65 Short Stories

by W. Somerset Maugham

  ‘I’m not afraid,’ she said.

  ‘I daresay. But if you have your throat cut I shall get into trouble, and besides, we’re so short-handed I don’t want to risk losing your help.’

  ‘Then let Mr Wilson come with me. He knows the natives better than anyone and can speak all their dialects.’

  ‘Ginger Ted?’ The ContrOleur stared at her. ‘He’s just getting over an attack of D.T.s.’

  ‘I know,’ she answered.

  ‘You know a great deal, Miss Jones.’

  Even though the moment was so serious Mr Gruyter could not but smile. He gave her a sharp look, but she met it coolly.

  ‘There’s nothing like responsibility for bringing out what there is in a man, and I think something like this may be the making of him.’

  ‘Do you think it would be wise to trust yourself for days at a time to a man of such infamous character?’ said the missionary.

  ‘I put my trust in God,’ she answered gravely.

  ‘Do you think he’d be any use?’ asked the ContrOleur. ‘You know what he is.’

  ‘I’m convinced of it.’ Then she blushed. ‘After all, no one knows better than I that he’s capable of self-control.’

  The ContrOleur bit his lip.

  let’s send for him.’

  He gave a message to the sergeant and in a few minutes Ginger Ted stood before them. He looked ill. He had evidently been much shaken by his recent attack and his nerves were all to pieces. He was in rags and he had not shaved for a week. No one could have looked more disreputable.

  ‘Look here, Ginger,’ said the ContrOleur, ‘it’s about this cholera business. We’ve got to force the natives to take precautions and we want you to help us.’

  ‘Why the hell should I?’

  ‘No reason at all. Except philanthropy.’

  ‘Nothing doing, ContrOleur. I’m not a philanthropist.’

  ‘That settles that. That was all. You can go.’

  But as Ginger Ted turned to the door Miss Jones stopped him.

  ‘It was my suggestion, Mr Wilson. You see, they want me to go to Labobo and Sakunchi, and the natives there are so funny I was afraid to go alone. I thought if you came I should be safer.’

  He gave her a look of extreme distaste.

  ‘What do you suppose I care if they cut your throat?’

  Miss Jones looked at him and her eyes filled with tears. She began to cry. He stood and watched her stupidly.

  ‘There’s no reason why you should.’ She pulled herself together and dried her eyes. ‘I’m being silly. I shall be all right. I’ll go alone.’

  ‘It’s damned foolishness for a woman to go to Labobo.’

  She gave him a little smile.

  ‘I daresay it is, but you see, it’s my job and I can’t help myself I’m sorry if I offended you by asking you. You must forget about it. I daresay it wasn’t quite fair to ask you to take such a risk.’

  For quite a minute Ginger Ted stood and looked at her. He shifted from one foot to the other. His surly face seemed to grow black.

  ‘Oh, hell, have it your own way,’ he said at last. ‘I’ll come with you. When d’you want to start?’

  They set out next day, with drugs and disinfectants, in the Government launch. Mr Gruyter as soon as he had put the necessary work in order was to start off in a prahu in the other direction. For four months the epidemic raged. Though everything possible was done to localize it, one island after another was attacked. The ContrOleur was busy from morning to night. He had no sooner got back to Baru from one or other of the islands to do what was necessary there than he had to set off again. He distributed food and medicine. He cheered the terrified people. He supervised everything. He worked like a dog. He saw nothing of Ginger Ted, but he heard from Mr Jones that the experiment was working out beyond all hopes. The scamp was behaving himself He had a way with the natives; and by cajolery, firmness, and on occasion the use of his fist, managed to make them take the steps necessary for their own safety. Miss Jones could congratulate herself on the success of the scheme. But the ContrOleur was too tired to be amused. When the epidemic had run its course he rejoiced because out of a population of eight thousand only six hundred had died.

  Finally he was able to give the district a clean bill of health.

