Complete Works of Joseph Conrad (Illustrated) (769 page)

CHAPTER I

One day — and that day was many years ago now — I received a long, chatty letter from one of my old chums and fellow-wanderers in Eastern waters.  He was still out there, but settled down, and middle-aged; I imagined him — grown portly in figure and domestic in his habits; in short, overtaken by the fate common to all except to those who, being specially beloved by the gods, get knocked on the head early.  The letter was of the reminiscent “do you remember” kind — a wistful letter of backward glances.  And, amongst other things, “surely you remember old Nelson,” he wrote.

Remember old Nelson!  Certainly.  And to begin with, his name was not Nelson.  The Englishmen in the Archipelago called him Nelson because it was more convenient, I suppose, and he never protested.  It would have been mere pedantry.  The true form of his name was Nielsen.  He had come out East long before the advent of telegraph cables, had served English firms, had married an English girl, had been one of us for years, trading and sailing in all directions through the Eastern Archipelago, across and around, transversely, diagonally, perpendicularly, in semi-circles, and zigzags, and figures of eights, for years and years.

There was no nook or cranny of these tropical waters that the enterprise of old Nelson (or Nielsen) had not penetrated in an eminently pacific way.  His tracks, if plotted out, would have covered the map of the Archipelago like a cobweb — all of it, with the sole exception of the Philippines.  He would never approach that part, from a strange dread of Spaniards, or, to be exact, of the Spanish authorities.  What he imagined they could do to him it is impossible to say.  Perhaps at some time in his life he had read some stories of the Inquisition.

But he was in general afraid of what he called “authorities”; not the English authorities, which he trusted and respected, but the other two of that part of the world.  He was not so horrified at the Dutch as he was at the Spaniards, but he was even more mistrustful of them.  Very mistrustful indeed.  The Dutch, in his view, were capable of “playing any ugly trick on a man” who had the misfortune to displease them.  There were their laws and regulations, but they had no notion of fair play in applying them.  It was really pitiable to see the anxious circumspection of his dealings with some official or other, and remember that this man had been known to stroll up to a village of cannibals in New Guinea in a quiet, fearless manner (and note that he was always fleshy all his life, and, if I may say so, an appetising morsel) on some matter of barter that did not amount perhaps to fifty pounds in the end.

Remember old Nelson!  Rather!  Truly, none of us in my generation had known him in his active days.  He was “retired” in our time.  He had bought, or else leased, part of a small island from the Sultan of a little group called the Seven Isles, not far north from Banka.  It was, I suppose, a legitimate transaction, but I have no doubt that had he been an Englishman the Dutch would have discovered a reason to fire him out without ceremony.  In this connection the real form of his name stood him in good stead.  In the character of an unassuming Dane whose conduct was most correct, they let him be.  With all his money engaged in cultivation he was naturally careful not to give even the shadow of offence, and it was mostly for prudential reasons of that sort that he did not look with a favourable eye on Jasper Allen.  But of that later.  Yes!  One remembered well enough old Nelson’s big, hospitable bungalow erected on a shelving point of land, his portly form, costumed generally in a white shirt and trousers (he had a confirmed habit of taking off his alpaca jacket on the slightest provocation), his round blue eyes, his straggly, sandy-white moustache sticking out all ways like the quills of the fretful porcupine, his propensity to sit down suddenly and fan himself with his hat.  But there’s no use concealing the fact that what one remembered really was his daughter, who at that time came out to live with him — and be a sort of Lady of the Isles.

Freya Nelson (or Nielsen) was the kind of girl one remembers.  The oval of her face was perfect; and within that fascinating frame the most happy disposition of line and feature, with an admirable complexion, gave an impression of health, strength, and what I might call unconscious self-confidence — a most pleasant and, as it were, whimsical determination.  I will not compare her eyes to violets, because the real shade of their colour was peculiar, not so dark and more lustrous.  They were of the wide-open kind, and looked at one frankly in every mood.  I never did see the long, dark eyelashes lowered — I dare say Jasper Allen did, being a privileged person — but I have no doubt that the expression must have been charming in a complex way.  She could — Jasper told me once with a touchingly imbecile exultation — sit on her hair.  I dare say, I dare say.  It was not for me to behold these wonders; I was content to admire the neat and becoming way she used to do it up so as not to conceal the good shape of her head.  And this wealth of hair was so glossy that when the screens of the west verandah were down, making a pleasant twilight there, or in the shade of the grove of fruit-trees near the house, it seemed to give out a golden light of its own.

