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JULIA FRANCE AND
HER TIMES
_A NOVEL_
BY
GERTRUDE ATHERTON
New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1912
_All rights reserved_
COPYRIGHT, 1912,
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
* * * * *
Set up and electrotyped. Published April, 1912.
Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing Co.—Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
TO
MRS. FISKE
CONTENTS
PAGE
BOOK I
MRS. EDIS 1
BOOK II
THREE POTTERS 39
BOOK III
HAROLD FRANCE 191
BOOK IV
HADJI SADRÄ 273
BOOK V
DANIEL TAY 361
BOOK VI
FANNY 453
BOOK I
MRS. EDIS
I
THE entrance of a British cruiser into the harbor of St. Kitts was
always followed by a ball at Government House in the little capital of
Basse Terre. To-night there was a squadron of three at anchor; therefore
was the entertainment offered by the island’s President even more
tempting than common, and hospitality had been extended to the officials
and distinguished families of the neighboring islands, Nevis, Antigua,
and Monserrat. On Nevis there remained but one family of eminence, that
great rock having been shorn long since of all but its imperishable
beauty.
But Mrs. Edis of “Great House,” an old stone mansion unaffected by time,
earthquake, or hurricane, and surrounded by a remnant of one of the
oldest estates in the West Indies, was still a personage in spite of her
fallen fortunes, and to-night she contributed a young daughter. The
introduction of Julia Edis to society had been expected all winter as
she was several months past eighteen, and the President had offered her
a birthday fête; but Mrs. Edis, with whom no man was so hardy as to
argue, had replied that her daughter should enter “the world” at the
auspicious moment and not before. This was taken to mean one of two
things: either that in good time a squadron would arrive with potential
husbands, or (but this, of course, was mere frivolous gossip) when the
planets proclaimed the hour of destiny. For more than thirty years Mrs.
Edis had been suspected of dabbling in the black arts, incited
originally by an old creole from Martinique, grandson of the woman who
so accurately cast the horoscope of Josephine. For the last eighteen of
these years it had been whispered among the birds in the high palm trees
that a not unsimilar destiny awaited Julia Edis.
Therefore, when the word ran round the great ball-room of Government
House that the big officer with the heavy mustache and curiously hard,
shallow eyes, who had pursued the debutante from the moment she entered
with her fearsome mother, was Harold France, heir presumptive to a
dukedom, whose present incumbent was sickly and unmarried, the dowager
pack (dressed for the most part in the thick old silks and “real lace”
of the mid-Victorian period) crystallized the whisper for the first time
and condescended to an interest in astrology.
“But it _would_ be odd,” said the wife of the President, “although I,
for one, neither believe in that absurd old science, nor that there ever
was any basis for the story. No doubt it originated with the blacks, who
love any superstition.”
“Ah!” said the wife of the Magistrate, “but it is curious that the
blacks on Nevis, led by the Obi doctors, besieged Great House for a
night, some twenty years ago. In the morning they were driven off by
Mrs. Edis herself, a whip in one hand and a pistol in the other. She
handled the situation alone, for Mr. Edis was a—ill—as usual.”
“Drunk,” said the blunter lady of quality. “And so were the blacks. By
dawn they were sober, sick, and flaccid. A woman of ordinary resolution
could have dispersed them—and Mrs. Edis!” She shrugged her shoulders
significantly.
One of the younger women, the wife of an Antigua official, chimed in
eagerly. “But do you really believe she is a—a— Oh, it is too silly! I
am almost ashamed to say it!”
“Astrologer,” supplied the wife of the Magistrate, who had an
unprovincial mind, although she had spent the best of her years in the
islands. “Look at her.”
Mrs. Edis was sitting apart from the other women, talking to the
President, the Captain of the flagship, and several officers of riper
years than the steaming young men in their hot uniforms frisking about
the room with the cool white creole girls. Mrs. Edis had not liked women
in her triumphant youth, and now in her embittered age (she was past
sixty, for Julia was the last of many children), she classed them as
mere tools of Nature, purveyors of scandal, and fools by right of sex
and circumstance. Even in the early nineties, at all events in the
world’s backlands, it was still the fashion for women of strong brains
and character to despise their own sex, and Mrs. Edis had not sailed out
of the Caribbean Sea since her return to Nevis, from her first and only
visit to England, forty years ago. Living an almost isolated life on a
tropic island, she held women in much the same regard as the
unenlightened male does to-day, despite his growing uneasiness and
horrid moments of vision. Upon the rare occasions when she deigned to
enter the little world of the Leeward Islands, she greeted the women
with a fine old-time courtesy, and demanded forthwith the attention of
high officials too dignified or too portly to dance. The men, since she
was neither beautiful nor young, were amused by her caustic tongue, and
correspondingly flattered when she chose to be amiable.
It was difficult to believe that she had once been handsome—beautiful
no one had ever called her. She was a very tall woman, already a little
bowed, raw-boned, large of feature, save for the eyes, which were small,
black, and piercing. Her black hair was still abundant, strong of
texture, and changing only at the temples; her skin was sallow and much
wrinkled, her expression harsh, haughty, tyrannical. There was no sign
of weakness about her anywhere, although, now and again, as her eyes
followed the bright figure of her daughter, they softened before
flashing with pride and triumph.
She found herself alone with the Captain and turned to him abruptly.
“This is the eighth time Lieutenant France has taken my girl out,” she
announced. “And it is true that he will be a duke?” Mrs. Edis disdained
finesse, although she was capable of hoodwinking a parliament.
The Captain started under this direct attack. His large face darkened
until it looked like well-laid slabs of brick pricked out with white. He
cleared his throat, glanced uneasily at the formidable old lady, then
answered resolutely:—
“Better take your girl home, ma’am, and keep her close while we’re in
harbor.”
The look she turned on him under heavy glistening brows, that reminded
the imaginative Scot of lizards, and were fit companions for her thick
dilating nostrils, made him quail for a moment: like many sea martinets
he was shy with women of all sorts. Then he reflected (never having
heard of the black arts) that looks could not kill, and returned to the
attack.
“I mean, madam, that France is not a decent sort and would have been
chucked long since but for family influence.”
“What do you mean by not a decent sort, sir?”
“He’s dissipated, vicious—”
“All young men sow their wild oats.” Mrs. Edis had forgotten none of the
early and mid-Victorian formulæ, and would have felt disdain for any
young aristocrat who did not illustrate the most popular of them.
“That’s all very well, but France’s crop is sown in a soil fertile to
rottenness, and it will take him a lifetime to exhaust it. I’d rather
see a daughter of mine in her coffin than married to him, duke or no
duke.”
Mrs. Edis favored him with another look, under which his hue deepened to
purple: poor worm, he was but the son of an industrious merchant, and he
knew that the sharp eyes of this old woman, despite the eagle in his
glance and a spine like a ramrod, read his family history in his honest
face.
