The Complete Short Stories of Evelyn Waugh - Evelyn Waugh [56]
“But surely you are English?”
“My father was—at least a Barbadian. He came to British Guiana as a missionary. He was married to a white woman but he left her in Guiana to look for gold. Then he took my mother. The Shiriana women are ugly but very devoted. I have had many. Most of the men and women living in this savannah are my children. That is why they obey—for that reason and because I have the gun. My father lived to a great age. It is not twenty years since he died. He was a man of education. Can you read?”
“Yes, of course.”
“It is not everyone who is so fortunate. I cannot.”
Henty laughed apologetically. “But I suppose you haven’t much opportunity here.”
“Oh yes, that is just it. I have a great many books. I will show you when you are better. Until five years ago there was an Englishman—at least a black man, but he was well educated in Georgetown. He died. He used to read to me every day until he died. You shall read to me when you are better.”
“I shall be delighted to.”
“Yes, you shall read to me,” Mr. McMaster repeated, nodding over the calabash.
During the early days of his convalescence Henty had little conversation with his host; he lay in the hammock staring up at the thatched roof and thinking about his wife, rehearsing over and over again different incidents in their life together, including her affairs with the tennis professional and the soldier. The days, exactly twelve hours each, passed without distinction. Mr. McMaster retired to sleep at sundown, leaving a little lamp burning—a hand-woven wick drooping from a pot of beef fat—to keep away vampire bats.
The first time that Henty left the house Mr. McMaster took him for a little stroll around the farm.
“I will show you the black man’s grave,” he said, leading him to a mound between the mango trees. “He was very kind to me. Every afternoon until he died, for two hours, he used to read to me. I think I will put up a cross—to commemorate his death and your arrival—a pretty idea. Do you believe in God?”
“I’ve never really thought about it much.”
“You are perfectly right. I have thought about it a great deal and I still do not know . . . Dickens did.”
“I suppose so.”
“Oh yes, it is apparent in all his books. You will see.”
That afternoon Mr. McMaster began the construction of a headpiece for the Negro’s grave. He worked with a large spokeshave in a wood so hard that it grated and rang like metal.
At last when Henty had passed six or seven consecutive days without fever, Mr. McMaster said, “Now I think you are well enough to see the books.”
At one end of the hut there was a kind of loft formed by a rough platform erected up in the eaves of the roof. Mr. McMaster propped a ladder against it and mounted. Henty followed, still unsteady after his illness. Mr. McMaster sat on the platform and Henty stood at the top of the ladder looking over. There was a heap of small bundles there, tied up with rag, palm leaf and rawhide.
“It has been hard to keep out the worms and ants. Two are practically destroyed. But there is an oil the Indians know how to make that is useful.”
He unwrapped the nearest parcel and handed down a calf-bound book. It was an early American edition of Bleak House.
“It does not matter which we take first.”
“You are fond of Dickens?”
“Why, yes, of course. More than fond, far more. You see, they are the only books I have ever heard. My father used to read them and then later the black man . . . and now you. I have heard them all several times by now but I never get tired; there is always more to be learned and noticed, so many characters, so many changes of scene, so many words . . . I have all Dickens’s books except those that the ants devoured. It takes a long time to read them all—more than two years.”
“Well,” said Henty lightly, “they will well last out my visit.”
“Oh, I hope not. It is delightful to start again. Each time I think I find more to enjoy and admire.