



Produced by David Widger





THE TRADER'S WIFE

By Louis Becke

Unwin Brothers 1901




CHAPTER I

Brabant's wife was sitting on the shady verandah of her house on the
hills overlooking Levuka harbour, and watching a large fore and aft
schooner being towed in by two boats, for the wind had died away early
in the morning and left the smooth sea to swelter and steam under a sky
of brass.

The schooner was named the _Maritana_, and was owned and commanded by
Mrs. Brabant's husband, John Brabant, who at that moment was standing on
the after-deck looking through his glasses at the house on the hill, and
at the white-robed figure of his wife.

"Can you see Mrs. Brabant, sir?" asked the chief mate, a short,
dark-faced man of about thirty years of age, as he came aft and stood
beside his captain.

"Yes, I can see her quite plainly, Lester," he replied, as he handed the
glasses to his officer; "she is sitting on the verandah watching us."

The mate took the glasses and directed them upon the house for a few
moments. "Perhaps she will come off to us, sir?"

Brabant shook his head. "It is a terribly hot day, you see, Lester,
and she can't stand the sun at all. And then we shall be at anchor in
another hour or so."

"Just so, sir," replied the mate politely. He did not like Mrs. Brabant,
had never liked her from the very first day he saw her a year before,
when Brabant had brought her down on board the _Maritana_ in Auckland,
and introduced her as his future wife. Why he did not like her he could
not tell, and did not waste time in trying to analyse his feelings. He
knew that his old friend and shipmate was passionately fond of his
fair young wife, and was intensely proud of her beauty, and now, at
the conclusion of a wearisome five months' voyage among the sun-baked
islands of the Equatorial Pacific, was returning home more in love
with her than ever. Not that he ever talked of her effusively, even
to Lester, tried and true comrade as he was, for was naturally a
self-contained and somewhat reserved man, as one could tell by his
deep-set, stern grey eyes, and square jaw and chin.

"Damn her!" muttered Lester to himself, as he stood on the topgallant
foc'scle watching the two boats with their toiling crews of
brown-skinned natives; "nearly five months since she last saw him, and
there she sits calmly watching us as if we had only sailed yesterday.
Afraid of the sun! She's too selfish and too frightened of spoiling her
pretty pink-and-white skin--that's what it is."

An hour later the boats came alongside, and then, as the chain rattled
through the hawse-pipes, Brabant came on deck dressed in a suit of
spotless white.

"Shall we see you this evening, Jim?" he asked, as he stood waiting to
receive the Customs officer and doctor, whose boats were approaching.

"Thank you very much, sir, but I would rather stay on board this
evening, as Dr. Bruce is sure to come into town some time to-day, as
soon as he hears the _Maritana_ is here, and I should not like to miss
him."

"Just as you please, Jim. But why not take a run on shore with him, and
both of you come up for an hour or two after dinner?"

The mate nodded. "Yes, we could do that, I think; but at the same time,
Mrs. Brabant won't much care about visitors this evening, I'm afraid."

"My wife will be only too delighted, Jim," replied the captain in his
grave manner; "you and Bruce are my oldest friends--that is quite enough
for her."

The port doctor and Customs officer came on board and warmly greeted
the captain of the _Maritana_ for, apart from his being one of the
wealthiest traders in the South Seas, John Brabant was essentially a
man who made friends--made them insensibly, and then his beautiful young
wife was the acknowledged belle of the small European community in Fiji,
and his house, when he returned from one of his trading voyages, was
literally an open house, for every one--traders, storekeepers, cotton
planters, naval men or merchant skippers--knew there was a welcome
awaiting them in the big bungalow on the hillside at whatever time they
called, day or night. Such hospitality was customary in those old Fijian
days, when every cotton planter saw before him the shining portals of
the City of Fortune inviting him to enter and be rich, and every trader
and trading captain made money so easily that it was hard to spend it
as quickly as it was made; and Manton's Hotel on Levuka beach was filled
night after night with crowds of hilarious and excited people, and the
popping of the champagne corks went on from dusk till dawn of the tropic
day, and men talked and drank and talked and drank again, and told each
other of the lucky strokes they had made; and sun-tanned skippers from
the wild and murderous Solomons and the fever-stricken New Hebrides
spoke of the cargoes of "blackbirds" they had sold at two hundred and
fifty dollars a head, and dashed down a handful of yellow sovereigns
on Manton's bar "for a drink all round." And then, sometimes, a long
snaky-looking brigantine, with the name _Atlantic_ on her stern, and the
Stars and Stripes flying from her gaff, would sail into the noisy little
port nestling under the verdured hills of Ovalau Island, and a big man,
with a black, flowing beard, and a deep but merry voice, would be rowed
ashore by a crew of wild-eyed, brown-skinned Polynesians, and "'Bully'
Hayes