Then he had seen his wife and Mrs Davidson, their deck–chairs close together, in earnest conversation for about two hours. As he walked past them backwards and forwards for the sake of exercise, he had heard Mrs Davidson’s agitated whisper, like the distant flow of a mountain torrent, and he saw by his wife’s open mouth and pale face that she was enjoying an alarming experience. At night in their cabin she repeated to him with bated breath all she had heard.
‘Well, what did I say to you?’ cried Mrs Davidson, exultant next morning. ‘Did you ever hear anything more dreadful? You don’t wonder that I couldn’t tell you myself, do you? Even though you are a doctor.’
Mrs Davidson scanned his face. She had a dramatic eagerness to see that she had achieved the desired effect.
‘Can you wonder that when we first went there our hearts sank? You’ll hardly believe me when I tell you it was impossible to find a single good girl in any of the villages.’
She used the word good in a severely technical manner.
‘Mr Davidson and I talked it over, and we made up our minds the first thing to do was to put down the dancing. The natives were crazy about dancing.’
‘I was not averse to it myself when I was a young man,’ said Dr Macphail.
‘I guessed as much when I heard you ask Mrs Macphail to have a turn with you last night. I don’t think there’s any real harm if a man dances with his wife, but I was relieved that she wouldn’t. Under the circumstances I thought it better that we should keep ourselves to ourselves.’
‘Under what circumstances?’
Mrs Davidson gave him a quick look through her pince–nez, but did not answer his question.
‘But among white people it’s not quite the same,’ she went on, ‘though I must say I agree with Mr Davidson, who says he can’t understand how a husband can stand by and see his wife in another man’s arms, and as far as I’m concerned I’ve never danced a step since I married. But the native dancing is quite another matter. It’s not only immoral in itself, but it distinctly leads to immorality. However, I’m thankful to God that we stamped it out, and I don’t think I’m wrong in saying that no one has danced in our district for eight years.’
But now they came to the mouth of the harbour and Mrs Macphail joined them. The ship turned sharply and steamed slowly in. It was a great landlocked harbour big enough to hold a fleet of battleships; and all around it rose, high and steep, the green hills. Near the entrance, getting such breeze as blew from the sea, stood the governor’s house in a garden. The Stars and Stripes dangled languidly from a flagstaff. They passed two or three trim bungalows, and a tennis court, and then they came to the quay with its warehouses. Mrs Davidson pointed out the schooner, moored two or three hundred yards from the side, which was to take them to Apia. There was a crowd of eager, noisy, and good–humoured natives come from all parts of the island, some from curiosity, others to barter with the travellers on their way to Sydney; and they brought pineapples and huge bunches of bananas, tapa cloths, necklaces of shells or sharks’ teeth, kava–bowls, and models of war canoes. American sailors, neat and trim, clean–shaven and frank of face, sauntered among them, and there was a little group of officials. While their luggage was being landed the Macphails and Mrs Davidson watched the crowd. Dr Macphail looked at the yaws from which most of the children and the young boys seemed to suffer, disfiguring sores like torpid ulcers, and his professional eyes glistened when he saw for the first time in his experience cases of elephantiasis, men going about with a huge, heavy arm or dragging along a grossly disfigured leg. Men and women wore the lava–lava.
‘It’s a very indecent costume,’ said Mrs Davidson. ‘Mr Davidson thinks it should be prohibited by law. How can you expect people to be moral when they wear nothing but a strip of red cotton round their loins?’
‘It’s suitable enough to the climate,’ said the doctor, wiping the sweat off his head.
Now that they were on land the heat, though it was so early in the morning, was already oppressive. Closed in by its hills, not a breath of air came in to Pago–Pago.
‘In our islands,’ Mrs Davidson went on in her high–pitched tones, ‘we’ve practically eradicated the lava–lava. A few old men still continue to wear it, but that’s all. The women have all taken to the Mother Hubbard, and the men wear trousers and singlets. At the beginning of our stay Mr Davidson said in one of his reports: the inhabitants of these islands will never be thoroughly Christianized till every boy of more than ten years is made to wear a pair of trousers.’
