Anne started from the sound unhaunted sleep of youth conscious that
some one had entered her room and stood by her bed. It proved to be a
grinning barefoot coloured maid with coffee, rolls, and a plate of
luscious fruit. Anne's untuned ear could make little of the girl's
voluble replies to her questions, for the West Indian negroes used one
gender only, and made a limited vocabulary cover all demands. But she
gathered that it was about half-past-five o'clock, and that the loud
bell ringing in the distance informed the world of Nevis that it was
market day in Charlestown.
She had been shown the baths the day before and ran down-stairs to the
great stone tanks, enjoyed her swim in the sea water quite alone, and
returned to her room happy and normal, not a dream lingering in her
brain. As she dressed herself she longed for one of those old frocks
in which she had taken comfort at Warkworth, but even had not all her
ancient wardrobe been diplomatically presented by Mrs. Nunn to the
servants of their London lodging, she knew that it was due to her aunt
that she present herself at breakfast attired as a young lady of the
first fashion. She therefore accommodated herself to a white Indian
muslin ruffled to the waist and sweeping the ground all round. The
bodice was long and tight, exposing the neck, which Anne covered with
a white silk scarf. She put on her second best bonnet, trimmed with
lilac flowers instead of feathers, the scoop filled with blonde and
mull, and tied under the chin with lilac ribbons. Her waist, encircled
by a lilac sash of soft India silk looked no more than eighteen inches
round, and she surveyed herself with some complacency, feeling even
reconciled to the curls, as they modified the severity of her brow and
profile, bringing both into closer harmony with her full mouth and
throat.
"But what's the use?" she thought, with a whimsical sigh. "I mean
never to marry, so men cannot interest me, and it would be the very
irony of fate to make a favourable impression on a poet we wot of. So,
it all comes to this: I look my best to gratify the vanity of my aunt.
Well, let it pass."
She drew on her gloves and ran down-stairs, meeting no one. As she
left the hotel and stood for a few moments on the upper terrace she
forgot the discomforts of fashion. The packet had arrived late in the
afternoon, there had been too much bustle to admit of observing the
island in detail, even had the hour been favourable, but this morning
it burst upon her in all its beauty.
The mountain, bordered with a strip of silver sands and trimmed with
lofty palms, rose in melting curves to the height of three thousand
feet and more, and although the most majestic of the Caribbees, there
was nothing on any part of it to inspire either terror or misgiving.
The exceeding grace of the long sweeping curves was enhanced by
silvery groves of lime trees and fields of yellow cane. Green as
spring earlier in the winter, at this season of harvest Nevis looked
like a gold mine turned wrong side out. The "Great Houses," set in
groves of palm and cocoanut, and approached by avenues of tropical
trees mixed with red and white cedars, the spires of churches
rising from romantic nooks, their heavy tombs lost in a tangle of
low feathery palms, gave the human note without which the most
resplendent verdure must pall in time; and yet seemed indestructibly a
part of that jewelled scene. High above, where cultivation ceased, a
deep collar of evergreen trees encircled the cone, its harsh stiff
outlines in no wise softened by the white cloud hovering above the
summit. Charlestown spread along the shore of a curving bay, its many
fine buildings and infinite number of huckster shops, its stately
houses and negro village alike shaded by immense banana trees, the
loftier cocoanut, and every variety of palm.
Anne, as she gazed, concluded that if choice were demanded, it must
be given to the royal palm and the cane fields. The former rose, a
splendid silvery shaft, to a great height, where it spread out into a
mass of long green blades shining like metal in the sun. But the cane
fields! They glittered a solid mass of gold on all visible curves of
the mountain. When the dazzled eye, grown accustomed to the sight
which no cloud in the deep blue tempered, separated it into parts, it
was but to admire the more. The cane, nearly eight feet in height,
waxed from gold to copper, where the long blade-like leaves rose
waving from the stalk. From the centre of the tip shot out a silver
wand supporting a plume of white feathers, shading into lilac. The
whole island, rising abruptly out of the rich blue waters of the sea,
looked like a colossal jewel that might once have graced the diadem of
the buried continent.
