they come home to their wives, and take care of their children. But why
do they make themselves so--so--what the French call gauche?”
“Good and industrious, and come home to their wives!” thought I. “I
believe you hardly understand us as yet,” I answered. “Our domestic
virtues are not always so very prominent; but, I believe, we know how to
conduct ourselves as gentlemen: at any rate, as well as Spaniards.” I
was very angry--not at the faults, but at the good qualities imputed to
us.
“In affairs of business, yes,” said Maria, with a look of firm
confidence in her own opinion--that look of confidence which she has
never lost, and I pray that she may never lose it while I remain with
her--“but in the little intercourses of the world, no! A Spaniard never
forgets what is personally due either to himself or his neighbours. If
he is eating an onion, he eats it as an onion should be eaten.”
“In such matters as that he is very grand, no doubt,” said I, angrily.
“And why should you not eat an onion properly, John? Now, I heard a
story yesterday from Don ---- about two Englishmen, which annoyed me very
much.” I did not exactly catch the name of the Don in question, but I
felt through every nerve in my body that it was the man who had been
talking to her on the plaza.
“And what have they done?” said I. “But it is the same everywhere. We
are always abused; but, nevertheless, no people are so welcome. At any
rate, we pay for the mischief we do.” I was angry with myself the moment
the words were out of my mouth, for, after all, there is no feeling more
mean than that pocket-confidence with which an Englishman sometimes
swaggers.
“There was no mischief done in this case,” she answered. “It was simply
that two men have made themselves ridiculous for ever. The story is all
about Seville, and, of course, it annoys me that they should be
Englishmen.”
“And what did they do?”
“The Marquis D’Almavivas was coming up to Seville in the boat, and they
behaved to him in the most outrageous manner. He is here now, and is
going to give a series of fêtes. Of course he will not ask a single
Englishman.”
“We shall manage to live, even though the Marquis D’Almavivas may frown
upon us,” said I, proudly.
“He is the richest, and also the best of our noblemen,” continued Maria;
“and I never heard of anything so absurd as what they did to him. It
made me blush when Don ---- told me.” Don Tomàs, I thought she said.
“If he be the best of your noblemen, how comes it that he is angry
because he has met two vulgar men? It is not to be supposed that every
Englishman is a gentleman.”
“Angry! Oh, no! he was not angry; he enjoyed the joke too much for that.
He got completely the best of them, though they did not know it; poor
fools! How would your Lord John Russell behave if two Spaniards in an
English railway carriage were to pull him about and tear his clothes?”
“He would give them in charge to a policeman, of course,” said I,
speaking of such a matter with the contempt it deserved.
“If that were done here your ambassador would be demanding national
explanations. But Almavivas did much better;--he laughed at them without
letting them know it.”
“But do you mean that they took hold of him violently, without any
provocation? They must have been drunk.”
“Oh, no, they were sober enough. I did not see it, so I do not quite
know exactly how it was, but I understand that they committed themselves
most absurdly, absolutely took hold of his coat and tore it, and--; but
they did such ridiculous things that I cannot tell you.” And yet Don
Tomàs, if that was the man’s name, had been able to tell her, and she
had been able to listen to him.
“What made them take hold of the marquis?” said I.
“Curiosity, I suppose,” she answered. “He dresses somewhat fancifully,
and they could not understand that any one should wear garments
different from their own.” But even then the blow did not strike home
upon me.
“Is it not pretty to look down upon the quiet town?” she said, coming
close up to me, so that the skirt of her dress pressed me, and her elbow
touched my arm. Now was the moment I should have asked her how her heart
stood towards me; but I was sore and uncomfortable, and my destiny was
before me. She was willing enough to let these English faults pass by
without further notice, but I would not allow the subject to drop.
“I will find out who these men were,” said I, “and learn the truth of
it. When did it occur?”
“Last Thursday, I think he said.”
“Why, that was the day we came up in the boat, Johnson and myself.
There was no marquis there then, and we were the only Englishmen on
board.”
“It was on Thursday, certainly, because it was well known in Seville
that he arrived on that day. You must have remarked him because he talks
English perfectly--though, by-the-bye, these men would go on chattering
before him about himself as though it were impossible that a Spaniard
should know their language. They are ignorant of Spanish, and they
cannot bring themselves to believe that any one should be better
educated than themselves.”
