Tales of the South Pacific Part 9

Mrs. Forbush rattled on, casting merits against demerits and came to the tentative conclusion that it was Nellie's life and she would have to lie in it. Mrs. Forbush had her metaphors mixed, but her conclusions were sound. Nellie showed the letter to Dinah. "Your mother has good sense," the older nurse said.

"She'd have to have to raise four of us," Nellie laughed. "But I want something more in life than she had. Mom didn't have much."

"She had enough to raise four pretty good kids," Dinah laughed. "And she didn't learn good sense out of a book."

"I think I'll marry him," Nellie said. Dinah had no comment. She wondered to herself what she would have done, and like Mrs. Forbush could come to no conclusion.

When De Becque called for Nellie next day she suggested they spend the afternoon in the pavilion. When they reached it, they were warm and breathing hard. Again the sun was hot upon the cacaos, and the lorikeets were wild in protest over some imagined slight. Suddenly they grew quiet.

"Look!" Nellie cried. "Look!"

A great hawk of the islands was sweeping overhead in long circles. It had come down from the mountains. No swallows were to be seen. With a delicacy foreign to his intent, the hawk sailed quietly by, moving a wing slightly now and then. Soon he was gone, and the brave lorikeets were out once more with furious chatter.

"I've thought as best I can, Emile," the young nurse said. "I want to marry you!"

"Fine!" Emile said with much restraint. They kissed twice. Then they sat in ma.s.sive chairs and watched the life and beauty of the cacao grove.

"It will be a good life, Nellie," the Frenchman said. "You will like it. There is a good hospital on the other island. And if you like, you can go to Australia to have your children. The boat comes once every three months, and there are many people here. I have my own small boat, and two plantation owners have a large power launch. I shall teach you to read French, too. I have many books. And we can get English books, too. I have not told you, but I have a lot of money saved."

At the thought of having saved things over the years Emile grew pensive. Outside the birds called to one another and the golden cacaos reflected sunlight from their myriad facets. "I will die before you, Nellie, since I am older," he said in a reflective manner. "But if you like the islands then, you will have no need to fear hunger or poverty. And if you have children, they will be growing up. By that time there will be an American base here. Your little girls will have fine American young men to choose as husbands. And if you don't like the islands, you can then return to America. You will have enough to live on."

Nellie could say nothing at this comment on eventual death. The hawk was idling in the dark sky and the lorikeets, like Nellie, were silent. They, too, were thinking of death.

Before De Becque left Nellie at the wire gate of the nurses' quarters, he told her that he would be gone for a few days. He had to deliver some beef to the island on which the French government had sequestered all young girls and unmarried women. It was a small island some sixteen miles distant, and there white, yellow, and black girls lived protected from the inroads of American troops far from home and inhibitions. De Becque and other planters kept the island supplied with food. For the first time, Nellie kissed him goodbye at the gate. She winked at the guard. "We're getting married!" she said.

While De Becque was gone, she visited the Navy captain who commanded her hospital. She told him that she intended to marry De Becque and asked what arrangements could be made.

"It's a long process," the captain warned her. "I don't understand it myself. The Army has charge of details in this area. But I'll take you to see the general, Ensign Forbush."

He did, and Nellie found the general a kindly old man who had daughters about her age. "I don't approve," he said half severely, "but I know how it is when girls make up their minds. One thing, Ensign Forbush: Have you or your friends made inquiries into M. De Becque's past? You have. Then we'll start the papers through the mill. But he'll have to appear in person. Bring him in when he gets back."

Nellie sighed and smiled at her commanding officer. The step was taken! She was surprised at the interest a captain and a general took in her affairs. She felt happy and important.

At dinner that night Dinah Culbert asked Nellie if, seeing that De Becque was away, she might like to sit at a table where an entertaining naval aviator was a guest. He was back from a tour of the islands and had some witty stories. At dinner Nellie sat next to the guest, a Lieut. Bus Adams. As the meal progressed he told one fascinating story after another. He made himself the b.u.t.t of most of the humor, but as the evening wore on he finally asked for another drink and said, "I've never told this story before to a mixed group. It's really a man's story, but women might enjoy it, too. It's the only story I've run upon that fulfills the promise of these islands. I call it The Frenchman's Daughter! It took place on Luana Pori, and I know it's true. I know the Frenchman's daughter. She's a magnificent woman, about twenty-three. Half French, half Javanese!" Adams continued with a rambling narrative that captivated his listeners.

