The Translation of a Savage, Complete - Gilbert Parker
THE TRANSLATION OF A SAVAGE, Complete
By Gilbert Parker
CONTENTS
Volume 1.
I. HIS GREAT MISTAKE
II. A DIFFICULT SITUATION
III. OUT OF THE NORTH
IV. IN THE NAME OF THE FAMILY
V. AN AWKWARD HALF-HOUR
Volume 2.
VI. THE PASSING OF THE YEARS
VII. A COURT-MARTIAL
VIII. TO EVERY MAN HIS HOUR
Volume 3.
IX. THE FAITH OF COMRADES
X. "THOU KNOWEST THE SECRETS OF OUR HEARTS"
XI. UPON THE HIGHWAY
XII. "THE CHASE OF THE YELLOW SWAN"
XIII. A LIVING POEM
XIV. ON THE EDGE OF A FUTURE
XV. THE END OF THE TRAIL
INTRODUCTION
The Translation of a Savage was written in the early autumn of 1893, at
Hampstead Heath, where for over twenty years I have gone, now and then,
when I wished to be in an atmosphere conducive to composition. Hampstead
is one of the parts of London which has as yet been scarcely invaded by
the lodging-house keeper. It is very difficult to get apartments at
Hampstead; it is essentially a residential place; and, like Chelsea, has
literary and artistic character all its own. I think I have seen more
people carrying books in their hands at Hampstead than in any other spot
in England; and there it was, perched above London, with eyes looking
towards the Atlantic over the leagues of land and the thousand leagues of
sea, that I wrote 'The Translation of a Savage'. It was written, as it
were, in one concentrated effort, a ceaseless writing. It was, in effect,
what the Daily Chronicle said of 'When Valmond Came to Pontiac', a tour
de force. It belonged to a genre which compelled me to dispose of a thing
in one continuous effort, or the impulse, impetus, and fulness of
movement was gone. The writing of a book of the kind admitted of no
invasion from extraneous sources, and that was why, while writing 'The
Translation of a Savage' at Hampstead, my letters were only delivered to
me once a week. I saw no friends, for no one knew where I was; but I
walked the heights, I practised with my golf clubs on the Heath, and I
sat in the early autumn evenings looking out at London in that agony of
energy which its myriad lives represented. It was a good time.
The story had a basis of fact; the main incident was true. It happened,
however, in Michigan rather than in Canada; but I placed the incident in
Canada where it was just as true to the life. I was living in
Hertfordshire at the time of writing the story, and that is why the
English scenes were worked out in Hertfordshire and in London. When I had
finished the tale, there came over me suddenly a kind of feeling that the
incident was too bold and maybe too crude to be believed, and I was
almost tempted to consign it to the flames; but the editor of 'The
English Illustrated Magazine', Sir C. Kinloch-Cooke, took a wholly
different view, and eagerly published it. The judgment of the press was
favourable,--highly so--and I was as much surprised as pleased when Mr.
George Moore, in the Hogarth Club one night, in 1894, said to me: "There
is a really remarkable play in that book of yours, 'The Translation, of a
Savage'." I had not thought up to that time that my work was of the kind
which would appeal to George Moore, but he was always making discoveries.
Meeting him in Pall Mall one day, he said to me: "My dear fellow, I have
made a great discovery. I have been reading the Old Testament. It is
magnificent. In the mass of its incoherence it has a series of the most
marvellous stories. Do you remember--" etc. Then he came home and had tea
with me, revelling, in the meantime, on having discovered the Bible!
I cannot feel that 'The Translation of a Savage' has any significance
beyond the truthfulness with which I believe it describes the
transformation, or rather the evolution, of a primitive character into a
character with an intelligence of perception and a sympathy which is
generally supposed to be the outcome of long processes of civilisation
and culture. The book has so many friends--this has been sufficiently
established by the very large sale it has had in cheap editions--that I
am still disposed to feel it was an inevitable manifestation in the
progress of my art, such as it is. People of diverse conditions of life
have found in it something to interest and to stimulate. One of the most
volcanic of the Labour members in the House of Commons told me that the
violence of his opposition to me in debate on a certain bill was greatly
moderated by the fact that I had written 'The Translation of a Savage';
while a certain rather grave duke remarked to me concerning the character
of Lali that "She would have been all right anywhere." I am bound to say
that he was a duke who, while a young man, knew the wilds of Canada and
the United States almost as well as I know Westminster.
