Alice Lauder/Part 1/Chapter 5

WELL, I do really think this is Paradise, and I quite believe the story that the Garden of Eden was in Ceylon!”

The “Suez” had arrived at Point de Galle early that morning, and now Alice Lauder was looking up at the stately architectural foliage of a great breadfruit-tree that scattered the tropical sunset from its green bulk in quivering fragments of gold. She sat on the grass in a happy, but unceremonious position, hugging her knees with both hands, and gazing about with a child’s ecstasy at the novel landscape. The first plunge into tropical scenery gives everyone a delightful shock; and to Alice’s Australian eyes, accustomed to the yellow-grey glare of her native plains, to the thin bleached grass and transparent foliage of the woodlands, this sudden vision of tropical beauty was almost overpowering. To the right were the old white ramparts built by the Dutch 300 years ago, the spray ​dashing mast-high up against the lighthouse. Farther on was the harbour and its little crowd of vessels; on the other side a fringe of palm-trees bent slowly and reluctantly to the breeze, their huge green fans and dry cordage rustling and creaking like the sails of a ship. Wonderful new blossoms and strangely painted leaves—the hibiscus with its cup of fire, the blood-red pomegranate, the pale foliage and scarlet festoons of the coral-tree overflowed the banks and scrambled up the trunks of the strange tropical trees on every side. Even the hedges and ditches were full of hothouse ferns, bright shields of begonias, and arrow-shaped caladiums. Over all the landscape was a veiled hazy light that softened every outline to a kind of chiaroscuro; the sea air was full of mingled freshness and languor; a cinnamon-scented breeze sometimes came in wafts from the inland forests; over all and through all other sounds floated the deep melancholy undertone of the surf as it swept over the coral reef and whitened the serrated margin of the coast for a thousand miles; even the natives seemed decked with “barbaric pomp and pearl” as they sauntered slowly past, robed in white, with hair twisted in high tortoiseshell combs, and like “mild-eyed melancholy lotus-eaters” offered for sale sap​phires and pearls, carved sandal-wood, ivory boxes, or queer fascinating cat’s-eye jewellery.

“It’s not my idea of Paradise,” said Campbell, who was also reposing enjoyably on the grass near his young guide, philosopher, and friend in music.

They had the breadfruit-tree all to themselves, and it really was very pleasant. Even the watchful eyes of Mrs. Wigs were closed in slumber on the shadiest veranda of the big hotel. Lady May had been spirited away to some remote viceregal regions immediately on her arrival, and Arthur found himself, he scarcely knew how or why, taking care of this very Bohemian young lady under the shade of the murmuring tropical trees. There was no Mrs. Grundy awake within half a mile. Still it must be remembered that Mrs. Grundy hears in her dreams and sees with her eyes shut, and that it is never safe to conclude that when the cat’s away the mice may play—not even under a breadfruit-tree in a surf-circled island of the Indian Ocean.

“What is your idea, then, if one may ask? Not that I believe you have anything better than this!” and Alice bent down a starry passion-flower from the nearest bough, and drew its crimson petals over her lips.

​“Oh, my idea of the nearest thing to Paradise is an old English red-brick manor-house—built about the time that the Dutch sailors were making those limestone ramparts yonder—a house in the shape of a quadrangle, all covered up and buried with ivy and roses—sweet-smelling things, not like that scentless flower in your hand—and in the square between the two old wings of the house is a bit of green, green turf, so soft and smooth that you think it must be picked up and shaken and laid down again every morning like a carpet. And at one end there is an enormous chestnut-tree—something like a tree!” he continued, looking contemptuously at the noble proportions of their sheltering giant.

“Well, I haven’t seen that sort of thing yet; but this nearly drives me crazy—it is so beautiful! Just like the story-books of one’s childhood—the ‘Swiss Family Robinson,’ for instance. There is the sago palm, in which we have so often escaped from desert islands (having previously taken out the pith for food), and the cinnamon-trees and the coffee-berries, and I dare say the Roc’s egg in the ‘Arabian Nights,’ if we knew where to look for it.”

“At all events, we shall have a rattling good dinner at the hotel to-night. You have never ​tasted prawn curry, have you? Ah! wait for that before you begin to talk about Paradise!”

“Oh, how prosaic, how tiresome you are!—on an evening like this, too!”

