The black pearl
But why should my uncle join in the daily litany of the Saint of
Gwylata? or Mac, the old boundary-rider, who is teaching me to ride,
and who, by way of encouragement I suppose, recounts the perilous
equestrian feats of “Master Hector.”
He has all the talents, it seems--this young man--secular, as well as
ecclesiastical.
The dining-room is decorated with trophies won at Oxford, either in
sport or scholarship. He is a clergyman of the new school of muscular
Christianity, and believes in developing the bodies of his parishioners
equally with their souls.
Twenty times a day I hear: “Hector says this--. Hector does that--.
Hector will teach you all about the English Poets, he is so well-read.”
It certainly is a fact that I am woefully ignorant of English
literature. I really couldn’t say whether Chaucer and Shelley were
contemporaries or not. I have a vague idea of Tennyson and Longfellow
because we used to read them at the Lycee. I except Shakespeare; of
course _he_ is universal, like our Moliére.
To return to our paragon of perfection. Let me whisper the astounding
truth: The name of the Reverend Hector is getting on my nerves.
I long to go and shout this phrase to the reeds on the lake.... But it
is really too horrid to venture forth--108 degrees in the shade, _in
the shade, mind_. Imagine it, and tell me if the effort would not be
altogether too violent for the state of limpness and deliquescence to
which the temperature has reduced me.
As an alternative, I take my water-colours and begin a fancy sketch of
the much-lauded hero. I can’t get any help from the photograph in my
aunt’s bedroom, taken when he was five years old.
My colouring is a bit crude, especially in the hair, where the soft
Venetian red runs to the unmistakable hue of carrots.... Still, I
am not altogether unsatisfied with my maiden effort in the art of
portraiture.
I have never before felt the least inclination to devote my energies to
the “Arts d’Agréments,” as we call them in France--“agrément?” For whom
is the “pleasure?”
For the unhappy victim condemned to torture a long-suffering piano for
four solid hours a day, or spoil nice clean white paper and canvas?
“Oh’que c’est beau la toile blanche,” as one of our decadent poets
remarked when returning from the Salon. Perhaps the “pleasure” is for
those still greater unfortunates who have to admire the works of the
embryo artist, or listen to the exercises of the future Paderewski.
“Arts d’ Agréments” indeed! Truly language was given to man to conceal
his thoughts!
During these profound reflections the portrait is completed. The
long Roman nose indicates firmness of will (I have exaggerated the
length a little). The eyes, turned heavenward--only the whites are
visible--betray his angelic soul. The long legs clad in riding breeches
and gaiters suggest his equestrian prowess, and a tiny, tiny bishop’s
apron hints at the recompense due to his saintly and evangelical
virtues.
In one hand he waves triumphantly a Bible, in the other a tennis racket.
Only two hands! How unfortunate! I want several (like a Hindoo God) to
symbolise his many attributes.
Now let me add two little wings, and around his neck a chaplet of
hearts on which to inscribe the names of his admirers--just a wee one
to be left blank for mine.
While I contemplate this charming production of budding genius, Mr.
Deslandes enters my little sitting-room, to which he has admission at
all times.
I hand him my masterpiece without a word.
He laughs until the tears run down his cheeks, and wants to carry it
off to show his wife.
“No, no, uncle, I beseech you. She might take it seriously, forgetting
that it’s only a joke. I would not wound her feelings for the world; we
are beginning to get on so nicely together.”
* * * * *
I have found out a way of being useful.
When my aunt is racked with neuralgia, I go and sit with her for an
hour or two. My hand on her forehead soothes the pain.
How strange is that healing force which emanates unconsciously from
some people!
It tires me a little sometimes, but a good walk, or better still, a
ride accompanied by Mac, who won’t trust me alone on horseback yet,
restores me.
They used to tease me at school about what they called my “magnetism,”
which had a soothing effect on the sourest and most crabbed
disposition. A gift not always without drawbacks, for on how many
disagreeable missions was I not sent to placate a furious teacher--the
old Fraulein, especially, who, because she was German, was always on
the look out for slights, and distributed impositions right and left.
To me only did she unbend. Perhaps a fellow-feeling drew us together,
for was not the little orphan an exile from family life as she from
her country?
I have tried to exercise my “powers” on Meg, but so far without
success. The austere daughter of Scottish Puritans cannot stand my
French ways. Even my dresses offend her, so my aunt tells me laughingly.
She cannot understand how a well brought up “young leddy” can come
down to breakfast indecently clad in a “bed-goon,” as she designates
my pretty peignoir of soft surah, trimmed with Valenciennes, a chef
d’oeuvre of Laferrière.
Nevertheless, I am not going to lace myself stiffly all day in this
hot-house sort of temperature just to please her offended prejudice.
Besides, I love loose, flowing draperies, the soft swish of silken
materials, and their graceful billowy folds. (The little Hindoo
Princess peeping out, I suppose.)
But Meg’s antagonism worries me a little. I have as much need of
affection as of air. Dislike, even indifference, causes me real
physical suffering.
* * * * *
Every day I mount “Jenny,” a knowing old mare, who permits herself no
liberties with my inexperience.