“It’s God’s truth, ma’am. It’s not that I mind a young fellow’s being a
bit wild; there’s plenty that are and make good husbands when their time
comes. But with France it’s different.” He hesitated, then floundered
for a moment as if unaccustomed to analysis of his fellows. “It’s not
that he’s a cad—not in the ordinary sense—I mean as far as manners
go—. I’ve never seen a man with better when it suits him—or more
insolent when _that_ suits him; and they’re more natural to him, I
fancy, for he’s fair eaten up with pride—out of date in that respect,
rather. It’s the fashion, nowadays, for the big-wigs to be affable and
easy and democratic, whether they feel that way or not—however, I don’t
mind a man’s feeling his birth and blood, for like as not he can’t help
it, although it doesn’t make you love him. No. It’s more like this: I
believe France to be entirely without heart. That’s something I never
believed in until I met him—that a human being lived without a soft
spot somewhere. But I’ve seen an expression in his eyes, especially
after he’s been drinking, that appalls me, although I can only express
it by a word commonplace enough—heartless. It’s that—a heartless
glitter in his eyes, usually about as expressionless as glass marbles;
and although I’m no coward, I’ve felt afraid of him. I don’t mean
physically—but absolute lack of heart, of all human sympathy, must give
a person an awful power—but it’s too uncanny for me to describe. I’m
not much at words, ma’am, and, for the matter of that, I shouldn’t have
got on the subject at all, it not being my habit to discuss my officers
with any one, if this wasn’t the first time I’ve ever seen him devote
himself to a respectable girl. But he’s smitten with that pretty child
of yours, no doubt of it; and there are three handsome young married
women in the room, too. I don’t like the look of it.”
“I do.” Mrs. Edis had not removed her eyes from the old sailor’s face as
he endeavored to elucidate himself.
“There’s many a slip, you know. The duke’s not so old, only fifty odd,
and marvellous cures are worked these days. Some mother is always
tracking him with a good-looking girl. As for France, his debts are
about all he has to live on—”
“The President just told me that he has an income independent of his
allowance from the head of his house, and I have knowledge that his
expectations are founded upon certainty.”
The Captain, not long enough in port to have heard aught of Mrs. Edis’s
dark reputation, glanced at her with a puzzled expression, then gave it
up and answered lightly, “His income is good enough, yes, but nothing to
his debts, which he never pays.”
“If he doesn’t pay his debts, what do they matter?” asked the old
aristocrat, whose husband had never paid his, and whose son, having sold
the last of his acres, was drinking himself into Fig Tree churchyard.
The Captain laughed. “I know your creed, madam. And I must admit that
France is a true blood. He never arrives in port without being showered
with writs, and he brushes them off as he would these damned
mosquitoes—beg pardon, ma’am. But all the same, it wouldn’t be pleasant
for your little girl. Fancy being served with a writ every morning at
breakfast.”
The contempt in those sharp, unflinching eyes almost froze the words in
their exit. “My daughter would never know what they were. Of money
matters she knows as little as of Life itself. Writs would not disturb
her youthful joyousness and serenity for an instant.”
“Damn these aristocrats!” thought the old sailor. “And what a hole this
must be!” He continued aloud, “But after the luxury of her old home—”
“Luxury? We are as poor as mice. If my father had not put a portion of
his estate in trust for me, as soon as he discovered that my husband was
a spendthrift, we should have been on the parish long ago.”
The Captain opened his blue eyes, eyes that looked oddly soft and young
(when not on duty) in his battered visage. “And you mean to say, that
having married a spendthrift—Was he also dissipated?”
“Drank himself to death.”
“And you are prepared to hand over your innocent little daughter to the
same fate? But it is incredible, ma’am! Incredible! I was thinking that
you merely knew nothing of the world down here.”
“It’s little you could teach me!” She continued after a moment, with
more condescension: “There are no family secrets in these islands, and
as many skeletons outside the graveyards as in. My husband squandered
every acre he inherited, every penny of mine he could lay hands on. He
reduced me, the proudest woman in the Caribbees, to a mere nobody.
Therefore, am I determined that my child shall realize the great
ambitions that turned to dust in my fingers. I have knowledge, which
does not concern you, that this marriage—look for yourself, and see
that it is inevitable—will be but an incident while greater things are
preparing.”
“Oh, if you have a medical certificate! But even as a duchess—” He
paused and turning his head stared at the couple waltzing past. “There
is no doubt as to the state of his mind. He looks the usual silly ass
that a man always does when bowled over. But your daughter? I see
nothing but innocent triumph in her delightful little face. There’s no
love there—neither ambition.”
“There’ll be what I wish before the week is out.”
“She’s too good for France, and she’s not ambitious,” said the Captain,
doggedly. “Do you love her, madam?”
“I have never loved any one else.” The old woman’s harsh voice did not
soften. “Save, of course,” with a negligent wave of her hand, “her
father, when I was young and foolish. So much the better if she does not
love her husband. Women born to high destinies have no need of love.
What little I remember of that silly and degrading passion makes me wish
that no daughter of mine should ever experience it. Leave it to the men,
and the sooner they get over it, the better.”
“Ah—yes—but, if you will pardon me, while your daughter is one of the
most charming young things I have ever seen, she is not a beauty, nor
has she the grand manner. You, madam, might have made the ideal duchess,
if there is such a thing, but not that child.”
This compliment, either clumsy or malicious, won him no favor; the old
lady’s eyes flashed fire at his impertinence.
He went on undauntedly, “And why, pray, may I ask, do you think it so
great a destiny to be a duchess?”
“What greater than to wed royalty itself? And that is hardly possible in
these days.”
“Hardly. But, Lord God, madam, where have you lived? Women to-day are
working out destinies for themselves. Now, personally, I should rather
see my daughter a famous author, painter, singer, even, although I still
have a bit of prejudice against the stage, than suddenly elevated to a
class to which she was not born, particularly if led there by the hand
of a man like France.”
“My daughter is a lady.”
“Oh, Lord, where am I? In the eighteenth century?” His pique and anger
had vanished. He now saw nothing in the situation but present humor and
future tragedy; and feeling that his ammunition was exhausted for the
moment, he rose, bowed as ceremoniously as his spine would permit, and
moved away. Nevertheless, he was interested, the native doggedness which
had enabled him to overcome social disabilities was actively roused;
moreover, if there was one man whom he disliked more profoundly than
another, it was Harold France, and he resented the influence which kept
a scoundrel in an honorable profession, when he should have been kicked
out with a publicity that would have been a healthy lesson to his class.
He left the hot ball-room and went out upon the terrace to enjoy a cigar
and meditate upon the singular character with whom he had exchanged hot
shot for nearly an hour. He had no clew to her disquieting personality,
but saw that she was a woman of some importance despite her avowed
poverty; and she was the elderly mother of a charming young creature
with a mane of untidy red-yellow hair (it would never occur to the old
sailor to use any of the popular adjectives: flame-colored, copper,
Titian, bronze), immense gray eyes with thick black lashes on either
lid, narrow black brows, a refined but not distinguished nose, a sweet
childish mouth whose ultimate shape Nature had left to Life, a flat
figure rather under medium height, covered with a white muslin frock,
whose only caparison was a faded blue sash, unmistakably Victorian. Her
skin, like that of the other creole girls reared in West Indian heats,
was a pure transparent white, which not even dancing tinged with color.
