"I've none of my own this morning, but here's a fine little verse I
wish you'd top our editorial page with," and I handed him the following:
For the cause that lacks assistance;
For the wrong that needs resistance;
For the future in the distance,
And the good that we can do!
With such a motto, we felt called upon to be pugnacious and virtuous,
and all of that session of Parliament our little sheet kept up a
peppery fight for the rights of the people.
Mr. Campbell said that I looked strong and impudent enough to do
anything, and when I retorted that I was not the least bit impudent,
but, on the contrary, a dreamer, he said crossly:
"If that's the case, you'll be incompetent."
But I was a dreamer, and I was not incompetent.
It was all very well, however, to joke with Mr. Campbell about these
duties. They were pretty hard just the same, and I was kept rushing
from morning till night. There was always a pile of work waiting me
upon my return from Government House, and I could see that Mr. Campbell
intended gradually to shift the major part of the work entirely upon me.
The unaccustomed climate, the intense heat, and the work, which I
really loved--all contributed to make me very tired by evening, when my
duties were by no means ended.
Miss Foster's warning that I should have to keep the men at
arm's-length occasionally recurred to me, but I dare say she
exaggerated the matter. It is true that considerable attention was
directed at me when I first came to Jamaica, and I received no end of
flowers and candies and other little gifts; but my work was so exacting
and ceaseless that it occupied all of my time. I could do little more
than pause a moment or two to exchange a word or joke with this or that
man who sought flirtations with me. I was always in a hurry. Rushing
along through the hotel lobby or parlors or verandas, I scarcely had
time to get more than a confused impression of various faces.
There was a ball nearly every night, and I always had to attend, for
a little while, anyway; but I did not exactly mingle with the guests.
I never danced, though lots of men asked me. I would get my list of
guests and the description of the women's dresses, etc., write my
column, and despatch it by boy to _The Lantern_, and I would go to bed
while the music was still throbbing through the hotel. Often the guests
were dancing till dawn.
Now I come to Dr. Manning. He was the one man in the hotel who
persistently sought me and endeavored to make love to me. He was an
American, one of a yachting party cruising in the Caribbean. I was not
attracted to him at all, and as far as I could, I avoided him; but
I could not come out upon the verandas or appear anywhere about the
hotel without his seeming to arise from somewhere, and come with his
flattering smiles and jokes. His hair was gray, and he had a pointed,
grizzled beard. He was tall, and carried himself like a German officer.
He was always begging me to go to places with him, for walks, drives,
or boat-trips, etc., and finally I did accept an invitation to walk
with him in the botanical gardens, which adjoined, and were almost part
of our own grounds.
That evening was a lovely one, with a great moon overhead, and the
sea like a vast glittering sheet of quicksilver. The Marine Band was
playing. People were dancing in the ball-room and on the verandas and
out in a large pagoda in the gardens. Down along the sanded paths we
passed numerous couples strolling, the bare shoulders of the women
gleaming like ivory under the moonlight. The farther we strolled from
the hotel, the darker grew the paths. Across the white backs of many
of the women a black sleeve was passed. Insensibly I felt that in the
darkness my companion was trying to see my face, and note the effect
upon me of these "spooners." But he was not the first man I had walked
with in the Jamaica moonlight. Verley Marchmont and I had spent a few
brief hours from our labors in the gardens of the hotel.
Dr. Manning kept pressing nearer to me. Officiously and continuously,
he would take my arm, and finally he put his about my waist. I tried to
pull it away, but he held me firmly. Then I said:
"There are lots of people all around us, you know. If you don't take
your arm down, I shall scream for help."
He took his arm down.
After a space, during which we walked along in silence, I not exactly
angry, but irritated, he began to reproach me, accusing me of disliking
him. He said he noticed that I was friendly with every one else, but
that when he approached me my face always stiffened. He asked if I
disliked him, and I replied that I did not, but that other men did not
look at or speak to me as he did. He laughed unbelievingly at that,
and exclaimed:
"Come, now, are you trying to make me believe that the young men who
come to see you do not make love to you?"