The thing about the trial that seemed to Miss Proudleigh the unkindest cut of all was the utter failure of Lawyer Jones to rise to the occasion and pulverize his legal opponent with arguments. She had accompanied Susan to the court-house with proud expectancy. Lawyer Jones had been recommended by her, and she felt that she had certain proprietary rights in him; that she was, in a way, responsible for his good behaviour as a lawyer. And now he had failed, failed miserably; he had disgraced her; she regarded him as guilty of a base deception. On the way home she urged this point of view upon Susan, and her brother agreed that the lawyer had indeed acted most strangely.
“The whole of them cheat me!” said Susan bitterly. “There is no justice in dis country at all. From the judge down, them is all a set of thief!”
“Solomon say that it is better to chop a baby in two dan go to law,” observed Mr. Proudleigh, “an’ I see to-day dat him is quite right. Now if you did half murder Maria, them would only fine you, an’ you would have de satisfaction to know that you give it to her properly. Instead of dat, you bring ’er up in a respectable style, an’ put a lawyer on ’er, an’ pay him two pounds to persecute her, an’ all de justice you get is dat the judge tell y’u to make up de quarrel or him will fine you too!”
“Leave them all to God!” said Miss Proudleigh piously.
“Leave them to de devil, you mean!” Susan rapped out. “The judge abuse me about me intended, an’ the lawyer take me money and don’t do nothing for it; an’ now you tell me to leave them to God! The truth of de matter is that all these judge an’ all these lawyers is simply humbugging poor people in this country. Them want nothing better than for we to leave them to God, so long as them can get de money. But while we walk to church to pray, them drive in motor-car!”
Wrath had made Susan a rebel, and contemptuous of the things she had always regarded with respect; but Miss Proudleigh had her Christian reputation to think of, and she could not join her niece in her violent protest. As for her father, though he was inclined to think Susan was right, he did not care to express his opinion of the judge too freely in the open street.
When they got home, Susan stationed herself by the window, her favourite point of vantage, and there she sat for hours nursing her anger. Now and then, as she looked around her, the pride of possession filled her soul. The room contained two American rocking-chairs, and five cane-seated chairs of a yellowish hue. There was a long wooden bench without a back placed against one of the walls, and two dealboard tables, both covered with gaudy worsted spreads. On one of them was a kerosene lamp, a couple of hymn books, and a few earthenware ornaments. The other was crowded with thick tumblers, some of fantastic shapes, and a heap of cheap crockery ware. On the walls hung coloured prints of the King and the Royal Family, and pictures of ladies dressed in exiguous garments, and smoking cigarettes with an air of enjoyment. All these things belonged to her. They had been given to her by Tom. And in the inner room she had an iron bed on which was a straw mattress, and two more chairs, and a big trunk containing her clothes, and a basin-stand, on which she kept her “china” basin and ewer. She had, besides, a large looking-glass on a little table in the room. And all these household gods were comparatively new.
She took pride in her furniture. Only married people of her class usually had as much, and certainly Maria had not. “After all,” she more than once muttered to herself, “I ’ave a comfortable house to come to, an’ perhaps Maria don’t ’ave a penny to-day.”
Yet she was not long comforted by this reflection. Maria had practically triumphed, and her success at the court-house might embolden her to attempt to capture Tom outright. Susan did not care much for Tom; in fact, she rather despised him. But times were hard in Kingston, and lovers were not easy to obtain; so if Maria should succeed. . . . “But that can’t be done,” she concluded; for what was Maria when compared with her?
Susan was not given to following out a train of thought for any length of time; she usually jumped from one subject to another as it came up in her mind. But the experience of that morning, and its unknown but dreaded consequences, caused her now to dwell lengthily upon the days before she became acquainted with Tom. Her past had not been a pleasant one. Her father was a carpenter, and when in good health he had earned a fair amount of money by working at his trade. But some sixteen years before he had been prostrated by a severe attack of rheumatism, and when he recovered he found that he had almost lost the use of his lower limbs. Then her brother went away to Nicaragua, and only wrote occasionally, sometimes sending a few dollars to his parents. After her father’s illness her mother had turned washerwoman, and what the old woman earned helped to keep the family from starvation. Her father did a few light jobs, when he could get them, but these did not bring in much. Susan herself, on leaving the Government elementary school when a little over fourteen years of age, had tried to find a situation; but there was hardly anything she could do at that age.
In those days she lived in a yard-room with the rest of the family. She could remember herself as often standing at the gate of the yard, her feet thrust into a pair of slippers, and looking with envy at those girls who could afford to wear shoes and go to all the Sunday-school picnics and treats. There were days when she went to bed without dinner, a fate by no means unknown to hundreds of other persons in her position. On other days she was glad if her dinner consisted of a piece of dry bread. The rent of the room her family occupied was always the great problem that faced them continually; for if it was not paid their few belongings might be levied upon, and the old people would have to go to the almshouse. Semi-starvation was better than that, so they not infrequently starved.
When she was nearly eighteen, what she called “a luck” befell her. She was in the habit of attending, every Wednesday evening, a little church near where she lived. There had been revival meetings in that church a short time before she had taken to going to the services, and nearly everybody in its immediate neighbourhood had been converted. Amongst these converts was a young fellow of nineteen, a clerk by occupation; and seeing Susan in the church once or twice, he was moved to attempt the saving of her soul. He only succeeded in losing his heart.
For some months he gave her five shillings a week out of the fifteen he earned; then he unfortunately lost his situation, and Susan’s father awoke to a sense of outraged morality. It was edifying to hear Mr. Proudleigh lecture that young man on the moral obliquity of endeavouring to “draw a youthful feminine away from religion.” There was no arguing with him, for very little argument is left in any youth who has lost his situation; so the young man quietly drifted out of Susan’s life.
For some time longer the family was compelled to exist on the mother’s earnings and on what Mr. Proudleigh’s son in Nicaragua occasionally sent home. It was then that Susan tried her hardest to obtain work of some kind. But it required influence to secure a position as a barmaid; the small shops had as many assistants as they required, and in any case usually employed young women fairer than she was; as for crochet-making, that had become so common that very few persons now cared to trim their clothes with crochet. She might have got a situation as nurse in one of the wealthier families of Kingston, but to domestic work she had a strong aversion. It was not, in her opinion, genteel. She did not want to be what she called “a common servant.” So she waited in idleness day after day, a prey to discontent, and wondering if her luck would ever turn.
It did turn when she was twenty years of age. She was standing at the gate of her yard one Sunday afternoon, very plainly dressed, but with her hair neatly combed and plaited. Tom was walking down the lane, with no object in particular, and seeing her all alone he thought he might as well try to make her acquaintance and have a little chat with her. As he was well dressed, from his polished yellow boots up to his new straw hat, Susan did not object to his inquiry after her health; and being thus encouraged he made further advances.