Doctors and nurses alike were following him with intense interest as he finished. "There!" he said. "Didn't I tell you it was a tropical story?"

"That is!" one of the doctors agreed. "You ought to write that down, lieutenant."

"No, no!" Bus said, wagging his finger. "I've found that these stories don't sound half so good when told in daylight. It's the wine, and the night, and the moon out there. That's what turns the trick."

"I suppose all these islands are loaded with unbelievable happenings," a doctor suggested. "As strangers, we don't hear about them!"

"That's interesting!" Adams said. "Because if I understand correctly, the Frenchman in this story lives on your island. Quite a character, I'm told. Raised h.e.l.l when they wanted to go Petain some years ago."

Before anyone could stop him, Adams had blurted out the news. The Frenchman's notorious daughter was De Becque's daughter. Her mother was a Javanese. The Frenchman's three other daughters who lived on Luana Pori were half-Javanese, too, but by a different mother. And somewhere near Vanicoro, on a small island, he had four other daughters, more beautiful than their sisters. The mothers of these girls were Polynesian and Tonkinese.

"He never married," Adams concluded. "Women were crazy about him, and he treated them fine."

Nellie Forbush sat very straight and smiled at the aviator as he spoke. Later on he refused to believe what the doctors whispered to him. "Jesus!" he said.

Nellie smiled at the doctors and the other nurses. Taking Dinah's hand, she excused herself. The two nurses went out the long corridor leading to their own quarters.

It was strange, but Nellie found no cause to cry. De Becque was a man of the islands. He had lived here for twenty-six years. He was a powerful man, and women were plentiful. Through him they saw a chance of rearing fine daughters, half white, and they eagerly took that chance. To judge from Bus Adams' story, the De Becque girls were fine and beautiful. Latouche, the eldest, was apparently wild, but she was smart and lovely.

"I'll not make up my mind about anything," Nellie said to Dinah when they were alone.

"What's past is past, Nellie," Dinah reasoned. "I told you less than a week ago that I wasn't worried about De Becque. I'm not now. This is a rough life out here. He's lived it. And kept everyone's respect. Only fighters do that, Nellie!"

"I'm not going to make up my mind," Nellie repeated. "Mom had a funny idea about that. Once she wanted a hat very much and had saved enough money to buy one. She went in to Little Rock with all the money in her hand. 'I won't make up my mind,' she kept saying to herself. Finally she was in front of the department store. There was exactly the hat she wanted. She looked at it for a moment and then started crying. Because that ornery store had put new baby carriages in the next window. She had to have a baby carriage. It was for me. Mom always said it was best to live right and make up your mind on the spot."

The two women talked late into the night. Other nurses, catching the story by grapevine, spent the night telling one another what a rotten break it was that Nellie... They were somewhat disappointed when she appeared at breakfast bright and chipper. She hadn't yet made up her mind to be heartbroken.

Two days pa.s.sed, and finally De Becque called her on the hospital telephone. Mustering up her courage, she smiled at the girls on her hall and hurried down to meet him. She noticed with apprehension that he was morose, too! In strained silence the two lovers drove along the coral roads and up the hill to his plantation. They parked his car by the gate and walked slowly between the coconut palms. De Becque was silent, as if worried. Nellie's heart was pounding harder than her lungs. As they neared the end of the coconuts and the beginning of the cacaos, De Becque stopped impulsively and kissed his bride-to-be tenderly. "You are my hope," he whispered.

Nellie consciously placed her hand in his and walked with him toward the pavilion. She felt him trembling, and thought it was she. They paused a moment to watch the dipping black and white swallows. Then they stepped into the cool pavilion.

"Aloo! Nellie!" cried four young voices.

Nellie looked in astonishment at four little girls who stood behind one of the teakwood chairs. "Aloo, Nellie!" they cried again. Then they came forth, in gingham frocks, pigtails, and curtseys.