But Mrs Davidson had given two or three of her birdlike glances at heavy grey clouds that came floating over the mouth of the harbour. A few drops began to fall.
‘We’d better take shelter,’ she said.
They made their way with all the crowd to a great shed of corrugated iron, and the rain began to fall in torrents. They stood there for some time and then were joined by Mr Davidson. He had been polite enough to the Macphails during the journey, but he had not his wife’s sociability, and had spent much of his time reading. He was a silent, rather sullen man, and you felt that his affability was a duty that he imposed upon himself Christianly; he was by nature reserved and even morose. His appearance was singular. He was very tall and thin, with long limbs loosely jointed; hollow cheeks, and curiously high cheek–bones; he had so cadaverous an air that it surprised you to notice how full and sensual were his lips. He wore his hair very long. His dark eyes, set deep in their sockets, were large and tragic; and his hands with their big, long fingers, were finely shaped; they gave him a look of great strength. But the most striking thing about him was the feeling he gave you of suppressed fire. It was impressive and vaguely troubling. He was not a man with whom any intimacy was possible.
He brought now unwelcome news. There was an epidemic of measles, a serious and often fatal disease among the Kanakas, on the island, and a case had developed among the crew of the schooner which was to take them on their journey. The sick man had been brought ashore and put in hospital on the quarantine station, but telegraphic instructions had been sent from Apia to say that the schooner would not be allowed to enter the harbour till it was certain no other member of the crew was affected.
‘It means we shall have to stay here for ten days at least.’
‘But I’m urgently needed at Apia,’ said Dr Macphail.
‘That can’t be helped. If no more cases develop on board, the schooner will be allowed to sail with white passengers, but all native traffic is prohibited for three months.’
’Is there a hotel here?’ asked Mrs Macphail.
Davidson gave a low chuckle.
‘There’s not.’
‘What shall we do then?’
‘I’ve been talking to the governor. There’s a trader along the front who has rooms that he rents, and my proposition is that as soon as the rain lets up we should go along there and see what we can do. Don’t expect comfort. You’ve just got to be thankful if we get a bed to sleep on and a roof over our heads.’
But the rain showed no signs of stopping, and at length with umbrellas and waterproofs they set out. There was no town, but merely a group of official buildings, a store or two, and at the back, among the coconut trees and plantains, a few native dwellings. The house they sought was about five minutes’ walk from the wharf. It was a frame house of two storeys, with broad verandas on both floors and a roof of corrugated iron. The owner was a half–caste named Horn, with a native wife surrounded by little brown children, and on the ground–floor he had a store where he sold canned goods and cottons. The rooms he showed them were almost bare of furniture. In the Macphails’ there was nothing but a poor, worn bed with a ragged mosquito net, a rickety chair, and a washstand. They looked round with dismay. The rain poured down without ceasing.
‘I’m not going to unpack more than we actually need,’ said Mrs Macphail.
Mrs Davidson came into the room as she was unlocking a portmanteau. She was very brisk and alert. The cheerless surroundings had no
effect on her.
‘If you’ll take my advice you’ll get a needle and cotton and start right in to mend the mosquito net,’ she said, ‘or you’ll not be able to get a wink of sleep tonight.’
‘Will they be very bad?’ asked Dr Macphail.
‘This is the season for them. When you’re asked to a party at Government House at Apia you’ll notice that all the ladies are given a pillowslip to put their–their lower extremities in.’
‘I wish the rain would stop for a moment,’ said Mrs Macphail. ‘I could try to make the place comfortable with more heart if the sun were shining.’
‘Oh, if you wait for that, you’ll wait a long time. Pago–Pago is about the rainiest place in the Pacific. You see, the hills, and that bay, they attract the water, and one expects rain at this time of year anyway.’
She looked from Macphail to his wife, standing helplessly in different parts of the room, like lost souls, and she pursed her lips. She saw that she must take them in hand. Feckless people like that made her impatient, but her hands itched to put everything in the order which came so naturally to her.
