Under the Wide and Starry Sky (37 page)

Fanny set aside her diary, closed her eyes, and listened to the sounds of insects and birds awakening. It was always a single triller who started the morning music, but in a minute thousands of creatures would join in, sending up swooping ribbons of coos, chirps, and clicks into the black morning air. How they must love the sound of their own chorus! They wove their ribbons together intentionally, she was certain of it, because every once in a while they would all stop at once—insects and birds alike—as if on cue, as if to catch their breath and listen to the silence.

When the sun tore an orange line through the clouds and lit the hillside, the music slowed. There would be individual songs called out here and there, but she wouldn't notice a chorus again until dinnertime, when the frogs took over. They sang so loudly that Louis complained he might be losing his hearing. A booming glee club, they were. Fanny was so enchanted by the frog song that she didn't care if she missed the end of someone's sentence.

At dawn, too alert to remain in bed, she went by lantern light to her toolshed. Fog was rolling up the hill, puffing across the clearing like pale smoke as she pulled out the things she would need for the day. Her ambitions for Vailima grew by the hour. She had three pigs—a white boar and two sows—and she wanted many more. She saw a big farm: a real, producing farm from which she could feed her family and work crew. There would be more horses and eventually a cow for milk. And more gardens, profuse with every vegetable she might crave. She saw a plantation operation with cash crops that would eventually support Vailima. Maybe she would grow both coffee and cacao and make a run at a perfume business as well, since Henry had found ylang-ylang trees on the property.

She could tell other people had lived on this land. Henry came upon evidence of a banana plantation in a soggy area of the bush. Excited, Fanny made a muddy foray into the swamp to have a look. To think she had so much of her own property to explore—three hundred mysterious acres! Never in her wildest dreaming had she considered the possibilities of such a canvas.

There had been the most basic beginnings to make: a fowl house for her Cochins, a paddock to clear, a barn and pigpens to build, and seeds to plant, starting with the buffalo grass she'd ordered from the States.The tough buffalo grass would keep out weeds once it was established. Today she would follow behind the tiller, planting grass in the morning and vegetables in the afternoon. Thinking of the seeds she'd ordered from Australia made her heart thump. Long green beans, peas, radishes, melons, corn, artichokes, eggplants, tomatoes. When a neighbor gave her six lovely pineapples, she planted their tops in hopes of having her own grove.

All the books she had ever read on botany and gardening and landscape design seemed to have been driving toward this moment in her life. She thought of the Englishwoman, Gertrude Jekyll, whose brother, Walter, used to visit them at Bournemouth. Fanny once visited her house in Surrey and nearly fainted when she saw corn stalks growing in the woman's extraordinary flower border.
And I thought I was the only gardener in England with corn between my roses.
When Walter saw Fanny's garden at Skerryvore, he said to her, “You plant in strokes, as Gertrude does. She is a painter, too.”

The woman
was
an artist with plants, and Fanny had in mind a flower garden at Vailima that would equal Gertrude's. It would not be easy to imitate such an effect in the space around the house. A beautiful garden was a three-dimensional composition made up of ephemeral materials. It was far harder to make than a painting; she knew that firsthand. But what she had in mind was even harder: a vast architected landscape of flower and vegetable gardens, ponds, and plantation crops moving out into the hillside.

As Fanny began hoeing a new section, the fog thinned and the damp world around her turned silver-bright. In the field beyond, she saw the brown earth was marked with shimmering green lines where her beans had begun to quicken with life. After an hour, covered in sweat and already sore, she went back to the cottage, where Louis stood on the little porch, drinking his morning coffee.

“Good mornin', Weird Woman,” he called out. It was his latest pet name for her, no doubt in reference to her recent fascination with Samoan superstitions, as well as her appearance this morning. She was wearing the wide brim of a hat—only the brim. She had separated the crown and tossed it away so that her scalp could catch the occasional cool breeze.

“Louis, do you think we are still on friendly terms with Walter Jekyll and his sister Gertrude?”

“I suppose. Why do you ask?”

“I'm thinking about writing to Gertrude to ask for some seeds, but I don't know if I dare.

I've never had a sense of how they felt about us after you borrowed their family name for the story.”

Louis shrugged. “At least it wasn't
Dr. Hyde and Mr. Jekyll
.”

They stood together, contemplating the clearing near the house, where dozens of burned tree stumps poked up from the dirt. Fanny envisioned a great sward where the family could play lawn tennis, but the ugly black things reminded her how far they had to go. “What would Gertrude do with those stumps, do you suppose?” Fanny wondered aloud.

“Why, set flower pots on ‘em, girlie!” Louis said.

Fanny savored this part of the day, when they talked of what they intended to get done on the land. In the past, such planning would have been unthinkable, but Louis was joyfully well. For hours on end, he waged death contests with the wretched sensitive plant—green murders, he called his battles—and emerged invigorated, whooping like a warrior and shouting, “I love weeding!” He cut swaths through the bush to make paths, returning filthy and triumphant. He rode his horse back and forth to Apia at a terrifying speed, given the condition of the road. He rejoiced in the muscles growing strong in his thighs. When she massaged the back of his neck at the end of a long workday, she glimpsed lines of white skin hidden within furrows of brown. “You are turning the color of the earth,” she told him.

