“It was strong wine for a young head that our Mr. Frith gave you to drink,” murmured the doctor.
“It intoxicated me,” smiled Erik, “but that intoxication causes no headache in the morning.”
The doctor did not reply. He was inclined to think that its effects, more lasting, might be a great deal more pernicious. Erik took a sip of whisky.
“I was brought up a Lutheran, but when I went to the university I became an atheist. It was the fashion, and I was very young. I just shrugged my shoulders when Frith began to talk to me of Brahma. Oh, we’ve spent hours sitting on the verandah, up at the plantation, Frith, his wife Catherine and me. He’d talk. She never said much, but she listened, looking at him with adoring eyes, and he and I would argue. It was all vague and difficult to understand, but you know, he was very persuasive, and what he believed had a sort of grandeur and beauty; it seemed to fit in with the tropical, moonlit nights and the distant stars and the murmur of the sea. I’ve often wondered if there isn’t something in it. And if you know what I mean, it fits in too with Wagner and Shakespeare’s plays and those lyrics of Camoens. Sometimes I’ve grown impatient and said to myself, the man’s an empty windbag. You see, it bothered me that he should drink more than was good for him, and be so fond of his food, and when there was a job of work to do always have an excuse for not doing it. But Catherine believed in him. She was no fool. If he’d been a fake she couldn’t have lived with him for twenty years and not found it out. It was funny that he should be so gross and yet be capable of such lofty thoughts. I’ve heard him say things that I shall never forget. Sometimes he could soar into mystical regions of the spirit—d’you know what I mean?—when you couldn’t follow him, but just watched dizzily from the ground and yet were filled with rapture. And you know, he could do surprising things. That day that old Swan tore up his manuscript, a year’s work, two whole cantos of ‘The Lusiad’, when they saw what had happened Catherine burst out crying, but he just sighed and went out for a walk. When he came in he brought the old man, delighted with his mischief, but a little scared all the same, a bottle of rum. It’s true he’d bought it with Swan’s money, but that doesn’t matter. ‘Never mind, old man,’ he said, ‘you’ve only torn up a few dozen sheets of paper, they were merely an illusion and it would be foolish to give them a second thought, the reality remains, for the reality is indestructible.’ And next day he set to work to do it all over again.”
“He said he was going to give me some passages to read,” said Dr. Saunders. “I suppose he forgot.”
“He’ll remember,” said Erik, with a smile in which there was a good-natured grimness.
Dr. Saunders liked him. The Dane was genuine at all events; an idealist, of course, but his idealism was tempered with humour. He gave you the impression that his strength of character was greater even than the strength of his mighty frame. Perhaps he was not very clever, but he was immensely reliable, and the charm of his simple, honest nature pleasantly complemented the charm of his ungainly person. It occurred to the doctor that a woman might very well fall deeply in love with him and his next remark was not entirely void of guile.
“And that girl we saw, is that the only child they had?”
“Catherine was a widow when Frith married her. She had a son by her first husband, and a son by Frith, too, but they both died when Louise was a child.”
“And has she looked after everything since her mother’s death?”
“Yes.”
“She’s very young.”
“Eighteen. She was only a kid when I first came to the island. They sent her to the missionary school here, and then her mother thought she ought to go to Auckland. But when Catherine fell ill they sent for her. It’s funny what a year’ll do for girls; when she went away she was a child who used to sit on my knee, and when she came back she was a young woman.” He gave the doctor his small, diffident smile. “I’ll tell you in confidence that we’re engaged.”
“Oh?”
“Not officially, so I’d sooner you didn’t mention it. Old Swan’s willing enough, but her father says she’s too young. I suppose she is, but that’s not his real reason for objecting. I’m afraid he doesn’t think me good enough. He’s got an idea that one of these days some rich English lord will come along in his yacht and fall madly in love with her. The nearest approach so far is young Fred in a pearling lugger.”
He chuckled.
“I don’t mind waiting. I know she’s young. That’s why I didn’t ask her to marry me before. You see, it took me some time to get it into my head that she wasn’t a little girl any more. When you love anyone like I love Louise a few months, a year or two, well, they don’t matter. We’ve got all life before us. It won’t be quite the same when we’re married. I know it’s going to be perfect happiness, but we shall have it, we shan’t be looking forward to it any more. We’ve got something now that we shall lose. D’you think that’s stupid?”
“No.”
“Of course, you’ve only just seen her, you don’t know her. She’s beautiful, isn’t she?”
“Very.”
“Well, her beauty’s the least of her qualities. She’s got a head on her shoulders, she’s got the same practical spirit that her mother had. It makes me laugh sometimes to see this lovely child—after all, she is hardly more than a kid—manage the labour on the estate with so much common-sense. The Malays know it’s useless to try any tricks with her. Of course, having lived practically all her life here, she has all sorts of knowledge in her bones. It’s amazing how shrewd she is. And the tact she shows with those two men, her grandfather and Frith. She knows them inside out; she knows all their faults, but she doesn’t mind them; she’s awfully fond of them, of course, and she takes them as they are, as though they were just like everybody else. I’ve never seen her even impatient with either of them. And you know, one wants one’s patience when old Swan rambles on with some story you’ve heard fifty times already.”