“Wait till you taste it, that’s all. Besides, I’ve seen this sort of thing so often before; there’s a terrible family likeness in tropical scenery everywhere. But there’s one thing new to me here.”

“What is that?”

“I’ve never met anyone exactly like you before, Miss Lauder.”

“I wonder if that is a compliment or not? If it is, I’ll add it to my collection. I have a few bottled up in spirits of wine. The best specimens were given me by the chief engineer. You must have noticed him coming out in the twilight every evening and sitting beside me in total silence for half an hour. That was his way of being complimentary, and I thought it very flattering. But it’s time to go in now.”

“No, don’t go yet,” said Campbell. “There’s a lovely view from the ramparts, and we’ll get a breeze there before dinner. It’s quite the thing to walk there at this time of the evening—if you can do without the engineer.”

They went down the shadow-lined red road, and presently stood on the ramparts and looked ​over its low white wall to the sea. A big white convolvulus flowed in rivers of blossom all over the wall, and from below came the melancholy thunders of the surf. Campbell had been thinking as they strolled along, and the result of his meditation was a sudden question—

“Have you any relations in England?”

“Oh, yes; principally an old-maid aunt, who teaches music in Hampstead. She will look after me, and put me in the way of proper training.”

“Training in music, I suppose?”

“Music, or the stage. I’m not quite sure yet whether I shall be a great actress or a singer—which shall it be?”

“I don’t think you know the difficulties before you. And the stage, of all things! I can’t imagine what your father is thinking about to send you off alone into the world like this.”

“Oh, well; we don’t have the same sort of world as you do. There are so many little things which I used to think were quite right,—praiseworthy even,—but now I find they are terribly, hopelessly wrong. But there are also things in your world,”—and the girl raised her head and looked out to sea with a glance of pride and disdain,—“things which, on the other hand, I think mean and contemptible, and I would not learn them for the world.”

​Arthur felt dimly that he was somehow involved in this condemnation, but he bravely rallied to the cause of law and order. “Don’t you think you ought to make some study of our world, too,” he said, “that is, supposing there is any division between artists and society people, if that is what you mean?”

“Oh, yes! And I have made one or two social studies already. This voyage has been a great opportunity.” She paused for a moment, took up a bit of stick for an eyeglass, and made a life-like pose-plastique of Lady May’s favourite attitude and manner. “Mr.—a—Campbell, I think—oh, yes—ah—I recollect meeting you—at the Duchess of A.’s—ah—was it not?”

She looked at him through her pince-nez as if he were one of the “common objects of the seashore” spoken of by naturalists, and somehow managed to give exactly Lady May’s little turn of the nose to her own much shorter and snubbier features.

Arthur laughed, but he felt vexed at the same time, and she observed the shade on his face.

“Oh! I see I ought not to do that sort of thing—bad form, I suppose. But then it is part of my outfit, you know, to study social peculiarities.”

​“I wish you were not going on the stage, all the same,” he continued, doggedly.

“You think I will be a failure? Well, perhaps; you never can tell. But I have a card up my sleeve—I know that’s a proper expression, for I’ve heard you say it—and it may turn out a very good one.”

“You mean your voice! Well, why don’t you let me hear it.”

“Perhaps I will now that we are on dry land. I can’t sing at sea.”

“That’s a promise, then. Look at that steamer coming round the point. She brings the mail from Bombay, I expect. There is our old ‘Suez’ lying close in under the lighthouse. She will be here for another forty-eight hours, the captain tells me, to get her machinery overhauled. So much the better for us, to have two days more of your Paradise.” He smiled, and Alice replied in the same language, feeling more friendly with “ce beau Campbell” than ever before during their three weeks’ sojourn on the waves together. But as they watched the lights of the Indian mail-boat slowly coming through the purple haze, Fate was already cutting the light thread of association which she had so carelessly thrown together over these two dissimilar young people. They did not know that ​anything so important was being thought over by the higher powers, and presently went in to dinner at the hotel, where the lofty airy room, the scented artificial breeze of the crimson punkahs, the interesting procession of new curious dishes, the wild extravagance of tropical flowers, and fruits which might have come straight from the orchards of Eden—all combined to give a delightful impression of the foreignness and charm of this tropical island, with its