The Mask of the Enchantress (20 page)

The silence persisted into the next morning.

Later that day a strange thing happened. A woman came to the house in great distress. I had had her pointed out to me as one who had given birth to a child who had been conceived at the last Dance of the Masks. Therefore it was a special child.

The boy was ill. Wandalo had said he would die because the Giant was angry. As a last resort the mother had brought the child to the white medicine man.

My father took the child into the house. A room was prepared for him. He was put to bed and his mother was to stay with him.

Soon the news of what had happened spread and the islanders came to gather about the house.

My father was excited. He said the boy was suffering from marsh fever, and if he had come in time he could save him.

We all knew that our fate hung on that child life. If he died they would probably kill ust best drive us from the island.

My father said exultantly to my mother: e responding. I might save him. If I do, Anabel, Il start their plantation. Yes, I will. I know nothing about the business but Il find out.

We were up all that night. I looked from my window and saw the people sitting there. They had flaming torches. Cougaba said that if the boy died they would set fire to our house.

My father had taken a terrible risk in bringing the boy here. But he was a man to take risks. My mother was such another. So was I, I discovered later.

In the morning the fever had abated. All through the next day the boy condition improved and by the end of the day it was clear that his life had been saved.

His mother knelt down and kissed my father feet. He made her get up and take the child away. He gave her some medicine which she gratefully took.

I shall never forget that moment. She came walking out of the house holding the child and there was no need for anyone to ask what the outcome was. It was clear from her face.

People rushed round her. They touched the child wonderingly and they turned to stare in awe at my father.

He raised his hand and spoke to them.

he boy will get well and strong. I may be able to cure others among you. I want you to come to me when you are sick. I may cure you. I may not. It will depend on how ill you are. I want to help you all. I want to drive the fever away. I am going to start up the plantation again. You will have to work hard for I have much to learn.

There was a deep silence. Then they turned to each other and put their noses together, which I think was a form of congratulation. My father went into the house.

nd to think that was all due to five grains of calomel, the same of a compound of colocynth and of powder of scammony and a few drops of quinine,he said.

No child had been conceived on that Night of the Masks. It was a sign, said the islanders. The Giant had considered them unworthy. He had sent them his friend, the white medicine man, and they had failed to give him honor.

The white man had saved the Giant child and, because the Giant was pleased at that and because they had performed the Dance of the Masks, he had asked their friend to start up the plantation again.

The island would prosper as long as it continued to pay homage to the Giant.

My father now dominated the island. He became known as Daddajo and my mother was Mamabel. I was known as Little Missy, or the Little White One. We were accepted.

True to his word, my father set about getting the industry of the island working again and because of his immense energy it did not take long. The islanders were wild with happiness. Daddajo was undoubtedly the emissary of the Grumbling Giant and was going to make them rich.

My father immediately started a nursery for coconuts. He had found books on the subject which had been left behind by Luke Carter and they provided him with certain necessary information. He selected a piece of land and placed on it four hundred ripe nuts. The islanders buzzed round in excitement, telling him what to do, but he was going according to the book and when they saw this they were overcome with respect, for he was doing exactly what Luke Carter had done. The nuts were covered with sand, seaweed and soft mud from the beach, one inch thick.

My father had appointed two men to water them daily. They were on no account to neglect to do this, he said, glancing at the mountain.

o, no, Daddajo,they cried. o no we no forget.

t had better be so.My father was never averse to using the mountain as a threat when he wished to get something done, and it worked admirably now that they were convinced that he was the friend and servant of the Giant.

It was April when the nuts were placed in the square and they must be planted out, said my father, before the September rains came. All watched this operation presided over by my father, chattering together as they did so, nodding their heads and rubbing noses. They were obviously delighted.

The plants were then set in holes two or three feet deep and twenty feet apart and their roots were bedded with soft mud and seaweed. The waterers must continue with their task for two or three years, my father warned, and the new trees must be protected from the glare of a burning sun.

They plaited fronds of palm which they used to shelter the young trees. It would take five or six years before these trees bore fruit, but meanwhile work would progress with those which were already mature and which abounded on the island.

The nursery was a source of delight. It was regarded as an indication that prosperity was coming back to the island. The Grumbling Giant was not displeased with them. Far from sending out his wrath, he had given them Daddajo to take the place of Luke Carter, who had grown old and not caring, so that everyone neglected his or her work and consequently benefits no longer came to the island.

My father applied great enthusiasm to the project. They accepted him now as the doctor, but he needed a further outlet for his tremendous energy and this supplied it. I see now that both he and my mother were restless. Often their thoughts turned to England. They were shut away from the civilized world and only made contact with it when the ship came in every two months. At first they had sought a refuge, somewhere to hide away and be together. They had found it and, having won a certain security, they were remembering what they were missing. It was only human to do so.

So the coconut project offered a great deal to them both. They became absorbed in it. There was a new mood on the island. There were soon goods to be sent back to Sydney. There was an agent who came to see my father and who was to arrange for the selling of the goods which were produced. Cowrie shells were used as currency on the island. My father paid the natives in these. It was amazing how contented the people were now they had something to do. Instead of a couple of women sitting together idly plaiting a basket under a tree as it had been when we came, there were now groups of them seated on platforms open at the sides but protected by a covering of thatch from the sun; these my father had ordered to be constructed; and in them the women would make baskets and fans and ropes and brushes with the external fiber. My father had also turned some of the round huts into a factory for producing coconut oil.

Life had changed since we came. It was now as it had been in the days of Luke Carter when he had been a young and energetic man.

