“Ef I did hear what me mammee did sayI wouldn’t be in dis wort’less Colon.”
“Ef I did hear what me mammee did sayI wouldn’t be in dis wort’less Colon.”
“Ef I did hear what me mammee did sayI wouldn’t be in dis wort’less Colon.”
“Ef I did hear what me mammee did say
I wouldn’t be in dis wort’less Colon.”
But no one had warned her against Colon; she had wished to come to this place, she was here, she must make the best of it. She listened to the singing. It seemed to her that, despite the words, the singer’s voice was cheerful.
Samuel, on his part, was not worrying. He was not sober. He was quite satisfied that he was acting with the most becoming propriety and in strict accordance with the high gentlemanly standards of Samuel Josiah Jones. His mind was filled with pleasing anticipations of the part he would play in the society of the town. He had a dazzling vision of happiness, now that he had recovered from his first feeling of discontent, and was no longer haunted by fear of approaching dissolution. He was determined to make Susan comfortable; he would earn lots of money, dress well, sport, distinguish himself: there were no spots just then upon the bright sun of his reflections. So he went to bed in a merry frame of mind; but Susan sat up for some time longer, thinking. To one thing she had made up her mind when she finally determined to rest. She would save money, and so secure her personal independence.
The clanging of bells awakened Susan and Jones the next morning. The sharp peals came insistently from different directions; from Christobal, where the labourers were being warned that the day’s work would shortly begin once more; from the shunting trains and engines along the water-front of Colon; from the ships in the harbour. The noise pervaded the little town, and soon every one was stirring and preparing for the labours which, however diverse and apparently unconnected, had all a very definite connection with the one great undertaking of Panama, the building of the Canal.
Jones was soon ready to report himself for duty at Christobal. Whatever his failings, shirking his work was not one of them; he had been trained in the workshops of the Jamaica Government Railway, where discipline was well understood and where each man had been well drilled into his work. Jones had grumbled at his chiefs at the railway, but now he thought of them with pride and was determined to show the American bosses that a British subject who had served the Government was in no wise inferior to any man from the States.
He had an early breakfast at the cook-shop where he had lunched the day before, then hurried off to Christobal, where Mackenzie had promised to meet him at eight o’clock. Mackenzie appeared on time, and together they went into the office of Labour and Quarters. Here the arrangements between Jones and the Canal Commission were promptly concluded.
Jones was to work in the railway shop in Christobal as an under-mechanic. He was to receive fifteen dollars a week, payable every fortnight, and could have free quarters in the Canal Zone, house accommodation being regarded as part of his salary. He gladly accepted this offer of houseroom, but was somewhat disconcerted when Mackenzie asked him if he proposed to leave Susan to live by herself in Colon.
“Can’t she come with me?” he asked, partly of Mackenzie, partly of the American clerk.
“Who is ‘she’?” inquired the latter.
“A female of mine,” he replied—“a young lady I am talking to.”
“Well, you don’t want to talk to a woman all the time, do you?” asked the American. “Is she your wife?”
“Not exactly,” said Jones; “she is a young female under my protection an’ care; I am responsible to her parents for her. We are practically husband an’ wife, though I don’t put a ring on her finger as yet.”
“Nothin’ doin’!” returned the clerk emphatically. “We kain’t allow them sort of things here. You’ve got to marry that female of yours if you want her to live in the Zone. Judge Riggs in the court building near here will fix you right now if you go to him, and then I’ll give you married people’s quarters. Now I guess there’s some other people waitin’ on me, so you’d better make up your mind quick, or get out.”
Jones stared at the clerk, wondering if he should not immediately resent his peremptory manner of disposing of Samuel Josiah Jones, but Mackenzie took him aside and explained to him that by an ordinance issued some time before, in obedience to the outraged moral sentiments of America, it was made compulsory that only married men and women should live together in the Zone. “It is a hard rule,” said Mackenzie, “an’ a lot of people only form that they married. The Americans don’t bother them, unless they can’t help it. But if them find it out, an’ have to take notice, there is a big fine. That’s why I warn you in time. P’rhaps you better married you’ sweetheart, an’ get a comfortable little house in the Zone, like a lot of other Jamaica people.”
“Me?” said Jones. “I let a man force me to marry if I don’t want to do it? No, me brother! It’s an infringement of the rights of the subject, that’s what I call it! I have a good mind to go back to that man an’ tell him I am a British subject an’ born under the English flag!”
“That’s what a lot of people from Jamaica is always sayin’ here,” replied Mackenzie dryly. “Only, some of them say they’re a British object.”
“An’ what the Americans do?” inquired Jones anxiously.
“Laugh at them, an’ say them don’t care what sort of object Jamaicans are. You don’t bluff out an American easy in this place, Jones. Them don’t talk a lot like we do in Jamaica; wid some of them it is a word an’ a blow, an’ a blow first if you cheek them too much.”
“You don’t mean to tell me that them ill-treat a man down here?” asked Jones, beginning to feel alarmed.
“No; not if you don’t interfere wid them. There is plenty of law in the Zone, like in Jamaica. If you mind you’ own business, do you’ work, an’ keep you’self to you’self, you will be perfectly all right. But of course if you abuse them, an’ go about an’ talk all the time about you are a British subject, some of them will hurt you. You meet some of the toughest men in the world down here. I don’t know where them come from!”
“This is a funny place, me friend!” cried Jones indignantly. “They don’t seem to care about a man’s feelings at all. If I was a married man now, what that American say or do would not affect my peace of mind; but I am not a married man. An’ yet I don’t like the prospective view of livin’ in Colon, an’ I can’t leave Sue to live by herself. You don’t think she could come with me as me cousin?”
Mackenzie explained that the Canal Zone authorities drew the line sternly at unmarried cousins.
“Well, in that case Sue an’ me will have to live in Colon, an’ the Americans can keep their house. What am I to do now?”
Mackenzie advised him to report himself at the railway machine shop without delay, and propose to turn in to work the next morning. They would allow him time to get quarters in Colon. He, Mackenzie, was on vacation this week, and would help Jones to find a suitable apartment in a decent part of the town.