  One evening he was sitting in his sarong on the veranda of his house and he read a French novel with the happy consciousness that once more he could take things easy. His head boy came in and told him that Ginger Ted wished to see him. He got up from his chair and shouted to him to come in. Company was just what he wanted. It had crossed the ContrOleur’s mind that it would be pleasant to get drunk that night, but it is dull to get drunk alone, and he had regretfully put the thought aside. And heaven had sent Ginger Ted in the nick of time. By God, they would make a night of it. After four months they deserved a bit of fun. Ginger Ted entered. He was wearing a clean suit of white ducks. He was shaved. He looked another man.

  ‘Why, Ginger, you look as if you’d been spending a month at a health resort instead of nursing a pack of natives dying of cholera. And look at your clothes. Have you just stepped out of a band-box?’

  Ginger Ted smiled rather sheepishly. The head boy brought two bottles of beer and poured them out.

  ‘Help yourself, Ginger,’ said the ContrOleur as he took his glass.

  ‘I don’t think I’ll have any, thank you.’

  The ContrOleur put down his glass and looked at Ginger Ted with amazement

  ‘Why, what’s the matter? Aren’t you thirsty?’

  ‘I don’t mind having a cup of tea.’

  ‘A cup of what?’

  ‘I’m on the wagon. Martha and I are going to be married.’

  ‘Ginger!’

  The ContrOleur’s eyes popped out of his head. He scratched his shaven pate. ‘You can’t marry Miss Jones,’ he said. ‘No one could marry Miss Jones.’

  ‘Well, I’m going to. That’s what I’ve come to see you about. Owen’s going to marry us in chapel, but we want to be married by Dutch law as well.’

  ‘A joke’s a joke, Ginger. What’s the idea?’

  ‘She wanted it. She fell for me that night we spent on the island when the propeller broke. She’s not a bad old girl when you get to know her. It’s her last chance, if you understand what I mean, and I’d like to do something to oblige her. And she wants someone to take care of her, there’s no doubt about that’

  ‘Ginger, Ginger, before you can say knife she’ll make you into a damned missionary.’

  ‘I don’t know that I’d mind that so much if we had a little mission of our own. She says I’m a bloody marvel with the natives. She says I can do more with a native in five minutes than Owen can do in a year. She says she’s never known anyone with the magnetism I have. It seems a pity to waste a gift like that’

  The ContrOleur looked at him without speaking and slowly nodded his head three or four times. She’d nobbled him all right

  ‘I’ve converted seventeen already,’ said Ginger Ted.

  ‘You? I didn’t know you believed in Christianity.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know that I did exactly, but when I talked to ’em and they just came into the fold like a lot of blasted sheep, well, it gave me quite a turn. Blimey, I said, I daresay there’s something in it after all.’

  ‘You should have raped her, Ginger. I wouldn’t have been hard on you. I wouldn’t have given you more than three years and three years is soon over.’

  ‘Look here, ContrOleur, don’t you ever let on that the thought never entered my head. Women are touchy, you know, and she’d be as sore as hell if she knew that’

  ‘I guessed she’d got her eye on you, but I never thought it would come to this.’ The ContrOleur in an agitated manner walked up and down the veranda. ‘Listen to me, old boy,’ he said after an interval of reflection, ‘we’ve had some grand times together and a friend’s a friend. I’ll tell you what I’ll do, I’ll lend you the launch and you can go and hide on one of t
he islands till the next ship comes along and then I’ll get ’em to slow down and take you on board. You’ve only got one chance now and that’s to cut and run.’ Ginger Ted shook his head. ‘It’s no good, ContrOleur, I know you mean well, but I’m going to marry the blasted woman, and that’s that. You don’t know the joy of bringing all them bleeding sinners to repentance, and Christ! that girl can make a treacle pudding. I haven’t eaten a better one since I was a kid.’

  The ContrOleur was very much disturbed. The drunken scamp was his only companion on the islands and he did not want to lose him. He discovered that he had even a certain affection for him. Next day he went to see the missionary.

  ‘What’s this I hear about your sister marrying Ginger Ted?’ he asked him. ‘It’s the most extraordinary thing I’ve ever heard in my life.’

  ‘It’s true nevertheless.’

  ‘You must do something about it. It’s madness.’

