Mr. Fortune

by Sylvia Townsend Warner

  What did Lueli think? Did he not agree that marriage was a good thing?

  Lueli nodded. His face wore an admiring and far-away expression, as though he were listening to the harmonium.

  Marriage, Mr. Fortune continued, is a gracious act, a bestowal, and a token of man’s gratitude to his Maker. When we are happy we needs must give; Lueli himself was always giving, be it fruit or fish, a strand of seaweed or a flower. These gifts are transient and incomplete: the weed begins to lose its gloss from the moment it is taken out of the ocean; the fish and the fruit (unless, of course, eaten) go bad; the flower is broken from the stem, its petals will discolour and fold up in death; but whoever begets children gives life itself, gives that from which all gifts are drawn.

  The procreation of children is the first end for which marriage is ordained. But that was not all. There was also the love of man and woman and the pleasure they had in one another’s company. When he was a young man, Mr. Fortune said, he had often wished for a wife to be merry with. Now he was too old to think much of such things, but none the less marriage did not seem to him less desirable, for now he understood as he did not and could not in his youth how sweet it would be to have the faithful company of one with whom he had shared his best days, if it were only, as a celebrated English Divine once expressed it in a sermon, that he might have some one to whom he could say: “How our shadows lengthen as our sun goes down!”

  Mr. Fortune stopped. Lueli’s silent consenting and his own thoughts had led him too far. He had not meant to introduce such serious considerations into a discourse on marriage, and the mournful sound of his own voice alone in the shadow of night suddenly revealed to him that he was sorrowful, although he had not thought he was.

  “Tell me, Lueli, have you thought at all about whom you would prefer?”

  “Vaili is a nice girl and her father would give her a good dowry——”

  Lueli pressed up the tip of his nose with the tip of his finger and spoke in a soft considering voice.

  “Or there is Fuma, or Lepe who loves singing. But I think Vaili would suit you best, so you had better marry her.”

  “I marry! No, no, Lueli, you are mistaken, I was not talking of myself but of you. It is your marriage I was thinking about.”

  “Oh! Were you?”

  “Wouldn’t you like a wife, Lueli? As you were saying, Vaili is a nice girl. She is gentle and fond of children, we could soon teach her to become a Christian if we gave our minds to it. I’m sure you could be very happy with Vaili.”

  A decided shake of the head.

  “Fuma, then.”

  Another shake.

  “Well, what about Lepe or Tialua?”

  Mr. Fortune proceeded to recite the names of all the girls on the island, feeling not very respectable as he did so, but going steadfastly on because he was in for it now, he could not go back on his own sermon. But he might as well have recited the Kings of Israel and Judah or the Queens consort of England from Matilda of Flanders down to Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen for all the effect it had on Lueli, who sat beside him listening decorously as though to a lesson and silently waving away each one of Mr. Fortune’s nominees.

  “But, Lueli, if you don’t approve of any of these, whom do you want?”

  A terrible possibility had flashed upon him. Suppose, like the traditional young man, Lueli had placed his affections on some mature married woman? What steps should he take, indeed what steps could he take? He would not even have public opinion on his side.

  “I don’t want any one. I am quite happy as I am.”

  “But, Lueli, you are young and vigorous. This is not natural and I don’t think it is at all advisable. Why, St. Paul himself——” And Mr. Fortune gave a short summary of St. Paul’s views on the marrying or burning question, toning them down a little, for privately he considered the saint’s conclusions a trifle acrid. But there was no shaking Lueli, who continued to asseverate that he found chastity an easier matter than St. Paul supposed, and in any case preferable to the nuisance of taking a wife.

  It seemed rather odd and improbable to Mr. Fortune, but he let the matter drop and did not speak of it again. Lueli would change his tune all in good time no doubt. Meanwhile things could go on as before, and certainly nothing could be pleasanter. Of course he was properly desirous to see the beginnings of that Christian family, and he was much looking forward to becoming a godfather. He had already settled that since the proper consecrated kind of mugs were unprocurable, the first child should have the teapot and the second the sovereign he still kept for luck. After that he supposed he would have to sacrifice the magnifying-glass and the tuning-fork, and after that again—well, he still had time to think about it. Indeed, at present even the teapot seemed to be indefinitely postponed.