My father set overseers to look after the various activities, and these overseers were the proudest men on the island. It was amusing to see them strut about, and it became the ambition of every man to be an overseer.

In the mornings my father set aside an hour when the sick could be brought to our house to be attended and there was no doubt that the health of the islanders had improved since our coming. The people were aware of this and my father was regarded with respect and awe. My mother, I think, was loved; and I was looked on with affection.

We were welcome on Vulcan Island.

In two years since our coming my father had established himself as lord of the island, and my mother told me later that as time passed they realized that it was hardly likely anyone would arrive on the ship to take him away to stand trial for murder. The coming of the boat was then something to look forward to because it brought books, clothes, special foods, wines and medicines.

It was indeed an exciting day when one awoke to see the big ship lying at anchor off the island. Early in the morning the canoes would go out and come back laden with the goods my father had ordered. How beautiful those canoes lookedight, slim and tapering! Some were about twenty feet long, others as much as sixty. Their prows and sterns were high and beautifully carved and they were the pride of their possessors. Cougabel told me that the prows and sterns protected the occupants of the canoes from arrows their enemies might shoot at them, for in the old days there had been much fighting among them.

I said the canoes looked like crescent moons dotted on the sea when they were a mile or so from land. They shone in the sunshine, for their prows and sterns were often decorated with mother-of-pearl. It astonished me how quickly the narrow pointed paddles carried them through the water.

So it seemed we had settled into the life of Vulcan Island.

I was growing up. The years passed so quickly that I lost count of them. My mother was teaching me and each day she insisted that she give me lessons. She was constantly ordering books from Sydney and I suppose I was becoming as educated as most girls of my age of a certain class who depended on governesses for their education.

Cougabel continued to share my lessons. She was growing up faster than I physically, for the girls of the island were mature at fourteen and many of them had become mothers at that age.

Cougabel loved my clothes and liked to dress up in them. My mother and I wore loose smocks fashion of my mother devising. Ordinary conventional garments would have been impossible in the heat. We had big hats of plaited fiber which my mother softened a great deal by soaking in oil method of her invention. She dyed themainly red from dragon tree juice, which we called dragon blood. But she found other herbs and flowers growing on the island from which she managed to extract dyes. Cougabel wanted smocks and colorful hats such as we wore and she and I would go about together similarly clad. Sometimes, though, she would revert to her native dress and wear nothing but a fringed girdle made of shells and feathers which fell halfway down her thighs, leaving the upper part of her body exposed. Round her neck she would wear strings of shells and ornaments carved out of wood. She looked quite different then and somehow changed her personality. When she sat with me in her smock and did her lessons, I would forget that we were not of the same race. We were then simply two children in a country house.

I guessed, though, that Cougabel did not want me to forget she was an islander and a very special one at that.

Once we wandered to the foot of the mountain and she told me that the Grumbling Giant was her father. I did not see how a mountain could be a father and I laughed this to scorn. She grew angry. She could be passionately angry at times. Her mood changed abruptly and at that moment her great dark eyes flashed with fury.

e is my father,she cried. e is he is I am a child of the Mask.

I was always interested to hear of the Mask and she went on: y mother danced at the Mask Dance and the Giant came to her through some man unknown like he does at the Mask Dance. He shot me into her so that I grew and grew until I was a baby ready to be born.

hat just a story,I said. I had not at that time learned when it was wise to keep one opinions to oneself.

She turned round and flashed out at me: ou don know. You only small one. You white. You make Giant angry.

y father is on very good terms with the Giant,I said somewhat mockingly, for I had heard my parents joke about the Giant.

iant sent Daddajo. He sent you to learn me.

each you,I corrected. I enjoyed correcting Cougabel.

e sent you to learn me,she insisted, her eyes narrowing. hen I am big and there a Mask Dance I shall go out to dance and I shall come back with the Giant baby in me.

I gazed at her in astonishment. Yes, I thought, we are growing up. Cougabel will soon be old enough to have a baby.

I grew thoughtful. Time was passing and we were losing count of it.

I was thirteen years old. I had been six years on the island. During that time my father had built up a flourishing industry and, although many people still died of various fevers, the death toll was considerably reduced.

My father was compiling a book about tropical diseases. He was planning to build a hospital. He was going to put everything he had into the project. All his dreams and hopes were for that hospital.

My mother, I realized, had something on her mind. One afternoon after the intense heat of the day had passed, we sat together under the shade of a palm tree watching the flying fishes skimming over the water.

oue growing up, Suewellyn,she said. ave you thought that you have not been off this island since we came?

either have you or my father.

e have to stay but we have talked a lot about you. We worry about you, Suewellyn.

orry about me?

es, your education and your future.

e are all together. It is what we wanted.

our father and I may not always be here.

hat do you mean?

just drawing attention to a fact of life. It comes to an end, you know. Suewellyn, you ought to go away to school.

chool! But there is no school!

here is in Sydney.

hat! Leave the island?

t could be arranged. You would come back to us for holidays. Christmas and the summer. The boat takes only a week from Sydney. One week there one week back. You have to have some education beyond what I can give you.

t is something that has never occurred to me.

ou have to be prepared in some way for the future.

couldn leave you.

t would only be for a time. When the boat next comes you and I will go to Sydney. Wel look at schools and decide what is to be done.

I was astounded and at first refused to consider the idea, but after a while they both talked to me and that sense of adventure which lay dormant in me was aroused. Mine was a strange upbringing. For six years or so I had lived in Crabtree Cottage where I had been brought up in rigid convention. Then I had been whisked away and brought to a primitive island. I imagined that the outside world would be very strange to me.