Two were Tonkinese, that is, they were half Tonkinese, and they were beautiful as only Eurasian girls can be. They were seven and nine. Their almond eyes were black. Their foreheads were clean and high. They had very white teeth and golden complexions.

The two other girls were half Polynesian, daughters of that strange and proud race. They were round of face and darker than their sisters. Their eyes were black as pools at night, their hair the same, long and straight even in pigtails. They had rich mouths and splendidly proportioned bodies. They were ten and eleven.

At the end of their curtsey they said once more, "Aloo, Nellie!"

"They're my daughters," De Becque said proudly. "I have four others. They live in Luana Pori with their married sister. I have their pictures here." From an envelope he produced a well-thumbed photograph of four tall, thin, sharp-eyed girls. The first and third were exquisite beauties, lovelier than Bus Adams had painted them in his story. The second and fourth were handsome girls, and only their sisters' storybook charm made them seem plain. It was noticeable that each had a quizzical smile on her lips.

"My family!" De Becque said. He put his hand on Nellie's shoulder. "I had to tell you first," he said Nellie Forbush, of Otolousa, Arkansas, could not speak. She was glad that her mother had taught her never to make up her mind beforehand. Beside her was a strong, tough man. It was someone like him she had in mind when she said long ago, "I want to get out and meet people." It was not old ladies in white lace sitting by the fireside that Nellie wanted to meet. It was men and women who had courage. She looked at the picture of Latouche, De Becque's eldest daughter, and saw in her Emile's fire and determination. Yes, Latouche could kill a man and fight the entire American Army. The aviator's story was believable. Nellie thought that she would like Latouche.

But before her were other indisputable facts! Two of them! Emile De Becque, not satisfied with Javanese and Tonkinese women, had also lived with a Polynesian. A n.i.g.g.e.r! To Nellie's tutored mind any person living or dead who was not white or yellow was a n.i.g.g.e.r. And beyond that no words could go! Her entire Arkansas upbringing made it impossible for her to deny the teachings of her youth. Emile De Becque had lived with the n.i.g.g.e.r. He had n.i.g.g.e.r children. If she married him, they would be her step-daughters.

She suffered a revulsion which her lover could never understand. Watching her s.h.i.+ver, he motioned to the little girls and they left the pavilion. "Nellie," he said, pulling her into a chair and standing over it, "I have no apologies. I came out here as a young man. There were no white women in this area. I lived as I could. No woman ever hated me or tried to hurt me. You must believe me, Nellie. I loved those women and was kind to them. But I never married because I knew that some day you would come to this island."

He stood before her in considerable dignity. He was not crawling, and yet by every word and gesture he was fighting to have her believe in him.

"Oh! Look at that big one!" the little girls cried in French. Their soft voices drifted through the pavilion like the sound of distant music. Nellie looked at them running among the cacaos. The little Polynesians were dark, she thought. Almost black.

She swallowed hard. The pounding in her chest was still strong. "Where are their mothers?" she asked.

De Becque clasped his hands and looked away. "The Javanese are back in Java. They went a long time ago. I don't know where the Tonkinese is. She was no good. The Polynesian girl is dead."

Nellie was ashamed of herself, but a surge of joy ran through her entire body when she heard that the n.i.g.g.e.r was dead. Yet even as she entertained that thought the oldest Polynesian girl looked in at the window and cried in softest tones, "Papa! Voila une pet.i.te souris dans ce cacao!" Nellie's hands went toward the window. The child had in her eager face and soft voice the qualities that made De Becque a man to love.

"Va-t-en jouer!" Emile said quietly.

"Oui, papa," the golden little girl replied.

"I don't know what to say, Emile," Nellie mumbled. "You don't understand."

"I know it's a surprise, Nellie. And a rude one. I know that."

"No!" Nellie cried in real anguish, stamping her foot. "It isn't that! It's something you don't know."

De Becque, defeated by tears, stood aside. Why Nellie thought he was incapable of understanding, it would be difficult to say. He had read of America. He knew something of its mores and s.h.i.+bboleths. And yet Nellie was correct in a.s.suming that no Frenchman could understand why, to an Arkansas girl, a man who had openly lived with a n.i.g.g.e.r was beyond the pale. Utterly beyond the bounds of decency!

