South of the Line/The Lonely Lady
The Lonely Lady
THE yacht, a graceful thing of slender spars and glinting white enamel, rounded the headland and dropped anchor a cable's length from shore.
All Luana, comprising sixty souls of respective age, sex, and volubility, a medley of nondescript dogs and chickens, several pigs, and a tethered turtle or two, was awakened from its customary torpor to witness the amazing spectacle. Even the broad leaves of the cocoanut palms, falling in green waves to the beach, seemed to quiver in sympathetic excitement. Never had Luana been treated to anything half as thrilling! Luana,that is, with the exception of Felisi.
She stood apart from her flustered and clucking relatives, silent, watchful, apparently unimpressed, though a certain tensity in her mien gave the lie to her pose of indifference. For it was a pose, or a form of self-control, which you will. Probably Felisi would have accorded a first glimpse of any of the world's great capitals precisely the same need of outward appreciation she now bestowed on Strode's yacht.
And why should it be otherwise, even in the fifteen-year-old daughter of an obscure chief in the South Pacific Islands? If you had moved in civilized circles for a space; if, that is, you had dispensed imitation pink coral on the wharves of Suva to every passenger with a heart between San Francisco and Sydney, and observed the ways of the white man as had Felisi of Luana, you would know that the display of vulgar curiosity is detrimental to dignity.
You would know, also, that the correct thing to do is to saunter in leisurely fashion as far as the palm groves, only breaking into a run when they obscure you from the public gaze. Thereafter, it is permissible to race beachward with hair and sulu streaming in your wake, and load your canoe with the first mangoes and mummy apples to hand as a valid excuse for prying into other people's affairs. In any case, that is what Felisi did.
What it must be to have all the money in the world, and therefore all the happiness! That is what she tried to imagine squatting in the canoe amongst her wares, and staring wide-eyed at the beautiful lady who stood alone at the yacht's after rail looking out over the water. To own a floating palace of white and gold, and go drifting over the world to every scene of pleasure and excitement! To know nothing of taro patches tended in the heat of the day, and teeming fish traps, and exacting relatives requiring obedience and support! Felisi sighed.
And curiously enough Mrs. Strode chanced to sigh at much the same moment as she leant over the yacht's rail watching an outrigger canoe and its diminutive bronze occupant rising and falling on the gentle swell. What it must be to have nothing, and therefore happiness! To live in an earthly paradise and a sulu. To know nothing of the fetish of civilization. To be something more than an automaton to the man you love, even though he be your husband....
Such was the trend of Mrs. Strode's conjectures until interrupted by unmistakable signals from the canoe: two arms upheld, a mango in the hand of each, and a small, clear voice coming over the water: "You want 'im mango, lady?"
"Good gracious," exclaimed Mrs. Strode, "the child speaks English! Yes," she called, "come alongside! Parks, have you any money?"
A steward, who seemed to have appeared noiselessly from nowhere, fumbled in his pocket amongst the sad remains of last night's poker, and with some diffidence produced sixpence.
"If you'll pardon me, madam," he warned in a note of deferential confidence, "the fruit brought horf in the bum-boats is 'igh as to price, and not to be relied on."
"Nonsense," said Mrs. Strode, "you're not at Port Said or Colombo now, you know, Parks. Besides, I don't want the fruit."
Exactly what it was Mrs. Strode did want was hard to determine, so Parks retired gracefully. For some time she leant over the rail looking down into an upturned elfin face, and noting the perfect teeth, the velvety skin, the brown wistful eyes, and above all the wealth of blue-black hair—assimilating, in short, all those qualities in Felisi of Luana that helped so materially in the sale of imitation pink coral—or mangoes.
"You dear!" she cried suddenly. "Come aboard at once."
And Felisi came.
