Louis Becke - Old Mary

Early one morning, just as the trade wind began to lift the white mountain mist which enveloped the dark valleys and mountain slopes of the island, Denison, the supercargo of the trading schooner Palestine , put off from her side and was pulled ashore to the house of the one white trader. The man’s name was Handle, and as he heard the supercargo’s footstep he came to the door and bade him good morning.

“How are you, Randle?” said the young man, shaking hands with the quiet-voiced, white-haired old trader, and following him inside. “I’m going for a day’s shooting while I have the chance. Can you come?”

Randle shook his head. “Would like to, but can’t spare the time to-day; but Harry and the girls will be delighted to go with you. Wait a minute, and have a cup of coffee first. They’ll be here presently.”

Denison put down his gun and took a seat in the cool, comfortable-looking sitting-room, and in a few minutes Hester and Kate Randle and their brother came in. The two girls were both over twenty years of age. Hester, the elder, was remarkably handsome, and much resembled her father in voice and manner. Kate was of much smaller build, full of vivacity, and her big, merry brown eyes matched the dimples on her soft, sun-tanned cheeks. Harry, who was Randle’s youngest child, was a heavily-built, somewhat sullen-faced youth of eighteen, and the native blood in his veins showed much more strongly than it did with his sisters. They were all pleased to see the supercargo, and at once set about making preparations, Harry getting their guns ready and the two girls packing a basket with cold food.

“You’ll get any amount of pigeons about two miles from here,” said the old trader, “and very likely a pig or two. The girls know the way, and if two of you take the right branch of the river and two the left you’ll have some fine sport.”

“Father,” said the elder girl, in her pretty, halting English, as she picked up her gun, “don’ you think Mr. Denison would like to see ol’ Mary? We hav’ been tell him so much about her. Don’ you think we might stop there and let Mr. Denison have some talk with her?”

“Ay, ay, my girl. Yes; go and see the poor old thing. I’m sure she’ll be delighted. You’ll like her, Mr. Denison. She’s as fine an old woman as ever breathed. But don’t take that basket of food with you, Kate. She’d feel awfully insulted if you did not eat in her house.”

The girls obeyed, much to their brother’s satisfaction, inasmuch as the basket was rather heavy, and also awkward to carry through the mountain forest. In a few minutes the four started, and Hester, as she stepped out beside Denison, said that she was glad he was visiting old Mary. “You see,” she said, “she hav’ not good eyesight now, and so she cannot now come an’ see us as she do plenty times before.”

“I’m glad I shall see her,” said the young man; “she must be a good old soul.”

“Oh, yes,” broke in Kate, “she is good and brave, an’ we all love her. Every one mus ’ love her. She hav’ known us since we were born, and when our mother died in Samoa ten years ago old Mary was jus’ like a second mother to us. An’ my father tried so hard to get her to come and live with us; but no, she would not, not even fo’ us. So she went back to her house in the mountain, because she says she wants to die there. Ah, you will like her… and she will tell you how she saved the ship when her husband was killed, and about many, many things.”

Two hours later Denison and his friends emerged out upon cultivated ground at the foot of the mountain, on which stood three or four native houses, all neatly enclosed by low stone walls formed of coral slabs. In front of the village a crystal stream poured swiftly and noisily over its rocky bed on its way seaward, and on each thickly wooded bank the stately boles of some scores of graceful coco-palms rose high above the surrounding foliage. Except for the hum of the brawling stream and the cries of birds, the silence was unbroken, and only two or three small children, who were playing under the shade of a breadfruit-tree, were visible. But these, as they heard the sound of the visitors’ voices, came towards them shouting out to their elders within the huts that “four white people with guns” had come. In a moment some grown people of both sexes came out and shook hands with the party.

“This is Mary’s house,” said Hester to Denison, pointing out the largest; “let us go there at once. Ah, see, there she is at the door waiting for us.”

“Come, come inside,” cried the old woman in a firm yet pleasant voice, and Denison, looking to the right, saw that “Mary,” in spite of her years and blindness, was still robust and active-looking. She was dressed in a blue print gown and blouse, and her grey hair was neatly dressed in the island fashion. In her smooth, brown right hand she grasped the handle of a polished walking-stick, her left arm she held across her bosom—the hand was missing from the wrist.

“How do you do, sir?” she said in clear English, as, giving her stick to Kate Randle, she held out her hand to the supercargo. “I am so glad that you have come to see me. You are Mr. Denison, I know. Is Captain Packenham quite well? Come, Kitty, see to your friend. There, that cane lounge is the most comfortable. Harry, please shoot a couple of chickens at once, and then tell my people to get some taro, and make an oven.”

“Oh, that is just like you, Mary,” said Kate, laughing, “before we have spoken three words to you you begin cooking things for us.”

The old woman turned her sunburnt face towards the girl and shook her stick warningly, and said in the native tongue—

“Leave me to rule in mine own house, saucy,” and then Denison had an effort to restrain his gravity as Mary, unaware that he had a very fair knowledge of the dialect in which she spoke, asked the two girls if either of them had thought of him as a husband. Kate put her hand over Mary’s mouth and whispered to her to cease. She drew the girl to her and hugged her.

Whilst the meal was being prepared Denison was studying the house and its contents. Exteriorly the place bore no difference to the usual native house, but within it was plainly but yet comfortably furnished in European fashion, and the tables, chairs, and sideboard had evidently been a portion of a ship’s cabin fittings. From the sitting-room—the floor of which was covered by white China matting—he could see a bedroom opposite, a bed with snowy white mosquito curtains, and two mahogany chairs draped with old-fashioned antimacassars. The sight of these simple furnishings first made him smile, then sigh—he had not seen such things since he had left his own home nearly six years before. Hung upon the walls of the sitting-room were half a dozen old and faded engravings, and on a side-table were a sextant and chronometer case, each containing instruments so clumsy and obsolete that a modern seaman would have looked upon them as veritable curiosities.

From the surroundings within the room Denison’s eyes wandered to the placid beauty of the scene without, where the plumes of the coco-palms overhanging the swift waters of the tiny stream scarce stirred to the light air that blew softly up the valley from the sea, and when they did move narrow shafts of light from the now high-mounted sun would glint and shine through upon the pale green foliage of the scrub beneath. Then once again his attention was directed to their hostess, who was now talking quietly to the two Randle girls, her calm, peaceful features seeming to him to derive an added but yet consistent dignity from the harmonies of Nature around her.