Chapter LVIII

by William Somerset Maugham

　　The time came for my departure from Tahiti. According to thegracious custom of the island, presents were given me by thepersons with whom I had been thrown in contact -- baskets madeof the leaves of the cocoa-nut tree, mats of pandanus, fans;and Tiare gave me three little pearls and three jars ofguava-jelly made with her own plump hands. When the mail-boat,stopping for twenty-four hours on its way from Wellington toSan Francisco, blew the whistle that warned the passengers toget on board, Tiare clasped me to her vast bosom, so that Iseemed to sink into a billowy sea, and pressed her red lipsto mine. Tears glistened in her eyes. And when we steamedslowly out of the lagoon, making our way gingerly through theopening in the reef, and then steered for the open sea,a certain melancholy fell upon me. The breeze was laden stillwith the pleasant odours of the land. Tahiti is very faraway, and I knew that I should never see it again. A chapterof my life was closed, and I felt a little nearer toinevitable death.Not much more than a month later I was in London; and after Ihad arranged certain matters which claimed my immediateattention, thinking Mrs. Strickland might like to hear what Iknew of her husband's last years, I wrote to her. I had notseen her since long before the war, and I had to look out heraddress in the telephone-book. She made an appointment, and I wentto the trim little house on Campden Hill which she now inhabited.She was by this time a woman of hard on sixty, but shebore her years well, and no one would have taken her formore than fifty. Her face, thin and not much lined, was ofthe sort that ages gracefully, so that you thought in youthshe must have been a much handsomer woman than in fact she was.Her hair, not yet very gray, was becomingly arranged,and her black gown was modish. I remembered having heard thather sister, Mrs. MacAndrew, outliving her husband but a coupleof years, had left money to Mrs. Strickland; and by the lookof the house and the trim maid who opened the door I judgedthat it was a sum adequate to keep the widow in modest comfort.When I was ushered into the drawing-room I found that Mrs.Strickland had a visitor, and when I discovered who he was,I guessed that I had been asked to come at just that time notwithout intention. The caller was Mr. Van Busche Taylor,an American, and Mrs. Strickland gave me particulars with acharming smile of apology to him."You know, we English are so dreadfully ignorant. You mustforgive me if it's necessary to explain." Then she turned tome. "Mr. Van Busche Taylor is the distinguished Americancritic. If you haven't read his book your education has beenshamefully neglected, and you must repair the omission atonce. He's writing something about dear Charlie, and he'scome to ask me if I can help him."Mr. Van Busche Taylor was a very thin man with a large, baldhead, bony and shining; and under the great dome of his skullhis face, yellow, with deep lines in it, looked very small.He was quiet and exceedingly polite. He spoke with the accentof New England, and there was about his demeanour a bloodlessfrigidity which made me ask myself why on earth he was busyinghimself with Charles Strickland. I had been slightly tickledat the gentleness which Mrs. Strickland put into her mentionof her husband's name, and while the pair conversed I tookstock of the room in which we sat. Mrs. Strickland had movedwith the times. Gone were the Morris papers and gone thesevere cretonnes, gone were the Arundel prints that hadadorned the walls of her drawingroom in Ashley Gardens; theroom blazed with fantastic colour, and I wondered if she knewthat those varied hues, which fashion had imposed upon her,were due to the dreams of a poor painter in a South Seaisland. She gave me the answer herself."What wonderful cushions you have," said Mr. Van Busche Taylor."Do you like them?" she said, smiling. "Bakst, you know."And yet on the walls were coloured reproductions of several ofStrickland's best pictures, due to the enterprise of apublisher in Berlin."You're looking at my pictures," she said, following my eyes."Of course, the originals are out of my reach, but it's acomfort to have these. The publisher sent them to me himself.They're a great consolation to me.""They must be very pleasant to live with," said Mr. Van Busche Taylor."Yes; they're so essentially decorative.""That is one of my profoundest convictions," said Mr. VanBusche Taylor. "Great art is always decorative."Their eyes rested on a nude woman suckling a baby, while agirl was kneeling by their side holding out a flower to theindifferent child. Looking over them was a wrinkled, scraggy hag.It was Strickland's version of the Holy Family. I