Читать книгу The Dark River - James Norman Hall - Страница 7

Table of Contents

A faint light showed in the window at the east end of the room in Fara’s house. Fowls were cackling as they prepared to flutter down from the trees, and a numerous colony of maina birds that roosted in a mango tree near the house filled the air with their early morning clamor. Hardie opened his eyes drowsily, then closed them again, in the pleasant state between sleeping and waking which he enjoyed more than sleep itself. A quarter of an hour later he rose, feeling a little stiff from his walk of the day before, threw a towel over his shoulder, and went out barefoot, across the lawn to the bath house. McLeod awoke as he was dressing, and it was broad daylight when they sat down to their coffee on the front verandah.

“I had the devil of a time getting back,” McLeod remarked.

“I was surprised to see you,” said Hardie. “I thought you’d stop at Vaihiva for a day or two.”

“I took my time, returning. It was dark before I knew it and I got tangled up in a lot of coral shoals.”

“Did you find what’s-her-name—Mauri?”

“Yes.”

“Was she glad to see you?”

“I don’t know. I thought so, at first. In fact, I’m sure she was. Then—well, she seemed to cool off. I’d a feeling, at the end, that she was wishing me away as hard as she could.”

“That’s odd. Anyway, she showed you about?”

“In a reluctant sort of way. I had to ask to see my people’s graves. And there, Alan, she burst out crying, with such genuine sorrow that I was touched by it. A few minutes later she said good-bye to me, very hastily, and left me standing by that little pier on the riverbank. I was more than surprised. There was nothing to do, then, but come back. I’m certain she was glad to see the last of me.”

“Nonsense, Mac. We don’t know these people, that’s all. They’re very emotional, so I’ve always heard. You probably upset her, coming so unexpectedly after all these years.”

“One thing I’m convinced of: she was very fond of my mother. By the way, Mauri has a daughter.”

“What’s she like?”

“I didn’t meet her, but I saw her photograph—a kid of sixteen or seventeen. A real little beauty she must be, if she’s anything like as pretty as the photograph. Mauri was vague about her, but I gathered that she lives with her mother. Her name’s Naia.”

“Are there other children?”

“She didn’t speak of any. Oh yes ... I met Mauri’s father on my way back. He was coming down the lagoon in a canoe, and we halted to pass the time of day.”

“How did you manage to pass it? Does he speak English?”

“Not a word, but we got along with two or three words of French and the rest gestures. He seemed to be greatly interested when I told him my name, and tried to tell me a lot of things I couldn’t understand. He kept on saying ‘Makla,’ which I took to be native for McLeod. I believe he remembered me as a child. Apparently he was urging me to go back, but I couldn’t do that very well, after the dismissal I’d had from Mauri. A fine old chap, with a face full of dignity and character. What time did you get back?”

“In the middle of the afternoon. It’s a glorious walk; I don’t know when I’ve enjoyed myself more. And mountain streams every mile or so. I stopped to bathe in half of them. All the way I didn’t meet a soul.”

McLeod smiled. “I know how that would please you. I believe you’d like Tahiti better if it were a complete solitude.”

“No I shouldn’t, but I do like to find solitude at hand when I want it. I’ve decided to stay on here for a while.”

“How long a while?”

“I don’t know, but Tautira’s just what I hoped it would be. This is Tahiti, Mac—what’s left of it.”

“It’s just a village, like a good many others we passed through. A dull little place, if you ask me. I prefer Papeete.”

“But you don’t want to go back!”

“I believe I will, Alan. You don’t mind, do you? As a matter of fact, it gave me a sort of melancholy feeling, that visit to Vaihiva, and it seems to be staying with me, even here.”

“I can understand that, but it’ll pass. I want your company.”

“You’ll have to come with me, then.”

“Back to Papeete? Damned if I will! You won’t see me there again till steamer day, but you needn’t tell Tyson. See here, Mac: if you’re bound to go, send out the rest of my things, will you?”

“All right. I may come out again, later. Wonder what time the bus starts from here?”

“You needn’t worry about that. They’ve probably just started cranking the engine. We can ask Fara to send one of his grandchildren down to tell them you’re going.”

When McLeod had said good-bye to Fara’s household, Hardie went with him to the Chinaman’s store, where the driver was preparing his mail coach for the return journey. There were not many passengers from Tautira and most of the cargo was filled with fish and fruit.

“Alan, don’t forget your dark glasses,” McLeod said.