Together they went to the machine shop, where Jones beheld in one great building more engines than he had ever seen in his life. They were of all sizes, from the diminutive engines used on soft ground or for conveying materials to the workmen, to the giant locomotives that could pull any number of laden freight cars at high speed. Hundreds of men were at work in this place repairing the engines, the air resounded with the clangour of hammers striking on hard metal, the workers swarmed under and around the iron monsters as though they were ants. Jones was impressed. Here was something he could understand: this mere collection of railway machinery told him, as nothing else could have done, that the building of the Panama Canal was a stupendous undertaking. He allowed Mackenzie to do most of the talking for him, and it was agreed that he should not report himself for service until eight o’clock on the following morning.
This matter settled, they went back to Susan, who had managed to procure some breakfast in the meantime; then the three of them set out on the hunt for a large apartment. The rain, having temporarily exhausted its energies during the night, was not falling now, indeed Mackenzie thought that there wouldn’t be much rain that day. It was gloomy enough overhead, but here and there the clouds had broken, allowing tiny patches of muddy blue to be seen. Colon was wet; but, compared with its condition on the day before, it might almost be said that Colon was bright. The people moving about were in cheerful spirits. Susan herself began to feel lively.
Through the assistance of Mackenzie they secured an apartment in Cash Street, at reasonable terms. Cash Street, probably originally so called on account of its poverty, ran in an east and west direction, was the third long thoroughfare behind Front Street, and therefore was near to the water-front and in the very heart of the populous town. There were numerous cross-streets in Colon, running in a north and south direction and indicated by numbers; the house in which Susan was to live was situated at the corner of one of these crossings: 6th Street it was called. It was a new building, three storeys high, all of wood, with very wide verandas, and painted a bright pink. The ground floor or first storey was devoted to commerce; there a haberdashery shop, a barber’s saloon, and a flourishing public-house found accommodation, and all these businesses did a thriving trade. Susan selected a corner room on the second storey, a room opening on a veranda six feet wide and commanding a view of Cash and 6th Streets. Her inspection of the premises showed her that privacy—even such limited privacy as the poorest might enjoy in Kingston—was not appreciated here. For the tenants kept their doors wide open and were singularly indifferent as to who should see them or what they might be seen doing, while it was as easy to gaze into the apartments of the houses opposite and watch the inmates going about their intimate household duties. She noticed too that the people living in the apartments near hers spoke English. As a matter of fact many of the tenants in this house were British West Indians.
The room engaged, they started out on another important errand, and again Mackenzie was of great assistance. He took them to a furniture shop, where Susan selected a “set” [suite] of furniture, which was to be sent to her new address at once. The salesman, being a Chinaman, did not imagine that “at once” signified some time in the indefinite future, hence the furniture arrived at its destination soon after its purchasers did. It did not take long to arrange it as Susan directed; this done, the men went for the trunks which Susan and Jones had taken with them to the lodging near the swamps the night before. These trunks contained not only clothing but some domestic linen, or, to be accurate, some domestic calico, and while the men were away Susan bought a couple of small iron stoves, a few plates, and some other things which a good housekeeper must have. She learnt that the cooking and the washing must be done on the veranda or in the open courtyard below, which was always wet and could be stared into by all the people passing by. She decided for the veranda. In the courtyard, in addition to washtubs and cooking-stoves, were quite a number of babies ranging from six months to five years of age, and all stark naked, in accordance with the prevailing fashion of tropical Spanish America. To naked babies she was not accustomed. So she resolutely set her face against the courtyard.
She would not have the men go out for lunch that day. She provided it at home, and as she had a turn for cooking, it was a very good meal that she placed before them in about an hour’s time. She provided coffee also, with a view to preventing Samuel from indulging in whisky or beer; and as the men gulped down the hot, fragrant liquid and puffed at their cigars, a feeling of contentment stole over them and they gave vocal expression to their appreciation of Susan as a housewife.
She was satisfied. Her discontent of the night before had vanished. Possessed of a new “set of furniture,” which was better than the things she had been obliged to sell in Jamaica, settled in a busy part of the town and fairly far from the noisome swamps, with Mackenzie also as a good friend ready to aid them with his advice and to put himself to some trouble on their account, she felt that her fate was by no means an unpleasant one. “We not going to batter about from pillar to post any more,” she observed to Jones when lunch was over. “We are comfortable here.” And, to crown her happiness, when Jones and Mackenzie were preparing to go out that evening, they invited her to go with them.
They did not return home until ten o’clock that night; in the interval Susan had seen as much of Colon as she cared to see, and that was nearly all of it. They dined out. They walked about the streets, Mackenzie conducting the party; they hired a cab and drove along Front Street and through Christobal, and the glitter of glass and lights in the open bars, the crowds that gambled at cards and dice and dominoes in these places, the shops, which kept their doors open to a late hour, appealed to Susan, and even more to Jones, with a peculiar fascination.
Here what was done in public by people unashamed, could only take place behind closed doors in Jamaica. Here the people had money to spend, and spent it freely. Here there were contradictions and anomalies which were nevertheless enjoyable. At the corner of a street, in a chapel built entirely of any old bits of board, a self-ordained preacher from Jamaica held forth to a small congregation on the error of their ways, though his ways did not differ from theirs in any essential particular. Opposite to this building was a merry-go-round in full swing and abundantly patronized. On the other side of the street, on the second storey of a high tenement structure, a dance was in progress, the guests footing it to the sound given forth by an execrable band; at a little distance away a moving-picture palace invited with flaring posters the lovers of silent drama to come within and be stewed in a steam bath provided by corrugated iron and the climate of Colon.
From this spot a walk of two minutes brought them to Christobal, and there they could see dimly the huge concrete piers jutting out into the sea—the piers which grew day by day and which were designed to accommodate easily the largest vessels in the world. It was quiet here: listening, they could hear the cocoa-nut palms moving their long fronds if ever so slight a breath of wind stirred, and the long waves of the Caribbean dash and break eternally on the coral shores of Colon.
Soon they turned their backs on Christobal, and a leisurely stroll of ten or twelve minutes brought them nearly to the opposite end of the little island, now artificially connected with the mainland, on which Colon and Christobal were built. At this part of Colon there was a park, quite new—a park with paths and seats, little fountains, evergreen shrubs, flowering hibiscus, and banana trees. They sat here for a little while, chatting about Jamaica and the life they had lived there, and after that Mackenzie bade his new friends good night and they went home.
