Richard F. Burton - "The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7"

Reuel L. Howe - "Herein is Love"

Forbes Robinson - "Letters to His Friends"

Lord Byron - "The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

Major Vigoureux

A >> A. T. Quiller Couch >> Major Vigoureux




But she bent her head over the arm of the chair, sobbing silently. He
saw the heave of her shoulders, and it afflicted him beyond words. But,
though he longed, he dared not put out a hand to comfort her.

"You mistake--yes, you mistake.... It has been nothing.... I was only
too glad," he kept stammering weakly.

She pulled herself together and sat upright. A moment her tear-stained
eyes met his, then turned to the fire, which had begun to dance again
on its small heap of coals.

"Now I see," said she, resting an elbow on the arm of the chair and so
supporting her chin, while she stared resolutely into the blaze. She
had resumed command of her voice. "Ah, pardon me, now I understand many
things that puzzled me at first.... I--I am not a fool in money
matters." She hesitated.

"I know you are not," he assured her gently. "And that, if you will
understand, increased the small difficulty."

"Yes, I understand. But somehow--it was a long time since I had been
acquainted with--with----"

"Want," he suggested. "Since you know the worst, do not hurt me more
than you are obliged."

"God knows," she said, after an interval of musing, "I would hurt you
last of all living men. Will you be kind to me, and trust me?"

"On conditions."

"Yes?" She glanced up with a strange eagerness in her eyes. "What
conditions?"

"That you do not pity me at all; that you believe I have suffered
nothing, or only such pain as has edged the joy of serving you."

She looked away and into the fire. "You make me very proud," she said.
"Yes. I can easily grant your conditions. I could not pity a man who
practised so noble a courtesy."

The Commandant shook his head with a whimsical smile. "My dear," he
answered, "it's undeniably pleasant to stand well in your opinion, but
I am not used to compliments, and you run some risk of making me a vain
fellow. You asked me to trust you. With what?"

"With the reason why you are poor."

"That," said he, "can be very simply told," and, briefly, in the
simplest possible style, he told her of his brother's death, and how
his sister-in-law and her family had been left in destitution. "You
see," he wound up, "it's just an ordinary sad little tale. Cases of
that kind happen daily, all the world over. One must be thankful when
they happen within reach of help."

"Is your sister-in-law thankful?" asked Vashti, sharply. "But there!"
she added, as he stared at her obviously at a loss to find the question
relevant. "You are quite right. It really does not matter two pins
whether she is thankful or not." She turned her eyes to the fire again
and sat musing. "But I am glad to have heard the story," she went on
after a while. "It explains--oh, many things! I have been blind,
inconsiderate; but I am seeing light at last. Do you know, my friend,
that at first I found a great change in you?"

"Why--bless me!--you had only seen me once before in your life, and
then for two minutes!"

"Listen, please, and don't interrupt. I found a great change in you,
and the reason of it seemed to lie all on the surface. You had brought
ambitions to the Islands, but you had forgotten them. You kept your
kindness, your good nature, but you had forgotten all purpose in life.
In all, except a few personal habits, you were neglecting yourself; and
this neglect came of your being content to live purposeless in this
forgotten hole, and draw your pay without asking questions. Forgive me,
but I seemed to see all this, and it drove me half wild."

He bowed his head. "I know it did," he answered very slowly, "and that
is how you came to save me."

"Is--is this another story?" she asked, after eyeing him a moment or
two in bewilderment.

"If you will listen to it." He drew his writing chair over to the
fireside, and then, facing her across the hearth he told her the second
story as simply as he had told the first, but more nervously, leaning
forward with his elbows on his knees, now and again spreading out his
hands to the fire on which he kept his eyes bent during most of the
recital. Vashti, too, leaned forward, intent on his face. One hand
gripped the arm of her chair--so tightly that its pressure drove the
blood from the finger tips, while the wonder in her eyes changed to
something like awe. "And so," the commandant concluded, "the letter has
gone. I posted it to-day."

"What will happen?"

"I really cannot tell." Without lifting his gaze from the fire he shook
his head dubiously. "But at the worst, the girls are grown into women
now. They have been excellently well educated--their mother saw to that
and made a great point of it from the first--and by this time they
should be able to help, if not support her entirely."

"Man! Man! Will you drive me mad?"

Vashti sprang from the chair.

"I have been unjust. I have been worse than a fool!" She flung back her
cloak, and, clasping her hands behind her, man-fashion, fell to pacing
the room to and fro. The Commandant stood and stared. Something in her
voice puzzled him completely. In its tone, though she accused herself,
there vibrated a low note of triumph. She was genuinely
remorseful--why, he could not guess. Yet, when she halted before him,
he saw that her eyes were glad as well as dim. She held out a hand.