As the Captain had been brutal enough to inform her mamma she was not a
beauty, but—he stared through the window at her—Youth, radiant, eager,
innocent Youth that was her philter. To be sure, the ball-room of
Government House was full of young girls, some of them quite beautiful,
but they were not the vibrating symbols of their condition, and Julia
Edis was. Not one of them possessed her entire lack of coquetry, that
terrible innocence, which, combined with an equally unconscious
magnetism, had played an immediate and fatal tune upon sated senses.
As the good but by no means unsophisticated sailor looked about him he
felt more apprehensive still. Harold France, no doubt, was expert in
love-making, and what island maiden of eighteen could resist an ardent
wooer with a handsome face above six feet of Her Majesty’s uniform, on a
night like this? He was disposed to curse the moon for being on duty, as
she generally contrived to be in so many of the dubious crises of love;
and to-night she had turned herself inside out to flood the tropical
landscape, the sea, the mountains, with silver. The stars were
pin-heads, the moon, in the black velvet sky of the tropics, looked like
a sailing Alp, its ice and snows absorbing and flinging forth all the
light in the heavens. The lofty clusters of long pointed leaves that
tipped the shafts of the royal palm trees, glittered like swords, the
sea near the shore was as light and vivid a green as by day, and the
scent of flowers as seductive as the call of the nightingale. The music
in the ball-room was sensuous, sonorous; and it was notorious that
creole girls, cool and white as they looked, and dressed almost as
simply as Julia Edis, were accomplished coquettes, always prepared for
exciting campaigns, however brief, the moment a ship of war entered the
harbor. Flirtation, love, must agitate the very air to-night. Such
things are communicable, even to the most ignorant and indifferent of
maidens. How could that child hope to escape?
He walked over to the window and looked in. The company was resting
between dances, the girls and young officers flirting as openly as they
dared, although few had ventured to defy the conventions and stroll out
into the warm, scented, tropic night. Still, two or three had, proposals
being almost inevitable in such conditions; and squadrons come not every
day.
France had left Julia beside her mother and gone into the dining room to
refresh himself. He returned in a moment, and not only tucked the young
girl’s arm within his, but stood for a while talking to Mrs. Edis with
his most ingratiating air.
“He means business,” thought the Captain, grimly; and then he derived
some comfort from the attitude of the girl herself. She was not paying
the least attention to France, although she had permitted him to take
possession of her. Her big, shining, happy eyes were wandering about the
room, smiling roguishly as they met those of some girl acquaintance, or
observed a flirtation behind complacent backs. When the waltz began once
more, she floated off in the arm of the man whose hard, opaque eyes were
devouring her perfect freshness, but she paid little or no attention to
his whispered compliments, being far too absorbed in the delight of
dancing.
“He’s made no more impression on her than if he were a dancing master,”
thought the Captain, with satisfaction. “She’s immune to tropic nights
and uniforms. Gad! Wish I were a youngster. I’d enter the lists myself.”
But what could he do? He saw the satisfaction on the powerful face of
Mrs. Edis, the envious glances of many mothers; no such parti as Harold
France had come to these islands for many a year. And France was by no
means ill to look at, if one did not analyze his eyes and mouth. He was
a big, strong, positive male, with a bold, sheep-like profile (sometimes
called classic), which would have made him look stupid but for a general
expression of pride, so ingrained and sincere that it was almost lofty.
There was not an atom of charm about him, not even common animal
magnetism, but his manners were distinguished, his small brain
remarkably quick, and he looked as if it had taken three valets to groom
him.
The Captain almost cursed aloud. How was he to make that old woman,
living on all the formulæ of dead generations, and fancying that she
knew the world, understand the difference between a wild young man and a
vicious one? The girl might easily be persuaded to hate a man so
aggressively masculine as France, but had she, a baby of eighteen, the
strength of character to stand out against the ruthless will of her
mother? Moreover, it was apparent that the vocabulary of the West Indies
had yet to be enriched with those pregnant collocations, “new girl,”
“new woman”; all these pretty old-fashioned young creatures had been
brought up, no doubt, in a healthy submission to their parents, and if
one of the parents happened to be a she-dragon, possibly her daughter
would marry a ducal valetudinarian of ninety if she got her marching
orders.
Should he appeal to France? The Captain, possessed though he was of the
national heart of oak, felt no stomach for that interview. Imagination
presented him with a vision, cruelly distinct, of the expression of
high-bred insolence with which his effort would be received, the subtle
manner in which he would be made to feel, that, superior officer though
he might be, and in a fair way to become admiral and knight, he dwelt on
the far side of that chasm which segregates the aristocrat from the
plebeian. France had treated him to these sensations once or twice when
he had remonstrated with him for giving way to his villainous temper, or
mixed himself up in some nasty mess on shore; had even dared to threaten
the prospective duke, who never noticed him when they met in Piccadilly.
France had, indeed, induced such deep and righteous wrath in the worthy
Captain’s breast that he might have been responsible for another convert
to Socialism had it not been for the old sailor’s immutable loyalty to
his queen and flag. But he hated France the more because the man was too
clever for him. If he had disgraced his uniform, it always chanced that
the Captain was engaged elsewhere; it was the Captain, not himself, who
lost his temper during their personal encounters; his politeness,
indeed, to his superior officer was unbearable. And his family influence
surrounded him like wired glass; it would have saved a more reckless man
from public disgrace. His mother’s brother abominated him, but used his
close connection with the Admiralty to avert a family scandal; his
cousin, Kingsborough, who was far too saturated with family pride, and
too unsophisticated, to believe such stories as he may have heard about
the heir to whom he was automatically attached, believed France’s tales
of envious detractors, and protected him vigilantly. Sickly as he was,
he was by no means negligible politically; he did his duty as he saw it,
and, a sound Tory, was a reliable pillar of his party, whether it was in
opposition or in power. Lastly, France was a good officer, and,
apparently, without fear.
To-night, the Captain, thinking of his one unmarried daughter, and
singularly attracted by the radiant girl about to be sacrificed by a
narrow, inexperienced, long since sexless mother, hated France
ferociously and made up his never wavering mind to balk him. . . .
“And speaking of the devil’s own—”
France had stepped out upon the terrace not far from him, and alone. For
a moment the man stood in shadow, then a quick, abrupt movement brought
his face into a shaft of light. France, unaware of the only other
occupant of the terrace, stared straight before him. The Captain looked
to see his face flushed and contorted with animal desire, knowing the
man as he did. But France’s face was as immobile as a mask; only, as he
continued to stare, there came into his eyes what the Captain had
formulated as “a heartless glitter.” It made him look neither man nor
beast, but a shell without a soul, without the common instincts of
humanity, a Thing apart. As the Captain, himself in shadow, gazed,
fascinated, and sensible of the horror which this singular expression of
France’s always induced, something stirred in his brain. Where had he
seen that expression before—sometime in his remote youth?—where?
where?—Suddenly he had a vision of a whole troop of faces—they marched
out from some lost recess in his mind—all with that same
heartless—soulless—glitter in their eyes. And then the cigar fell from
his loosened lips. He had seen those faces—some thirty years ago—in an
asylum for the insane one night when the more docile of the patients
were permitted to have a dance.
“Good God!” he muttered. “Good God!”