The idea pleased Anne Percy at all events, and she lingered a few
moments half dazed by the beauty about her and wholly happy. And
on the terraces and in the gardens were the flowers and shrubs of
the tropics, whose perfumes were as sweet as their colours were
unsurpassed; the flaming hydrangea, the rose-shaped Arabian jasmine,
the pink pluminia, the bright yellow acacia, the scarlet trumpet
flower, the purple and white convolvulus, the silvery white blossoms
of the lime tree, framed with dark green leaves.
Anne shook herself out of her dream, descended the terraces, and
walked down a narrow avenue of royal palms to the town. She could hear
the "Oyez! Oyez!" of the criers announcing the wares brought in from
the country, and, eager for the new picture, walked as rapidly as her
fine frock would permit. She was obliged to hold up her long and
voluminous skirts, and her sleeves were so tight that the effort
cramped her arms. To stride after her usual fashion was impossible,
and she ambled along anathematising fashion and resolved to buy some
cotton in the town and privately make several short skirts in which
she could enjoy the less frequented parts of Nevis while her aunt
slept. Without realising it, for nothing in her monotonous life had
touched her latent characteristics, she was essentially a creature of
action. Even her day-dreams had been energetic, and if they had filled
her life it was because they had the field to themselves. In earlier
centuries she would have defended one of the castles of her ancestors
with as much efficiency and spirit as any man among them, and had she
been born thirty years later she would certainly have entered one
of the careers open to women, and filled her life with active
accomplishment. But she knew little of female careers, save, to be
sure, of those dedicated to fashion, which did not interest her; and
less of self-analysis. But she felt and lived in the present moment
intensely. For twenty-two years she had dwelt in the damp and windy
North, and now the dream of those years was fulfilled and she was
amidst the warmth and glow of the tropics. It was the greatest
happiness that life had offered her and she abandoned herself to it
headlong.
As she entered the capital she suddenly became aware that she was
holding her skirts high over her hoop in a most unladylike manner. She
blushed, shook them down, and assumed a carriage and gait which would
have been approved by even the fastidious Mrs. Nunn. But she was no
less interested in the animated scene about her. The long street
winding from the Court House to the churchyard on the farther edge of
the town was a mass of moving colour and a babel of sound. The women,
ranging from ebony through all the various shades of copper and olive
to that repulsive white where the dark blood seems to flow just
beneath the skin, and bedecked in all the violence of blues and
greens, reds and yellows, some in country costume, their heads covered
with kerchiefs, others in a travesty on the prevailing fashion, stood
in their shops or behind the long double row of temporary stalls,
vociferating at the passers by as they called attention to fowl,
meats, hot soup, fruit, vegetables, wild birds, fish, cigars, sugar
cakes, castor oil, cloth, handkerchiefs, and wood. Many of the early
buyers were negroes of the better class, others servants of the white
planters and of Bath House, come early to secure the best bargains.
Anne was solicited incessantly, even her skirts being pulled, for
since emancipation, four years before, the negro had lost his awe of a
white skin. It was some time before she could separate the gibberish
into words, but finally she made out: "Bargain! Bargain! Here's yo'
fine cowfee! Here's yo' pickled peppers! Come see! Come see! Only come
see! Make you buy. Want any jelly cocoanut? Any yams? Nice grenadilla.
Make yo' mouth water. Lady! Lady! Buy here! Very cheap! Very nice!
Real!"
Anne paused before a stall spread with cotton cloth and bought enough
for several skirts, the result of her complaisance being a siege of
itinerant vendors that nearly deafened her. The big women were
literally covered with their young ("pic'nees"), who clung to their
skirts, waist, hips, bosoms; and these mites, with the parrot
proclivities of their years and race added their shrill: "By'm, lady,
by'm!"