THE TRANSLATION OF A SAVAGE
CHAPTER I
HIS GREAT MISTAKE
It appeared that Armour had made the great mistake of his life. When
people came to know, they said that to have done it when sober had shown
him possessed of a kind of maliciousness and cynicism almost pardonable,
but to do it when tipsy proved him merely weak and foolish. But the fact
is, he was less tipsy at the time than was imagined; and he could have
answered to more malice and cynicism than was credited to him. To those
who know the world it is not singular that, of the two, Armour was
thought to have made the mistake and had the misfortune, or that people
wasted their pity and their scorn upon him alone. Apparently they did not
see that the woman was to be pitied. He had married her; and she was only
an Indian girl from Fort Charles of the Hudson's Bay Company, with a
little honest white blood in her veins. Nobody, not even her own people,
felt that she had anything at stake, or was in danger of unhappiness, or
was other than a person who had ludicrously come to bear the name of Mrs.
Francis Armour. If any one had said in justification that she loved the
man, the answer would have been that plenty of Indian women had loved
white men, but had not married them, and yet the population of
half-breeds went on increasing.
Frank Armour had been a popular man in London. His club might be found in
the vicinity of Pall Mall, his father's name was high and honoured in the
Army List, one of his brothers had served with Wolseley in Africa, and
Frank himself, having no profession, but with a taste for business and
investment, had gone to Canada with some such intention as Lord Selkirk's
in the early part of the century. He owned large shares in the Hudson's
Bay Company, and when he travelled through the North-West country,
prospecting, he was received most hospitably. Of an inquiring and
gregarious nature he went as much among the half-breeds--or 'metis', as
they are called--and Indians as among the officers of the Hudson's Bay
Company and the white settlers. He had ever been credited with having a
philosophical turn of mind; and this was accompanied by a certain strain
of impulsiveness or daring. He had been accustomed all his life to make
up his mind quickly and, because he was well enough off to bear the
consequences of momentary rashness in commercial investments, he was not
counted among the transgressors. He had his own fortune; he was not
drawing upon a common purse. It was a different matter when he trafficked
rashly in the family name so far as to marry the daughter of
Eye-of-the-Moon, the Indian chief.
He was tolerably happy when he went to the Hudson's Bay country; for Miss
Julia Sherwood was his promised wife, and she, if poor, was notably
beautiful and of good family. His people had not looked quite kindly on
this engagement; they had, indeed, tried in many ways to prevent it;
partly because of Miss Sherwood's poverty, and also because they knew
that Lady Agnes Martling had long cared for him, and was most happily
endowed with wealth and good looks also. When he left for Canada they
were inwardly glad (they imagined that something might occur to end the
engagement)--all except Richard, the wiseacre of the family, the
book-man, the drone, who preferred living at Greyhope, their
Hertfordshire home, the year through, to spending half the time in
Cavendish Square. Richard was very fond of Frank, admiring him immensely
for his buxom strength and cleverness, and not a little, too, for that
very rashness which had brought him such havoc at last.
Richard was not, as Frank used to say, "perfectly sound on his
pins,"--that is, he was slightly lame, but he was right at heart. He was
an immense reader, but made little use of what he read. He had an
abundant humour, and remembered every anecdote he ever heard. He was kind
to the poor, walked much, talked to himself as he walked, and was known
by the humble sort as "a'centric." But he had a wise head, and he foresaw
danger to Frank's happiness when he went away. While others had gossiped
and manoeuvred and were busily idle, he had watched things. He saw that
Frank was dear to Julia in proportion to the distance between her and
young Lord Haldwell, whose father had done something remarkable in guns
or torpedoes and was rewarded with a lordship and an uncommonly large
fortune. He also saw that, after Frank left, the distance between Lord
Haldwell and Julia became distinctly less--they were both staying at
Greyhope. Julia Sherwood was a remarkably clever girl. Though he felt it
his duty to speak to her for his brother,--a difficult and delicate
matter, he thought it would come better from his mother.
