THE BLACK PEARL.

Comme le fil de soie qui relie les perles d’un collier, l’Ego, à travers les Ages, passe en des vies successives, heureuses ou tristes, criminelles ou vertueuses dans son long Pélérinage vers la Perfection.

With grateful thanks to M— W— for having translated into English the story of Jeanne and her struggle “Vers la Lumière.”

THE BEGUM 1600 (From an old miniature) BERTHE MOUCHETTE

The Black Pearl

By NOEL AIMIR

George Robertson & Company Propty. Ltd., Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide and Brisbane. 1911

A MADAME BARR SMITH, Hommage respectueux de gratitude et d’affection.

PART I.

I At Gwylata

Heureux qui comme Ulysse, a fait un beau voyage.

Du Bellay.

[11]A terrific noise makes me jump from my chair, a confused uproar of grating wheels, horse-hoofs, the barking of dogs and the cracking of whips.

“The coach, Jeanne, with your luggage,” says my uncle.

I run to the verandah to see this relic of bygone days.

A true Diligence like those in the engravings of the 18th century, painted in canary yellow and emerald green, picked out with black and red.

This funny vehicle is bringing my boxes, containing all I possess in the world, my favourite books and the presents of my Parisian school-mates whom I left in tears at the idea of my departure for the antipodes—“a country of kangaroos and savages, where I would surely be eaten alive,” they sobbed.

“What a contrast to the ‘Brasier’ motor in which you drove me here yesterday, uncle,” I exclaim.

“That is Australia, little one, the two extremes. Yesterday a motor, to-day the old coach which carries letters to far-off bush homes, among them probably some from the [12]Old World by the Messageries Boat on which you were a passenger.”

By what strange circumstance does a little Parisienne find herself in the midst of the Australian bush?

For the very simple reason that my guardian, Mr. Deslandes, is the happy owner of a big station, Gwylata, on the banks of Lake Alexandrina, in South Australia. “L’oncle aux millions,” as my school-mates used to call him, whose arrival in Paris was the signal for a short but intoxicating whirl of pleasure when the head of the little orphan was somewhat turned with boxes at the “Opera,” at the “Comédie Française,” suppers in “chic restaurants,” visits to grands couturiers, where I found myself the delighted possessor of frocks very much too smart for a school girl, and one never-to-be-forgotten time—a delirious fortnight at Cannes and Monte-Carlo.

“Come, come, little girl; breakfast will be quite cold,” calls my uncle. I glance at my precious luggage, piled up on the verandah, as the big lumbering vehicle starts noisily on its journey.

Unfortunately, in returning to my seat I indulge in a “pirouette,” to the intense astonishment of an old servant, who nearly lets fall a tray as she glares disapprovingly at me.

“Well, Meg, says my uncle; you have come [13]for your mistress’ breakfast. Has she an appetite this morning?”

Taking up the laden tray, the old woman throws me a spiteful glance, and mutters between her teeth, “French dancing girl!”

Perhaps it is just as well that my uncle is a trifle deaf, the dear man, and does not hear the remark.

“Now you have seen the real mistress of Gwylata, Jeannette, ‘Old Meg,’ who directs everything here and holds us in ‘the path of virtue’ with an iron hand—Meg, your aunt’s faithful maid for thirty years, and now the right hand of Molly, who has given the reins into her hands completely.”

“She abuses the confidence”; I say it with conviction.

“Oh, no! Under a thorny exterior there beats a kind and devoted heart. She would suffer martyrdom herself and sacrifice everybody for Molly, and, above all, for Hector.”

The Reverend Hector Armstrong is the son of my aunt by a former marriage, and inherits her religious feeling (for she is awfully pious, my dear Aunt Molly, I have heard). In charge of the Murray mission, he has established his headquarters at Gwylata and thrown himself into the heroic task of saving the souls of the benighted settlers scattered along the course of the great Australian waterway.

[14]My eighteenth birthday! My aunt has just asked for me. I find her in the little morning room, where, reclining on a lounge, she passes the greater part of her days.

After some affectionate inquiries about my comfort, she says:

“I want to give you a black pearl which I have been keeping in trust. It belonged to your mother, and will have a double interest for you when you know its history. I have had it attached as a pendant to a string of pearls of my own, which will look much better on your white neck than in my casket.”

