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John Frewen, South Sea Whaler, a novel by Louis Becke |
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Book 2 - Chapter 15 |
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_ BOOK II CHAPTER XV Under a shady wild orange-tree which grew just above high-water mark on the white beach of Samatau Bay, Marie Raymond and Mrs. Marston were seated together on a cane lounge imagining they were sewing, but in reality only talking on subjects dear to every woman's heart. Quite near them, and seated on mats, were the old nurse Malu, who held Mrs. Marston's baby-girl, and Raymond's own little daughter Loise, who was playing with a young native girl--Olivee--grey-haired old Main's assistant. It was early in the morning--an hour after breakfast--and the two ladies had come down to the beach to watch Raymond and his partners and some hundreds of natives working at a jetty being constructed from slabs of coral stone, and which was to be carried out into deep water. The day was delightfully bright, and the soft cool breath of the brave south-east trade wind, which rippled the blue of the ocean before them, stirred and swayed and made rhythmic music among the plumed crests of the graceful coco-palms above. And, as they talked, they heard, every now and then, Raymond's cheery voice giving orders, and the workmen's response, which was generally sung, some one among them improvising a chant--for the Samoans, like many other Polynesian peoples, love to work to the accompaniment of song. "Marie," said Mrs. Marston, as she let the piece of sewing which she held in her hand fall unheeded to the ground and looked dreamily out upon the blue ocean before them, "you must be a happy woman." "I am a very, very happy woman, Amy. And I shall be happier still if you decide to remain and live near us. Oh, Amy, if you only knew how I try not to think of the possibility of your going away from us--to think that when you do go, it means that I may never see you again." "I do not want to go away, Marie. I have told you the story of my life, and how very unhappy I was in my girlhood--an orphan without a friend in the world except my aunt, who resented my orphanage, and treated me as 'a thorn in the flesh,' but I did not tell you that until I met you I never had a girl or woman friend in all my life. And now I feel that as I have found one, I cannot sever myself from her, now that my husband is dead and I and the babe are alone in the world." Marie Raymond passed her arms around her friend's waist. "Amy, dear, _do_ stay in Samoa. I, too, have no woman friend except some of my mother's people--who would give their lives for me. But I am not a white woman. My mother's blood--of which I _am_ proud--is in my veins, and when I was at school in Australia, it used to cut me to the heart to have to submit to insults from girls who took a delight in torturing and harassing me because of it. One day I lost control of myself; I heard them whispering something about 'the wild girl from the woods,' and I told them that my mother could trace her descent back for five hundred years in an unbroken line, whilst I was quite certain none of them would like to say who their grandfathers were. My words told, for there were really five or six girls in the school who had the convict taint. I was called before the principal, and asked to apologise. I refused, and said that I had only said openly and under the greatest provocation what more than a dozen other girls had told me!" "How did it end?" "In mutual apologies, and peace was restored. But I was never happy there--I loathe the memory of my school days, and was glad to come back to Samoa." "Neither were my English school days happy, but I even liked being at school in preference to staying with my aunt. I hated the thought of going to her for the holidays. She was a narrow-minded, selfish woman--a clergyman's widow, and seemed to take a delight in mortifying me by continually reminding me that all the money left by my father was L500, which would just pay for my education and no more. 'When you are eighteen,' she would say, 'you must not expect a home with me. Other girls go out as companions; you must do the same. Therefore try and fit yourself for the position.' Everything I did was wrong--according to her, I was rebellious, irreligious, too fond of dress, and lazy physically and mentally. The fact was, I was simply a half-starved, dowdy school-girl---often hungry for food and always hungry for love. If I had had a dog to talk to I should have been happier. My mother died when I was three years old, and my father two years later. Then, as I told you, I went out as governess to the Warrens when I was nineteen, and felt that I was a human being, for they were kind to me. Colonel Warren, a rough, outspoken old soldier with a red face and fierce-looking blue eyes under enormous white bushy eyebrows, was very kind to me, and so was his wife. I was not treated as so many governesses are treated in English families--as something between a scullery-maid and a housekeeper, for whom anything is good enough to eat, and