Love Lies Dreaming (7 page)

For the sake of something to do, and in an endeavor to change the nature of our motion, I stepped the mast and hoisted the lug sail. Constance, of course, thanks to our holidays together, knows something about boat sailing, and she helped me with sheet and tiller, while the others looked on with cow-like inanity. Had I told you before that all of them had cow-like eyes and inane expressions? Well, they had.

I hadn't the least idea what course to steer, and there was only the sun to steer by, so I got the wind comfortably over the quarter and soon we were progressing smoothly enough, and we were able to take more interest in things. Time went by, and still we shared out our rations of biscuit and water. They were small rations, and we were distinctly hungry, yes, and thirsty.

(“All right, pig,” said Constance, “you needn't hint like that. I'll put the kettle on; the tea's all laid ready on the tray.”)

We were making a strict Socialist state of ourselves, and one day, after the women had been whispering to themselves a good deal, Opera Top turned to me.

“Don't you think, dear Mr. Trevor,” she cooed, “seeing that it is share and share alike, it would be better for every one concerned if we were to share your—er—wardrobe between us?”

“My
what?
” I yelled.

“Your wardrobe. Some of us are hardly sufficiently clad, and
so
uncomfortable in consequence.” And she gave a little wriggle and clapped her hands about the upper portion of her where the Opera Top came to an untimely end.

One of the Chemise Vests butted in here.

“I don't think, dear Opera Top,” she fluted sweetly, “that you have
quite
as much to complain about as some others of us.”

Very delicately she adjusted the edge of her vest. At the same time I have never seen such lust in the eyes of any one as in hers as she gazed at my trousers.

“Well, I'm damned,” said I.

There was quite a flutter in the dovecote at this awful word. Opera Top covered her face with her hands for a second, but she soon returned to the charge.

“I'm sure you will appreciate, dear Mr. Trevor,” she
said, “that it is not mere selfishness that actuates us, although the nights
are
cold. It is a delicate matter, but surely you can understand how uncomfortable we all feel at being so lightly clad in the presence of a gentleman.”

“Oh, give her your trousers if she wants them so much,” said Constance. “Anything for peace, dear.”

“But—but—” I said, “it is a delicate matter, but surely these ladies would be just as uncomfortable if I were to be without my trousers.”

Envelope Chemise chipped in here.

“Perhaps,” said she, “perhaps your wife, dear Mrs. Trevor, would have no objection to—er—sewing a button and button-hole on the tails of your—er—shirt. It is a very convenient arrangement, I'm sure.” She uttered these last words in a rush, blushing scarlet.

Constance shrieked with hysterical laughter.

(“I'm sure I never shriek,” said Constance.

“You did on this occasion,” said I.)

That called upon her the severest attention of the eldest Miss Reducing Corset.

“I think you, too, should make some small sacrifice, dear Mrs. Trevor,” she said. “After all, Mr. Trevor
is
your husband, and I understand that—that it doesn't matter so much with husbands.”

It was Constance this time who said she was damned. But the eldest Miss Reducing Corset's suggestion met with evident approval from the others. They cooed and they fluted and they fluttered their long white hands and they raised such a to-do (always a perfectly lady-like to-do, of course) that in the end our hearts melted.

Opera Top gratefully buried the upper half of her in my coat, and the senior Chemise Vest drew on my trousers with a sigh of relief. The eldest Miss Reducing Corset appropriated (with freezing politeness, and beating all other candidates by a neck) Constance's frock. Bath robe wailed when she saw the plunder distributed in this fashion with no share for her.

“Isn't there anything for me?” she pleaded.

“Of course not,” said Opera Top, almost snappishly, “you're the best off of all of us, you and one or two others.”

This last she said with a glance at the Chemises and Knickers—and she still gazed avariciously at Constance's diaphanous but adequate cami-knickers.

“But,” wailed Bath Robe, “I simply daren't move.”

The eldest Miss Reducing Corset regarded her with distinct approval.