"Forgive me, my friend!"

"Do you know," stammered the Commandant, as he took it, "I should
esteem it a favour to be told whether I am standing on my head or my
heels!"

How long he held her hand he was never afterwards able to tell; for at
its electric touch the room began to swim around him. But this could
not have lasted for long; because, as he looked into her eyes, still
seeking an explanation, she broke off the half-hysterical laugh that
answered him, and pulled her hand away sharply at a sound behind them.

Someone was throwing gravel against the window.

"Commandant!" a voice hailed from the darkness without.

For an instant the two stood as if petrified. Then with a second glance
at the window, to make sure that the curtain was drawn, Vashti tip-toed
swiftly to the door, catching up the guitar on her way.

"Hi! Commandant! Are you waking or sleeping in there?"

The Commandant stepped to the curtain. Vashti opened the door and
slipped out into the passage. The door closed upon her as he pulled the
curtain aside for a second time that night and opened the casement.

"Who's there?"

"So you _are_ awake?" answered the voice of Mr. Rogers. "May I come
in?" And, silence being apparently taken for consent, a foot and leg
followed the voice across the window-sill.




CHAPTER XXI

SUSPICIONS


The foot and leg were followed by Mr. Rogers' entire person, and Mr.
Rogers, having thus made good his entrance, stood blinking, with an
apologetic laugh. "You'll excuse me--but I took it for granted the door
was barred, and seeing a glimmer of light in the window here----"

"Anything wrong?" asked the Commandant.

"Nothing's wrong, I hope"--Mr. Rogers stepped over to the warm fire.
"But something's queer." He fished out a pipe from the pocket of his
thick pilot coat, filled it, lit up, and sank puffing into the
arm-chair from which, a minute ago, Vashti had snatched up her guitar.
"Hullo!" he exclaimed, as his eyes fell upon the empty packing-case.
"You don't mean to tell me that you've been smuggling?"

The Commandant shook his head and laughed, albeit with some confusion.
"The steamer brought it this morning. I assure you it held nothing
contraband.... But I hope that little game is not starting afresh in
the Islands? It gave us a deal of trouble in the old days; and there
was quite an outbreak of it, as I remember, some three or four years
before you came to us. Old Penkivel"--this was Mr. Rogers'
predecessor--"used to declare that it turned his hair gray."

"He told me something beside, on the morning he sailed for the
mainland; which was that but for the help you gave him as Governor he
could never have grappled with it. Maybe this was sticking in my head
just now when I started to walk up here and consult you."

"Well, and what is the matter?"

"Oh, a trifle.... Do you happen to know Tregarthen, the fellow that
farms Saaron Island?"

The Commandant started.

"Eli Tregarthen? Yes, certainly ... that is to say, as I know pretty
well everybody in the Islands."

"What sort of a fellow?"

"Quiet; steady; works on his farm like a horse, week in and week out;
never speaks out of his turn, and says little enough when his turn
comes."

"That sort is often the deepest," observed Mr. Rogers sententiously,
and puffed. "And Saaron Island there, close by the Roads, lies very
handy for a little illicit work."

"You are right, so far," the Commandant admitted; "and history bears
you out. In the old kelp-making days, when half-a-dozen families lived
on it, Saaron gave more trouble than any two islands of its size."

"It's none the less handy for being deserted." Mr. Rogers drew out a
penknife and meditatively loosened the tobacco in his pipe.

"Handier. But you are wrong in suspecting Tregarthen; that is, unless
you have good tangible evidence."

"I don't say that it amounts to much, but it's tangible. In fact, his
boat is lying here, just now, close under the Keg of Butter."

The Commandant turned on his heel and took a pace or two towards the
window, to hide his perturbation and give himself time to consider....
Vashti's boat! And Vashti on the premises at this moment! What was to
be done? How on earth could he get her away?

"You discovered this yourself?" he found himself asking.

"No; I happened to be in the Watch House with the chief boatman
checking the store-sheets, when Beesley, whose watch it is, came in and
reported. I see what you're driving at. Your own boat is lying under
the Keg of Butter, as everybody knows, and you suggest that I am duffer
enough to mistake her in the darkness for a boat at least two-foot
longer."

Mr. Rogers laughed good-naturedly.