The proprietor of the cloth volubly promised to deliver the purchase
at Bath House and Anne fled down the street until she was stopped
by a drove of sheep whose owner was crying: "Oyez! Oyez! Come to the
shambles of Mr. Columbus Brown. Nice fat lambs and big fat sheep. Very
cheap! Very cheap!"
Anne retreated into a shop of some depth to avoid the dust. When the
drove had passed she was rescued by Lord Hunsdon, who lifted his broad
panama without smiling. He was a very serious looking young man, with
round staring anxious blue eyes under pent white brows, an ascetic
mouth and a benevolent dome. He was immaculate in white linen, and
less pinched about the waist than his fashionable contemporaries.
"I believe it is not considered quite _de rigueur_ for young ladies
and young gentlemen to walk unchaperoned," he said diffidently; "but
in the circumstances I think I may come to your relief and escort you
back to the hotel."
"Not yet, please," Anne emerged and walked rapidly toward the edge of
the town. "I cannot go back and sit in the hotel till half past nine.
I am accustomed to a long walk before breakfast."
"But Mrs. Nunn----"
"She must get used to my tramps. I should fall ill if I gave them up.
Indeed, she is sadly aware that I am no fine lady, and no doubt will
shortly give _me_ up. But if you are afraid of her, pray go back. I
recall, she said I was not to be escorted----"
"If you are determined to go on I shall accompany you, particularly as
I wish to talk to you on a subject of great importance. Have I your
permission?"
Quite lacking in vanity or worldliness, it was impossible that he
should be unaware of his importance as a young, wealthy, and unmarried
peer, and he shrewdly suspected that Mrs. Nunn would make an exception
in his favour on market day in Charlestown.
Anne, wondering what he could have to say to her, led the way past the
church to the open road that encircled the island. Then she moderated
her pace and looked up at him from the deeps of her bonnet. Her gaze
was cooler and more impersonal than he was wont to encounter, but it
crossed his burdened mind that a blooming face even if unfashionably
sunburnt, and a supple vigorous body were somewhat attractive after a
surfeit of dolls with their languid fine-lady airs and affectation of
physical delicacy; which he, being no fool, suspected of covering fine
appetites and stubborn selfishness. But while he was young enough to
admire the fresh beauty of his companion, it was the strength and
decision, the subtle suggestion of high-mindedness, in this young
lady's aspect, which had led him to a resolution that he now proceeded
to arrange in words as politic as might be.
"It may seem presumptuous to speak after so short an acquaintance----"
"Not after your rescue last night. I had like to have died of
embarrassment. I am not accustomed to have half a room gazing at me."
"You will," he said gallantly. "But it is kind of you to make it
easier. This is it. I have been--am--very unhappy about a friend of
mine here. Of course you know the work of one, who, many believe, is
our greatest poet--Byam Warner?"
Anne drew her breath in and her eyelashes together. "I have read his
poems," she said shortly.
"I see! Like many others you cannot dissociate the genius from the
man. Because a fatal weakness----"
"What have I said, pray, that you should jump to such a conclusion?"
She had recovered her breath but not her poise. "No one could admire
him more than I. About his private life I know little and care less.
He lives on this island, does he not?"
"We shall pass his house presently, but God knows if he is in it."
"He is a West Indian, is he not?"
"A scion of two of its foremost families, whose distinction by no
means began with their emigration to the Antilles. One of his
ancestors, Sir Thomas Warner, colonised most of these islands for the
crown--in the seventeenth century. A descendant living on Trinidad,
has in his possession the ring which Queen Elizabeth gave to
Essex--you recall my friend's poem and the magnificent invective put
into the frantic Queen's mouth at the bedside of Lady Nottingham? The
ring was presented to Sir Thomas by Charles I., on the eve of his
first expedition to these islands. The Byams are almost equally
notable, descended as they are from the father of Anne Boleyn, Earl of
Wiltshire and Ormond." The spirit of British democracy still slept in
the womb of the century, with board schools, the telegraph, and the
penny press, and the aristocrat frankly admitted his pride of birth
and demanded a corresponding distinction in his friends. "I hope I
have not bored you," continued the young nobleman anxiously; "But I
have given you some idea of Warner's pedigree that you may see for
yourself that the theory of generations of gentle blood and breeding,
combined with exceptional advantages, sometimes culminating in genius,
finds its illustration in him. Also, alas! that such men are too often
the prey of a highly wrought nervous system that coarser natures
and duller brains are spared. When he was younger--I knew him at
Cambridge--nor, indeed a few years since, he had not drained that
system; his youthful vigour immediately rushing in to resupply
exhausted conduits. But even earlier he was always disposed to drink
more than was good for him, and when a wretched woman made ducks and
drakes of his life some four or five years since, he became--well--I
shall not go into details. This is his house. It has quite a history.