She dressed generally in a white frock, with a skirt of walking length, showing her neat, laced, brown boots.  If there was any colour about her costume it was just a bit of blue perhaps.  No exertion seemed to distress her.  I have seen her land from the dinghy after a long pull in the sun (she rowed herself about a good deal) with no quickened breath and not a single hair out of its place.  In the morning when she came out on the verandah for the first look westward, Sumatra way, over the sea, she seemed as fresh and sparkling as a dewdrop.  But a dewdrop is evanescent, and there was nothing evanescent about Freya.  I remember her round, solid arms with the fine wrists, and her broad, capable hands with tapering fingers.

I don’t know whether she was actually born at sea, but I do know that up to twelve years of age she sailed about with her parents in various ships.  After old Nelson lost his wife it became a matter of serious concern for him what to do with the girl.  A kind lady in Singapore, touched by his dumb grief and deplorable perplexity, offered to take charge of Freya.  This arrangement lasted some six years, during which old Nelson (or Nielsen) “retired” and established, himself on his island, and then it was settled (the kind lady going away to Europe) that his daughter should join him.

As the first and most important preparation for that event the old fellow ordered from his Singapore agent a Steyn and Ebhart’s “upright grand.”  I was then commanding a little steamer in the island trade, and it fell to my lot to take it out to him, so I know something of Freya’s “upright grand.”  We landed the enormous packing-case with difficulty on a flat piece of rock amongst some bushes, nearly knocking the bottom out of one of my boats in the course of that nautical operation.  Then, all my crew assisting, engineers and firemen included, by the exercise of much anxious ingenuity, and by means of rollers, levers, tackles, and inclined planes of soaped planks, toiling in the sun like ancient Egyptians at the building of a pyramid, we got it as far as the house and up on to the edge of the west verandah — which was the actual drawing-room of the bungalow.  There, the case being ripped off cautiously, the beautiful rosewood monster stood revealed at last.  In reverent excitement we coaxed it against the wall and drew the first free breath of the day.  It was certainly the heaviest movable object on that islet since the creation of the world.  The volume of sound it gave out in that bungalow (which acted as a sounding-board) was really astonishing.  It thundered sweetly right over the sea.  Jasper Allen told me that early of a morning on the deck of the Bonito (his wonderfully fast and pretty brig) he could hear Freya playing her scales quite distinctly.  But the fellow always anchored foolishly close to the point, as I told him more than once.  Of course, these seas are almost uniformly serene, and the Seven Isles is a particularly calm and cloudless spot as a rule.  But still, now and again, an afternoon thunderstorm over Banka, or even one of these vicious thick squalls, from the distant Sumatra coast, would make a sudden sally upon the group, enveloping it for a couple of hours in whirlwinds and bluish-black murk of a particularly sinister aspect.  Then, with the lowered rattan-screens rattling desperately in the wind and the bungalow shaking all over, Freya would sit down to the piano and play fierce Wagner music in the flicker of blinding flashes, with thunderbolts falling all round, enough to make your hair stand on end; and Jasper would remain stock still on the verandah, adoring the back view of her supple, swaying figure, the miraculous sheen of her fair head, the rapid hands on the keys, the white nape of her neck — while the brig, down at the point there, surged at her cables within a hundred yards of nasty, shiny, black rock-heads.  Ugh!

And this, if you please, for no reason but that, when he went on board at night and laid his head on the pillow, he should feel that he was as near as he could conveniently get to his Freya slumbering in the bungalow.  Did you ever!  And, mind, this brig was the home to be — their home — the floating paradise which he was gradually fitting out like a yacht to sail his life blissfully away in with Freya.  Imbecile!  But the fellow was always taking chances.

