Читать книгу The Exiles of Faloo - Barry Pain - Страница 4

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Mr. Bassett had made the commonest mistake of political speakers; he had supposed that the argument which appealed most strongly to himself would appeal most strongly to his audience. He had appealed to fear. Dr. Soames Pryce was not a timid man, and he resented what he regarded as an attempt to scare him.

“I vote against the election of Mr. Smith to this club,” said Dr. Pryce, bluntly.

“After all you have said?” exclaimed Mr. Bassett. “You surprise me very much.”

“One moment, Mr. Bassett,” said the President. “I must declare then that Mr. John Smith is not elected.”

Mr. Bassett paused with the pen in his hand. “Am I to write ‘not elected,’ gentlemen? We have all admitted that Smith is a good, hospitable fellow, and we have business dealings with him. We might let him down as easily as possible. May I write ‘postponed for further consideration’? It commits us to nothing, and it’s not quite so harsh.”

“I see no objection to that,” said Sir John. “What do you think, doctor?”

“No objection,” said Dr. Soames Pryce with a yawn.

“Then,” said Sir John, as he rose, “I think that concludes our business.”

The head-gardener and his two assistants made an incautious appearance, and were at once commanded to carry the club-books within to the secretary’s room. Mr. Bassett said he supposed he ought to go and see how poor Cyril Mast was getting on after last night.

Dr. Soames Pryce watched Bassett’s little figure under the big hat retreating down the avenue.

“Nice specimen of Pusillanimus Ambulans, or the Walking Toadstool,” said Dr. Pryce. “What’s next, Sweetling? I don’t mind backing my green lizard against the clock.”

“Silly game, very silly,” said Sir John. “Still, I may as well lose four half-crowns at that as anything else. And”—he glanced at his elaborate presentation watch—“there’s still half an hour before lunch.”

The course for lizard-racing had been designed and laid out by Dr. Pryce in the courtyard on the further side of the club. The course was circular, and the boards on either side sloped inwards so that the lizards should not climb them. A lizard attempting escape would go straight ahead by the only path open to it, round and round the circle. That was the rule, but there were various exceptions.

Dr. Pryce produced the box of plaited grass in which his lizard was kept, and turned it out on to the course. It made an ineffectual attempt to climb the side, and then went straight away, looking rather like a clever clockwork toy.

“Lay you ten shillings it doesn’t go round in thirty-six seconds,” said Sir John.

“Thirty-four’s record. Not good enough. I’ll back him to do two rounds in seventy-five for the same money.”

“Done. Start the watch.”

Both men put down their money and kept one eye on the stop-watch and one on the starting-point. The lizard was round in 35.5 and going strongly. A few feet further on it paused as if it were saying to itself, “Let’s see—where did I put my umbrella?” Then it turned right round and went back, presumably, to fetch it.

“Damn,” said Dr. Pryce, and put the lizard tenderly back in its box again.

Sir John laughed and slipped the two half-sovereigns into his waistcoat pocket. “Want another?” he asked.

“No thanks,” said the doctor. “My beast’s got into one of his absent-minded moods. He’s like that sometimes. He might beat the record, or he might go to sleep in the first patch of sunshine.”

The club was beginning to fill up now. In the reading-room two or three members turned over the out-of-date papers—but there is really no date in Faloo. Little groups on the lawn in front of the house sipped cocktails. Lord Charles Baringstoke went from group to group with his usual plaintive, “Anybody goin’ to stand me anythin’?” Thomas was fixing the carte du jour in the frame over the dining-room mantelpiece; the fireplace was filled with pot-roses in bloom, had never known a fire, and did not possess a chimney. Two other English waiters and many native servants bustled to and fro.

Sir John and Dr. Pryce took their Manhattans on the verandah. “Do you know,” said Sir John, “I almost thought you were going to elect King Smith this morning.”

“So did I,” said the doctor. “Believe we ought to have done it too. He’s better than that worm Charley Baringstoke, or a boozer like Cyril Mast, or a mean badger like Bassett. Better than most of us, in fact. It was Bassett put me off it.”

“So I noticed,” said Sir John.

“Interesting man too,” said Dr. Pryce. “Has he really got these ideas—the ambitious poppycock that you talked about?”

“If he had, would you let him make a start with them?” asked Sir John, enigmatically.

“I would not,” said the doctor.

“I think you’re the man I want. We’ll talk about it at luncheon. Our curry should be ready by now.”

