“I’ll be blowed if I stay on this blessed island another minute,” said Constance.
“But dear Mrs. Trevor, I don’t see what else you can do,” gushed Opera Top.
Constance had her there. “Don’t you? Well, there’s the other island not a mile away. If I can’t swim a mile in this warm water to get away from you cats I hope I drown on the way. Come along, dear.”
And off we went.
The other atoll was just as good as the first, but a bit smaller. Constance and I managed beautifully on it. We lazed the days away, eating all the oysters and cocoanuts we wanted, with nothing much to do and all the day to do it in. It was a pleasant life. At times I used to wonder how the others were getting on, and wondering if having to shift for themselves was making any difference to them, but when I found myself thinking I just used to turn over to toast the other side of me in the sun and reach out for another oyster.
I don’t know how long we were like that. Time didn’t matter very much to us. I know that during that time I grew a lovely long mustache and beard. Beautiful ones.
(“There wasn’t a third island I could go to, was there?” asked Constance. “I wouldn’t share an island with a beard for anything.”)
We drowsed and dreamed along for years, possibly. Years of unlimited oysters. It was just like Heaven.
And then early one morning as Constance and I were asleep, or perhaps only dozing, on the beach, we were awakened by a sudden rush of feet. We started up, and saw, hurrying toward us, a gang of naked savages. Before we could do anything they were upon us, and they had us tied hand and foot. By that time I was sufficiently awake to look at them more closely. They were savage enough, and naked enough, in all conscience. One or two of them carried unpleasant-looking knotted clubs, and the rest had sharp spiky spears made of stick hardened and pointed in the fire. Very doubtful characters, obviously. Yet they were all women. Not a doubt about that, anyway. The fact leaped to the eyes.
The leader came over to me and poked me with her spear in a highly uncomfortable manner.
“Get up,” she said.
It was the fact that an Indian Ocean savage spoke English that got me to my feet as much as the poke from the spear. Bound as I was, I was in a vertical position in one-fifth of a second. I looked at my captor more closely.
“Great Scott!” I said. “It’s Opera Top.”
“You’re right,” said she.
I looked round at the others. I recognized them all, Low Neck, Envelope Chemise and the rest. A year or two of fending for themselves had done them a world of good. They were upstanding and powerful, and had figures now instead of looking like yards of pump-water.
“You’re looking very fit,” I said to Opera Top. I thought it just as well to be placatory.
“I feel it, too,” said Opera Top, slapping her chest.
The gesture called my attention to her necklace. It wasn’t the old jade one. I peered at it more closely. It was a neat string of human teeth.
“God bless my soul and body,” I said. “Where in the name of humanity did you get that thing from?”
“This?” said Opera Top, with a pleased smile, “Oh, that’s just the eldest Reducing Corset. She got on my nerves in time. I’ve got another one made from her backbone over on the other island.”
There wasn’t anything I could say in reply. I just stood silent and felt the shivers chase one another up and down my spine.
“We’re wasting time,” said Opera Top. Fancy Opera Top talking about wasting time! “Come on.”
“Where—where are we going?” I ventured to ask.
“Back to the other island, of course, silly.”
“What for?”
“Fancy asking! We want our birthright, of course.”
“Your birthright? How the devil can I give you your birthright?”
“You’re the only person within twenty thousand miles who can, so you’ve dam’ well got to. There doesn’t seem much chance of our being rescued.”
I couldn’t do much with my hands tied and my feet hobbled, but I did what I could. I sat down with a jerk on a lump of coral.
“Damned if I do,” I said.
“Not so much blasted fuss!” said Opera Top, and she fidgeted with her spear in a significant manner.
“But what about Constance?” I said.
“She’ll stay here. She’s had her birthright. Lots of it, I expect.”
“I won’t move an inch without Constance,” I said. I judged it best to leave the other matter aside for a space.
“Get up and don’t argue,” said Opera Top, poking me again with her spear.
But I continued to resist. I writhed and I kicked and I yelled, and Opera Top poked and ordered and commanded, until at last she gave way.