"I can't..." She stopped in her explanation. It was no use. The inescapable fact remained. She buried her head in her hands, and in the torment of conflicting thoughts and ideals started to cry.

"Please take me home," she said.

At the foot of the hill the Tonkinese cook expressed his astonishment that she was leaving. He held up his hands in horror. "Dinner all fine. He cooked. He good!" the cook protested. Moved by his appeal, Nellie agreed to have dinner and then go immediately. At a separate table the four little girls, obviously great favorites of the cook, had their dinners. They babbled quietly in French, displayed exquisite manners, and excused themselves when they went to bed. They, too, like the n.i.g.g.e.r wife, were indisputable facts. Nellie caught herself whispering, "I would be happy if my children were like that!"

Emile drove down the hill in silence, but at the turn onto the coral road four thugs were waiting for the car. They had been planning this a.s.sault for some time, four crazy young Americans, their minds addled by wild emotions. As they leaped at the car, Emile sped the motor and whipped out a bra.s.s pipe on the end of a knotted chain. It cut across the face of one a.s.sailant and hit another on the head. The swerving car wiped the remaining two loose against a tree. De Becque drove furiously until he met some enlisted men coming the other way in a truck. Wheeling around in a spire of dust, he led them back to where the a.s.sault had taken place. One rapist had been unable to run away, his leg bashed in by the car. The enlisted men jumped on him and started beating the bushes for the others. They found one, dazed, his face and head bleeding. The others were gone.

"Take them to the police, if you please," De Becque said quietly.

"You bet we will, mister!" an Army man said. The truck pulled away. De Becque slumped over the wheel for a moment. Then he carefully rewound his lethal weapon and stowed it where it could be most easily grabbed in a hurry. Nellie was afraid to talk. She rested her head on his shoulder. De Becque drove very slowly.

"The world is not pretty," he said. "It's only the hard work of some people that makes it so. Remember that, Nellie. This could be your island. Your home. You'd make it that!"

"You don't understand," she whispered. At the barred gate she made up her mind.

"What is it, Nellie?"

"I can't marry you," she said. "I could never marry you!"

De Becque kissed her goodbye. The guards smiled. They knew she was going to be married soon. She was a d.a.m.ned nice girl, too. If they were all like her. One guard made a circle with his forefinger and thumb. He winked at De Becque.

"Hey!" he whispered to his pal when Nellie had gone. "The guy had tears in his eyes! What the h.e.l.l goes on here?"

In her room Nellie undressed and lay upon the bed. She was excited and nervous. She could still see the ugly, hungry looks of the men who had tried to pull her out of the car. She thought, "Maybe they're the men who have to drive cars while officers and nurses neck in the back seat." She flung her arms over her head. "This whole thing is so rotten. Oh, I never should have come out here at all. It's all wrong!"

She thought of Emile De Becque and the little brown girls in the cacao grove. Her thoughts were as chaotic and tormented as those of the men who had attacked the car. "This place does something to you," she groaned. "I just can't think!"

And then she knew what she wanted. Her mind was made up. She rose, pulled a dressing gown from a nail over her head, and started to write a feverish letter. It was to Charlie Benedict in Otolousa, Arkansas. She told him something he had been waiting years to hear. She would marry him. She wanted more than anything in the world to marry Charlie Benedict. Right away. Now! She yearned for the safety and security of knowing what was happening and what had happened. She wanted Otolousa and its familiar streets. She didn't give a d.a.m.n if she never saw another strange place the rest of her life.

At that moment Dinah Culbert entered the room. "Made up your mind?"

"Yep! I'm going to get married!"

"Good! Nellie, that's a fine decision!" Dinah's enthusiasm upset Nellie a bit.

"But to Charlie Benedict back home!" She bit her lip and laid the pen down. "Oh, Dinah!" she cried. "I couldn't marry a man who had lived with a n.i.g.g.e.r!"