Susan was happy. This day had been so different from the previous one.
Jones went to work the next day, and as he was a competent man he had no trouble with the workmen of superior grade or the bosses of the shop, who were all white men. He was pleasantly surprised to find that these bosses were quite easy in their manner, speaking in a friendly and encouraging fashion to the men who were under them. They were far more familiar during working hours than any Englishman in their position would have been in Jamaica. Later on he added to his experience. Whereas the Englishman would have recognized him outside of the shop, and would even have been affable, his American chief did not seem to be aware of his existence after work was over. Jones did not think that this was at all correct.
But the pay here was nearly double what it was in Jamaica, and the work was not so hard. Jones was too loyal to concede, even to himself, that any American could be a better worker or organizer than an Englishman. But he liked the eight-hour day of the Zone workshops and the liberal wages. He felt too that he deserved these things. He deserved them in his character of British subject and by virtue of being Samuel Josiah Jones.
In the meantime Susan was picking up some acquaintances. This was not difficult; she had money to spend; and as she lived in an apartment of a distinctly decent type, she was regarded as a desirable person to know by young women of more or less her own class. Some of these she had known in Jamaica, but had lost sight of for quite a long time. These young women were either married or “engaged,” and their menfolk were all in fairly good positions.
What with visiting one another, going to church on Sundays when so inclined, taking chances in the National Lottery, and gathering at the park on those nights when the National Band insisted upon playing, Susan and her friends passed their days pleasantly. Those who could obtain a girl from Jamaica had a very easy time of it; but in a country where the men outnumbered the women no girl remained a servant for long. Even so, Susan found that she could send some of her washing to the laundry, and could easily wash and iron the lighter things at home. Cooking she liked, and she could make her own clothes. Samuel was generous, and now that she knew Colon she found that the cost of living need not be very high if one did not wish to be extravagant. She saved money.
But she had one trouble that grew as the weeks went on. After his first few days in Colon, Samuel had begun to leave her every night, and sometimes he did not return until eleven or twelve o’clock. She was of a jealous disposition: one night she followed him. She tracked him to a café near by, where he played for money with some other men. He had fallen in with a few of the wilder spirits of the town, but as these men played fair and he was clever at cards, he won more often than he lost. This encouraged him to continue, and sometimes he would come home with as much as ten dollars more than he had taken out with him. He was always a little tipsy then, and disposed to contend loudly that Panama was the finest country in the world.
She rated him bitterly at times, and always took good care to subtract a portion of his winnings, which she put away in some place where he could not easily get at it. But he minded the loss far less than her nagging; he would have given her the money for the asking. When she upbraided him he would bark back at her and swear to leave her if she did not behave herself. But this threat disturbed her not at all; she knew he did not mean it. The next night, however, he would go to meet his comrades again.
Mackenzie was a frequent visitor, and Mackenzie made no secret of his liking for Susan. He even went so far, once or twice, as to remonstrate with Jones about his leaving her so much to herself at nights. But Jones was glad when Mackenzie came to see them, for that gave him the opportunity of pointing out to Susan that, with friends of both sexes coming to see her, she should not complain of neglect. Susan welcomed Mackenzie always: she could talk to him freely about the shortcomings of Sam, and he habitually sympathized with her. It was he, too, who had first begun to address her as Mrs. Jones in company, an example which was speedily followed by some of her less intimate acquaintances. His tact flattered Susan.
There were nights when Jones did not leave the house before eight o’clock; on those occasions, if Mackenzie happened to be there, Jones would pour into his ear a long recital of his grievances; and, as Mackenzie was not much of a talker, Samuel had an attentive if somewhat amused audience. Jones now pretended to a fine contempt for all things American, and as the colour line was somewhat strictly drawn in Christobal he was moved to frequent protests when supported by his friends. He objected to white men being better paid than coloured men, to there being separate white and coloured quarters in the Zone, and to the Americans not permitting coloured people to attend their sports. One evening he especially enlarged upon these grievances to Mackenzie. Mackenzie making no comment, Jones was nettled. He put a question pointedly. “What do you think of all these differences?” he asked.
“Well,” answered Mackenzie deliberately, “this place don’t belong to we. It belong to the Americans, an’ I am quite satisfied if I get a chance to earn a good bread from them.”
Jones snorted contemptuously, despising such prudence.
“I couldn’t earn as much in Jamaica as I earn here,” Mackenzie continued, “an’ the same is true of everybody who come to Panama. Then what is the use of complaining? I do me work, an’ go to me own sports, an’ I don’t care what de Americans do so long as them pay me an’ don’t interfere with me after workin’ time. That is the only way to get on when you not in you’ own country.”
Jones felt the rebuke conveyed in Mackenzie’s homely remarks. He was further disconcerted when Susan expressed her agreement with their friend.
“You right, Mr. Mac,” she said sharply. “If people did mind them own business, an’ didn’t go out gamblin’ every night, it would ’elp them better than interfering wid what don’t concern them. All that Jamaica people know to do is to say that the Americans don’t treat them good. Then what them come here for? If you know you goin’ to find fault, you better stay home. I don’t want to go where the American people don’t want me. If I was in me own country it would be different; but I am foreign, an’ I can’t expect everything me own way.”
Mackenzie looked pleased when he heard his opinions thus openly appreciated. Jones looked still more disdainful.
“There is no accounting for diverse tastes,” he remarked loftily. “I read one time in a book that if you bray a pig in a motor he will return to his wallow, and though present company is always exceptional I must beg to convey my entire dissension from the opinions that present company have expressed. These Americans are a rude set of men, an’ I don’t temporize with them. But, of course, if some people like to be treated like a dog, they can continue to put up with it.”
Mackenzie frowned and would have answered, but Susan was before him.
“You goin’ to be rude to Mr. Mac now, after all his kindness to us?” she asked tartly, and Jones, who guessed that Mackenzie, for all his placid exterior, was a man who could not be insulted with impunity, denied that he had any such intention. He informed Susan that he had known Mackenzie for years, whereas she had only known him for months, and that he would not allow any female to suggest that he could think of insulting so firm and tried a friend as Mac. Susan was satisfied with this speech, and Mackenzie was glad not to be compelled to take offence. He did not want his friendship with Susan and her lover to end abruptly. A few minutes afterwards the two men went out quite amicably together.