“Oh, all right then. Bring her along, you girls. It will only be one-fourteenth each instead of one-thirteenth.”
So they took us down to the sea, and there lay quite a neat raft made of logs tied together. At the time of our first acquaintance those women would no more have thought of tying logs together than they would have thought of—wearing necklaces of vertebræ. They dumped us on board, and shoved off and paddled lustily until we were soon on the old island.
Then they carted us up to the camping-place and put us down.
Opera Top came up to me.
“Well, what about it?” she asked, slapping me on the leg and licking her lips.
“Holy Moses!” said I. “You’re a bit precipitant, aren’t you?”
“There’s not much point in wasting time, is there?”
“Oh, confound it,” I said, blushes running over me three deep. “Give me a chance to collect my—scattered thoughts.”
“I don’t know what in hell you’re making so much fuss about,” said Opera Top.
“My stars and garters!” I said, “You must admit this is a bit sudden, isn’t it?” I was feeling more like a mid-Victorian miss every moment.
Then Constance chipped in from where she was lying in her bonds.
“Don’t you dare!” she shouted to me. “Don’t you dare! You mustn’t! You’re a married man.”
“He’ll be a widower if you don’t shut up,” snarled Opera Top, gripping her spear.
Constance shrieked. She went on shrieking.
“Oh, for God’s sake stop that blasted row,” said Opera Top. “Here, you girls. Take her away to the other side of the lagoon—and stop there for a bit.”
They obeyed her. Opera Top was an efficient disciplinarian. Off they went, all twelve of them, carrying Constance with them, wriggling and screaming. I was left alone with Opera Top, tied neck and crop and desperately uncomfortable internally.
“That’s better,” said Opera Top, rubbing her hands.
“I give in,” I said. “Untie me.”
Opera Top grinned unpleasantly.
“You’re not clever enough, old man,” she said. “Do you think I don’t see what your little game is?”
I had of course decided that as soon as I was free I would knock her on the head and then set about tackling the other twelve.
“Not that I’m afraid,” said Opera Top. “I could wring your neck like a seagull’s if I wanted to.”
Opera Top swelled out her biceps for my inspection. I felt inclined to agree with her.
(“Coward!” said Constance. “Any excuse.”)
“But I shan’t take any chances,” said Opera Top. “I won’t untie you very much.”
That took the gilt off the gingerbread. But I could still argue.
“Oh, well,” I said, “you’re no better off than when you started. You’ve brought me here, I know. You can bring a horse to the water, but—”
“Can’t I?” said Opera Top, meditatively. “Can’t I? There’s spiky spears, and red-hot coals, and jolly good hidings with shark’s-skin straps. We might try a few on Constance first. Shall I send for her again?”
Phew! That more or less settled the matter. Opera Top read my face like a book.
“Well,” said Opera Top, “what about it now?”
It was then that the situation changed. The other women came racing round the reef, and with them was Constance, free of her bonds.
“A ship! A ship!” they screamed. “A big ship, and a boat is coming over to us!”
Opera Top’s manner changed like a dissolving view.
“Good gracious me!” she said. “Quick, where’s something to put on? Oh, and where’s my jade necklace?”
That’s very nearly all the story. It was a fine, big liner that had rescued us, and the passengers received us with tremendous enthusiasm. They listened breathless to our tales of adventures. They were most sympathetic when they heard of the accidental death (I think we said it was drowning, or snake-bite, or something) of the missing member of the party—her whose teeth, strung together, had been desperately hurled into the lagoon by a repentant Opera Top, before the arrival of the ship’s boat.
The girls were fitted out with clothes by the passengers, and Opera Top and her companions displayed, in the way in which they adapted their normal figures to abnormal fashions, the eternal triumph of mind over matter. In the evening the passengers arranged a dance for us. As I walked on to the floor in perfect fitting evening dress (though borrowed) with newly shaved and baby-smooth cheeks, with my neat and glowing little wife at my side—
“Goodness me!” said Constance, jumping up, “look at the time! So that’s why you started talking about evening dress and dances and things. If you’re going to take me out to dinner before the Watkins’ dance we’ll have to buck up like anything. Come along, do!”
