Methuen’s Colonial Library

SUSAN PROUDLEIGH

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

Jane’s Career

SUSAN PROUDLEIGH

BY

HERBERT G. DE LISSER

METHUEN & CO. LTD.

36 ESSEX STREET W.C.

LONDON

Colonial Library

First Published in 1915

CONTENTS

This story was first published serially in the Jamaica “Daily Gleaner,” under the title of “Susan: Mr. Proudleigh’s Daughter,” having been presented by the Jamaica Tobacco Co. to the reading public of the Island of Jamaica.

BOOK I

CHAPTER I
SUSAN’S DILEMMA

“I know I ’ave enemies,” said Susan bitterly; “I know I am hated in this low neighbourhood. But I don’t see what them should hate me for, for I never interfere wid any of them.”

“Them hate y’u because you are better than them, and because y’u don’t mix with them,” sagaciously answered Catherine, her second sister.

“That they will never get me to do,” snapped Susan. “I wouldn’t mix with a lot of people who are not my companions, even if them was covered from top to toe with gold. It is bad enough that I have to live near them, but further than that I am not going. It is ‘good morning’ and ‘good evening’ with me, an’ that is all.”

“Then them will always hate you,”, said Catherine, “and if them can injure y’u them will try to do it.”

Catherine referred to most of the people living in the immediate vicinity, between Susan and whom a fierce feud had existed for some months. It was born of envy and nurtured by malice, and Susan knew that well. She dressed better than most of the girls in the lane, she lived in a “front house,” while most of them had to be content with ordinary yard-rooms. She frequently went for rides on the electric cars, whereas they could only afford such pleasure on Sundays and on public holidays. She carried herself with an air of social superiority which was gall and wormwood to the envious; and often on walking through the lane she had noticed the contemptuous looks of those whom, with greater contempt, she called the common folks and treated with but half-concealed disdain. On the whole, she had rather enjoyed the hostility of these people, for it was in its way a tribute to her own importance. But now a discomforting development had taken place in the manner in which the dislike of the neighbourhood habitually showed itself.

This evening Susan sat by one of the windows of the little house in which she lived, and which opened on the lane. It contained two tiny rooms: the inner apartment was her bedroom, her two sisters sleeping with her; the outer one was a sitting-room by day and a bedroom at night, when it was occupied by her father and mother. The house had originally been painted white and green, but the dust of Kingston had discoloured the painting somewhat; hence its appearance was now shabby and faded, though not as much so as that of the other buildings on either side of it. Opposite was an ancient fence dilapidated and almost black; behind this fence were two long ranges of rooms, in which people of the servant classes lived. The comparison between these and Susan’s residence was all in favour of the latter; and as this house overlooked the lane, and was detached from the buildings in the yard to which it belonged, its rental value was fairly high and its occupants were supposed to be of a superior social position.

The gutters on both sides of the lane ran with dirty soap-water, and banana skins, orange peel and bits of brown paper were scattered over the roughly macadamized ground. Lean dogs reclined in the centre of the patch, or prowled about seeking scraps of food which they never seemed to find. In the daytime, scantily-clad children played in the gutters; a few slatternly women, black and brown, drawled out a conversation with one another as they lounged upon the doorsteps; all during the long hours of the sunlight the sound of singing was heard as some industrious housewives washed the clothes of their families and chanted hymns as they worked; and now and then a cab or cart passed down the lane, disturbing for a little while the peaceful tenor of its way.

There were no sidewalks, or rather, there were only the vestiges of sidewalks to be seen. For the space which had been left for these by the original founders of the city had more or less been appropriated by householders who thought that they themselves could make excellent use of such valuable territory. Here a house was partly built on what was once a portion of the sidewalk; there a doorstep marked the encroachment that had taken place on public property; between these an empty space showed that the owner of the intermediate yard had not as yet been adventurous enough to extend his fence beyond its proper limits. Most of the houses that opened on the lane were of one storey, and built of wood, with foundations of red brick. An air of slow decay hung over nearly all of them, though now and then you saw a newly painted building which looked a little out of place in such surroundings.

Susan saw that hers was by no means the shabbiest of these houses, and Susan knew that she was the finest-looking young woman in that section of the lane in which she lived. It was her physical attractions that had helped her to comparative prosperity. In the euphemistic language of the country, she was “engaged” to a young man who was very liberal with his money; he came to see her two or three times a week; and though of late he had not seemed quite so ardent as before, Susan had not troubled to inquire the reason of his shortened visits. He had never hitherto failed on a Friday night to bring for her her weekly allowance, and that she regarded as a sufficiently substantial proof of his continued affection.

But now she felt that she must take some thought of the future. Thrice during the current week she had been openly laughed at by Mother Smith, a peculiarly objectionable old woman who lived about a hundred yards farther up the lane. Mother Smith had passed her house, and, looking up at the window, had uttered with a malignant air of triumph, “If you can’t catch Quaco, you can catch his shirt.” Meaningless as the words might have appeared to the uninitiated, Susan had immediately divined their sinister significance. She knew that Mother Smith had a daughter of about her own age, whose challenging attractiveness had always irritated her. Because Maria, though black, was comely, Susan had made a point of ignoring Maria’s existence; she had never thought of Maria as a possible rival, however, so confident was she of her ascendancy over her lover, and so certain was she that Maria could never be awarded the prize for style and beauty if Susan Proudleigh happened to be near. Still, there could be no mistaking the triumphant insolence of Mother Smith’s glance or the meaning of her significant words.

