________________________________________________
_ Tiare, when I told her this story, praised my prudence, and
for a few minutes we worked in silence, for we were shelling
peas. Then her eyes, always alert for the affairs of her
kitchen, fell on some action of the Chinese cook which aroused
her violent disapproval. She turned on him with a torrent of abuse.
The Chink was not backward to defend himself, and a
very lively quarrel ensued. They spoke in the native language,
of which I had learnt but half a dozen words, and it sounded
as though the world would shortly come to an end;
but presently peace was restored and Tiare gave the cook a
cigarette. They both smoked comfortably.
"Do you know, it was I who found him his wife?" said Tiare
suddenly, with a smile that spread all over her immense face.
"The cook?"
"No, Strickland."
"But he had one already."
"That is what he said, but I told him she was in England,
and England is at the other end of the world."
"True," I replied.
"He would come to Papeete every two or three months, when he
wanted paints or tobacco or money, and then he would wander
about like a lost dog. I was sorry for him. I had a girl
here then called Ata to do the rooms; she was some sort of a
relation of mine, and her father and mother were dead, so I
had her to live with me. Strickland used to come here now and
then to have a square meal or to play chess with one of the boys.
I noticed that she looked at him when he came, and I
asked her if she liked him. She said she liked him well enough.
You know what these girls are; they're always pleased
to go with a white man."
"Was she a native?" I asked.
"Yes; she hadn't a drop of white blood in her. Well, after
I'd talked to her I sent for Strickland, and I said to him:
`Strickland, it's time for you to settle down. A man of your
age shouldn't go playing about with the girls down at the front.
They're bad lots, and you'll come to no good with them.
You've got no money, and you can never keep a job for
more than a month or two. No one will employ you now.
You say you can always live in the bush with one or other of
the natives, and they're glad to have you because you're a
white man, but it's not decent for a white man. Now, listen
to me, Strickland.'"
Tiare mingled French with English in her conversation, for she
used both languages with equal facility. She spoke them with
a singing accent which was not unpleasing. You felt that a
bird would speak in these tones if it could speak English.
"'Now, what do you say to marrying Ata? She's a good girl and
she's only seventeen. She's never been promiscuous like some
of these girls -- a captain or a first mate, yes, but she's
never been touched by a native. Elle se respecte, vois-tu.
The purser of the Oahu told me last journey that he hadn't
met a nicer girl in the islands. It's time she settled
down too, and besides, the captains and the first mates like a
change now and then. I don't keep my girls too long. She has
a bit of property down by Taravao, just before you come to the
peninsula, and with copra at the price it is now you could
live quite comfortably. There's a house, and you'd have all
the time you wanted for your painting. What do you say to it?"
Tiare paused to take breath.
"It was then he told me of his wife in England. 'My poor
Strickland,' I said to him, 'they've all got a wife somewhere;
that is generally why they come to the islands. Ata is a
sensible girl, and she doesn't expect any ceremony before the
Mayor. She's a Protestant, and you know they don't look upon
these things like the Catholics.'
"Then he said: `But what does Ata say to it?' `It appears
that she has a beguin for you,' I said. `She's willing if
you are. Shall I call her?' He chuckled in a funny, dry way
he had, and I called her. She knew what I was talking about,
the hussy, and I saw her out of the corner of my eyes
listening with all her ears, while she pretended to iron a
blouse that she had been washing for me. She came. She was
laughing, but I could see that she was a little shy,
and Strickland looked at her without speaking."
"Was she pretty?" I asked.
"Not bad. But you must have seen pictures of her. He painted
her over and over again, sometimes with a pareo on and
sometimes with nothing at all. Yes, she was pretty enough.
And she knew how to cook. I taught her myself. I saw
Strickland was thinking of it, so I said to him: 'I've given
her good wages and she's saved them, and the captains and the
first mates she's known have given her a little something now
and then. She's saved several hundred francs.'
"He pulled his great red beard and smiled.
"`Well, Ata,' he said, 'do you fancy me for a husband.'
"She did not say anything, but just giggled.
"`But I tell you, my poor Strickland, the girl has a
beguin for you,' I said.
"I shall beat you,' he said, looking at her.
"`How else should I know you loved me,' she answered."
Tiare broke off her narrative and addressed herself to me
reflectively.
"My first husband, Captain Johnson, used to thrash me
regularly. He was a man. He was handsome, six foot three,
and when he was drunk there was no holding him. I would be
black and blue all over for days at a time. Oh, I cried when
he died. I thought I should never get over it. But it wasn't
till I married George Rainey that I knew what I'd lost.
You can never tell what a man is like till you live with him.
I've never been so deceived in a man as I was in George
Rainey. He was a fine, upstanding fellow too. He was nearly
as tall as Captain Johnson, and he looked strong enough. But
it was all on the surface. He never drank. He never raised
his hand to me. He might have been a missionary. I made love
with the officers of every ship that touched the island, and
George Rainey never saw anything. At last I was disgusted
with him, and I got a divorce. What was the good of a husband
like that? It's a terrible thing the way some men treat women."
I condoled with Tiare, and remarked feelingly that men were
deceivers ever, then asked her to go on with her story of Strickland.
"`Well,' I said to him, `there's no hurry about it. Take your
time and think it over. Ata has a very nice room in the
annexe. Live with her for a month, and see how you like her.
You can have your meals here. And at the end of a month, if
you decide you want to marry her, you can just go and settle
down on her property.'
"Well, he agreed to that. Ata continued to do the housework,
and I gave him his meals as I said I would. I taught Ata to
make one or two dishes I knew he was fond of. He did not
paint much. He wandered about the hills and bathed in the stream.
And he sat about the front looking at the lagoon, and
at sunset he would go down and look at Murea. He used to go
fishing on the reef. He loved to moon about the harbour
talking to the natives. He was a nice, quiet fellow.
And every evening after dinner he would go down to the annexe
with Ata. I saw he was longing to get away to the bush,
and at the end of the month I asked him what he intended to do.
He said if Ata was willing to go, he was willing to go with her.
So I gave them a wedding dinner. I cooked it with my own hands.
I gave them a pea soup and lobster a la portugaise, and a
curry, and a cocoa-nut salad -- you've never had one of my
cocoa-nut salads, have you? I must make you one before you go
-- and then I made them an ice. We had all the champagne we
could drink and liqueurs to follow. Oh, I'd made up my mind
to do things well. And afterwards we danced in the drawing-room.
I was not so fat, then, and I always loved dancing."
The drawing-room at the Hotel de la Fleur was a small room,
with a cottage piano, and a suite of mahogany furniture,
covered in stamped velvet, neatly arranged around the walls.
On round tables were photograph albums, and on the walls
enlarged photographs of Tiare and her first husband, Captain
Johnson. Still, though Tiare was old and fat, on occasion we
rolled back the Brussels carpet, brought in the maids and one
or two friends of Tiare's, and danced, though now to the
wheezy music of a gramaphone. On the verandah the air was
scented with the heavy perfume of the tiare, and overhead the
Southern Cross shone in a cloudless sky.
Tiare smiled indulgently as she remembered the gaiety of a
time long passed.
"We kept it up till three, and when we went to bed I don't
think anyone was very sober. I had told them they could have
my trap to take them as far as the road went, because after
that they had a long walk. Ata's property was right away in a
fold of the mountain. They started at dawn, and the boy I
sent with them didn't come back till next day.
"Yes, that's how Strickland was married." _
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