On another occasion—Jones had now been four months in Panama—he complained of the difficulty which every one experienced of saving money in that country.
“You can save if you really want to,” was Mackenzie’s reply. “I know plenty of men who send money home to Jamaica regular. Some things is dear, but if you are economical you don’t need to buy dear things all the time.”
“You are warm you’self, eh, Mr. Mac?” asked Susan, who had a great respect for the power of money, and no little curiosity concerning those who possessed it.
“So-so,” he replied, smiling. “I save a little when I was in Jamaica, an’ I been working steady in the Zone for about four years. Them pay me pretty well, an’ I don’t spend all I earn.”
“I don’t believe in living mean,” was Jones’s remark, which he strove to make appear as a statement applicable only to himself and his inclinations, but which Mackenzie knew was intended as a reflection on the disposition and habits of John Mackenzie. On this occasion, too, Susan took him up sharply.
“It’s not living mean to try an’ save money,” she snapped. “Fools make feast for wise man to come an’ eat. An’ when you spend out all you’ money an’ don’t ’ave one farthing to rub against another, you will begin to say, ‘I wish I did know.’ Better you save what you ’ave, than cry when you don’t ’ave it.”
Jones made no reply to this, but sulked a little. He was beginning to dislike Mackenzie and his prudence and his sensible way of looking upon life. Mackenzie was embodied criticism, eloquent even in his silence, and no man likes a critic on his hearth. And though Jones did not think that Susan had any particular liking for Mackenzie, yet her agreement with that person’s remarks, especially when those remarks were intended as a soft of rebuke to Samuel Josiah Jones, annoyed him more and more every day. He was no longer pleased when Mackenzie came to see them. He avoided Mackenzie now.
One afternoon Susan was sitting alone in her apartment when the door was abruptly pushed open and three young women, friends of hers, rushed in. They were so excited that they did not even trouble to apologize for their unceremonious entrance.
“This is a business visit!” exclaimed the first, who appeared to act as leader of the others. “We come wid a written invite to a subscription dance that some gentlemen givin’ next week Wednesday at Mrs. Driscole house.”
“You don’t tell me!” cried Susan, delighted with the prospect of something new.
“Yes, see the invite; read it for you’self,” said her friend, shoving into Susan’s hand an open envelope containing a gilt-edged card with letters of gold, which Susan hastily pulled out and perused.
The invitation was addressed to
Miss Susan ProudleighandS. J. Jones, Esq.
Miss Susan Proudleigh
and
S. J. Jones, Esq.
and set forth that “A unique entertainment in the form of a refined dance will take place (D.V.) at Mrs. Driscole’s establishment. Your attendance is earnestly requested: subscription, two and a half dollars for males, ladies free if brought by gentlemen. Refreshments will be provided; subscriptions payable three days in advance. Only ladies and gentlemen will be admitted. R.S.V.P.”
The card was signed by four persons describing themselves as “The Dance Committee,” and Susan read it over three times with pleasure. It was the most stylish thing in the way of invitations that had yet come her way, and she argued from the elegant appearance of the invitation card, as well as from the amount of the subscription asked, that the dance would be a very high-class affair indeed.
“Lots of people goin’?” she asked, and the leader of the girls promptly answered:
“Any amount. Invitations post to all parts of the Zone, an’ some young men as far as Empire coming on Wednesday. I take six to deliver meself, an’ I bring yours. You will come?”
“I will try an’ get Sam to bring me,” said Susan; “I would really like to come.”
Then the young women departed to invite other ladies to the dance, and the next day, after talking over the matter with Jones, Susan sent ten shillings to the Dance Committee.
She was glad of the coming diversion. Mackenzie had been removed some three weeks before to Culebra, some forty miles away “up the line,” and Samuel still persisted in spending his evenings with his gaming companions. She could go out when she pleased, and this she often did, but she was now bitterly discontented with Jones. She could not accuse him of positive unkindness, and he was as generous as ever. But she felt that he neglected her, and this she resented. He readily consented to go with her to the dance, however, which pleased her greatly.
Wednesday evening came in due time, and she and Samuel started out early for the dance. It happened to be a fine evening, for Colon; it was warm, but had not rained for a couple of days. There was a moon visible, and a clear blue sky. In spite of these weather conditions Samuel insisted upon driving to Mrs. Driscole’s in a cab, explaining as his reason that it was absolutely necessary to “do the thing in style.”
Mrs. Driscole lived in Bolivar Street, where she made a mysterious living by providing for the amusement of her fellow-creatures. Her floor was at the disposal of anyone with money enough to pay for its use; to-night it was to be utilized by the Dance Committee and their guests, and she had pulled down a partition and thrown two rooms into one, which formed a dance-hall of fairly large size. In this and in two of the adjoining rooms the guests were rapidly assembling when Susan and Jones arrived. Dark ladies clothed in dresses of pink and white and blue, their well-combed hair plaited tightly and tied with white or pink ribbon, their necks and arms laden with silver and even golden ornaments; swarthy gentlemen, some in tweed suits, the more punctilious (and these were not a few) in regulation dress-suits—these formed quite a merry, laughing crowd. Many knew one another. Strangers were formally introduced, then immediately afterwards introduced themselves, and the ceremony proceeded in this fashion:
“Mr. Smith, Miss Brown; Miss Brown, Mr. Smith.”
“Glad to meet you, Miss Brown. My name is Ezekiel Smith.”
“The same I am glad to meet you, Mr. Smith; my name is Rosabella Brown.”
Then they would shake hands politely, and Mr. Smith, or whoever the gentleman might be, would invariably declare that this was the hottest night he had ever known, an opinion with which the lady would invariably agree.
Susan glanced round the ball-room as she entered, her eyes lighting up as she saw so many gaily-dressed people. The room was decorated; the musicians were tuning their instruments. Jones whispered to her that he would shortly return, and went to join some men whom he knew. Susan just then caught sight of the girl who had brought her the invitation, and started to go over to speak to her. Half-way across the room she halted suddenly as a young man turned and looked, surprised, into her face.