Somewhere, and about an hour later, it struck two bells, and the mellow boom of a gong followed soon afterward announcing lunch aboard the Ajax, but Mrs. Strode was otherwise engaged. To be exact, she was undergoing a course of instruction in making cigarettes of dried banana leaf, and finding it absorbing. Somehow, this quaint little creature out of the world's end had taken hold of Mrs. Strode. Listening to its glib jargon, watching its deft, unconsciously graceful movements, and trying to plumb the admixture of crass ignorance and subtle wisdom that appeared to constitute its mind, gave this lonely woman keener pleasure than she had experienced for many a day.
"... and you must take me out to the reef," she told Felisi; "just us two in the canoe, and show me how to do things—spear fish, and stay under water two minutes."
Felisi appeared unimpressed with the possibilities in this direction.
"You no spear fish," she retorted, surveying her luxurious surroundings as though in some manner they might be held responsible for their owner's inability to do anything. "You no stay under water one minute."
"Indeed?" Mrs. Strode was piqued. It was not often of late she had been told there were things she could not do. It took her back to the days—not so far distant—when, as the only sister of four unruly brothers she had seldom been proof against "the dare." "We'll see," she added, with a touch of asperity. "There may be more in me than meets the eye—do you understand?"
Felisi nodded gravely, a method of response she had found effective when not understanding in the least.
"Then that's settled," said the beautiful lady. "You come alongside with the canoe early to-morrow morning, and we'll make a day of it, you and I—oh, the mangoes," she added, proffering Parks's sixpence.
Felisi refused it bluntly.
"You no want 'em mangoes," she affirmed.
"You seem to know more about me than I do myself," said Mrs. Strode; "what makes you think I don't want the mangoes?"
"Me hear you."
"Oh, you heard me, did you? I expect you hear a good deal that you're not supposed to."
"Me hear plenty," admitted Felisi non-committally.
"If you're not the quaintest infant!" laughed Mrs. Strode. "But you'll take the money, won't you?"
Felisi shook her head.
"You no want 'em mangoes, me no want 'em money," she explained lucidly.
"I see," mused Mrs. Strode. "Parks," she added, turning to the steward who had again materialized, "your good money has been spurned. I think I told you we were not at Port Said or Colombo."
"Yes, madam. Luncheon has been served twenty minutes, madam," recited Parks, studiously avoiding Felisi's childlike gaze.
"Is Mr. Strode down yet?"
"Not yet, madam."
"He has been told—as well as the gong?"
"Yes, madam."
Mrs. Strode sighed.
"Very well," she said. "I'll come directly."
But she did not.
"I suppose some day you'll have a husband," she said, turning to her guest.
Felisi nodded with every appearance of delight at the prospect.
"They're not all like that, you know," warned Mrs. Strode, with a whimsical half-smile. "But I expect you manage them differently...."
"Husband all right," defended Felisi stoutly.
"Sometimes," said Mrs. Strode. A glint of mischief, never very far distant, came into her eyes. "Would you like to see mine?" she suggested suddenly.
There was apparently nothing in life Felisi preferred.
"You come along here," said Mrs. Strode, leading the way over the cocoanut matting of the deck, "and up these funny little stairs, and round here, and across this bridge, and at last you come to the hutch where Bunny lives."
Felisi beheld a white deck house, replete with highly varnished doors and glittering brass portholes.
"You see," continued Mrs. Strode, "he is right away from everyone here, and that is what Bunny likes."
"All the time?"
"Very nearly," said Mrs. Strode cheerfully. "Go and see what you think of him."
Felisi stood on tiptoe to peer through one of the portholes, a proceeding at which she was something of an adept. Within were books, seemingly thousands of them, filling three walls of the room from floor to ceiling. Along the fourth ran a bench littered with stones, lumps of coral, and inexplicable instruments; and under the skylight, at a desk equally littered with papers, sat a large blond man in a dressing gown writing assiduously. He looked kind. Felisi had studied various samples of the genus turaga, and this one appeared well up to standard. But She returned to Mrs. Strode for further enlightenment.
"Bunny all right," she announced, by way of encouragement.
"I'm glad you like him," said Mrs. Strode.
"An' you?"
Mrs. Strode pursed her lips and looked out over the sea.
