Green Dolphin Street

by Elizabeth Goudge

  “You should know,” said Marianne sharply. “It’s your chair.”

  “Why, so it is, ma’am,” he said in surprise.

  She looked at him suspiciously. Was he laughing at her? No. The solemnity of his countenance was quite untouched by mirth.

  “I must thank you, Mr. Haslam, for all that you have done for me,” she said graciously. “I should like you to understand that I am most deeply grateful.”

  “I am deeply grateful for your gratitude, ma’am,” he said. “And now the incident is closed, eh? We go back to where we were.”

  And now there was no doubt about his amusement, for the corners of his lips were twitching with it. Marianne opened her mouth to speak, suddenly floundered, and dropped her eyes. How she disliked this man! And just a moment ago she had been making up her mind that it would be silly to dislike him any more. The fact was that he was literally the only human creature she had ever encountered who knew how to put her at a disadvantage. Why must he use his knowledge? Why couldn’t he keep it to himself and stay where she put him? If only he would do that, she thought she might manage to like him.

  “It’s no good, Marianne,” he said. “Face it.”

  “Face what, Mr. Haslam?” she asked him coldly.

  “We can’t go back to where we were. In spite of your pride you had to turn to me in your extremity, and now there is a bond between us that does not allow you to put yourself upon a pedestal. It holds us side by side as equals, you and I. Why not be friends?”

  “I was not aware, Mr. Haslam, that we were not friends,” she said stiffly.

  “Don’t lie, Marianne. We’ve been excellent antagonists, but hardly friends. You are jealous of my friendship with William, and you think I’ve had a bad effect on him all these years. In some ways, perhaps, I have. But I’ve taught him not to quit. If he’s taken on a tough job, he sticks to it. It may be that that perseverance of his has stood you in better stead than you’ve any idea of.”

  His eyes were twinkling. What unpleasant thing was he insinuating now? Marianne did not want to know and abruptly changed the subject.

  “What did you mean,” she asked him suddenly, “when you said once that to have reverence was to have peace?”

  “When you have learned truly to reverence, Marianne, you seek no farther. When you can worship the divinity of life in the rustle of a leaf or the curve of a baby’s cheek, there is no point in ambition. You have already attained to all that there is.”

  “No more pushing and shoving,” said Marianne. “Reverence, you said, was the mark of an aristocrat. Aristocrats don’t push and shove.” She smiled. “I suppose you’d say I’m no aristocrat, nor is Samuel Kelly?”

  He laughed. “No, not at present. Too ambitious for wealth and souls, and you scramble for them very vulgarly and fatiguingly. Even to watch you at it makes me tired. I believe in neither wealth nor souls but only in the curve and throb and scent and sound and color of life here and now, under my eyes and nose and fingertips.”

  Marianne suddenly shut her eyes. It was certainly fatiguing to think of all this searching going on in the world, every man and woman born into it perpetually scrambling for something, perpetually thirsty for the water brooks, yet with only the vaguest idea what they were or by what name to call them. . . . My soul is athirst. . . . Tai Haruru might say he did not seek, but every time he touched a thing of beauty his long fingers seemed to her to curve into question marks.

  There was a slight sound, and she opened her eyes again. He had left the room to fetch something, and now he was back again, setting it beside her bed. It was a baby’s cradle, made of kauri wood. “I only finished it this afternoon,” he said. “Your little lass was beforehand with me.”

  Marianne gave a cry of astonished delight. It was an exquisite thing. It was carved with all the enchanted things, stars and cherubs, moons and suns and unicorns, lambkins and butterflies, robins and daisies and little sea horses with frisking tails. It must have taken him months of patient labor to make, his fingers feeling through the wood for all the beauty that he could conjure from it to garland the sleep of a little child. And Hine-Moa had put the baby in it, dressed in one of the lovely embroidered robes that had now come to hand, wearing the daisy-embroidered cap Marianne had made on board the Green Dolphin, wrapped in her fleecy shawl and laid upon her little lace-trimmed pillow. And she was not howling any more but was lying deeply asleep, her crumpled face no longer flushed with her wrath but delicately tinted as a flower, and old and very wise, the microscopic nails on her tiny, groping fingers reminding her mother quite suddenly of the shells that Marguerite had long ago brought back from La Baie des Petits Fleurs.