suspectedthat for the figures had sat his household above Taravao,and the woman and the baby were Ata and his first son.I asked myself if Mrs. Strickland had any inkling of the facts.The conversation proceeded, and I marvelled at the tact with whichMr. Van Busche Taylor avoided all subjects that might have beenin the least embarrassing, and at the ingenuity with whichMrs. Strickland, without saying a word that was untrue, insinuatedthat her relations with her husband had always been perfect.At last Mr. Van Busche Taylor rose to go. Holding hishostess' hand, he made her a graceful, though perhaps too elaborate,speech of thanks, and left us."I hope he didn't bore you," she said, when the door closedbehind him. "Of course it's a nuisance sometimes, but I feelit's only right to give people any information I can about Charlie.There's a certain responsibility about having been thewife of a genius."She looked at me with those pleasant eyes of hers, which hadremained as candid and as sympathetic as they had been morethan twenty years before. I wondered if she was making a fool of me."Of course you've given up your business," I said."Oh, yes," she answered airily. "I ran it more by way of ahobby than for any other reason, and my children persuaded meto sell it. They thought I was overtaxing my strength."I saw that Mrs. Strickland had forgotten that she had everdone anything so disgraceful as to work for her living.She had the true instinct of the nice woman that it is onlyreally decent for her to live on other people's money."They're here now," she said. "I thought they'd, like to hearwhat you had to say about their father. You remember Robert,don't you? I'm glad to say he's been recommended for theMilitary Cross."She went to the door and called them. There entered a tallman in khaki, with the parson's collar, handsome in a somewhatheavy fashion, but with the frank eyes that I remembered inhim as a boy. He was followed by his sister. She must havebeen the same age as was her mother when first I knew her, andshe was very like her. She too gave one the impression thatas a girl she must have been prettier than indeed she was."I suppose you don't remember them in the least," saidMrs. Strickland, proud and smiling. "My daughter is nowMrs. Ronaldson. Her husband's a Major in the Gunners.""He's by way of being a pukka soldier, you know," saidMrs. Ronaldson gaily. "That's why he's only a Major."I remembered my anticipation long ago that she would marry a soldier.It was inevitable. She had all the graces of the soldier's wife.She was civil and affable, but she could hardly conceal her intimateconviction that she was not quite as others were. Robert was breezy."It's a bit of luck that I should be in London when you turnedup," he said. "I've only got three days' leave.""He's dying to get back," said his mother."Well, I don't mind confessing it, I have a rattling good timeat the front. I've made a lot of good pals. It's a first-rate life.Of course war's terrible, and all that sort of thing;but it does bring out the best qualities in a man,there's no denying that."Then I told them what I had learned about Charles Stricklandin Tahiti. I thought it unnecessary to say anything of Ataand her boy, but for the rest I was as accurate as I could be.When I had narrated his lamentable death I ceased. For aminute or two we were all silent. Then Robert Stricklandstruck a match and lit a cigarette."The mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceeding small,"he said, somewhat impressively.Mrs. Strickland and Mrs. Ronaldson looked down with a slightlypious expression which indicated, I felt sure, that theythought the quotation was from Holy Writ. Indeed, I wasunconvinced that Robert Strickland did not share their illusion.I do not know why I suddenly thought of Strickland'sson by Ata. They had told me he was a merry,light-hearted youth. I saw him, with my mind's eye, on theschooner on which he worked, wearing nothing but a pair ofdungarees; and at night, when the boat sailed along easilybefore a light breeze, and the sailors were gathered on theupper deck, while the captain and the supercargo lolled indeck-chairs, smoking their pipes, I saw him dance with another lad,dance wildly, to the wheezy music of the concertina.Above was the blue sky, and the stars, and all about thedesert of the Pacific Ocean.A quotation from the Bible came to my lips, but I held my tongue,for I know that clergymen think it a littleblasphemous when the laity poach upon their preserves.My Uncle Henry, for twenty-seven years Vicar of Whitstable,was on these occasions in the habit of saying that the devilcould always quote scripture to his purpose. He remembered thedays when you could get thirteen Royal Natives for a shilling.