“Susan!”
“Tom!”
Thus they greeted one another. Then Susan put out her hand, which Tom shook lightly.
“I knew you was in Colon,” he said at once, but speaking quietly. “You’ sister, Catherine, write me last week to answer a letter I write you about a month ago, an’ which she open an’ read. She said you leave Kingston with a young man named Jones, an’ that you only write them once since you leave home. Susan, you think you treat me fair?”
“What you mean by if I treat you fair?” she asked, almost hissing the words. “From the time you leave home till the time I come to Colon, you ever send anything for me? You only write me one letter, an’ you surely couldn’t expect me to live on wind in Jamaica? If I didn’t come here wid Jones, I might have been dead of starvation by this time.”
Everybody was talking and laughing, and the musicians still were coercing their instruments into the proper pitch of musical perfection. But Susan was uneasy lest they should be overheard.
Her answer staggered Tom for a second or two, but he put the question that had been in his mind ever since he had heard from Catherine: “Well, what you goin’ to do now?”
“Do? What you expect me to do?” was her answer.
He hesitated as to his reply, and she saved him the trouble of replying.
“See here,” she said; “let us understand one another this same time. I don’t want you to make any trouble here between me and Jones, for I not leavin’ him to come to you. Y’u leave me alone in Jamaica, though I beg you hard to bring me wid you. I come here with another young man, who pay me passage an’ been supporting me all the time I am here, an’ so what was between you an’ me is dead an’ gone. I don’t want no sort of confusion here now. Y’u hear?”
Tom Wooley heard and his heart was as water. He subsided, not finding words with which to blame the fickle fair. He had been cruelly used; he felt sure of that. But he knew that he might be still more cruelly used, and by Jones, who, if he might lack Susan’s sharp tongue, might more than make up for that disadvantage by his hard fists. Thomas Wooley was a man of peace when sober, and by no means belligerent when drunk. So he merely answered, “Yes, Susan,” and asked her to point out Jones to him.
That gentleman had already noticed the whispered conference between the two, and was actually going up to them when Tom made his humble request. Susan decided that the best thing to do was to introduce them, and this she did, remarking at the same time that Tom was a friend of her family, and had been very kind to her parents.
As Samuel Josiah heard the name, he remembered what Mother Smith had told him about Tom and Susan on the night before he left Kingston for Colon. The story had long since passed out of his mind. Now also he recalled what his friend, Professor, had said about the case in which Susan had figured, and he observed that Susan was anxious to speak of Tom as a sort of casual friend. Tom Wooley was short, so Jones looked down upon him. And from the lofty standpoint of physical as well as intellectual and financial superiority he condescendingly addressed the young man who had once been Susan’s lover.
“How is it I never see you in Colon before?” was his question.
“I workin’ up the line,” said Tom—“at Pedro Miguel. But I used to be in Colon, an’ as I get an invitation to the dance, I come.”
“I see,” said Jones; “well, come an’ have a drink, Mr. Wooley, which is the best thing we can do when we boys meet together from Jamaica.”
Tom accepted the invitation. Susan heard and was delighted. She was certain that Tom would say nothing about their old relations in Jamaica, and she was equally certain that Jones could know nothing of those relations. Again, she felt, her luck was in the ascendant. Then, some one touched her on the arm, and, turning, she saw Mackenzie.
The two moved quickly to a corner of the room, for the dancers were now preparing to begin a waltz. Mackenzie explained that he had received an invitation to this party, and almost at the last moment had accepted, thinking that Susan would probably be there. He had come over to Colon by a late train. “Sam don’t seem to like me much now,” he remarked; “that’s why I don’t take a run over on a Sunday to see both of you, though I find it sort of lonely up at Culebra.”
Then he asked her to dance, and she consented, and they joined the slowly whirling groups.
The room was terribly warm. Although the windows were all wide open, no breath of wind was stirring that night, and the movements of the dancers in the crowded “ball-room” caused the perspiration to stream from their faces and drench their bodies. Only West Indians would have found pleasure in dancing under such circumstances, and even these felt the discomfort of the heat after a time.
“Lord! it hot!” panted a fat lady as she bounded across the room—they were now dancing a set of lancers. “I suffocate,” giggled a thin creature, as a burly fellow clasped her to his breast. But still the musicians played with undiminished energy, and still the dancers danced. And the stamping of feet upon the floor ceased only when one dance was at an end and a new set was being formed.
Tom had two drinks with Jones, and then returned to the dancing-hall, where he stationed himself against a wall, watching Susan and reflecting on his forlorn state. Those two drinks had reduced him to a maudlin condition, and just then his loss appeared to him as the one calamity of the world, though he had managed to bear it with equanimity since leaving Jamaica. Jones had also returned, had danced once with Susan and once with another lady, and then had adjourned to the refreshment-room, where, on a long table surrounded by chairs, stood a number of bottles containing various liquors, and some huge dishes filled with ham, beef, and chicken sandwiches. A few men were seated round this table, and these Jones joined. Conversation ensued, and this, probably because of the drink imbibed, soon turned to topics connected with their old life in Jamaica. Being Jamaicans, these men had grievances. Being British subjects, their grievances were against the Jamaica Government.
“De Jamaica Government don’t take enough care of we,” observed a heavy-looking man, who, when in Jamaica, had displayed extraordinary ingenuity in evading the payment of his taxes. “We ’ave no protection in dis place, an’ so these foreigners here can treat a Jamaican like a dawg.”
“Thet is a fact,” agreed a dapper little fellow who sported eyeglasses, and who was a clerk in one of the mercantile houses of Colon (he had been a lawyer’s clerk in Kingston). “There is no protection here whatever. A man’s rights are not regarded. The labourers are badly treated and have no redress. Representations should at once be made to the British Government about the Jamaica Government, who are neglectful. It is my intention to write to the Jamaica papers in re the matter.”
Jones at once recognized in this speaker a man of distinguished ability. He asked him to have a drink with him, and then made his contribution to the conversation.
“You are right,” he said. “There is no justice or jurisprudence in this place. I am a British subject, but it’s no use a man going to the British Consul here, for he don’t even want to listen to you.