Hardie smiled. “I won’t, Grandma; and my flannel chest protector and the wristlets.”

“That’s all right, but you wear ’em,” McLeod replied grimly. “It’s damned important.”

“I know. Cheerio, Mac. I’ll see you on steamer day, if not before.”

Hardie was lonely for a day or two, after McLeod’s departure, but he soon found his time passing so pleasantly that he scarcely thought of his friend. Tautira was very different from the cosmopolitan half-civilization of Papeete. It was a purely native community, little influenced by whites or Chinese, almost self-contained in an economic sense, and connected with the rest of the island only by the arrival of the bus. Each morning at dawn the villagers scattered to their self-appointed tasks for the day. Some went inland to cultivate their gardens of yams and taro, to make copra, or to feed their swine. Others set out in canoes to fish along the reefs. By midmorning the day’s supplies of food began to come in, each family sharing with others any delicacy that had been secured and receiving other gifts in return. All of these people were landholders and there was an air of peace and prosperity about the settlement that appealed greatly to Hardie. Their world was this one small village, on a crumb of land in the middle of the Pacific, and he realized, much more keenly than the natives themselves, how fortunate they were to be so far removed from the turmoil of great continents. He liked, particularly, the two or three hours in the middle of the day when all the village had the appearance of being sunk fathoms down in silence and sleep. Not even the children would be astir then, but he would see them stretched out in pools of deep shade beneath the mango trees, and old men and women sitting motionless on the shady sides of their little houses, lost in a kind of waking trance. Not being accustomed to the siesta, Hardie would walk abroad at this time, feeling that he had strayed into some enchanted world and would wake up, presently, to find himself still in England. And the enchantment was no less active at night, when the older men carried on endless conversations, seated on the floors of their verandahs with a lamp beside them while the women sewed or ironed near by. The lights of the fishermen would be strung out along the distant reefs, and from some lonely spot along the beach would come bursts of music and laughter, where the taurearea—the young men and unmarried girls—would be dancing by torchlight. To his surprise, Hardie felt a keen desire to join these gatherings, but the language barrier seemed to him an insuperable one, and he was shy about intruding himself where he felt that he might not be welcome.

One morning, shortly after McLeod’s departure, he set out for an all-day excursion, by sailing canoe, along the cliffs of the Pari, the loneliest part of all that lonely coast. There was a fresh easterly breeze at sunrise, and the small tufted clouds along the horizon gave promise of a fine day. During his boyhood in Devon, Hardie had spent a good deal of time on the water, and had acquired a love of boats and a taste for sailing which he had had few opportunities to indulge since he left school. He had studied the native sailing canoes with interest, realizing that they were among the fastest small craft in the world.

Fara’s canoe lay at anchor in shallow water near the beach. It was about twenty-five feet long, with a beam of less than twenty inches, so narrow that it would have capsized at a breath save for the long outrigger made fast to a pair of light booms on the port side. He hoisted the sail and steered out through the passage onto the open Pacific beyond the reefs, making a long board to sea, close-hauled on the starboard tack. The breeze held fresh and steady from the quarter of the rising sun, and a light chop broke the surface of the easterly swell. The canoe made little leeway and footed it at the speed of a power boat. Hardie turned to glance back from time to time at the panorama of sea and sky, with the majestic outlines of Tahiti-nui far astern, sweeping up from the blue plain of the sea. At last he saw that he could fetch his destination and came about to bear away on the other tack.

Toward midmorning he found himself close in with the reef, abreast of the islet he had seen some days before on the journey with McLeod. It marked the end of the lagoon; from this point onward to the south and west the sea reared high over sunken banks offshore and broke at the foot of thickly wooded cliffs—the region known as the Pari. The islet, not more than ten acres in extent, rose from the shallows on the inner side of the reef. Its beach of coral sand, against which the waters of the lagoon rippled gently, made a white foreground for the green wall of bush. A wide passage led in through the reefs and beyond it he could see the valley of Vaihiva, hemmed in by its green precipices.

The islet had the air of a little paradise. Hardie wondered if it had an owner, and envied him, whoever he was. What a place for small boys to play at Robinson Crusoe, or shipwrecked mariners! The Pari could wait. Many a time, in his daydreams, he had seen just such a small green South Sea island, with himself as sole tenant. He slacked away and steered into the passage. Ten minutes later his anchor was dropped into clear knee-deep water and he waded ashore.

