The Moon and Sixpence — Chapter LI

Tiaré, when I told her this story, praised my prudence, and for a few minutes we worked in silence, for we were shelling peas. Then her eyes, always alert for the affairs of her kitchen, fell on some action of the Chinese cook which aroused her violent disapproval. She turned on him with a torrent of abuse. The Chink was not backward to defend himself, and a very lively quarrel ensued. They spoke in the native language, of which I had learnt but half a dozen words, and it sounded as though the world would shortly come to an end; but presently peace was restored and Tiaré gave the cook a cigarette. They both smoked comfortably.

“Do you know, it was I who found him his wife?” said Tiaré suddenly, with a smile that spread all over her immense face.

“The cook?”

“No, Strickland.”

“But he had one already.”

“That is what he said, but I told him she was in England, and England is at the other end of the world.”

“True,” I replied.

“He would come to Papeete every two or three months, when he wanted paints or tobacco or money, and then he would wander about like a lost dog. I was sorry for him. I had a girl here then called Ata to do the rooms; she was some sort of a relation of mine, and her father and mother were dead, so I had her to live with me. Strickland used to come here now and then to have a square meal or to play chess with one of the boys. I noticed that she looked at him when he came, and I asked her if she liked him. She said she liked him well enough. You know what these girls are; they’re always pleased to go with a white man.”

“Was she a native?” I asked.

“Yes; she hadn’t a drop of white blood in her. Well, after I’d talked to her I sent for Strickland, and I said to him: ‘Strickland, it’s time for you to settle down. A man of your age shouldn’t go playing about with the girls down at the front. They’re bad lots, and you’ll come to no good with them. You’ve got no money, and you can never keep a job for more than a month or two. No one will employ you now. You say you can always live in the bush with one or other of the natives, and they’re glad to have you because you’re a white man, but it’s not decent for a white man. Now, listen to me, Strickland.’”

Tiaré mingled French with English in her conversation, for she used both languages with equal facility. She spoke them with a singing accent which was not unpleasing. You felt that a bird would speak in these tones if it could speak English.

“‘Now, what do you say to marrying Ata? She’s a good girl and she’s only seventeen. She’s never been promiscuous like some of these girls—a captain or a first mate, yes, but she’s never been touched by a native. Elle se respecte, vois-tu. The purser of the Oahu told me last journey that he hadn’t met a nicer girl in the islands. It’s time she settled down too, and besides, the captains and the first mates like a change now and then. I don’t keep my girls too long. She has a bit of property down by Taravao, just before you come to the peninsula, and with copra at the price it is now you could live quite comfortably. There’s a house, and you’d have all the time you wanted for your painting. What do you say to it?”

Tiaré paused to take breath.

“It was then he told me of his wife in England. ‘My poor Strickland,’ I said to him, ‘they’ve all got a wife somewhere; that is generally why they come to the islands. Ata is a sensible girl, and she doesn’t expect any ceremony before the Mayor. She’s a Protestant, and you know they don’t look upon these things like the Catholics.’

“Then he said: ‘But what does Ata say to it?’ ‘It appears that she has a béguin for you,’ I said. ‘She’s willing if you are. Shall I call her?’ He chuckled in a funny, dry way he had, and I called her. She knew what I was talking about, the hussy, and I saw her out of the corner of my eyes listening with all her ears, while she pretended to iron a blouse that she had been washing for me. She came. She was laughing, but I could see that she was a little shy, and Strickland looked at her without speaking.”

“Was she pretty?” I asked.

“Not bad. But you must have seen pictures of her. He painted her over and over again, sometimes with a pareo on and sometimes with nothing at all. Yes, she was pretty enough. And she knew how to cook. I taught her myself. I saw Strickland was thinking of it, so I said to him: ‘I’ve given her good wages and she’s saved them, and the captains and the first mates she’s known have given her a little something now and then. She’s saved several hundred francs.’

“He pulled his great red beard and smiled.

“‘Well, Ata,’ he said, ‘do you fancy me for a husband.’

“She did not say anything, but just giggled.

“‘But I tell you, my poor Strickland, the girl has a béguin for you,’ I said.

“I shall beat you,’ he said, looking at her.

“‘How else should I know you loved me,’ she answered.”

Tiaré broke off her narrative and addressed herself to me reflectively.

“My first husband, Captain Johnson, used to thrash me regularly. He was a man. He was handsome, six foot three, and when he was drunk there was no holding him. I would be black and blue all over for days at a time. Oh, I cried when he died. I thought I should never get over it. But it wasn’t till I married George Rainey that I knew what I’d lost. You can never tell what a man is like till you live with him. I’ve never been so deceived in a man as I was in George Rainey. He was a fine, upstanding fellow too. He was nearly as tall as Captain Johnson, and he looked strong enough. But it was all on the surface. He never drank. He never raised his hand to me. He might have been a missionary. I made love with the officers of every ship that touched the island, and George Rainey never saw anything. At last I was disgusted with him, and I got a divorce. What was the good of a husband like that? It’s a terrible thing the way some men treat women.”

I condoled with Tiaré, and remarked feelingly that men were deceivers ever, then asked her to go on with her story of Strickland.

“‘Well,’ I said to him, ‘there’s no hurry about it. Take your time and think it over. Ata has a very nice room in the annexe. Live with her for a month, and see how you like her. You can have your meals here. And at the end of a month, if you decide you want to marry her, you can just go and settle down on her property.’

“Well, he agreed to that. Ata continued to do the housework, and I gave him his meals as I said I would. I taught Ata to make one or two dishes I knew he was fond of. He did not paint much. He wandered about the hills and bathed in the stream. And he sat about the front looking at the lagoon, and at sunset he would go down and look at Murea. He used to go fishing on the reef. He loved to moon about the harbour talking to the natives. He was a nice, quiet fellow. And every evening after dinner he would go down to the annexe with Ata. I saw he was longing to get away to the bush, and at the end of the month I asked him what he intended to do. He said if Ata was willing to go, he was willing to go with her. So I gave them a wedding dinner. I cooked it with my own hands. I gave them a pea soup and lobster à la portugaise, and a curry, and a cocoa-nut salad—you’ve never had one of my cocoa-nut salads, have you? I must make you one before you go—and then I made them an ice. We had all the champagne we could drink and liqueurs to follow. Oh, I’d made up my mind to do things well. And afterwards we danced in the drawing-room. I was not so fat, then, and I always loved dancing.”

The drawing-room at the Hôtel de la Fleur was a small room, with a cottage piano, and a suite of mahogany furniture, covered in stamped velvet, neatly arranged around the walls. On round tables were photograph albums, and on the walls enlarged photographs of Tiaré and her first husband, Captain Johnson. Still, though Tiaré was old and fat, on occasion we rolled back the Brussels carpet, brought in the maids and one or two friends of Tiaré’s, and danced, though now to the wheezy music of a gramaphone. On the verandah the air was scented with the heavy perfume of the tiare, and overhead the Southern Cross shone in a cloudless sky.

Tiaré smiled indulgently as she remembered the gaiety of a time long passed.

“We kept it up till three, and when we went to bed I don’t think anyone was very sober. I had told them they could have my trap to take them as far as the road went, because after that they had a long walk. Ata’s property was right away in a fold of the mountain. They started at dawn, and the boy I sent with them didn’t come back till next day.

“Yes, that’s how Strickland was married.”