“Hines’s cottage, you meant,” he whispered back. “Not ours, not really. You should be happy for his loss.”
“I do not wish him ill, in particular,” I said. “I am just a bookseller. I do not have enemies.”
“You underestimate yourself, only fools have no enemies. Fergins, soon will come the triumph you’ve been waiting to witness.”
He was right, much to my frustration. I had been waiting. Not only since our passage to Samoa, but it was the kind of moment I had longed for since I began to assist the bookaneers. I would never have acknowledged it, but I was consumed with fresh enthusiasm.
So began our eventful residence at Vailima. The household was awakened at daybreak each morning by the sounding of the conch shell. Our presence—and Davenport’s proximity to Stevenson just when his book would be finished—seemed to unnerve Belial, who as a result showed up with an even greater frequency. Belle was tickled by all the excitement of the storm, fulfilling Lloyd’s observation that the potential for trouble woke her senses. Fanny, meanwhile, remained conspicuous in her absence from the public rooms. Stevenson’s spirits, though, were fully revived by having houseguests, despite the worrisome weather, which kept that very umbrella now hanging behind you on my coat rack, at my side at all times. He took us on long walks through the house and around the grounds while preparing for the storm. On one of these dark, cloud-covered expeditions, we were walking through the garden. We were supposed to be looking for any weak spots in the red roof above that would have to be reinforced, but our host was spending most of the time discussing his favorite nuances of the Samoan language.
“Alovao: it is the gem of the Samoan dictionary,” Stevenson was saying. “It means to avoid guests, for in Samoa there are always guests on their way, but literally it means ‘to hide in the wood.’ Hold on there. Did you hear something, too?” His narrow face perked up in the fashion of a hound dog’s. A brief, piercing noise from somewhere in the house surprised all three of us.
We all ran inside to find the source. Davenport could run much faster than either of us. The commotion having ceased, Stevenson split from us and tried a different direction. Knowing Davenport always possessed a keener-than-ordinary sense of hearing, I followed him into another section of the house, where we traced a loud, bellowing voice.
Belial was there, holding out a copy of the Bible. He seemed flustered and was crying out: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me!”
Vao was on the other side of the Bible, tiptoeing away from the fiery recitation, her bare feet deftly avoiding a pool of red on the floor. I feared it was her blood, but feared more it could be Belial’s, as violence by any Samoan against a white man could only end with a native’s death. But as we came closer I could see it was wine.
Tulagi was tugging at Belial’s coattails with his small hands. “Stay away from the girl or be sorry you ever laid eyes on Tulagi!” he shouted, his attempts at restraining futile.
“Be gone, little man!” Belial shouted. He gripped his cane and swung, hitting the dwarf on the backside and sending him to the floor. Vao threw herself on the cane and wrested it away.
Undaunted, Belial swiped my umbrella out of my hands and once again began hitting the dwarf, over and over, splattering blood of the poor man; he raised his arm higher. Tulagi cringed and curled into a ball to prepare himself. Davenport caught the umbrella from behind and stopped what may have been a death blow.
“I suggest that whatever is the matter, end this presently, Father Thomas,” he said with the almost preternatural calmness that still managed to impress me after many years.
“This is not your concern, Mr. Porter. Am I understood?”
His eyes blazed. It was not Davenport’s interference with the beating that seemed to provoke him. Rather, it was the fact that Vao took cover behind my companion and placed her arm into his, her hand into his, her strong fingers interlocked in his. Davenport might have been just as taken aback at the native beauty’s touch as Belial must have been, but any surprise he felt was hidden.
Tulagi broke the staring match between the bookaneers by using his last ounce of strength to shout up at them. “Go on, now! Go away, now, Pope Thomas! Tulagi commands it!”
“The work of a missionary is not easy among the savages,” Belial said to us, as he straightened the top half of his suit before exiting the room. He licked his lips, a slow, rather disgusting gesture that I’d later notice he did often but I only marked now for the first time. He dropped my umbrella, freshly speckled with blood, two of its metal ribs broken and its spine bent from the impact. “I merely asked the young woman for help choosing a necktie for morning prayers and in her primitive way she reacted poorly, as you see. Worry not, my white brothers. I will not judge your misunderstanding.” He turned again to look at Vao before he left, his eyes traveling from her face down to her bosom. “Cover yourself up, harlot, if you hope to escape the wrath of the Lord.”
“What happened in here?” I asked the two natives after Belial was gone. Davenport had bent down to check on Tulagi, but the dwarf slapped him away, then proceeded to pull on his leg to raise himself to his feet.
“Fortunate Tulagi found you when he did,” Tulagi said to Vao in Samoan. “‘What happened?’” he repeated my question. He seemed to be dizzy from his beating but would not let any of us inspect his wounds more closely. “Why, I found that missionary trying to convert Vao to his religion—her, the tapo of her village, Tulagi’s charge, daughter of one of the greatest chiefs of Samoa, a man who would have been king, if this were still a just place!”