Lanny had his future to plan, and it took a lot of thinking. Did it occur to him that Laurel Creston might experience the same need? Writers of stories have to work out their next scene, and sometimes they like to stroll while doing it. Some day a novelist might want to describe a tropic night as it appears from the stern of a fast-moving vessel. Then, too, it might occur to a keen psychologist that a male guest might weary of the same feminine society, and crave solitude and a chance to commune with the stars.
Anyhow, it happened that when Lanny stole out of his cabin and up to the quarterdeck, which was reserved for the guests, there was Laurel standing by the taffrail and gazing out upon the black and gold water. All Lanny’s interest in the stars vanished suddenly and he went to her side and said in a low voice: “Good evening. Laurel.” It was his first real chance for a talk alone since their last drive together in New York.
She was startled, and whispered: “Oh, Lanny!” Then she added quickly: “We must not be seen together.”
“Why not?”—somewhat hypocritically, it must be granted.
“You know perfectly well.” She stopped abruptly, as if she had meant to say “Lanny” again, but she did not repeat it during the talk. “It would make somebody else unhappy and ruin the cruise.”
“Listen,” he said. “I want you to understand, once for all, I am not under any obligation in that quarter.” He was taking her hint and not speaking names.
“Do you really mean that?”
“I mean it most positively.”
“Well, certainly someone has a different idea.”
“If she has that idea, it is because she has made it for herself. More than a year ago the father asked me in plain words to state my intentions, and I did so. I said that the nature of my work made it impossible for me to remain at home long enough to make any woman happy. My ‘no’ was as positive as politeness permitted.”
“Well, probably they assume that your accident will have changed that.”
“If they assume it, they have certainly had no confirmation from me. I have at all times made plain my status as a friend.”
There was a pause; then Laurel said: “I don’t know what to say, except that there is goins; to be a terrible unhappiness.”
“When I accepted a generous invitation, I said that my affairs might compel me to return before the cruise was over. Do you think I ought to leave at Samoa, or some other place where I can get a plane or a vessel?”
“I could not give such advice. That is something you have to decide. All I can say is that you and I ought not to be seen talking together.”
“There is no one about at this hour.”
“Some member of the crew may be passing, and the gossip would be all over the ship. We will both be considered to have been acting dishonorably.”
She might have turned and walked away, but she didn’t, and Lanny took it as an opportunity for one more question. “Tell me, if you don’t mind, what you are writing.”
“I have started on the novel I told you about.”
“And don’t you think you ought to have my help?”
“I should be more than glad to have it, but not while we are guests under these strange conditions.”
“Might it not be possible for you to slip me a bundle of the manuscript? I could keep it locked up and read it in my cabin and write you comments that might be useful.”
Again a silence, while she thought. Then the reply: “All right, I will do that. And now, good-night. Don’t think me rude or uncordial.”
“Assuredly I will never think you either of those things; at least not unless you call me a troglodyte, as you did the first time we met!”
He heard a little laugh as she turned and vanished in the dimly lighted saloon.
22
How Happy Could I Be!
I
One of the books which Cousin Jennie had read aloud to her patient was Vailima Letters; and so what Samoa meant to Lanny Budd was Robert Louis Stevenson. That is the advantage a writer has over other men; his imaginings outlast the labors of statesmen and kings. It appears that mankind likes its imaginings to be sad; and so the story of this romantic storyteller, seeking refuge from the tubercle bacillus upon a lonely Pacific isle, has touched the hearts of men and women all over the world and made his personality as popular as his books.