The place proved even more enchanting than when viewed from the sea. Save for the coconut palms whose fronds glinted in the sunlight high above the other trees, the vegetation was very different from that of the mainland. There was little undergrowth, and the trees, many of them of great size, were of kinds he had not seen before. The beach was bordered by a creeping vine which made a floor of rich green, like a lawn, and small plants of many varieties that loved the shade were scattered over the sandy loam farther inland. Here and there he saw shrubs with broad, pale green leaves and long sprays of blossom, waxen-white, and with a fragrance that seemed to be that of wind and sea and the spume of the surf. There was no sound but the soughing of the wind in the trees and the subdued thunder of the breakers, flashing in the sunlight as they gathered themselves to race forward, flinging back manes of spray. Strolling around the eastern end of the islet, under the spell of beauty and loneliness, he came to a halt.

A small canoe, which contained a bamboo pole and other fishing gear, lay on the beach above high-water mark, and a few yards distant a girl lay asleep on the sand. Her head was pillowed on a green frond, and a beam of sunlight, filtering down through the gently swaying foliage, seemed to caress her hair, rippling over it with lights of gold and bronze. She lay in the trustful attitude of a child, one bare arm outstretched and the other resting lightly on her breast. A string of colored reef fish was suspended from a branch near by, and beneath them, like a careless sentinel, a snow-white heron stood on one leg, asleep, its head buried among the feathers of its back.

The little scene was so unexpected and so charming that, for a moment, Hardie stood gazing in wonder, scarcely daring to breathe. Some light sound or movement awakened the bird, who extended his long neck and looked at him with a bright incurious eye. Recollecting himself, Hardie was about to retrace his steps, softly and reluctantly, when the girl stirred and opened her eyes. She looked at him for a moment as though not realizing that he was there; then got to her feet with swift, easy grace. Her brown eyes were still misty with sleep, and there was a half-surprised, half-startled expression in them as she stood facing the intruder.

“I’m sorry,” he said, with some embarrassment. “I’d no idea there was anyone here.”

She threw back her short curly hair and brushed the sand from her frock and her bare legs, glancing at the sun as she did so.

“What a time to be asleep,” she said, with a faint smile—“in the middle of the morning! I was up very early, fishing.”

She pronounced the English words with a slight accent very pleasing to Hardie’s ear.

“I see that you were,” he replied. “You’ve had good luck. I didn’t mean to disturb you. I came down the lagoon from Tautira. This little island looked so pretty that I couldn’t resist coming ashore.”

“Were you coming to our house?”

“I meant to go along the cliffs of the Pari. Do you live on the point there, at the entrance to the valley?”

She nodded.

“Then you must be Naia?”

She nodded again. “And you’re George McLeod, aren’t you?”

“No; but I’m his friend. My name is Alan Hardie. I came down here with George a few days ago, but I didn’t meet your mother. I walked back to Tautira along the beach.”

“My mother told me he came. I didn’t see him. Why did he go so soon?”

“I don’t know, exactly. I suppose he wanted to reach Tautira before dark.”

“My mother said he wouldn’t come again. Is that true?”

“Well, yes—that is, I think so. He returned to Papeete several days ago.”

“Doesn’t he like this part of the island?”

“Not as well as Papeete.”

“That is strange. Which do you like better?”

“This, a thousand times better! I’m staying on at Tautira.”

The heron approached the girl with mincing, deliberate steps and Naia caressed his head absently.

“I saw your bird the other day when I came down with George,” Hardie remarked. “The moment he spied us he took to his wings. He seems a bit more friendly, with you here.”

“I’ve had him ever since he came out of the egg.”

“Are they hard to tame?”

“This one wasn’t. He follows me everywhere. I’ve a pet frigate bird, too, and a pair of itatae.”

“What are they?”

“The itatae? You call them ghost terns, in English.”

“Oh, the white ones?”

“Yes. Look—those are mine, but they won’t come down while you are here.”

“I don’t see them.”

“You don’t! There.”

“Oh, yes. I believe I do, now. They’re hard to make out against the sky.”

“You think so? But they’re lovely against it, aren’t they? Or the blue sea.”

“Is that why you choose snow-white pets?”

“Partly. But my frigate bird is black, of course.... I must take my fish home. Do you really want to go on to the Pari?”

“Not particularly.”

“Then if you’ll come to the house I’ll get you some lunch. It’s time, and you must be hungry. Didn’t you mean to come to see us at all?”

“Why, yes, I suppose so ... but, of course, your mother doesn’t know me ...”

