Orphan Island (3 page)

I have now to record the sad fact that, far from redeeming the doctor from excessive fruit and palm juice, Miss Smith little by little abandoned her
principle of abstinence and took to these pleasant and fermented liquors herself, until, alas, she was too frequently to be found in a state of cheerful irresponsibility and garrulity very far from the discretion of her spinster days. I cannot account for this: it may have been the climate, or the influence of her husband, or merely the gradual abandonment of hope of return to the world. Whatever the cause, the result was an increased sympathy between the so-called husband and wife, for, as the doctor remarked, “
Ad connectendas amicitias, tenacissimum vinculum est morum similitudo
. Which means, my dear, that I like you better tipsy.”

Meanwhile, the orphans grew up together, under the guidance and tutelage of these three adults, and there were added to them the ten children born to Dr. O'Malley and Miss Smith, who had the Victorian knack of progenitiveness. Some of them were twins.

In 1870, Dr. O'Malley was devoured, while out swimming, by a shark. This tragic event followed on a very violent quarrel which he had had with Miss Smith, he having been found instructing some of his children in popish rites and doctrines while in liquor.

“In vino veritas
,” he replied to her rebukes. “And, while we're about it, here's some more truth for you, me dear.” He proceeded, in a very disagreeable manner, to call her a wanton, revealing to her for the first time that she was his mistress and not his wife, and, in fact, Miss Smith still. Jean, who was present at the scene, and to whom Miss Smith turned for support under the outrage, merely observed that she had “kenned it all the while,” but had thought it better to say nothing,
in order that Miss Smith might at least believe herself to be respectably married. “For I kenned weel,” said Jean, “that ye'd do it whether or no, and if ye had done it knowing the truth, ye would have been committing a sin. So I held my whist, as
he
should have done to the end. Men I”

That same day, the doctor terminated his career in the sad and violent manner recorded above. Miss Smith, in her newly revealed relationship to him, scarcely liked to mourn him or play the widow. She regarded his removal as a dispensation of Providence, and decided that the respectable course now was to forget him as soon as might be.

And so the little island nation developed along its own lines, isolated and remote, year after year, decade after decade, century after century (for, as we know, the twentieth century followed the nineteenth). A strange community indeed! All those inter-marrying orphans of many races—what have their descendants become? And what the descendants of the doctor and Miss Smith? What strange strands of mid-Victorian piety and prudery are woven with the primitive instincts of such a race, remote from any contacts with the wider world? What are their religions, what their outlook, what their speech, what culture or learning have they won? Is Miss Smith long since dead, or does she perhaps still reign, nearly a century old, the actual ancestress of many inhabitants, the spiritual head of all? What has Miss Charlotte Smith, the English clergyman's daughter, now
become? What of her pieties and her pruderies is left after nearly seventy years of island life? What traces, ancestral or influential, of the Irish doctor, are to be found among the island people? Are they still a Victorian people, or have they suffered, even as we, the phases of the passing years? Or have they perhaps reverted to mere savagery?

MR. THINKWELL was a lecturer in sociology in the University of Cambridge, and a very amiable, learned, and gentleman-like man, who lived in Grange Road. In the year 1923 he was fifty-three years of age, a widower with three grown children, Charles, William, and Rosamond. Of these, Charles, who was twenty-five, clever and conceited, had, since the war, been living in London and experimenting in literature. William (twenty-two) had, for the last three years, been at Trinity College, Cambridge, reading for the Natural Sciences Tripos, in which he had, being a youth of some scientific talent, acquitted himself with credit. Rosamond (nineteen) had, since leaving school, lived at home with her father, being neither eager in the pursuit of further learning nor apt at the practice of any profession.

It happened one morning early in the Long Vacation that Mr. Thinkwell received by post a packet from his aged aunts in Sydney. He had never seen his aunts, for his father, the son of a rough and not very virtuous but wealthy sea captain long settled in Australia, had come to England as a young man, to practise at the English bar, and had married and brought up his children there.
The sea captain, Mr. Thinkwell's grandfather, had died in the eighteen-seventies. As we shall see, though he had behaved ill enough, in fact too ill, he had been conscience-stricken at the last.

