Again the club laughed; Saxby, good husband, good father, laughed more than anyone. ‘I see – that’s the idea.’
After this Caffin met the girl every day, although, of course, he complained bitterly of the necessity, saying in a disgusted voice. ‘Why do I do it – it’s just silly – and me feeling rotten too.’
In the evening he reported to the club, imitating the girl’s voice, ‘Oh, Mr Caffin, you mustn’t think so badly of yourself.’ Then in his own voice, ‘Miss Smith – Martha – I may call you Martha, mayn’t I – you’re so kind, too trustful.’
The club roared with laughter. Caffin said in a mournful voice, ‘It makes you tired.’
Another night he described his first attempt at a kiss. The lady, it appeared, had been greatly shocked.
‘What did she do, Caffy?’
‘All the usual things.’ Caffin sighed. ‘She said I was a disgusting beast.’
‘She believes in the truth, too.’
‘And she said she didn’t see any need for that sort of thing.’
‘Do they all say that?’
‘All of ’em. I don’t know why I go on.’
‘And what did you do then?’
‘Oh, the usual. I told her I couldn’t help my feelings and that she was a crool, hard-hearted girl.’
‘And then?’
‘Well, then, of course, I did it again.’
‘What, kissed her?’
‘Yes, God knows why. There’s no kick for me in green apples. But it was the next move.’
‘Did you though?’ Saxby strove to call up the idea of this unconventional act. ‘And what did she say to that?’
‘Oh, the usual thing – she asked me to forgive her.’
‘To forgive you?’
‘For being so crool and hard-hearted. And, of course, she wanted some more, a lot more.’
‘A lot more what?’
‘Why, kisses.’ Caffin said this word with such concentrated misery and disgust that the club burst into a shout of joy. ‘It makes you sick,’ he said, ‘but I suppose it’s my own fault – why do I do it, why?’
The next night he arrived in such extreme depression that the club actually cheered him. The whole circle broke into laughter and cries of encouragement as soon as he came into the firelight. He accepted his triumph with a gesture of despair, fell into his seat and sat bent forward for about five minutes gazing at the ground with his head between his hands.
‘Come on, Caffy, what’s the latest? Did she propose?’
He shook his head slightly but he did not groan. He never over-acted a part; it is quite probable that he did not act at all. He played the part, modelled no doubt on some hero of the post-war magazine, some Huxley neurote or coffee-stall philosopher, so often, that it was himself.
‘Spit it out, Caffy – we’ll hold your hand.’
Caffin took a drink. ‘It’s only something she said tonight – but you wouldn’t believe it.’
‘Now then, Caffy.’
‘Well, you know what sort she is – she gets her feelings in a big way,’ and he sighed. ‘She wouldn’t be a mish if she didn’t – I can’t blame her – I just asked for it.’
‘Go on, Caffy, what did she say?’
The club implored. Even Saxby gave his official encouragement. ‘Now then, Caffin, you mustn’t disappoint us.’
‘She said, “God sent you to me”.’
‘No, no, Caffy.’
‘Try another, Caffy.’
‘No, Caffy, a thin tale.’
Caffin sat up. ‘Damn it all, don’t you understand anything – why, a girl like that – it’s the shock of their lives – they don’t know anything – I bet you that one never had a doll, not a real baby doll – teddy bear’s the style, don’t raise any awkward ideas or nasty feeling – they’re brought up in a bag and when a chap tickles ’em a bit through a moth ’ole, it’s like a revelation from ’eaven – if they ’aven’t been smothered already – ’ in his excitement Caffin began to drop aitches. But the club repeated from all sides, ‘No, no, Caffy.’
The joke was that Caffin took the thing seriously, it appeared that he valued himself as an expert on seduction and female psychology. He had a weak side; a faith, almost a religion. ‘No, no, Caffy,’ everyone cried, and he shouted, ‘Damn it all, I tell you – that’s nothing – lots of girls – it’s just the natural thing – give ’em a chance, that’s all.’
‘No, no, Caffy, that’s a bit too good.’