The meal was called luncheon, but for all classes on the island luncheon was the principal meal of the day; in fact, no regular club-dinner was served in the evening. Most of the members were gathered in the dining-room now, but a small table had been reserved for the President and Dr. Soames Pryce. At the next table Mr. Mandelbaum, a round-faced German of great girth, was entertaining Lord Charles Baringstoke, who under alcoholic influence was being betrayed into confidences. “You see,” he whined loudly, “it wasn’t so much that I went a mucker, because of course all my people went muckers; it was the particular kind of mucker that I went.” The German passed a fat hand over his salient moustache and addressed him as “my poor frent.”

Sir John and the doctor conducted their conversation in more discreet tones.

“Do you think,” said Sir John, “that the King really meant to be elected to-day? Did he sound you?”

“He’s not on those terms,” said Pryce.

“He could have made a certainty of it if he had not let Cyril Mast get drunk last night and had sent him up to the scratch this morning. He could have done that. It would have been Mast and Bassett against you, and my casting vote would not have come in.”

“Perhaps he took things too easily. But why should he get himself put up?”

“Well, I’ll tell you my views. It was a move to blind you and others—to make you think that he hankered for nothing but the joys of European civilisation and the society of white men. His genial manner and his free hospitality are a blind of the same nature. The man’s native through and through, soul and body. He is playing the game for his own natives, with himself at the head of them—as he is indeed to-day—but in a position of much greater power and dignity.”

“I don’t say it isn’t so,” said Pryce. “But what do you build on?”

“Several things. I’ve known Smith a long time, and I’ve only once known him miss a trade opportunity. He won’t sell liquor to his own natives. He won’t let them get it. The stills and liquor-stores are taboo. He’s after money, but he won’t do that. You’ve noticed it yourself. About two months ago I was going along by the beach one night, and I turned into Smith’s place for a drink. He was alone in his office, sitting at a table, with his back to me, and working on some papers. “Hullo, Cyril,” he said, without looking round. Evidently he was expecting Mast. There was a tin trunk open on the floor, and it was packed with blue-books and pamphlets—things of that kind. I went up to him and touched him on the shoulder. I don’t think he was so pleased to see me as he said he was. King Smith was studying the native depopulation statistics in the different groups, and making notes on them. King Smith had got old dailies and weekly reviews—radical rags—with passages marked in blue chalk, spread before him. I tried to see more, but he was very quick—shovelled them all together, threw them into the tin trunk, and kicked the lid down. He said that he had been reading some dull stuff, and then out came the whisky, of course.”

“I wonder now if he’d have any chance. I think he might.”

“Given that he had the money, and that he could get into touch with English publicists—journalists or politicians of a certain kind—I think he’d have a very good chance at first. Of course all traces of his liquor business would be traded off or sunk in the Pacific by then. The Little-Englanders and sentimental radicals would back him to a man. It would be shown that he had governed well, kept the natives sober, and was fighting for admitted independence to keep them from the dangerous influences of white civilisation.”

“Well,” said Pryce, “they are undoubtedly dangerous—for natives.”

“There are depopulation statistics to prove it. The fact that he handed us all over to what they are pleased to call justice would count in his favour. His patriotic attitude would appeal. The fact that the island is too small to matter, and that no expense was involved, would help. If he caught the country in the right temper, with nothing of real importance to distract its attention, the Chronicle and News would scream ‘Faloo for its own people!’ for a while. In the end it would be protection—French or British—but that doesn’t matter a straw to us. We should be done. Look here, doctor, I’ve made one mistake in my life and I can’t afford to make another. Whether Smith’s ideas are exactly what I say or not, he is trying to do things which will attract attention. We can’t let him start.”

“That is so,” said Pryce. “And how do we stop him? Money comes first, I suppose?”

“Certainly. I’ve already been into that point. Smith must never be much richer than he is now; if he goes on with this money-lending, he must be rather poorer. Of course, Bassett can see nothing but twenty per cent. instead of ten, and some of the other members are like him, but I think we can do without a dividend for a year or two if necessary. There’s no need to show our hand. We can’t adopt deliberately a thwarting policy. But I have an idea that when Smith begins to be too prosperous he will lose a schooner with a valuable cargo. A store or two may be burned down. Some new line of business, which has been suggested by his English friends, is likely to be a financial loss. The second point is that he must not get into touch with the people who can help him—publicists. It would not be healthy for us to have much written about Faloo in the London papers. Well, he can’t get away himself—his trade and the natives tie him by the leg. There’s no telephone or telegraph here—thank Heaven!—and our mail arrives and leaves irregularly in one of his own schooners, which has to go hundreds of miles with it. I fancy that if you chose to go a cruise in that schooner something might happen to any letters it carried which were not to the general interest. You could manage that?”