“It’s more than hard,” he continued reflectively. “A man can’t get a good job in his own country, an’ when he come to a God-forsaken foreign land he has no protection at all. In Jamaica you have to die of starvation, an’ here you lucky if you don’t die of neglect.”
“In Jamaica it is only taxes you hear about all de time,” said the heavy-looking man. (All his remarks invariably gravitated towards the subject of taxation.) “The Gov’nment don’t care what become of you so long as them can get the taxes. It’s a shame!
“Look what them do wid a man down here. I live out at Gatun an’ them won’t even let me keep a female helpmeet in a respectable way. Them want me to married! Now don’t you see that if the Jamaica Government did look after us as it should, all that sort of advantage couldn’t be take of a man?”
“Yes,” assented Jones. “I have a female meself, an’ I have to live in Colon because they won’t let her come to Christobal. They put me to any amount of expense, all for the sake of form.”
“The thruth of the matter,” observed the erstwhile lawyer’s clerk, is this: “the American methods are conducive to immorality. If a man leaves his gurl in Colon, how is he to know that some other fellow is not going after her?” He put the question with an air of conviction. He himself had a great reputation for gallantry, and might be supposed to be speaking from experience.
“You know, you are right!” exclaimed Jones, staring at him with semi-drunken gravity. This aspect of the situation had apparently not occurred to him before. Now, however, it began to loom large in his muddled brain. He grew indignant. He voiced an imaginary wrong. “Fancy,” he cried, “just fancy a man working hard all day an’ supporting a female in comfort an’ proficiency, and another man goin’ to the house in the daytime an’ enjoying himself at my expense!” He foresaw himself being wronged, all through the neglect of the British Government and the faulty methods of the Canal Administration.
“Ah!” sighed the ex-lawyer’s clerk sympathetically, “a man has a lot to put up with in this country. He cannot be too careful. What I say, gentlemen, is: don’t trust any wemen, not even you’ own mother.”
This advice strongly appealed to Jones. It inspired him with a desire to be vigilant. That young man, Tom Wooley, who was even now in the dancing-hail where Susan was—what base designs might he not be harbouring against the domestic peace of Samuel Josiah Jones? He had been warned against Susan. Her friendliness towards Tom was apparent. Yes, he was not being treated fairly, he was sure of it; neither the Government of Jamaica nor Susan was treating him fairly. He became suddenly angry. “Gents,” he said, rising, “I have enjoyed you’ company, but a man must protect himself. An advantage is being taken of poor Samuel. I must go inside an’ look after me rights.”
The heavy man nodded a solemn acquiescence, and Jones, with lurching steps, proceeded to the dancing-hall, where the dancers were now clapping their hands and stamping their feet in a perfect ecstasy of enjoyment.
Jones entered the room with a stride that was intended to be impressive. Unhappily, the one or two persons who observed it merely laughed, and this did not tend to sweeten his temper. He glared round the room, and presently saw Susan dancing with some one he did not know; his eyes searched the company again. He was looking for Tom; the desire uppermost in his mind just then was once and for all to prevent that young man from ever thinking of Susan in the light of a lover, or even as a friend. “This thing got to stop at once,” he muttered. “I must demonstrate.”
What he intended to do, precisely what steps he proposed to take to banish all amorous thoughts or conjugal ambitions from the mind of the offending Tom Wooley, he did not know himself. He was perfectly satisfied that just then he was bent upon the accomplishment of an utterly heroic task; something had to be done and he was the man to do it. He smiled proudly as he thought of his entire devotion to duty. His eyes soon found the man he was looking for.
Tom was still leaning against the wall, and still engaged in following Susan’s movements with reproachful glances. The influence of those two drinks was upon him still, and he too imagined that he presented a romantic figure, that his appearance at that moment constituted an eloquent appeal even to hard-hearted Sue. She had seen him all the time without appearing to do so. Now and then her upper lip curled with conscious contempt. Susan had no respect for the lover sighing like a furnace; such a man was “too soft,” in her opinion.
It happened that Jones caught sight of Tom at a moment when the latter’s gaze was more than usually ardent. Susan was whirling by her ex-intended at the moment, and her eyes caught his; the next moment she was a couple of yards away. But Jones saw what he instantly believed to be an exchange of meaning glances. Straightway he became convinced that a most dishonest plot was being hatched against his domestic happiness.
Nothing could, in his opinion, surpass the dignity with which, to the intense amazement and confusion of the dancers, he strode across the room towards where Tom was standing. He shouldered the men aside, brushed the women away as if they did not count, disturbed and brought to an abrupt termination the dancing, and so, of course, aroused the ire of a score of persons at once. Notwithstanding his tremendous dignity, he found the maintenance of his equilibrium a task of exceeding difficulty; he could not for the life of him understand why the floor was so uneven and why the electric lights would persist in moving out of place. Nevertheless he succeeded in planting himself before Tom, and then, with portentous solemnity, and unheeding the indignant wonder of the guests, he addressed his rival.
“Mr. Wooley,” said he, “I don’t want no quarrel to mar the felicity of this festivity; but I shall have to interrogate you on one point: where did y’u know Susan from?”
Tom was startled, both by the question put to him and by the attitude of the questioner. At the moment his mind was unpleasantly dominated by a sense of Jones’s height and strength. He discreetly answered, “From home.”
“I know you must know her from home,” replied Jones severely, “for I am not a fool, though you seem to take me for one. But . . . but that is not the question. The position is this: what did you have to do wid her at home?”
Tom realized that it might not be safe to tell the truth. He hurriedly explained that he had known Susan casually, through her being a friend of his sister—a being of hitherto unknown existence.
“But how,” persisted Jones, with a cunning leer, “how if she was only an acquaintance through you’ sister, you could take such a interest in her parents? She didn’t tell me anything about you’ sister a little while ago. An’ a man like you isn’t going to be friendly with old people for nothing.”
Tom saw that his questioner was trying to trap him, that Jones entertained suspicions which evasive answers might only inflame. Tom noticed too that an astonished group had gathered round them, and that the men especially did not seem to be kindly disposed towards Jones. He became defiant.
“What right have you to ask me any question about meself?” he demanded, endeavouring at the same time to edge away from Jones.