France turned at the sound of the voice.
“That you, Captain?” he said negligently, his eyes merely hard and
shallow again. “Jolly party, ain’t it? Of course the tropics are an old
story to you, but this is my first experience of the West Indies, at
least. I’m quite mad about them. And all these toppin’ girls! Never saw
such skins. Come in and have a drink?”
He had spoken in his best manner, without a trace of insolence. Having
delivered himself of inoffensive sentiments, quite proper to the
evening, he suddenly passed his arm through that of his superior officer
and led him down the terrace. The Captain, overcome by his emotions and
the unwonted condescension of a prospective duke, made no resistance,
drank a stiff Scotch-and-soda, then cursing himself for a snob of the
best British dye, returned to the element where he felt most at home.
II
MRS. EDIS and Julia slept at Government House, but rose early and
returned to Nevis by the sail-boat that carried merchandise between the
islands, and, now and then, an uncomfortable passenger. Its sails, twice
too big and heavy, ever menaced an upset, and fulfilled expectations at
least once a year. Mrs. Edis, steadying herself with her stick, took no
notice of the plunging craft, or the glory of the morning. The sapphire
blue of the Caribbean Sea looked the half of a pulsing world; the other
half, the deep, hot, cloudless sky. Nevis, fringed with palms and
cocoanuts, banana and lemon trees, glittering and rigid, drooping and
dim, rose, where it faced St. Kitts, with a bare road at its base, but
spread out a train on its farther side to accommodate the little capital
of Charles Town and the ruin of Bath House. In this month of March the
long slopes of the old volcano were green even on the deserted estates.
Here and there was an isolated field of cane. The wreckage of stone
walls, all that was left of the “Great Houses,” broke its expanse; or
the spire of a church, surrounded by trees and crumbling tombs. High
above, a regiment of black trees stood on guard about the crater; their
rigor softened by the white cloud so constant to Nevis that it might be
the ghost of her dead fires. In the distance were other misty islands;
about the boat flew silver fish, almost blue as they rose from the
water; in the roadstead were the three cruisers; and countless rowboats
filled with chattering negroes, dressed in their gaudiest colors, bent
upon selling fish and sweets to the paymaster and youngsters of the
squadron, or ready to dive for pennies.
Mrs. Edis sat staring straight before her with a rapt expression that
Julia knew of old and admired with all the fervor of a young soul eager
for enthusiasms. She would in any case have believed the tyrannical old
woman, kind to her alone, quite the most remarkable person in the world,
but her mother’s lore, her long fits of abstraction, when mysticism
descended upon her like a veil, not only inspired her young daughter
with a fascinating awe, but gave her a pleasant sense of superiority
over those girls upon whom the planets had bestowed mere mothers.
Julia roamed steadily about the tipsy boat, her mane of hair, torn loose
by the trade-wind, swirling about her like flames, sometimes standing
upright. Her mouth smiled constantly; her large gray eyes, one day to be
both keen and deep, were merely shining with youth on this vivid tropic
morning. The man gazing at her through his field-glass from the deck of
the flag-ship trembled visibly, and felt so primal that he believed
himself embarked upon one of those purely romantic love affairs he had
read about somewhere in books.
“That’s the girl for me,” sang through his momentarily rejuvenated
brain. “Rippin’! Toppin’! Words too weak for a bit of all right like
that. To hell with all the others! Chucked them overboard last night.
Hags, the whole lot. Hate subtlety, finesse, women of the world—all the
rest of ’em. Wild rose on a tropic island, so fresh—so sweet—Gad!
Gad!”
He almost maundered aloud. The Captain, watching him, thought he had
never seen a man look more of an ass, and wondered at his dark suspicion
of the night before. What if he really were but the common wild young
blood, run after by women for his looks and prospects? Why should he not
meet the one girl like other men and settle down with her? But although
sentimental, like most sailors, he shook his head vigorously. He knew
men, and France was not as other men, whatever the cause. He was merely
lovesick at present, not reformed. Of course it was possible that his
diseased fancy would be diverted by one of those honey-colored wenches
down among the cocoanut trees on the edge of St. Kitts, or that a second
interview with a girl of such disconcerting innocence might put him off
altogether. But if it should be otherwise—the Captain had made up his
mind to act.
The boat reached the jetty of Charles Town. Mrs. Edis was assisted up
and into her carriage, and her agile daughter pinned her hair in place
and jumped on her pony. The rickety old vehicle had been bought sometime
in the forties, the horses and the pony were of a true West Indian
leanness, Julia’s hair tumbled again almost at once, and Mrs. Edis wore
a broché shawl and a bonnet almost as old as the carriage. But the odd
little cavalcade attracted only respectful attention in the drowsy town
almost lost in a grove of tropical fruit trees. At one end of Main
Street was the court-house, there were two or three small stores,
perhaps six or eight stone dwelling-houses still in repair, and as many
wooden ones, but between almost every two there was a ruin, trees and
flowering shrubs growing in crevice and courtyard. The great ruin of
Bath House, far to the right, windowless, rent by earthquake and
hurricane, choked with creepers and even with trees, looked like the
remains of a Babylonian palace with hanging gardens.
The narrow road, after leaving Main Street, wound round the base of the
mountain; opposite St. Kitts a branch road led up to what was left of
the old Byam estate, inherited by Mrs. Edis from her father, and granted
to an ancestor in the days of Charles I. Great House stood on a lofty
plateau, not far below the forest, a big, square, solid stone house,
built extravagantly when laborers were slaves, and with a small village
of outbuildings. The large garden was surrounded by a high stone wall,
and beyond the servants’ quarters, granaries, and stables, were
vegetable gardens, orchards, and cocoanut groves. Sugar-cane still grew
on the thirty acres which remained of the old estate, but in this era of
the islands’ great depression, yielded little revenue. Mrs. Edis
possessed a few consols and raised all that was needed for her frugal
table and for that of her improvident son.
The outbuildings surrounded a hollow square, in which there was a large
date-palm, a banana tree, a pump, and a spring in which the washing was
done. Scarlet flowers hung from pillars and eaves. Under the trees and
the balconies of the houses the blacks were sleeping peacefully when
roused by a kick from the overseer, himself but just awakened by his
wife. “_Ole Mis’ come!_” The words might have exploded from a bomb.
Julia, who by dint of argument with her languid pony, and some
chastisement, was ahead of the carriage, laughed aloud as she saw the
negroes scramble to their feet and rush out into the cane fields, or
busy themselves with the first service their heavy eyes could focus. In
a moment the courtyard was a scene of something like activity; even the
chickens were awake and scratching round the crowing cocks, the dogs
were barking, the pic’nies jabbering, and along the spring was a broken
row of blue, red, yellow, purple, the black or honey-colored faces of
the women hardly to be seen as they vigorously rubbed the stones with
the household linen.