  “But she’s a little darling after all!” cried Marianne. “She’s sweet. . . . And, next time, I’ll have a boy.”

  Tai Haruru went out laughing, before she had time to thank him for the cradle with more than that one cry of delight. She was going to love her daughter now, but she’d not rest until she got the boy. Any other woman, who had been through what she had, would have said, “Never again!” But not so Marianne, balked of her will. She was incorrigible. But she was going to love her child now, and cease to hate himself, and he was not dissatisfied with his afternoon’s work. Poor old William would have a better time of it now. Years ago the young man who had been Timothy Haslam had vowed that no human being should ever again get a strangle hold upon his affections, but the man who was Tai Haruru had broken that vow when he had looked up that night at Hobson’s Saloon and seen the boy William sitting at the other side of the table staring at him. He wanted William’s happiness as he had never expected to want anything again in this world. A funny business, this of William’s marriage. He had not listened with much attention to William’s rhapsodizings upon the subject of his bride before her appearance, but even so he had found it difficult to reconcile Marianne as she was with Marianne as he had expected her to be. . . . Though he preferred Marianne as she was. . . . He liked her particular brand of obstinate courage, and her character was sufficiently complex to make life with her interesting. And above all he liked the changeling in her. . . . He loved that elf half merry and half afraid, confident and yet lost, who peeped out sometimes from the brightness of her eyes.

  Marianne for the next two days slept and woke and slept again, and enjoyed the peace and the cessation of perpetual striving. She was prepared to begin it again, with gusto, very soon, but meanwhile it was pleasant to rest. That afternoon with Tai Haruru had so completely shattered the remnants of her stupid hatred and jealousy that now she did not feel humiliated any more by what he had done for her, only humbled. To feel so humble made her feel extremely chastened and odd, as though she were a little girl again, punished and forgiven and tucked up in bed with a sweet to suck. I believe there is a lot of the little girl still in me, she thought, and I believe I am nicest when it shows.

  It was sunset, and the baby slept beside her in the cradle, when she heard the sounds of arrival. Tai Haruru’s house was very close to the creek, and she could hear the splash of paddles in the water, the excited cries of the Maoris, and William’s voice issuing orders. She looked at herself in the glass, the color rushing into her cheeks and the light into her eyes. She was trembling all over. William! Yes, she was looking almost pretty, almost like the excited small girl that she felt. Surely he must love her now in the way that she wanted. She had borne him a child and she was looking pretty.

  His fumbling knock came at the door.

  “William! William!” she cried eagerly. Why must he knock? Why could he not come straight in, stride across the room, and take her in his arms? He was inside the door now, but standing sheepishly upon the mat, embarrassingly conscious of his disreputable appearance, half afraid of her because she had suffered so much for him. “William!” she cried again, and now there was a note of sharpness in her voice.

  He came to her then, stumbling and rucking up the mat, and knelt
beside her and kissed her gingerly as though she was a piece of Dresden china. “Poor Marianne!” he whispered shamefacedly. “Poor girl! Shocking time you’ve had. Shocking. And look at me in this filthy state. Should have changed and washed before I came to you.”

  “In too much of a hurry to see your child, William?” she asked lightly, and a little coldly, for he was, she noticed, keeping his eyes fixed firmly upon her, and not upon the cradle, with considerable effort. “She’s there, William. Look and see.”

  “She?” almost bellowed William. “She? Is it a girl?”

  “Yes, William, I’m afraid it is.”

  “Good God, why did nobody tell me? A girl! Why wasn’t I told it was a girl?”

  “I didn’t know you wanted a girl, William,” said Marianne. “Why did you want a girl?”