Tom’s growing coldness now found an explanation. The base plot hatched against her stood revealed in all its hideous details. What was she to do? She did not want to quarrel with Tom outright, and so perhaps frighten him away for ever. That perhaps was precisely what her enemies were hoping she would do. After thinking over the matter and finding herself unable to decide what course of action to adopt, she had put the problem before her family; and her aunt, Miss Proudleigh, happening to come in just then, she also had been invited to give her opinion and suggest a plan.

Susan soon began to realize that she could not expect much wisdom from their united counsel. They all knew that she was not liked by the neighbours; unfortunately, Mother Smith’s design was a factor in the situation which seemed to confuse them utterly. They had gone over the ground again and again. Catherine had said the last word, and it was the reverse of helpful. For a little while they sat in silence, then Susan mechanically repeated Catherine’s words, “If them can injure me, them will try to do it.”

“They does dislike you, Susan,” agreed her aunt, by way of continuing the conversation, “an’ if them can hurt you, them will do it. But, after all, the Lord is on your side.” This remark proved to Susan that at such a crisis as this her family was worse than hopeless. She turned impatiently from the window and faced Miss Proudleigh.

“I don’t say the Lord is not on my side,” she exclaimed; “but Mother Smith is against me, an’ the devil is on her side, an’ if I am not careful Mother Smith will beat me.”

As no one answered, she went on, “Mother Smith wouldn’t talk like she is talking if she didn’t know what she was talking about. She want Tom for Maria, her big-mouth daughter. She an’ Maria tryin’ to take Tom from me—I know it. But, Lord! I will go to prison before them do it!” She had risen while speaking, and her clenched hands and gleaming eyes showed clearly that she was not one over whom an easy victory could be obtained.

She was of middle height, slimly built, and of dark brown complexion. Her lips were thin and pouting, her chin rather salient; her nose stood out defiantly, suggesting a somewhat pugnacious disposition. Her hair, curly but fairly long, was twisted into several plaits and formed a sort of turban on her head; her eyes, large, black, and vivacious, were the features of which she was proudest, for she knew the uses to which they could be put. As her disposition was naturally lively, these eyes of hers usually seemed to be laughing. But just now they were burning and flashing with anger; and those who knew Susan well did not care to cross her when one of these moods came on.

Her father saw her wrath and trembled; then immediately cast about in his mind for some word of consolation that might appease his daughter. He was a tall, thin man, light brown in complexion, and possessed of that inability to arrive at positive decisions which is sometimes described as a judicial frame of mind. He was mildly fond of strong liquors; yet even when under their influence he managed to maintain a degree of mental uncertitude, a sort of intellectual sitting on the fence, which caused his friends to believe that his mental capacity was distinctly above the average. By these friends he was called Schoolmaster, and he wore the title with dignity. By way of living up to it he usually took three minutes to say what another person would have said in one. That is to say, he delighted in almost endless circumlocution.

It was even related of Mr. Proudleigh that, one night, no lamp having yet been lit, he surreptitiously seized hold of a bottle he found on a table and took a large sip from it, thinking the liquor it contained was rum. It happened to be kerosene oil; but such was his self-control that, instead of breaking into strong language as most other men would have done, he muttered that the mistake was very regrettable, and was merely sad and depressed during the remainder of the evening. Such a man, it is clear, was not likely to allow his feelings to triumph over his judgment, though upon occasion, and when it suited his interests, he was ready to agree with the stronger party in any argument. Though he now felt somewhat alarmed by Susan’s suspicions, and knew it was a matter of the first importance that Tom, her lover, and especially Tom’s wages, should be retained as an asset in the family, he could not quite agree that Susan had very good cause for serious apprehension as yet. Up to now he had said very little; he was convinced that he had not sufficient evidence before him on which to pronounce a judgment. He thought, too, that his hopeful way of looking at the situation might help her at this moment; so, his mild, lined face wearing a profoundly deliberative expression, he gave his opinion.

“I don’t think you quite right, Susan,” he observed; “but, mind, I don’t say y’u is wrong. Mother Smit is a woman I don’t like at all. But de Scripture told us, judge not lest we be not judged, an’ perhaps Mother Smit don’t mean you at all when she talk about Quaco.”

On hearing this, Susan’s mother, a silent, elderly black woman with a belligerent past, screwed up her mouth by way of expressing her disapproval of her husband’s point of view. Mrs. Proudleigh was a firm believer in the unmitigated wickedness of her sex, but judged it best to say nothing just then. Susan, however, annoyed by the perverseness of her father, burst out with:

“Then see here, sah, if she don’t mean me an’ my young man, who can she mean? Don’t Mother Smith always say I am forward? Don’t she pass the house this morning an’ throw her words on me? Don’t Maria call out ‘Look at her’ when I was passing her yard yesterday? Tut, me good sah, don’t talk stupidness to me! If you don’t have nothing sensible to say, you better keep you’ mouth quiet. I am going to Tom’s house to-night, to-night. And Tom will ’ave to tell me at once what him have to do with Maria.”

