"That's just a story," I said. I had not at that time learned when it was wise to keep one's opinions to oneself.
She turned round and flashed out at me: "You don't know. You only small one. You white... . You make Giant angry."
"My father is on very good terms with the Giant," I said somewhat mockingly, for I had heard my parents joke about the Giant.
"Giant sent Daddajo. He sent you to learn me... ."
"Teach you," I corrected. I enjoyed correcting Cougabel.
"He sent you to learn me," she insisted, her eyes narrowing. "When I am big and there's a Mask Dance I shall go out to dance and I shall come back with the Giant's baby in me."
I gazed at her in astonishment. Yes, I thought, we are growing up. Cougabel will soon be old enough to have a baby.
I grew thoughtful. Time was passing and we were losing count of it.
I was thirteen years old. I had been six years on the island. During that time my father had built up a flourishing industry and, although many people still died of various fevers, the death toll was considerably reduced.
My father was compiling a book about tropical diseases. He was planning to build a hospital. He was going to put everything he had into the project. All his dreams and hopes were for that hospital.
My mother, I realized, had something on her mind. One afternoon after the intense heat of the day had passed, we sat together under the shade of a palm tree watching the flying fishes skimming over the water.
"You're growing up, Suewellyn," she said. "Have you thought that you have not been off this island since we came?"
"Neither have you or my father."
"We have to stay ... but we have talked a lot about you. We worry about you, Suewellyn."
"Worry about me?"
"Yes, your education and your future."
"We are all together. It is what we wanted."
"Your father and I may not always be here."
"What do you mean?"
"I'm just drawing attention to a fact of life. It comes to an end, you know. Suewellyn, you ought to go away to school."
"School! But there is no school!"
"There is in Sydney."
"What! Leave the island?"
"It could be arranged. You would come back to us for holidays. Christmas ... and the summer. The boat takes only a week from Sydney. One week there ... one week back. You have to have some education beyond what I can give you."
"It is something that has never occurred to me."
"You have to be prepared in some way for the future."
"I couldn't leave you."
"It would only be for a time. When the boat next comes you and I will go to Sydney. We'll look at schools and decide what is to be done."
I was astounded and at first refused to consider the idea, but after a while they both talked to me and that sense of adventure which lay dormant in me was aroused. Mine was a strange upbringing. For six years or so I had lived in Crabtree Cottage where I had been brought up in rigid convention. Then I had been whisked away and brought to a primitive island. I imagined that the outside world would be very strange to me.
During the weeks that followed my feelings were mixed. I did not know whether I regretted this decision or was glad of it. But I did see the point of it.
When I told Cougabel that I was going away to school her reaction was violent. She stared at me with great flashing eyes and they seemed filled with hatred.
"I come. I come," she kept saying.
I tried to explain to her that she could not come. I had to go alone. My parents were sending me because people like us had to be educated and most of us went to school to receive that education.
She was not listening. It was a habit of Cougabel's to shut her mind to anything she did not want to hear.
A week before the ship was due my mother and I had made our preparations for departure. It was August. I should go to school in September and in December come back to the island. It was not a very long separation, my mother kept saying.
Then one morning Cougabel was missing. Her bed had not been slept in. She occupied a small bed in the room adjoining mine, for she wanted to sleep in a bed when she saw ours. In fact she wanted everything that I had and I was sure that if it had been suggested that she go away to school with me she would have been happy.
Cougaba was frantic.
"Where she go? She have taken her ornaments with her. See her smock here. She go in shells and feathers. Where she go?"
It was pitiful to hear her.
My father calmly pointed out that she must be on the island unless she had taken a canoe and gone to one of the others. It seemed sensible to search the island.
"She go to Giant," said Cougaba. "She go to him and ask him not let Little Missy go. Oh, it is wicked ... wicked to send Little Missy away. Little Missy belong ... Little Missy not go."
Cougaba rocked to and fro chanting: "Little Missy not go."
My father impatiently said that he did not doubt Cougabel would come back now she had given her mother a fright. But the day went on and she did not return. I was hurt and angry with her because she had shortened the time when we could be together.
But when the second day passed we all became anxious and my father sent search parties up the mountain.
Cougaba was trembling with terror and my mother and I tried to reassure her.
"I frightened," she said. "I very frightened, Mamabel."
"We will find her," soothed my mother.
"I telled Master Luke," mourned Cougaba. "I said, 'No sleep in Master's big bed for whole month. Dance of the Masks to be at new moon.' And Master Luke he laugh and say, 'Not for me and you. Do as I say, Cougaba.' I tell him of Grumbling Giant and he laugh and laugh. Then I sleep in bed. Then the night of the Mask Dance and I stay in Master Luke bed and then ... I am with child. All say, 'Ah, this child of Giant, Cougaba honored lady. Giant came to her. But it was not Giant. ... It was Master Luke and if they know ... they kill me. So Master Luke he say, 'Let them think Giant father of child,' and he laugh and laugh. Cougabel not child of the Mask. And now I frighten. I think Giant very angry with me."
"You mustn't be afraid," said my mother. "The Giant will understand that it was not your fault."
"He take her. I know he take her. He stretch out his hand and draw her down ... down to the burning stones where she burn forever. He say, "Wicked Cougaba. Your child mine, you say. Now she be mine.'"
There was nothing we could do to comfort Cougaba. She kept moaning: "Dat old man Debil was at my elbow, tempting me. I'se wicked. I'se sinned. I told the big lie and the Giant is angry."
My mother warned her to say nothing of this to anyone and that was a relief to poor Cougaba and something she was ready to listen to. I had seen the natives benign since they had accepted my father as an emissary of the great Giant, but I wondered what they would be like if they turned against us. And what Cougaba had done would certainly be considered an unforgivable sin in their eyes.
That night Cougabel was found. My father discovered her on the mountain. She had broken her leg and was unable to walk.
He carried her back to the house and set her leg. The islanders looked on in wonder. Then he made her lie down and would not let her move.
I sat with her and read to her and Cougaba made all sorts of potions for her distilled from plants, for she had great skill in these matters.
Cougabel told me she had gone to the mountain to ask the Giant to stop my going away and then she had fallen and hurt herself. She took this as a sign that the Giant wanted me to go and was punishing her for doubting the wisdom of his wishes.
We accepted that explanation.
Cougaba said no more about the deception she had practiced concerning her daughter's birth. The Giant could not be very angry, my mother told her, because he had merely broken Cougabel's leg, and my father had said that as her bones were young and strong he could mend her leg and none would guess it had ever been broken.