‘Here, you give me a needle and cotton and I’ll mend that net of yours, while you go on with your unpacking. Dinner’s at one. Dr Macphail, you’d better go down to the wharf and see that your heavy luggage has been put in a dry place. You know what these natives are, they’re quite capable of storing it where the rain will beat in on it all the time.’
The doctor put on his waterproof again and went downstairs. At the door Mr Horn was standing in conversation with the quartermaster of the ship they had just arrived in and a second–class passenger whom Dr Macphail had seen several times on board. The quartermaster, a little, shrivelled man, extremely dirty, nodded to him as he passed.
‘This is a bad job about the measles, doc,’ he said. ‘I see you’ve fixed yourself up already.’
Dr Macphail thought he was rather familiar, but he was a timid man and he did not take offence easily.
‘Yes, we’ve got a room upstairs.’
‘Miss Thompson was sailing with you to Apia, so I’ve brought her along here.’
The quartermaster pointed with his thumb to the woman standing by his side. She was twenty–seven perhaps, plump, and in a coarse fashion pretty. She wore a white dress and a large white hat. Her fat calves in white cotton stockings bulged over the tops of long white boots in glace kid. She gave Macphail an ingratiating smile.
‘The feller’s tryin’ to soak me a dollar and a half a day for the meanest–sized room,’ she said in a hoarse voice.
‘I tell you she’s a friend of mine, Jo,’ said the quartermaster. ‘She can’t pay more than a dollar, and you’ve sure got to take her for that.’
The trader was fat and smooth and quietly smiling.
‘Well, if you put it like that, Mr Swan, I’ll see what I can do about it. I’ll talk to Mrs Horn and if we think we can make a reduction we will.’
‘Don’t try to pull that stuff with me,’ said Miss Thompson. ‘We’ll settle this right now. You get a dollar a day for the room and not one bean more.’
Dr Macphail smiled. He admired the effrontery with which she bargained. He was the sort of man who always paid what he was asked. He preferred to be over–charged than to haggle. The trader sighed.
‘Well, to oblige Mr Swan I’ll take it.’
‘That’s the goods,’ said Miss Thompson. ‘Come right in and have a shot of hooch. I’ve got some real good rye in that grip if you’ll bring it along, Mr Swan. You come along too, doctor.’
‘Oh, I don’t think I will, thank you,’ he answered.’ I’m just going down to see that our luggage is all right.’
He stepped out into the rain. It swept in from the opening of the harbour in sheets and the opposite shore was all blurred. He passed two or three natives clad in nothing but the lava–lava, with huge umbrellas over them. They walked finely, with leisurely movements, very upright; and they smiled and greeted him in a strange tongue as they went by.
It was nearly dinner–time when he got back, and their meal was laid in the trader’s parlour. It was a room designed not to live in but for purposes of prestige, and it had a musty, melancholy air. A suite of stamped plush was arranged neatly round the walls, and from the middle of the ceiling, protected from the flies by yellow tissue–paper, hung a gilt chandelier. Davidson did not come.
‘I know he went to call on the governor,’ said Mrs Davidson, ‘and I guess he’s kept him to dinner.’
A little native girl brought them a dish of Hamburger steak, and after a while the trader came up to see that they had everything they wanted.
‘I see we have a fellow lodger, Mr Horn,’ said Dr Macphail.
‘She’s taken a room, that’s all,’ answered the trader. ‘She’s getting her own board.’
He looked at the two ladies with an obsequious air.
‘I put her downstairs so she shouldn’t be in the way. She won’t be any trouble to you.’
’Is it someone who was on the boat?’ asked Mrs Macphail.
‘Yes, ma’am, she was in the second cabin. She was going to Apia. She has a position as cashier waiting for her.’
‘Oh!’
When the trader was gone Macphail said:
‘I shouldn’t think she’d find it exactly cheerful having her meals in her room.’
