Malua

by Ralph Stock

MALUA

By RALPH STOCK

THE floor of the Royal Hotel, Malita, trembled, then sagged, heralding the approach of its proprietress, Mrs. Kemp.

For a moment she stood—or as much of her as was physically possible—in the bar doorway, leaning through the bead curtains to glance to right and left. On the one hand, there was apparently nothing to engage her attention; on the other, a diminutive figure, in a blue wrapper, washing glasses as though its life depended on it.

"Will she do?" asked Mrs. Kemp.

"The best we've ever had," replied the barmaid, without pause in her adroit manipulation of the cork-extractor.

"Glory be, and let's hope it lasts!" sighed Mrs. Kemp, and faded like an over-substantial dissolving view into the bead curtains.

So, in Miss Smith's own words, she was "the best they had ever had." Felisi paused in the process of glass washing to digest this satisfactory but unsurprising piece of information. It had not been intended for her ears, but then neither was a great deal more that came their way in the course of a day behind the Royal bar.

Would she do? That had been the question. But it gave rise to another of far more importance in Felisi's estimation: would the Royal do? She rather fancied that it would. The somewhat menial nature of her employment was amply atoned for by the unrivalled facilities it afforded of prying into other people's business. And is there anything more fascinating? If so, Felisi did not know of it She blessed the happy concurrence of events—her father's desire for a little ready cash, and the Royal's urgent need of an assistant barmaid—that had resulted in her transference from the deathly dullness of her native village to this scene of brilliance and animation.

There were men, an intermittent stream of them, who had an obliging habit of discussing their private affairs, elbow on bar, within a few feet of Felisi's observation post. There was a piano which, in response to an inserted coin, dispensed enchanting noises; a "billiard room" (containing a decrepit bagatelle board), from whence came the staccato click of balls and forceful expressions of approval or annoyance. In short, there was life.

Also there was Miss Smith.

To Felisi this dainty, tactful little lady was a never-ending source of wonder and interest. No one approached the Royal bar but was met with Miss Smith's own smile, gracious as it was impartial. No one, in the heat of the moment, was guilty of an untoward remark but she was conveniently deaf, a doubtful action but she was blind. Indeed, as Felisi soon discovered, there were two separate and distinct Miss Smiths, the one of business hours, an eminently efficient mechanism, and the other of private life, a human creature of joy and sadness, laughter and tears. The first of these all Malita knew and respected, the second was a phase so jealously guarded that it is doubtful if anyone dreamed of its existence—except Felisi.

"Come in!" this latter Miss Smith was wont to call, in answer to a discreet cough outside her bure, across the compound from the ramshackle hotel, and Felisi would enter another world.

Things were so different away here. There were delicately coloured draperies, and books, and photographs, and bowls of flowers that converted the outhouse (for such it was) into a temple of taste and luxury.

But of all the differences in this exceedingly different world, undoubtedly the most striking was Miss Smith herself. Gone were such insignia of office as a rolled-gold bangle above the left elbow, the slightly daring silk jumper, the high-heeled shoes and elaborate coiffure, to make way for the simplest of wrappers and loosely-coiled masses of dark hair.

"Come," she might say, "there's just time for a walk before supper." And they would leave the Royal Hotel, rearing its unlovely head above a table of convolvulus, and plunge into the cool green tunnel of the beach road. These "walks," as Miss Smith called them, had become an institution. They led nowhere in particular, and had no definable purpose, but they pleased Miss Smith, which was the main point. And how she could walk! Felisi was often obliged to trot to keep pace with her. In quite a short time they covered undreamed-of distances, exploring beach, palm grove, and jungle, as fancy led.

On one occasion a narrow track leading from the beach road toward the sound of falling water attracted Miss Smith's attention. It led, as Felisi knew, to a gorge choked with tree-ferns and underbrush, where some time ago a mistaken old man named Billy Andrews had attempted to grow vanilla, and failed. His bungalow, in a state of advanced decay, still clung to the hillside, held there for the most part by creeping vine.

Miss Smith came to a halt at the edge of the clearing, and gazed about her with evident relish. There was a waterfall high up the gorge, and down below, the sea thrust a tenuous arm along the valley. But what riveted Felisi's attention was a thin ribbon of smoke rising from the lean-to behind the bungalow. Was it possible that someone had been lured into relieving Billy Andrews of his white elephant? If so, it was one of the very few things Felisi had not heard about. What was more, she would dearly like to see that someone.

