Belle chuckled. She was much shorter than her brother, with a dark tint to her pretty skin that seemed better suited to island life. “Example. He believes women should be allowed to divorce, but men shouldn’t. Thank goodness, or I might still be chained to that worthless drunkard.”
“If there had not been the possibility of divorce, you would not have married Joe at all,” Lloyd said; then, in my general direction: “My sister is attracted by the possibility of trouble, you know, Mr. Fergus.”
“Well,” she insisted, “I now have my higher calling here in Samoa.”
“It’s Fergins, actually—” I interjected.
“Calling? I was not aware you had found a higher calling,” needled her brother.
She ignored him, and with a slight fluttering of her eyes, turned to Davenport. “Oh, do you like it?”
Davenport had stood and was examining the large hearth. This was at one end of the hall, opposite a rickety piano.
“It is handsome, Miss Strong,” said Davenport. “But I would think a fireplace would have limited utility in the tropical climate.”
“Useless thing,” Belle Strong confirmed with a dash of disgust, her finger pointed at the hearth, though her dark eyes lingered on Davenport. “As a point of fact, you gentlemen are sitting in the first and only room in all Samoa to have a fireplace. Only Louis dares use it in this never-ending heat. It is rather a spectacle for the natives around here. Your missionaries can teach them all they want about Jesus Christ, but the silly creatures will still stick their heads inside and try to understand whether this is something good or it is from the devil.”
“Louis declared he would not live in a house without a fireplace,” added Fanny, chortling and then shaking her head at the thought. The novelist’s wife, like her daughter, was short with dark hair and big, sparkling eyes. They could have been sisters, and in some way Fanny would be the more intriguing of the two. She wore a native-style dress that would be called a nightgown in London or New York, shapeless and decorated with tobacco and spots of grass that were the only evidence so far of any members of the family ever leaving the house. She left me with the impression of Bluebeard’s wife after being brought into the light. Her infectious smiles were followed each time with heavy sighs. “It almost bankrupted us, costing more than one thousand dollars to build, so I suppose his threat nearly came true. Mr. Fergins,” she said, turning back to me with an almost desperate air, “what do you really believe about how Louis would be received were he to ever go back to Great Britain?”
I could see how important it was to her that I give an encouraging answer.
“With a hero’s welcome. King Arthur coming home from Avalon. Great writers move us all closer to God. And there are very few great writers left in the world, Mrs. Stevenson.”
(Fanny, she chided me. I protested. She insisted.)
“Those who remain,” I went on, “like your husband, are really walking treasures, Fanny. Imagine Wordsworth and Dickens come back to life to walk the streets and shake hands with their readers. It would be as if you brought the English language itself to life.”
There was never a suggestion of Stevenson receiving us that day, nor on the next visit a few days later. Fanny was just as bored with her fellow American and preoccupied with interviewing me about her husband’s literary reputation. We only caught a glimpse of Belle and Lloyd this time before they went off on a picnic with some of the domestics, then we had tea with Fanny, until a servant came to whisper something to her that caused her to furrow her brow before excusing herself with a quick march out of the room.
I could see Davenport growing more irritated that even time to ourselves in the house could not be very productive. To gain entrance into the life of an author who lived alone was usually a rare opportunity for a bookaneer—it reminds me of when Davenport managed to be invited in by Miss Dickinson, for instance, to be part of her eccentric household in Amherst in the summer of ’78—but to be in Vailima was to be an insect under glass. One of the servants, whose Samoan name had been anglicized from Sala to Charlie, was particularly prone to being right at our heels as we wandered around, amusing himself by translating Samoan words into English and vice versa, in a deep, excitable voice. “Loi: Ants!”
“How have you learned so much English?” I asked him, careful not to step on the long line of ants to which he was pointing.
“My master gives me lessons,” Charlie said, tucking a smile under his carefully groomed mustache. His hair was dyed a soft orange, but his mustache was dark black, making him seem an amalgam of several men. Along with his earthy necklaces, he wore a wooden crucifix.
“You do your master proud,” Davenport said. Then, struck with an idea, he added, “I mean to say, you do Tusitala proud.”
“Tusitala: Teller of tales!” translated Charlie.
Davenport threw a grin in my direction. “Teller of tales,” he echoed.
Not long after, the halls were pierced with a strange howling noise. There was a pause, then it rang out again.
“What is that?” I asked after noticing Charlie was reluctant to speak.
He whispered to us with a very different tone, one of trepidation: “Tusitala.”
The awful noise—which reached our ears once more—was kind of like how I’d imagine the war whoop of your nation’s backwoods Indians. Servants ran from all directions and entered from outside, chasing the sound.
“I’m very sorry for him,” Charlie mumbled. “He does not know what is in store.”
“Who doesn’t?” Davenport asked.
The attendant’s eyes widened with fright. “Whoever did wrong to Tusitala.”