‘If she was in the second cabin I guess she’d rather,’ answered Mrs Davidson. ‘I don’t exactly know who it can be.’
‘I happened to be there when the quartermaster brought her along. Her name’s Thompson.’
‘It’s not the woman who was dancing with the quartermaster last night?’ asked Mrs Davidson.
‘That’s who it must be,’ said Mrs Macphail. ‘I wondered at the time what she was. She looked rather fast to me.’
‘Not good style at all,’ said Mrs Davidson.
They began to talk of other things, and after dinner, tired with their early rise, they separated and slept. When they awoke, though the sky was still grey and the clouds hung low, it was not raining and they went for a walk on the high road which the Americans had built along the bay.
On their return they found that Davidson had just come in.
‘We may be here for a fortnight,’ he said irritably. ‘I’ve argued it out with the governor, but he says there is nothing to be done.’
‘Mr Davidson’s just longing to get back to his work,’ said his wife, with an anxious glance at him.
‘We’ve been away for a year,’ he said, walking up and down the veranda. ‘The mission has been in charge of native missionaries and I’m terribly nervous that they’ve let things slide. They’re good men, I’m not saying a word against them, God–fearing, devout, and truly Christian men–their Christianity would put many so–called Christians at home to the blush–but they’re pitifully lacking in energy. They can make a stand once, they can make a stand twice, but they can’t make a stand all the time. If you leave a mission in charge of a native missionary, no matter how trustworthy he seems, in course of time you’ll find he’s let abuses creep in.’
Mr Davidson stood still. With his tall, spare form, and his great eyes flashing out of his pale face, he was an impressive figure. His sincerity was obvious in the fire of his gestures and in his deep, ringing voice.
‘I expect to have my work cut out for me. I shall act and I shall act promptly. If the tree is rotten it shall be cut down and cast into the flames.’
And in the evening after the high tea which was their last meal, while they sat in the stiff parlour, the ladies working and Dr Macphail smoking his pipe, the missionary told them of his work in the islands.
‘When we went there they had no sense of sin at all,’ he said. ‘They broke the commandments one after the other and never knew they were doing wrong. And I think that was the most difficult part of my work, to instil into the natives the sense of sin.’
The Macphails knew already that Davidson had worked in the Solomons for five years before he met his
wife. She had been a missionary in China, and they had become acquainted in Boston, where they were both spending part of their leave to attend a missionary congress. On their marriage they had been appointed to the islands in which they had laboured ever since.
In the course of all the conversations they had had with Mr Davidson one thing had shone out clearly and that was the man’s unflinching courage. He was a medical missionary, and he was liable to be called at any time to one or other of the islands in the group. Even the whaleboat is not so very safe a conveyance in the stormy Pacific of the wet season, but often he would be sent for in a canoe, and then the danger was great. In cases of illness or accident he never hesitated. A dozen times he had spent the whole night baling for his life, and more than once Mrs Davidson had given him up for lost.
‘I’d beg him not to go sometimes,’ she said, ‘or at least to wait till the weather was more settled, but he’d never listen. He’s obstinate, and when he’s once made up his mind, nothing can move him.’
‘How can I ask the natives to put their trust in the Lord if I am afraid to do so myself?’ cried Davidson. ‘And I’m not, I’m not. They know that if they send for me in their trouble I’ll come if it’s humanly possible. And do you think the Lord is going to abandon me when I am on his business? The wind blows at his bidding and the waves toss and rage at his word.’
Dr Macphail was a timid man. He had never been able to get used to the hurtling of the shells over the trenches, and when he was operating in an advanced dressing–station the sweat poured from his brow and dimmed his spectacles in the effort he made to control his unsteady hand. He shuddered a little as he looked at the missionary.
‘I wish I could say that I’ve never been afraid,’ he said.
‘I wish you could say that you believed in God,’ retorted the other.
But for some reason, that evening the missionary’s thoughts travelled back to the early days he and his wife had spent on the islands.
Delphi Collected Works of W. Somerset Maugham (Illustrated) Page 286