“I guessed that it was she who made things run smooth.”
“I suppose one would. But what one wouldn’t guess is that her beauty, and her cleverness, and the goodness of her heart mask a spirit of the most subtle and exquisite delicacy. Mask isn’t the right word. Mask suggests disguise and disguise suggests deceit. Louise doesn’t know what disguise and deceit mean. She is beautiful, and she is kind, and she is clever; all that’s she; but there’s someone else there too, a sort of illusive spirit that somehow I think no one but her mother who is dead and I have ever suspected. I don’t know how to explain it. It’s like a wraith within the body; it’s like a soul within the spirit, if you can imagine it; it’s like the essential flame of the individual of which all the qualities that the world sees are only emanations.”
The doctor raised his eyebrows. It seemed to him that Erik Christessen was getting a bit out of his depth. Still, he listened to him without displeasure. He was very much in love and Dr. Saunders had a half cynical tenderness for young things in that condition.
“Have you ever read Hans Andersen’s ‘Little Mermaid’?” asked Erik.
“A hundred years ago.”
“That lovely flame-like spirit not my eyes, but my soul has felt in Louise seems to me just like that little mermaid. It’s not quite at home in the haunts of men. It has always a vague nostalgia for the sea. It’s not quite human; she’s so sweet, she’s so gentle, she’s so tender, and yet there is a sort of aloofness in her that keeps you at a distance. It seems to me very rare and beautiful. I’m not jealous of it. I’m not afraid of it. It’s a priceless possession and I love her so much that I almost regret that she cannot always keep it. I feel that she will lose it when she becomes a wife and a mother, and whatever beauty of soul she has then it will be different. It’s something apart and independent. It’s the self which is part of the universal self; perhaps we’ve all got it; but what is so wonderful in her is that it’s almost sensible, and you feel that if only your eyes were a little more piercing you could see it plain. I’m so as
hamed that I shall not go to her as pure as she will come to me.”
“Don’t be so silly,” said the doctor.
“Why is it silly? When you love someone like Louise it’s horrible to think that you’ve lain in strange arms and that you’ve kissed bought and painted mouths. I feel unworthy enough of her as it is. I might at least have brought her a clean and decent body.”
“Oh, my dear boy.”
Dr. Saunders thought the young man was talking nonsense, but he felt no inclination to argue with him. It was getting late and his own concerns called him. He finished his drink.
“I have never had any sympathy with the ascetic attitude. The wise man combines the pleasures of the senses and the pleasures of the spirit in such a way as to increase the satisfaction he gets from both. The most valuable thing I have learnt from life is to regret nothing. Life is short, nature is hostile, and man is ridiculous; but oddly enough most misfortunes have their compensations, and with a certain humour and a good deal of horse-sense one can make a fairly good job of what is after all a matter of very small consequence.”
With that he got up and left.
xxiii
NEXT morning, comfortably seated on the verandah of the hotel, with his legs up, Dr. Saunders was reading a book. He had just learnt from the steamship office that news had been received of the arrival of a ship on the following day but one. It stopped at Bali, which would give him the opportunity of seeing that attractive island, and from there it would be easy to get to Surabaya. He was enjoying his holiday. He had forgotten that it was so pleasant to have nothing in the world to do.
“A man of leisure,” he murmured to himself. “By God, I might almost pass for a gentleman.”
Presently Fred Blake strolled along the road, nodded and joined him.
“You haven’t received a cable, have you?” he asked.
“No, that’s the last thing I expect.”
“I was in the post-office a minute ago. The man asked me if my name was Saunders.”
“That’s funny. No one has the least notion I’m here; nor do I know anyone in the world who wants to communicate with me urgently enough to waste money on a telegram.”
But a surprise was in store for him. Barely an hour had passed when a youth rode up to the hotel on a bicycle and the manager shortly afterwards came out with him on to the verandah and asked Dr. Saunders to sign for a cable that had just arrived for him.
“What an extraordinary thing,” he cried. “Old Kim Ching is the only man who can even suspect that I’m here.”
But when he opened the cablegram he was more astonished still.
“That’s a damned idiotic thing,” he said. “It’s in code. Who in God’s name can have done such a silly thing as that? How can I be expected to make head or tail of it?”
“May I have a look?” asked Fred. “If it’s one of the well-known codes I might be able to tell you. One’s sure to be able to get all the usual code-books here.”
The doctor handed him the slip of paper. It was a numeral code. The words, or phrases, were represented by groups of numbers and the termination of each group was clearly indicated by a zero.
