“I don’t know how it was, but from the day of that meeting Patsy began greatly to love my father, and half his time he spent in our house and near him, so that the neighbours marvelled about it and were crazed with envy. He gave my father a black coat to wear on Sundays, and cartridges for his gun, and nightly they took lessons together in our language, Letonu teaching him to say our words, while Patsy wrote them down on a sheet of paper. Nehemiah preached against us in the church, and would have stopped my father’s communion ticket, but Letonu said he would shoot him, if he did, with both barrels of his gun.
“One day my sister Java returned from Savalalo, where she had been living in the family of my uncle. She was a girl beautiful to look at, and so tall and graceful that there was not a young man in the village but whose heart burned at the sight of her. Of them all Patsy alone seemed not to care; and in the evenings, when his devil work was done and he would romp with us on the mats or talk with my father about foreign countries, he never had as much as a glance for my sister; while she, on her side, treated him always with disdain, and often kept away from the house when she knew him to be there. I think Patsy must somehow have found this out, for one night he told us that he would never come back again, as Java hated him; and he kissed us all, and departed sorrowfully into the darkness. After that, when he was not busy in the devil-house, he took long walks into the bush with his gun, or sat solitary on his verandah, reading a book; at night he sang no more, nor danced hornpipes, but read and read with a sad face, like a person who mourned a relation.
“We were angry with Java for having driven Patsy away, and told her to go back to Savalalo and let us have our darling; but she seemed not to care for what we said, and only answered that she hoped never to see the devil’s white man again. My father, who loved Patsy, was greatly vexed with her, though he said little at first, thinking that our friend would soon return and that Java would grow ashamed. But when day after day passed and he stayed away continually, my father talked to Java with severity, and bade her go down to the devil-house and ask Patsy’s pardon for her wickedness. She was very loath to obey, and only went at last when Letonu threatened to send her lashed like a pig to a pole, and pretended to call his young men together for that purpose. I was told to go with her, for thou knowest our custom forbidding a young girl to go anywhere alone, lest people should talk and take away her reputation. But I felt sorry for Patsy as I walked behind my sister down the path to his house, for she carried herself defiantly, and there were tears of anger in her beautiful eyes.
“We found Patsy sitting, as usual, in the devil-house, the great rope tail clicking at his elbow with messages from hell; and though he sprang up smiling when Java opened the door, I thought his face looked sad and changed. She bade me stay outside, and as she seated herself in Patsy’s chair and began to explain the errand on which she had come, I could see that her lips were trembling. For a long time I heard them talking in low voices, and then, growing weary of waiting, I fell asleep on the warm door-step. I do not know how long I slept, but when I at last awoke I could still hear the unceasing murmur of their voices inside the room, sweet and soft, as of pigeons cooing in the mountains. I turned the knob of the door and went in; and there, to my astonishment, I beheld my sister in Patsy’s arms, her head buried in his breast, her hands clasped thus about his neck, while he was talking foolishly like a mother to her nursing child. At the sight of me they sprang apart, laughing loudly like children at play; and when I asked Java if she had given her message, they both laughed more than ever and caught each other’s hands.
“On our return, Java asked me to say nothing of what I had seen; and told me, in answer to my questions, that Patsy had been secretly breaking his heart for her, though she had never known it; and that she, no less, had been delirious for the love of him. She said, too, that he was the most beautiful man in the world, and wise and good above all others, and that her love for him was so great that it almost choked her. When I spoke doubtfully of the devil, she said that was all a pepelo, a joke of Patsy’s; that the rope was what she called a telenafo, which ran under the sea from one country to another, telling the news of each. She said that Patsy had explained everything to her, and had even shown her the little pots of thunder and lightning with which the telenafo was controlled.