Now the blow had fallen, and I straightway appreciated the necessity of
returning immediately to Clapham, where my family resided, and giving up
for ever all idea of Spanish connections. I had resolved to assert the
full strength of my manhood on that tower, and now words had been spoken
which left me weak as a child. I felt that I was shivering, and did not
dare to pronounce the truth which must be made known. As to speaking of
love, and signifying my pleasure that Don Tomàs should for the future be
kept at a distance, any such effort was quite beyond me. Had Don Tomàs
been there, he might have walked off with her from before my face
without a struggle on my part. “Now I remember about it,” she continued,
“I think he must have been in the boat on Thursday.”
“And now that I remember,” I replied, turning away to hide my
embarrassment, “he was there. Your friend down below in the plaza seems
to have made out a grand story. No doubt he is not fond of the English,
There was such a man there, and I did take hold----”
“Oh, John, was it you?”
“Yes, Donna Maria, it was I; and if Lord John Russell were to dress
himself in the same way----” But I had no time to complete my
description of what might occur under so extravagantly impossible a
combination of circumstances, for as I was yet speaking, the little door
leading out on to the leads of the tower was opened, and my friend, the
mayo of the boat, still bearing all his gewgaws on his back, stepped up
on to the platform. My eye instantly perceived that the one pendule was
still missing from his jacket. He did not come alone, but three other
gentlemen followed him, who, however, had no peculiarities in their
dress. He saw me at once, and bowed and smiled; and then observing Donna
Maria, he lifted his cap from his head, and addressing himself to her in
Spanish, began to converse with her as though she were an old friend.
“Señor,” said Maria, after the first words of greeting had been spoken
between them; “you must permit me to present to you my father’s most
particular friend, and my own,--Mr. Pomfret; John, this is the Marquis
D’Almavivas.”
I cannot now describe the grace with which this introduction was
effected, or the beauty of her face as she uttered the word. There was a
boldness about her as though she had said, “I know it all--the whole
story. But, in spite of that you must take him on my representation, and
be gracious to him in spite of what he has done. You must be content to
do that; or in quarrelling with him you must quarrel with me also.” And
it was done at the spur of the moment--without delay. She, who not five
minutes since had been loudly condemning the unknown Englishman for his
rudeness, had already pardoned him, now that he was known to be her
friend; and had determined that he should be pardoned by others also or
that she would share his disgrace. I recognised the nobleness of this at
the moment; but, nevertheless, I was so sore that I would almost have
preferred that she should have disowned me.
The marquis immediately lifted his cap with his left hand while he gave
me his right. “I have already had the pleasure of meeting this
gentleman,” he said; “we had some conversation in the boat together.”
“Yes,” said I, pointing to his rent, “and you still bear the marks of
our encounter.”
“Was it not delightful, Donna Maria,” he continued, turning to her;
“your friend’s friend took me for a torero?”
“And it served you properly, señor,” said Donna Maria, laughing; “you
have no right to go about with all those rich ornaments upon you.”
“Oh! quite properly; indeed, I make no complaint; and I must beg your
friend to understand, and his friend also, how grateful I am for their
solicitude as to my pecuniary welfare. They were inclined to be severe
on me for being so extravagant in such trifles. I was obliged to explain
that I had no wife at home kept without her proper allowance of dresses,
in order that I might be gay.”
“They are foreigners, and you should forgive their error,” said she.
“And in token that I do so,” said the marquis, “I shall beg your friend
to accept the little ornament which attracted his attention.” And so
saying, he pulled the identical button out of his pocket, and gracefully
proffered it to me.
“I shall carry it about with me always,” said I, accepting it, “as a
memento of humiliation. When I look at it, I shall ever remember the
folly of an Englishman and the courtesy of a Spaniard;” and as I made
the speech I could not but reflect whether it might, under any
circumstances, be possible that Lord John Russell should be induced to
give a button off his coat to a Spaniard.