“My dear child,” she said, “you don't need to move. Haven't we got dear Mr. Trevor here to look after us?”

That was the sort of women they were.

Well, to cut a long story short—

(“Just as well,” said Constance, but of course I ignored her.)

—to cut a long story short, just when our rations were beginning to run low we reached the islands. There were two of them, about a mile apart, just mere coral atolls, but grateful with cocoanut palms and very pleasant to look upon.

The smaller one we left on our lee, and bore up for the larger. We circled round the ring of the reef, looking for a break. There was only a small one.

“We'll have to risk it,” I said, and we made a dart for the tiny entrance. As a matter of fact, I don't really think a skilled sailor could have managed it, and I was hampered by all the women lying useless in the boat. However it was, we failed to get through. A
swell fell away from under us unexpectedly, and the bottom was torn out of the boat by the jagged coral. It was not too serious for the reef held up firm and allowed us to land without difficulty. So there we were cast away on a coral island and our only means of leaving the place damaged beyond repair.

We carried what few stores we had ashore—as I said, we carried our stores ashore—

(“All right,” said Constance, “I expect the kettle's boiling. You can make the tea and bring in the tray.”)

—we carried our stores ashore and tried to make the best of things. It wasn't a bad little place, that island. There were plenty of cocoanuts, and fish which we caught on a hook made out of a safety pin of Constance's, and at the bottom of the lagoon there were oysters! They were delicious—although of course you had to dive for them. Pretty deep, too. There were one or two bread-fruit trees, too. I hadn't ever seen bread-fruit trees before I reached the atoll, but somehow I knew it was bread-fruit, and I guessed how to cook it. Jolly good stuff, too.

(“Go easy with the bread and butter,” said Constance, “You're not on the atoll now.”)

So we didn't fare too badly. The trouble was that not one of those women would do anything toward anything. They didn't mind fishing, in a lady-like sort of way, but they simply would not take the fish off their hook when they caught one. They would shriek for me to do it for them. It was a horrible nuisance if I were on the other side of the atoll and had to run half a mile just to unhook their fish and re-bait their line. I think that why they liked fishing was because it gave them opportunities to take up a graceful attitude and maintain it indefinitely. Their sole purpose in life was to take up attitudes. As for climbing the palms after green cocoanuts, or diving after oysters, they nearly fainted at the bare suggestion. The consequence was that Constance and I spent all our time rushing round collecting food for sixteen persons and then cooking it. It grew wearisome, decidedly wearisome.

(“You can put your feet up on the chair if you like,” said Constance.)

At the end of a month or two Constance and I grew fed up with the whole business. I maintained to her that there was a slight improvement in the women, and that they showed signs of eventually becoming bearable
to live with, but she couldn't see it. As a matter of fact they got on my nerves pretty badly. Table manners are admirable enough in their way, but there is a limit to it. To see the delicate grace with which, when they were eating oysters, they would remove the pearls from their mouths if one got in unnoticed (those oysters were full of pearls, of course) grew exasperating in the end. I would have given a week of my life to see one of them spit the things out over her shoulder. And they simply had to have spoons and forks, of course. I spent hours chipping out wooden ones for them with a bit of sharp coral. And their clothes (what there was of them) wore out, too, and there was no end of a fuss about that. They made themselves new ones out of bark and things, and in consequence did nothing but chatter about fashions all day and half the night. There used to be fearful ructions (and lady-like ructions are the worst possible kind) if Opera Top turned up one morning in a bark gown copied from the model of the one High Neck had made the day before. The way they would be gushingly rude to one another would have been funny to any one not having to live with them. Constance's
clothes and my shirt wore in no time, naturally, and we never had a moment to make ourselves new ones. We didn't need them in that climate, but there was trouble over that, too. They used to talk to each other in audible asides about the indelicacy of it, and they averted their eyes from us. Yet for all that at mealtimes they always managed to get the fattest oysters and the least burned chunks of bread-fruit. Not by unmannerly grabbing, of course, but by sheer polite woman's tact.