Her wish was fulfilled rather sooner than she expected. Miss Smith was still absorbing the view, when, to the accompaniment of crackling underbrush, a man broke from the bush and came to an abrupt halt in the middle of the track.

"I beg your pardon," he stammered, and that was all he seemed capable of saying at the moment.

Miss Smith's own smile came to the rescue.

"Oughtn't we to be doing that?" she said. "We must be trespassing."

"Not a bit of it," beamed the man.

"But isn't this your property?"

"In a way, yes, but——"

"Well, then," said Miss Smith, commencing a strategical retreat down the track, "I must apologise. Good evening."

For a moment he stood watching her go, then burst into incoherent speech.

"Oh, but, I say, won't you—that is, what about a cup of tea?"

Miss Smith's momentum slackened, then ceased. She glanced at Felisi and, seeming to find reassurance in that direction, turned and retraced her steps.

"You're very kind," she said; "it sounds too good to resist."

"That's right," encouraged the man, and led the way through a wilderness of empty corned-beef tins and what-not to the bungalow.

"You must excuse all this," he apologised, dragging the only sound chair procurable across the rat-gnawed verandah; "I—I've hardly got going yet."

"But I think it's wonderful," said Miss Smith, gazing steadfastly over the corned-beef tins to where the slanting sun-rays touched the rolling expanse of jungle.

"It is," agreed the man, "until you try to do something with it; then it reduces you to—well, this." He indicated his rather disreputable appearance with an apologetic laugh, and leant on the verandah rail, looking down at Miss Smith. "But what seems a good deal more wonderful to me, if you don't mind my saying so, is meeting someone from 'over there' in the Malita bush. Have you been out long?"

"Three years," said Miss Smith, with an unaccountable heightening of colour.

"Then, perhaps," suggested the man, "as an old timer, you'd be so good as to tell me what I'm supposed to do with seventy acres of rock and creeping vine, a cook who can't cook, and labour that falls asleep the minute my back's turned."

"I know it's pretty hopeless at first," laughed Miss Smith, "but you'll have to do what we all try to do—keep on keeping on, that's all."

"I see," said the man. "My name's Wade," he added abruptly.

"And mine's Smith—Irene Smith."

Their eyes met, and it was clear to anyone of perception that in that brief exchange of formalities each recognised the other as a kindred denizen of another world—the world of "over there," Felisi had seen such things happen before, and, like the perfect chaperon that she was, stole from the presence to help a distraught cook in his efforts to find an uncracked tea cup.

"It is always so," he wailed; "the guests come when least expected."

"But are none the less welcome," amended Felisi.

The cook grunted non-committally.

"As the daughter of my father, Chief of Luana," Felisi continued serenely, "I have entertained very many guests, and know their ways."

"Luana?" mused the cook, pouring boiling water upon the tea. "I do not seem to have heard of Luana."

"That is quite possible. Nor Levuka, nor Suva, perhaps?"

"I have passed through those places," admitted the cook, with masterly unconcern, "on my way to Sydney and Melbourne."

Felisi did not so much as flicker an eyelash.

"Sydney and Melbourne are well enough," she conceded, "but when one has been Overthere, they are as naught. In Overthere the tea is served in cups of gold, and——"

"Enough!" cried the baffled cook. "Out of my way, infant!" And he hurried up the crazy steps to the verandah.

It was not so much tea that they needed up there. Out of her boundless knowledge of human nature Felisi knew that, and left them to it. Besides, the cook had called her an infant, and such things could not be allowed to pass.

When she did return to the verandah, it was to discover with satisfaction that she might have been in the moon for all the notice that was taken of her.

"You mean," the man was saying, as he gazed rather hopelessly over his primeval property, "that I've bitten off more than I can chew. I've been thinking that myself lately."

"No, no," cried Miss Smith, with a vehemence that was new to her; "I mean anything but that! You—you will chew it," she insisted, with a nervous little laugh. "Of course you will, if——"

"Please go on," said the man quietly.

"—if you make up your mind to."

The man nodded his head slowly.

"Yes," he said, "that's about it—a matter of will-power And will-power depends on incentive. I haven't much of that, Miss Smith."