  But he was not listening to her. He had suddenly forgotten his embarrassment, his dirt, his fatigue. He was kneeling by the cradle, his coarse, red face beaming like the sun, chuckling and chortling to his daughter, one of her tiny hands clutching his finger. Never, since the day of their marriage, had his wife seen him look so happy, and once more jealousy stabbed her. Must she always be jealous where William was concerned? Had she lost her jealousy of Marguerite and Tai Haruru only to feel jealous of her own baby? Oh, it was too bad!

  “Blue eyes and fair hair!” boomed William triumphantly.

  “They always have blue eyes when they’re born, and the first lot of hair always comes off,” Marianne told him flatly.

  “But you can tell she’s going to be fair,” exulted William. “Look at her skin. Like white satin. What shall we call her?”

  His eyes had at last left the baby and were fixed eagerly upon his wife. Marianne, who had never at any time permitted herself to contemplate the disaster of a daughter, had given no consideration at all to female names. “I don’t know,” she said a little feebly. And then, from somewhere far away, a voice that did not seem to be her own said, “Mr. Haslam has carved daisies all over her cradle. I’ve worked daisies on her cap. Shall we call her Marguerite?”

  He kissed her then almost as she wanted to be kissed, almost with eagerness. “But she must be named after her mother too,” he said. “We’ll call her Marguerite Véronique. After you and Marguerite.”

  She felt most horribly tired suddenly, and had a frantic desire to get rid of the baby for a bit and be alone with him, the only one he looked at. “Put the cradle outside,” she said. “It’s time Hine-Moa bathed her. And then come back and tell me all you have been doing.”

  He did as she told him, though very reluctantly, and then came back and sat down beside her and took her hand. He looked very grave suddenly, and she noticed the deep lines of fatigue running from nose to mouth. He looked all at once like a thoroughly wretched Newfoundland dog.

  “What’s happened, William?” she asked sharply.

  “Maybe I should not tell you for a day or two, not till you’re stronger,” said William uncertainly. “Let’s go on talking about the baby.”

  “Don’t talk nonsense, William. Bother the baby. It’s far worse for me to have you sitting there hinting at things than to have you tell me the whole thing straight out. Go on, William. What has happened?”

  William cleared his throat, scratched his head, sighed, and came out with it at last. “Captain O’Hara is dead, Marianne.”

  The room swayed about her. No, she had not been quite strong enough for this. Nothing seemed certain except William’s strong clasp on her hand. Dr. Ozanne, her mother, and now Captain O’Hara. Well, she was middle-aged now. She had reached the time of life when she must expect to see the older generation pass from her one by one. But Captain O’Hara! He and the Green Dolphin had seemed such an integral part of her life and William’s. “The Green Dolphin?” she whispered anxiously.

  “Gone too,” said William, and he held her hand and stroked it while she fought to overcome the shock and weakness.

  “Tell me,” she said at last. She felt steady again now, and she was loving the grip of William’s hand. In their love for the Green Dolphin they were at least always at one. In that nothing ever came between them.

  “There’s not much to tell,” said William heavily. “She was wrecked on that hideous reef of rocks that runs out into the sea from the coast down by the fishing village. I’ve told you about it. It’s a death trap in a storm. We found her there. She was almost broken up by the time we found her. But we had rope, and I got out fairly near to her with a coil of it.”

  “You got out near to her?”

  “Yes,” said William sheepishly.

  Marianne had a sudden vision of the awful sea and William fighting his way through it from the shore. One end of a rope held by his men would have been round him, but even then the danger must have been deadly. “How dared you, William?” she demanded passionately. “You might have been killed. You should have thought of your wife and child.”

  “There wasn’t time,” said William simply. “It had to be done quickly, you know, if it was done at all, because the poor old Green Dolphin was breaking up so fast. But I couldn’t have done it if I hadn’t been the strongest, stoutest chap God ever made. I got out as far as I could, and they flung me a rope. They flung it again and again and at last I got it and made it fast to mine. They were uncommon glad to see me, those poor chaps. They were pretty well knocked about, and pretty blue, all except Captain O’Hara. I could see him there bellowing away on the quarterdeck . . . laughing . . . he was just the same . . .”