  ‘My sister is of full age and entitled to do as she pleases.’

  ‘But you don’t mean to tell me you approve of it You know Ginger Ted. He’s a bum and there are no two ways about it Have you told her the risk she’s running? I mean, bringing sinners to repentance and all that sort of thing’s all right, but there are limits. And does the leopard ever change his spots?’

  Then for the first time in his life the ContrOleur saw a twinkle in the missionary’s eye.

  ‘My sister is a very determined woman, Mr Gruyter,’ he replied. ‘From that night they spent on the island he never had a chance.’

  The ContrOleur gasped. He was as surprised as the prophet when the Lord opened the mouth of the ass, and she said unto Balaam, What have I done unto thee, that thou hast smitten me these three times? Perhaps Mr Jones was human after all.

  Allejezus!’ muttered the ContrOleur.

  Before anything more could be said Miss Jones swept into the room. She was radiant She looked ten years younger. Her cheeks were flushed and her nose was hardly red at all.

  ‘Have you come to congratulate me, Mr Gruyter?’ she cried, and her manner was sprightly and girlish. ‘You see, I was right after all. Everyone has some good in them. You don’t know how splendid Edward has been all through this terrible time. He’s a hero. He’s a saint. Even I was surprised.’

  ‘I hope you’ll be very happy, Miss Jones.’

  ‘I know I shall. Oh, it would be wicked of me to doubt it For it is the Lord who has brought us together.’

  ‘Do you think so?’

  ‘I know it Don’t you see? Except for the cholera Edward would never have found himself Except for the cholera we should never have learnt to know one another. I have never seen the hand of God more plainly manifest’

  The ContrOleur could not but think that it was rather a clumsy device to bring those two together that necessitated the death of six hundred innocent persons, but not being well versed in the ways of omnipotence he made no remark.

  ‘You’ll never guess where we’re going for our honeymoon,’ said Miss Jones, perhaps a trifle archly. ‘Java.’

  ‘No, if you’ll lend us the launch, we’re going to that island where we were marooned. It has very tender recollections for both of us. It was there that I first guessed how fine and good Edward was. It’s there I want him to have his reward.’

  The ContrOleur caught his breath. He left quickly, for he thought that unless he had a bottle of beer at once he would have a fit. He was never so shocked in his life.

  LOUISE

  ♦

  I could never understand why Louise bothered with me. She disliked me and I knew that behind my back, in that gentle way of hers, she seldom lost the opportunity of saying a disagreeable thing about me. She had too much delicacy ever to make a direct statement, but with a hint and a sigh and a little flutter of her beautiful hands she was able to make her meaning plain. She was a mistress of cold praise. It was true that we had known one another almost intimately, for five-and-twenty years, but it was impossible for me to believe that she could be affected by the claims of old association. She thought me a coarse, brutal, cynical, and vulgar fellow. I was puzzled at her not taking the obvious course and dropping me. She did nothing of the kind; indeed, she would not leave me alone; she was constantly asking me to lunch and dine with her and once or twice a year invited me to spend a week-end at her house in the country. At last I thought that I had discovered her motive. She had an uneasy suspicion that I did not believe in her; and if that was why she did not like me, it was also why she sought my acquaintance: it galled her that I alone should look upon her as a comic figure and she could not rest till I acknowledged myself mistaken and defeated. Perhaps she had an inkling that I saw the face behind the mask and because I alone held out was determined that sooner or later I too should take the mask for the face. I was never quite certain that she was a complete humbug. I wondered whether she fooled herself as thoroughly as she fooled the world or whether there was some spark of humour at the bottom of her heart. If there was it might be that she was attracted to me, as a pair of crooks might be attracted to one another, by the knowledge that we shared a secret that was hidden from everybody else.

