful.

I did not tell him why he had come, but I glowed with pride in my father and told Philip how he had won the respect of the natives after struggle and had even started up the old coconut industry. y father believes that people are only healthy if they are happily occupied.

would agree with that,said Philip. ne day I want to come and meet your father.

I told him I was sure he would be welcome.

nd,he went on, hen you leave school, Suewellyn, you will come and stay with us sometime, won you?

I replied that I should have to be asked first. He leaned towards me and kissed me lightly on the cheek. on be an idiot,he said. ou don have to be asked.

I was very happy. I was realizing that Philip Halmer was beginning to mean a great deal to me.

When I went home that Christmas, workmen were going ahead with the building of the hospital. It was a costly business as all the materials had to be brought out to the island and many workmen were involved. My father was in a state of excitement; my mother was less euphoric. When we were alone together she said: just have this uneasy feeling. People will come out here. They will come from home perhaps. I know what it means to have a skeleton in the cupboard. Suppose someone opens the cupboard door which we have kept so satisfactorily shut all this time.

t will all be forgotten by now,I comforted her; but I was not so sure of that.

She went on: just have an uneasy feeling. I can explain it. I afraid of that hospital. I feel there is something ominous about it.

oue talking like Cougaba only in a different kind of English, but the sentiment the same. Dear Anabel, do you think people look for portents and omens when they live for a long time among the superstitious?

I myself was a little uneasy about Cougabel. I had grown away from her and I found I did not want to spend so much time with her as I once had. Paddling in a canoe no longer seemed adventurous to me. I did not want to hear stories of the islanders. My thoughts were far away in the outside world.

She followed me round for a while looking at me with big reproachful eyes and sometimes I fancied those eyes held a smoldering hatred. I tried to talk to her then, to tell her about Sydney and school and the Halmer property. She listened but I noticed that her attention wavered. Cougabel could visualize no world but that of the island.

I went back to school and for the short holiday stayed again with the Halmers. There was a great celebration because Philip had passed his finals and was now fully qualified.

uewellyn,he said, going to take up your invitation. I coming to Vulcan to see your father and the new hospital.

I was delighted, for I knew my parents would be. They had shown great pleasure when I talked of bringing home my friends.

So it was arranged and the next holidays Philip and Laura came back with me.

That was a wonderful holiday. My parents immediately liked the Halmers and of course my father and Philip had a great deal in common. Philip was enthusiastic about the hospital, which was still not completed. Materials and workmen were still coming over and the islanders were still looking on in awe and wonder. It was true that the building of the hospital had changed the face of the island. This gleaming white modern building erected next to our house had transformed the place from a South Sea island to a modern settlement.

My father had dreams in his eyes. At table he would talk long after the meal was finished. I could see that he planned to turn Vulcan into a kind of Singapore. Stamford Raffles had done it there. Why should he not do it here?

We would all listen entranced by his eloquence and none more than Philip.

hat was Singapore before Raffles persuaded the Sultan of Johore to cede the place to the East India Company? At that time there was hardly anyone there. Who would have believed it possible that it could be what it is today? It was ceded only at the beginning of the century. Raffles made Singapore introduced civilization to Singapore. Well, that is what I am going to do with this group of islands. Vulcan here will be the center. Here we shall start with our hospital. I am going to make it into a healthy island. We have only one industry but what a productive industry it is!He went on to extol the attributes of the coconut. ot a bit of waste anywhere. Everything produced simply and without a great outlay. Already I am planning to have groves on other islands. I intend to extend rapidly.

But his great concern was the hospital. e shall need doctors,he said. o you think many would want to come out here? At the moment it will be difficult, but as we develop as there are more amenities So he went on.

There was no doubt that both Laura and Philip Halmer were greatly interested in my family.

I was very happy that my parents should like them so much. But I was aware of a certain restlessness on the island. I suppose that living so closely with the people in the past and coming among them when I was so young had given me a certain rapport with them. I could sense that all was not well. It was in their looks perhaps, the furtive way in which they avoided meeting my eyes. Perhaps it was old Cougaba, who kept nodding and muttering to herself. Perhaps it was some of the looks I saw cast at the great white building glittering in the sun.