“It was not long after this that Patsy and Java were married by the pastor Nehemiah, my father giving them a wedding feast the like of which had never before been seen in Aunu’u, so innumerable were the pigs, so gorgeous the fine mats and offerings. Java went to live in the inland house, and wore a gold ring on her finger and new dresses every day. Patsy gave her another sewing-machine in the place of the old one, and a present of two chests for her clothes; and every day she ate sardines and salt beef like a white person. At first she was pleased with everything, and her face was always smiling with her happiness; but as days grew on she began to tire of the white way,—which, as thou knowest, Siosi, is relentless and unchanging,—and of the work, which is continual. A daughter of a chief lives easily in Rakahanga, and little is expected of her, for there are girls to wait on her and men to do the heavy labour. Java grew sad in her elegant house, and cared less and less to paint the stove with blacking and wash greasy dishes all day, while the village maids were sporting in the lagoon or fishing by torch-light on the reef. She opened her distressed heart to Patsy, and old Ta’a was called in, at a monthly wage of three dollars, to carry the burden of these unending tasks. But old Ta’a was a busybody and a thief, and the lies she said with her tongue were worse to be endured than even the loss of kerosene and rice which took place continually. Every day something was taken, and when Patsy wondered and complained, the old one said the fault was Java’s for giving to her family like a delirious person. Were I to get a biscuit, the old one changed it into six; and were Letonu to beg a little tea and sugar for his cough, it became transformed in the telling into many basket-loads. On the other side, Ta’a slowly embittered Java’s mind against her husband, telling her that the marriage was no true marriage, and that when Patsy saw a prettier face he would not scruple to cast her off. So the old woman stayed on and thrived, like a fat maggot in a breadfruit, while Java cried in secret and Patsy grew daily more downcast and silent.
“At last the storm burst which had so long been gathering, and the little house that had been so joyful now shook with the sound of quarrelling voices. Java took her golden ring and threw it on the floor, and with it her golden comb, her much-prized ear-rings, and the brooch which in years gone by had belonged to Patsy’s mother in the White Country; she stripped off her dress, her shoes and stockings, even the ribbon from her long black hair; and then, half naked, she returned to our father’s house.
“Letonu was, of course, much concerned, and went down immediately to see Patsy in order to make things smooth again. But the white man was sullen and proud, and would talk of nothing, except that Java could do as she pleased, and that it was the same to him whether she stayed or went. My father, who had been a handsome man in his youth and knew the ways of women, urged Patsy a thousand times to make it up quickly with his wife, telling him to put his arms round her and kiss her and all would be well. ‘Thou mayest know much about the telenafo, and how to keep thunder and lightning in pots,’ said my wise father, ‘but assuredly, Patsy, thou art ignorant of the hearts of women.’ He told him that Java was already repentant and ashamed, and, like a person on the top of a high wall, a push would send her either way. But Patsy, like a little sulky child, sat in his chair and refused to speak, while Ta’a rattled the dishes and laughed sideways to herself. It was sad, when my father returned, to see the look that Java gave him. Her hot fit was already past, and her face was full of longing and sorrow; and on his saying that nothing could be accomplished, she lay down on a mat, and remained there all day like a sick person. She lay thus for nearly a week; and if we asked her anything, she would only groan and turn away her head. She was waiting for her man to come to her; but to him there was no such intention; for he stayed shut up in the devil-house, or wandered uselessly in the bush by himself.
“At last she got up, more dead than living, so thin she was and changed; and calling for food, she ate with the voracity of a starving person; and then she bathed, and did her hair with flowers, and put on the poor clothes she had worn as a maid. ‘Behold,’ she said, ‘I am now one of the aualuma and no longer married.’ And from that day she who had been the most circumspect girl in the village, and the best behaved, became swiftly a run-wild-in-the-bush, going everywhere unattended, and sitting up with the young men at night, so that people called her a paumotu, and her communion ticket was withdrawn.
“Patsy never lacked for news of her down-going, for old Ta’a still kept house for him; and no tale was ever told of Java but the old one brought it to him, and more also, conceived by her lying heart. Patsy never tried to see his wife or to do anything to bring about peace between them; and if he passed her in the path he would turn away his head, even if it were night, and she alone with another man. Once, only, he showed that he still remembered her at all, at a time when she was possessed of a devil and like to die; then he came to our house, and felt her hands, and gave her medicines from a little box, and told my father to do this and that. And when she grew better and able to sit up, he sent us salt beef and sardines for her well-being.