  I knew Louise before she married. She was then a frail, delicate girl with large and melancholy eyes. Her father and mother worshipped her with an anxious adoration, for some illness, scarlet fever I think, had left her with a weak heart and she had to take the greatest care of herself. When Tom Maitland proposed to her they were dismayed, for they were convinced that she was much too delicate for the strenuous state of marriage. But they were not too well off and Tom Maitland was rich. He promised to do everything in the world for Louise and finally they entrusted her to him as a sacred charge. Tom Maitland was a big, husky fellow, very good-looking and a fine athlete. He doted on Louise. With her weak heart he could not hope to keep her with him long and he made up his mind to do everything he could to make her few years on earth happy. He gave up the games he excelled in, not because she wished him to, she was glad that he should play golf and hunt, but because by a coincidence she had a heart attack whenever he proposed to leave her for a day. If they had a difference of opinion she gave in to him at once, for she was the most submissive wife a man could have, but her heart failed her and she would be laid up, sweet and uncomplaining, for a week. He would not be such a brute as to cross her. Then they would have quite a little tussle about which should yield and it was only with difficulty that at last he persuaded her to have her own way. On one occasion seeing her walk eight miles on an expedition that she particularly wanted to make, I suggested to Tom Maitland that she was stronger than one would have thought. He shook his head and sighed.

  ‘No, no, she’s dreadfully delicate. She’s been to all the best heart specialists in the world and they all say that her life hangs on a thread. But she has an unconquerable spirit.’

  He told her that I had remarked on her endurance.

  ‘I shall pay for it tomorrow,’ she said to me in her plaintive way. ‘I shall be at death’s door.’

  ‘I sometimes think that you’re quite strong enough to do the things you want to,’ I murmured.

  I had noticed that if a party was amusing she could dance till five in the morning, but if it was dull she felt very poorly and Tom had to take her home early. I am afraid she did not like my reply, for though she gave me a pathetic little smile I saw no amusement in her large blue eyes.

  ‘You can’t very well expect me to fall down dead just to please you,’ she answered.

  Louise outlived her husband. He caught his death of cold one day when they were sailing and Louise needed all the rugs there were to keep her warm. He left her a comfortable fortune and a daughter. Louise was inconsolable. It was wonderful that she managed to survive the shock. Her friends expected her speedily to follow poor Tom Maitland to the grave. Indeed they already felt dreadfully sorry for Iris, her daughter, who would be left an orphan. They redoubled their attentions towards Louise. They would not let her stir a finger; they insisted on doing ever
ything in the world to save her trouble. They had to, because if she was called upon to do anything tiresome or inconvenient her heart went back on her and there she was at death’s door. She was entirely lost without a man to take care of her, she said, and she did not know how, with her delicate health, she was going to bring up her dear Iris. Her friends asked why she did not marry again. Oh, with her heart it was out of the question, though of course she knew that dear Tom would have wished her to, and perhaps it would be the best thing for Iris if she did; but who would want to be bothered with a wretched invalid like herself? Oddly enough more than one young man showed himself quite ready to undertake the charge and a year after Tom’s death she allowed George Hobhouse to lead her to the altar. He was a fine, upstanding fellow and he was not at all badly off. I never saw anyone so grateful as he for the privilege of being allowed to take care of this frail little thing.

  ‘I shan’t live to trouble you long,’ she said.

  He was a soldier and an ambitious one, but he resigned his commission. Louise’s health forced her to spend the winter at Monte Carlo and the summer at Deauville. He hesitated a little at throwing up his career, and Louise at first would not hear of it; but at last she yielded as she always yielded, and he prepared to make his wife’s last few years as happy as might be.

  ‘It can’t be very long now,’ she said. ‘I’ll try not to be troublesome.’

  For the next two or three years Louise managed, notwithstanding her weak heart, to go beautifully dressed to all the most lively parties, to gamble very heavily, to dance and even to flirt with tall slim young men. But George Hobhouse had not the stamina of Louise’s first husband and he had to brace himself now and then with a stiff drink for his day’s work as Louise’s second husband. It is possible that the habit would have grown on him, which Louise would not have liked at all, but very fortunately (for her) the war broke out. He rejoined his regiment and three months later was killed. It was a great shock to Louise. She felt, however, that in such a crisis she must not give way to a private grief; and if she had a heart attack nobody heard of it. In order to distract her mind she turned her villa at Monte Carlo into a hospital for convalescent officers. Her friends told her that she would never survive the strain.