  “Even though he’d wrecked the Green Dolphin? I expect it was his own fault. I expect he took a risk once too often.”

  “If he had, it wasn’t bothering him. He was as jolly and confident as though the whole thing were just a picnic. Maybe he knew there’d be no life lost except his own. All the men got ashore holding to the rope—not one of them was swept away. Nat got ashore the last of all. He didn’t want to leave Captain O’Hara but the old man ordered him overboard. I got Nat ashore myself, and then just as I turned round again the Green Dolphin suddenly heeled over, and before one could say Jack Robinson she was gone, and Captain O’Hara too. Just gone. Vanished as though a wild beast had opened its mouth and swallowed them down whole. Marianne, the sea’s a devil. You’d have known it was a devil if you’d seen it then.”

  He broke down and sobbed a little in the silly childish way that had so exasperated Marianne when he had wept for Sophie. But she was not exasperated now. She stroked his untidy bent head with a gentleness he had never yet experienced from her.

  “For Captain O’Hara, that was the best way to die,” she comforted him. “He was getting old, and he wouldn’t have known what to do about being really old. Yet if he had time to think, I expect he was surprised when it happened like that. He was arrogant, you know. He’d never have expected the sea to beat him.” She stopped, wondering exactly what he had thought in the very last moment. Then she remembered Nat and his humility, that she had so deeply loved. “I’m glad you saved Nat, William. I’m so glad you saved Nat.”

  “Nat’s nightcap’s gone,” he told her lugubriously.

  She laughed, and amazingly comforted by the touch of her hand, he ceased sobbing. They were nearer to each other than they had ever been.

  “It’s not only the Green Dolphin that’s gone, Marianne,” he told her hesitatingly. “The barges are swept away, the sheds, the jetty, everything, all that you’ve worked for. And the settlement here is in a great mess, too. Years of work have gone in a night. That’s the way of it in this damn country.”

  She took the bad news calmly. “Never mind, William,” she said. “We’ll begin again. In every sort of way we’ll begin again and do better. We’ll never forget the Green Dolphin and we’ll do better.”

  “Must go and get a wash,” mumbled William at last, “and a drink.”

  He kissed her and left her, and she wept for a little; for Captain O
’Hara and the Green Dolphin and for a happy chapter closed forever in her life. That lovely ship! It was as though her own childhood had gone down on it. And she wept, too, for the loss of so much that she had planned and striven for. But it was no good crying. They must just pick themselves up and start again. That was the meaning of pioneer life, starting again. As they used to say on the Island at any fresh beginning, “Au nom de Dieu soit.”

  She dozed for a little, tired by her weeping. She was awakened by a rustling sound, and by a touch upon her body. She looked up and there was Nat standing by her bed, one hand laid caressingly upon her left ankle. “Nat!” she cried. “Nat!”

  He looked at her, trying to speak, the very depth of what he felt making his noises even more unintelligible than usual, yet fully expressive of his love and sorrow. He was the same Nat, if perhaps a shade sadder, a shade more wizened because he had lost Captain O’Hara, much more like a monkey than ever without his ridiculous nightcap. But he was the same Nat, and he did not fail, as ever, to touch the spring of tenderness in her that only he could touch.

  “You’re not to go to sea again, Nat,” she said decidedly. “You’ve had enough of the sea. You’re to stay here always with Mr. Ozanne and me and my baby. We’ll all be so happy together. No more storms and scoldings. Just happiness and peace together.”

  “You don’t say!” a voice ejaculated, a detestably mocking and incredulous voice. “Oh, my! You don’t say!”

  Vaguely Marianne had been aware of that rustling sound by the window. Now she looked toward it, and there on the window ledge was Old Nick, preening himself.

  Part 4 The Nun

  The high goal of our endeavor

  is spiritual attainment, individual worth,

  at all cost to be sought and at all cost pursued,

  to be won at all cost and at all cost assured.

  ROBERT BRIDGES.

  Chapter I