“What right I have?” asked Jones, as if the question were an act of high treason. “What right I have? Well! What right have you to be here? That is what I got to know to-night. Y’u think I didn’t see you when you was whispering to Susan before she introduce your miserable carcase to me? What right I have to ask you any question? I will soon tell you! Come outside an’ let me beat the skin off you’ body! Come outside and let me gyrate upon your personality! I will show you the difference between me and a—a——” But here Samuel Josiah lost the thread of his speech, and could not remember the comparison he wished to institute. Nothing, however, would satisfy him but that Tom should immediately proceed outside to undergo corporal punishment, and as Mr. Wooley firmly declined that invitation, Jones abruptly grabbed him by his shirt collar, proposing to remove him by sheer force.
This of course was the signal for an uproar. A dozen men sprang forward to drag Jones away; the women shrieked in fright; Susan, terror-struck at the attitude of Jones, uttered the word which rose so easily to the lips of all frightened Jamaican women—“Murder!” A peremptory rap at the outer door, followed by the tramp of feet, was the immediate answer to the clamour and exclamation.
Jones, confused, and, if the truth must be told, not a little frightened himself, stared around him in bewilderment. Tom, seeing so many friends at his side, became heroically valiant and manfully glared at his foe from behind an impregnable barricade of two strong men. But his look of defiance gave place to one of fear when three diminutive-looking persons entered the room. They were dressed in the uniform of the Panamanian policia.
The insignificant size of these policemen gave no indication of their ferocity when roused to anger. They had been feeling of late that it was incumbent upon them to do something which should show how thoroughly they realized their obligation to maintain law and order. They had heard the cry of “murder,” they knew it came from Mrs. Driscole’s house. At once they determined to make an example of her and of some of her guests, being moved to that moral determination by the certainty of the prisoners being able to pay to the Republic a fine, and of Mrs. Driscole herself effecting a compromise with them in so far as her share in the disorder was concerned.
The moment the guests caught sight of the policemen, they rapidly made a lane through which the little men could advance towards the offenders. It is regrettable to relate that so anxious were one or two of the company to escape even the appearance of evil that they did not hesitate to point out Jones and Tom as the culprits to the preservers of the peace.
The two young men were sensible enough not to make any effort to move or to resist, being aware of the Panamanian policemen’s habit of arguing with their clubs instead of with words. As for Mrs. Driscole, she appeared on the scene, fat, trembling, obsequious, and protesting volubly in broken Spanish that she was innocent of any intention of breaking the laws of the Republic. As she implored the policemen to come back the next day, so as to give her the opportunity of proving her innocence, they left her alone. They knew she would be able to offer substantial proof (in specie) of her ignorance of any crime with which she might be charged. But they had already found Jones and Tom guilty, and so they motioned these towards the door with some not very gentle prods from their clubs.
This indignity brought tears to the eyes of Jones. Only in the last resort would a Jamaica policeman have ventured to enter a private house when a dance was going on. And the most he would have done, in the absence of visible wounds, would have been to take the names of the proprietor and the parties accused of disturbing the peace. Yet here was he, Samuel Josiah Jones, being dragged off to gaol by men he would have laughed at in Jamaica!
In his excitement he completely forgot Susan, who was at that moment almost frantic with terror. She knew nothing about Panamanian law, and, of course, feared the worst. Sam might be sent to prison without the option of a fine; she herself might be arrested as the first cause of the quarrel. It was Mackenzie who came to her rescue. He had not interfered with the young men; he had been keeping his eye on Susan all the time. When Tom and Jones had been taken away he went up to her. “You better come home,” he said.
When they got outside, she broke down completely.
“You think him will go to prison, Mr. Mac?” she asked, between her sobs.
“Prison? what for?” said Mackenzie. “Them can only fine him to-morrow; that’s all.”
“But what about his job?” said Susan, who never quite lost sight of the financial aspect of any question.
“His job is all right,” Mackenzie replied. “What happen in Colon don’t concern the people in de Zone.”
“Then I don’t too sorry him gone to the calaboose,” said Susan spitefully. “Him is always boasting an’ thinking him can do what him like! To-night will teach him a good lesson.”
“Jones have no lesson to learn, Miss Sue,” said Mackenzie sententiously. “He is a young man that will always get himself in trouble. Him talk too much. What did he want to fight the other young man for to-night?”
“Because I did know Tom from home,” replied Susan.
“You was friendly wid him?” asked Mackenzie bluntly.
“Yes.”
“Did Jones know?”
“No; I will tell you why I didn’t tell him.”
She told Mackenzie quite truthfully all about Tom. “There was no occasion for Sam to go on like that to-night,” she added in conclusion; “I wasn’t goin’ to ’ave anything to do with Tom. I am not that sort of gurl, Mr. Mac; if I have one intended I stick to him. But Sam not behaving himself now, an’ I going back home to Jamaica.”
They had arrived at her home. Afraid to be left alone, yet also fearing that if Mackenzie went in with her there might be some talk about it amongst the neighbours of a suspicious turn of mind, she stopped and hesitated.
“It is late,” said Mackenzie, “but I want to have a talk with you, so I will come in for a little.” After this, of course, she could say nothing.
“You mean to tell me,” he said, as he sat down, “that Jones not goin’ on no better than before?”
“No, Mr. Mac; him gamble too much, an’ stay out late every night. He won’t hear what I say to him at all.”
“What you goin’ to do?”
“I make up me mind. I am goin’ back to Jamaica.”
He was silent for the space of a minute. Then:
“Instead of goin’ back, why don’t you get married?” he asked.
The proposal was made so simply—for Susan understood it as such quite well—that it took her breath away. She knew that Mackenzie liked her, but it had never occurred to her that he would ever want to marry her. He had been a good friend, but had never shown any sentiment; he had even tried to induce Jones to keep in her good graces. Now that she had said that she was returning to Jamaica (though, in spite of her emphatic words, she was not at all sure that she meant it)—only now did Mackenzie reveal his innermost feelings.
She was surprised. Confused too, for she did not quite know what answer to give. She began picking at an end of her handkerchief with her teeth, while she revolved in her mind this strange, unexpected turn of events. Marriage meant a great deal to her. It would give her position, security . . . and she had more than sufficient excuse for leaving Jones.