At last Caffin got up and went away. He was huffed.
The club was surprised and a little conscience-smitten. The Dabbi staff at that time were thoroughly good fellows, all of them, sociable and good-natured. Saxby had the name for making happy stations, and he deserved it. He was an excellent district officer, hard-working, conscientious with a strong, natural sympathy for the natives, and he had never stood on his official dignity.
He took his pipe from his mouth, looked after Caffin with a startled air and said, ‘He isn’t wounded in his feelings, I hope.’
They reassured him. ‘It’s all right, sir, he had to go.’
‘I’m afraid he was hurt. I must drop in tomorrow and say something.’ He put back his pipe and reflected. Gradually a chuckle rose through his huge form. ‘Funny sort of chap.’
‘Shouldn’t believe everything he tells you,’ Billson said.
‘Well, I don’t know.’ Saxby puffed and reflected. A serious expression appeared on several faces. The Dabbi club was accustomed after sunset now and then to hear some thoughtful remark from Saxby, on politics or religion, and it received these always with respect and appreciation.
There was a slight pause. A boy pushed inwards the faggots burning beside the circle of chairs and blew on their red points. They burst at once into a bright, high flame in which the features of Saxby, Billson, and even the young soldier suddenly acquired striking light and shade. They seemed like a circle of deep-eyed philosophers, pondering the nature of things.
‘Well, I don’t know,’ Saxby said again, ‘about that girl, for instance.’
There was a respectful pause.
‘Some people do have extraordinary ideas,’ Saxby said, puffing. He looked round with impressive gravity. ‘Extraordinary.’
‘It’s the religion,’ Billson suggested. ‘I been to chapel myself and you wouldn’t believe how some of them talk.’
‘H’m yes, but it’s not only the talk – it’s – well – it’s a different kind of – well – almost outlook.’
There was another long pause while everyone contemplated the bottles glistening in the firelight.
‘And then, of course, they really do believe in God,’ Billson said.
‘Why not?’ the young soldier asked in a surprised voice.
This startled everyone. Saxby cautiously turned his big face towards the young man, Billson opened his mouth to speak and then thought better of it.
The subaltern was a perfectly ordinary young man from an excellent school, neither tall nor short, dark nor fair, with brown eyes and a neat little brown moustache. He had never done anything to make anyone even suspect that he had any ideas about anything except drill, polo, and beer.
There was a pause. Billson’s mouth remained open. Saxby was pondering. He knew by experience that you had to be careful with soldiers. They not only picked up the most extraordinary stuff but sometimes they believed it, really believed it. It could be most embarrassing, especially in a mixed company. He glanced at Billson and slightly moved an eyebrow. Billson shut his mouth. Saxby said in a thoughtful voice, ‘I see that Robert Lynd wants to change the law about maidens.’
At once everyone began to discuss the future of cricket. This was a favourite subject with Saxby, who took a sensible and serious view of the state of the game. He was never content to say, ‘Let it alone.’ No better subject could have been suggested to take discussion away from a dan
gerous subject. Saxby had that excellent tact which does not appear like tact. The young soldier and Billson both had strong views on cricket, and when the philosopher’s circle broke up for dinner an hour later, everyone felt that kind of gratification which follows upon an expansion of feeling and imagination.
Saxby called at the store next afternoon to ask Caffin to tennis, but the young man was out. For a while he was not seen even at the club. Billson said that he was spending all his time at the mission. There was even a rumour that he had attended the mission chapel.
All the same, the announcement of his engagement to Miss Martha Smith caused surprise in the station and a kind of confusion. It was discussed in Caffin’s absence, during the whole of one evening, and no one could fail to notice the flat and disappointed tone of the speakers. Even Saxby was a little put out.
‘I’m afraid friend Caffin has lost his character,’ he said. ‘He can’t be such a blackguard as they say.’
‘Nature’s been too much for him.’
‘Or the climate.’
‘Perhaps he was tight,’ the young soldier suggested.