That afternoon he talked of trifling things for about a quarter of an hour. The following evening he again walked down the lane, and Susan was once more at the gate. On the subsequent night, when Tom met her by appointment, she asked him why he did not come inside, and on his accepting her invitation he was welcomed by her family with every mark of cordiality and respect. In fact, they all went out of the room and left him with Susan, so that the young couple’s conversation might not be interrupted in any way.
A week after that, she removed into the house which she now occupied. Thus she had realized, at a bound, one of the great ambitions of her life.
But now Maria was trying to come between her and Tom. And this case—now that she had lost it, she was rather sorry she had taken it to court. Tom’s name had been repeatedly called, and he had warned her against that. And her money, the money he had originally given her, had gone for nothing. If that had been all she would not have cared much, but she felt sure she had not yet heard the last of the fight and the trial. She wished she could believe that she had.
It was in an uneasy frame of mind that she ate her dinner by the window that evening, putting her plate on a chair in front of her. She was still eating when her aunt returned to the house for the purpose of further discussing the details of the case; and it was only then that Susan’s father and the others came into the sitting-room, which they had avoided all during the day, perceiving that Susan was too sorely sick at heart to appreciate conversation.
Miss Proudleigh, who, more than all of them together, was versed in the newspaper reports of the courts, had conceived a brilliant idea, and wished to lose no time before letting Susan know of it.
“I thinks, Susan,” she said, after she had sat down, “that the case was not try fair. An’ I thinks you ought to appeal.”
“Appeal?” asked her brother. “What is dat?”
Now Miss Proudleigh did not know exactly. So she answered vaguely, “Something to make de case try right.”
“That won’t help,” said Susan decisively. “De judge tell me I better drop the case, an’ I agree. It is all done away wid now. What is bothering me is the way de judge talk about Tom. It’s going to be all over Kingston to-morrow, for I saw the newspaper man writing it down. What a piece of bad luck fall upon a poor gurl to-day! An’ I didn’t do a single soul anyt’ing.”
“But don’t it finish now?” asked the old man hopefully.
“I don’t know about dat,” Susan replied. “Tom’s name call, an’ him going to vex.”
This was indeed what everybody feared; but Miss Proudleigh had a never-failing source of comfort in her principles as a religious woman.
“Susan,” she said, “you must have faith. When did you’ intended see you de first time? Wasn’t it on a Sunday evening? Now if it was on a Monday or a Saturday or any other day of de week, you would say it was a sort of accident. But when an important events take place on a Sunday, all of a sudden, it is you’ business to acknowledge that the Lord have made special interposition in your behalf. You mustn’t be ungrateful, Sue. The Lord is not mocked. Blessed is de man that trusteth in Him. An’ though the text says ‘man’ it mean woman too. Everything is goin’ to go right. Tom won’t vex too much.”
“That is what I thinks meself,” agreed Susan’s father, who was only too glad to catch at any ray of hope. “Susan is de child of many pr’yers. From the day she born to dis day, I been prayin’ for her. Not a thing can happen to her! De night before she became acquaint wid Mister Tom, I dream dat a mango tree grow up in me room, an’ I know that same time that somet’ing was going to happen. Now last night I dream dat a cow maltreat Mother Smit, an’ at first I thoughted that Susan was goin’ to win de case. But I see now dat it mean that Mister Tom is not goin’ to ’ave nothing more to do wid Maria.”
“Well, sah,” answered Susan petulantly, “all I have to say is, that you’ prayers didn’t ’elp me much this morning!”
This, Susan’s latest expression of infidelity, simply startled her audience. Their Providence was one that struck with blindness or instant death any of His creatures who dared to question His wisdom or goodness, and who bestowed no blessings upon those who worked on the Sabbath Day. To other sins He was lenient. He always allowed ample time to the sinners to repent of them. One could also think hard things of Him, for what was not spoken aloud might escape the hearing even of the higher Powers. But so openly to doubt the efficacy of prayer, as Susan had done, was to tempt Providence; and she herself felt a little frightened after the words had escaped her.
Miss Proudleigh, who herself had much of Susan’s temper, and who could never forget that she stood high in the estimation of her “leader” in the Wesleyan chapel of which she was an honoured and vocal member, would not allow this last speech of Susan’s to pass without reproof.
“If you goin’ to talk like that, Susan,” she said severely, “I will ’ave to leave the premises. I can’t sit down an’ hear you laugh at pr’yer. I don’t want to be include in the general judgment; for when the Lord’s time come to laugh, Him going to laugh for true.”
Her indignation having been expressed, faith immediately rose to higher heights, and she went on.
“As fo’ Maria, she will be punished, an’ you an’ me will live to see Mother Smith beggin’ bread. ‘He will smite the oppressor, an’ the wicked He will utterly destroy.’ I am goin’ to pray for Maria an’ her mother. I am goin’ to pray that them won’t have bread to eat; an’ when a woman like me kneel down an’ pray, her pr’yers must be heard!”
“I gwine to pray too,” cried the old man, with enthusiasm. “Four knees is better than two. I are going to church next Sunday night to offer up me supplication against all Susan’s enemy. Sue,” he concluded, turning to his daughter, “you don’t happen to have a small coins about y’u to lend your ole fader? I feel weak in me chest, an’ a little rum an’ anisou would help de feeling.”
This request for a loan, coming after his expressed determination to pray against her enemies, could not well be refused by Susan; and she was about to hand him threepence, when the front door opened quickly and Tom stepped into the room.
As he entered, the old man rose and gave him a military salute. But on this occasion Tom simply brushed past him without saying anything, and went at once to Susan. Such brusqueness was unusual, and Mr. Proudleigh, still in the military attitude, stared at Tom with wonder in his eyes.
The young man was angry. They all saw that. At any other time they would have left him alone with Susan, but now curiosity got the better of respect, and they remained to hear what he had to say.
“Susan,” he began, without even bidding her good evening, “didn’t I tell y’u not to take the case to court?”
“You goin’ to quarrel wid me about it now?” was her answer. “It’s not my fault dat I lose it! It’s Hezekiah wid his foolishness. An’ instead of sympathizing with me, you walk into the house, like a nager man, an’ don’t speak to nobody! See here, Tom, if it’s because I lose the money you give me, I will work an’ pay you back.”
“Never mind, Susan, never mind,” interposed her aunt, anxious to play the blessed part of peacemaker. “Mr. Tom don’t say anything of an aggravating nature. Two young people mustn’t quarrel. You is to live in peace, an’——”
“I don’t want to hear anything from you,” snapped Susan. “Tom ’ave no right to come into de house like this.”
Thus she tried to put Tom in the wrong, feeling that if she frightened him by a display of temper he would not say very much about his name being called in the court-house, a circumstance which she herself regretted greatly.
But the old man, alarmed at Tom’s attitude, and fearing lest Susan should drive him away at a time when Maria, and probably others, were spreading their nets for him, thought that now was the opportunity for proving to Tom that in every important domestic crisis he would have the head of the family on his side.