I open the box which she hands me, and cannot repress an exclamation of wonder and admiration. In it lies a necklace composed of exquisite pearls, some white and milky, others gleaming opalesquely in tints merging from grey to rose.

But the gem of the collection is the pendant—a black pearl as large as an olive, and perfect in form and lustre.

“Oh, aunt! It is fit for a queen!”

“My dear child,” she resumes with her delicate melancholy smile, “I have no daughter to wear them. Pearls are feminine, it is said, and want light, heat and the magnetism of soft, warm flesh, or they lose their colour and die.”

“Then I’ll wear them every day,” I return, kissing her.

[15]“This black pearl belonged to a Begum,” adds my uncle, who had entered a few minutes before. “It belongs to you now by right as the descendant of the Hindoo princess. It is the only souvenir which remained to your mother of her great ancestress, the Begum Jeanne, wife of Dupleix, from whom she was so proud to have descended. You are named after her, Jeanne.”

I take the necklace into my own room, and gaze at it long, thinking of the woman whose memory has been treasured so carefully in our family. When quite a child I loved to hear my mother recount the exploits of the famous Dupleix, his fighting in India, his disappointment and despair when abandoned by all save the Begum, the intrepid companion, whose confidence and devotion lightened his darkest hours.

Is this strain of Hindoo blood in my veins responsible for the anomalies of my character, for the struggle which sometimes ensues between totally dissimilar qualities of my being? The dreamy disposition of the Oriental mingled with the vivacity of the Frenchwoman; the love of light, flowers and perfumes; the desire of being loved and caressed which made me spend whole hours in my mother’s lap, the need of devoting myself to someone or something; the keen suffering I [16]experience when I find myself in a chilly atmosphere of indifference. Is all this simply atavism, the Indian princess living again in the Frenchwoman of the twentieth century?

It’s a little soon to express an opinion, but I believe I shall like this Australian life, all liberty, sunshine and fresh air. How amusing are its contrasts of primitive simplicity and old-world elegance, superimposed upon a solid background of English custom! Wherever on our planet two or three Englishmen have planted their flag, it becomes immediately a little corner of Old England—the same customs, same food, same dress despite the differences of climate. In the unconscious pride underlying the belief that all customs are perfect because they are English, there is betrayed a certain strength of character and will which refuses to be influenced by environment. Sometimes it is pushed to extremes and becomes exceedingly funny.

Last Monday, Daisy, the daughter of the intendant—manager, as he is termed here—took me to Wellington in her dog-cart, a smart little turnout which she drives in dashing style. (I shall certainly have to learn to ride and drive.)

We had to make purchases at the “Store,” where everything is stocked, from a morsel of cheese to a flamboyant hat.

[17]On the road, I remarked a cottage where the wife was doing the family washing, hanging the clothes on ropes suspended between gum trees, which apparently serve many purposes. A little further on was another cottage and another washing display. Arrived in the township we saw every back yard decorated with sheets, shirts and various small things, white, blue and red, waving gracefully at the will of the summer wind.

“What a coincidence!” I murmured, wonderingly, to Daisy.

“But,” said she, quite simply, “it’s Monday, isn’t it?”

“You don’t mean that Monday is dedicated to washing as Sunday to rest?”

“Certainly. There would be a fine to-do with the servants if a mistress wanted them to wash on any other day. She would be regarded as eccentric and suspected of all sorts of misdemeanours.”

I could not help laughing at the idea of all the clean linen of Australia hanging on the line at the same hour of the same day throughout the Continent.

“If the inhabitants of Mars could see us, Daisy, this sudden white blossoming might well puzzle them. I am sure that a Martian savant ere this has discovered the cause, and [18]explained it as a ceremony celebrated in honour of our satellite.”

Despite my laughter, there remained at the back of my consciousness a certain admiration for the sentiment of order and voluntary submission to established custom—the only domination these independent people will acknowledge.

II The Reverend Hector

[21]Oh, dear! How well I understand the feelings of the Athenian who voted for the banishment of Aristides. The poor man was so tired of hearing him called “The Just” that he must have welcomed this means of getting rid of him.

Not that I wish to exile the Reverend Hector.

For one thing, it would not be of any use. Absence does not stop the everlasting pæan of praise, for as it is, he is scarcely ever at home.

He has not returned from the mission station since my arrival, consequently I know him only by reputation.

