South Wind

by Norman Douglas

  CHAPTER XXV

  As to Miss Wilberforce—she was becoming a real problem.

  Once again she had shocked the Faithful. She had misconducted herself by interrupting the torchlight procession with some of those usual or unusual antics, a detailed description of which, while entertaining to a few lost souls, would certainly mortify the majority of decent folks. The cup of endurance was full, overbrimming. Once again she had passed the night in the lock-up. Questioned as to her motives for this particular incident, she artlessly blamed the darkness which misled her, she said, into the regrettable delusion that it was night; “and at night, you know….”

  This, as Signor Malipizzo observed with his usual legal acumen, might pass for an explanation but nevermore for an excuse. How much longer, he continued, with a fine Ciceronian gesture of eloquent indignation—how much longer would the foreign colony on Nepenthe endure the presence in their midst of such a disgrace to womanhood?

  Thus spake the judge, well aware of what was expected from a man in his position. In his heart he desired nothing less than her departure; he was charmed with her disturbing influence; he hoped she would live a hundred years on the island. In the first place he received occasional gifts in kind from various grocers and wine-merchants who enriched themselves by supplying her at preposterous prices with intoxicants, and who thought by these subtle tactics to retain him as an ally in their cause. Secondly and chiefly, every new scandal of this nature gave him a fresh opportunity of consigning her, temporarily, to the lock-up. Only temporarily. Because Mr. Keith would be sure to bail her out again in the morning, which meant another fifty francs in his pocket.

  This is exactly what had just taken place. Mr. Keith had bailed her out, for the thirty-fourth time. She was at liberty once more, sobering down.

  Both the Duchess and Madame Steynlin pitied her, as only one woman can pity another. Often the prayed to their respective Gods, Lutheran and High Church, that she might be led to see the error of her ways or, failing that, removed by some happy accident from the island or, failing that, run over by a passing vehicle and injured—injured not dangerously, but merely to such an extent as to necessitate her permanent seclusion from society. Other careless folk were maimed by the furious driving of the Nepentheans; it was a common form of accident. Miss Wilberforce—the eye-sore, the scandal of her sex—remained intact. Some impish deity seemed to guide her wayward footsteps.

  Had she been a person of low extraction there would have been no difficulty in dealing with her. But she was so obviously a lady—she had such obviously rich and influential connections in England! These people, however glad to have her out of the way, might object if violent measures were taken by persons who, after all, had no right to interfere in her affairs. And the situation was rendered none the less complex by the attitude of Miss Wilberforce herself. She was a Tartar. She felt that all men’s hands were against her. She used her tongue to good purpose and, at a pinch, her teeth and claws. The policemen of Nepenthe could bear witness to that fact. Drunk, she had a perfectly blistering flow of invective at command. Sober, she was apt to indulge in a dignified bestiality of logic that cut like a knife. It was only in the intermediate stage that she was affable and human. But to catch her in that intermediate stage was extremely difficult. It was of such very brief duration.

  They tried to tempt her with the prospect of being repatriated. Strenuously she opposed the notion, on grounds of health. She argued that she had come to the South at the bidding of her English doctor—which was true enough, that grave personage having been urgently pressed by the family to make a suggestion; a return to England, she declared, would be the death of her. If any attempt were made to interfere with her liberty in this manner, she would appeal to the local Court for protection.

  Then the project of sending her to an Inebriates’ Home on the mainland was mooted. A sprightly young clergyman, not long resident on Nepenthe, volunteered for the delicate task of persuading the lady to take this step; it would be given out that she was merely undergoing a “rest cure.” The sprightly young clergyman started on his mission full of bright expectations. He returned anon, looking prematurely aged. Nobody could get a word out of him at first; he seemed top have become afflicted with a partial paralysis of the tongue. After babbling childishly for an hour or so he fell silent altogether, and it was not till next morning that he recovered full powers of speech. Wild horses, he then announced, would not drag form his lips what had passed at the interview.