The letter which Mr. Thinkwell took out of the bulky envelope was written in the slender, flowing, sloping hand often used by old ladies, and more surely still by such old ladies as are rather genteel than actually gentle, for, though Mr. Thinkwell's father had been a highly educated man, the family whom he had left in Australia had remained the family of a well-off merchant captain who had started as a common sailor. Mr. Thinkwell's aunts were well considered in Sydney, but did not consort with the local aristocracy, such as it was.

“Dear Nephew”
—(ran the letter)—“
Your Aunt Martha and myself have recently moved house, in the course of which we had a great clean up and a grand rummage among your Grandfather's old things, turning up a great number of curious old sea Treasures, and among them we came on the Enclosed, which your Aunt Martha and I well remember your Grandfather giving to your Grandmother and ourselves in his last illness, in 1875, and bidding us make it public after his death, but of course your Grandmother thought nothing more about it, nor did we, but put it away with the rest of his things as a Memento, along with his telescope, sharks' teeth, etc., etc. But your Aunt and I remember his saying before he died that it was sadly on his conscience that he and some fellow sailors had long ago deserted a Party on some remote Island, making off with the boats and leaving them to fend for themselves, and that, though he had not liked to make the tale public while he lived, for fear he should be ill thought of for the part he (being
then a mate though only a third) and his companions had played, he desired us to make amends after his death by giving the Information contained in these Papers (which he had prepared some years ago in a previous attack of illness which he recovered from, however, so put Papers away) to some one who would organise an expedition to this Island and discover whether any of the unfortunate Party still survived. I recollect my Mother promising to do this, to soothe him, but of course we never thought of it again, and the papers have lain in the old sea-chest all this time, until we came on them in clearing up. It scarcely seems worth while to trouble about such old tales, and the Party are surely by now all deceased, even if they survived at all, but we thought you might like to see the Papers, so am enclosing them. Do not trouble to return
.

“I suppose you are not thinking of ever paying a visit to Australia. Should be very pleased to see you if ever you came across. Hoping that yourself and family are all well, I remain

“Your affecate aunt
,

“Sarah Thinkwell
.”

Having perused this letter, and feeling mildly interested in its contents, Mr. Thinkwell proceeded to extract from the envelope the other documents it contained, which were very yellow and ancient, and consisted of a roughly-drawn ocean chart, marked with latitude and longitude, and dotted with islands, one of which was marked with a cross, and a sheet of paper written over in a vile and common scrawl which Mr. Thinkwell recognised from some old letters of his father's, as that of
his grandfather, Captain William Thinkwell. The inscription was brief. It ran: “
Pacific Ocean (Oceania), lat. about 23, long. 115, fertile coral island, uninhabited by Natives, consisting of two parts, joined by issmus and surrounded by lagoon. On it were cast up, from S. S. “Providence,” wrecked by Act of God, May, 1855, on the passage to San Francisco, a Party. Viz.: Miss Smith, Dr. O'Malley, a nurse Jean, and a great number of Orfen Children, about 40. Might be there yet, as Island seemed well provided, but more likely dead. Obliged by circs, and no blame to any one, to leave them there, and have not yet been able to send Rescue Party, but hope this may be done after my decease, as should not care to go to next World without mentioning this, and can't say when my time will come, having fits as I do
.

“
(Signed) William Thinkwell
.

“November, 10th 1867
.”

“Island should be known by its shape, viz., two parts joined by neck, wooded hills, coral reef round lagoon.”

“H'm,” said Mr. Thinkwell, “a bland ruffian indeed.” He thoughtfully laid down the papers, removed his glasses, and took a drink of the coffee which Rosamond had just passed him. “This is really a little interesting.”

“Yes,” said Rosamond, who was an absent girl, and often appeared to be thinking about something other than what was being mentioned.