Reverdy said that Stevenson’s home and grave were in the western group, which had been mandated to New Zealand, but that small country didn’t seem to relish its share of the white man’s burden. He said that the Oriole would pass that island but not stop until they were on the way back. He said furthermore that romantic writers had given the public an incorrect idea of life among the white shadows of the South Seas. It was supposed to be a lazy and carefree life, and that might be true for white people who came with money in their pockets and could employ servants; but it certainly wasn’t true of the natives, who had to work about as hard as mechanics and small farmers at home. To speak of living on cocoanuts and fish sounded attractive—but only to people who had never opened a cocoanut and had no conception of the hard work it required. As for fish, you had to catch them, and that meant paddling a canoe to where they were. In tropical lands if you wanted to eat them every day you had to catch them every day, for you couldn’t keep them overnight.
Laurel ventured the guess that at least the fish were always there, and the cocoanuts; whereas at home the mechanic might be out of a job, and the farmer was at the mercy of the market. That was a mistake, for it touched off her uncle and made it necessary for the company at the dinner table to listen to a discourse to the effect that the so-called unemployment problem was in great part the invention of political demagogues. The men who were out of jobs were the least competent, and those who suffered did so because they had failed to save their money against a time of depression. Reverdy explained that if you helped them you destroyed the incentive to frugality and began that process of demoralization which had destroyed ancient Rome.
Everybody listened respectfully, including Lanny Budd; he watched Lizbeth, and saw the filial devotion in her eyes, and realized that she had been absorbing such doctrine since childhood, and how vain was the idea that anybody could change her way of looking at the world. He did not dare even to glance at Laurel, for fear there might come a trace of a smile upon his lips or hers. Life on board the Oriole exemplified the old-time saying: “Whose bread I eat, his song I sing”—or, at any rate, his song I hear!
II
Their destination was the large island of Tutuila, and its port of Pago-Pago, pronounced for some unknown reason Pango-Pango. This had become an American naval station, and the island was ruled by a naval officer. Proceeding along the shore, and close to it, the yacht tooted its whistle and the inhabitants of a village came streaming out to wave to them. That was the home of Chief Lilioukao, whose friend Reverdy had become years ago; always they paid a visit to him, and took him presents, and he gave them a feast. With the glasses you felt yourself so near that you could almost talk to this tall old man, wearing a flowered cloth, a pareu about his loins, and nothing else but a gray mustache. There was his daughter, and she had a baby in her arms, and the baby was new. The whistle tooted some more, and the people and the dogs raced along the beach, dancing with delight.
The yacht entered the harbor, and found a United States cruiser there, and a destroyer. The yacht was made fast to a pier, a hose was connected up, and oil began to flow into the tanks. Meantime the guests went ashore, and this time Lanny was able to go along. They inspected a half-primitive and half-civilized town, and bought a few knickknacks, as all tourists do. Later, as the sun began to go down, Reverdy hired two motorcars to take them calling upon his Polynesian friends.
All these Pacific islands are volcanic in origin, and those which are not coral atolls are masses of mountains; the natives live in the valleys, and the roads, except along the shore, are mere tracks. Heavy showers fall almost every day in the rainy season, and the vegetation is astonish
ing to visitors from colder lands. Reverdy explained that the people were warm-hearted and extremely courteous; always you took them gifts, and if you showed the slightest interest in any of their possessions, they would insist upon giving it to you. In the old days simple trinkets had delighted them, but nowadays they had come to know what was good. Lizbeth had gone on a shopping expedition in Baltimore, buying such things as shawls and ornamental slippers for the women, neckties and cigarette lighters for the men, and candy for the children. Everyone in the village would receive something, even if it was only a ten-cent package of gumdrops.
In a valley cut by a swiftly flowing stream and shaded by cocoanut, banana, and plantain trees, the seven guests of the Oriole were welcomed by three or four score of these primitive people. The men were tall and handsome; the women, called vahives—vah-hee-nays—had put on their best finery for the occasion. Everybody had been preparing for the expected visit; the children had gathered green cocoanuts for the drink, and huge banana leaves were spread on the ground in the grove where the feast was to be. The dishes were clean shells, and you ate with your fingers and wiped them on a damp cloth when you were through.