"As much as I see of him," she confessed. "You see," she went on in explanatory vein, "he is really a great man, and came all this way to find out things about the world—your world. You think it beautiful and pleasant to live in, and that's enough for you—and me; but it isn't enough for him. He likes to find out why it's beautiful and pleasant, what it's made of, and who lived in it before we did; then he goes into the hutch and puts it all into a book."
Felisi listened enthralled. The beautiful lady was surpassing herself; but nothing that she said disguised or clouded for one instant the main issue, which to the philosopher of Luana was as clear as day: the beautiful lady was also a lonely lady.
"Too much 'utch," she commiserated solemnly. Whereat Mrs. Strode was consumed with silent laughter, and hustled her toward the companion.
"You'd better run along now," she warned; "I'm going to fetch Bunny out, and he's rather fierce sometimes."
But Bunny proved unusually tractable that morning. He turned as his wife entered with a vaguely apologetic smile.
"Ah, yes, of course," he murmured, and proceeded to change his dressing gown for a duck jacket. "Of course," he added with emphasis, though apropos of nothing tangible.
Mrs. Strode stood looking out through an open port.
"You needn't hurry," she said. "We're only half an hour late."
"Ah, I'm sorry, my dear," Mr. Strode crossed to a cabinet washstand, "but I'm just beginning to see daylight—just beginning. We're now in the Lau Group, and if the formations tally my theory's proved—proved," he repeated, vigorously bespattering the carpet with soapsuds. "There's no end to this thing—no end...."
Apparently there was not. Mrs. Strode had suffered it for a considerable period, tried to resign herself to it, and failed. To be ousted by a theory! Yet that was what it amounted to. To some women it would have meant little more than an early boredom, followed by diversion sought, and probably found, elsewhere, but unfortunately Mrs. Strode was not of that type. She had made the mistake of marrying John Strode because she loved him.
This complete, almost fanatical subjugation to an idea was a disease, she had decided during her long self-communings, as much a disease as any other, but less susceptible to treatment in that the patient was unaware of its presence. No one would have been more surprised or distressed than John Strode had he guessed that he was causing his wife one moment's unhappiness; yet she lived in the knowledge that she was no more to this man of her choice than if she had never been...
The following morning, soon after a blood-red sun had climbed out of the sea, a canoe shot from the Ajax's lee and headed for the barrier reef.
To Mrs. Strode, paddling joyfully in the bows clad in a boy's bathing suit and a kimono, the world was young that morning and full of promise. Why was it ever necessary to do anything else than speed over blue water, with spindrift lashing the face, and the deep-toned roar of surf filling the universe and drowning all care like an opiate? This was life, she told herself exultantly, the rest a pitiable pretence.
Into the very heart of the green-bellied combers it seemed they were heading, until the laughing child of nature at the steering paddle swerved the canoe as by a miracle into a narrow pass, and through it to the open sea. Here, without pause, it turned in its own length and, lifting to the swell of deep waters, bore down upon the reef. There was a momentary check, a soaring as through space, and the canoe, borne on a cascade of foam, shot to rest on the still waters of the Lagoon.
Mrs. Strode had leapt Luana reef.
"Again!" she cried.
But best of all she loved the quiet places, unfathomable rock pools immune from the busy surf, and beset with coral islets, archways, and caves. Here it was possible to plunge into an unknown world and, with Felisi's hand tight clasped in hers, explore its mysterious labyrinths as long as breath would last. Then came the respite, prone at the water's edge, looking down into the cool green depths with their swaying weed and rainbow-tinted fish:
"Why plan and strive and plan again
While all things earthly pall?
What goal at last will you attain?
Come down and end it all."
chanted Mrs. Strode, in a low contralto, and Felisi called for more, but of a sudden the lonely lady had fallen silent.
"I wonder," she mused, still staring downward with a strange fixity; "I wonder what he would do...."
And Felisi wondered too. It was a weakness of hers.
About two o'clock that day John Strode became aware of a difference. There is no other way of putting it—a vaguely disturbing element, if you will—in his usually preoccupied existence.