Julia turned her pony loose, ran through the thick grove in the front
garden, the living room of the house, and up between the vivid terraces
with their dilapidated statues and urns to the wood, where she frisked
about like a happy young animal. In truth she felt herself quite the
happiest and most fortunate girl in the Caribbees. For two long years
she had looked forward to her first ball at Government House, and
although many West Indian girls came out at sixteen, her mother had been
as insensible as old Nevis to her importunities. How many nights she had
hung out of her window watching the long row of lights marking
Government House, picturing the girls of St. Kitts, those enchanting
creatures with whom she had never held an hour of solitary intercourse,
dancing with even more mysterious beings in the uniform of Her Blessed
Majesty. She had read little: a volume or two of history or travel,
several of the romances and poems of Walter Scott, which she had
discovered in the aged bookcase. Her mother took in no newspaper but the
leaflet published on St. Kitts, and she had led almost the life of a
novitiate; but the serving women had whispered to her of the fate of all
maidens, and she had an unhappy sister-in-law with a beautiful baby,
who, although she cried a good deal, was still another window through
which the puzzled maiden peeped out into Life. But she was quite as
ignorant as the murky depths of France demanded.
She dreamed of the Prince (in Her Blessed Majesty’s uniform), who would
one day bear her to his feudal castle in England and make her completely
happy, but of the facts of love and life she knew no more than
two-year-old Fanny Edis, who cuddled so warmly in her young aunt’s
breast. Such instincts as she possessed in common with all girls were
confused and suffocated by the yearnings of a romantic mind with an
inherent tendency to idealism. Beyond the narrow circle of her existence
was an endless maze, deep in twilight, although casting up now and again
strange mirages, faint but lovely of color, and of many and shifting
shapes. She wanted all the world, but she was really quite content as
she was, her mind being still closed, her true imagination unawakened.
Such was the famous Julia France in the month of March, 1894.
To-day she was happy without mitigation. The ball at Government House
had no sting in its wake. She had been one of the belles. Not a dance
had she missed, and she knew that, thanks to one of her governesses, she
danced very well. To be sure the young officers in Her Blessed Majesty’s
uniform had perspired a good deal, and a big and rather horrid man had
tried to monopolize her, but at least he had been the best dancer of the
squadron, and his rivals had looked ready to call him out. Also, the
other girls had been jealous. Julia was human.
“After all, one goes to a party to dance,” she thought philosophically.
“The men don’t matter.”
Dismissing France she reviewed the other young men in turn, but shook
her head over each. Not one had made the slightest impression on her.
The Prince was yet to arrive. And then she laughed a little at her
mother’s expense.
So far, she owed the only excitements of her life to her mother’s
practices in astrology. She knew that old M’sieu, who had lived at Great
House until his death shortly after her eighth birthday, had instructed
her mother deeply in the ancient science. Many a time she had stolen out
into the garden at night and watched the two motionless figures on the
flat roof of the house. They were sequestered for days at a time in Mrs.
Edis’s study, a room Julia was forbidden to enter. Julia, however, had
hung over that tempting sill upon more than one occasion, and long since
discovered that every book on the walls related to astrology and other
branches of Eastern science; had gathered, also, from remarks at the
dinner table while M’sieu was alive, that it was one of the most
valuable libraries of its kind in the world.
She also knew that M’sieu had cast her horoscope the very moment that
old Mammy Cales had brought her up to Great House in her wonderful
basket, as he had cast the horoscopes of all her brothers, whose only
survivor was the wretched Fawcett. Her ears had been very sharp long
before she reached the age of eight, and she knew that the planets had
conspired to make a great lady of her in a great country (the queen’s of
course); she also knew that her mother had cast her little daughter’s
horoscope herself a month later, and the result had been the same. The
dates had then been sent to the leading astrologer in Italy, and again
with the same result. Therefore had Julia, happy and buoyant by nature,
grown up in the comfortable assurance that the wildest of her dreams
must be realized.
She had shrewdly divined that last night at Government House had
coincided with the first of the fateful dates announced by the planets
of her birth, and that her mother, having no intention of deflecting the
magnet of fate, had postponed her introduction to the world of young men
until the third of March; which, extraordinarily, had brought no less
than three cruisers to the little world of St. Kitts. And the poor old
planets, for whom she felt an almost personal affection, had been all
wrong, even when so ably assisted by her august parent! She felt a
momentary pang at the unsettling of her faith, the loss of her idols,
then curled herself up and went to sleep on the soft cheek of the old
volcano.
III
SHE was awakened by the dinner gong, booming loudly on the terrace; her
predilection for the woods about the crater was an old story. She sat up
with a yawn and a naughty face. Such good things she had eaten at
Government House last night, and even her strong little teeth were weary
of fibrous cattle killed only when too old and feeble to do the work of
the infrequent horse. She detested even the Sunday chicken, invitingly
brown without but as tough as the cows within, so recent her exit from
the court of much repose. That chicken! No West Indian ever forgets her.
She looks alive and full of pride, as, with her gizzard tucked under her
left wing, she is carried high but mincingly down the dining room to the
head of the table by a yellow wench or superannuated butler. When a
venerable cock is sacrificed, he is boiled as a tribute to the
doughtiness of his sex, but the more abundant ladies of the harem are
given a brown and burnished shroud, deceitful to the last.
Butter, Julia had rarely tasted; milk was almost as scarce; but she
would have been quite willing to live on the delicious fruits and
vegetables of the Indies, bread and coffee. Her mother, however, forced
her to eat meat once a day, hoping to check the anæmia inevitable in the
tropics.
Mrs. Edis, kind as she ever was to the one creature that had found the
soft spot in her heart, did not like to be kept waiting, and Julia,
pinning up her untidy hair as she ran, was in the dining-room before the
gong had ceased to echo. Like the other rooms of Great House, and the
older mansions of the West Indies in general, this was very large and
very bare, although the sideboard, table, and chairs were of mahogany.
Only two of the ancestral portraits hung on the whitewashed walls, John
and Mary Fawcett; the grandparents, also, of one Alexander Hamilton, who
had unaccountably become something or other in the United States of
America, instead of serving his mother country. Mrs. Edis disapproved of
his conduct, and rarely alluded to him, but Julia sometimes haunted the
ruin of the house down near the shore, where he was supposed to have
come to light, and would have liked to know more of him. There was an
old print of him in the garret (her grandfather, it seemed, had admired
him), and she liked his sparkling eyes and human mouth. A photograph of
her brother Fawcett, taken some years ago in London, was not unlike,
although the charming mouth had always been weaker; but now—and this
was Julia’s only trouble—he was quite dreadful to look at, and came
seldom to Great House. When he did, there were terrible scenes; Julia,
much as she loved him, ran to the forest the moment she heard his voice.
Mrs. Edis was already at the head of the table, and for the moment took
no notice of her daughter; her expression was still introspective, her
face almost visibly veiled. Julia made a grimace at the dish of meat
handed her by the servant.
“This is poor old Abraham, I suppose,” she remarked, with more flippancy
than her austere mother and her elderly governesses had encouraged. “I
shall feel like a cannibal. I’ve ridden on his back and talked to him
when I’ve had nobody else. Well, he’ll have his revenge!”
Mrs. Edis suddenly emerged from the veil. She looked hard, practical,
incisive.
“Soon you will no longer be obliged to eat these old servants of the
field,” she announced. “Your island days are over.”