“Pleasure—at any time.”

“I may ask you to do it.”

“Look here, Sweetling, that’s all right, of course. But I fancy you’re looking so far ahead that you’re missing the next step. The row with the natives about their women is the next step. And although there’s no need to get into blue funk about it, like Bassett, it may very easily be the last step too.”

“I know,” said Sir John. “I’m going to speak to some of the men about it. I wish you’d tackle Cyril Mast.”

“Well,” said Dr. Pryce, “it’s rather difficult. You see, I’m not exactly qualified for—er—er—stained-glass treatment myself, and Mast knows it. For that matter, I could tell you a true story about the amiable Bassett. However, I’ll advise discretion—if they’d only remember that all the native women don’t come into the same category it would be all right. By the way, you were rather down on Cyril Mast.”

“The man’s a human sink.”

“There are times when that describes him. There are also times when he’d shock Naples and make Port Said blush. There is no act of madness which he might not possibly commit. But he has his moments. I’ll try to find him in a lucid interval. Good Lord! I wonder why King Smith doesn’t give the natives their head and wipe the island clean of the whole lot of us.”

“Excellent prudential reasons. Smith banks—has been compelled to bank by those who financed him. His cheques require the signatures of two Englishmen as well as his own. It is awkward at times to have a bank so far away, but I thought it advisable that the money should not be kept here.”

“That’s all right,” said the doctor, rising from the table. “I’ve got a native with pneumonia down on the beach. I’ll go and look at him.”

“Half a moment,” said Sir John. “Last time a schooner came in, two piano-cases were brought ashore. I’ve looked round, and the only piano in the island is in Smith’s big concrete house, where he never lives, and that piano was there ages before. Pianos? Guns, my boy. Smith’s keeping the natives in check for all he’s worth. It’s his best policy. But if it does come to an outbreak, you’ll find the natives armed and Smith leading them. You can tell Mast that. If Smith gets into a position where he finds his hand forced, and it’s a question of the white man or the native, he’ll throw over his trade and his ambitions, wipe out the white men, and chance it. Now, haven’t I seen the next step? Pryce, I watch everything. I can’t afford to make another mistake.”

“An almighty row—a big fight—and then wiped out, as you say,” said Pryce, meditatively. “One might do worse.”

“Possibly. All the same, I’m going to spend this afternoon in frightening the life out of Parker and Simmons and Mandelbaum and Lord Charles Baringstoke. I leave it to you to make Cyril Mast ashamed of himself.”

“He’s always that,” said Pryce, as he turned away.

Mr. Bassett had said that he was going to see Cyril Mast; therefore it was quite certain that he was going elsewhere. He had taken luncheon with King Smith, had eaten baked fishes with the eternal cokernut cream sauce and a conserve of guavas which was one of the King’s trade-items. He had drunk with great moderation of an excellent hock and iced water.

Three sides of a square on the beach were occupied by the King’s stores and office, with some living-rooms attached. The styles of building were various. There was concrete, dazzlingly white in the sun. There was timber. There was corrugated iron. There were shanties built in the native fashion—poles planted close together for the walls, and a leaf thatch for the roof. The King had a fine concrete house with an excellent garden in the interior, but he rarely visited it.

Luncheon had been served by native boys in one of the living-rooms. The King now smoked a Havannah and sipped coffee which he himself had grown. There was surprisingly little that was native in his appearance. He wore a white flannel shirt, white duck trousers, and white canvas shoes, all of spotless cleanliness. His tint was very light. He had none of the native’s love for personal decoration with flowers and necklaces. His eyes were not like a native’s. They had not that sleeping gentleness, and were the eyes of a master among men. No native would have worn those shoes. The natives went barefoot as a rule, torturing themselves with squeaking boots on state occasions or as a concession to the French missionaries. But the King had all the native’s inborn grace of movement, and he wore his hair rather longer than a European’s. He looked at Bassett with that slightly cynical air of a man who has gauged another man completely, will use him to the utmost, and will not trust him quite as far as he could throw him. Bassett had removed his big hat, and his indecent baldness shone with perspiration; it gave something of the appearance of the vulture to a head which otherwise suggested the ape.