"There was enough to make you begin."

"The necessity of doing something," he admitted, with a shrug of the shoulders, "to live."

"Then why isn't there enough to make you go on?"

"I don't know," muttered the man; "I don't know."

"Shall I tell you?" said Miss Smith. He turned at that.

"I wish you would," he said.

For a moment Miss Smith seemed taken aback at her own temerity.

"Please," pleaded the man.

"Very well," said Miss Smith, with an air of quiet determination; "but I warn you, I'm on my hobby."

"Good!" said the man.

"And you mustn't mind what I say——"

He smiled encouragingly.

"I've seen such a lot of it," she went on, looking out over the valley, "and I can't let it pass when I see the symptoms. I suppose I ought to be going about with tracts and my hair scratched back."

"I prefer this method," said the man.

"Wait before you say that," warned Miss Smith; "this is much less excusable, really. You can crumple up a tract and throw it away, or light your pipe with it, and you can't very well do that with me."

"No," said the man. "No, I couldn't do that with you."

"So really I'm taking advantage of your hospitality."

"Is it as bad as that?"

"Quite. May I go on?"

He nodded. His eyes were fastened on Miss Smith.

"You're in for a bout of what we call malua," she said, with a certain deliberation. "It means by and by. You feel you don't want to—just yet—so you don't. And that's all it amounts to at first—a slackening. But it grows—it grows until you not only feel you don't want to, but find you can't. It leads to—to almost anything. There," she ended abruptly, "is that enough?"

"Not quite," said the man. "What causes it?"

Miss Smith leant back in her chair with the air of one who has passed dangerous ground.

"Ah," she mused, "that's difficult—difficult. There are things in these Islands that can't be explained, and malua's one of them. It is the Islands, that's all. I don't believe we were ever meant to come here. They didn't want us. We just came because there was money in it, or because we were no good elsewhere, and malua's their way of paying us back. Oh, yes," she added quickly, in answer to his unspoken question, "it attacks us as well as you."

The man smiled down at her.

"I don't see much evidence of it," he said.

"No? Well, I can only tell you that it does."

"And the cure?" he suggested. "You mustn't diagnose without prescribing, you know."

"I won't," said Miss Smith. "There is none that I know of when it once takes hold; but there's prevention, and that is work—just keeping on keeping on until you've made enough to go away and give it the slip; then go just as quickly as you can. That's what I'm doing," she added thoughtfully, "and it seems to have answered, so far."

"You?" muttered the man.

She turned to him with a short laugh.

"You don't imagine I wander about the Malita bush for a living, do you?"

"No, but——"

"And such a living! When next you come to the settlement, run into the Royal, and you'll see me in my war-paint."

"The Royal?"

"Yes, I'm barmaid."

The man stood silent.

"I thought that would give you a shock," she said. "A nice sort of person to be proselytising, am I not? But I'm a good barmaid, so they say, and I've nearly done—they pay well in these out-landish places—then hey for 'over there'!"

"Shock!" repeated the man. "I won't pretend that it isn't. It's the pluckiest thing I've met with in many a day."

"And not so plucky as you might think," said Miss Smith. "There's always four feet of good solid bar between you and—and anyone; besides, they're not like that 'out back.' It's in the cities. I tried most things before coming to the Royal, and I know where I've been shown the most respect. Girls are beginning to find that out."

"Yes, but they're real barmaids——"

"And, pray, what am I?" demanded Miss Smith.

The man seemed unable to reply. He shifted his position against the rail.

"Somehow I can't imagine you——" he began.

"Well, come and see," taunted Miss Smith.

"I'd rather not, if you don't mind," he said slowly. "I prefer you as you are.… You'll come again?" he added, as she rose to go.

Miss Smith did not answer at the moment, but she came again, as Felisi knew 1hat she would. Indeed, the "walks" took a natural trend in that direction, and their effect was magical. Within a month Billy Andrews's old place and its new owner were transformed, and as for Miss Smith, there was something in her eyes that had not been there before.

Felisi preened herself in the knowledge that there was only one end to it all—the end eminently satisfactory and beloved of all good chaperons—so that the dénouement came as something of a shock.

It happened on an evening so still that only the whisper of the waterfall up the gorge and the low-toned voices on the verandah reached the ear. He put it very nicely, Felisi thought, and his large brown hands went out, covering Miss Smith's. For a moment she sat quite still, then gently withdrew them and stood looking out over the valley.

