Under the Wide and Starry Sky

CHAPTER 82

Louis paused on his way home from Apia. He had ridden slowly up the mountain with dread pressing upon him like a heavy wood yoke. He dismounted to collect himself and, in the gloaming, noticed birds at the edge of the bush eating fat nutmeg fruits fallen from trees. He gathered some as he listened to the roar of insects coming from the dark, damp forest.

Pushing on, he caught sight in the distance of yellow lights shining through Vailima’s windows. He had explained to Talolo what “home ?res” meant to a Scotsman and how it pleased him to see the radiant windows when he rode from town, especially on a night when there was little moonlight. No Samoan needed an explanation of home ?res, least of all Talolo. But after their conversation, Louis could count on lantern glow to pierce the darkness of the hillside and cheer him home.

The sight of the glowing windows eased his dismay only slightly. He had been away for two days. He’d awakened this morning in Moors’s house with the trader standing over him and a  searing pain  in  his temples.  “Do I have an  arrow through my head?” Louis had groaned.

“Must have been quite a party you found last night.” Moors grinned. “I’ve got hot water in the tub for you, and there’s a clean set of clothes on the chair.”

When the trader left the room, Louis tried to recollect the events of last night. He recalled hanging lanterns and singing. He’d made it onto the boat, or maybe he’d made it only into a bar. There had been a switch to whisky; he could still taste it in his mouth. A fuzzy image came to him of being escorted out of someplace with his elbows secured by strangers.
“How did I end up here?” he asked Moors over breakfast.

“A gentleman from the beach accompanied you to my door.” Louis began to apologize, but his friend waved him off before he could finish. “You have su?ered enough in your life, old man. God knows you deserve a little pleasure.
Stay as long as you wish. I sent my boy up to Vailima this morning to let them know where you are.”

“Thank you.”

“We have dinner guests this evening. A crowd you would like—”

“No,  no.  I’ll  do  something  useful  with  my  visit  to  town—go  talk  to  the  English  and

American consuls again about Mata’afa. It will be futile. And then I shall go back.”
Moors looked over his spectacles. “Nassau,” he said. “It would be so easy.” “Yes,” Louis muttered. “Yes.”

When Louis came through the paddock gate, he found Talolo holding a lantern. “Love,” the man greeted Louis. “Did you eat in Apia?”

“Enough.” He tipped his hat to Talolo.

“Manuia lau tōfāga’,” Talolo said. May you sleep like a noble.

When Louis entered the house, he found Belle at the dining room table, where she’d just finished eating. “How is she?” he asked.

“Louis. You’re back.” Belle stood up. “There’s plenty of food here. Sit down and eat,” she said in  a  pleasant enough voice. If she wondered about his absence, she gave no sign. “Mama has quieted down considerably. The medicine has left her in a stupor.”
“Go rest. I’ll take over.” He collected a leg o? the roasted chicken sitting on a platter and gathered up  the  abandoned Weir manuscript from his study so he could review it while Fanny slept. When he entered her bedroom, he found her dozing, looking peaceful. He was struck by how her hands, small as a child’s, were still lovely, even after the battering they’d taken over the years.

He walked around the perimeter of the room, observing Fanny’s things, orderly now. There was a  worktable along  one wall, on  which  her most recent preoccupations were displayed. Pressed leaves and ?owers shared a corner with poetry and plant identi?cation books; feathers and bird sketches with notes claimed another corner. A lantern, lit faithfully by Lafaele to frighten lingering spirits, illuminated an arrangement of turtle shell ?shhooks suspended from strips of woven cloth. Next to it lay her silver medal from art school and a carefully preserved lock of Hervey’s blond hair.

Fanny’s mind was like her room, a cabinet of curiosities. He had fallen in love with the treasures he found in that exotic interior. Glancing around, he noticed her diary sitting on the dresser. He retrieved it and read quickly, looking for clues in the past six months that might shed some light on why Fanny’s mind had broken.

The diary was all ordinary talk about the garden, the natives, in?uenza. He smelled a whi? of resentment toward his mother in one part. A good deal of bitterness toward Joe Strong. Mostly, it was a record of her daily life at Vailima. She talked about trying out scent

making and planting India rubber as a crop to sell. There were lists: remedies she had used on a parade of sick people; things she needed, such as hurricane shutters, horse shoes, new bridles to replace the rotted and broken ones, and a saddle she wanted to buy for Belle. She wrote about seeds and harvests, from tree onions to watermelons.