Alexander Hamilton, an American statesman, was born in it. Have you
ever heard of him?"
"No--yes, of course I have read Warner's beautiful poem to his
mother--and--I recall now--when one of the Hamiltons of Cambuskeith, a
relative of my mother, visited us some years ago, he talked of this
Alexander Hamilton, a cousin of his father, who had distinguished
himself in the United States of America."
Hunsdon nodded. "Great pity he did not carry his talents to England
where they belonged. But this is the house where his parents lived
when he was born. It used to be surrounded by a high wall, but I
believe an earthquake flung that down before my friend's father bought
the place. Warner was also born here."
The old house, a fine piece of masonry, was built about three sides of
a court, in the centre of which was an immense banana tree whose lower
branches, as close as a thatched roof, curved but a few feet above the
ground. The front wall contained a wide gateway, which was flanked by
two royal palms quite a hundred feet in height. The large unkempt
garden at the side looked like a jungle in the hills, but was rich in
colour and perfume. The gates were open and they could see the
slatternly negro servants moving languidly about the rooms on the
ground floor, while two slept under the banana tree. A gallery
traversed the second story, its pillars covered with dusty vines. All
of the rooms of this story evidently opened upon the gallery, but
every door was closed. The general air of neglect and decay was more
pathetic to Anne, accustomed to exemplary housekeeping, than anything
she had yet heard of the poet. He was uncomfortable and ill-cared for,
no doubt of that. The humming-birds were darting about like living
bits of enamel set with jewels. The stately palms glittered like
burnished metal. Before the house, on the deep blue waters of the bay,
was a flotilla of white-sailed fishing-boats, and opposite was the
green and gold mass of St. Kitts, an isolated mountain chain rising as
mysteriously from the deep as the solitary cone of Nevis. She could
conceive of no more inspiring spot for a poet, but she sighed again as
she thought of the slatterns that miscared for him.
Lord Hunsdon echoed her sigh as they walked on. "Even here he
disappears for days at a time," he resumed. "Of course he does not
drink steadily. No man could do that in the tropics and live. But
spirits make a madman of him, and even when sober he now shuns the
vicinity of respectable people, knowing that they regard him as a
pariah. Of course his associates--well, I cannot go into particulars.
For a time I did not believe these stories, for each year brought a
volume from his pen, which showed a steady increase of power, and a
divine sense of beauty. Besides I have been much absorbed these last
few years. There seemed no loosening the hold of the Whigs upon the
destinies of England and it was every patriot's duty to work with all
his strength. You followed, of course, the tremendous battle that
ended in last year's victory. I was almost worn out with the struggle,
and when I found that these stories about Warner were persistent I
came out to investigate for myself. Alas! I had not heard the half. I
spent three months with him in that house. I used every argument,
every more subtle method I could command, to bring him to see the
folly and the wickedness of his course. I might as well have addressed
the hurricane. He did not even hate life. He was merely sick of it. He
was happy only when at work upon a new poem--intoxicated, of course.
When it was over he went upon a horrible bout and then sank into an
apathy from which no art of mine could rouse him; although I am bound
to add, in justice to one of the gentlest and most courteous souls I
have ever known, his civility as a host never deserted him. I was,
alas! obliged to return to England with nothing accomplished, but I
have come this year with quite another plan. Will you listen to it,
Miss Percy?"