The hutch was hot; but it was not that. He tried to ignore the annoyance, but failed. He thrust it from him, but it returned with maddening persistence. Finally, and after a supreme effort at concentration, he turned abruptly in the swivel chair, crossed the room, and stood looking in bemused fashion through one of the ports.
A cloud of gannets flecked the intense blue of the sky, dropping now and again like stones upon their prey. The sea, slashed by the white ribbon of the barrier reef, rose and fell as though breathing in its sleep. The eternal sun shone down. Clearly the disturbing influence was not there.
Strode turned from the port with a frown of baffled annoyance.
Then, one by one, sluggishly, the small realities of life began to filter into his consciousness. He glanced at his watch. It had stopped—because he had forgotten to wind it. He was hungry. Why? Perhaps he had had nothing to eat. What about breakfast ... and lunch? It must be after noon. Curious! He grunted, flung open the door of the hutch, and went on deck.
His train of thought had been derailed by hunger; that was what had happened to John Strode. But he was only aware of the accident's curious effect upon himself. It seemed, as he wandered over the yacht, that he had just returned from a long journey. Everything was familiar yet strangely new; and something was lacking; he felt it, but his mind refused to supply the deficiency. In the saloon he mixed himself a stiff brandy and soda.
"Befuddled!" he muttered angrily. "Must have been at it longer than I thought."
Suddenly he caught sight of his face in a mirror, and went nearer to examine it more closely. There were shadows under the eyes that emphasized their already unnatural brilliance; the cheeks were hollow, and the beard disgracefully unkempt. Strode stretched his clenched fists above his head until his joints cracked with the unaccustomed tension, and as he did so, caught reflected in the glass a glimpse of the far corner of the saloon behind him—a standard lamp with a rose shade, a guitar standing propped against it, and an empty armchair.
The little picture conveyed nothing to Strode beyond the same aggravating impression of incompleteness. He turned and crossed the saloon. Lying on the arm of the chair was one of his own socks, a darning needle caught in the wool. He picked it up and examined it mechanically, then dropped it with a short laugh, for it had told him what was lacking aboard the Ajax, and to think that it had not occurred to him before was really rather amusing. He rang the bell.
"Parks," he demanded of the startled individual who appeared in the doorway slightly dishevelled from a hasty toilet. "Where is Mrs. Strode?"
"Mrs. Strode left early, sir."
"Did she leave any message?"
"No, sir."
"But—have you no idea where she has gone?"
"To the reef, I believe, sir, on a picnic."
"Alone?"
"With a young native person, sir."
Strode looked about him with an expression of vague bewilderment.
"And, Parks."
"Yes, sir."
"Why have I had no breakfast—or lunch?"
"We have strict instructions that on no account are you to be disturbed, sir."
"Yes, that's so," mused Strode. "Then do you mind telling me," he added with whimsical pathos, "how I ever chance to get anything to eat at all?"
"Mrs. Strode fetches you, sir."
"Oh." Strode appeared to ponder over the matter. "Well, supposing something's fetched to me this time by way of a change, Parks—cold, with salad."
"Yes, sir."
Parks withdrew, and on rousing the cook from his habitual and audible siesta to receive instructions, touched his forehead significantly. The cook heartily concurred.
To the accompaniment of cold chicken Strode communed with himself. So he was "fetched," was he? Somehow the word met with his disapproval. Rather ignominious, wasn't it? How long had it been going on, he wondered? Nice sort of occupation for Stella, too. By the way, what had she been doing with herself for the past few days—or was it weeks? He had no distinct recollection of her presence, yet, yes, he seemed to remember her at meals, the same gracious figure at the end of his table, silent, unobtrusive, yet conveying a subtle air of sympathy for a dreamer's moods and abstractions. Curious that she should go away like that, without a word. Aggravating, too, considering that at that particular moment he rather needed her. Someone to talk to about one's work, you know. Necessary sometimes, or one became atrophied. To-day of all days—and for so long—it must be nearly three. Unusually thoughtless. Gad, wouldn't she be in a stew when she learnt that he had gone without his breakfast and lunch....?