I did not see very much of Constance at that dance. I never do see much of Constance at dances. There are too many very young men and undergraduates who own the earth for me even to get a look in. I will swear that one of them that night dived between my legs to reach her and appropriate her before me.
But that night as we were coming home Constance tucked her hand into my arm and chattered away to me as happily as ever I have known her. And in the hall as I was taking off my overcoat she came up to me.
“I don’t think that was at all the sort of story you ought to have told a young woman. But—but—I’m glad the steamer arrived in time.”
She gave a little jump toward me, and I felt her bare arms about my neck for a moment, and a little rose-petal kiss. Then she skipped away. At her bedroom door she turned and looked back for an instant, and her eyes were like stars.
“Good night, dear,” said she, and yet she shut that door with all her old decision. Constance has puzzled me properly this time.
Chapter VI
On Sunday mornings we always have boiled eggs for breakfast. The reason for this is that it is I upon whom falls the duty of preparing breakfast on Sundays, and the boiling of eggs is the most complicated cookery which Constance will entrust to me. Despite my protests, despite my boasted Army experience, she will not permit me to try my hand even upon the harmless necessary rasher, and assuredly is she convinced that omelettes, kidneys and kippers are far beyond my powers. So that on Sunday mornings I totter out of bed into a charwoman-less world, to find in the kitchen the tray ready laid for me, and the eggs already selected for placing in the saucepan, and, having prepared the breakfast, I take it in to where Constance is still sleeping the sleep of those with no conscience at all.
Since Constance has been shingled there is no sign of her when I enter the room. Once upon a time there was generally a pigtail at least protruding from between the sheets, but nowadays there is nothing at all except for a curved hump apparent under the eiderdown. I put the tray down with a thump on the bedside table and summon her to wake up, or, if I am feeling musically inclined, I beat a reveille on a cup with a spoon. There follows a groan and a slight agitation of the hump beneath the eiderdown. Usually the agitation subsides. I have to increase the din before Constance’s flushed face emerges from between the sheets, and there have been occasions when I have had to peel the bedclothes back to uncover the pink pearl they enclose.
Generally Constance’s first remark is:—“Is it ten o’clock already?” and she has to rub her eyes and smooth back her tousled hair for quite a while before she can realize fully that she is awake once more at the beginning of yet another day. How she manages it passes my comprehension entirely. I simply can not understand how it is that any one who has become accustomed to waking at a certain hour can on occasions continue to sleep three hours beyond that time. It is a gift which I envy Constance most heartily, but she finds the fact that I do not possess it very convenient on Sunday mornings.
Then I drag up a chair and pour out tea (we have tea on Sundays because Constance will not trust me to make coffee) and pass things to Constance, and do my best to see that she does not appropriate more than her fair share of breakfast. However sleepy Constance may be on my first awakening of her, she is soon wide enough awake to take, on occasions, what I can not help thinking is an unfair advantage of my preoccupation in pouring out tea, to steal the last piece of toast from under my very eyes.
This morning things were a little different. Instead of creeping softly out of bed from beside a somnolent Constance I had to rise from a solitary bed in a study, which, to my jaundiced gaze, triumphantly proclaimed itself a mere study and not a connubial sleeping apartment.
And when I brought in the breakfast to Constance’s room I found her awake—wide awake, and sitting up in bed with her hair already smoothed down and looking expectantly for breakfast. We said little while we ate it. Breakfast is not a time when we are either of us conversationally inclined. But afterward, with the trap pushed aside and cigarettes alight and myself seated comfortably on the bedside with the corner of the eiderdown over me, Constance was more inclined to talk. I was not. I was more inclined to look round the room (it is a week since I slept there, and I felt like a stranger) and looking round the room at once set me off thinking and remembering and making pictures to myself. It is my besetting vice, and Constance is always aware when I am indulging in it.