There were other civil speeches made, and before we left the tower the
marquis had asked me to his parties, and exacted from me an unwilling
promise that I would attend them. “The señora,” he said, bowing again to
Maria, “would, he was sure, grace them. She had done so on the previous
year; and as I had accepted his little present I was bound to
acknowledge him as my friend.” All this was very pretty, and of course I
said that I would go, but I had not at that time the slightest intention
of doing so. Maria had behaved admirably; she had covered my confusion,
and shown herself not ashamed to own me, delinquent as I was; but, not
the less, had she expressed her opinion, in language terribly strong, of
the awkwardness of which I had been guilty, and had shown almost an
aversion to my English character. I should leave Seville as quickly as I
could, and should certainly not again put myself in the way of the
Marquis D’Almavivas. Indeed, I dreaded the moment that I should be first
alone with her, and should find myself forced to say something
indicative of my feelings--to hear something also indicative of her
feelings. I had come out this morning resolved to demand my rights and
to exercise them--and now my only wish was to run away. I hated the
marquis, and longed to be alone that I might cast his button from me. To
think that a man should be so ruined by such a trifle!
We descended that prodigious flight without a word upon the subject, and
almost without a word at all. She had carried herself well in the
presence of Almavivas, and had been too proud to seem ashamed of her
companion; but now, as I could well see, her feelings of disgust and
contempt had returned. When I begged her not to hurry herself, she would
hardly answer me; and when she did speak, her voice was constrained and
unlike herself. And yet how beautiful she was! Well, my dream of Spanish
love must be over. But I was sure of this; that having known her, and
given her my heart, I could never afterwards share it with another.
We came out at last on the dark, gloomy aisle of the cathedral, and
walked together without a word up along the side of the choir, till we
came to the transept. There was not a soul near us, and not a sound was
to be heard but the distant, low pattering of a mass, then in course of
celebration at some far-off chapel in the cathedral. When we got to the
transept Maria turned a little, as though she was going to the transept
door, and then stopped herself. She stood still; and when I stood also,
she made two steps towards me, and put her hand on my arm. “Oh, John!”
she said.
“Well,” said I; “after all it does not signify. You can make a joke of
it when my back is turned.”
“Dearest John!”--she had never spoken to me in that way before--“you
must not be angry with me. It is better that we should explain to each
other, is it not?
“Oh, much better. I am very glad you heard of it at once. I do not look
at it quite in the same light that you do; but nevertheless----”
“What do you mean? But I know you are angry with me. And yet you cannot
think that I intended those words for you. Of course I know now that
there was nothing rude in what passed.”
“Oh, but there was.”
“No, I am sure there was not. You could not be rude though you are so
free hearted. I see it all now, and so does the marquis. You will like
him so much when you come to know him. Tell me that you won’t be cross
with me for what I have said. Sometimes I think that I have displeased
you, and yet my whole wish has been to welcome you to Seville, and to
make you comfortable as an old friend. Promise me that you will not be
cross with me.”
Cross with her! I certainly had no intention of being cross, but I had
begun to think that she would not care what my humour might be. “Maria,”
I said, taking hold of her hand.
“No, John, do not do that. It is in the church, you know.”
“Maria, will you answer me a question?”
“Yes,” she said, very slowly, looking down upon the stone slabs beneath
our feet.
“Do you love me?”
“Love you!”
“Yes, do you love me? You were to give me an answer here, in Seville,
and now I ask for it. I have almost taught myself to think that it is
needless to ask; and now this horrid mischance----”
“What do you mean?” said she, speaking very quickly, “Why this
miserable blunder about the marquis’s button! After that I suppose----”
“The marquis! Oh, John, is that to make a difference between you and
me?--a little joke like that?”
“But does it not?”
“Make a change between us!--such a thing as that! Oh, John!”
“But tell me, Maria, what am I to hope? If you will say that you can
love me, I shall care nothing for the marquis. In that case I can bear
to be laughed at.”
“Who will dare to laugh at you? Not the marquis, whom I am sure you will
like.”
“Your friend in the plaza, who told you of all this.”
“What, poor Tomàs!”
“I do not know about his being poor. I mean the gentleman who was with
you last night.”
“Yes, Tomàs. You do not know who he is?”
“Not in the least.”