These people knew some French words, and Reverdy knew a few of their native words and had taught them to the other guests. In the Marquesas, food had been kai-kai; here it was ai-ai. The first course was raw fish, caught since the yacht had been sighted and then cleaned and soaked in lime juice. Then came roasted chickens; the native oven is a small pit filled with hot stones; the food is wrapped in wet green leaves, and it comes out with a delicious flavor. Each course is washed down with cocoanut milk, sweet yet sharp in taste. There were yams and taro; and then came the crowning glory, a procession of half a dozen girls, each bearing a great shell containing a young pig, roasted whole, and with the scorched leaves still shrouding it. This was a laughing ceremony, with a native playing a tune upon an accordion, and all singing English words in honor of their guests. The tune and words were: “I am a soldier of the cross,” which presumably they had learned in some near-by mission. It wasn’t exactly appropriate, but it didn’t spoil the taste of roasted pig.
Later they sang native songs and danced for their guests. The moon came up and shone through the palm fronds, many of them more than a hundred feet in the air; the leaves rustled softly and their shadows wove shifting patterns over the dancers and the swaying spectators. For this ceremony the women wore their old-time grass skirts, and Lanny thought the scene one of the loveliest he had ever witnessed. The parting was sorrowful, and the guests drove back to the yacht loaded with poi pounders, sewing baskets, calabashes, mats of woven straw, tapa cloth, and bonita hooks carved from pearl shell and used for trolling.
III
The yacht resumed its course to the westward. A day or two later Lanny happened to encounter Laurel Creston in one of the passageways. She was carrying a manila envelope of manuscript size and she slipped it into his hand. He went back to his cabin, and thereafter for an hour or two was lost to the world of the Baltimore Oriole.
Yes, she was going to have a novel, made up of what she had seen in Germany and what Lanny had told her about the insides of the Nazi soul. It was the story of a girt, the daughter of an American professor of literature in a middle-western college. The father had studied at Heidelberg in his youth, and being a poet and something of a dreamer, he did not know much about what had been happening in Germany during the twenties and early thirties. He still thought of the Fatherland as the home of Gemütlichkeit and the other old-time virtues, and he had told his daughter so much about it that she had decided to follow in his footsteps in search of her Ph.D.
There was enough of these early scenes to make the reader acquainted with America and its naïve idealism, and then he traveled with Paula Seton to Heidelberg and its gleichgeschaltete Universität. Lanny knew that Laurel had studied at Goucher College, so that part was easy enough, bur she hadn’t been to any German university, except perhaps as a tourist. Evidently she had done a lot of reading in the public library, and she had got off to a good start with her German professor’s family; its father dominant at home, subservient as a Party member; its devoted slavish mother and its Nazified children—all but one unhappy son, who obviously was destined for a love affair with Paula and for some heart-breaking tragedy.
There were details that Lanny could find fault with, but the characters came alive and he perceived that the story was going to reveal the sharp contrast between Nazi and democratic ideals, now so obviously headed for a conflict. He found a chance to murmur to his friend: “It is good!” Then he shut himself up in his cabin and spent a lot of time making notes for her.
This time had to be stolen from Lizbeth, and she missed it and asked, poutingly: “What are you doing all the time?” He couldn’t say: “I am revising your cousin’s manuscript.” He had to say: “I have not been feeling well. It may be something I ate at that feast.” He knew that Lizbeth hadn’t enjoyed eating food with her fingers. She thought of primitive people as she did of the Negroes at home.
When the notes were done, Lanny watched for a chance to slip them to Laurel; and of course when she had read them she had to thank him, and to answer some of his points and ask questions about others. It was really quite annoying that they couldn’t have a heart-to-heart talk; the business of writing notes and then looking about to make sure there was nobody watching made them both appear guilty and even feel so. Manlike, Lanny found it exasperating to be unable to do what he wanted, He felt less kind toward the skipper’s daughter, and this was certain sooner or later to show in his manner.