“Susan,” he commenced, with some fear in his heart as to how she would receive his admonition, “I don’t exprove of you’ conduct. Mister Tom is a young man, an’ a young man is supposed to get aggravated. Ef I did know that him tell you positive not to take de case to court, I would have tell you the same meself. The fact of de matter is, I did tell you so. For when you look upon one thing, an’ also upon another——”
But Susan would listen to no more. She sprang from her chair. “See here!” she asked, looking rapidly at each of them in turn, “you all want to abuse me to-night? What I do any of you? Eh? What you interfering with me for?”
But Tom was now in a desperate mood, and Susan’s rage did not seem to frighten him.
He glared back at her. “Didn’t I tell you I didn’t want me name call in the court-house?” he demanded. “Y’u had no business to fight with Maria. If you didn’t speak to her, she couldn’t have troubled you. But you infernal women——”
“Don’t call me infernal, Taam! Don’t y’u call me infernal! It’s not because you paying me rent that you must use me an’ take an advantage of me as if I was a common street gurl. Don’t y’u do it, Tom!”
“Well, whether you like it or not, I say it already,” replied Tom bitterly. “As to the rent, y’u will have to pay it yourself next month!”
“Oh yes?” retorted Susan. “So you gwine to Maria, eh? Well, I tell you straight that I will pull every plait out of she head! An’ as for you, me good man, I don’t know what foot you goin’ to take to walk go to Maria’s house!
“Lor-r-rd!” she screamed. “Look what this man come an’ tell me to me face! Him say him going to this woman, Maria, an’ is leaving me!” and she burst into angry tears.
“I didn’t say that at all,” Tom muttered sullenly. “I said I am not going to pay any rent next month. Somebody go to-day an’ tell Mr. Jacobs all that de judge say about me, and Mr. Jacobs pay me two weeks’ wages and tell me him don’t want me any more.”
It was only too true. Tom had many friends who envied him his job, and it was one of these who had hastened to his employer with a full account of Susan’s case. In his narration this friend had managed to convey the impression that Susan and Maria were not the only two ladies who enjoyed the good things of life at Tom’s expense; and as Mr. Jacobs thought that it was not Tom, but he himself, who might later on suffer through Tom’s excessive gallantry, he concluded that the wisest thing to do was to get rid of his philandering employee at once. Thus had the blow fallen with dramatic swiftness. Susan realized what it meant. She ceased sobbing. This was no time for angry tears. Even her aunt felt that a religious text would not relieve the gravity of the situation. The old man gazed in blank amazement at Tom. Susan’s mother and sister were dumbfounded.
“Then what y’u going to do, Tom?” It was Susan who asked the question; she knew she was the cause of the crisis, but did not wish to face the blame. “P’rhaps,” she went on, without waiting for an answer, “you will get another job? Mr. Jacobs can’t say y’u rob him, an’ him must give you a character paper.”
Tom shook his head despondently. “When a man lose his job in Kingston,” he said, “it is the hardest thing for him to get another one.”
He had sat down, no longer angry, but a prey to despair. His natural weakness was beginning to reassert itself.
“But you can’t live widout working?” said Susan. “You mean to say that y’u don’t know anybody who will hire you? Don’t you have education?”
“Yes, Mister Tom,” her father remarked encouragingly, dipping into the conversation; “a ejucated gen’leman like you is not common. Trust to God!”
But Tom was not to be comforted. “I been with Mr. Jacobs six years,” he said, “an’ everybody is goin’ to say that it is funny him discharge me all of a sudden.”
“Then what you goin’ to do?” Susan asked again.
“I’m going to Colon.”
“Colon?” repeated Susan, with mingled hope and fear in her heart.
“Yes; Colon.”
“Well, Colon is a very good place,” said the old man reflectively. He was entertaining hopes of being taken to Colon himself. “I thinks Miss Susan will like it.”
“I can’t take her. I don’t have sufficient money.”
“Then what you goin’ to do wid me?” asked Susan, seeing her worst fears about to be realized. “Leave me here?”
“I will send for y’u, Sue,” Tom answered, “if I get a job. But I don’t know what is goin’ to happen. . . . It’s all your fault.”
This was so true that the rebuke was accepted in silence. But Susan did not wish to be left behind, for Maria and her mother to triumph over her downfall.
“Tom,” she pleaded, “take me with you! I can work, an’ there is plenty o’ work in Colon.”
“We all can work,” said her father anxiously, though why he should have included himself was something of a mystery. “I have always wanted to go oversea like me son. The fambily could makes you very happy, Mister Tom.” He paused, for he saw that nobody was paying any attention to him.
Tom, in fact, was explaining to Susan how impossible it was for him to take her to Colon with him, and was mingling his explanations with weak reproaches. Susan listened dumbly. She was thinking how few of her friends and acquaintances would sympathize with her; how the front house would have to be given up, and perhaps some of her furniture sold. Nor was that all. For if Tom did not send for her, as he promised, the old life might have to be resumed; and that would be more intolerable now than before. She would miss all that she had become accustomed to. She might have to face actual want—she who had for one full year enjoyed what she considered luxury. . . .
“When you goin’?” she asked at length, after Tom had said his say.
“Saturday.”
This was Wednesday night: three days more and he would be gone.
She cried, this time in real distress. Tom was touched, or he thought, erroneously, that she was crying because he was going to a foreign land where he would be far away from her.
“Don’t fret, Sue,” he said, trying to soothe her. “Colon is a place where a lot o’ money is making now. If I strike a job, you will be all right. In the meantime y’u must do you’ best.”
What that best was, and how it was to be done, was not apparent to Susan. But the old man faithfully promised Tom that Susan would do her best.
“An’ when you is arrive, Mister Tom, write to de ole man,” Mr. Proudleigh added, rising, for Tom had risen to go.
“God bless you, me son,” said his wife, as Tom shook hands with her; “you has been kind to Miss Susan.”
“Put your trust in de Lord,” said Miss Proudleigh, “an’ He shall renew thy strength.”
Susan’s sisters said nothing; Susan herself put on her hat to walk with him a portion of the way home, partly for the purpose of discussing certain financial matters, partly to make sure that he did not call at Maria’s yard.
They went out together, and then Catherine remarked:
“If Susan didn’t take de case to court, this wouldn’t happen.”
“What we gwine to do now?” asked Mr. Proudleigh dolefully.
No one answered the question.
“I don’t do too badly this week,” said Susan, as, sitting at the threshold of a little room, which was one of a range in a yard, she slowly counted a number of small silver and copper coins which she held in her lap.
“How much you make?” asked Catherine, who sat on a little box near to the door, watching Susan’s addition with interested eyes.
“I make eight shillin’s and sixpence, an’ two shillin’s is owing out to me, all of which is profit. If I did ’ave anybody to go an’ dun for it last night, I would ’ave ten shillin’s an’ sixpence this morning. Next week I going to sell more, for I am goin’ to put more things in the shop.”
“Business is good,” said Catherine, “but it will soon get better; so even if Tom don’t send for you, Sue, you will be all right.”