“How droll! He is your own clerk--partly your own, now that you are one
of the firm. And, John, I mean to make you do something for him; he is
such a good fellow; and last year he married a young girl whom I
love--oh, almost like a sister.”
Do something for him! Of course I would. I promised, then and there,
that I would raise his salary to any conceivable amount that a Spanish
clerk could desire; which promise I have since kept, if not absolutely
to the letter, at any rate, to an extent which has been considered
satisfactory by the gentleman’s wife.
“But, Maria--dearest Maria----”
“Remember, John, we are in the church; and poor papa will be waiting
breakfast.”
I need hardly continue the story further. It will be known to all that
my love-suit throve in spite of my unfortunate raid on the button of the
Marquis D’Almavivas, at whose series of fêtes through that month I was,
I may boast, an honoured guest. I have since that had the pleasure of
entertaining him in my own poor house in England, and one of our boys
bears his Christian name.
From that day in which I ascended the Giralda to this present day in
which I write, I have never once had occasion to complain of a
deficiency of romance either in Maria Daguilar or in Maria Pomfret.
MISS SARAH JACK, OF SPANISH TOWN, JAMAICA.
There is nothing so melancholy as a country in its decadence, unless it
be a people in their decadence. I am not aware that the latter
misfortune can be attributed to the Anglo-Saxon race in any part of the
world; but there is reason to fear that it has fallen on an English
colony in the island of Jamaica.
Jamaica was one of those spots on which fortune shone with the full
warmth of all her noonday splendour. That sun has set;--whether for ever
or no none but a prophet can tell; but as far as a plain man may see,
there are at present but few signs of a coming morrow, or of another
summer.
It is not just or proper that one should grieve over the misfortunes of
Jamaica with a stronger grief because her savannahs are so lovely, her
forests so rich, her mountains so green, and her rivers so rapid; but it
is so. It is piteous that a land so beautiful should be one which fate
has marked for misfortune. Had Guiana, with its flat, level, unlovely
soil, become poverty-stricken, one would hardly sorrow over it as one
does sorrow for Jamaica.
As regards scenery she is the gem of the western tropics. It is
impossible to conceive spots on the earth’s surface more gracious to the
eye than those steep green valleys which stretch down to the south-west
from the Blue Mountain peak towards the sea; and but little behind these
in beauty are the rich wooded hills which in the western part of the
island divide the counties of Hanover and Westmoreland. The hero of the
tale which I am going to tell was a sugar-grower in the latter district,
and the heroine was a girl who lived under that Blue Mountain peak.
The very name of a sugar-grower as connected with Jamaica savours of
fruitless struggle, failure, and desolation. And from his earliest
growth fruitless struggle, failure, and desolation had been the lot of
Maurice Cumming. At eighteen years of age he had been left by his
father sole possessor of the Mount Pleasant estate, than which in her
palmy days Jamaica had little to boast of that was more pleasant or more
palmy. But those days had passed by before Roger Cumming, the father of
our friend, had died.
These misfortunes coming on the head of one another, at intervals of a
few years, had first stunned and then killed him. His slaves rose
against him, as they did against other proprietors around him, and
burned down his house and mills, his homestead and offices. Those who
know the amount of capital which a sugar-grower must invest in such
buildings will understand the extent of this misfortune. Then the slaves
were emancipated. It is not perhaps possible that we, now-a-days, should
regard this as a calamity; but it was quite impossible that a Jamaica
proprietor of those days should not have done so. Men will do much for
philanthropy, they will work hard, they will give the coat from their
back;--nay the very shirt from their body; but few men will endure to
look on with satisfaction while their commerce is destroyed.
But even this Mr. Cumming did bear after a while, and kept his shoulder
to the wheel. He kept his shoulder to the wheel till that third
misfortune came upon him--till the protection duty on Jamaica sugar was
abolished. Then he turned his face to the wall and died.
His son at this time was not of age, and the large but lessening
property which Mr. Cumming left behind him was for three years in the
hands of trustees. But nevertheless Maurice, young as he was, managed
the estate. It was he who grew the canes, and made the sugar;--or else
failed to make it. He was the “massa” to whom the free negroes looked as
the source from whence their wants should be supplied, notwithstanding
that, being free, they were ill inclined to work for him, let his want
of work be ever so sore.