Even without this new factor, the discontent of Lizbeth was bound to increase. She didn’t want mere politeness from Lanny; she wanted love, and wasn’t getting it. She had the sense of being watched by the world of this yacht; and while it was a small world, it was as important to her as if it had been large. Sooner or later the guests would know the exact situation, for Lizbeth would have to confide in some woman, and that one would tell the others. Lanny wondered: would it be Dr. Carroll, or Miss Hayman, Lizbeth’s teacher, or Mrs. Gillis, the family friend. This last, a widow in her fifties, paid her way by making herself useful to Lizbeth, not taking orders but anticipating them. If they were going to play cards it was Mrs. Gillis who got the cards and the score sheet and pencil; if there was a bell to be rung she rang it and if there was an order to a servant to be given she gave it. Sooner or later, Lanny guessed, Lizbeth would break down and tell this lady about her humiliation; and then, would Mrs. Gillis take the place of Lizbeth’s mother and come to Lanny about it? Damnation!
IV
Another five days of hot sunshine and frequent cloudbursts, and they were in the Solomons. Here was a quite different region, not Polynesia, but Melanesia. The inhabitants were blacks with masses of kinky hair; they had been cannibals, and in the interior no doubt still were. A forbidding land of impenetrable jungles and swamps, full of snakes and disease-carrying insects. Glad indeed the guests were that they didn’t have to go ashore on these immense islands, whose tangled vegetation came down to the water’s edge and whose hills appeared to be always steaming and shrouded in mists. A dozen deadly diseases lurked there; Jack London claimed to have collected no fewer than nine on his famed cruise of the Snark. His book was in the yacht’s library, and Lanny read it, well satisfied to be on a larger vessel and to survey the cannibal coast through a pair of field glasses. The book warned him to be careful not to get any scratch or cut while on the islands, because it would turn into what was called a “Solomon sore”; it would spread, and sometimes eat all the way to the bone. A sea captain’s remedy was to apply a poultice made of ship’s biscuit soaked in water; and this was an interesting example of how folk medicine frequently anticipates science. At this time men in the laboratories were working upon the discovery that moldy bread nourishes an organism called Penicillium notatum which astonished them by its power to stop the growth of harmful bacteria.
Also in the yacht’s library was a p
amphlet in the language of this region, and Lanny found it an amusing subject of study. It is an odd lingo called beche-de-mer, representing what the blacks and the traders have made of English. A man is a “he fella” and woman is a “fella mary.” The pamphlet in Lanny’s hands contained Bible stories prepared by the missionaries for their pupils, and it was curious to see how the Garden of Eden appeared in Melanesia. After Adam had eaten the apple, he became aware of the fact that Eve was naked, and, according to the story, “This fella Adam he say along this fella mary: ‘Eve, you no got calico!’”
The Solomons are laid in two columns, and between them is a wide passage. The names of the islands Lanny read from the chart and they were all new to him. He had heard of Bougainville as an explorer, and knew that the beautiful flowering vine which covered the walls inside the court at Bienvenu had been named for him; but he didn’t know there was a Bougainville Island, nor yet a Florida Island, and he had never heard anywhere the names of Savo, Rendova, Tulagi, Guadalcanal. Perhaps if he had been in position to try a séance with Laurel, there might have come some warning from the spirits, some intimation of the history that hovered over these nightmare jungles, awaiting its time to be born. Perhaps Sir Basil Zaharoff would have come, reporting the crash of heavy guns and pretending—old rascal!—that although he had made these shells and bombs he had never expected them to be exploded. Perhaps Grandfather Samuel Budd would have come, quoting the Old Testament Jehovah calling for the extermination of His enemies. Perhaps Laurel’s paternal grandfather, who had been a Navy man, would have hailed the heroes who were destined here to make their names immortal. Too bad that a séance couldn’t be tried!
A World to Win Page 60