“Yes, I am independent now,” returned Susan, with a touch of pride in her voice; “but I sick of this life. Every day it’s de same thing. I ’ave to work too hard, an’ sometimes I don’t make as much in a day as I use to spend on car ride when Tom was here. I feel so tired, I can’t even go to church dis morning. An’ yet I have some good frock. I going to save up money meself an’ go to Colon, even if Tom don’t send for me.”
“That is a very good resolution, Sue,” said her father, speaking from inside of the room. “Colon is a better place dan Kingston. I hear dat you can earn money there like water, an’ that’s de place I want to go to. Ef you’ brother could only send me a few dollars, I would give it to you, an’ then you could go an’ send for the whole of we.”
“Yes, sah,” replied his daughter. “I would send for you, an’ mammee, an’ Eliza. Kate could go wid me. P’rhaps Kate would get an intended in Colon.”
“I wish so,” said Catherine wistfully; “de young men in Kingston don’t have nothing.”
“It wasn’t so when I was a young man,” observed Mr. Proudleigh, harking back to the past. “In dose days a man could make plenty money, an’ he treat de females like a king. Me first sweetheart rob me over ten pounds, an’ yet I didn’t miss it. But now a man don’t ’ave ten shillin’s to give a gal, much less ten pounds for anybody to rob.”
“You right,” agreed Susan. “Dis is not the place for me. Colon or Port Limon is the country to go to, an’ if me business prosper I going to save an’ go there.”
She nodded her head determinedly, then tied the money in the corner of a handkerchief, put it in her pocket, and went towards the back of the yard.
Her father came out and sat on the spot she had vacated. He did not like to question Susan too closely, but of Catherine, who was of a milder disposition, he had no fear.
“Kate,” he said, “you t’ink Susan will really save money to go away?”
“So she say, papee,” Catherine answered. “An’ she doing very well. She make ten an’ six this week, an’ she goin’ to make more.”
“That is good,” said the old man. “Ef you go wid her you mustn’t forget you’ ole father, Kate. I don’t want all me children to be away from me when I dead. An’ if you don’t send fo’ me when you go away, I don’t see how I can ever go.”
As Kate saw no immediate prospect of leaving Jamaica herself, she did not pursue the conversation. And both she and her father continued sitting there for some time in silence, gazing at nihility, and thus keeping the Sabbath day holy.
They were still living in a lane, but not the lane in which they had lately lived for fully a year. This one was called Luke Lane, and their yard was situated near the northern end of it, close to North Street. It was some eight weeks since Tom had left, and much had happened in the interval. The first four weeks had been a trying time for Susan, for, even before Tom sailed for Colon, Maria and her mother had heard of his dismissal. They spread the news rapidly and all Susan’s enemies rejoiced without any attempt at concealment. They assembled at the gates of their yards when she passed up and down the lane, and laughed loudly. They made remarks which she knew were intended for her hearing. Maria, remembering Susan’s fatal allusion to her dress, attired herself every Sunday in her most gaudy garments and went to see some people who lived opposite to Susan, so that the latter’s cup of humiliation should be full. She knew that Susan’s establishment could not be maintained long after Tom’s departure, unless some extraordinary piece of good fortune should befall her. This Maria confidently hoped would not happen: she had missed taking Tom away from Susan; but still there was great satisfaction in knowing that if she had lost what she might have had, Susan had lost what she actually had possessed.
Susan endured all these insults with considerable fortitude, and went about her business quietly, keeping her own counsel as to what she intended to do. About a month after Tom had left for Colon, she and her family, aided by a cart, removed what remained of her furniture (for she had sold some), and went to live elsewhere.
They removed late at night, and silently; for Susan’s pride revolted at the very thought of being seen taking last leave of the beloved front house. Removing late at night had its inconveniences, for it was certain to be said that she had left without paying the month’s rent, and without the knowledge of the landlord. Night removals in the West Indies (and they are very frequent) are always attended with this suspicion, a suspicion based upon extensive experience. But in this instance the landlord knew all about Susan’s intention, for she had given him the proper notice, and at the end of the month had gone to him and paid him two-thirds of the rent that was due. As she had been a good tenant, he made a virtue of necessity and generously allowed her to owe him the balance. Yet all this did not prevent it from being circulated in certain quarters of the lane that Susan, true to the principles of many who live in yard-rooms and little front houses, had availed herself of the darkness to cover her rent-escaping tracks.
She heard from Tom before her removal. In his letter he mentioned that the chances were that he should obtain a good situation if he did not fall ill of fever. Like a sensible girl she concluded that his chances of being ill were probably as great as his prospects of getting a job; so she told her aunt, “I better look for meself.” Her way of looking for herself was not original; but it proved successful. Tom had given her two pounds before leaving. She had also saved a few shillings. And this money had come in useful for the setting up of a small business.
She had rented a little shop and had stocked it with the things she knew would sell. The shop was built against the fence, and opened both in the yard and on the lane. It was constructed of odd bits of board and roofed with three sheets of corrugated iron. It could scarcely accommodate two persons. Customers were not allowed inside. They stood in the lane and made their purchases over a counter which was merely a square bit of board cut out of that side of the shop which faced the lane. This counter formed a shutter at night; you fixed it into the opening and secured it by means of an ingenious system of bars and bolts. As thieves might break in and steal, Susan usually removed some of her goods to a safer place at night; the room in which she and her family lived being the only place available to her.
She sold bread and “grater cake” (a cake made of desiccated cocoa-nut stewed with sugar). The prices of this sweetmeat ranged from a farthing to three farthings each, and she did a considerable trade in it. For the children held that a halfpenny spent on a small loaf of bread and a small grater cake yielded abundant satisfaction, and even grown-up people frequently made their lunch off the same articles.
She sold cocoa-nut oil, sugar-cane, mangoes, bananas, and flour-cakes. These last were made of flour and sugar and plenty of baking-soda, were very cheap and filling, and were openly despised by everybody and secretly eaten by all.
She sold Rosebud cigarettes, for that, she wisely calculated, would be a good bait for the boys and men, and she wanted the biggest custom possible.
She sold firewood, and yams and plantains, and gingerbeer. Ice also; and she proclaimed that fact by means of a red flag, hung out diagonally on a pole, and having sewn upon it three ill-shaped letters in white calico which spelt out the word, ICE. She was, in short, a full-fledged higgler, and as she sat in her shop surrounded by boxes and baskets, and little heaps of bread-stuffs, she assumed the important facial expression common to all higglers, though in her case neither ugliness nor slatternliness had set its seal upon her; which alone differentiated her sharply from most of the other women who followed her trade.
There were many of these in the lane. They were rivals, but among them Susan easily stood first. For the stock of none of them was ever worth more than seven or eight shillings, and sometimes not worth even half of that amount. She, on the other hand, had boldly invested thirty shillings in purchases at the start, and the venture had been justified by success.