Mount Pleasant had been a very large property. In addition to his
sugar-canes Mr. Cumming had grown coffee; for his land ran up into the
hills of Trelawney to that altitude which in the tropics seems necessary
for the perfect growth of the coffee berry. But it soon became evident
that labour for the double produce could not be had, and the coffee
plantation was abandoned. Wild brush and the thick undergrowth of forest
reappeared on the hill-sides which had been rich with produce. And the
evil re-created and exaggerated itself. Negroes squatted on the
abandoned property; and being able to live with abundance from their
stolen gardens, were less willing than ever to work in the cane pieces.
And thus things went from bad to worse. In the good old times Mr.
Cumming’s sugar produce had spread itself annually over some three
hundred acres; but by degrees this dwindled down to half that extent of
land. And then in those old golden days they had always taken a full
hogshead from the acre;--very often more. The estate had sometimes given
four hundred hogsheads in the year. But in the days of which we now
speak the crop had fallen below fifty.
At this time Maurice Cumming was eight-and-twenty, and it is hardly too
much to say that misfortune had nearly crushed him. But nevertheless it
had not crushed him. He, and some few like him, had still hoped against
hope; had still persisted in looking forward to a future for the island
which once was so generous with its gifts. When his father died he might
still have had enough for the wants of life had he sold his property for
what it would fetch. There was money in England, and the remains of
large wealth. But he would not sacrifice Mount Pleasant or abandon
Jamaica; and now after ten years’ struggling he still kept Mount
Pleasant, and the mill was still going; but all other property had
parted from his hands.
By nature Maurice Cumming would have been gay and lively, a man with a
happy spirit and easy temper; but struggling had made him silent if not
morose, and had saddened if not soured his temper. He had lived alone at
Mount Pleasant, or generally alone. Work or want of money, and the
constant difficulty of getting labour for his estate, had left him but
little time for a young man’s ordinary amusements. Of the charms of
ladies’ society he had known but little. Very many of the estates around
him had been absolutely abandoned, as was the case with his own coffee
plantation, and from others men had sent away their wives and daughters.
Nay, most of the proprietors had gone themselves, leaving an overseer to
extract what little might yet be extracted out of the property. It too
often happened that that little was not sufficient to meet the demands
of the overseer himself.
The house at Mount Pleasant had been an irregular, low-roofed,
picturesque residence, built with only one floor, and surrounded on all
sides by large verandahs. In the old days it had always been kept in
perfect order, but now this was far from being the case. Few young
bachelors can keep a house in order, but no bachelor young or old can do
so under such a doom as that of Maurice Cumming. Every shilling that
Maurice Cumming could collect was spent in bribing negroes to work for
him. But bribe as he would the negroes would not work. “No, massa; me
pain here; me no workee to-day,” and Sambo would lay his fat hand on his
fat stomach.
I have said that he lived generally alone. Occasionally his house on
Mount Pleasant was enlivened by visits of an aunt, a maiden sister of
his mother, whose usual residence was at Spanish Town. It is or should
be known to all men that Spanish Town was and is the seat of Jamaica
legislature.
But Maurice was not over fond of his relative. In this he was both wrong
and foolish, for Miss Sarah Jack--such was her name--was in many
respects a good woman, and was certainly a rich woman. It is true that
she was not a handsome woman, nor a fashionable woman, nor perhaps
altogether an agreeable woman. She was tall, thin, ungainly, and yellow.
Her voice, which she used freely, was harsh. She was a politician and a
patriot. She regarded England as the greatest of countries, and Jamaica
as the greatest of colonies. But much as she loved England she was very
loud in denouncing what she called the perfidy of the mother to the
brightest of her children. And much as she loved Jamaica she was equally
severe in her taunts against those of her brother-islanders who would
not believe that the island might yet flourish as it had flourished in
her father’s days.
“It is because you and men like you will not do your duty by your
country,” she had said some score of times to Maurice--not with much
justice considering the laboriousness of his life.
But Maurice knew well what she meant. “What could I do there up at
Spanish Town,” he would answer, “among such a pack as there are there?
Here I may do something.”