"I am vastly interested." But she had little hope, and could well
conceive that three months of this good young man might have confirmed
the poet in his desire for oblivion.
"I persuaded my mother to come with me, although without avowing my
object. I merely expatiated upon the beauty and salubrity of Nevis,
and the elegant comforts of Bath House. Women often demand much
subtlety in the handling. We arrived by the packet that preceded
yours--two weeks ago, but I only yesterday broached my plan to her;
she stood the trip so ill, and then seemed to find so much delight in
long gossips with her old friends--a luxury denied her at home, where
politics and society absorb her. But yesterday I had a talk with her,
and this is my plan--that she should persuade herself and a number of
the other ladies that it is their duty to restore to Warner his lost
self-respect. For that I believe to be the root of the trouble, not
any real inclination to dissipation and low society. This restoration
can be accomplished only by making him believe that people of the
highest respectability and fashion desire, nay demand, his company.
As my mother knew him well in England it will be quite natural she
should write him a note asking him to take a dish of tea with her
and complimenting his latest volume--I brought it with me. If he
hesitates, as he well may do, she can call upon him with me, and,
while ignoring the cause, vow he has been a recluse long enough, and
that the ladies of Bath House are determined to have much of him. Such
a course must succeed, for, naturally the most refined of men, he must
long bitterly, when himself, for the society of his own kind. Then,
when the ice is broken, we will ask others to meet him----"
"And has your mother consented?"
"Practically. I have no doubt that she will. She is a woman who needs
a cause for her energies, and she never had a better one, not even
the restoration of the Tories and Sir Robert."
"And you wish me to meet him?"
"Particularly, dear Miss Percy. I feel sure he would not care for
any of these other young ladies. I happen to know what he thinks of
young ladies. But you--you are so different! I do not wish to be a
flatterer, like so many of my shallow kind, but I am sure that he
would appreciate the privilege of knowing you, would feel at his ease
with you. But of course it all depends upon Mrs. Nunn. She may
disapprove of your meeting one with so bad a name."
"Oh, she will follow Lady Hunsdon's cue, I fancy," said Anne,
repressing a smile. "They all do, do they not, even here? I hope the
poet does not wear Hyperion locks and a velvet smoking jacket."
"He used to wear his hair, and dress, like any ordinary gentleman. But
when I was here last year his wardrobe was in a shocking condition."
The immaculate Englishman sighed deeply. "He is totally demoralised.
Fortunately we are about the same figure. If all his clothes are gone
to seed I can supply him till he can get a box out from England. For
the matter of that there is a tailor here who makes admirable linen
suits, and evening clothes not badly----"
"Is he very fascinating?" asked Anne ingenuously. She had long since
recovered her poise. "My aunt has set her mind upon a high and mighty
marriage for me, and might apprehend----"
"Fascinating! Apprehend! Great heavens! He was handsome once, a _beau
garçon_,--no doubt fascinating enough. But now! He is a ruin. No woman
would look at him save in pity. But you must not think of that. It is
his soul I would save--that I would have you help me to save"--with a
glance into the glowing eyes which he thought remarkably like the blue
of the Caribbean sea, and eloquent of fearless youth. "His soul, Miss
Percy. I cannot, will not, let that perish for want of enterprise."
"Nor his fountain of song dry up," replied Anne, whose practical side
was uppermost. "He should write, and better and better for twenty
years to come."
"I should not care if he never wrote another line. I see a friend with
the most beautiful nature I have ever known--he has the essence of
the old saints and martyrs in him--going to ruin, wrecking all hopes
of happiness, mortal and immortal. I must save him! I must save him!"
Anne glanced at the flushed face of her companion. His expression was
almost fanatical, but as he turned suddenly and she met the intense
little blue eyes, something flashed in them in no wise resembling
fanaticism. She stiffened and replied coldly:
"You can count on me, of course. How could I refuse? But I have
sensations that assure me it is close upon the breakfast hour. Shall
we return?"