Her looks helped her. The young men who passed by her shop patronized her and attempted to make love to her; but they were obviously poor, so while she was polite to them she kept them at a distance. Her family was also of great assistance. Her mother made the “grater cakes” and boiled the cocoa-nut oil; her sisters went in the mornings far beyond the northern boundaries of the city to meet the countrywomen coming down to market, so as to buy fruit cheap from them. By this means Susan saved money, an important consideration, for a shilling a day was the very most that she could spend on food for all the family. As for the old man, he rendered no material assistance; but he personally felt that his moral influence upon the situation was immeasurable. With the tattered remains of an old soft felt hat upon his head—he never went without it, for he imagined that it added to his dignity—a pipe in his mouth, and his feet thrust into slippers, he hovered about what he called “de little shaps,” feeling himself the natural protector of his daughter, and the inspiring genius of the family.
He was proud of Susan. The problem of living had presented itself to him with distressing intensity on the night that Tom had announced his intention of going to Colon. He then had seen nothing before himself and his wife but the Union Poorhouse, an institution which he thought of with a shudder. He knew he could do nothing to help himself, though he never would have acknowledged that to anyone; so, even though the girls might shift for themselves, he could see no ray of hope for himself and the old woman. Susan, however, had solved the problem by unexpectedly developing commercial instincts; and he reflected that most of her ability must have been inherited from him, since he had never credited his wife with much intelligence.
As he sat this Sunday morning at the threshold of the single room they now lived in, he felt placidly contented. The shop had become a certain source of revenue, and no Maria could interfere with it. He was quite satisfied not to take much thought of the morrow; and the change that had recently taken place in Susan’s circumstances was accepted by him with a temperamental equanimity which could only be disturbed by fear of the almshouse or of immediate starvation.
He looked about the yard, seeing nothing. Such scenes he had been familiar with all the days of his life. It was an ordinary Kingston tenement yard; the low range of rooms, each room being separated from the other by but a thin partition of board; the broken-down kitchen; the water-pipe continually dripping, so that a part of the yard was never dry; babies sitting in little boxes stuffed with rags to prevent the little creatures from hurting themselves; bigger babies creeping about; wash-tubs everywhere; it was what he had always seen in every similar place. The prevailing squalor did not affect the old man and his wife, and even Catherine and his youngest daughter had reconciled themselves to it. But Susan rebelled; she felt that she ought not to be reduced to living in a yard-room.
This Sunday morning, however, she was better pleased than usual, for she saw that if her custom continued to increase she would soon be in a position to save money. Up to now she had been living on every penny of her profits, for the rent of the shop and the room together was sixteen shillings a month. But good luck was plainly attending her, and already she was speculating upon what she would do in the future.
Presently she returned to where her father and Catherine were still sitting. Catherine made room for her on the box, and Mr. Proudleigh, never happy if compelled to remain silent for long, asked her when next she expected to hear from Tom.
“How can I tell, sah?” was her very reasonable reply. “Him only write me once since he gone to Colon; an’ I wants to believe he must be in the hospital. From all dat I hear about Colon, Tom don’t likely to get on there. Him too soft! Kingston is all right enough; but in Colon—so I hear—if you look on a man too hard, him wants to shoot you; an’ if you don’t look on him hard, him wants to take an advantage of y’u. That is not the sort o’ place for Tom.”
“Then how you expects to go down to him?” asked her father. “Ef him is such a young man of unreligable nature, I don’t see how you can teck up you’self an’ put you’self under his protection an’ care.”
Susan laughed scornfully. “I was ever under his protection an’ care in Jamaica?” she asked.
“No,” said Catherine; “but here everything is quiet. Down in Colon a young gurl must ’ave a young man to look after ’er; otherwise there may be boderation. I wouldn’t like to go down by meself that way.”
“I would go,” said Susan decisively. “After all, whatever y’u meet in this world it is you’ luck. If you to dead in Colon, you will dead there. If you to come back to Jamaica, y’u will come back.”
This fatalistic note, struck with such confidence, awoke a responsive echo in the hearts of her hearers.
“You is right,” said the old man. “A man shouldn’t bother him head about what goin’ to happen to-morrow, for him can’t prevent what is gwine to happen. Therefore, sufficient to de day is the evil thereof. You saving money to go?”
“Don’t I tell y’u so a little while ago, sah?” asked Susan, though she knew that the old man would repeat the question every day.
“I don’t mean nothing by askin’ you,” he explained; “only, ef I was you, I wouldn’t put me money into any bank. I hear that bank is a thing that broke every now an’ then; though,” he continued sagaciously, “I don’t see how such a strong place can broke.”
“When a bank broke,” explained Catherine, “it mean that de clerk rob you’ money.”
“Oh! I see! But, even then, I don’t t’ink Sue should put her money in a bank, for if them rob her few shillin’s, what she gwine to do?”
“The Government bank is safe,” said Sue, conscious of superior knowledge. “Nobody can rob it, an’ them give you interest on you’ money.”
“Then you gwine to put yours in de Government bank?”
“Yes, sah; to-morrow morning I goin’ to lodge three shillin’s: it is me first commencement. It’s to help me to go away.—Who that?”
Some one had knocked at the gate, and the person thus addressed loudly answered:
“Me!”
“Who me?” asked Catherine.
“Letitia Samuels: can you hinform me ef Miss Susan Proudleigh resides here?”
Both Susan and Catherine rose simultaneously and rushed towards the gate. They opened it, and a young lady of about twenty, glossily black, fat, not bad looking, and extremely stylish, walked into the yard. She was dressed in a white lawn frock trimmed with any quantity of lace; wore high-heeled shoes and carried a pink parasol. Her hat was a marvel; her cheeks were covered with white powder. She kissed both the girls loudly, said she was feeling “fine,” shook hands with Mr. Proudleigh, and then was taken into the room.
There she met the old woman, who spoke to her, then went outside, with the true West Indian instinct of hospitality, to prepare some refreshment for her.
The room, originally small, was divided into two apartments by a cloth partition, one side of it being reserved for the old people, the other being occupied by Susan and her sisters. Letitia sat in the one chair that she saw, while Catherine and Susan perched themselves on the bed.
Letitia was an old friend. She had known Susan at the elementary school, and Susan had admired and envied her because of her constant possession of small coin. Letitia’s father was a plumber in a good position, and he looked after his daughter well. She was a Roman Catholic, and loudly sang hymns in honour of the saints; Susan, on the other hand, was a staunch Protestant, and strongly objected to “the worship of idols.” But differences of doctrine did not disturb their personal relations, and even Mr. Proudleigh’s efforts to convert the erring Catholic to a truer faith did not sow the seeds of discord. For though his theology (from a Protestant point of view) was perfectly sound, he never ventured on moral admonitions. This was satisfactory, for Letitia still enjoyed the favour of the priests and nuns and other important personages of the Church, and gratefully rejoiced in the present security of a suspected virtue.
She was very excited.
“I didn’t know you move, Sue; I went roun’ to Blake Lane, an’ them tell me y’u move. It was you’ aunt told me yesterday where y’u live.”
“Yes, me dear,” was Susan’s remark. “My intended gone away, so I have to look for meself. Just see where I living now!”