But what a reputation!

From my aunt I can understand it.

She is his mother.

From Meg, too, who assumes a beatified expression when his name is mentioned. She is his old nurse.

She actually smiled this morning—I underline the word three times—when Mrs. Deslandes told her to prepare her son’s room.

He is coming to spend Sunday here at the station.

[22]But why should my uncle join in the daily litany of the Saint of Gwylata? or Mac, the old boundary-rider, who is teaching me to ride, and who, by way of encouragement I suppose, recounts the perilous equestrian feats of “Master Hector.”

He has all the talents, it seems—this young man—secular, as well as ecclesiastical.

The dining-room is decorated with trophies won at Oxford, either in sport or scholarship. He is a clergyman of the new school of muscular Christianity, and believes in developing the bodies of his parishioners equally with their souls.

Twenty times a day I hear: “Hector says this—. Hector does that—. Hector will teach you all about the English Poets, he is so well-read.”

It certainly is a fact that I am woefully ignorant of English literature. I really couldn’t say whether Chaucer and Shelley were contemporaries or not. I have a vague idea of Tennyson and Longfellow because we used to read them at the Lycee. I except Shakespeare; of course he is universal, like our Moliére.

To return to our paragon of perfection. Let me whisper the astounding truth: The name of the Reverend Hector is getting on my nerves.

I long to go and shout this phrase to the [23]reeds on the lake.... But it is really too horrid to venture forth—108 degrees in the shade, in the shade, mind. Imagine it, and tell me if the effort would not be altogether too violent for the state of limpness and deliquescence to which the temperature has reduced me.

As an alternative, I take my water-colours and begin a fancy sketch of the much-lauded hero. I can’t get any help from the photograph in my aunt’s bedroom, taken when he was five years old.

My colouring is a bit crude, especially in the hair, where the soft Venetian red runs to the unmistakable hue of carrots.... Still, I am not altogether unsatisfied with my maiden effort in the art of portraiture.

I have never before felt the least inclination to devote my energies to the “Arts d’Agréments,” as we call them in France—“agrément?” For whom is the “pleasure?”

For the unhappy victim condemned to torture a long-suffering piano for four solid hours a day, or spoil nice clean white paper and canvas?

“Oh’que c’est beau la toile blanche,” as one of our decadent poets remarked when returning from the Salon. Perhaps the “pleasure” is for those still greater unfortunates who have [24]to admire the works of the embryo artist, or listen to the exercises of the future Paderewski.

“Arts d’ Agréments” indeed! Truly language was given to man to conceal his thoughts!

During these profound reflections the portrait is completed. The long Roman nose indicates firmness of will (I have exaggerated the length a little). The eyes, turned heavenward—only the whites are visible—betray his angelic soul. The long legs clad in riding breeches and gaiters suggest his equestrian prowess, and a tiny, tiny bishop’s apron hints at the recompense due to his saintly and evangelical virtues.

In one hand he waves triumphantly a Bible, in the other a tennis racket.

Only two hands! How unfortunate! I want several (like a Hindoo God) to symbolise his many attributes.

Now let me add two little wings, and around his neck a chaplet of hearts on which to inscribe the names of his admirers—just a wee one to be left blank for mine.

While I contemplate this charming production of budding genius, Mr. Deslandes enters my little sitting-room, to which he has admission at all times.

I hand him my masterpiece without a word.

He laughs until the tears run down his [25]cheeks, and wants to carry it off to show his wife.

“No, no, uncle, I beseech you. She might take it seriously, forgetting that it’s only a joke. I would not wound her feelings for the world; we are beginning to get on so nicely together.”

I have found out a way of being useful.

When my aunt is racked with neuralgia, I go and sit with her for an hour or two. My hand on her forehead soothes the pain.

How strange is that healing force which emanates unconsciously from some people!

It tires me a little sometimes, but a good walk, or better still, a ride accompanied by Mac, who won’t trust me alone on horseback yet, restores me.

They used to tease me at school about what they called my “magnetism,” which had a soothing effect on the sourest and most crabbed disposition. A gift not always without drawbacks, for on how many disagreeable missions was I not sent to placate a furious teacher—the old Fraulein, especially, who, because she was German, was always on the look out for slights, and distributed impositions right and left. To me only did she unbend. Perhaps a fellow-feeling drew us together, for [26]was not the little orphan an exile from family life as she from her country?