Julia dropped both knife and fork with a clatter. “Are we going to
England to live? Oh, mother! Shall I see England? The queen? All the
dear little princes and princesses? Are they the least bit like Fanny?”
“Not at all, nor like any other children,” replied the old royalist, who
had dined at the queen’s table in her youth. “No, I probably shall never
see England again. Nor do I desire to do so. The queen is old and so am
I. Moreover, judging from your Aunt Maria’s letters, and her edifying
discourse upon the rare occasions when she honors us with a visit,
London must be sadly changed. The majestic simplicity of my day has
vanished, and an extravagance in dress and living, an insane rush for
excitement and pleasure, have taken its place. There are railways built
beneath the earth, gorging and disgorging men like ant-hills. Women
think of nothing but Paris clothes, no longer of their duty as wives and
mothers. But although this would disturb and bewilder me, with you it
will be different. Youth can adapt itself—”
“But when am I going, and with whom?” shrieked Julia. “Has Aunt Maria
sent for me?”
“Not she. She has never spent a penny on any one but herself. She lives
to be smart, and is the silliest woman I have ever known. And that is
saying a good deal, for they are all silly—”
“But me—I—when—do explain, _dear_ mother!”
Mrs. Edis paused a moment and then fixed her powerful little eyes on the
eager innocent ones opposite. “Could you not see last night that
Lieutenant France had fallen in love with you?” she asked.
“That horrid old thing! Why, he is nothing but a dancer. You don’t mean
to say that I must marry him?” and Julia, for the first time since her
childhood, and without in the least knowing why, burst into a storm of
tears.
“I won’t marry him,” she sobbed. “I won’t.”
Mrs. Edis waited until she was calm, then, having disposed of a square
of tissue as old, relatively, as her own, continued, “It is I that
should weep, for I am to lose you and it will be very lonely here. But
that is neither here nor there. When the time comes we all fulfil our
destiny. Your time has come to marry, and take your first step upon the
brilliant career which awaits you.”
“Please wait till the next squadron,” sobbed Julia. “The planets may
have made a mistake—”
This remark was unworthy of notice.
“I hate the planets.”
Mrs. Edis applied a sharp knife and an upright indomitable fork to
another fragment of Abraham.
Julia, feeling no match for the combined forces of the heavens and her
mother, dried her eyes.
“Has he a castle?”
“He will have.”
“And many books?”
“England is full of libraries, the greatest in the world.”
“Will Aunt Maria take me to parties?”
“Undoubtedly.”
“Will he find the Prince for me?”
“The what?”
“Well, I don’t mean a real prince, but a young man that I could love.”
“Certainly not! You will love your husband.”
“But he is old enough to be my father.”
“He is only forty.”
“I am only eighteen. When I am forty I could have a grandchild.”
“Nonsense. Husbands should always be older than their wives. They are
then ready to settle down, and are capable of advising giddy young
things like yourself. You may not feel any silly romantic love for
him—I sincerely hope that you will not—but you will be a faithful and
devoted wife, and as obedient to him as you have been to me.”
“I don’t mind obeying him if he is as dear as you are. Maybe he is, for
you looked so much sterner than all the other mothers last night, and I
am sure that not one of them is so kind. Has he some babies?”
“What?” Mrs. Edis almost dropped her fork.
“I’d like a few. Fanny is such a darling. I liked him less than any of
the men I danced with, but if he has a castle, and would bring me to see
you every year, and would let me run about as you do, and read a lot of
books, and give me a lot of babies, I shouldn’t mind him so much.”
Mrs. Edis turned cold. For the first time she recognized the abysmal
depths of her daughter’s ignorance. It was a subject to which she had
never, indeed, given a thought. A governess had always been at the
child’s heels. Julia had been brought up as she had been brought up
herself, and she belonged to the school of dames to whom the
enlightenment of youth was a monstrous indelicacy. Moreover, she was old
enough to look back upon the material side of marriage as an automatic
submission to the race. Women had a certain destiny to fulfil, and the
whole matter should be dismissed at that. Nevertheless, as she looked at
that personification of delicate and trusting innocence, she felt a
sudden and violent hatred of men, a keen longing that this perfect
flower could go to her high destiny undefiled, and regret that she must
not only travel the appointed road, but set out unprepared. She dimly
recalled her own wedding and that she had hated her husband until kindly
Time had made him one of the facts of existence. To warn the child was
beyond her, but she made up her mind to postpone the ultimate moment as
long as possible.
“You will have everything you want,” she said. “And as he cannot obtain
leave of absence while away on duty, you will merely become engaged to
him—no—” she remembered her planets; “you are to marry at once, but
you will go to England by the Royal Mail, and have ample time to become
accustomed to the change. Mrs. Higgins is going to England very shortly.
She will take you, and if Mr. France is not there—his squadron goes to
South America—you can stay with Maria until he arrives. That will give
you time to buy some pretty clothes, and become accustomed to the idea
of your—new position in life.”
“Will my clothes come from Paris?”
“No doubt. I have a hundred pounds in the bank and you are welcome to
them.”
“A hundred pounds! I shall have a hundred frocks, one of every color
that will go with my hair, and the rest white.”
“Not quite.” Mrs. Edis had but a faint appreciation of the cost of
modern clothes, but she thought it best to begin at once to curb her
daughter’s imagination. “It will buy you eight or ten, and no doubt your
husband will give you more. But even if he has not as large an income
now as he will have later, you have an instinct for dress. Your frock
was the simplest at Government House last night, but I noticed that you
had adjusted it, and your ribbons, with an air that made it look quite
the smartest in the room. You have distinction and style. The President
said so at once. You will make a little money go far.”
Julia stared at her mother. It was the first time she had heard her pay
a compliment to any one. But she liked it and opened her eyes
ingenuously for more. Mrs. Edis laughed, a rare relaxation of those hard
muscles under the parchment skin. “Go and comb your hair,” she said,
“and make yourself as pretty as possible. Lieutenant France is coming to
call this afternoon, and if he does not ask for your hand to-day, he
will to-morrow.”
“What shall I do with him? We can’t dance. And I couldn’t think of a
thing to say to him last night. I could to some of the young men.”
“The less you say, the better! I will entertain him.”
Tears had threatened again, but they retreated at the prospect of
deliverance from an ordeal as formidable as matrimony. “Mother!” she
exclaimed suddenly. “Why don’t you marry him?”
“I?”
“Yes. He’ll be like my father, anyhow, and then I should not only have
you still, but you could always talk to him—”
“Run and do your hair.”
IV
JULIA, her longing eyes fixed on the sea, where she frequently rowed at
this hour with one of the old men-servants, had forgotten France’s
existence. For quite ten minutes after his arrival, she had obediently
smiled upon him, giving him monosyllable for monosyllable, and tried not
to compare him to an elderly calf. His opaque, agate-gray eyes stared at
her with what she styled a bleating expression, but gradually took fire
as her mind wandered. Mrs. Edis talked more than she had done for many
years, to cover the defection of her naughty little daughter.
Nevertheless, she divined that Julia’s unaffected indifference was
developing the instinct of the hunter to spur the passion of the lover,
reflected that an ignorant girl babbling nonsense would have detracted
from the charm of the picture Julia made by the window in her white
frock, staring through the jalousies with the wistfulness of youth. But
when France began to scowl and move restlessly, she said:—
“Julia, run out into the garden, but do not go far. Mr. France will join
you presently.”
