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Page 6
One, in particular, had pleased Frederick at first. The favourite song
of a Tahitian king, Tom explained--the last of the Pomares, who had
himself composed it and was wont to lie on his mats by the hour singing
it. It consisted of the repetition of a few syllables. "_E meu ru ru a
vau_," it ran, and that was all of it, sung in a stately, endless,
ever-varying chant, accompanied by solemn chords from the _ukelele_.
Polly took great joy in teaching it to her uncle, but when, himself
questing for some of this genial flood of life that bathed about his
brother, Frederick essayed the song, he noted suppressed glee on the
part of his listeners, which increased, through giggles and snickers, to
a great outburst of laughter. To his disgust and dismay, he learned
that the simple phrase he had repeated and repeated was nothing else
than "I am so drunk." He had been made a fool of. Over and over,
solemnly and gloriously, he, Frederick Travers, had announced how drunk
he was. After that, he slipped quietly out of the room whenever it was
sung. Nor could Polly's later explanation that the last word was
"happy," and not "drunk," reconcile him; for she had been compelled to
admit that the old king was a toper, and that he was always in his cups
when he struck up the chant.
Frederick was constantly oppressed by the feeling of being out of it
all. He was a social being, and he liked fun, even if it were of a more
wholesome and dignified brand than that to which his brother was
addicted. He could not understand why in the past the young people had
voted his house a bore and come no more, save on state and formal
occasions, until now, when they flocked to it and to his brother, but
not to him. Nor could he like the way the young women petted his
brother, and called him Tom, while it was intolerable to see them twist
and pull his buccaneer moustache in mock punishment when his sometimes
too-jolly banter sank home to them.
Such conduct was a profanation to the memory of Isaac and Eliza Travers.
There was too much an air of revelry in the house. The long table was
never shortened, while there was extra help in the kitchen. Breakfast
extended from four until eleven, and the midnight suppers, entailing
raids on the pantry and complaints from the servants, were a vexation to
Frederick. The house had become a restaurant, a hotel, he sneered
bitterly to himself; and there were times when he was sorely tempted to
put his foot down and reassert the old ways. But somehow the ancient
sorcery of his masterful brother was too strong upon him; and at times
he gazed upon him with a sense almost of awe, groping to fathom the
alchemy of charm, baffled by the strange lights and fires in his
brother's eyes, and by the wisdom of far places and of wild nights and
days written in his face. What was it? What lordly vision had the other
glimpsed?--he, the irresponsible and careless one? Frederick remembered
a line of an old song--"Along the shining ways he came." Why did his
brother remind him of that line? Had he, who in boyhood had known no
law, who in manhood had exalted himself above law, in truth found the
shining ways?
There was an unfairness about it that perplexed Frederick, until he
found solace in dwelling upon the failure Tom had made of life. Then it
was, in quiet intervals, that he got some comfort and stiffened his own
pride by showing Tom over the estate.
"You have done well, Fred," Tom would say. "You have done very well."
He said it often, and often he drowsed in the big smooth-running
machine.
"Everything orderly and sanitary and spick and span--not a blade of
grass out of place," was Polly's comment. "How do you ever manage it? I
should not like to be a blade of grass on your land," she concluded,
with a little shivery shudder.
"You have worked hard," Tom said.
"Yes, I have worked hard," Frederick affirmed. "It was worth it."
He was going to say more, but the strange flash in the girl's eyes
brought him to an uncomfortable pause. He felt that she measured him,
challenged him. For the first time his honourable career of building a
county commonwealth had been questioned--and by a chit of a girl, the
daughter of a wastrel, herself but a flighty, fly-away, foreign
creature.
Conflict between them was inevitable. He had disliked her from the first
moment of meeting. She did not have to speak. Her mere presence made him
uncomfortable. He felt her unspoken disapproval, though there were times
when she did not stop at that. Nor did she mince language. She spoke
forthright, like a man, and as no man had ever dared to speak to him.
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