  As a last resource it was decided to inaugurate a sanatorium on the island for her especial benefit, with a trained nurse permanently in attendance; during her ever-decreasing spells of sobriety the place, together with the nurse, could be utilized for needle-classes and so forth. Money was required. A committee of ladies and gentlemen collected a certain small amount, but their hopes did not rise high till the day when the Duchess broached the subject to her countryman, Mr. van Koppen, after inveigling him into what she called “a friendly teat-a-teat.” Surfeited to bursting-point with his favourite tea-cakes, the millionaire was in a lovely humour. He declared his readiness, then and there, to subscribe half a million francs to the scheme if—if his good friend Mr. Keith would make himself responsible for a similar sum, or even a thousandth part of it.

  “Half a million francs—what’s that, Duchess, as the price of a smile from yourself? Cheap. Dirt cheap!”

  “Another one?” queried the lady.

  “Well, just one. I can’t swallow any more. But I can still chew.”

  So fatuously fond was he of this particular variety of condiment that, on their account alone, he would have imported the Duchess and her entire establishment into America. For all that, old Koppen was no fool. Half a million buttered tea-cakes could not impair the lively workings of a brain which had long ago mapped out a swift and sure path to worldly success. He had wind of this project; his answer was carefully prepared. It was a mathematical certainty that not one cent of those half-million francs would ever leave his pocket. For he knew what the Committee did not know—the real character of his friend Keith. Keith was a good fellow but a hopeless crank; Keith was perfectly capable of impoverishing himself in order to keep Miss Wilberforce out of prison. As to subscribing to the schemes of a pack of meddling fools who proposed to intern the dear lady—Keith would see them all damned first. This is how Mr. van Koppen, a profound student of human nature, would have argued, had he lacked the opportunity of discussing the question with his good friend. As a matter of fact he had enjoyed that opportunity only a few days ago. He had warned Keith of what was coming, and had found him equally alert to the plans of the Committee and more desirous than himself, if possible, of frustrating them. They had chuckled vastly over a bottle of dry sparkling Nepenthe in anticipation of the event.

  “Trust me,” said Keith. “I’ll talk their heads off.”

  “I’m glad I shan’t be there!” thought the American.

  He knew his good friend. Keith could be decidedly fatiguing, especially when dead sober. He had all the Scotchman’s passion for dissecting the obvious, discovering new facets in the commonplace, and squeezing the last drop out of a foregone conclusion.

  It was a thousand pities that the Duchess, in the exuberance of her triumph, spread abroad the news of the millionaire’s promise. For that news had an unfortunate and unexpected result. The Committee, which up till then had consisted of eight reputable members, now swelled, rapidly and mysteriously, to fourteen. Six new gentlemen, including the unspeakable Mr. Hopkins, got themselves enrolled, and all six of them, as was afterwards made manifest, were persons of questionable integrity. By dint of small donations to the fund varying from five to fifteen francs, they had contrived to have their names put down; it was worth while, they thought, to risk a small sum on the chance of getting a slice out of old Koppen’s half-million which could not possibly be used up in the rent or purchase of a three-roomed Sanatorium.

  A committee of ladies and gentlemen, formed for charitab
le purposes, should be like Caesar’s wife. This one had come to resemble the spouse of Claudius. Had the upright and intelligent Mr. Freddy Parker still been its guiding spirit, he would soon have weeded out these undesirable elements and kept the pickings for himself. But Mr. Parker, since his lady’s illness, seemed to be withdrawn from all worldly concerns. He had become invisible. And now that the lady was dead he would presumably grow more invisible than ever. It was a severe blow to all concerned; to nobody more than to the Commissioner himself when, on emerging into society from his mourning retirement, he divined what a chance he had missed.

  Every single member of the small sub-committee who came, in rather a formal group, to communicate to Mr. Keith the terms of the millionaire’s offer and to solicit his participation in the scheme, purposed to attend the funeral of Mr. Parker’s lady. It was the right thing to do. That impressive function, already a day overdue, had been irrevocably fixed for 10.30 a.m. at the instance of the Chief Medical Officer of Health. Accordingly they reached the Villa Khismet at the matutinal hour of 9 a.m., convinced that the short interval would suffice to cajole out of Mr. Keith a sum sufficient to bind old Koppen to his promise.

