Mahaina

I continued my sojourn with the Nosnibors. In a few days Mr. Nosnibor had recovered from his flogging, and was looking forward with glee to the fact that the next would be the last. I did not think that there seemed any occasion even for this; but he said it was better to be on the safe side, and he would make up the dozen. He now went to his business as usual; and I understood that he was never more prosperous, in spite of his heavy fine. He was unable to give me much of his time during the day; for he was one of those valuable men who are paid, not by the year, month, week, or day, but by the minute. His wife and daughters, however, made much of me, and introduced me to their friends, who came in shoals to call upon me.

One of these persons was a lady called Mahaina. Zulora (the elder of my host’s daughters) ran up to her and embraced her as soon as she entered the room, at the same time inquiring tenderly after her ‘poor dipsomania.’ Mahaina answered that it was just as bad as ever; she was a perfect martyr to it, and her excellent health was the only thing which consoled her under her affliction.

Then the other ladies joined in with condolences and the never-failing suggestions which they had ready for every mental malady. They recommended their own straightener and disparaged Mahaina’s. Mrs. Nosnibor had a favourite nostrum, but I could catch little of its nature. I heard the words ‘full confidence that the desire to drink will cease when the formula has been repeated … this confidence is everything … far from undervaluing a thorough determination never to touch spirits again … fail too often … formula a certain cure (with great emphasis) … prescribed form … full conviction.’ The conversation then became more audible, and was carried on at considerable length. I should perplex myself and the reader by endeavouring to follow the ingenious perversity of all they said; enough, that in the course of time the visit came to an end, and Mahaina took her leave receiving affectionate embraces from all the ladies. I had remained in the background after the first ceremony of introduction, for I did not like the looks of Mahaina, and the conversation displeased me. When she left the room I had some consolation in the remarks called forth by her departure.

At first they fell to praising her very demurely. She was all this, that and the other, till I disliked her more and more at every word, and inquired how it was that the straighteners had not been able to cure her as they had cured Mr. Nosnibor.

There was a shade of significance on Mrs. Nosnibor’s face as I said this, which seemed to imply that she did not consider Mahaina’s case to be quite one for a straightener. It flashed across me that perhaps the poor woman did not drink at all. I knew that I ought not to have inquired, but I could not help it, and asked point blank whether she did or not.

‘We can none of us judge of the condition of other people,’ said Mrs. Nosnibor in a gravely charitable tone and with a look towards Zulora.

‘Oh, mamma,’ answered Zulora, pretending to be half angry but rejoiced at being able to say out what she was already longing to insinuate; ‘I don’t believe a word of it. It’s all indigestion. I remember staying in the house with her for a whole month last summer, and I am sure she never once touched a drop of wine or spirits. The fact is, Mahaina is a very weakly girl, and she pretends to get tipsy in order to win a forbearance from her friends to which she is not entitled. She is not strong enough for her calisthenic exercises, and she knows she would be made to do them unless her inability was referred to moral causes.’

Here the younger sister, who was ever sweet and kind, remarked that she thought Mahaina did tipple occasionally. ‘I also think,’ she added, ‘that she sometimes takes poppy juice.’

‘Well, then, perhaps she does drink sometimes,’ said Zulora; ‘but she would make us all think that she does it much oftener in order to hide her weakness.’

And so they went on for half an hour and more, bandying about the question as to how far their late visitor’s intemperance was real or no. Every now and then they would join in some charitable commonplace,