In the end came the inevitable row. Constance took my part against the women, and they stayed calm and polite until Constance lost her temper. I have never met any one with their capacity for being rude while maintaining all the appearance of being exquisitely ladylike.

“I'll be blowed if I stay on this blessed island another minute,” said Constance.

“But dear Mrs. Trevor, I don't see what else you can do,” gushed Opera Top.

Constance had her there. “Don't you? Well, there's the other island not a mile away. If I can't swim a mile in this warm water to get away from you cats I hope I drown on the way. Come along, dear.”

And off we went.

The other atoll was just as good as the first, but a bit smaller. Constance and I managed beautifully on it. We lazed the days away, eating all the oysters and cocoanuts we wanted, with nothing much to do and all the day to do it in. It was a pleasant life. At times I used to wonder how the others were getting on, and wondering if having to shift for themselves was making any difference to them, but when I found myself thinking I just used to turn over to toast the other side of me in the sun and reach out for another oyster.

I don't know how long we were like that. Time didn't matter very much to us. I know that during that time I grew a lovely long mustache and beard. Beautiful ones.

(“There wasn't a third island I could go to, was there?” asked Constance. “I wouldn't share an island with a beard for anything.”)

We drowsed and dreamed along for years, possibly. Years of unlimited oysters. It was just like Heaven.

And then early one morning as Constance and I were asleep, or perhaps only dozing, on the beach, we
were awakened by a sudden rush of feet. We started up, and saw, hurrying toward us, a gang of naked savages. Before we could do anything they were upon us, and they had us tied hand and foot. By that time I was sufficiently awake to look at them more closely. They were savage enough, and naked enough, in all conscience. One or two of them carried unpleasant-looking knotted clubs, and the rest had sharp spiky spears made of stick hardened and pointed in the fire. Very doubtful characters, obviously. Yet they were all women. Not a doubt about that, anyway. The fact leaped to the eyes.

The leader came over to me and poked me with her spear in a highly uncomfortable manner.

“Get up,” she said.

It was the fact that an Indian Ocean savage spoke English that got me to my feet as much as the poke from the spear. Bound as I was, I was in a vertical position in one-fifth of a second. I looked at my captor more closely.

“Great Scott!” I said. “It's Opera Top.”

“You're right,” said she.

I looked round at the others. I recognized them all,
Low Neck, Envelope Chemise and the rest. A year or two of fending for themselves had done them a world of good. They were upstanding and powerful, and had figures now instead of looking like yards of pump-water.

“You're looking very fit,” I said to Opera Top. I thought it just as well to be placatory.

“I feel it, too,” said Opera Top, slapping her chest.

The gesture called my attention to her necklace. It wasn't the old jade one. I peered at it more closely. It was a neat string of human teeth.

“God bless my soul and body,” I said. “Where in the name of humanity did you get that thing from?”

“This?” said Opera Top, with a pleased smile, “Oh, that's just the eldest Reducing Corset. She got on my nerves in time. I've got another one made from her backbone over on the other island.”

There wasn't anything I could say in reply. I just stood silent and felt the shivers chase one another up and down my spine.

“We're wasting time,” said Opera Top. Fancy Opera Top talking about wasting time! “Come on.”

“Where—where are we going?” I ventured to ask.

“Back to the other island, of course, silly.”

“What for?”

“Fancy asking! We want our birthright, of course.”

“Your birthright? How the devil can I give you your birthright?”

“You're the only person within twenty thousand miles who can, so you've dam' well got to. There doesn't seem much chance of our being rescued.”

I couldn't do much with my hands tied and my feet hobbled, but I did what I could. I sat down with a jerk on a lump of coral.

“Damned if I do,” I said.

“Not so much blasted fuss!” said Opera Top, and she fidgeted with her spear in a significant manner.

“But what about Constance?” I said.

“She'll stay here. She's had her birthright. Lots of it, I expect.”