Julia had disappeared before the order was finished. Mrs. Edis studied
the man’s face still more keenly for a few moments, the while she
discoursed about poverty in the West Indies.
There alone in the big dim room something about the man subtly repelled
her, and her active mind sought for the cause even while talking with
immense dignity upon the only topic of general interest in her narrow
life. She had seen little of the great world, but a good deal of
dissipated men, and France had none of the insignia to which she was
accustomed. His bronzed cheeks, although cleft by ugly lines, were firm;
his eyes were clear, and the lines about them might have been due to
exposure, laughter, or midnight study. His nose was thin, his mouth
invisible under a heavy moustache, but assuredly not loose. The truth
was that France had not been drunk for a month, and having a superb
constitution would look little the worse for his methodical sprees until
his stomach and heart were a few years older. His grizzled close-cropped
hair did not set off his somewhat primitive head to the best advantage,
but his figure, carriage, grooming, were, to Mrs. Edis’s provincial
eyes, those of a proud and self-respecting man.
As the planets were reticent on some subjects, and as she truly loved
her daughter, she determined to satisfy her curiosity at first hand, and
lay her scruples if possible.
“Is it true that you are dissipated?” she asked abruptly.
He flushed a dark slow red, but his brain, abnormally alive to the
instinct of self-protection, worked more rapidly.
“I’ve gone the pace, rather,” he said, in his well-modulated voice.
“Nothing out of the common, however. Sick of it, too. Wouldn’t care if I
never saw alcohol—or—ah—any of the other things you call
dissipations, again.”
He delivered this so simply and honestly that a more experienced woman
would have believed him.
“Who told you I was dissipated?” he added. “The Captain? He don’t like
me. He’s a bounder and has social aspirations. I’ve never asked him to
my club in London, or to Bosquith. That’s all there is to that.”
“Ah!” Mrs. Edis had not liked the Captain; this explanation was
plausible. “Why have you come here to-day?” she asked abruptly. “Do you
wish to marry my daughter?”
France would have liked to do his own wooing, nibbling its uncommon
delights daily, until the sojourn at St. Kitts was almost exhausted. He
was an epicure of sorts, even in his coarser pleasures. But he had been
warned that in Mrs. Edis he had no ordinary mother to deal with, and he
answered her with responsive directness.
“I do. She’s the first girl I’ve ever wanted to marry. Do you think
she’ll have me?”
His voice trembled, his face flushed again. He looked ten years younger.
Mrs. Edis’s doubts vanished.
“She’ll do what I bid her do. I wish her to marry you. Of course she
cares nothing for you, as yet. You will have to win her with kindness
and consideration after she marries you. You can see her here every day,
if you wish it, and for a few moments in the garden, alone. But don’t
expect to make much headway with her before marriage. She is full of
romantic dreams, and—and—very innocent.”
His eyes flashed with an expression to which she had no key, but it gave
way at once to suspicion, and he asked sombrely:—
“Is she in love with any one else?”
“She never exchanged a sentence with a young man before last night, and
you monopolized her.”
There was a curious motion behind his heavy moustache, but it was brief
and his eyes looked foolishly sentimental.
“Good! Good!” he said, with what sounded like youthful ardor. “That’s
the girl for me. They’re gettin’ rarer every day.”
“One thing more. We are very poor. I can settle nothing upon her.”
For the first time in his life France felt really virtuous, and was more
than ever convinced that his youth (although he had quite forgotten what
it was like) had been resurrected.
“Glad of it, Mrs. Edis. You’ll be the more convinced that I’m jolly well
in earnest. Give you my word, it’s the first time I ever proposed.”
This was impressive, but the old lady continued to probe. “The Captain
also said that you were very much in debt.”
“Rather. But my cousin clears me up every year or so. We’re jolly good
pals. Besides, I have an annuity from the estate. And he’s always said
he’d settle another thousand a year on me the day I married. That’ll do
for the present to keep a wife on. Think I’ll chuck the navy and settle
down. Have a jolly little place in good huntin’ country—Hertfordshire.”
“You have great expectations, also,” pursued the old lady, looking past
him.
“Ah! Yes! But my cousin’s rather better—” He scowled heavily. “What
luck some people have,” he burst out. “My father and his were
twins—only mine was one minute too late. And I need money and he don’t.
Keeps me awake sometimes thinkin’ of the ways of fate—must have had a
grudge against me. Then I think, ‘what’s the use? Can’t help it. And if
he don’t get well and marry, it’ll be mine one day.’”
“You will inherit that great title and estate,” said Mrs. Edis, piercing
him with her eyes, as if defying him to laugh, or even to challenge her.
“Understand that I am deeply read in the ancient science of astrology,
and that my daughter was born under extraordinary planetary conditions:
she is a child of Uranus, with ruler in the tenth house trine to
Jupiter. That means power, an exalted position, leadership. A great
title and wealth, and the most famous political and social salon of her
century must be the literal reading; although if the times were more
troublous, I should have interpreted the signs to mean that she was
destined to wed royalty itself, to reign, in short. But as her career
begins now, and as you are here so opportunely, there can be no dispute
as to the true reading. You bring a splendid gift in your hands: to be a
duchess of our great country is one of the most exalted positions on
earth. I may add that Venus in strong position in the horoscope means
much feminine grace and charm, added to power. Make sure, your wife will
be the most famous duchess in England.”
France thought it possible she was mad, but was thrilled in spite of his
doubts. The prophecy, also, was agreeable.
“She’d make a rippin’ duchess,” he assented warmly.
Mrs. Edis went on, unheeding. “There is a period of
darkness—trouble—possibly turbulence—sometimes the planets exhibit a
strange reserve. If it were not for the ultimate fulfilling of the great
ambitions I cherish for my daughter, I should let her marry no one—that
is to say, I should instinctively try to prevent it, although the
marriage is there—writ as plainly—”
“I hope it is for this month. I should like to marry her at once. We are
here for a fortnight. I can take a cottage somewhere. If I am on duty
for a few hours a day—no doubt the Captain will let me off—he’s afraid
of me, anyhow. Then she can go direct to England on the Royal Mail. If
we don’t sail at the same time,—if the squadron goes to South
America,—I’ll cable my resignation, and leave as soon as my successor
arrives. My cousin will arrange it. I’ve never cared for the
service—it’s the army gets all the fun—never would have gone in, but
my father gave me no choice; for a while I found it amusin’, and of late
years I’ve stayed in to—ah—spite Captain Dundas, who’d give his eyes
to chuck me out. It’s been a long and quite excitin’ game of chess, and
I’ve enjoyed it.”
Again Mrs. Edis felt uneasy before the expression of his eyes, but she
was now in full surrender to the planets, and besides, he was looking
sentimental and rather foolish again, a moment later, as he burst out:—
“You’ll consent to an immediate marriage, Mrs. Edis?”
“Yes,” she replied promptly, although she had no intention of permitting
him to carry out the rest of his program. She had recognized her
opportunity of playing him and the Captain against each other to gain
her own ends. “Now you can go out into the garden,” she added
graciously. “And it will give me pleasure if you will remain to supper.”