But when he took action it was too late. Miss Sherwood naively declared
that she had not known her own heart, and that she did not care for Frank
any more. She wept a little, and was soothed by motherly Mrs. Armour, who
was inwardly glad, though she knew the matter would cause Frank pain; and
even General Armour could not help showing slight satisfaction, though he
was innocent of any deliberate action to separate the two. Straightway
Miss Sherwood despatched a letter to the wilds of Canada, and for a week
was an unengaged young person. But she was no doubt consoled by the fact
that for some time past she had had complete control of Lord Haldwell's
emotions. At the end of the week her perceptions were justified by Lord
Haldwell's proposal, which, with admirable tact and obvious demureness,
was accepted.
Now, Frank Armour was wandering much in the wilds, so that his letters
and papers went careering about after him, and some that came first were
last to reach him. That was how he received a newspaper announcing the
marriage of Lord Haldwell and Julia Sherwood at the same time that her
letter, written in estimable English and with admirable feeling, came,
begging for a release from their engagement, and, towards its close,
assuming, with a charming regret, that all was over, and that the last
word had been said between them.
Armour was sitting in the trader's room at Fort Charles when the carrier
came with the mails. He had had some successful days hunting buffalo with
Eye-of-the-Moon and a little band of metis, had had a long pow-wow in
Eye-of-the-Moon's lodge, had chatted gaily with Lali the daughter, and
was now prepared to enjoy heartily the arrears of correspondence and news
before him. He ran his hand through the letters and papers, intending to
classify them immediately, according to such handwriting as he recognised
and the dates on the envelopes. But, as he did so, he saw a newspaper
from which the wrapper was partly torn. He also saw a note in the margin
directing him to a certain page. The note was in Richard's handwriting.
He opened the paper at the page indicated and saw the account of the
marriage! His teeth clinched on his cigar, his face turned white, the
paper fell from his fingers. He gasped, his hands spread out nervously,
then caught the table and held it as though to steady himself.
The trader rose. "You are ill," he said. "Have you bad news?" He glanced
towards the paper. Slowly Armour folded the paper up, and then rose
unsteadily. "Gordon," he said, "give me a glass of brandy."
He turned towards the cupboard in the room. The trader opened it, took
out a bottle, and put it on the table beside Armour, together with a
glass and some water. Armour poured out a stiff draught, added a very
little water, and drank it. He drew a great sigh, and stood looking at
the paper.
"Is there anything I can do for you, Mr. Armour?" urged the trader.
"Nothing, thank you, nothing at all. Just leave the brandy here, will
you? I feel knocked about, and I have to go through the rest of these
letters."
He ran his fingers through the pile, turning it over hastily, as if
searching for something. The trader understood. He was a cool-headed
Scotsman; he knew that there were some things best not inquired into, and
that men must have their bad hours alone. He glanced at the brandy
debatingly, but presently turned and left the room in silence. In his own
mind, however, he wished he might have taken the brandy without being
discourteous. Armour had discovered Miss Sherwood's letter. Before he
opened it he took a little more brandy. Then he sat down and read it
deliberately. The liquor had steadied him. The fingers of one hand even
drummed on the table. But the face was drawn, the eyes were hard, and the
look of him was altogether pinched. After he had finished this, he looked
for others from the same hand. He found none. Then he picked out those
from his mother and father. He read them grimly. Once he paused as he
read his mother's letter, and took a gulp of plain brandy. There was
something very like a sneer on his face when he finished reading. He read
the hollowness of the sympathy extended to him; he understood the far
from adroit references to Lady Agnes Martling. He was very bitter. He
opened no more letters, but took up the Morning Post again, and read it
slowly through. The look of his face was not pleasant. There was a small
looking-glass opposite him. He caught sight of himself in it. He drew his
hand across his eyes and forehead, as though he was in a miserable dream.
He looked again; he could not recognise himself.
He then bundled the letters and papers into his despatch-box. His
attention was drawn to one letter. He picked it up. It was from Richard.