An hour later Strode was pacing the deck with ill-concealed impatience. He was not used to being baulked of anything, and in the present instance he was aware of an inordinate and unaccountable desire to set eyes on his wife.
Afternoon tea, served by the implacable Parks, proved a dreary affair, and by five o'clock impatience had given way to a senseless but none-the-less acute anxiety. He might go and meet her. It would be a pleasant surprise. He called for the sailing dinghy, and set out for the reef. After all, it was only about half a mile long, and Stella must be somewhere on it....
The dinghy sailed like a witch. There was a sunset to dream of—pearl-gray islands of cloud floating in amethyst. The evening breeze was a cool caress—but there was no sign of Stella. This was absurd! He shouted lustily as he sailed, and presently from afar came a small, answering cry. His heart leapt to it in the most ridiculous manner. What ailed him? He did not know; he did not care; he had found Stella.
She was lying beside a rock pool with Parks's "young native person", and waved a greeting as he came stumbling over the coral toward them.
"My dear John," she exclaimed, "what has happened? Ship on fire?"
It was hardly the reception he had expected. He sat down rather abruptly, and tried to regain his breath. Somehow he felt out of it, a lamentably gross and mundane figure puffing there on a rock in the presence of this sylph-like person who was his wife. It was in keeping with all the rest on this day of strange experiences that he seemed to behold her for the first time.
"No, nothing," he defended lamely, "but—do you know the time?"
"Time?" scoffed Mrs. Strode, with dancing eyes. "What have we to do with time?" She took Felisi's hand in hers. "Perhaps you didn't know you had married a mermaid. Behold, oh, Caliban, we are about to show off!"
The two figures slid beneath the water as silently as seals. The ripples expanded in ever-widening circles, and were still.
At the end of perhaps half a minute, which to Strode seemed more like half an hour, he went to the edge of the pool and looked down. There was nothing—nothing but a pale green abyss fringed with swaying weed. Stella had always been fearless where water was concerned, he remembered. All the same, he wished she wouldn't do this sort of thing. It was disturbing, and he disliked being disturbed.
A minute must have passed, and a minute was a long time, a deuced long time. It could not be good. He must put his foot down... Strode dropped to his knees at the edge of the pool and found himself watching a minute fish, striped like a zebra, that darted out from a coral cranny, and hovered like a marine butterfly in the translucent water. A squid trailed by.... But this was preposterous! A prank? How could that be? Stella was down there somewhere—somehow.... A thought leapt to Strode's mind that caused his unruly heart to stand still. What if... Absurb! She would be the first to laugh at his fears afterward ... but what if there were no afterward ... if even now, while he stared down like a fool.... On the instant his mind was aflood with ghastly possibilities. He could not support them.... Three minutes, he would swear! The thing was impossible ... ah!....
A shadow appeared in the pool, deep down, then shot to the surface like a meteor, resolving itself into a sleek head that turned on Strode its staring, terrified eyes. It was the native girl—alone. The fact smote Strode with the force of a physical blow. For a moment he crouched there, stunned into impotence; then without word or look, plunged into the pool.
As a dive it was a poor performance, Felisi decided, and it soon became evident that Bunny could not swim, either. For this reason it took them an unconscionable time to get him out; and it seemed still longer before his eyes opened. But the most amazing thing to Felisi was the attitude of the Lonely Lady. With Bunny's head in her lap, and when it was apparent that he had suffered nothing more than the thorough shaking up that he needed, she turned on Felisi like a tigress.
"Go away, you hateful child!" she stormed.
And Felisi went.
What did it all mean? Paddling home in the canoe, she tried to unravel the mystery. The Lonely Lady had "wondered what he would do...." Very well, she (Felisi), had taken the trouble to show her by the simple expedient of depositing her in safety on the far side of a submarine archway, and returning to note results. Were they not satisfactory? Was there ever any understanding the ways of this strange people?
Felisi of Luana was afraid not. And in the case of Lonely Ladies, she resolved never again to try.