  He was puzzled by Lueli, but he was not uneasy about him; when he went off by himself he did not speculate as to what he was up to, nor ask strategic questions on his return. He trusted the boy and he also trusted himself. He did not think he could be deceived in Lueli.

  And so things went kindly and easily on till the day when he was to find out his mistake.

  It was very hot weather. Mr. Fortune had been suffering from a severe headache, and had spent the whole day lying down in the shade with wet cloths on his head. About sundown he decided to go for a short stroll, hoping that the dusk and the cool airs from the sea would refresh him. He called for Lueli to come too, but Lueli was nowhere about, so he set forth alone, crossing the dell and going down towards the sea. As he went he admired the brilliance of the afterglow, a marvellous rose-coloured bloom that seemed to hang on the air like a cloud of the finest metallic dust. Perhaps his eyes were weakened by headache and so more sensitive to light than usual; but as he roamed up and down the shadowy strand, at each turn that brought him to face the west he marvelled, thinking that in all his evenings at Fanua he had never beheld the sky so vibrating with colour nor so slow to fade—for sunsets in the tropics are fleeting things, but to-night there was a strange steadfastness in the west. He admired it so much that it was not possible for him to admire it for very long, and there was still light in the sky as he turned homeward.

  Ordinarily he kept to the same routes as faithfully as though they had been ruled for him with red ink. But to-night, lost in thoughts of he knew not what, he strayed from his direction and found himself approaching a little grove of coco-palms. They grew prettily together, laced with creepers and thickened with an undergrowth of ferns; there was something about the innocence of their arrangement which reminded him of an English copse, and the resemblance was increased by a little path that turned and twisted its way in among them. But in an English copse even the slenderest path is wide enough for two lovers to walk it with their arms about each other, while this path was so narrow that it was clearly the path of one who visited the thicket alone.

  A parrot flew off from a bough above his head, uttering a loud cry. Mr. Fortune roused himself from his dream. He was not in an English copse, looking for bluebells and being careful not to tread on a nightingale’s nest, he was in a grove of coco-palms on the island of Fanua, an island in the midst of the Pacific Ocean like an island in a story-book. And he was looking for——? He was not looking for anything; for in all his time at Fanua though he admired the flowers he had rarely picked any. It did not occur to him to do so. One picks only the flowers that one learned to pick as a child—cowslips and primroses and cuckoo-pint, and pale star-wort that grows in the dusty summer hedge and fades before one can carry it home.

  Lueli was always picking flowers. Perhaps he came here for them, perhaps he had been along this path but an hour ago? At any rate some flower-gatherer had; for lying at his feet Mr. Fortune observed a dark-coloured blossom like a stain. He stooped and picked it up. Yes, it was freshly gathered, it had not begun to wither yet, but it was moist with dew and felt cold and forsaken.

  Presently Mr. Fortune came on a trail of lilac-flowered creeper caught up on a fern. He disentangled this and carried it
along with him.

  “Extravagant creature!” he said; for now he felt sure that he was on Lueli’s track. “I could make myself a bouquet out of what he spills and scatters.”

  He still followed the path, wondering what next he would pick up. A little further on he perceived a whole garland lying on a patch of greensward. He was in the heart of the little wood, and here the path seemed to end.

  “I declare that he’s still child enough to be playing at houses. And this is the young man I’ve been trying to find a wife for!”

  It looked exactly as though Lueli had been playing at house. The ferns and bushes around were hung with trailing sprays of blossom which looped them into a pretence of being walls, and in the midst beside the garland was a platter arranged with fruits and leaves.

  “What a child!” exclaimed the priest. “Yet after all it may not be Lueli. Why should I be so sure that this is his fancy-work?”