I had a clear warning. I was lying in bed with my mosquito net around me when I heard my door open softly. At first I expected it was Mother, who often came in for the nightly chats which she so much enjoyed; she usually watched and waited for me to tell her to come in.

For a second no one appeared. My heart started to pound suddenly. The door opened very slowly.

ho there?I called.

There was no answer. Then I saw her. She had stepped into the room. She was dressed in a girdle made of shells strung together like beads on a string. The shells were green, red and blue; they made a faint jingling sound as she moved. Around her neck were rows of similar shells strung together; they hung down between the valley of her breasts; she was naked from the waist up as was the custom on the island. It was Cougabel.

I struggled up. hat do you want, Cougabel, at this time of night?

She came to the bed and looked at me accusingly. ou not like Cougabel any more.

on be silly,I said. f course I do.

She shook her head. ou have her school friend, and you have him. Yes, I know. You love them not me. I poor half white. They all white.

hat nonsense,I said. like them, it true, but I haven changed towards you. We were always friends.

ou lie. That not good.

ou should be in bed, Cougabel,I said with a yawn.

She shook her head. addajo must send them away, Giant says. Daddajo not give you this man.

hat are you talking about?I cried. But I knew. Cougabel nd that meant her mother and all the islandelieved that Philip had come here to be married to me.

ad, bad,she went on. iant say so. He tell me. I child of Giant. I go to the mountain and he say, end white man away. If he don go, I angry Giant.

She was jealous, of course. I understood. I was to blame. I had ignored her now that Laura and Philip were here. I should not have done that. I had hurt her and this was her way of telling me so.

isten to me, Cougabel,I said. hese are our guests. That is why I have to entertain them. That is why I cannot be with you so much as I used to be. I sorry, but it is just the same between us as it ever was. I am your friend and you are mine. We have exchanged our blood, haven we? That means wee friends forever.

t means the one is cursed who breaks it.

obody going to break it. Do you believe me, Cougabel?

Tears started to fall down her cheeks. She just looked at me without attempting to wipe them away. I sprang out of bed and put my arms about her.

ougabel little Cougabel you mustn cry. Wee going to be together. I going to tell you all about the big city over the sea. Wee friends forever.

That seemed to comfort her and after a while she went away.

The next day I told Laura and Philip about her visitation in the night and how when we were little we had played together.

ou must make her join us sometimes,said Philip. an she ride?

I said she could and I loved Laura and Philip for being so kind to her. We went round the beaches in one of the canoes. Cougabel and I paddled and there was a great deal of laughter.

he is really a very beautiful girl,said Philip. eing so much lighter in color makes her stand out against the others.

Cougabel sometimes reverted to the smocks she used to wear. They suited her, but she was really magnificent in her shells and feathers. I often noticed her eyes were on Philip; and she always contrived to be near him. If there was anything to be served, she would serve him first. Philip was rather amused by her attentions.

Then the trouble started. Cougabel told me: iant grumbling. He very angry. Wandalo ask him what is wrong. Giant does not like hospital.

My father had been informed of this by Wandalo, though not so precisely. The Giant had been heard to grumble some days before. When one of the women went to the mountain to lay shells there for the Giant, she had heard him rumble angrily. Something was wrong. He did not like something on the island. The Giant had been quiet for a long time, in fact all the time the hospital had been in the process of building and work on the plantation had been progressing satisfactorily. Why, then, should he start to grumble now?

My father was irritated at first. fter all this time,he cried, re they going to try to put obstacles in my way?

urely they realize the benefits of the hospital and the growing plantation,said Philip.

hey do, but they are hidebound by superstitions. They allow that old volcano to dominate them. Ie tried to explain that there are hundreds of them all over the world and that there is nothing special about an extinct volcano which now and then does a little grumbling, as they call it, while it is settling down. There has been no major eruption for three hundred years. I wish I could drive this home to them.