One day, I remember I watched with Freya on the verandah the brig approaching the point from the northward.  I suppose Jasper made the girl out with his long glass.  What does he do?  Instead of standing on for another mile and a half along the shoals and then tacking for the anchorage in a proper and seamanlike manner, he spies a gap between two disgusting old jagged reefs, puts the helm down suddenly, and shoots the brig through, with all her sails shaking and rattling, so that we could hear the racket on the verandah.  I drew my breath through my teeth, I can tell you, and Freya swore.  Yes!  She clenched her capable fists and stamped with her pretty brown boot and said “Damn!”  Then, looking at me with a little heightened colour — not much — she remarked, “I forgot you were there,” and laughed.  To be sure, to be sure.  When Jasper was in sight she was not likely to remember that anybody else in the world was there.  In my concern at this mad trick I couldn’t help appealing to her sympathetic common sense.

“Isn’t he a fool?” I said with feeling.

“Perfect idiot,” she agreed warmly, looking at me straight with her wide-open, earnest eyes and the dimple of a smile on her cheek.

“And that,” I pointed out to her, “just to save twenty minutes or so in meeting you.”

We heard the anchor go down, and then she became very resolute and threatening.

“Wait a bit.  I’ll teach him.”

She went into her own room and shut the door, leaving me alone on the verandah with my instructions.  Long before the brig’s sails were furled, Jasper came up three steps at a time, forgetting to say how d’ye do, and looking right and left eagerly.

“Where’s Freya?  Wasn’t she here just now?”

When I explained to him that he was to be deprived of Miss Freya’s presence for a whole hour, “just to teach him,” he said I had put her up to it, no doubt, and that he feared he would have yet to shoot me some day.  She and I were getting too thick together.  Then he flung himself into a chair, and tried to talk to me about his trip.  But the funny thing was that the fellow actually suffered.  I could see it.  His voice failed him, and he sat there dumb, looking at the door with the face of a man in pain.  Fact. . . . And the next still funnier thing was that the girl calmly walked out of her room in less than ten minutes.  And then I left.  I mean to say that I went away to seek old Nelson (or Nielsen) on the back verandah, which was his own special nook in the distribution of that house, with the kind purpose of engaging him in conversation lest he should start roaming about and intrude unwittingly where he was not wanted just then.

He knew that the brig had arrived, though he did not know that Jasper was already with his daughter.  I suppose he didn’t think it was possible in the time.  A father naturally wouldn’t.  He suspected that Allen was sweet on his girl; the fowls of the air and the fishes of the sea, most of the traders in the Archipelago, and all sorts and conditions of men in the town of Singapore were aware of it.  But he was not capable of appreciating how far the girl was gone on the fellow.  He had an idea that Freya was too sensible to ever be gone on anybody — I mean to an unmanageable extent.  No; it was not that which made him sit on the back verandah and worry himself in his unassuming manner during Jasper’s visits.  What he worried about were the Dutch “authorities.”  For it is a fact that the Dutch looked askance at the doings of Jasper Allen, owner and master of the brig Bonito.  They considered him much too enterprising in his trading.  I don’t know that he ever did anything illegal; but it seems to me that his immense activity was repulsive to their stolid character and slow-going methods.  Anyway, in old Nelson’s opinion, the captain of the Bonito was a smart sailor, and a nice young man, but not a desirable acquaintance upon the whole.  Somewhat compromising, you understand.  On the other hand, he did not like to tell Jasper in so many words to keep away.  Poor old Nelson himself was a nice fellow.  I believe he would have shrunk from hurting the feelings even of a mop-headed cannibal, unless, perhaps, under very strong provocation.  I mean the feelings, not the bodies.  As against spears, knives, hatchets, clubs, or arrows, old Nelson had proved himself capable of taking his own part.  In every other respect he had a timorous soul.  So he sat on the back verandah with a concerned expression, and whenever the voices of his daughter and Jasper Allen reached him, he would blow out his cheeks and let the air escape with a dismal sound, like a much tried man.

Naturally I derided his fears which he, more or less, confided to me.  He had a certain regard for my judgment, and a certain respect, not for my moral qualities, however, but for the good terms I was supposed to be on with the Dutch “authorities.”  I knew for a fact that his greatest bugbear, the Governor of Banka — a charming, peppery, hearty, retired rear-admiral — had a distinct liking for him.  This consoling assurance which I used always to put forward, made old Nelson (or Nielsen) brighten up for a moment; but in the end he would shake his head doubtfully, as much as to say that this was all very well, but that there were depths in the Dutch official nature which no one but himself had ever fathomed.  Perfectly ridiculous.