65 Short Stories (21 page)

From that time his degeneration was rapid. The white people gave him the cold shoulder. They were only prevented from cutting him completely by disdainful pity and by a certain dread of his angry violence when he was drunk. He became extremely susceptible and was always on the lookout for affront.

He lived entirely among the natives and half-castes, but he had no longer the prestige of the white man. They felt his loathing for them and they resented his attitude of superiority. He was one of themselves now and they did not see why he should put on airs. Brevald, who had been ingratiating and obsequious, now treated him with contempt. Ethel had made a bad bargain. There were disgraceful scenes and once or twice the two men came to blows. When there was a quarrel Ethel took the part of her family. They found he was better drunk than sober, for when he was drunk he would lie on the bed or on the floor, sleeping heavily.

Then he became aware that something was being hidden from him.

When he got back to the bungalow for the wretched, half-native supper which was his evening meal, often Ethel was not in. If he asked where she was Brevald told him she had gone to spend the evening with one or other of her friends. Once he followed her to the house Brevald had mentioned and found she was not there. On her return he asked her where she had been and she told him her father had make a mistake; she had been to so-and-so’s. But he knew that she was lying. She was in her best clothes; her eyes were shining, and she looked lovely.

‘Don’t try any monkey tricks on me, my girl,’ he said, ‘or I’ll break every bone in your body.’

‘You drunken beast,’ she said, scornfully.

He fancied that Mrs Brevald and the old grandmother looked at him maliciously and he ascribed Brevald’s good humour with him, so unusual those days, to his satisfaction at having something up his sleeve against his son-in-law. And then, his suspicions aroused, he imagined that the white men gave him curious glances. When he came into the lounge of the hotel the sudden silence which fell upon the company convinced him that he had been the subject of the conversation. Something was going on and everyone knew it but himself. He was seized with furious jealousy. He believed that Ethel was carrying on with one of the white men, and he looked at one after the other with scrutinizing eyes; but there was nothing to give him even a hint. He was helpless. Because he could find no one on whom definitely to fix his suspicions, he went about like a raving maniac, looking for someone on whom to vent his wrath. Chance caused him in the end to hit upon the man who of all others least deserved to suffer from his violence. One afternoon, when he was sitting in the hotel by himself, moodily, Chaplin came in and sat down beside him. Perhaps Chaplin was the only man on the island who had any sympathy for him. They ordered drinks and chatted a few minutes about the races that were shortly to be run. Then Chaplin said:

‘I guess we shall all have to fork out money for new dresses.’

Lawson sniggered. Since Mrs Chaplin held the purse-strings, if she wanted a new frock for the occasion she would certainly not ask her husband for the money.

‘How is your missus?’ asked Chaplin, desiring to be friendly.

‘What the hell’s that got to do with you?’ said Lawson, knitting his dark brows.

‘I was only asking a civil question.’

‘Well, keep your civil questions to yourself.’

Chaplin was not a patient man; his long residence in the tropics, the whisky bottle, and his domestic affairs had given him a temper hardly more under control than Lawson’s.

‘Look here, my boy, when you’re in my hotel you behave like a gentleman or you’ll find yourself in the street before you can say knife.’

Lawson’s lowering face grew dark and red.

let me just tell you once for all and you can pass it on to the others,’ he said, panting with rage. ‘If any of you fellows come messing round with my wife he’d better look out.’

‘Who do you think wants to mess around with your wife?’

‘I’m not such a fool as you think. I can see a stone wall in front of me as well as most men, and I warn you straight, that’s all. I’m not going to put up with any hanky-panky, not on your life.’

‘Look here, you’d better clear out of here, and come back when you’re sober.’

‘I shall clear out when I choose and not a minute before,’ said Lawson.

It was an unfortunate boast, for Chaplin in the course of his experience as a hotel-keeper had acquired a peculiar skill in dealing with gentlemen whose room he preferred to their company, and the words were hardly out of Lawson’s mouth before he found himself caught by the collar and arm and hustled not without force into the street. He stumbled down the steps into the blinding glare of the sun.

It was in consequence of this that he had his first violent scene with Ethel. Smarting with humiliation and unwilling to go back to the hotel, he went home that afternoon earlier than usual. He found Ethel dressing to go out. As a rule she lay about in a Mother Hubbard, barefoot, with a flower in her dark hair; but now, in white silk stockings and high-heeled shoes, she was doing up a pink muslin dress which was the newest she had.

‘You’re making yourself very smart,’ he said. ‘Where are you going?’

‘I’m going to the Crossleys.’

‘I’ll come with you.’

‘Why?’ she asked coolly.

‘I don’t want you to gad about by yourself all the time.’

‘You’re not asked.’

‘I don’t care a damn about that. You’re not going without me.’

‘You’d better lie down till I’m ready.’

She thought he was drunk and if he once settled himself on the bed would quickly drop off to sleep. He sat down on a chair and began to smoke a cigarette. She watched him with increasing irritation. When she was ready he got up. It happened by an unusual chance that there was no one in the bungalow. Brevald was working on the plantation and his wife had gone into Apia. Ethel faced him.

‘I’m not going with you. You’re drunk.’

‘That’s a lie. You’re not going without me.’

She shrugged her shoulders and tried to pass him, but he caught her by the arm and held her.

let me go, you devil,’ she said, breaking into Samoan.

‘Why do you want to go without me? Haven’t I told you I’m not going to put up with any monkey tricks?’

She clenched her fist and hit him in the face. He lost all control of himself All his love, all his hatred, welled up in him and he was beside himself ‘I’ll teach you,’ he shouted. ‘I’ll teach you.’