  In an instant he was to be made quite sure. Something slim and dusky and motionless was reared up behind the platter of fruit. He looked closer. It was dreadfully familiar. He snatched it up and stared close into its face, a face he had seen before. And trampling on the garland he stood glaring at Lueli’s idol, which looked back at him with flowers behind its ears.

  It was quite obvious, quite certain. There was no chance of being mistaken, no hope of doubt. For all these years Lueli had been playing a double game, betraying him, feigning to be a Christian, and in secret, in the reality of secretness, worshipping an idol.

  “It is my fault,” said the priest, speaking aloud because of his desperate loneliness.

  “Not his at all, nor yours either,” and he gave the idol a sort of compassionate shake.

  “I have deluded myself wilfully, I have built my house on the sand....

  “I have forgotten the fear of God,” he went on. “All this time I have gone on pretending that religion is a pleasant, is a gentle thing, a game for good children.

  “But it is an agony!” he suddenly shouted out.

  There was no echo. The sultry twilight was closing in on him like a dark fleece. He could scarcely see the idol now, but in his mind’s eye he could see it, a face coldly and politely attentive, and the narrow polished shoulders over which a doll’s necklace slipped and sidled as it shook with his trembling hands.

  “It is torments, wounds, mutilation, and death. It is exile and weariness. It is strife—an endless strife—it is bewilderment and fear and trembling. It is despair.”

  Turning abruptly he left the thicket by the path which had led him in, and stumbling in the dark and feeling his body heavy and cold in the hot night he made his way back to the hut.

  It was all dark; but that was no reason why Lueli should not be within, for he had been so often warned to handle the lamp carefully that he was a coward about it and never touched it if he could avoid doing so.

  Mr. Fortune threw down the idol and lit the lamp from his tinder-box. Then he looked round. Lueli was curled up on his mat. He had been asleep, and now he opened his eyes and looked drowsily at his friend. Mr. Fortune said nothing. He stood in the centre of the hut under the hanging lamp and waited for Lueli to notice the idol.

  Lueli parted his lips. He was just about to speak when he saw what lay on the ground. He raised his eyes to Mr. Fortune’s countenance, for a moment he put on a confused smile, then with an ill-feigned yawn he turned over and pretended to have fallen asleep again.

  “Deceit,” said Mr. Fortune, as though he were reading from a note-book.

  A faint grunt answered him.

  “Lueli, my poor Lueli, this is useless. You can’t get out of it like this. Get up and tell me what it is that I have found.”

  Lueli sat up. The pupils of his eyes were still distended by sleep and this gave him a frightened look; but his demeanour was perfectly calm.

  “That?”

  He shook his head as if to say that he really couldn’t tell what it was.

  “Look again.”

  Mr. Fortune spoke curtly, but it was from pure sorrow.

  “It is an idol.”

  “Yes, and it is your idol.”

  Lueli gave a sigh of distress. Mr. Fortune knew exactly how much that was worth. Lueli hated any unpleasantness.

  “You don’t ask me how I came by it. I found it in a thicket near the beach, the lonely one. And there were flowers round it, and offerings of fruit, and look, there are flowers stuck behind its ears.”

  “So there are.”

  “Is this your doing? Why do I ask you, for I know it is. Lueli, you mustn’t lie to me. I implore you not to lie. Is this your doing, have you been worshipping this object?”

  “I picked the flowers.”

  Mr. Fortune groaned. Then he sat down like one who foresees a long and weariful business before him. Lueli edged himself a little nearer. He had rumpled up his brow into a grimace of condolence, he looked like a beautiful and sympathetic marmoset.

  He said in a voice at once tender and sly:

  “But why are you unhappy? I have done nothing, it is only my idol, and I just happened to pick it a few flowers. That is all.”

  “Listen. I will tell you why I am unhappy. When I came to Fanua I came to teach you not to worship idols but to worship God. I came to teach you all, but the others would have none of me. You were my only convert, you received my teaching, I thought you loved it, and I trusted you. Now I have found out my mistake. If you worship your idol still I am to blame. It is my fault. If I had done my duty by you you would have known better. But I have not shown you the true God, so you have kept to the old one, the false one, a wooden thing, a worship so false that you can treat him like a toy. As I came back to-night I was tempted with the thought that perhaps after all your fault was only childishness. And for a moment (to spare myself and you) I had half a mind to pretend to God that your idol was only a doll. But we will have none of that.”