Nevertheless she hesitated to agree. Mackenzie was fully twice her age. She liked him as a friend, not as she had liked Samuel; and marriage—that was very different from an engagement.
“If you go back to Jamaica, what y’u going to do?” Mackenzie asked, seeing that she could not make up her mind.
“I don’t know,” she answered frankly.
Mackenzie was well aware of the importance of the proposal he had made. It was much to offer marriage to Susan, for though she was good-looking and a capable housewife, and would easily find some one to take care of her if she deserted Jones and remained in Panama, there were not many men in his position who might be willing to marry her. And if she returned to Jamaica her chances of a comfortable living would not be many. But he also knew that Jones was a much younger man than he, a more dashing kind of man; and perhaps Susan would prefer another of the same type, even though he might not offer her marriage. He, Mackenzie, however, would not break his heart if Susan refused him. There was not much passion in his composition.
Susan remembered how Jones had promised to marry her, and then had broken his promise. She had never quite forgiven him that. Then the habit of drinking might grow upon him. She was well aware that he drank, not so much through inclination, as from a desire to vie with others who did so. His ambition was to be considered “a sport,” but he might become a drunkard. And she had no claim upon him.
Mackenzie was a steady man. If she married him, she could become a member of a church. That would mean a definite rise in the social scale; her respectability would then be beyond challenge, beyond question. The ring on her finger would be the outward and visible sign of her right to respectful treatment on earth below, and also the promise of an uninterrupted passage to heaven in the unfortunate event of death. When she had thought of all these things she came to a provisional decision.
“I can’t answer you right away, Mr. Mac,” she said, “for it is like dis. When a gurl goin’ to take a step like marriage it is right she should think well what she doin’. Don’t I right?”
Mackenzie nodded his agreement.
“Well, then, I will write y’u on Friday an’ tell you me answer. I know you will treat me kind, Mr. Mac.”
“Tell you what we better do, then,” said Mackenzie, who believed in businesslike arrangements. “If you write me on Friday morning, I will get the letter during the day. If it is all right, I will get a licence from de judge at Culebra, an’ he will perform the ceremony when you come. When you think you will come?”
“Saturday. But I would prefer a parson to marry me.”
“That not easy, for we don’t have time. The judge married almost everybody in de Zone. You going to tell Jones?”
“No! Why you ask dat?”
“I don’t see why you shouldn’t tell him. Him would only talk an’ bluster, but him is not the sort of man to do anything. Howsoever, follow you’ own mind.”
He said good night without any attempt at endearment. Susan saw him downstairs; it was very late. Being much too tired to do any thinking, she went to bed and fell asleep, spitefully hoping that Jones would reflect upon his conduct all night in the calaboose of Colon.
On the following morning Jones was fined ten dollars for a breach of the peace—a light sentence, since the police had at first been inclined to charge him with attempted murder. Tom escaped with a fine of five dollars, presumably because he had not been murdered; and both men were severely warned that the next time they appeared before the court it would go hard with them, and that in the meantime the police would be instructed to keep an eye upon them.
In addition to this Samuel lost half a day’s pay, to say nothing of some hours in a cell shared by insects which vigorously disputed its possession with him.
It was an embittered Jones that went home that afternoon. His friends, instead of going to bail him, had avoided the vicinity of the calaboose; Susan herself had not come near him. He had been deserted by those who should have rallied to his cause, though he himself would have stood by them to the end. He solemnly swore that he never again would put his faith in Jamaicans.
Susan waited until he had voiced his complaints, and had eaten his dinner. Then she opened her attack.
“Sam, you not ashamed of you’self?”
He was, but was not prepared to admit it. That would be a lowering of his dignity. “What for?” he asked her sullenly.
“That you goin’ on in this way to make me fret. You quarrel, an’ fight, an’ drink, an’ gamble, an’ won’t hear what I say. You think you goin’ on right?”
“But what is all this for now?” he demanded angrily. “Instead of feeling vex that them wanted to hang me without a trial in Colon, you begin to ask me all sort of foolish question. You want to provoke me?”
“I don’t want to provoke y’u, but I am going to ask you one plain question. Don’t you think you should try to behave you’self now, an’ marry me, after you bring me to Colon an’ make me mind disturbed night an’ day? Suppose the policeman did kill you last night: what position I would be into to-day?”
“You mean to say you going back to all that foolishness again, Susan?” he cried, scandalized by her persistence in stupidity. “I am not going to talk about marriage, an’ as I can’t have peace in this place, I am going out.” Then, before Susan could make any further remark, he seized his hat and left the room in a temper.
Then Susan locked the door, took pen, ink, and paper out of one of her cupboards, and sat down to write. She had given Samuel a last chance. He had answered her as he had done before. In a sentence or two she informed Mackenzie that she would leave Colon for Culebra by the second train on Saturday morning.
Then she indicted a letter to her father. This was an important epistle, for she calculated upon its being shown to a large number of persons in Kingston. She informed her father that “When these few lines come to hand, hoping it will reach you in the same good health it leave me, your affectionate daughter will be Mrs. John Mackenzie, for I am going to married to a nice gentleman working with the American people up at Culebra. Jones is too bad. He meet Tom the other night at a dance, and make a row and I have to fret too much. But I wouldn’t leave him all the same if I wasn’t a girl that like religion as you brought me up, and beside it is an honourable life to get married. Tell Kate and Eliza them must follow my example, for God bless me and smile on me, and I have everything I want and Mackenzie care for me, otherwise him wouldn’t want to put a ring on me finger. If it wasn’t that I always fear the Lord this good luck wouldn’t happen to me, and I going to pray for all of you. Tell Kate and Eliza them mustn’t keep any bad company in Kingston, and make Maria and her old obeah mother know that I married, for it will hurt them. Tell mammee and Aunt Deborah that I will rite them.—Yours truly loving daughter,
“Susan.”
Then an idea occurred to her, and she added a postscript.
“I send some money for all of you out of what I save. It is a wedding present.”
This wedding present consisted of five pounds. Only once before had she written to her people, and then she had enclosed three pounds. She thought, and rightly, that she was acting generously by them.
She regarded this composition with no little pride, then, though fatigued by such unwonted mental exertion, she proceeded to compose another letter. It was brief and to the point.