I have tried to exercise my “powers” on Meg, but so far without success. The austere daughter of Scottish Puritans cannot stand my French ways. Even my dresses offend her, so my aunt tells me laughingly.

She cannot understand how a well brought up “young leddy” can come down to breakfast indecently clad in a “bed-goon,” as she designates my pretty peignoir of soft surah, trimmed with Valenciennes, a chef d’oeuvre of Laferrière.

Nevertheless, I am not going to lace myself stiffly all day in this hot-house sort of temperature just to please her offended prejudice. Besides, I love loose, flowing draperies, the soft swish of silken materials, and their graceful billowy folds. (The little Hindoo Princess peeping out, I suppose.)

But Meg’s antagonism worries me a little. I have as much need of affection as of air. Dislike, even indifference, causes me real physical suffering.

Every day I mount “Jenny,” a knowing old mare, who permits herself no liberties with my inexperience.

My riding-master is old Mac—MacMahon—to give him his rightful cognomen. Is he a [27]distant cousin of the famous “Maréchal,” I wonder? The bush conceals many family secrets in its bosom.

Mac was once a boundary-rider, as those men are termed who pass their lives in the saddle, inspecting paddocks and runs, recovering strayed stock, and keeping the station generally in order. Too enfeebled by age—and whisky—to be of any great use now, my uncle, in the kindness of his heart, keeps him on without any defined duties. He still rides marvellously, and in lesson hours his bearing is most rigidly correct towards his “Miss Mam’selle,” as he calls me. Mademoiselle quite alone strikes him as too familiar.

It is one of my greatest delights to get him to talk during our rides. He is a perfect mine of information on the early days of the colony, the goldfields of Victoria, and the bush-rangers.

Under the seal of secrecy, he has actually confessed that he himself belonged to the famous Kelly Gang; and he calmly relates the most blood-curdling yarns of pillage of stations, banks held up, and furious rides to escape capture.

Sometimes I rather suspect him of imposing on my credulity—“pulling my leg,” as I heard one of the station hands say one day. Of course that is “slang,” and I must not use [28]such naughty expressions; but Australian slang has for me a great fascination. There is always a decided twinkle in Mac’s small, shrewd blue eyes as he piles horror on horrors. It amuses us both, and I respond by marvellous stories of the Old World, which he left when a child, and still dreams of seeing again.

Mac knows also many of the legends of the black tribes, and when he has sufficiently scared me with the exploits of Captain Starlight, he relates the legend of the Pleiades—Mea-Mei—in the aboriginal tongue, and stories about the Bunyip, which are told to the picaninnies to make them good.

III The Dream

Notre âme lorsque le corps dort ... reçoit participation insigne de sa prime et divine origine et en contemplation de cette infinie sphère à laquelle rien n’advient, rien ne passe, rien ne déchet, tous temps sont présens, note non seulement les choses passées en mouvemens inférieurs, mais aussi les futures.

Rabelais (Pantagruel liv. ii. ch. xiii.).

[31]I have had a strange dream wherein, by a sort of dual personality, I beheld myself smaller and slimmer. My hands and feet were adorned with heavy jewels. Rose-coloured silken draperies were wound round my supple body. Precious gems gleamed on my brow and neck. Reclining upon cushions in a room of white marble, I was gazing through a wide archway which gave on to a colonnade. Tall palms bent their sombre tufted heads and plantains waved their pale green leaves in the breeze. Birds of brilliant plumage hovered over flowers of dazzling splendour. Ideas, new to me, but which I felt were of remote antiquity, surged through my brain, the mentality of which seemed extraordinarily increased. I was expecting some one. The violence of my feelings frightened me. Passionate and eager, my heart was yet full of anguish, even horror.

A man entered the room, clad in rich draperies of silk and velvet, embroidered with gold, a turban fastened with a diamond aigrette covered his black hair.

Dismissing the women around me with a slight gesture, he threw himself at my feet.

His musical, softly-cadenced voice murmured [32]words which only my other self understood. I felt for him the fear mingled with the attraction and admiration that one feels for a beautiful tiger, or for one of those glittering jewelled snakes of India.

He drew from his bosom a necklace of black pearls and clasped it around my neck. His eyes, with their pupils dilated, were fixed upon me like those of a bird of prey.