It gave her peace to see Louis so vigorous and happy. She occasionally found him standing still in a spot, listening to birds in the forest. “Do you hear that? They're chuckling like children out there.”

Fanny worked so hard some days that her arthritic knees would not come up off the ground. When Henry found her stuck between her garden rows, he would lift her by her middle and move her to the next section that had to be planted. Louis worked just as hard.

Before dinner, they went to the pool near the house that was surrounded by orange trees; there they bathed among water lilies. Standing in the waterfall that poured over a rock ledge, Louis called out, “This is a fairy story!”

A few days earlier, while Louis was in town, he was approached by Mr. Sewell, the U.S. consul, who asked if he might bring a pair of famous Americans up to Vailima. “John LaFarge, the painter, and a historian named Henry Adams,” Louis told her. “LaFarge is a friend of Will Low. But I never heard of the other one.”

“Their timing couldn't be worse,” Fanny protested. “What will we feed them?”

“I told the consul they should bring their own food.”

“You are the best attraction Sewell has to offer on this island, I suppose. The equivalent of Queen Vaekehu's tattooed legs. ‘Not to be missed!'” she teased.

Next day, Adams and LaFarge appeared in the clearing with Sewell as their guide. While Louis greeted them, Fanny ran into the cottage to wash her arms and feet and put on shoes. It was afternoon. They had spent the morning installing a stove in the outdoor cookhouse, and they were both covered with black grease. There was no time to bathe or change. Both travelers were balding fellows, slightly older than Fanny, and pinched in aspect. LaFarge was polite, but Adams could not conceal how appalled he was by the spectacle in front of him. He appeared thunderstruck as he gaped at poor Louis, who was wearing grease-streaked white linen trousers with a brown sock on one foot, and a purple sock on the other. In the space of a minute, Fanny was fairly certain she loathed Henry Adams.

Louis, on the other hand, was beside himself with joy. It was almost embarrassing to see how excitedly he approached the men. He was like a puppy, eager to play, jumping around a more reserved dog who is not done sniffing, as indeed Adams was not, for his nostrils were flared from the moment he arrived, and they seemed incapable of deflating. Louis toured the men around the cleared property, talking of their plans. Later, over a simple meal on a table outside, he pitched one topic after another at Adams and LaFarge, seeking to spark the kind of brainy repartee he'd so missed since leaving his old friends in London. The painter was clearly cultivated but politely reserved. Adams was more forthcoming, promptly revealing that there were
two
American presidents in his family tree. In his Boston Brahmin accent, he expanded on his own interests, in particular how American education was producing a crop of young people ill prepared for the coming century. “Second-rate” was a phrase he used to dismiss any number of people, places, and ideas. Sewell turned the talk back to Vailima, and the herculean task of building a house when the materials had to be imported. The historian's snobbery seeped through his every remark. “One must lower one's standards in the tropics, of course.” Adams sighed. “Lord knows, Henry Adams certainly has.”

Fanny engaged the man's eyes. “We don't stand on too much ceremony here,” she said. “A simple way of life thankfully preserves us from that burden. Someone without imagination might look at this place and see squalor, but we see possibility,” She smiled sweetly. “And we are grateful to be living in Samoa, among people with truly humane manners.”

If her remark had landed as she hoped, Adams gave no sign of it, as he'd turned his attention to swatting mosquitoes. But Louis's eyes had widened at her retort.

“Good riddance,” Fanny muttered when the men left.

“Is the hostess feeling a bit churlish?” Louis said.

“What a ridiculous prig! Does Adams always refer to himself in the third person?”

“Louis Stevenson was wondering the same thing,” Louis said.

Standing there, she looked at her husband as Henry Adams must have seen him, an emaciated figure with legs so long and thin, he resembled a stork. Her eyes followed Louis's legs to his mismatched socks, and then she began to laugh uncontrollably. He looked down at his feet, sank onto the porch step, and laughed, too.

She realized their happiest times had been just like this, when the two of them were alone with the rest of the world at bay, as they'd been at Hyeres. They did best when they were making a new beginning, planning and creating together. She savored having Louis to herself, without friends or family. His jokes and thoughts were only for her. Pulled away from his writing by the physical work at hand, and miraculously healthy, Louis seemed reborn.

They had been through wretched times, and Louis had relapsed often enough that she'd learned not to trust the moments of reprieve. But she couldn't help thinking,
This feels different. This time we are on solid ground.

During those first months at Vailima, an impetuous joy overtook her. She would walk out to find Louis in a field valiantly weeding, fall on her knees beside him, and declare, “Fanny Stevenson loves you madly.”

Fanny looked up from her diary to find Henry standing over her. “Lafaele stepped on a nail, Tamaitai. The native doctor is out there.”