"But the answer is," he went on, "that Beesley found two boats lying
there; and Beesley, who knows every craft in the Islands, swears that
the one belongs to you no more certainly than the other to Farmer
Tregarthen. Moreover, she was moored on a shore line, and we pulled her
in and examined her. Sure enough we found name and owner's name cut on
her transom--'Two Sisters: E. Tregarthen.' Now, what d'you make of it?"

"Very little," answered the Commandant, recovering himself; "and that
little in all likelihood quite innocent. Someone, we'll say, wishes to
cross over from Saaron to St. Lide's this evening--on any simple
errand, say to fetch a parcel from the steamer. Why shouldn't that
someone, knowing the Keg of Butter to be good shelter with plenty of
water at all tides, have landed and left the boat there?"

Mr. Rogers shook his head. "Why there, and not at the pier? The pier
lies almost a mile nearer, and there's a fair wind--or almost a fair
one--for returning; while from the Keg of Butter no one can fetch
Saaron under a couple of tacks. That's my first point. Secondly, if Eli
Tregarthen has honest business here, whether with the steamer to fetch
a parcel (parcels must be running in your head to-night), or in the
town to fetch a doctor, the pier is obviously his landing-place. Why,
there isn't a house in the Island, barring these Barracks, that doesn't
stand half-a-mile nearer the pier; not to mention that landing at the
Keg of Butter involves a perfectly unnecessary climb up one side of
Garrison Hill and down the other. Lastly, my dear sir, look at the
time! Close on eleven o'clock, and all Garland Town in their beds.
Again, I ask what honest business can Eli Tregarthen have here at such
an hour?"

The Commandant felt himself cornered. An insane hope crossed his mind
that, while the Lieutenant sat talking, Vashti had contrived to slip
out of the house and down to the shore. It was followed by a saner one,
that she had done nothing of the sort; for, to a certainty, the boat
would be guarded.

"You have taken precautions?" he asked, and felt himself flushing at
the dishonesty of the question.

"I have posted Beesley in charge, and sent the chief boatman off to the
pier-head to keep a close watch on the steamer. She sails at
seven-thirty to-morrow, and though I never heard a hint against her
skipper, it's only right to be careful. I've amused myself before now,
planning imaginary frauds on the revenue; and if anyone cares to risk
opening up that game afresh, the Islands still give him a-plenty of
openings."

"Yes, yes," agreed the Commandant, and checked a groan. He had thought
of warning Vashti to slip down to the quay and borrow a boat there
without asking leave. Some explanation might be trumped up on the
morrow--as that the wind was foul for returning from the Keg of Butter.
No one would accuse Eli Tregarthen of borrowing a boat with intent to
steal: his taking it would be no more than a neighbourly liberty.

But, with the chief boatman watching the pier-head, she would be
discovered to a certainty.

The Commandant's last hope was gone.

Just as he realised this, to his utter astonishment, he heard the voice
of Archelaus grumbling outside in the passage. And Archelaus had gone
to rest an hour ago!

"Pretty time of night this, to come breaking a man's rest!" growled the
voice of Archelaus, audibly, and not without viciousness, as though he
meant it to be heard.

"Good Lord!" exclaimed Mr. Rogers. "You don't tell me we've roused the
old fellow out of bed? And I reckoned I was making no more noise than a
mouse!"

"He may have heard you throw that gravel against the pane." The
Commandant took a step towards the door, but halted irresolutely.

"Then he's a light sleeper," commented Mr. Rogers, "and an even more
dilatory dresser. Why, good heavens!"--the Lieutenant started up from
his chair--"he's undoing the bolts! Somebody's at the front door: one
of my men to report, I'll bet a fiver!"

He would have rushed out into the passage, but the Commandant caught
him by the arm.

"No need to hurry, my friend! Whoever it is, Archelaus will bring
word."

Many hasty surmises whirled together in the Commandant's brain--the
first, and hastiest, that Vashti, unable to make her escape, had
aroused Archelaus, and that Archelaus was unbarring the door for her on
the pretence of hearing a knock. Even so, she would be caught as soon
as she reached the shore. Still, occasion might be snatched to send
Archelaus after her to warn her; she might hide for the night at the
Castle under Mrs. Treacher's friendly wing. The instant need was to
hold back the Lieutenant from discovering her in the passage, and to
the Lieutenant's arm our Commandant clung.

"My good sir," expostulated Mr. Rogers, "it _must_ be one of my men.
Who else, at this hour?"

He fell back a step as the door opened.

"A person to see you, sir; from Saaron!" announced Archelaus. "Shall I
show her in?"

Before either could answer, Vashti herself stood on the threshold.