But no one would accept this whitewashing. ‘Caffy’s always more or less tight – but it never affects his form. No, she’s caught him – another good man gone.’
Caffin himself was not seen at all until one evening Saxby met him on the town road going towards the mission. He was whistling in a particularly lively manner.
But as soon as he caught sight of the district officer, his shoulders drooped, his forehead wrinkled. He lived up to his ideal. Saxby congratulated him and he answered in a tone of gloomy despair, ‘Just when I got nicely settled in with old Billson – but what can a chap do?’
Saxby told the story at the club which agreed that Caffin was a bit of a fraud, that he had always been a poser. The next day Caffin took a lift in the company car to railhead. Miss Smith saw him off at the store. She was obviously in bridal spirits; everyone who saw her described her as quite pretty in her excitement. Billson, who had lent Caffin ten pounds for his trip and necessary expenses, said that after all Caffy had done pretty well for himself.
There was no more news of Caffin for two months. He was then said to be in Spanish Muni with a high yellow señorita. Billson was furious. ‘The dirty little swine,’ he shouted. ‘He’s bilked me.’
The others were sympathetic but much amused. They were also, of course, sympathetic with the poor girl at the mission who was said to be suffering a good deal, but there was a ring of pleasure even in Saxby’s tone when he said at the club, ‘So after all there was something in those stories about Caffin.’
‘I wonder what he got out of it.’
‘Probably everything she had.’
‘Did you ever hear how he bought an ejaw girl for fifteen shillings and hired her out?’
‘No, but I can well believe it.’
Everyone began to tell stories about Caffin’s mean tricks and the meanest gave the most pleasure.
The station had been a little surprised at Caffin’s disappearance, but everyone was astonished when the rumour went round that the girl Smith, though ill with unhappiness, was growing plumper every day.
Saxby spoke of it to the missionaries, a couple called Beatty, who said there was nothing in it. The Beattys in fact could not believe their own eyes. It was the nursing sister who had to make them understand that the symptoms had exactly the same meaning in Martha Smith, though she was white, as in any of the pagan girls who disturbed the mission every year with unexpected babies.
‘It’s incredible,’ Beatty said to Saxby, ‘quite incredible – a most respected family in the West Country.’
Beatty was a small, fair man with very blue eyes. He had a habit of bending towards you while he talked, as if asking for your sympathy and understanding. Probably he knew by experience that missionaries could not expect fair judgement. He was plainly in distress about Martha Smith.
‘And do you know her explanation – the only explanation she vouchsafed to give us?’
‘No.’
‘That he thought she couldn’t really love him.’
‘My God, what a blackguard Caffin is,’ Saxby pondered. ‘Seemed quite an ordinary sort of lad – it’s really astonishing – ’ Suddenly he caught Beatty’s eye, whose pained expression warned him that he was smiling. He became at once grave. ‘Poor girl, I suppose you’ll send her home?’
‘She won’t go home.’
‘Oh, I see – yes – naturally – in that state.’
‘But I can’t turn her out, can I?’
‘No, I suppose not – certainly not.’
Beatty went away quite stooped with anxiety and perplexity. However, a few days later, Miss Martha Smith suddenly turned up at the station rest-house. It seemed that Beatty had solved his problem after all. Little Mrs Beatty explained that matter to Billson who, although he no longer went to chapel, had once belonged to a congregation. ‘Poor, poor girl,’ she cried. ‘We didn’t know what to do – my piccaninnies are so sharp and quick, even the quite, quite little ones, poor neglected darlings. But we brought it all to prayer and really, we were wonderfully answered – the poor girl softened at once. She saw what harm she was doing us.’
‘I suppose she hasn’t got a ring or anything?’
‘I don’t think so, Mr Billson, why?’
‘Well, Mrs Beatty, that chap Caffin took ten pounds off me to buy things for the wedding – and so, of course, if he did send her a ring, it’s really out of my property.’
‘Oh, I’m sure she’ll give anything back – she’s really a very nice girl. She’s been accusing herself of selfishness towards us and really, it was a little selfish of her not to think of the mission sooner.’