“All I can say is that I did my best,” said Bassett, plaintively. “It nearly came off. Dr. Soames Pryce had seemed all in your favour, and then just when it came to the voting, he went right round.”

“Ah!” said Smith. His voice was pleasing and his pronunciation was perfect. “And was that just after you had spoken?”

“It was,” said Bassett, “and that’s what makes it so surprising.” The King smiled. “We ought to have had Mast there. I said so.”

“Well, well, my friend,” said King Smith, “you did your best and who can do more? Perhaps, when Sir John and the doctor have got to trust me a little more, I may be elected. If they do not think I am yet fit for the high honour of membership, I must wait. It is bad to force oneself. I can wait very well. There was a time when every inch of this island belonged to my forefathers; but I must remember that I own comparatively little myself. I am a king by direct descent; but I must not forget that I am a poor trader far more than I am a king. I owe much to the white man. It is his money that has helped me to develop the resources of my island. It is to the white man that I owe my education. Many are kind enough to come in sometimes for a little chat with me. Further intimacy is to be a matter of consideration—after all it is not unnatural.”

“You seem to take it smiling,” said Bassett.

“My friend, you were, I think, what you call a solicitor. That means a great education. I often look at you with envy when I think of the vast number of things that you must know and I do not, and of the things that would be easy for you to arrange and are so difficult for me. But if I might venture to give one little piece of advice, it is this—always take a defeat smiling and a triumph seriously. Ah, you must take that as a joke. I cannot tell you anything you do not know.”

“It’s true enough that to be a solicitor one must pass very severe tests,” said Bassett. “And every day of practice in a good firm means a lesson in knowledge of the world.” He was quite unused to flattery, and was ready to take a good deal of it.

“My friend,” said the King, “you do not drink my cognac, and it is too good to miss. Alone I would not have got it. It comes to me by favour of the padre.”

Bassett, who knew his physiological limitations, hesitated, filled his glass and sipped. He expressed an opinion that the French missionaries knew how to take care of themselves.

“Yes,” Bassett continued. “As a solicitor I met with all kinds of men. I can generally make an estimate. I have my doubts about Dr. Soames Pryce. I have raced lizards against him; doctors know drugs and can use them.”

The suggestion was too preposterous, and the King’s laughter was both hearty and natural. “But I think not. It is unlikely,” he said. “The doctor is not in any want of money, and he does not risk his position here with all of you for a little piece of ten shillings. I do not know much, and so I have to guess a good deal. I should guess that it was no question of money that sent Dr. Soames Pryce to Faloo.”

King Smith watched his guest with a critical eye. It was not generally advisable to speak of the past in Faloo. Lord Charles Baringstoke was quite shameless, and the Rev. Cyril Mast was occasionally maudlin, and these two had chattered about themselves, but members of the Exiles’ Club were mostly discreet and reserved as to their personal histories.

“Wasn’t it money?” said Bassett, peevishly. “No. Perhaps not. Perhaps it was something worse—something which could not be misunderstood.”

“Then these money troubles in your country—the sort of troubles that have decided some of you to leave it—may possibly be only due to misunderstanding.”

“That and other things. You see, you don’t know about these matters.”

“No,” said the King, regretfully, “I do not know that great world in which you moved.”

“Well, see here,” said Bassett a little excitedly. “Suppose there is a sum of money—a hundred pounds or a thousand, any sum you like. You know as a business man that if you were asked for that sum one day you might be unable to find it—though you would be able to get it if you were given time.”

“Yes, I see that.”

“I had money belonging to clients—ladies of course. They were very impatient, and consulted another solicitor, a jealous rival. The money was being employed by me in a way that would ultimately, if I had been left alone, have benefited those clients. It was not immediately available, and delicate financial operations do not admit of clumsy interference. The result was disastrous. I—I gave up and came here.”

“It is wonderful that you knew of this little island.”

“I had heard of it—two men that I knew had already gone out.”

“Your clients—they were not all ladies?” said the King, as he refilled Bassett’s glass “I suppose traders like myself consulted you—clergymen too, perhaps.”

“There are no traders like you in England,” said Bassett. “But men of the highest business standing consulted me. Lechworthy now—I’ve lunched with him often. A Cabinet Minister was one of my clients. I tell you, I’d some of the very top. I daresay you never heard of the great libel action against the Daily Message—well, I acted for the Message.”