“Cho! never mind! Y’u soon get another intended. Now guess what I come to tell y’u about?”
“What?”
“A picnic. A big picnic! Father Moulder making it at Cumberland Pen to-morrow, an’ it’s only one an’ sixpence for trainage and hentrance to the pen. You ’ave to provide you’ own refreshment; but that can’t cost more dan one an’ six. I want you come. Y’u will come?”
Susan’s answer was interrupted by the entrance of her mother, who brought in a mug of chocolate and a plate containing a big slice of bread.
Letitia spread out her handkerchief in her lap, and rested the plate on it, then took the mug from the old woman. Eating and drinking, she continued the conversation.
“Y’u must come, me child! It’s goin’ to be grand. All the young men in Kingston is goin’. There is to be six piece of music, an’ dancing all day.”
Catherine’s face lighted up, then fell as she remembered that she had no money.
Susan shook her head slowly, the wish to go struggling with her desire to save.
“It will cost me three shillin’s,” she said, “an’ I don’t see how I can manage it.” She paused as a vision of the dancing on the sward rose before her mind’s eye.
“I engage a bag of coal for Thursday, an’ I must have to take it. An’ I ’ave to save money. . . .”
“Cho!” pleaded Letitia. “Come, man! It’s only once!”
The old man, still sitting at the threshold, had overheard the conversation. By way of showing disinterested generosity, he called out:
“Don’t fret you’self about t’ree shillin’s, Sue. Go an’ enjies you’self. Don’t kill you’self, me daughter. You lookin’ thin.”
“Then how is Sue to go to Colon?” asked Catherine, who, seeing no prospect of going to the picnic herself, was not inclined to be enthusiastic about it.
The old man remembered that he also wanted to go to Colon, and immediately regretted his precipitancy. But his words had had their effect. The struggle in Susan’s soul was over. In a moment she passed from a calculating to an excited frame of mind.
“All right!” she cried, jumping from the bed; “I will go.” Excitedly, “I will wear me blue dress, an’ me new straw hat! Lord! I goin’ to dance every dance! I goin’ to enjoy meself! What a thing!”
She was dancing already, and all thought of saving was thrown to the winds.
“Come for me in the morning, Letitia, early,” were her last words to her friend, when she bade her good-bye at the gate.
That afternoon Susan made special preparations for the great event of the morrow. Hairdressing being a very important part of her toilet, she literally sat at Catherine’s feet, who, armed with a strong comb and a pot of scented castor oil, bent over her sister’s head and spent fully three-quarters of an hour in combing out the hair, oiling it, plaiting it, and twisting the plaits into the shape dictated by the latest fashion. That done, Susan tied up her hair very carefully in a towel, so that it should not become disarranged. Then she took out her blue dress and hung it up over the head of her bed. She polished her shoes, carefully looked over her hat, and fished out a fan from the bottom of her trunk. When all this work was over, she untied her head, dressed hurriedly and went to church, her sister going with her. Both her parents strongly approved of church-going; and though the old man himself never went out on Sunday, he would not allow the day to pass without reading aloud the first Psalm, laying special stress on the opening words which proclaim a blessing on those who walk not in the way of the ungodly.
Susan and her sisters enjoyed the service. They usually did. The large church, nearly filled with people dressed in their multi-coloured best, the deep-toned organ, the hearty singing in which they joined, the bright light from the electric lamps—all this was a weekly source of pleasure to girls who had nice dresses to wear on the Sabbath day. The sermon might consist of denunciations of the popular way of living. They listened to it with interest and agreed that the parson was, from his point of view, perfectly right. But he, so to speak, was looking at life theoretically, while they were compelled to regard it from the practical standpoint of daily bread. If he expounded doctrine, they appeared engrossed in his words, and followed his meaning with a fair degree of understanding. What they liked best were the hymns; and when the service was over, and they mingled with the contented home-going crowds, they felt that they were, after all, not very far from the Kingdom.
Susan went to bed immediately after going home, not omitting to bind up her head once more. She wished to be up early in the morning. Her father talked to her for a while from his part of the room, a cloth partition placing no obstacles in the way of conversation; but though he was very anxious to hear about the sermon, so that he might give his opinion on the parson’s theology, she soon shut him up by saying she wished to go to sleep. Then silence reigned unbroken, but for the barking of the dogs in the lane; for by nine o’clock practically all the inmates of the yard had retired, after a day spent for the most part in lolling about and avoiding any unnecessary work.
At half-past four in the morning Susan was awake. She hurried out of the hot, stifling room to wash her face under the water-pipe, then went in again to dress. She was ready by five o’clock. Her dress fitted her nicely; and though blue was perhaps not the colour that best suited her complexion, it was more striking than white would have been, and she wanted to attract attention. She wore a pink sash, and her hat was trimmed with pink roses and ribbons. Her high-heeled shoes were gorgeous with buckles. When fully arrayed, and after she had gulped down her cup of coffee, she turned herself round and round to be admired. Catherine and Eliza surveyed her critically.
“You is all right, Sue,” said the first, and her younger sister agreed. Her mother smiled, then went about her business. Her father was vocal in his praise.
“Ef I was a young man,” he said approvingly, “I would fall in love wid you. Dat frock suit you’ figure. Everybody gwine to dance wid you, an’ you mustn’t fo’got to bring somet’ing nice fo’ me.”
Susan, satisfied with this appreciation, promised to bring home for him a part of whatever she might get; and Letitia coming in just then, both girls went out to catch the electric car that should take them to the railway station.
It was not yet six o’clock, so the air was still comparatively cool. It was a public holiday, consequently they met numbers of other pleasure-seekers like themselves, all gaily dressed. They caught the car, and it took them by a circuitous route to the station, going first towards the north of the city for nearly a mile, then south again, then east to where the railway station stands. On the way they passed handsome villas; those were the houses, they thought, where the rich people lived, people so much above their own station in life that they never dreamt of envying them. The white and the higher classes of fair coloured people belonged to one world. They belonged to another. But envy and hatred did not embitter the relations of one class with another, though their interests in life were superficially as different as was the yard-room or little front house from the spacious-looking residence with its garden of tropical shrubs and flowers blooming in front of it.
They alighted at the railway station, and found it crowded. Every colour of the rainbow was represented in the dresses of the women and the neckties of the men; and a stranger not accustomed to a West Indian crowd might well have thought that there could have been no greater confusion at the Tower of Babel. Everybody talked and nobody listened. Everybody gesticulated. Laughing, pushing, screaming, scrambling through the iron gates, the good-humoured picnickers made towards the platform, and then began to fight their way into the train. In vain the guards shouted. In vain they tried to direct the passengers. Discipline and order were thrown to the winds on this holiday morning, when the chief thought of every one was to obtain all the fun and excitement that the day could afford.