Of the two men, the Lieutenant excusably showed the blankest
astonishment. But the Commandant had to catch at the rail of a chair.
Vashti had discarded her cloak of furs, and faced him now in such garb
as is worn by the poorest in the Islands: a short gown of hodden gray,
coarse-knitted stockings, and stout shoes. Across her shoulder, for a
"turn-over," she wore a faded shawl of Tartan pattern. (The Commandant
recognised it for a surplus one which Mrs. Treacher kept in the
Barracks kitchen, to wear "against the draughts" on occasions when she
helped Archelaus with the cooking.) But most wonderful of all was her
hair. By some swift art the heavy coil had been drawn into two flat
bands, brought low over the forehead, and carried back over the ears in
a fashion almost slatternly. By no art could Vashti conceal that she
was beautiful. She was also too wise to attempt it. But, for the rest,
she had transformed herself.

"If you please, sir," she began timidly, with an Island curtsey, and
paused as if uncertain, at sight of Mr. Rogers, whether to hold her
ground or to flee: "If you please, sir, I be that frightened!"

Accent, intonation--both were perfect, of the true Island speech, that
delicate incommunicable sing-song. The Commandant's eyes grew rounder
yet with amazement, and Vashti--afraid, perhaps, of meeting them--flung
a glance of mock terror behind her, as though she had caught the
footfall of a pursuer.

"But--but who in the world--" stammered Mr. Rogers.

"If you please, gentlemen"--she turned, with another quick curtsey--"my
name is Vazzy Cara, and I come from Saaron. I live there with my
sister, Ruth, that is wife to Eli Tregarthen----"

Mr. Rogers gave a low whistle.

"It's true, sir--true as I stand here! The Governor knows me, and will
bear me out--won't you, sir?... A terrible way from Saaron it is, and
at this hour of night.... But ask the Governor, sir, and he'll tell you
I am a respectable woman; sister to Mrs. Tregarthen, and lives with her
to look after the children."

"Yes, yes," interrupted the Lieutenant, losing patience. "But the
question is, how you came here, and why?"

Vashti stood panting. By the heave of her bosom it was plain to see
that either her fears still possessed her or that she had been running
for dear life, and must catch breath. Her hand went up to her bodice.

"I came, sir, to see the Governor--all the way across from Saaron.
Eli--that's my sister's husband--is in terrible trouble over there,
because the Lord Proprietor means to turn him off his farm. Yes,
say!"--she drew a letter from her bodice, and went on with rising
voice. "Turn us out he will, though the Tregarthens have lived on the
Island ever since Saaron was Saaron. The Governor, here, in his time
would never have done such wickedness, nor suffered it, being a just
gentleman and merciful, as all the folk can bear witness. And so,
thinks I, he may be able to help us yet; and if able he will be
willing."

She held out the letter towards the Commandant, who took it and turned
it over vaguely between his fingers, not opening it, nor daring to meet
her eyes.

"And so," continued Mr. Rogers, "you took your brother-in-law's
boat--without his knowledge----"

Vashti nodded. "Yes, sir; I took it unbeknowns. He's a very quiet man,
is my sister's husband, and don't like it that other folks, 'specially
women, should mix themselves up in his affairs."

"Then he's a sensible fellow as well as a quiet one."

"Yes, sir." Vashti took the correction meekly, with downcast look.

"And still less, I'll bet," Mr. Rogers continued, "would he be pleased
to know that one of his woman-kind was straying across to St. Lide's at
this hour of the night."

"Oh, sir," she caught him up, "but that's where I've been hindered!
For, wishing to have word with the Governor, and no one the wiser, I
brought the boat to shore down yonder, under the Keg of Butter, and
there the coastguards have found it, and are waiting by it to catch me,
and what answer to give them I can't think, nor how to account for
myself. Seemin' to me they're everywhere, and all around me in the
darkness!"

Mr. Rogers broke into a laugh. "It appears, Commandant, that I have
found a mare's nest; always supposing that this tale is a true one.
You'll excuse me, ma'am, but service is service."

The Commandant had turned to his writing-table, and was holding the
letter under the lamplight.

"I can go bail for Miss Cara," he answered, but without looking up.
"Undoubtedly she comes from Saaron, and is Mrs. Tregarthen's sister.
Also this letter, though we cannot deal with it to-night, is addressed
to Eli Tregarthen in the Lord Proprietor's handwriting. It gives him
formal notice to quit and deliver up his farm. I can give no hope of
help--no hope at all." Here his voice trembled slightly. "The most I
can promise is to consider it."

"And the best we can do for the moment is to escort Miss Cara down to
her boat and get one of my men to sail her back to her island."

