The Blue Lagoon: A Romance
Page 37
CHAPTER XIV
HANNAH
At noon, in the shallows of the reef, under the burning sun, the waterwould be quite warm. They would carry the baby down here, and Emmelinewould wash it with a bit of flannel. After a few days it scarcely everscreamed, even when she washed it. It would lie on her knees during theprocess, striking valiantly out with its arms and legs, staringstraight up at the sky. Then, when she turned it on its face, it wouldlay its head down and chuckle and blow bubbles at the coral of thereef, examining, apparently, the pattern of the coral with deep andphilosophic attention.
Dick would sit by with his knees up to his chin, watching it all. Hefelt himself to be part proprietor in the thing—as indeed he was.The mystery of the affair still hung over them both. A week ago theytwo had been alone, and suddenly from nowhere this new individual hadappeared.
It was so complete. It had hair on its head, tiny finger-nails, andhands that would grasp you. It had a whole host of little ways of itsown, and every day added to them.
In a week the extreme ugliness of the newborn child had vanished. Itsface, which had seemed carved in the imitation of a monkey’s face fromhalf a brick, became the face of a happy and healthy baby. It seemed tosee things, and sometimes it would laugh and chuckle as though it hadbeen told a good joke. Its black hair all came off and was supplantedby a sort of down. It had no teeth. It would lie on its back and kickand crow, and double its fists up and try to swallow them alternately,and cross its feet and play with its toes. In fact, it was exactly likeany of the thousand-and-one babies that are born into the world atevery tick of the clock.
“What will we call it?” said Dick one day, as he sat watching his sonand heir crawling about on the grass under the shade of the breadfruitleaves.
“Hannah,” said Emmeline promptly.
The recollection of another baby once heard about was in her mind; andit was as good a name as any other, perhaps, in that lonely place,notwithstanding the fact that Hannah was a boy.
Koko took a vast interest in the new arrival. He would hop round it andpeer at it with his head on one side; and Hannah would crawl after thebird and try to grab it by the tail. In a few months so valiant andstrong did he become that he would pursue his own father, crawlingbefore him on the grass, and you might have seen the mother and fatherand child playing all together like three children, the bird sometimeshovering overhead like a good spirit, sometimes joining in the fun.
Sometimes Emmeline would sit and brood over the child, a troubledexpression on her face and a far-away look in her eyes. The old vaguefear of mischance had returned—the dread of that viewless form herimagination half pictured behind the smile on the face of Nature. Herhappiness was so great that she dreaded to lose it.
There is nothing more wonderful than the birth of a man, and all thatgoes to bring it about. Here, on this island, in the very heart of thesea, amidst the sunshine and the wind-blown trees, under the great bluearch of the sky, in perfect purity of thought, they would discuss thequestion from beginning to end without a blush, the object of theirdiscussion crawling before them on the grass, and attempting to grabfeathers from Koko’s tail.
It was the loneliness of the place as well as their ignorance of lifethat made the old, old miracle appear so strange and fresh—asbeautiful as the miracle of death had appeared awful. In thoughts vagueand beyond expression in words, they linked this new occurrence withthat old occurrence on the reef six years before. The vanishing and thecoming of a man.
* * * * * *
Hannah, despite his unfortunate name, was certainly a most virile andengaging baby. The black hair which had appeared and vanished like somepractical joke played by Nature, gave place to a down at first asyellow as sun-bleached wheat, but in a few months’ time tinged withauburn.
One day—he had been uneasy and biting at his thumbs for some timepast—Emmeline, looking into his mouth, saw something white and like agrain of rice protruding from his gum. It was a tooth just born. Hecould eat bananas now, and breadfruit, and they often fed him onfish—a fact which again might have caused a medical man to shudder;yet he throve on it all, and waxed stouter every day.
Emmeline, with a profound and natural wisdom, let him crawl about starknaked, dressed in ozone and sunlight. Taking him out on the reef, shewould let him paddle in the shallow pools, holding him under thearmpits whilst he splashed the diamond-bright water into spray with hisfeet, and laughed and shouted.
They were beginning now to experience a phenomenon, as wonderful as thebirth of the child’s body—the birth of his intelligence: the peepingout of a little personality with predilections of its own, likes anddislikes.
He knew Dick from Emmeline; and when Emmeline had satisfied hismaterial wants, he would hold out his arms to go to Dick if he were by.He looked upon Koko as a friend, but when a friend of Koko’s—a birdwith an inquisitive mind and three red feathers in his tail—dropped inone day to inspect the newcomer, he resented the intrusion, andscreamed.
He had a passion for flowers, or anything bright. He would laugh andshout when taken on the lagoon in the dinghy, and make as if to jumpinto the water to get at the bright-coloured corals below.
Ah me! we laugh at young mothers, and all the miraculous things theytell us about their babies. They see what we cannot see: the firstunfolding of that mysterious flower, the mind.
One day they were out on the lagoon. Dick had been rowing; he hadceased, and was letting the boat drift for a bit. Emmeline was dancingthe child on her knee, when it suddenly held out its arms to theoarsman and said:
“Dick!”
The little word, so often heard and easily repeated, was its first wordon earth.
A voice that had never spoken in the world before, had spoken; and tohear his name thus mysteriously uttered by a being he has created, isthe sweetest and perhaps the saddest thing a man can ever know.
Dick took the child on his knee, and from that moment his love for itwas more than his love for Emmeline or anything else on earth.