Vaiti of the Islands

by Beatrice Grimshaw

He knew at once who Vaiti was, when she mentioned her rank in Atiu, for the chocolate-coloured island kings and queens understand each other's complicated genealogies quite as clearly as do their white compeers on the other side of the world—and though Atiu was a broken, half-depopulated place, annexed to the British Crown, its chiefs were of ancient lineage and high repute. Napoleon Timothy Te Paea III. hesitated a moment—stretched out his hand—withdrew it—then stretched it out again, and graciously offered it to Vaiti, as to an equal in blood.

Vaiti, glowing with gratification, yet had the happy intuition of dropping on one knee and kissing the royal hand, European fashion. The King understood it, and swelled with pleasure, remembering how Mahina had had the impudence to chuck him under the chin when he bestowed a gracious salute upon her inferior lips, and how Litia had objected altogether to get off her horse when he was passing by, as Lialian royal customs enjoined upon all riders ... What a nuisance they had both grown to be, crying and battering at the palace gates, fighting over his gifts, getting up trouble among their relatives—trouble that he now began to fear might become so serious as to bring down the interference of the British Crown. And every Pacific monarch knew what was the inevitable next move, when that game had once begun! Good-bye to his kingship, if once the British Lion laid a claw on Lialia.

"Will you not come in and rest, Great Chief?" said the humble voice of the stranger again. And the King, still shy and distrustful, and looking at Vaiti only out of the corners of his eyes, did condescend to come in.

And the next day he rested again, and the day after that. It was astonishing how easily driving seemed to tire his Majesty at this period. And all the time the wedding preparations went forward, while Mahina and Litia, with their respective factions, grew more and more jealous of each other, and more and more enraged.

But there came a day at last, four days from the wedding, when the King declared that he would make his final choice on the evening before the marriage day, and would send a herald on that night to proclaim it through the capital.

Ruru, the royal herald, who had never before had a chance to exercise his office or wear his uniform, was extremely pleased. He got out his finery at once—a Beefeater cap and tabard of crimson silk, worn with a large silk sash, and bare legs—and began a dress rehearsal that lasted, with intervals for food and sleep, until the evening of the proclamation. At sunset he went up to the palace, received the paper that contained the message, and strutting like a turkey, came out on to the open green in front, where at least a thousand Lialians—half of them Litia's friends, and half of them Mahina's—were collected. Mahina and Litia themselves, each defiantly dressed in all the bridal finery she could muster, stood in the forefront of the crowd, exchanging looks of death and hatred. It had come to this with the two women now, that either would have cheerfully died a death of slow torture, if by so doing only she could have prevented the other from winning. That she might miss the glories of the throne was not the prominent thought in Litia's mind—only that Mahina might secure them and triumph over her; and the self-same fancy agitated the ample breast of her rival, as the two stood in the cool twilight, within sound of the breakers on the reef, waiting with choking anxiety for Ruru's words.

"People of Liali!" read the herald impressively, striking an attitude, with one bare leg advanced: "His Majesty King Napoleon Timothy Te Paea III. of Liali, being sovereign by right divine, and the Lord's Anointed, also High Chief of all the Liali Islands as descendant of the Sacred Lizard, has decided to marry, according to the custom of his forefathers, and give the land of Liali an heir to our mighty crown. The wedding will take place in the mission church to-morrow, at noon and there will be a collection afterwards for expenses! If anyone comes drunk to church, or puts nothing in the plate, he will be turned out. His Majesty hereby announces that, in order to save war and dissension among his loyal subjects, and to teach some princesses to pay him proper respect, he has decided to give the honour of his hand to Princess Vaiti, daughter of Princess Rangi of Atiu, deceased, and Captain Saxon, of the schooner Sybil. God save the King, and you are all to go home without making a row."

It was a fine proclamation, but assuredly the order in the last clause asked too much of Lialian humanity. No one attempted to obey it. The news was received first in a dead silence of amazement, and then by a storm of shrieks, howls, questions, a wild trampling and rushing to and fro, and, last of all, by a Homeric roar of laughter. The Lialian possesses a rough but reliable sense of humour, practical joking being his especial delight; and it suddenly dawned upon the populace of Liali that the King had played the most stupendous practical joke upon them ever known in the history of the islands. Therefore these light-hearted children of the sun, instead of raiding the palace in two separate factions, lay down and rolled upon the grass, or held helplessly on to one another, roaring with laughter. The utter disconcerting of Mahina and Litia, now that all party feeling was removed from the matter, further appealed to them as a jest of the finest sort, and witticisms that would have made a trooper blush were hurled upon the disconsolate maidens from all sides. Some few there were who frowned at the triumph of a foreigner and a stranger; but Vaiti's arts had succeeded in making her popular, and the malcontents were borne down by the roar of public amusement and assent. Vaiti herself, safely hidden in the Methodist mission house, listened to the laughter far off, and felt well pleased. She had not been very sure how matters might go, and had therefore, at a bold stroke, won the favour of the Church by approaching the missionary, and assuring him of the extreme purity of her Methodism (she was, if anything, a pure heathen) and, in confidence, of the honour awaiting her. The reverend gentleman, who had long sat on thorns by reason of the power of the Seventh Day Adventist, Christian Science, and Original Shaker missions in the islands, received her with delight, and handed her over to the care of his wife, who shortly afterwards informed him that the new light of the Church was, in her opinion, a "perfect minx"—but that she supposed it was as well, under the circumstances, to make to herself friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, as the Bible enjoined, and remain on intimate visiting terms with the palace. So Vaiti spent the fateful evening under the secure protection of the Church itself, and claimed the same creditable patronage for the day of the wedding.

What of Mahina and Litia? The disappointed princesses, when the proclamation was read out, turned and stared at each other like tigresses robbed of a meal. Neither was going to be Queen of Liali—neither was going to scratch her rival's eyes out, and root up her hair, for the crime of securing the coveted honour. The very bottom of the world had dropped out—what was to follow?

For a moment they continued to stare, each scanning the other's face under a new light—the light of common feeling. Litia remembered that she and Mahina had been brought up almost as sisters in the palace of the late Queen. Mahina recalled the time when she had almost died of measles, and Litia had nursed her through. They were both deceived, both deserted, and the friends of one could never crow offensively over the other now. The thought was mingled bitter-sweet, and the two burst out crying, and dropped into each other's arms, simultaneously vowing threats of vengeance against the treacherous interloper, which—unbacked by their war-like following of friends—they knew very well they would never be able to execute. And the crowd dispersed as the sun went down.