“Oh, that's no use.” Fanny sighed. “I'll be right down.”

When she found Lafaele, he was lying on the ground, his foot in the hands of an old man.

“What is happening?” she asked Henry, who stood nearby.

“The doctor say the devil got in him through the nail hole. Now the devil want to take over his body.”

“Thank the doctor very much for coming. We will fetch him if things get worse.”

She washed out the wound, treated the puncture with carbolic acid solution, wrapped the foot and fed Lafaele salicylate to dull the pain. His terrified expression remained.

“Close your eyes,” she told him. She put two fingers on his eyelids. “You are going to be just fine. My devils are more powerful than his devils. Now go to your bed, and we will bring food to you.”

At dinner with the family, Henry said, “Lafaele is feeling better. He says you are a great healer.”

“I rather like that.”

“Now if you could just persuade him to go into the bush to our banana plantation …” Louis said. “He claims he has seen a devil in the form of a strange man come out of the forest.”

“Vailima is overrun with ghosts, if you believe the men,” Fanny said. “Lafaele says there is one in our spring. And another near the garden. I heard something like a rumbling the other day, and I must admit, it gave me pause.” She took a bite of the breadfruit on her plate and thought of how tired she was of it. “And then there is the spirit whose name translates to something like ‘Come to Me Thousands.' Have you heard of her?”

Louis shook his head.

“The cook says there is an evil female
aītu
who preys on women when they are alone. Appears as a crone and asks for some favor, a bit of bread, say, and if she doesn't get it, woe to the lady. Slips into her body while she is sleeping. Apparently, the poor woman possessed by her will leap up and run through the hills crazily and carouse all night.”

“Sounds like a fellow's dearest fantasy,” Louis muttered. He pushed his chair back from the table. “Say, Moors invited us to come down to their house for Christmas Eve dinner.”

“Thank heavens!” Fanny said. “There won't be a holiday dinner at Vailima this year, I can assure you. My plants aren't near ready to be harvested.”

On Christmas Eve, Louis saddled up Jack, and Fanny rode the piebald horse they'd bought from a traveling circus for his mother's eventual use. In spite of the rainy season, it was a fine afternoon, and they rode down to Apia in high spirits. Fanny wore a split skirt that Dora had sent her from San Francisco, which freed her from riding sidesaddle.

Moors and his wife had invited a local lawyer, three other Samoan women, plus a colorful missionary from Tonga. Mrs. Moors was a mature, graceful woman. She had spread the table with a banquet of Samoan and American foods, and Fanny did her best not to ravage a plate in two gulps. Seated next to Mr. Moors, she described the rumbling sounds coming from somewhere near the garden.

“As I recall, there's a cave in that area,” Moors said. “It's possible that runaways from the German plantations are hiding there. I suspect there are plenty of labor boys living in the bush near Vailima.”

“We aren't far from a plantation. During the day, I can hear them call in the workers with a conch shell.” Fanny sipped her wine. “It is strange to think of runaways hiding out there. I don't know how they survive during the rainy season. Lafaele says they live on yams they dig up. Imagine how hungry they must be.”

“I understand you are quite a medicine woman,” Moors said, changing the subject.

“Word travels quickly.”

“Oh, you have no idea. In Apia, rumors are the main form of discourse. If it has to do with spirits, all the better.” He chuckled. “There is a native word for spirit. It is
aītu—
”

“I know the word,” she said.

“Then you know there is always some rumor of
aītus
going around.”

“What is the latest news in town about the supernatural world?”

“Some fishermen saw a war canoe with four spirit men in it coming into shore. It is said, that one of the fishermen who saw them is on his mat, dying.” Moors shook his head. “The natives take all this as a sign of war coming. They are hurrying around looking for ammunition.”

“Doesn't that worry you?”

“The part about the ammunition? Not in the least. It is nothing new.”

“I must say, Mr. Moors,” Fanny remarked, “that when you showed us the property and told us about the waterfalls, and the streams, and the secret banana plantation, you forgot to mention it's common knowledge that Vailima is overrun with
aītus
.”

“An oversight,” he said. “But it's actually a good deal. The locals won't be tempted to steal from you if your land is regarded as haunted. So the ghosts, you might say, are a gift.” Moors lifted his glass. “Happy Christmas to you, Mrs. Stevenson!”

At around eleven, Fanny and Louis took their leave. Rain began to fall as the lights of Apia disappeared behind them. In the darkness of the forest, the horses grew skittish on the path, cocking their ears at the burbling sound the wind and rain made in the trees. Flying foxes whipped past overhead. Weird whitish bars of light appeared here and there on the forest ground.

“What is it?” Fanny asked when Louis stopped to gape.

“Phosphorescent light from the dead wood,” he said. “Looks like grating over hell. No wonder the natives think the nighttime is full of bogeys. Scary, ain't it?”

A great gust of wind came up the hill, knocking Fanny's hat off into the darkness and lifting high the manes of the horses.

Louis's Jack quailed. He took off uphill, and Fanny's horse hurried behind him.