"I'm sorry," she said, in a small, uneven voice. "I hoped—I thought—— Oh, what does it matter what I thought?" she cried bitterly. "It's mean, mean, to have let it come to this!"

"You couldn't help it," said the man quietly, "any more than I. We belong. You can't deny it."

Miss Smith did not try. She stood there, a silent, forlorn little figure, at the verandah rail.

Presently her lips moved.

"I should have known where it led. I knew and did nothing. It's malua," she whispered, "malua——"

The dull, insistent note of a native drum floated up from the beach, reverberating through the gorge, so that for Felisi the rest was inaudible. But it was vital—there could be no doubt of that—for by the time the exasperating noise had ceased, Miss Smith had ceased also, and was hurrying down the bush track, leaving the man, a figure of stone, staring after her.

*⁠*⁠*⁠*⁠*⁠*

What did it all mean? For once Felisi was at a loss. During the days that followed it meant little that one could detect. Miss Smith's smile was never more in evidence over the Royal bar. The rolled-gold bangle and other appurtenances appeared in their appointed time and place. The hand on the cork-extractor had lost none of its cunning.

And the man? Felisi had visions on that score. Day by day she waited on tenterhooks for him to descend on the Royal bar—as she had learnt in her mekes (dances) that the hillsmen of old descended on the beach dwellers—and carry off Miss Smith in spite of herself, in spite of all, whatever that might be. But nothing of the sort happened in modern Malita. Instead, he was seen emerging from a low-down rival of the Royal's, and laughing a raucous farewell to his new-found friends as he mounted his Tongan pony unsteadily and cantered off into the darkness.

So that was the way of it. Felisi sighed, and fell to glass wiping.

It was not until a week of speculation had passed that the threads of this disappointing affair could again be caught; up and woven into anything tangible.

As threads, they came in curious guise—a man, prematurely old, with cunning eyes, a twitching mouth, and uncertain ways. He came during the slack morning hours, when it was Miss Smith's custom to sit and read or do needlework behind the bar, so that she did not see him at first. But Felisi did. His movements, his very appearance, somehow, suggested a bird of prey. For a while he hovered in the doorway, peering in, then, of a sudden, swooped down upon the bar.

At the sound of footsteps Miss Smith looked up. It was ghastly. The smile was there, but transfixed in the bloodless mask of her face.

The man spoke. His voice was low and ingratiating.

"Don't look like that, my dear; one would think you weren't glad to see me."

His mouth twitched. "And look here"—he leant across the bar—"don't imagine that I'm going to be the smallest bit of trouble, because I'm not. Wouldn't interfere for the world." He looked bout him with evident approval. "Who'd have thought, though—— However, any port in a storm, and I expect it's all right—quite all right. By the way"—his voice sank still lower—"what's the name?"

In little more than a whisper Miss Smith answered him—

"Smith—Miss Smith."

"Then that's all right," commented the man. "Who am I to cavil at a name? I'll have just a suggestion, if you please—Miss Smith."

And she served him, though no money changed hands.

"That is distinctly better," said the man, setting down the glass and smacking his loose lips. "What are you going to do about it?" he added. "Make another break for it?"

Miss Smith made answer like some mechanical instrument.

"I haven't thought. I haven't had time to think."

"No. Well, when you have, you'll let me know, won't you? It saves a lot of trouble and—er—expense. In the meantime——" He paused, gazing speculatively across the bar.

Miss Smith gave him money, and flinched from his outstretched hand.

He moved toward the door.

"Don't forget," he said in his soft voice. "No interference; no trouble of any sort—just me, where I belong, that's all." And he was gone.

But he returned, and kept returning. He haunted the Royal like an insidious wraith. One came upon him at odd times, in unlikely places, doing nothing, saying little, but ever present. And at last Felisi saw him enter Miss Smith's bure.

For a time the low drone of voices came from within, then the man's, raised in horrible anger, followed by a sudden silence, and presently his figure stealing out into the compound.

Without waiting for permission, Felisi thrust open the door and went in. The room was a chaos of disordered and broken chattels, and in the midst of it sat Miss Smith, vainly trying to hide a flaming wale across her cheek.

"You saw," she said.