“But you must have known that your friend, George, would speak to her about you? She was very sorry he had to go so soon. I feel that I know him, a little. I’ve helped my grandfather take care of his parents’ graves. We’d better go now.”

“You’re sure your mother won’t mind my coming unexpectedly?”

“She wouldn’t, if she were at home. She’s gone to Moorea, but my grandfather will make you welcome.”

“I’ll come with pleasure, then,” said Hardie.

He untied the heavy string of fish and carried it to the canoe, which he helped her to launch. She pushed it across the shallows, stepped in, and took up her paddle. “Where’s your canoe?”

“On the other side of the islet,” Hardie replied.

“Follow me, then,” she said.

As the canoe glided away, the heron sprang into the air to overtake his mistress with slow wing beats, his long legs trailing behind him awkwardly. Hardie stood for a moment looking after them. A striking picture they made, he thought: the girl in her blue frock, her hair blown about her shoulders as she dipped her blade in water ruffled to the deepest azure by the breeze, and the bird circling about just over her head. And in the background stretched the valley of Vaihiva with the shadow of a cloud—dazzling in the purity of its whiteness against the sky—moving slowly across it.

Hardie crossed the islet to where his canoe lay, got up the anchor, and had nearly overtaken Naia when she entered the river. They moored their little vessels to the pier he had seen before and she led the way to the house.

“Come round to the back,” she said. “I want to leave my fish in the kitchen.”

“That’s what George and I did the other day,” said Hardie. “There was no one here when we first came.”

“And you hurried away before anyone did come,” Naia added. “And then George went, as soon as he could, before I had a chance to see him.”

“It did look as though we were in a great hurry,” Hardie replied. “But we didn’t mean to be.”

A stalwart, middle-aged woman met them at the door of the kitchen. Naia spoke to her in the native tongue, while the woman regarded Hardie with friendly interest. “This is Teina,” Naia said. “She lives two miles up the valley. She remembers George very well. He used to play with her children.” Hardie took her hand with a word of greeting. “Now we will go to see Raitua, my grandfather,” the girl added. “He has his own house across the point. I stay with him when my mother is away.”

A lone tamanu tree, gnarled by exposure to the gales of a century or more, shaded the old man’s cottage. Hardie was struck by the contrast between this dwelling and Mauri’s, but he remembered that the other had been built by Naia’s white father. Both suited the landscape, but the grandfather’s house was as native to it as the old tree that threw its dappled shade over the low thatched roof. A fishing net was hung up to dry on the beach; a canoe, beautifully made, was drawn up there, and on trestles by the canoe shed lay the trunk of a tree partly adzed out, with fragrant chips scattered thickly beneath the beginning of another. They found Raitua seated on the sand between two mighty roots of the tamanu, with his back to a comfortable depression in the trunk. He smiled at sight of them, rising slowly to take Hardie’s hand, while Naia spoke rapidly to him in the island tongue. His benevolent glance appraised the Englishman’s features, his stature, and the breadth of his shoulders, while Naia made her explanations. Then he spoke in his turn.

“My grandfather says you are welcome here,” the girl interpreted. “He met George on the lagoon the other day.”

“I know. George told me,” Hardie replied. “He was sorry that he couldn’t understand what your grandfather wanted to tell him.”

“He was inviting him to stop with us for a while. He asks you, if you care to?”

Hardie’s face lighted up. “I’d like to very much.”

Naia turned again to her grandfather. “Then it’s settled,” she added, a moment later. “We’ll send someone to Tautira to fetch your things.”

Hardie was as surprised as he was pleased at this unexpected invitation, offered so simply and with such evident sincerity. “I’d never hoped for such luck as this,” he said. “You’re sure I shan’t be putting you out?”

“No. All of our house shall be yours. My mother will be glad when she knows you’ve come.”

Hardie felt slightly troubled, remembering what McLeod had said of the coolness of Mauri’s welcome to him. But Naia spoke of her mother with such quiet assurance that he thought it more than likely that McLeod had been mistaken in this matter. “Then I’ll stop with pleasure,” he said. “Oh ... my canoe. It belongs to Fara, in Tautira. I’ll have to take it back.”

“The man who goes for your things can sail it up, with his own canoe behind,” Naia said. “I’m glad you will stay. Now I will go and see about your lunch. Wait here, if you like,” she added, smiling with a glint of mischief in her eye. “You can have a silent chat with my grandfather.”