"Of course not," Dinah said dryly. She didn't live in Arkansas and wouldn't understand. "h.e.l.lo! What's this?" She picked up from Nellie's desk a picture from an Arkansas newspaper. "Why, Nellie!" she cried. "This is you!" Dinah looked at the picture approvingly. Then she read the caption, "Our heroine!" She repeated the words, "Our heroine!" Then she looked at Nellie, tears in her eyes, nose red, mouth drooping. "Our heroine!" she shouted, waving the picture in Nellie's wet face.

Nurse Forbush caught a fleeting glimpse of herself in the clipping. She thought of the afternoon the picture arrived in Otolousa. "I want to see the world, Charlie. I want to live with people!" The ridiculousness of her situation amused her. She started laughing at Dinah. Then she laughed at herself. The two nurses caught one another by the arms and started dancing.

"Our little heroine!" Dinah repeated over and over again until her chuckling became uncontrolled. Then she sat in Nellie's chair. In doing so, she knocked the letter to Charlie Benedict on the floor. With a grand sweep Nellie picked it up and crumpled it into a little ball.

"So long Charlie!" she cried, tossing the ball into a corner.

"Nellie!" Dinah cried. "Where did you get this?"

"What?" the now half-hysterical Nellie answered.

"This picture. It was on the floor by your jacket." It was the picture of the four De Becque girls.

"Oh!" Nellie cried in astonishment. "Emile must have..."

"What lovely girls!" Dinah said.

Nellie stopped laughing. She looked over Dinah's shoulder. They were lovely girls. Look at Latouche! Winsome and confident. Her three sisters, too. Calm, happy, c.o.c.ky young girls. They seemed to be afraid of nothing. They seemed like their father.

"They are like De Becque!" Nellie said in a whisper.

"What did you say?" Dinah asked.

"Look, Dinah! Look at them! How much fun they seem to have!"

"You'd never have a bored moment around them," Dinah replied sagaciously.

"And the four little girls! Dinah, they're sweet. And so well behaved. Oh d.a.m.n it all!" Nurse Forbush walked up and down. She saw her letter to Charlie in the corner. "d.a.m.n it all!" she cried again, kicking at the letter.

"Very reasonable behavior!" Dinah laughed. "For a little heroine!"

"What's the use of bluffing, Dinah?" Nellie confessed. She ran over to the older nurse. "Now I have made up my mind. I want to marry him... so very much!" She started crying and sank her head on Dinah's shoulder. Dinah thereupon consoled her by crying, too. In mutual happiness they blubbered for a while.

"I think your mind is made up the right way this time," Dinah whispered.

"Quick!" Nellie cried. "See if you can get a jeep! We've got to get one right away! I've got to tell him, tonight!" She hurried about the room getting her clothes together. "Oh, Dinah!" she chortled. "Think what it will be like! A big family in a big house! Eight daughters, and they're darlings. I don't care who he's lived with. I got me a man! My mind's made up. Mom was right. Wait till the last minute!"

In great joy she dressed and hurried downstairs with Dinah. While they waited for the jeep the guard asked, "Changed your mind, ensign?"

"Yep!" she laughed. "I did!" He made a circle with his thumb and finger and winked at her. "Good hunting!" he said.

Dinah urged their driver to hurry. "Can't do but 25," he growled. "But it's an emergency!" Dinah protested.

"It's always an emergency," the driver replied. "This is an awful island!"

"But this is a real emergency!" Dinah insisted.

"Oh! Well! Why didn't you say so?" the driver asked in a most cooperative spirit. "In a real emergency I always do 26."

Nellie winced as they pa.s.sed the place where four men had jumped on the car earlier that night. As they reached the plantation, she directed Dinah and the driver to wait. Hurrying across the garden she went to the veranda. It was empty. The dining room was empty, too. Then she heard sounds from one of the bedrooms.

She hurried along the walk and found the source of the sounds. There it was. The little girls' bedroom. She opened the door. The four girls were in nightgowns, standing about a bed on which De Becque sat. They were singing "Au clair de la lune" in childish voices. Emile rose, smiled at Nellie, and hummed along with his daughters. Nellie added her uncertain treble to the chorus, and before long they were singing the old song so loudly that Dinah and the driver could join in from the jeep.