A few days later, the conch announced a horseman, and Vailima’s front door opened on Lionel Hines. I was in the great hall and my heart jumped. It was alarming to see our fellow passenger from the Colossus on Stevenson’s estate, especially because I recalled him saying he did not know Stevenson personally. It meant something out of the ordinary had brought him. Davenport had still been tinkering with his plans for the mission while onboard the frigate. He had already been using the alias of Porter, but had told Hines he was a collector of primitive antiques, not a travel writer. It may sound like a trivial point, but it was the sort of thing that could be enough, if it came out, to plant a seed of suspicion in Stevenson—the sort of thing that could quickly unravel a bookaneer’s mission.
While the visitor was busy fumbling for his handkerchief to display to Fanny, I rushed upstairs. I was out of view but that was not sufficient to feel safe. Davenport was in the stables, where Charlie had been taken to be cared for. Charlie had broken out into a fever and one native doctor after another, usually white haired and bent, came carrying palm-leaf baskets of exotic herbs and flowering plants. Davenport had been visiting the sick young man often—another way of contriving reasons for our calls to Vailima, I supposed, though it also seemed the bookaneer was genuinely moved by the native’s plight. Davenport could be returning at any moment and would find himself face-to-face with the Australian. I rushed into the library and found a Bible and some writing paper. After copying some verses, I searched for one of the domestics. The first one to come was the beautiful maiden.
“Vao, could you please bring this to my friend? He is visiting Charlie in the stables.” She stood blinking at me. I remembered myself. Here I was pleading to a girl who didn’t speak English. While I was attempting to translate my request into rough Samoan, Tulagi appeared, steaming mad.
“Tulagi warned you against bothering her,” said the dwarf.
“I am not. I need for this to be delivered to my companion.”
“What is it?”
“It is a prayer to read to the ailing servant in the stables, Tulagi.”
“Bring it yourself, then, if you care so much about Charlie’s eternal soul,” he growled.
I swallowed, unable to explain why I could not walk by Hines. Then the young woman took the paper and bowed to me; there was a deeper understanding of the situation behind her eyes that both made me feel great relief and worried me.
“Talofa,” she said, and I returned the gesture.
I thought I saw her glance down at the message and wondered, for a moment, whether she could have noticed and perhaps even understood that I wrote certain words from the Psalm in a slightly larger hand, trying to convey the warning to stay out.
Lord, remember David, and all his afflictions:
How he swore unto the Lord, and vowed unto the mighty God of Jacob;
Surely I will NOT COME INTO the tabernacle of my HOUSE, nor go up into my bed;
I will not give sleep to mine eyes, or slumber to mine eyelids,
Until I find out a place for the Lord, an habitation for the mighty God of Jacob.
The maiden’s willingness did nothing to soften Tulagi, but he also did not prevent her from taking my message; he followed her, leaving me alone again. I took the opportunity to position myself on the mezzanine above the great hall, where I would not be seen but could listen. I could only hope the visit did not signal that Hines would be a new addition to Vailima society. I dared to lean over the banister just enough to see the two of them when Stevenson had emerged.
“Your card asking me here was most unexpected, I confess,” said Hines after handing Stevenson a folded paper. It was clear from his voice that Hines, despite having run Stevenson down under his breath to us on the warship, was puffed up to have been invited. “I was actually at the British consul yesterday just after I got your card, and there was a wire coming in for you,” he continued, “so I took the liberty of volunteering to deliver it. No whites really want to go this far into the interior, you know, but I must make constant visits to my properties, and always hunt for new potential plots. Savvy? If you ever think of selling this fine land—”
“I do not.”
“Well, I hope there’s some other service I might provide for you, Mr. Stevenson.”
Stevenson glared at the man for using his “civilized” name but did not correct him. They were in chairs separated by a big Turkish rug, and, in addition to my eyes, two matching statues of Buddha on the stairs watched them.
Hines found a chair. Stevenson never just sat in a chair. He perched on the arm, or sat cross-legged against it, or, as he did now, positioned himself sideways like a bored child, bony legs dangling. There was a shift that came over Stevenson sometimes, something that possessed him, moved him from gangly European exile to imposing Samoan overseer. It was unspecific, intangible, but I had begun to recognize it when it happened.
“There is something you can help me with, Mr. Hines. It seems you sold a pig to one of my men, only the animal received was an old boar, too tough to be digested by human stomachs. When he returned to your house and asked you to correct the mistake, it is my understanding you laughed in his face.”
Hines’s cheeks reddened beyond his thick, curly beard. “I’m afraid it was your boy’s mistake. Savvy? But if you had come to me yourself, of course, I would have rectified it at once and. . .”
The visitor lost his line of thought when his host yawned; it was a low-bred, gaping, animal yawn that could stop any speech mid-sentence. Stevenson locked his hands behind his head. “Was it my man’s mistake for being brown rather than white, making him a mark to cheat?” he asked. He interrupted the stuttering umbrage from Hines: “Understand, Mr. Hines, that the men and women I employ at Vailima are not servants. They are ainga—family—I their chief, and if you cheat one of them you cheat me. The fraud against us is not to be repeated. Unlike men of your kind who come to wring coin out of the soil, glorified beachcombers, I have chosen this land as my land, the people as my people, to live and die with.”
“Surely, we can come to some arrangement.”
“It’s my understanding that you require all native women who work for you to wear full dresses.”
“Now, see here. If I help my brown boys and girls to be more civilized, I don’t see how it’s your business.”