He started to break the seal, but paused. The strain of the event was too
much; he winced. He determined not to read it then, to wait until he had
recovered himself. He laughed now painfully. It had been better for
him--it had, maybe, averted what people were used to term his
tragedy--had he read his brother's letter at that moment. For Richard
Armour was a sensible man, notwithstanding his peculiarities; and perhaps
the most sensible words he ever wrote were in that letter thrust
unceremoniously into Frank Armour's pocket. Armour had received a
terrible blow. He read his life backwards. He had no future. The liquor
he had drunk had not fevered him, it had not wildly excited him; it
merely drew him up to a point where he could put a sudden impulse into
practice without flinching. He was bitter against his people; he credited
them with more interference than was actual. He felt that happiness had
gone out of his life and left him hopeless. As we said, he was a man of
quick decisions. He would have made a dashing but reckless soldier; he
was not without the elements of the gamester. It is possible that there
was in him also a strain of cruelty, undeveloped but radical. Life so far
had evolved the best in him; he had been cheery and candid. Now he
travelled back into new avenues of his mind and found strange, aboriginal
passions, fully adapted to the present situation. Vulgar anger and
reproaches were not after his nature. He suddenly found sources of
refined but desperate retaliation. He drew upon them. He would do
something to humiliate his people and the girl who had spoiled his life.
Some one thing! It should be absolute and lasting, it should show how low
had fallen his opinion of women, of whom Julia Sherwood had once been
chiefest to him. In that he would show his scorn of her. He would bring
down the pride of his family, who, he believed, had helped, out of mere
selfishness, to tumble his happiness into the shambles.
He was older by years than an hour ago. But he was not without the
faculty of humour; that was why he did not become very excited; it was
also why he determined upon a comedy which should have all the elements
of tragedy. Perhaps, however, he would have hesitated to carry his
purposes to immediate conclusions, were it not that the very gods seemed
to play his game with him. For, while he stood there, looking out into
the yard of the fort, a Protestant missionary passed the window. The
Protestant missionary, as he is found at such places as Fort Charles, is
not a strictly superior person. A Jesuit might have been of advantage to
Frank Armour at that moment. The Protestant missionary is not above
comfortable assurances of gold. So that when Armour summoned this one in,
and told him what was required of him, and slipped a generous gift of the
Queen's coin into his hand, he smiled vaguely and was willing to do what
he was bidden. Had he been a Jesuit, who is sworn to poverty, and more
often than not a man of birth and education, he might have influenced
Frank Armour and prevented the notable mishap and scandal. As it was,
Armour took more brandy.
Then he went down to Eye-of-the-Moon's lodge. A few hours afterwards the
missionary met him there. The next morning Lali, the daughter of
Eye-of-the-Moon, and the chieftainess of a portion of her father's tribe,
whose grandfather had been a white man, was introduced to the Hudson's
Bay country as Mrs. Frank Armour. But that was not all. Indeed, as it
stood, it was very little. He had only made his comedy possible as yet;
now the play itself was to come. He had carried his scheme through boldly
so far. He would not flinch in carrying it out to the last letter. He
brought his wife down to the Great Lakes immediately, scarcely resting
day or night. There he engaged an ordinary but reliable woman, to whom he
gave instructions, and sent the pair to the coast. He instructed his
solicitor at Montreal to procure passages for Mrs. Francis Armour and
maid for Liverpool. Then, by letters, he instructed his solicitor in
London to meet Mrs. Francis Armour and maid at Liverpool and take them to
Greyhope in Hertfordshire--that is, if General Armour and Mrs. Armour, or
some representative of the family, did not meet them when they landed
from the steamship.
Presently he sat down and wrote to his father and mother, and asked them
to meet his wife and her maid when they arrived by the steamer Aphrodite.
He did not explain to them in precise detail his feelings on Miss Julia
Sherwood's marriage, nor did he go into full particulars as to the
personality of Mrs. Frank Armour; but he did say that, because he knew
they were anxious that he should marry "acceptably," he had married into
the aristocracy, the oldest aristocracy of America; and because he also
knew they wished him to marry wealth, he sent them a wife rich in
virtues--native, unspoiled virtues. He hoped that they would take her to
their hearts and cherish her. He knew their firm principles of honour,
and that he could trust them to be kind to his wife until he returned to
share the affection which he was sure would be given to her. It was not
his intention to return to England for some time yet. He had work to do
in connection with his proposed colony; and a wife--even a native
wife--could not well be a companion in the circumstances. Besides,
Lali--his wife's name was Lali!--would be better occupied in learning the
peculiarities of the life in which her future would be cast. It was
possible they would find her an apt pupil. Of this they could not
complain, that she was untravelled; for she had ridden a horse, bareback,
half across the continent. They could not cavil at her education, for she
knew several languages--aboriginal languages--of the North. She had
merely to learn the dialect of English society, and how to carry with
acceptable form the costumes of the race to which she was going. Her own
costume was picturesque, but it might appear unusual in London society.