any horrid, mean little room good enough to sleep in. When she came to say good-night to the children after hearing them say their prayers she would always ask me to come to her own room for an hour or two. I was very happy there. I was only a little over a year with them when I met and married Captain Marston." "Some day, Amy, you will marry again," "I don't know, Marie," said Mrs. Marston frankly. "I was thinking the other day that such a thing may be possible. I have no knowledge of the world, and am not competent to manage my business affairs. But there will be plenty of years to think of such a thing. I want to watch my baby grow up--I want her girlhood to be as bright and as full of love as mine was dull and loveless." Presently a native boy came along the path carrying two letters. He advanced, and handed one to Mrs. Marston, whose cheeks first paled, and then flushed with anger as she took it, for she recognised the handwriting. "There is another letter for thy husband, lady," he said to Mrs. Raymond, "which also cometh from the _papalagi_{*} Villari." * Papalagi = foreigner. Mrs. Raymond directed him where to find her husband, and then was about to return to the house, but her friend, who had not yet opened the letter in her hand, asked her to stay. "Don't go, Marie. I shall not open this letter. It is too bad of Mr. Villari to again write to me. Shall I send it back, or take no notice of it?" "I hardly know what to say, Amy. He is very rude to annoy you in this way. Wait and hear what Tom thinks." A quarter of an hour later, the planter came up from the beach, and sat down beside the ladies. "I have a letter from Villari, Marie," he said, "and have brought it up to see what you and Mrs. Marston think of it." "Amy has also received one, Tom, but would not open it nor send it back till she had your advice. I think it is altogether wrong of him to persecute her in this way." "Oh, well, you'll be glad to know that he is sorry for what has occurred. Here is his letter to me, Mrs. Marston--please read it." The letter was a courteously worded and apparently sincere expression of regret for having forced his attentions upon Mrs. Marston, and asking Raymond and his wife to intercede for him with her. "It will give me the greatest joy if she will overlook my conduct, and accept my sincere apologies, if she does not, I shall carry the remembrance of her just anger to the end of my life. But when I think of her past friendliness to me, I am excited with the hope that her ever-kind heart will perhaps make her forget my unwarrantable presumption, which I look back upon with a feeling of wonder at my being guilty of such temerity." Then he went on to say that Raymond would be interested to learn that he had bought a small schooner of 100 tons called the _Lupetea_, on easy terms of payment, and that he hoped to make a great deal of money by running her in the inter-island trade. "I was only enabled to do this through Mrs. Marston's generosity," he concluded--"the L500 she gave me enabled me to make a good 'deal.' I leave Apia to-morrow for a cruise round Upolu, and as I find that I have some cargo for you, I trust that you, your wife, and Mrs. Marston will at least let me set foot on your threshold once more." "Well, the poor devil seems very sorry for having offended you so much by his persistence, Mrs. Marston," said the planter with a laugh, "and he writes such a pretty letter that I'm sure you won't withhold your forgiveness." "I don't think I can. But I must see what he has written to me," and she opened the letter. It contained but a very few lines in the same tenour as that to Raymond, deploring his folly and begging her forgiveness. "I'm very glad, Tom, that Amy sent him the L500, and that he had the sense not to again refuse it. It would always be embarrassing to you, Amy, whenever you met him." "It would indeed. But I doubt if he would have accepted it if it had not been for Mr. Raymond's strongly worded letter on the subject," (The planter had sent the money to him in Apia with a note saying that whatever her feelings were towards him, Mrs. Marston would be additionally aggrieved if he refused to accept a bequest from her late husband; it would, he said, have the result of making the lady feel that his rejection of the gift was uncalled-for and discourteous.) "So that's all right," said Raymond, as he rose to return to the beach. "I always liked the man, as you have often heard me say. And you really must not be too angry with him, Mrs. Marston. These Italians--like all Latins--are a fearfully idiotic people in some things--especially where women are concerned. Now almost any decent Anglo-Saxon would have taken his gruelling quietly if a woman told him three times that she didn't want him. Frohmann thinks that that crack on the head has touched his brain a bit; and at the same time, you must remember, Mrs. Marston, that whether you like it or not, you won't be able to prevent men from falling in love with you--look at me, for instance!" Marie Raymond threw a reel of cotton at him-- "Be off to your work!" _ |
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