  It struck them afterwards that this was their flagrant, initial mistake. They ought to have controlled their impatience and waited for a more opportune occasion.

  And they would have waited, but for the fact that Mr. Hopkins, a person of dubious motives and antecedents, had insinuated himself into the deputation not without a purpose of his own. This gentlemen insisted that delay was fatal. Mr. Keith, he argued, would understand their impatience. The millionaire was sailing in a day or two. One might never get that cheque cashed, or even signed, before he left Nepenthe. And then? Why, then the scheme might fall through and—he added to himself—how was he going to get his share of the plunder?

  The others, the respectable ones, gave way. Vainly they remonstrated. Vainly they pointed out that old Koppen was not a man to go back on his word; that a cheque could be made out in America as well as anywhere else; that the crux of the question was not the millionaire but his good friend Keith; that they might spoil all their chances by approaching the latter at such an unseasonable hour of the day. It was weak of them.

  They ought to have waited. For Keith was fond of solitude at all times, and any one of his dozen gardeners could have told them that, like every other self-respecting scholar, he was in the habit of breakfasting not earlier than 9.30, and dangerous to approach before that meal. Or they might have made enquiries concerning his mode of life among his fellow-countrymen on Nepenthe. The bibliographer, for instance, would have informed them that Keith was “generally sick about eleven”—meaning, by this playful nonsense, to insinuate that it was not safe to disturb him till after that hour. Be that as it may, he was certainly irritable before breakfast-time on every single day of the year and, as it happened, irritable beyond the common measure on this particular morning, because the downpour of the previous afternoon had dashed to pieces—among other material damage—the tender blooms of certain priceless ipomaeas. That alone was enough to infuriate an archangel. Moreover, like everybody else—he always conformed to custom—he had been slightly tipsy overnight. This had the singular effect of making him glum, ceremonious, and ready to take offence.

  Here, now was this pack of officious idiots blundering in upon him. Under ordinary circumstances he would have tried to be polite. As it was, he could hardly bring himself to give them a civil word of welcome. They caught him on his way from the bath to the garden—to a succulent breakfast under his favourite pine-tree within view of the Tyrrhenian; and his own flowered silk dressing-gown and gold-embroidered Turkish slippers contrasted oddly with the solemn vestments, savouring of naphthaline, which they had donned for the funeral. After the barest of apologies for a costume which, he ventured to think, was as suitable as any other for a gentleman at that hour of the morning, he bade them be seated and listened to what the speaker had to say—blinking ominously the while through his spectacles, like an owl with the sun in its eyes.

  CHAPTER XXVI

  It was a long and rambling exposition.

  Miss Wilberforce must be protected against herself. They came to him for a contribution, however small, which would enable Mr. van Koppen to fulfil his promise. It was not a question of meddlesomeness. It was a question of putting an end to a crying public scandal. Miss Wilberforce spent her days in sleeping, and her nights in shocking the population of Nepenthe. The lady should be temporarily secluded in her own interests; she was not fit to be left alone; it was an act of charity to do what one could towards improving her health and prolonging her life. They were out for a philanthropic object—to assist in helping a fellow creature. Miss Wilberforce must be protected against herself. Mr. van Koppen’s half-million would enable them to compass this end. His own contribution, however small, would enable Mr. van Koppen to fulfil his promise. Miss Wilberforce must be protected—

  He quite understood. Miss Wilberforce must be protected against herself. And he disagreed heartily. Nobody must be protected against himself. The attitude of a man towards his fellows should be that of non-intervention, of benevolent egotism. Every person of healthy digestion was aware of that cardinal truth. Unfortunately persons of healthy digestions were not as common as they might be. That was why straight thinking, on these and other subjects, was at a discount. Nobody had a right to call himself well-disposed towards society until he had grasped the elementary fact that the only way to improve the universe was to improve oneself, and to leave one’s neighbour alone. The best way to begin improving oneself was to keep one’s own bowels open, and not trouble about those of anybody else. Turkey rhubarb, in fact. The serenity of outlook thereby attained would enable a man to perceive the futility of interfering with the operation of natural selection.