Still, they could use their own judgment about that.
Then, when she was gone beyond recall, he chanced one day to put on the
coat he wore when the letters and paper declaring his misfortune came to
him. He found his brother's letter; he opened it and read it. It was the
letter of a man who knew how to appreciate at their proper value the
misfortunes, as the fortunes, of life. While Frank Armour read he came to
feel for the first time that his brother Richard had suffered, maybe,
from some such misery as had come to him through Julia Sherwood. It was a
dispassionate, manly letter, relieved by gentle wit, and hinting with
careful kindness that a sudden blow was better for a man than a lifelong
thorn in his side. Of Julia Sherwood he had nothing particularly bitter
to say. He delicately suggested that she had acted according to her
nature, and that in the see-saw of life Frank had had a sore blow; but
this was to be borne. The letter did not say too much; it did not magnify
the difficulty, it did not depreciate it. It did not even directly
counsel; it was wholesomely, tenderly judicial. Indirectly, it dwelt upon
the steadiness and manliness of Frank's character; directly, lightly, and
without rhetoric, it enlarged upon their own comradeship. It ran over
pleasantly the days of their boyhood, when they were hardly ever
separated. It made distinct, yet with no obvious purpose, how good were
friendship and confidence--which might be the most unselfish thing in the
world--between two men. With the letter before him Frank Armour saw his
act in a new light.
As we said, it is possible if he had read it on the day when his trouble
came to him, he had not married Lali, or sent her to England on this--to
her--involuntary mission of revenge. It is possible, also, that there
came to him the first vague conception of the wrong he had done this
Indian girl, who undoubtedly married him because she cared for him after
her heathen fashion, while he had married her for nothing that was
commendable; not even for passion, which may be pardoned, nor for vanity,
which has its virtues. He had had his hour with circumstance;
circumstance would have its hour with him in due course. Yet there was no
extraordinary revulsion. He was still angry, cynical, and very sore. He
would see the play out with a consistent firmness. He almost managed a
smile when a letter was handed to him some weeks later, bearing his
solicitor's assurance that Mrs. Frank Armour and her maid had been safely
bestowed on the Aphrodite for England. This was the first act in his
tragic comedy.
CHAPTER II
A DIFFICULT SITUATION
When Mrs. Frank Armour arrived at Montreal she still wore her Indian
costume of clean, well-broidered buckskin, moccasins, and leggings, all
surmounted by a blanket. It was not a distinguished costume, but it
seemed suitable to its wearer. Mr. Armour's agent was in a quandary. He
had received no instructions regarding her dress. He felt, of course,
that, as Mrs. Frank Armour, she should put off these garments, and dress,
so far as was possible, in accordance with her new position. But when he
spoke about it to Mackenzie, the elderly maid and companion, he found
that Mr. Armour had said that his wife was to arrive in England dressed
as she was. He saw something ulterior in the matter, but it was not his
province to interfere. And so Mrs. Frank Armour was a passenger by the
Aphrodite in her buckskin garments.
What she thought of it all is not quite easy to say. It is possible that
at first she only considered that she was the wife of a white man,--a
thing to be desired, and that the man she loved was hers for ever--a
matter of indefinable joy to her. That he was sending her to England did
not fret her, because it was his will, and he knew what was best. Busy
with her contented and yet somewhat dazed thoughts of him,--she was too
happy to be very active mentally, even if it had been the characteristic
of her race,--she was not at first aware how much notice she excited, and
how strange a figure she was in this staring city. When it did dawn upon
her she shrank a little, but still was placid, preferring to sit with her
hands folded in her lap, idly watching things. She appeared oblivious
that she was the wife of a man of family and rank; she was only thinking
that the man was hers--all hers. He had treated her kindly enough in the
days they were together, but she had not been a great deal with him,
because they travelled fast, and his duties were many, or he made them
so--but the latter possibility did not occur to her.
When he had hastily bidden her farewell at Port Arthur he had kissed her
and said: "Good-bye, my wife." She was not yet acute enough in the
inflections of Saxon speech to catch the satire--almost involuntary--in
the last two words. She remembered the words, however, and the kiss, and
she was quite satisfied. To what she was going she did not speculate. He
was sending her: that was enough.