He seized a riding-whip which happened to be under his hand, and struck her with it. She screamed, and the scream maddened him so that he went on striking her, again and again. Her shrieks rang through the bungalow and he cursed her as he hit. Then he flung her on the bed. She lay there sobbing with pain and terror. He threw the whip away from him and rushed out of the room. Ethel heard him go and she stopped crying. She looked round cautiously, then she raised herself She was sore, but she had not been badly hurt, and she looked at her dress to see if it was damaged. The native women are not unused to blows. What he had done did not outrage her. When she looked at herself in the glass and arranged her hair, her eyes were shining. There was a strange look in them. Perhaps then she was nearer loving him than she had ever been before.

But Lawson, driven forth blindly, stumbled through the plantation and suddenly exhausted, weak as a child, flung himself on the ground at the foot of a tree. He was miserable and ashamed. He thought of Ethel, and in the yielding tenderness of his love all his bones seemed to grow soft within him. He thought of the past, and of his hopes, and he was aghast at what he had done. He wanted her more than ever. He wanted to take her in his arms. He must go to her at once. He got up. He was so weak that he staggered as he walked. He went into the house and she was sitting in their cramped bedroom in front of her looking-glass.

‘Oh, Ethel, forgive me. I’m so awfully ashamed of myself I didn’t know what I was doing.’

He fell on his knees before her and timidly stroked the skirt of her dress.

‘I can’t bear to think of what I did. It’s awful. I think I was mad. There’s no one in the world I love as I love you. I’d do anything to save you from pain and I’ve hurt you. I can never forgive myself, but for God’s sake say you forgive me.’

He heard her shrieks still. It was unendurable. She looked at him silently. He tried to take her hands and the tears streamed from his eyes. In his humiliation he hid his face in her lap and his frail body shook with sobs. An expression of utter contempt came over her face. She had the native woman’s disdain of a man who abased himself before a woman. A weak creature! And for a moment she had been on the point of thinking there was something in him. He grovelled at her feet like a cur. She gave him a little scornful kick.

‘Get out,’ she said. ‘I hate you.’

He tried to hold her, but she pushed him aside. She stood up. She began to take off her dress. She kicked off her shoes and slid the stockings off her feet, then she slipped on her old Mother Hubbard.

‘Where are you going?’

‘What’s that got to do with you? I’m going down to the pool.’

let me come too,’ he said.

He asked as though he were a child.

‘Can’t you even leave me that?’

He hid his face in his hands, crying miserably, while she, her eyes hard and cold, stepped past him and went out.

From that time she entirely despised him; and though, herded together in the small bungalow, Lawson and Ethel with her two children, Brevald, his wife and her mother, and the vague relations and hangers-on who were always in and about, they had to live cheek by jowl, Lawson, ceasing to be of any account, was hardly noticed. He left in the morning after breakfast, and came back only to have supper. He gave up the struggle, and when for want of money he could not go to the English Club he spent the evening playing hearts with old Brevald and the natives. Except when he was drunk he was cowed and listless. Ethel treated him like a dog. She submitted at times to his fits of wild passion, and she was frightened by the gusts of hatred with which they were followed; but when, afterwards, he was cringing and lachrymose she had such a contempt for him that she could have spat in his face. Sometimes he was violent, but now she was prepared for him, and when he hit her she kicked and scratched and bit. They had horrible battles in which he had not always the best of it. Very soon it was known all over Apia that they got on badly. There was little sympathy for Lawson, and at the hotel the general surprise was that old Brevald did not kick him out of the place.

‘Brevald’s a pretty ugly customer,’ said one of the men. ‘I shouldn’t be surprised if he put a bullet into Lawson’s carcass one of these days.’

Ethel still went in the evenings to bathe in the silent pool. It seemed to have an attraction for her that was not quite human, just that attraction you might imagine that a mermaid who had won a soul would have for the cool salt waves of the sea; and sometimes Lawson went also. I do not know what urged him to go, for Ethel was obviously irritated by his presence; perhaps it was because in that spot he hoped to regain the clean rapture which had filled his heart when first he saw her; perhaps only, with the madness of those who love them that love them not, from the feeling that his obstinacy could force love. One day he strolled down there with a feeling that was rare with him now He felt suddenly at peace with the world. The evening was drawing in and the dusk seemed to cling to the leaves of the coconut trees like a little thin cloud. A faint breeze stirred them noiselessly. A crescent moon hung just over their tops. He made his way to the bank. He saw Ethel in the water floating on her back. Her hair streamed out all round her, and she was holding in her hand a large hibiscus. He stopped a moment to admire her; she was like Ophelia.

‘Hullo, Ethel,’ he cried joyfully.

She made a sudden movement and dropped the red flower. It floated idly away. She swam a stroke or two till she knew there was ground within her depth and then stood up.

‘Go away,’ she said. ‘Go away.’

He laughed.

‘Don’t be selfish. There’s plenty of room for both of us.’

‘Why can’t you leave me alone? I want to be by myself.’

‘Hang it all, I want to bathe,’ he answered, good-humouredly.

‘Go down to the bridge. I don’t want you here.’

‘I’m sorry for that,’ he said, smiling still.

He was not in the least angry, and he hardly noticed that she was in a passion. He began to take off his coat.

‘Go away,’ she shrieked. ‘I won’t have you here. Can’t you even leave me this? Go away.’

‘Don’t be silly, darling.’

She bent down and picked up a sharp stone and flung it quickly at him. He had no time to duck. It hit him on the temple. With a cry he put his hand to his head and when he took it away it was wet with blood. Ethel stood still, panting with rage. He turned very pale, and without a word, taking up his coat, went away. Ethel let herself fall back into the water and the stream carried her slowly down to the ford.