The room had much the same appearance as it usually has on Sunday mornings. Everything about it is tidy except those things which are closely related to Constance. On the floor by the bed lay a little flat heap of white things. The dance last night had left Constance tired and ready for bed, and she had gone to bed as rapidly as possible. I have seen her do it. Her frock is carefully removed and hung up on a hanger. But the rest of her garments, which hang from her shoulders, are merely shrugged off those shoulders, so that they slip to the floor, leaving, for one breathless second, a slim and glowing Constance which is immediately concealed from view (my view) in the pajamas or nightdress which for the moment holds her fancy. That little heap of garments (disembodied Constance, as it were) stays on the floor until the next morning, for within three minutes of putting on her nightdress Constance is sound asleep between the sheets, much to my never-ending astonished envy.
This morning it was rather the difference in atmosphere than in the concrete which set me off thinking and remembering. I tossed my cigarette end on to the breakfast tray and lit another cigarette and drew its smoke down into my lungs and thought and pondered and debated with myself. It was Constance, of course, who was largely responsible for the difference in atmosphere. She was sitting up in bed smooth and serene and calm, and I noted with surprise that she was wearing her extra-special nightdress (the one she always takes to impress housemaids when we go to stay with other people). I scratched my head. The situation was reminiscent of something in my life, but what it was was more than was in my power at the moment to determine. Then at once it came to me. That sensation of being a stranger in my wife’s bedroom; Constance all sleek and serene; breakfast in bed; of course, it was obvious now.
“What’s the great thought for today?” asked Constance.
She smiled at me very charmingly. It is Constance’s sympathy with my wool-gathering tendencies which is almost the most endearing of all her characteristics.
“I
was thinking about—” I said, “about—”
My hesitation showed what it was I was thinking about.
“Oh,” said Constance, and she blushed. The color ran hot over her cheeks and down her throat. She even turned her eyes away from me with a little shamefaced gesture. Yet I was only thinking about the first morning of our honeymoon.
I think I have already said somewhere in this book that Constance’s mother is a very estimable woman. But she is a woman who combines Constance’s ability to know her own mind and to obtain what she wants with a taste which is diametrically opposed both to Constance’s and to mine.
Constance’s mother insisted on its being a formal wedding, one of the kind which recalls the worst orgies of the Victorians. I hated the idea, and Constance, I think, caught the infection from me. Perhaps if I had not shown my distaste so openly Constance would have dumbly submitted and gone through the ceremony without realizing what it was which was fretting her. There were times when I begged Constance to cut the whole business—to slip off with me the day before the affair was due, get married in a register office, and from the secure fastness of our honeymoon retreat to write home and say that we were sorry that we were unable to attend the wedding, but hoped all the guests would enjoy themselves thoroughly. Constance refused.
“After all, dear,” she said, “it’s the last time that I shall have to do what I’m told, and I may as well be as nice as I can at home so that they can realize how much they are losing.”
I could only grunt unwilling acquiescence; it was not a line of argument which appealed to me.
There was more fuss about Constance’s getting married than even I, in my worst moments, had ever feared. Her mother debated with me on every conceivable point, from the choice of the church to the selection of the trimmings on the bridesmaids’ dresses. She listened patiently enough, I must say, to my advice; she even condescended to show me where my ideas were faulty but she always succeeded in proving, at great length and much to her own sole satisfaction, that she was right and I was wrong. Constance woefully told me that the fact that it was fashionable that year to have only two bridesmaids was responsible for changing no less than seven of her bosom friends (whom she had promised at rash moments during the last half-dozen years that they should be bridesmaids at her wedding) from bosom friends to deadly enemies. It only irritated her the more when I rashly told her that I thought the loss was small when compared to the advantage of not having nine bridesmaids. The three weeks preceding the wedding were one prolonged nightmare. I hardly saw Constance, she was always too busy being fitted with her dress or her going-away dress or her veil or her wreath or something, or she was writing letters of invitation, or sorting out wedding presents or writing letters of thanks, or helping with the fitting of the bridesmaids’ dresses. And the occasions on which I did see her were worse than unsatisfactory, for on each occasion I could see that she was growing more and more tired, and that in the end she was looking peaky and wan.