She mentioned one wild Irishman on the island as a “delicious creature.” My God, did she notice such things? She never said so aloud. She wrote of the animals. And she quoted him. “Louis says I have the ‘soul of a peasant.’” Weeks later, she talked of it again.

I am feeling depressed, for my vanity, like a newly felled tree, lies prone and bleeding. Louis tells me that I am not an artist but a born, natural peasant. I have often thought that the happiest life, and not one for criticism. I feel most embittered when I am assured that I am really what I had wished to be. I have been brooding on my feelings and holding my head before the glass and now I am ashamed. I so hate being a peasant that I feel a positive pleasure when I fail in peasant occupations.

Louis remembered their conversation. Why on earth had he said such a despicable thing? He  breathed  deep  at  the  memory.  He  had  spat  out  the  bitter  remark  because  she’d interfered  in  his  work  again.  He  had  buckled  under  her  haranguing  but  carried  deep resentment. When he struck back with the peasant business, though, he attacked the very heart of her frailty. Always, since he’d ?rst known her, she had wanted to live a creative life.

Did all women married to well-known men struggle for recognition? It occurred to him that his friends thought her greatest achievement was keeping him alive. They didn’t care about her other qualities. It was a sad truth that while his illness had conferred on him an air of heroism, it had marked Fanny, his nurse, as a menial. He’d always held to the idea that she didn’t give a damn what people thought of her. She seemed bull-strong. He had learned rather late in the game that Fanny was the kind of woman who needed building up. But then everybody needed praise. The question was: Can a person go mad from want of it?

A muted cry rose from Fanny while she slept. It shook Louis nearly as much as the ?rst time her wailing had jolted loose his memory of those anguished exiles he’d witnessed in the Hebrides. Back then, the keening of a distraught woman made clear to him the anguish of the displaced, in particular the banished Highlanders. He had been writing about that period  of  Scottish  history  ever  since.  Now  Fanny’s  cry  brought  to  him  uncomfortable questions. All this time, had he pitied the downtrodden, ancient Highlanders more than he’d thought about his own wife’s su?ering? Had Fanny gone mad from being uprooted so

often? Time and again, the sweet nests she made had been pulled out from under her as she endured one more leavetaking. She was an earthbound person, seasick from the moment she set foot on a boat. Was it any wonder she had cracked after two years of cruising the Paci?c? He recalled the phrase Henry had used to describe poor Arrick: Fa’ape’ape’a e lē tu. He is like a swiftlet. He can never rest, for he has no home. Fanny uttered no complaint, but in staying by his side, by pursuing health for him—their holy grail—she had made herself every inch the exile he was.

Louis felt his face go hot with shame. Dear God, what an ass I am.

He noticed her stirring. She sat up in bed, looked at him, and said, “How nice you look in that shirt, Louis.” It startled him. It was as if the woman he’d known in 1876 had come to call.

“Why, thank you. It belongs to Moors. How are you feeling?” She blinked but didn’t answer, only stared impassively into space.

Louis sighed. It wasn’t going to be simple. He didn’t know from whence her troubles came. What mattered was to get her well. To sift through memories seeking proof of his wife’s madness would be to forget her well of wisdom, compassion, and courage.
He sat next to the bed. “I am in your chair, Fan, and here I sit on my hands,” he said. “After all the doctoring and solace you have given me, I don’t know what to do to make you better.” He lifted his satchel and put it on his lap.  “I brought you something. Seeds from the nutmeg trees in the forest.” He placed the fruits on the bedside trunk, where a plate of untouched food rested. Then he pulled from the bag the manuscript. “I have begun a new novel called Weir of Hermiston. Would you like to hear a bit of it?”
Fanny showed no sign that she heard him. Her pupils were constricted black dots in goldstreaked pools.

“I’m sorry I’ve hurt you,” he said. “I’m sorry we hurt each other. I don’t suppose we’re di?erent from most married people. You try to run me like a perambulator, and I treat you —I have at times treated you so unkindly. We’re better than that.”

Louis  climbed  into  her  bed  and  sat  on  the  opposite  end,  facing  her. “It  is  only  a beginning, Fan, but I need your thoughts on it.” He lifted the ?rst page of the manuscript and began to read. “‘In the wild end of a moorland parish, far out of the sight of any house, there stands a cairn among the heather …’”