In the struggle for a good seat Susan was nearly separated from her friend. But by a vigorous use of their elbows they managed to keep together; and when at last, breathless but triumphant, they were seated, they began to look about them to see if any of their friends were near. Susan saw many persons whom she knew. Amongst these was Hezekiah, and him she stared out of countenance. She nodded to the others, and commenced with lively anticipation to discuss the prospects of the picnic with Letitia, when the train, with a sudden jerk, pulled out of the station.
Slowly at first, then quickly, and crowded to its utmost capacity, it ran out of the city and into the open, sunlit country. The transition was abrupt. Within a minute Kingston had been left behind, and broad fields and forests soon appeared on either side, all steeped in the early morning light and still green and fresh with the dews of the night. The hot and dusty city lay baking in the sun behind the pleasure-seekers; the country, with its wonderful beauty of deep blue skies, giant trees, and variegated green; with its dark-gleaming rivulets, placid streams and leaping waterfalls, unrolled itself before them. Peeping out of the windows, they could see the cattle and horses browsing in the pastures, the distant skyline broken by a long chain of dream-like verdure-clothed mountains, the long, delicate tendrils of parasitic plants waving gently in the breeze, and clumps of water-hyacinths glowing in the ponds or in some quiet backwater of a stream. All, all was beautiful. A majestic peace pervaded the spacious countryside, and the great yellow sun of the tropics lighted it up with splendour. There was something alluring, enticing about it all; something enervating too in its luscious appealing beauty. But Susan and Letitia gave no thought to it all, nor did many of the people in the train. Their minds were centred upon one subject—this picnic to which they were speeding and which was to afford them a whole day’s intensest pleasure.
“Cumberland Pen!” The guard shouted the name of the station, the train slowed down and stopped, the doors of the carriages were thrown open, and then the scramble and hubbub began once more. Parcels were grabbed at and secured, and then—a phenomenon which one observes in every country and on every occasion among passengers on a train—every one pushed forward to alight as quickly as possible, and as though a second longer spent upon the train would lead to the most unpleasant results.
The siding was soon crowded, and already a straggling stream of human beings was pouring towards the Cumberland Pen gate, where stood two men who collected the tickets and indulged in arguments with those who pretended to be scandalized at the amount they were called upon to pay as entrance fee. It was quick work at this gate in spite of the chaffing and arguing; then other trains came in from Kingston, and soon more than a thousand persons were assembled on a grassy sward, spacious and fairly smooth, and shaded here and there by leafy trees that grew singly or in cool inviting clumps. But shade trees were not in demand just now, except as convenient places for the storing of parcels and baskets filled with refreshments, which some of the more prudent or more fastidious picnickers had brought with them. These impedimenta put away for the present, the pleasure-lovers broke into groups, and a loud cry for music arose.
Then rose the piercing squeal of the clarionettes, the squeak of fiddles, the blare of cornets and the bang of a big drum. There was noise enough, and the dancers called it music. The young men took off their jackets and waved them wildly in the air to show their appreciation of the band. Girls with arms akimbo swayed their bodies to and fro, keeping time with the tune. Thus encouraged, the musicians redoubled their efforts and the discord was infernal; but partners were rapidly selected, places taken, and in a few minutes there were nearly five hundred couples dancing on the sward and under the now burning, blistering rays of the forenoon sun.
Susan was in her element. Quadrilles followed lancers, polkas followed quadrilles, and mentoes, a sublimated West African, phallic dance, followed the polkas and were the most popular with a certain section of the people. The girls danced these, swaying on their hips. Some of the women, however, and amongst these was Susan, did not care to dance these mentoes, on the ground that they were not quite proper. So while mentoes were being danced, Susan sat at the foot of a tree fanning herself, and trying to mop up with her wet handkerchief the flood of perspiration that streamed from her face.
Gazing intently at the dancers during one of these intervals, she did not notice that a man had approached her, till she heard herself addressed.
“Young lady,” said the stranger, “you not dancing?”
“No,” she answered shortly, without looking round to see who the speaker might be.
“Why?”
“I don’t dance mento.”
“But why you don’t?”
The persistency of her questioner annoyed her; it was common enough for girls to be accosted by strangers at a picnic; but she did not want to make any more acquaintances that day, for the simple reason that she was tired. The stranger, however, was not to be denied. He deliberately sat down near her, and resumed the conversation.
“Well,” said he, “allow me to introduce meself. My name is Samuel Josiah Jones from Spanish Town. I been watchin’ you all the time you been sitting here; an’ when I see a beautiful young female not enjoying herself, I think I ought to do the consequential.”
Susan had not the faintest idea of what the consequential might be, but the word pleased her. Besides, Samuel Josiah Jones had called her beautiful, and such a compliment predisposed her to be kind. As she did not exactly know what to reply, she looked at him with an inquiring air; but that did not in the least disconcert Mr. Jones, who blandly went on.
“My name,” he repeated, “is Samuel Josiah Jones.” (He plainly expected the repetition of his name to have a talismanic effect.) “Spanish Town is my paternity. Where you come from?”
“Kingston,” said Susan briefly; then she added, “What is that to you?”
“Oh, don’t be vex,” said Jones appealingly. “Don’t expostulate with me. I don’t ask you for nothing. But you didn’t introduce you’self properly, so I interrogated you. You angry?”
Susan saying nothing in reply, Jones’s voice became more confidential.
“I wouldn’t tell you a lie. I have had a few good drinks to-day. But me head is strong, an’ when I see a young lady like you, I would rather die than disgrace meself.
“If a young man can’t behave himself in the company of ladies,” he continued, still speaking confidentially, “he ought not to frequent their company. Don’t you think I am right?”
Susan was obliged to nod her agreement.
Pleased with this, his voice took on a triumphant ring.
“Quite so,” he resumed. “As I tell these boys here, sobriety is the great thing; sobriety an’ temperance. Take a drink when y’u want one; but don’t disgrace you’self—like me.”
“But you not disgracin’ you’self,” said Susan, flattered by the respect he professed for her, but a little puzzled by his last sentence.
“No,” said Jones, “that is what I say. I don’t disgrace meself. I set a good example. I don’t want no man to say that Samuel Josiah Jones disgrace himself in public.”
Mr. Jones leaned back against the tree, obviously proud of the example he was setting, and quite as obviously pleased with the world and himself. Susan looked at him curiously. He was a young man of her own complexion; that is to say, dark brown. His features were good, his face frank and lively, and when he spoke two big gold teeth gleamed brightly, showing that Mr. Jones did not belong to the common classes. He was tall, and flashily dressed, his necktie reminding one of a Scotch plaid of the most pronounced pattern. A gorgeous fob hung out of the trousers pocket in which he kept his watch. It was plain to Susan that he was a young man of some importance, and by the words he used she judged him to be a man of considerable education. She was pleased too he had recognized that she was a young lady, for some “fast and forward young men” of her acquaintance had not always been ready to do that. She was rather glad now that he had persisted in talking to her. His preference for her company was a distinct compliment.