Felisi nodded. She could do no more at the moment.

"It doesn't matter," said Miss Smith. "Nothing matters now, except—— Will you do something for me, Felisi?"

She crossed a little unsteadily to the table, and sat there writing for a few moments, then handed Felisi a note and a bulky package.

"Take these to the man——" she said, and paused.

"Man with no good cook?" prompted Felisi.

Miss Smith smiled faintly.

"Yes, you uncanny child, to the man with the no good cook."

Felisi departed with all the pleasure in life. But her willingness to do anything in the world for Miss Smith in no way appeased her own burning curiosity. The nature of the package's contents was soon determined, but the note was another matter. They were wonderful, these thin bags of paper that contained so little, yet seemingly so much! She had seen people laugh over them, and weep, and ponder for hours on end. She wondered what would be the particular effect of the one she carried—which meant that she was deter- mined to find out.

That was why, instead of following the beach road, she elected to go by canoe. The track to the landing led past the hut of Willie, the half-caste, and, as all the world allowed, there was nothing Willie did not know.

"There are certain matters, O my Willie," said Felisi, squatting in his doorway.

"You have been a good child," admitted Willie. "What now?"

"I have these," said Felisi, producing a handful of the Royal's most poisonous cigars, "which shall be yours for one small favour."

"Name it," said Willie, his wise old eyes glinting in the lamp-light.

"Speak this to me," said Felisi, "that I may laugh, or weep, or ponder on it as others do."

Willie twisted the note in his gnarled fingers, and leant nearer the light.

"But it is not yours," he pointed out.

"That is so," admitted Felisi, "but you will speak it to me because of these cigars, and because of other things that I know."

"And if I open it, all will know that it has been opened," he protested.

"Are they like that?"

"How else?" demanded Willie. Nevertheless, his glance wavered between the steam rising from a pot of taro and the cigars.

And that was how, in the end, Felisi came to watch the paper bag curl back and open of its own accord, and listened to the droning voice of Willie, the half-caste, who, it was clear, knew all things. The translation was free, but adequate—

"You will, I know, want to return what I am sending by the messenger who brings it. You will think the very sending of it an insult, but when you have read this note, perhaps you will understand. That is what I pray.

My small savings were for 'over there,' but all hope of that is gone. My husband has found me. He will always find me. There is no escape, and I am too tired to fight any more.…

If you have loved me, take this my present—he will have it if you do not—and go—go now, before it is too late. It would make me feel that my work has not been in vain. It would make me happy in spite of all.

Do this for me, and cheat maluaa."

The effect of this effusion on Willie was negligible. He merely refastened the note, returned it, and lit a cigar. But with Felisi it was otherwise. This, then, was why people laughed, and wept, and pondered—and small wonder! She was pondering herself on the way to the landing, or she would have seen who followed.

As it was, she had already boarded the canoe at the landing steps when a man's figure—the same that had left Miss Smith's bure—disengaged itself from the shadow of a bollard and stumbled in after her. Taking an involuntary seat on the nearest thwart, it leered at her out of the darkness, swaying gently.

"Now," it said in soft, slurred accents, "now we can talk, eh?"

Felisi should have been alarmed. But she was not. She had seen men in this condition before, and feared them not at all.

"You want talk?" she responded brightly, and dipped her paddle, heading the canoe seaward.

Apparently the man did.

"I knew it was there—and she gave it you—I saw. She gave it you just to cheat me. Hand it over, kid, and you can have anything you fancy! Hand it over and save yourself a lot of trouble, a whole lot——"

He said a great deal more. His voice rose in threat, sank in persuasion, spluttered in sudden outbursts of passion, but nothing that he said had the slightest effect on the easy swing and dip of the paddle, nor on Felisi's thoughts that accompanied them. There was something radically wrong with all this—wrong and ugly in a world that should be right and beautiful. And it was so simple to rectify—so tantalisingly simple!

Exactly what happened was hard to determine, and quite unnecessary. The man's voice had risen in a querulous crescendo. He was on his feet. His outstretched, grasping hands were descending on Felisi. She was sure of this—as sure as she was that, they missed her by several inches, that the canoe turned neatly bottom up, and remained so for a considerable time. But then dugouts are deplorably unstable at the best of times.

Felisi was thinking that very thing—amongst others—as she paddled home alone.