"I incline to think," said the Commandant, after a pause, "that Miss
Cara--from what I have seen of her skill--is competent to sail back
alone. If not, I would suggest that you or I escort her, towing my boat
across for the return journey. In any case, if we can get your men out
of the way, it would be wiser, perhaps, for her sake."

"And for mine, begad!" agreed the Lieutenant! "Else I shall have every
man of them grinning behind my back for a month of Sundays. 'Rogers'
smuggling-chase'--I can hear the villains chuckling over it.... But I
say, though"--he turned on Vashti admiringly--"you'll want an escort
across, eh? You don't tell me you're man enough to handle that boat
alone?"

"If you please, sir."

"The Channel's none too easy on a dark night."

Vashti smiled. "My father taught it to me, sir, before I was ten years
old. I could sail it blindfold."

"And you have the nerve?... And yet just now, the dark frightened you,
and you ran for your life!"

"No," said Vashti, demurely, "I just stood still."

"Well, come along! And when you get to the Battery, you'll have to
stand still again, and wait until I report the coast clear. Commandant,
will you give Miss Cara your arm, while I run ahead."

They stepped out together into the night. Vashti neither took the
Commandant's arm nor spoke to him, even after Mr. Rogers had passed
ahead out of earshot. Only when the pair had reached the dark battery,
and were waiting there on the dark platform above the sea, she turned
to him and asked--

"Shall you be busy to-morrow?"

"I am never busy."

"I have left my cloak and the guitar with Archelaus."

"I will bring them to Saaron to-morrow."

She turned away and leaned over the low parapet to the left. Some way
below a footfall sounded, on the track leading to the watch-house---the
footfall of Beesley. A stone, dislodged by his tread, trickled and fell
over the cliff into night.

* * * * *

"Curious!" remarked Mr. Rogers, confidentially, to the Commandant,
twenty minutes later, as they stood and peered into the darkness after
Vashti's boat. "Here I am, stuck on these Islands (so to speak) with a
telescope held to my eye. Of the folk upon 'em I see next to nothing.
Now, I don't know if you took note of it, but that's a remarkable
looking woman; a remarkably handsome woman; and I've spent these years
here without guessing that such a woman existed hereabouts. Eh?" Mr.
Rogers relapsed into mild facetiousness. "If you were a younger man,
Commandant, I could hatch up a pretty story out of to-night's
doings--and if I didn't mind a laugh against myself."




CHAPTER XXII

PIPER'S HOLE


Annet, Linnet, and Matthew Henry sat side by side on the granite roller
by the gate and watched their friend Jan eat his mid-morning snack--or
"mungey," as it is called in the Islands. It consisted, as a rule, of a
crust of bread, but Jan had supplemented it to-day with a turnip, which
he cut into slices with his pocket-knife. He had been pulling turnips
since six o'clock. "And I reckon this'll be the last time of askin',"
he commented, letting his eyes wander over the field as he seated
himself on a shaft of the cart, which had been brought to await the
loading.

The children knew that they would soon be quitting Saaron, and that the
prospect distressed their father and mother. They had discussed it, and
agreed together that it was a great shame to be turned out of their
home, and that the Lord Proprietor must be a hard-hearted tyrant; but
secretly they looked forward to the change with a good deal of
excitement, not being of an age to fathom the troubles of grown-up
folk. After all, Brefar lay close at hand and was familiar. Brefar was
populous, and across there they would find many playmates. Brefar, too,
held out great promise of adventure after sea-birds' eggs and
expeditions of discovery; and if ever the home-sickness came upon them
they would cross the sands at low-water and revisit the old haunts and
the deserted house. All these consolations, however, they kept to
themselves. It would never do to abandon the family grievance merely
because it presented a bright side. They felt, as older folks have been
known to feel, that a sense of injury carries with it a sense of
importance.

"I wonder," said Linnet, severely, "that you can have the heart to talk
about it, Jan."

"Jan has no feelings about leaving Saaron," said Annet, more in sorrow
than in anger. "Why should he--coming from the mainland?"

"But Jan was born on the Islands," Matthew Henry objected; "and that
will be a long time ago."

"Silly! As if you could belong to the Islands by being born here! Why,
to belong to them, your father and mother must have been Islanders, and
your grandfathers and grandmothers, and right back into the greats and
great-greats. And then you never want to go away or live anywhere else
in the world."

Matthew Henry pursed up his small mouth dubiously. He himself had
sometimes wished to live in the wilds of America, or on a South Sea
Island; even to visit Australia and have a try at walking upside down.
There must be a flaw in Annet's argument somewhere.

"But if Jan comes from the mainland--" he began.

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