  The speaker, he went on, had dropped the word charity. Had the tribe of Israel cultivated a smattering of respect for physiology or any other useful science instead of fussing about supernatural pedigrees, they would have been more cautious as to their diet. Had they been careful in the matter of dietary, their sacred writings would never have seen the light of day. Those writings, a monument of malnutrition and faulty digestive processes, were responsible for three-quarters of what was called charity. Charity was responsible for the greater part of human mischief and misery. The revenues of the private charities of London alone exceeded five million sterling annually. What were these revenues expended upon? On keeping alive an incredible number of persons who ought to be dead. What was the result of keeping these people alive? A deterioration of the whole race. Charity consisted in setting a premium on bodily ill-health and mental inefficiency. Charity was an Oriental nightmare; an endeavour to raise the week to the level of the strong; an incitement to improvidence. Charity disturbed the national equilibrium; it lowered the standard of mankind instead of raising it. Charity was an unmitigated nuisance which had increased, was increasing, and ought to be diminished.

  By way of varying the phraseology, but not the thing, they had called themselves philanthropists. The meaning of that venerable word had decayed of late in characteristic fashion. Prometheus, the archetype, brought fire from Heaven to comfort certain people who had the wit to appreciate its uses. He did not waste his time wet-nursing the unfit, like a modern philanthropist. What was a modern philanthropist? He was a fellow who was always bothering you to do something for somebody else. He appealed to your purse for the supposed welfare of some pet degenerate. Prometheus appealed to your intelligence for the real welfare of rational beings. A rich man found it extremely simple, no doubt, to sign a cheque. But an act was not necessarily sensible because it happened to be simple. People ought to dominate their reflexes. Prometheus did not choose the simplest course—he chose the wisest, and found it a pretty tough job, too. That alone proved him to have been a man of sound digestion and robust health. Had it been otherwise, indeed, he would never have endured that vulture—business for so long.

&nb
sp; The deputation exchanged glances, puzzled by this pompous and peevish exordium. It did not promise well; it sounded quite unlike Mr. Keith’s usually bland address. Perhaps he had not yet breakfasted. “We ought to have waited,” they thought. One of the listeners was so annoyed that he began:

  “A paradox, Mr. Keith, is not necessarily sensible, because it happens to be simple”—but was overborne by that gentleman, who proceeded calmly:

  “So much for generalities. Now Miss Wilberforce is a lady of independent means and of a certain age. She is not an infant, to be protected against herself or against others; she has reached years of indiscretion. Like a good many sensible persons she lives in this country. Of course a residence here has its drawbacks—very grave drawbacks, some of them. But the drawbacks are counter-balanced by certain advantages. In short, what applies to one country does not always apply to the other. Yet you propose to treat her exactly as if she were living in England. That strikes me as somewhat unreasonable.”

  “Mr. van Koppen has promised us—”

  “He may do what he likes with his money. But I don’t see why I should become the pivot for making my good friend do what strikes me as a foolish action. I am too fond of him for that. Mr. van Koppen and myself have many points in common; among other things this feature, that neither of us is of aristocratic birth. I suspect this is what made you count on me for a subscription. You thought that I, having a little money of my own, might be tempted by certain sycophantic instincts to emulate his misplaced generosity. But I am not a snob. From the social point of view I don’t care a tuppenny damn for anyone. On the other hand, my origin has given me something of Dr. Samuel Johnson’s respect for what he calls his betters. I like the upper classes, especially when they behave according to their old traditions. That is why I like Miss Wilberforce. She conducts herself, if report be true, with all the shamelessness of a born lady. Born ladies are not so common that we should hide them away in nursing homes. All forceful seclusion is dishonouring. Every little insect, drunk or sober, enjoys its freedom; and if you gentlemen were not philanthropists I would try to point out how galling your proposal must be, how humiliating to a high-spirited woman to be placed under lock and key, in charge of some callous attendant. But to what purpose? Turkey rhubarb—”