King Smith had listened very attentively. “That must make a difference,” he said.

“How?”

“Men like that would be superior to a vulgar misunderstanding. They would see, as I do, that it was a mistake—that you had acted for the best—that your probity was not in question. It must be pleasant for you here when the mail comes in—friendly letters from Mr. Lechworthy, who manufactures the leather goods—letters still showing his gratitude from the editor of the Daily Message, or perhaps—”

“You don’t know anything, my boy,” said Bassett. He was slightly flushed, his voice was raised, and his manner was more familiar. “The editor of the Daily Message indeed! That case cost his proprietor close on fifty thousand. You make me laugh. No, when a man in England goes under, nobody goes down to look for him. Lechworthy, with all his piety, was as hot as anyone against me. The only letters I get are from my old mother, and they’re no use.”

It was not then through Mr. Bassett’s personal connections that King Smith would be able to get into touch with the right people for the scheme which he had in view. Cyril Mast and Lord Charles had also boasted an influential acquaintance, and in their case, too, the thread had been snapped. The King was not disappointed. He had found out what he wished to know, and he had no further use at the moment for Mr. Bassett.

The King rose. “I must go back to my work,” he said. “Stay here and drink if you like.”

But Bassett also rose. “I have drunk enough,” he said as he peered at his face in a scrap of mirror on the wall. He wondered vaguely if he had been talking too much. He tried to think of something complimentary to say. “I—I respect the way you work,” was his effort; and then certain fears recurred to his mind. “I say, is it all right about the native women?”

“No,” said the King, “it is not all right. But there will be no serious trouble yet, unless further cause is given. I have been busy about it this morning.”

“Awfully good of you,” said Bassett. “You’re a sort of protection to the white men here. I say, you ought to have been elected, you know.”

“Remember that there may come a time when I cannot protect. The natives here are not much spoiled. This is not Papeete.”

“That’s what I’m always saying to our chaps.”

“Say it also to yourself, my friend. I had a man here this morning who wished to kill you. No, he will not do it. Now I must go.”

It was a very sobered Bassett that skulked back along the beach to the club-house. He jumped perceptibly when a land-crab rattled an old meat-tin on the stones. At the club it seemed to him that most of the men were sulky and bad-tempered. Some slept on the verandah. The German and Lord Charles Baringstoke bent over an interminable game of chess. Lord Charles looked up as Bassett passed.

“I say, Mr. damned Bassett,” said Lord Charles, “why didn’t you elect Smith?”

“Oh, go to the devil!” said Bassett, irritably, and went on to his own room. He was angry with himself, and a man in that case is always angry with the rest of the world.

King Smith went on with his work, assiduously as a London clerk under the eye of the senior partner. It was near sunset when he came out on to the beach.

Down by the water’s edge stood the Rev. Cyril Mast. He was quite a young man, and his face was that of a dissipated boy. At present he was looking out through glasses that he could not hold quite steady.

“You look at nothing,” laughed Smith.

“See for yourself,” said Mast, in a musical, resonant voice. “Your schooner will be in before you expected her.”

King Smith took the glasses and levelled them at the little speck on the horizon.

“It is a schooner, but not mine,” he said. “A chance trader perhaps. Mine can’t be here for three days. That one can’t get here to-night. To-morrow morning we shall see. And how do you feel to-night, Cyril?”

“As I deserve to feel, I suppose. I am bad company to-night. You are the first person to whom I have spoken to-day, and I have neither eaten nor drunk.”

“Poor devil, come up and have a drink now.”

“No, thanks. I’m going for a swim.”

“Don’t recommend it,” said the King.

“The sharks are welcome,” said Mast.

The sun set. Light streamed out from native-built houses. In all directions one heard the sound of singing. It mingled with the lap and fret of wavelets on the shore. Mast swam out and back again in safety. As he walked along the beach a native girl called to him. She stood in the light of one of the houses, a flower of scarlet hibiscus behind her ear; her white teeth shone as she smiled.

One by one the lights of the houses went out. The sky became gemmed with many stars. Faloo was asleep. The King had put aside for a while his problem—how to get in touch with an Englishman who could help him.

In the schooner that he had sighted there was such a man, though the King did not know it—a man of great wealth, a newspaper proprietor, a keen politician—Mr. Lechworthy, who manufactured the leather goods. The circumstances that brought Mr. Lechworthy to Faloo must now be recorded.