“What
is interesting, Rosamond?” Mr. Thinkwell somewhat sharply asked her, for this inattentive habit in his child annoyed him, both because it is tiresome in a companion and because it vexed
him to see in Rosamond a vague and wandering mind. Sometimes he was afraid that Rosamond had taken in some ways after her poor mother, an excellent creature, but with an inadequate power of response to himself. But he knew that these two were in reality very different, for the thoughts of the wife and mother had been engrossed mainly by practical matters, whereas those of the daughter appeared to stray in some less useful direction, except, indeed, when they were, as was frequently the case, upon things to eat.

Rosamond, recalled to the moment by her father's question, replied readily but inaptly, assuming that her father had been reading the morning newspaper, that she supposed it was the state of Europe which was, as usual, a little interesting. Possibly Central Europe. … This she hazarded with the air of a child making a good guess.

“Not to you, my dear Rosamond,” Mr. Thinkwell replied, “as I believe you don't yet know the difference between Yugo-Slavia and Czecho-Slovakia.”

“She never will,” put in Charles, entering the room at this moment. “She doesn't know the difference between any two things, unless they're to eat. She can't distinguish between women and men, nor between the Georgian poets. She mixes up the Sitwells and John Drinkwater and calls them both Drinkwell, to rhyme with us. The poor child's mind is, so far, entirely undiscriminating. What's that chart you have, father? It looks like islands.”

“It
is
islands,” Mr. Thinkwell replied, and at the word islands Rosamond's small round face turned pink, and her mouth, sticky with honey, fell open. It was untrue that her mind was entirely
undiscriminating, for, in point of fact, she could distinguish between every Pacific island shown on maps, having, from an early age, made them her special study. It is probable that there was no island literature written, of any period, which she had not perused. Some young female minds are like this—inert, slovenly and dreamy, but with one great romance. As some young women perhaps meditate in idle hours, “When I shall be a great writer, actress, or doctor”; “when I shall play hockey for England”; or “when I shall love and be loved, marry a man, have a house, have children” … so others dream, “When I shall explore the world, find new islands, see coral reefs. …” It is a dream which does not well equip them for life, for it is sadly apt to go under without fulfilment, and leave them for ever in what the psycho-analysts call a state of frustration. Then they have to endeavour to sublimate their longing by literature, love, games, or some such inadequate substitute for adventure.

Anyhow Rosamond, all agape, slice of bread and honey in hand, stared round-eyed at the dirty yellow paper by her father's plate, seeing that it was indeed a chart of some part of the ocean, and as full of islands as a pudding of currants.

“What scale?” she inquired, with her mouth full, her chief desire being to know how near the islands were together. For her part, she thought that the ideal islands lay in groups of three or four, within canoeing or even swimming distance of one another, so that now and then one could have a change. And on each island different trees and flowers, different creatures, different colours. … Oh, Rosamond could discriminate, when discrimination was worth while. Not between the
sexes, the Drinkwells, or the Central European states, but between any things that mattered.

Charles had reached out for the chart, and was studying it.

“The scale appears to be five hundred miles to the inch. Some of these islands seem fairly close together, some a great many miles apart. The one to which our attention seems specially called is at least two hundred miles from the next. Who drew this map, father, and why is one island singled out for our notice with a cross and some letters. … What are they … O, R, F, E, N, S. …”

“Orphans,” said Mr. Thinkwell. “That, apparently, was the way your great-grandfather used to spell it. Your great-grandfather wished to convey to posterity—strictly to posterity only—that on that island he and some fellow rascals deserted a lady, a doctor, a nurse, and a number of orphan children, in the year 1855. He wrote this document, which tells the tale, in 1867, when he seems to have thought it possible, though improbable, that some of the party might yet survive.”

He passed to Charles his Aunt Sarah's letter, together with his grandfather's statement. Rosamond read them over Charles's shoulder, and William, coming down very late to breakfast, a square-shouldered, rough-headed youth, with near, peering sight, and a sweet, wide grin, began on his porridge.