She saw that his sobriety had been tempered with a fair quantity of strong drink. He had himself said so. But temperance folk were held in strong contempt by her, and she had always heard her aunt quote with great approval Paul’s advice to Timothy, that he should take a little wine for his stomach’s sake. Miss Proudleigh faithfully followed this advice herself: every night before going to bed she drank, not a little wine, but a little rum and water; and Susan’s parents would have done the same had they been able to afford it. So she thought more highly of Mr. Jones for being able to enjoy himself in the free and independent manner which his appearance denoted. She was about to continue the conversation when Letitia came up.
The latter stared at Jones, not exactly surprised, for on such a day a girl might pick up half a dozen new acquaintances. Susan introduced her, and Jones, rising with great dignity, assured her that his name was Samuel Josiah Jones, and asked her to take a seat.
“I not sitting down,” said Letitia, shaking her head. “I came to henquire if Sue are going to ’ave her lunch.” (Letitia was very careful of her diction in company.)
“Lunch?” said Jones; “lunch? Of course! The inner man must be replenished. We will have lunch immediate. Miss Susan, arise!”
Miss Susan arose, as bidden, and seeing that Letitia showed no objection to accepting Mr. Jones’s hospitality, she followed the young man to the spot where refreshments were being sold.
Under a tree, and protected by a barricade of dealboard tables and low wooden benches, were a number of women and a man, retailers of refreshments, and all busy attending to the crowd of customers that surrounded them. Quick-tempered and aggressive, the women bustled about with their sleeves drawn up above their elbows, and the upper part of their skirts tucked up into bundles around their waists. Within the enclosure, huge pots steamed and bubbled on improvised fireplaces; and barrels and boxes containing aerated waters, and beer and whisky and Jamaica rum, stood invitingly open.
The smell of stewed beef mingled with that of stewed salt-fish, and the heavy odour of cocoa-nut oil rose from two five-gallon cans in which rice and red peas were boiling. The women ladled the food into coarse earthenware and enamelled plates as it was ordered, and the man served the liquors.
Jones and the girls sat down to a lunch of stewed fish and rice-and-peas. He ordered whisky for himself, and asked his companions what they would have. After some hesitation, they decided on beer, this being a luxury they did not often enjoy. He called for two glasses of “the best beer,” and the girls gulped the stuff down, declaring with grimaces that it tasted bitter.
Letitia noticed that Jones paid a good deal of attention to Susan. “I wonder if him speaking ’er up?” was her thought, but presently she ceased to think, the beer having set her head a-swimming. Susan felt dizzy too, and had to cling to Jones for support when they rose from the table.
He offered an arm to each of the girls, and gallantly escorted them back to the tree. They sat there for a little while, Jones talking, Susan and Letitia hearing nothing.
The pipes still screamed, and the fiddles squeaked, and the dancers continued dancing. A good many persons had strolled down to the river that ran through the pen, to bathe. Here and there some sat on stones or logs of wood, resting; contented-looking cows cropped the grass within a stone’s throw of the picnickers, no longer frightened by the unusual noise; children climbed the trees to hunt for mangoes; big green lizards pursued their prey among the stones and leaves; and down on men and beasts and trees came the fiery rays of the now vertical sun, scorching, blistering, burning, but powerless to exhaust the energy of the musicians or to put an end to the dance.
“This sun,” remarked Jones, “is the hottest sun I feel for a long time. It make me sweat like a bull. But I come to dance, an’ I must dance. What you say?”
His words were addressed to Susan, who faintly murmured in reply, “Too hot.”
Two or three minutes passed in silence, and then the beer, acting in conjunction with the heat and the exertion of the morning, completed its work. Reclining against the tree, Susan slept. Letitia, who was not so easily affected by strong drinks as her friend, laughed at first; then, finding it dull sitting there, asked Jones what he intended to do.
“Remain here,” he said. “A gentleman must behave gentlemanly. Can’t leave this female alone when she is not in her senses.”
“All right,” said Letitia; “I goin’ to dance. I will come back later. Tell Susan so when she ’wake.”.
Jones nodded, then stretched his legs out more comfortably, covered his face with his handkerchief, and disposed himself to reflect on his own superior manners, while Letitia walked away.
He dozed, and for an hour both of them lay there, recumbent in the sun.
Jones woke first. Although desiring to be gentlemanly, his first impulse was to go and join the dancers; for a chance meeting at a picnic did not, he felt, compel him to remain constantly in attendance upon one young woman. Instead of doing so, however, he bent over and shook Susan slightly. She opened her eyes, yawned loudly, stretched her arms above her head, yawned again, then remarked, “I seems to ’ave been sleepin’, Mr. Jones.”
“Yes,” he said. “You been sleepin’ all the time. An’ I been watching you, in case any of these common young men wanted to take any liberty with you. I wouldn’t move a foot while you reposed.”
“Thank you,” said Susan; “but I mustn’t keep y’u back from dancin’.”
“Don’t mention,” said Jones; “it would be preposterous to leave you in a somnolescent state. Will you take some more beer?”
She shook her head firmly. “It make me giddy,” she confessed.
“All right, then, you stay here till I come. I am goin’ for a rum; I soon be back.”
He went off to the refreshment stand, and Susan followed him with her eyes. He was showing her a lot of attention: did he mean anything? She quickly persuaded herself that he did; otherwise why should he have remained with her all the time? It might be her good fortune to get another intended in place of Tom. She thought of the yard-room and the shop with disgust. This fellow was evidently well off, decent looking, generous. . . . She smiled when he returned, and readily rose when he suggested that they should take a little walk and then have a dance.
“Y’u like Spanish Town, Mr. Jones?” she asked him as they moved away.
“So, so,” he replied; “but I been living in Kingston these last ten years—up in Allman Town.”
“Funny I never see y’u,” said Susan, though there seemed nothing really funny in her not having before met one particular person in a city of over sixty thousand souls.
“That is so,” Jones agreed; “it is a peculiar incident. And here we have become acquainted just when I am goin’ away.”
“Goin’ away?” Susan asked, surprised. “Where?”
“Panama. They wants mechanics down there. An’ Mr. Hewet, an American man that was down here three months ago hiring labourers, send for me. They wants a man like me to help them dig the canal,” he proceeded grandiloquently. “Fifteen dollars a week, an’ quarters. Here I can’t earn much more than thirty shillin’s, an’ I have so many people to boss me that sometimes I don’t know what to do.
“This is a worthless country,” he continued. “No prospects at all. It is much better foreign. I don’t think I will bother come back to Jamaica.”
So he wasn’t “speaking her up” after all! The disappointment she felt was keener than she would have thought possible. Her hastily constructed castle in the air came toppling down, and only the shop and the yard-room remained in their sordid reality.
Tom had gone to Panama. Jones was going. She knew that every week scores and hundreds of other people went, and that the dream of almost everybody she had met was to go to Colon or Port Limon, or “anywhere,” as one man told the steamship clerk to whom he applied for a decker’s ticket. “Anywhere.” Anywhere outside of Jamaica. That was the wish of thousands of persons in all classes and ranks of society, and she had caught the general infection.