My riding-master is old Mac--MacMahon--to give him his rightful
cognomen. Is he a distant cousin of the famous “Maréchal,” I wonder?
The bush conceals many family secrets in its bosom.
Mac was once a boundary-rider, as those men are termed who pass their
lives in the saddle, inspecting paddocks and runs, recovering strayed
stock, and keeping the station generally in order. Too enfeebled by
age--and whisky--to be of any great use now, my uncle, in the kindness
of his heart, keeps him on without any defined duties. He still rides
marvellously, and in lesson hours his bearing is most rigidly correct
towards his “Miss Mam’selle,” as he calls me. Mademoiselle quite alone
strikes him as too familiar.
It is one of my greatest delights to get him to talk during our rides.
He is a perfect mine of information on the early days of the colony,
the goldfields of Victoria, and the bush-rangers.
Under the seal of secrecy, he has actually confessed that he himself
belonged to the famous Kelly Gang; and he calmly relates the most
blood-curdling yarns of pillage of stations, banks held up, and furious
rides to escape capture.
Sometimes I rather suspect him of imposing on my credulity--“pulling
my leg,” as I heard one of the station hands say one day. Of course
that is “slang,” and I must not use such naughty expressions; but
Australian slang has for me a great fascination. There is always a
decided twinkle in Mac’s small, shrewd blue eyes as he piles horror on
horrors. It amuses us both, and I respond by marvellous stories of the
Old World, which he left when a child, and still dreams of seeing again.
Mac knows also many of the legends of the black tribes, and when he
has sufficiently scared me with the exploits of Captain Starlight, he
relates the legend of the Pleiades--Mea-Mei--in the aboriginal tongue,
and stories about the Bunyip, which are told to the picaninnies to make
them good.
III
The
Dream
Notre âme lorsque le corps dort ... reçoit participation insigne de sa
prime et divine origine et en contemplation de cette infinie sphère
à laquelle rien n’advient, rien ne passe, rien ne déchet, tous temps
sont présens, note non seulement les choses passées en mouvemens
inférieurs, mais aussi les futures.
RABELAIS (Pantagruel liv. ii. ch. xiii.).
I have had a strange dream wherein, by a sort of dual personality,
I beheld myself smaller and slimmer. My hands and feet were adorned
with heavy jewels. Rose-coloured silken draperies were wound round my
supple body. Precious gems gleamed on my brow and neck. Reclining upon
cushions in a room of white marble, I was gazing through a wide archway
which gave on to a colonnade. Tall palms bent their sombre tufted heads
and plantains waved their pale green leaves in the breeze. Birds of
brilliant plumage hovered over flowers of dazzling splendour. Ideas,
new to me, but which I felt were of remote antiquity, surged through
my brain, the mentality of which seemed extraordinarily increased. I
was expecting some one. The violence of my feelings frightened me.
Passionate and eager, my heart was yet full of anguish, even horror.
A man entered the room, clad in rich draperies of silk and velvet,
embroidered with gold, a turban fastened with a diamond aigrette
covered his black hair.
Dismissing the women around me with a slight gesture, he threw himself
at my feet.
His musical, softly-cadenced voice murmured words which only my other
self understood. I felt for him the fear mingled with the attraction
and admiration that one feels for a beautiful tiger, or for one of
those glittering jewelled snakes of India.
He drew from his bosom a necklace of black pearls and clasped it around
my neck. His eyes, with their pupils dilated, were fixed upon me like
those of a bird of prey.
Trembling and fascinated, I swayed towards him, when a man with
clear-cut, ascetic features stood between us. The loose sleeve of his
monk’s habit fell back as he raised a Crucifix menacingly towards us. I
made a brusque movement to separate the two men, and awoke.
My hand was clenched convulsively on the Begum’s black pearl, and the
unclasped necklace hung over the edge of the bed.
Next morning I recounted the dream to my uncle, who listened
attentively.
“It is really very curious, Jeanne, because that particular pearl
once belonged to the wife of a Rajah. Widowed early, and converted to
Christianity by one of our missionaries, she took refuge in a convent
at Madras, in order to escape the unwelcome attentions of her husband’s
successor. The story goes that she had not always been thus obdurate
to his advances, but yielding to the thought of the dishonour attached
to a wife faithless to her husband’s memory--there are no ‘Merry
Widows’ in India--she fled one day, taking her daughter with her.”
“What did the new Rajah do?”
“Nothing. He dared not brave the religious prejudices of his people.”
“And what became of the child?”
“She remained with her mother at the convent, and was brought up in
the Christian faith. Later on she married a French doctor and became
the mother of Jeanne, who afterwards married our great Dupleix. Don’t
you remember how, profiting by her relationship with certain Hindoo
Princes, Jeanne procured some important alliances for her husband to
the benefit of French rule in India?”
“I remember. And didn’t she sell her jewels to help pay his army when
funds did not arrive from France?”
“Yes. Louis XV. preferred to lavish money on his favourites rather
than pay the soldiers who fought for him. However, the Begum kept a
few pearls of the necklace so famous throughout India, and they were
divided between her descendants and kept as precious heirlooms.”
“Then, this black pearl of mine----”
“Is one of them. And the Hindoo Princess of the dream was probably your
ancestress.”