“The commercial codes use made-up words,” said Fred.
“I know as much as that.”
“I’ve made rather a study of codes. Been a hobby of mine. D’you mind if I have a shot at deciphering it?”
“Not a bit.”
“They say it’s only a question of time before you can find the secret of any code. There’s one fellow in the British service, they say, who can solve the most complicated code anyone can invent in twenty-four hours.”
“Go right ahead.”
“I’ll go inside. I must have pens and paper.”
Dr. Saunders suddenly remembered. He reached out.
“Let me just see that cable again.”
Fred handed it to him and he looked for the place of despatch. Melbourne. He did not give it back.
“Is it for you by any chance?”
Fred hesitated for an instant. Then he smiled. When he wanted to cajole anyone he could be very ingratiating.
“Well, it is, as a matter of fact.”
“Why did you have it addressed to me?”
“Well, I thought that me living on the Fenton and all that, perhaps they wouldn’t deliver it, or they might want proof of identity or something. I thought it would save a lot of trouble if I had it sent to you.”
“You’ve got your nerve with you.”
“I knew you were a sport.”
“And that little realistic detail about your being asked at the post-office if your name was Saunders?”
“Pure invention, old man,” Fred answered airily.
Dr. Saunders chuckled.
“What would you have done if I hadn’t been able to make head or tail of it and torn it up?”
“I knew it couldn’t arrive till to-day. They only got the address yesterday.”
“Who’s they?”
“The people who sent the cable,” replied Fred, with a smile.
“Then it’s not entirely for the pleasure of my society that you have been giving me your company this morning?”
“Not entirely.”
The doctor gave him back the flimsy.
“You’ve got the cheek of the devil. Take it. I suppose you’ve got the key in your pocket.”
“In my head.”
He went into the hotel. Dr. Saunders began to read again. But he read with divided attention. He could not entirely dismiss from his head the incident that had just occurred. It amused him not a little and he wondered again what was the mystery in which the boy was involved. He was discreet. He had never so much as dropped a hint upon which an agile intelligence might work. There was nothing to go upon. The doctor shrugged his shoulders. After all the matter was no business of his. He sought to dissipate his baffled curiosity by pretending to himself that he didn’t care a damn and made a resolute effort to attend to what he was reading. But after an interval Fred came back on to the verandah.
“Have a drink, doctor,” he said.
His eyes were shining, his face was flushed, but at the same time he bore an air of some bewilderment. He was excited. He wanted to burst out laughing, but since he could give no reason for hilarity plainly was trying to control himself.
“Had good news?” asked the doctor.
Suddenly Fred could restrain himself no longer. He burst into a peal of laughter.
“As good as all that?”
“I don’t know if it’s good or bad. It’s awfully funny. I wish I could tell you. It’s strange. It makes me feel rather queer. I don’t quite know what to make of it. I must have a bit of time to get used to it. I don’t quite know if I’m standing on my head or on my heels.”
Dr. Saunders looked at him reflectively. The boy seemed to have gained vitality. There had always been something hang-dog in his expression that took away from his unusual good looks. Now he looked candid and open. You would have thought a load had been lifted from his shoulders. The drinks came.
“I want you to drink to the memory of a deceased friend of mine,” he said, seizing his glass.
“By name?”
“Smith.”
He emptied the glass in a draught.
“I must ask Erik if we can’t go somewhere this afternoon. I feel like walking my legs off. A bit of exercise would do me good.”
“When are you sailing?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I like it here. I wouldn’t mind staying for a bit. I wish you could have seen the view from the top of that volcano Erik and I went up yesterday. Pretty, I can tell you. The world’s not a bad old place, is it?”
A buggy drawn by a small shabby horse came trundling shakily down the road, raising a cloud of dust, and stopped at the hotel. Louise was driving and her father sat by her side. He got out and walked up the steps. He had in his hand a flat brown-paper parcel.
“I forgot to give you the manuscripts last night that I promised to let y
ou see, so I’ve brought them down.”
“That’s very kind of you.”
Frith untied the string and disclosed a small pile of typewritten sheets.
“Of course, I want an absolutely candid opinion.” He gave the doctor a doubtful look. “If you have nothing very much to do at the moment I might read you a few pages myself. I always think poetry should be read aloud and it’s only the author who can do justice to it.”
The doctor sighed. He was weak. He could think of no excuse that would turn Frith from his purpose.
“D’you think your daughter ought to wait in the sun?” he hazarded.
“Oh, she has things to do. She can go upon her errands and come back for me.”
“Would you like me to go with her, sir?” said Fred Blake. “I’ve got nothing to do.”
“I think she’d be very glad.”
He went down and spoke to Louise. The doctor saw her look at him gravely, then smile a little and say something. She was wearing this morning a dress of white cotton and a large straw hat of native make. Under it her face had a golden coolness. Fred swung himself up beside her and she drove off.
The Narrow Corner Page 15