‘Well, if you would just mention about the ring. I wouldn’t like to intrude myself.’
‘Of course, Mr Billson – that’s six tins of tomato soup, isn’t it, and you’ve made an allowance for the flour with the weevils. Of course, I was sure you had.’
Miss Smith was very retiring. None saw her at all except in the late evening, when a short figure, in a cloak which gave it almost a conical shape, was sometimes seen moving quickly towards the garden by the bush road.
No one troubled her. It was supposed that she was waiting for her steamer ticket. Saxby took care that regular supplies of wood, water, chickens, and yam were delivered at the rest-house, and gave his cook-general orders to keep an eye on her commissariat.
After a month, however, even Saxby began to wonder how long the girl would stay. He sent a discreet note asking when she would need transport. When did her boat sail? She wrote back to say that she had no boat and she did not mean to sail.
Saxby was uneasy. He felt that the girl was suffering and that she needed help of some kind. He appealed to the Beattys who came at once to the office.
‘But what can I do, Mr Saxby? She ought to go home, of course. But I can’t turn her out into the bush, can I?’
‘No, but couldn’t you persuade her?’
‘Terribly, terribly obstinate,’ Mrs Beatty said. ‘I always said she was the difficult type – poor thing. I noticed it at once – especially her neck.’
‘Her neck?’
‘Terribly, terribly short. Poor girl, nothing could ever teach her. What are we to do, Mr Saxby – it’s such a dreadful anxiety for us at the mission – and the poor girl must be suffering so terribly too. Even though it is her own selfishness.’
‘I was told you had a little meeting with her,’ Saxby said.
They gazed at him. Suddenly Mrs Beatty understood and with a little smile for the layman’s ignorance of terms, she murmured, ‘He means when we brought it to prayer, dear.’
‘Oh yes, but it’s no good. We tried – we’ve tried everything, Mr Saxby.’ His blue eyes implored Saxby to believe him, to understand his difficulties.
‘Poor, poor, girl,’ Mrs Beatty murmured. ‘I feel so
terribly sorry for her. I wonder, Mr Saxby, is this a good sixpence?’ Mrs Beatty had taken advantage of the visit to cash a cheque. ‘Yes, I was sure it was – some of the new ones are so yellow, aren’t they?’
Beatty said in a tone unexpectedly decisive, as if, having given up hope of sympathy, he fell back on his rights. ‘Besides, we have no jurisdiction – since she left the mission.’
Saxby understood this very well. The Beattys did not intend to do anything further. Having been successful by the aid of prayer in removing Miss Smith from the mission, they were leaving her to providence. Saxby was indignant and alarmed.
But he was a conscientious man. He put on a tie, took an early whisky, and went to the rest-house and knocked on the side of the doorway with his stick. ‘Excuse me, it’s Saxby.’
‘Come in.’
The hut was in twilight, and at first he could see only a dark bundle of shawls or cloaks in the middle of the bed, under the looped-up net. Then he perceived a white face, thin and small, projecting from the top of this bundle. He could not recognize this face, thin and hollow-cheeked, and for some reason this increased his confusion: as if he found himself confronted by something altogether beyond his expectation.
Perspiring, he murmured another apology and began to make his little prepared speech of sympathy and encouragement. He meant to explain to the girl that she must not feel ashamed or shy, that everybody knew how badly she had been treated. But he had barely uttered three words before it struck him that the girl resented his interference. There was an awkward silence. Then with an inspiration, he said, ‘I just called to know about the chickens.’
The girl said nothing.
‘You’re getting them all right? You’re all right for supplies? Because if there’s any difficulty – the least difficulty, I hope you’ll let me know at once,’ Saxby said firmly. He then wished her good night, stepped quickly out into the compound and made his way home at speed. He was distressed, but on the whole pleased with himself. He had got out, he thought, with the least damage to anybody’s feelings.
But he was still anxious about Miss Smith and, as her case was not official, he put it to the club that evening. He wanted popular support, so to speak.
The Second Penguin Book of English Short Stories Page 19