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THE GORGEOUS ISLE
by
GERTRUDE ATHERTON
A Romance
Scene: Nevis, B. W. I., 1842
Illustrated by C. Coles Phillips
New York
Doubleday, Page & Company
1908
Copyright, 1908, by
The Ess Ess Publishing Company
Copyright, 1908, by Gertrude Atherton
Published, October, 1908
All Rights Reserved, Including That of Translation
into Foreign Languages, Including the Scandinavian
[Illustration: "'But what a joy to see you in colour. How does
it happen?'"]
TO
MRS. SPENCER WIGLEY, OF ST. KITTS, B. W. I.
"We are all souls of fire and children of the sun."
--_Helmholtz_.
ILLUSTRATIONS
"'But what a joy to see you in colour.
How does it happen?'" FRONTISPIECE
"At this point she became aware that
Warner was standing beside her" 74
"'I never wish to see you again'" 174
"Then she left the room again" 216
NOTES
BATH HOUSE. This hotel was erected in 1804 at a cost of £40,000,
although built entirely by slaves. Its varied and brilliant career
came to an end some time in the forties. The tide of fashion turned,
and as it was too large for a private residence, it was left to the
elements. Earthquakes have riven it, hurricanes unroofed it, and time
devoured it, but it is still magnificent in its ruin.
ATLANTIS. Bacon, in "The New Atlantis," assumes America to be the
fabled continent of Atlantis, which, according to his theory, was not
submerged, but flooded to such an extent that all the inhabitants
perished except the few that fled to the highest mountain tops. I
have, however, preferred to adopt the Platonic theory, as at once more
plausible and interesting.
QUEEN ELIZABETH'S RING. West Indian tradition gives this historic ring
to the Warner family, as related in the story. It descended in the
direct line to Colonel Edward Warner, who bequeathed it by will to his
brother, Ashton Warner, as "a diamond ring in shape of a heart, given
by Queen Elizabeth to the Earl of Essex." This will, dated 27th of
December, 1732, was proved in the Probate Court of Canterbury,
England, on the 21st of February following. From Ashton Warner it
descended to his son Joseph, and at the date of the story was in the
possession of Charles Warner, Esq., Solicitor-General of Trinidad, B.
W. I.
The Gorgeous Isle
CHAPTER I
Bath House, the most ambitious structure ever erected in the West
Indies, and perhaps the most beautiful hotel the world has ever seen,
was the popular winter refuge of English people of fashion in the
earlier half of the nineteenth century. This immense irregular pile of
masonry stood on a terraced eminence rising from the flat border of
Nevis, a volcano whose fires had migrated to less fortunate isles and
covered with some fifty square miles of soil that yielded every luxury
of the Antilles. There was game in the jungles, fish in the sea, did
the men desire sport; there were groves of palm and cocoanut for
picnics, a town like a bazaar, a drive of twenty-four miles round the
base of the ever-beautiful ever-changing mountain; and a sloop always
ready to convey the guests to St. Kitts, Montserrat, or Antigua, where
they were sure of entertainment from the hospitable planters. There
were sea baths and sulphur baths; above all, the air was light and
stimulating on the hottest days, for the trade winds rarely deserted
Nevis and St. Kitts, no matter what the fate of the rest of that
blooming archipelago.
Bath House was surrounded by wide gardens of tropical trees, ferns,
and flowers of gay and delicate hues. Its several terraces flamed with
colour, as well as its numerous little balconies and galleries, and
the flat surfaces of the roof: the whole effect being that of an
Eastern palace with hanging gardens, a vast pleasure house, designed
for some extravagant and voluptuous potentate. Anything less like
an hotel had never been erected; and the interior, with its lofty
pillared rooms, its costly mahogany furniture, its panels and hangings
of rich brocades, the thick rugs on the polished floors, if more
European than Oriental, equally resembled a palace; an effect in no
wise diminished by the brilliant plumage of the guests. If the climate
compelled them to forswear velvet and satin, their "muslins were from
Bengal and their silks from Benares"; and as the daughters of the
planters emulated these birds of fashion in all things, Nevis in
winter would have been independent of its gorgeous birds and flowers:
the bonnets were miracles of posies and plumes, and the crinoline set
off the costly materials, the flounces and fringes, the streamers and
rosettes, the frills of lace old and new. And as the English Creoles
with their skin like porcelain, and their small dainty figures,
imitated their more rosy and well-grown sisters of the North, the
handsome strapping coloured wenches copied their island betters in
materials which if flimsy were no less bright; so it is no matter for
wonder that the young bloods came from London to admire and loiter and
flirt in an enchanted clime that seemed made for naught else, that the
sons of the planters sent to London for their own finery, and the
young coloured bucks strutted about like peacocks on such days as they
were not grinding cane or serving the reckless guests of Bath House in
the shops of Charlestown.
That was the heyday of Nevis, a time of luxury and splendour and
gaiety unknown on even the most fertile of the other islands, for none
other was ever bold enough to venture such an hotel; and if the bold
adventurer came to grief, as was inevitable, still all honour to him
for his spirit, and the brief glory he gave to the loveliest island of
the Caribbees.