But his visit to the garden was brief. Julia, who was wandering about
the grove of cocoanut, banana, and shaddock trees which made a romantic
jungle of the large space in front of the house, ran past him into the
living room, and although she did not attempt to deprive him of the
sight of her again, and only stirred sharply and then stared at her
hands when her mother announced the betrothal, he was obliged to leave
at nine o’clock without having had a word with her alone. He swore all
the way down the mountain, his appetite so whetted that it required an
exercise of will to steer straight for the ship instead of returning and
raiding the house. He was unaccustomed to any great amount of
self-control, his haughty spirit dictating that all things should be his
by a sort of divine right. This overweening opinion of himself did not
prevent him from obtaining his ends by cunning when direct methods
failed, and to-night reason dictated that only patience for a few days
would avail him. But he was so rude to the Captain, deliberately baiting
him in his desire to make some one as angry as himself, that he was
forbidden to leave the ship on the following day. For the moment, as he
received this order, the Captain thought he was about to spring; but
France, with an abrupt laugh, turned on his heel and went to his cabin.
V
THE President sat on the lawn of Government House reading from a sheaf
of cablegrams to a group of interested guests. In this fashion came
daily to St. Kitts the important news of the world; after submission to
the President, it was nailed on the court-house door, and then printed
in a leaflet, called by courtesy a newspaper. If it arrived when the
President was entertaining, he always read it to his guests, and the
little scene was one of the most primitive and picturesque in that land
of contradictions and surprises. Far removed from the barbarism of utter
discomfort, with rigid social laws, and a proud and dignified
aristocracy, these smaller islands of the English groups are equally
innocent of the comforts and luxuries of modern civilization.
Behind the house a party of young people had not interrupted their game
of croquet, and Julia, who was taking her first lesson, was as oblivious
to the news of the great world she so longed to enter as to the prospect
of marrying a man who was mercifully absent.
Two of the group about the President’s chair also disengaged themselves
as soon as the reading finished, instead of lingering to comment. One
was Mrs. Edis, always indifferent to mundane affairs, and the other
Captain Dundas, who saw his opportunity to have a few words alone with
the mother of Julia. He had made up his mind to speak, and was the man
to find his chance if one failed to present itself. He led her to a
chair under a palm, whose leaves spread just above her head when seated,
and she was glad of the shade and rest. The Captain took a chair
opposite. He would have liked to smoke, but dared not ask permission of
a woman whose skirts had been made to wear over a crinoline. However, he
was quite capable of arriving at the sticking point without the friendly
aid of tobacco. Having the direct mind of his profession, he began
abruptly:—
“Madam, there’s something I’ve got to say, and I may as well get it out.
France” (he utterly disregarded the menacing glitter in the eyes
opposite) “means to marry your daughter, and I mean that he shan’t. If
you don’t listen to me here” (Mrs. Edis was planting her stick), “I’ll
say it before the whole company.”
Mrs. Edis sat back. The Captain went on, breathing more deeply. “It’s
all very well for you to say that you know the world, Mrs. Edis, because
you have seen a few dissipated men and unfaithful husbands. The Harold
Frances haven’t come into your ken. Only the high civilizations breed
them. There are plenty like him, not only in England, but in Europe and
the new United States of America. They are responsible for some of the
unhappiest women in the world, perhaps for the revolt of woman against
man. It isn’t only that they are petty but absolute tyrants in the home;
clever women can always circumvent that sort; but they’re the kind that
debase their wives, treating them like mistresses, to whom nothing
exists in the world but sex, and as they are vilely blasé, the sort of
sex which is but the scientific term for love has long since been
forgotten by them, if they ever knew it. Many are born old, perverted by
too much ancestral indulgence. All sorts of books are being written to
protect the poor girl from the seducer, or the man who would sell her
into the life of the underworld; it seems to me it is time some one
should start a crusade in behalf of the well-born, the delicately
nurtured, the women with inherited brains who might be of some use in
the world if not broken or hardened by the roués they marry. Mind you,
I’m no silly old saint. I’m not inveighing against the young blood who
sows a few wild oats; I’m after the scalp, as the Americans say, of the
thousands in the upper classes that are bad all through, like Harold
France, and who’ll get worse every day of their lives. Do you follow me,
ma’am?”
“I don’t think I do. The whole subject is one which I have never
discussed with any man, and is deeply repugnant to me, but as my child’s
happiness is at stake, I waive my own feelings. Please go into details.
Just what do you mean?”
The Captain gasped. “I—well—I—can’t do that exactly, you know,” he
stammered, wiping his face with his large red silk handkerchief.
“But—you see, the bad women—and men—of the great capitals of the
earth—have taught these young bloods too much. Some it don’t hurt.
There’s plenty of good men in the upper world, even when they have been
a bit wild in their youth; but men like France—with a rotten spot in
the brain—”
The old lady sat erect. “Do you mean to say that France is insane?”
Here was the Captain’s opportunity. But, after the mental confusion of
the night of the ball, not only was he disposed to question what had
seemed at the moment a flash of illumination, but he knew the pickle
awaiting him if he accused a man in France’s position of insanity. He
was risking much as it was; he was not brave enough for more. He had his
own and his family’s interests to consider. A suit for slander would
relegate him to private life, unhonored either as admiral or knight. His
wife desired passionately to be addressed by servants and other
inferiors as “my lady.”
“Well—no—I can’t say that—”
“I ask you to answer me yes or no. Have you ever seen Mr. France do
anything which leads you to believe him a lunatic—for that, I infer, is
what you mean by a rotten spot. And if you have, why, may I ask, have
you been so insensible to your duty as to permit him to remain in the
navy?”
“Oh, I assure you, madam, you misunderstand. A man may have a rotten
spot in his brain, which will make him a horror to live with, and yet be
as sane as you or I.”
Mrs. Edis leaned back. “You have described to me a man precisely like my
husband. He drank too much, he thought too much of love-making when he
was young, but he got over it. I, as a dutiful wife, resigned myself.
That, I fancy, is the history of nine out of ten wives. After all, we
have a great many other things to attend to. Husbands soon become an
incident.”
“Oh, dear! Oh, dear!” The Captain cast about desperately in his mind.
Meanwhile Mrs. Edis also was thinking rapidly. Such fears as he may have
excited having been laid, she reverted to her original purpose to
hoodwink him.
She sat erect with one of her abrupt movements and brought her cane down
into the gravel. “In a way you are right!” she said harshly. “Men! I
hate the lot of them. After all, why should my girl marry now? If she
and France want to marry, let them try the experiment of a long
engagement—two years, at least. I will talk to him—put him on
probation. Let him resign from the navy when he returns to England and
settle down here under my eye.”
“Good! Good!” exclaimed the Captain, who knew that France would never
return.
“During this visit, I’ll probe him, watch him with my girl. If I don’t
approve of him, I’ll ask you to keep him—on board until you leave. In
any case, he shall consent to an engagement of two years. Will you
assist me?”
“Certainly, ma’am, certainly.”
And so the fate of Julia France was sealed.