  Now he spoke sternly, and at the last words he beat one fist against the other. Lueli started.

  “I blame myself, I say, not you. I should have been on my guard. When I saw that thing two years ago I should have acted then. But I shut my eyes (I am most horribly to blame), and now, see what has come of it. You are in fault too, for you have been deceiving me. But I know you are rather cowardly and very affectionate; your deceitfulness after all is not so surprising.”

  He could have gone on talking like this for some time and finding it soothing, but he knew by experience that Lueli would find it soothing too. He raised his eyes from his heavily folded hands and looked at the boy. Sure enough, there was the familiar expression, the lulled face of one who listens to a powerful spell.

  He stopped short, nerved himself to deliver the blow, and said in a slow, dull voice:

  “You must destroy your idol. You had better burn it.”

  With a vehement gesture of refusal Lueli sprang to his feet.

  “Burn it,” repeated the priest.

  Such a wild and affronted antagonism defied him from the tautened brown body and the unswerving, unbeholding gaze that for a moment the priest was appalled. But his looks gave back defiance for defiance. They bore the other’s down, and averting his eyes Lueli gave a sudden shrug and made as though to walk out of the hut.

  Mr. Fortune was between him and the door. He jumped up and barred the line of retreat. Lueli wavered. Then he went back to his corner and sat down without a word. Mr. Fortune half-expected him to weep, but he did nothing so obliging.

  For a good hour Mr. Fortune talked on, commanding, reasoning, expostulating, explaining, persuading, threatening. Lueli never answered him, never even looked at him. He sat with downcast eyes in utter stubbornness and immobility.

  The night was sultry and absolutely still. Mr. Fortune dripped with sweat, he felt as though he were heaving enormous boulders into a bottomless pit. He continued to heave his words into silence, a silence only broken by the hissing of the lamp, or the creak of his chair as he changed from one uneasy position to another, but t
he pauses grew longer between each sentence. He was weary, and at his wits’ end. But he could see nothing for it but to go on talking. And now he became so oppressed by the silence into which he spoke that he could foresee a moment when he would have to go on talking because he would be afraid to hold his tongue.

  A frightful imagination took possession of him: that Lueli was become like his idol, a handsome impassive thing of brown wood, that had ears and heard not, that had no life in its heart. Would nothing move him? He would have been thankful for a look of hate, for a curse or an insult. But with the same show of inanimate obstinacy Lueli continued to bend his look upon the ground, a figure too austere to be sullen, too much withdrawn into itself to be defiant.

  Mr. Fortune heard himself say at the top of his voice: “Lueli! Don’t you hear me?”

  It seemed that his outcry had broken the spell. Lueli suddenly looked up and began to listen, to listen with such strained, absorbed, animal attention that Mr. Fortune found himself listening too. There was a sound: a sound like a violent gust of wind strangely sweeping through the motionless night. It came rapidly, it came near, brushing its way through the tree-tops. Like an actual angry presence the wind came vehemently into the hut and, as though an invisible hand had touched it, Mr. Fortune saw the hanging lamp begin to sway. It swayed faster and faster, widening its sweep at every oscillation; and while he stared at it in a stupor of amazement he felt the earth give a violent twitch under his feet as though it were hitting up at him, and he was thrown to the ground. There was a noise of rending and bellowing, the lamp gave a last frantic leap, again he felt the ground buffet him like the horns of a bull, and then with a crash and a spurt of fire the roof of the hut caved in.

  At the same moment he felt something large and heavy topple across his body.

  He could not move and he could not think. He saw flames rising up around him and heard the crackle of the dried thatch. Again the ground began to quiver and writhe beneath him, and suddenly he knew what was happening—an earthquake!