“I will go with you,” said Catherine promptly. She was a sturdy young woman of nineteen years of age, and not herself without a sneaking regard for Tom. Hence, on personal as well as on financial grounds, she objected to Tom’s being taken possession of by Maria and Maria’s mother.

The old man, rather fearing that Susan’s wrath might presently be turned against himself, discreetly refrained from making any further remark; but his sister, an angular lady of fifty, with a great reputation for intelligence and militant Christianity, seeing that Susan’s mind was fully made up as to Maria’s guilt, and being herself in the habit of passing severe comment on the conduct of the absent, determined to support her niece.

“But some female are really bad!” she observed, as if in a soliloquy. “Some female are really bad. Now here is poor Susan not interfering wid anybody. She got her intended. He take his own foot an’ he walk down the lane, an’ he fall in love with her. It is true she don’t marry him yet, but she is engaged. She is engage, and therefore it is an unprincipled sin for any other female to trouble her intended an’ take him away from her. If Maria want a young man, why don’t she go an’ look for one? Why she an’ her mother want to trouble Susan’s one poor lamb, when there is ninety and nine others to pick an’ choose from? Really some female is wicked!”

A speech like this, coming from a woman whose lack of physical charms was more than made up for by strength of moral character, was naturally hailed with great approval by Susan, Catherine, and their mother. The old man himself, never willing to be permanently in a minority, now went so far as to admit that the whole affair was “very provocating,” and added that if he was a younger man he would do several things of a distinctly heroic and dangerous character.

But all this, though in its way very encouraging, was not exactly illuminating. It only brought Susan back to the point from which she had started. “What am I to do?” she asked for the last time, reduced to despair, and sinking back into her seat despondently.

“If I was you,” said Catherine at last deliberately, “I would catch hold of Maria, and beat her till she bawl.”

This advice appealed to Susan; it corresponded with the wish of her own heart. But she doubted the efficacy of physical force in dealing with a difficult and delicate situation. No: a beating would not do; besides, in the event of an encounter, it might be Maria who would do the beating! Susan saw plainly that no word of a helpful nature would be forthcoming from any of the anxious group, who usually appealed to her for advice and assistance. So when Miss Proudleigh was again about to give some further opinions on the general wickedness of females, she got up abruptly, saying that she was going round to Tom’s house to see him. Catherine rose to accompany her, and after putting on their hats the two girls left the room.

CHAPTER II
A PASSAGE-AT-ARMS

It was about eight o’clock; and, save for a few lights gleaming faintly here and there in the yards and the little houses, the lane was in darkness. It was quiet, too; only three or four persons were to be seen moving about, and the innumerable dogs would not begin to bark until nearly everybody had gone to bed. A stranger standing at one of the numerous crossings that intersected the lane, and looking up or down the narrow way, might imagine he was peering into some gloomy tunnel were it not for the brilliancy of the stars overhead. The cross-streets were very much brighter and livelier, and that one towards which Susan and her sister directed their steps was particularly bright.

A Chinaman’s shop at the lane corner opened upon this street. To the right of this, and also opening on the street, was another shop presided over by an elderly woman. It was small, but contained a comparatively large quantity of things which found ready sale in the neighbourhood; such as pints of porter, little heaps of ripe bananas, loaves of bread, coarse straw hats, charcoal, pieces of sugar-cane, tin whistles, reels of thread and peppermint cakes. On the opposite side of the crossing were other shops, and on either hand, east and west, as far as the eye could reach, were still more shops standing between fairly large two-storeyed dwelling-houses of brick and wood. On the piazzas women squatted selling native sweetmeats and fruit. To the west, in the middle distance, two or three taverns blazed with light; away to the east was a great crowd of people singing, and in the midst of this crowd jets of flame streamed upwards from the unprotected wicks of huge oil-lamps. These lamps gave off thick columns of black smoke which slowly drifted over the heads of the sable, white-clothed revivalists who passionately preached on the always approaching end of the world, and called upon their hearers to repent them of their sins.

People were continually passing up and down. They passed singly or in groups, the latter discussing loudly their private affairs, careless as to who might hear: even love-making couples ignored the proximity of other human beings, and laughed and chatted as though there was no one within a mile of them. Many of these pedestrians were barefooted, but most of them wore shoes or slippers of some sort. A few were in rags, but the majority were fairly well dressed, for this was a populous thoroughfare, and the people took some pride in their appearance. A number of children hung about, playing with one another or gazing idly at the passing show; a fine grey dust lay thick upon the ground; gas-lamps placed at wide distances apart burned dimly, so that large spaces of the street were in shadow. Cabs conveying passengers home or on visits drove by frequently, and every now and then the electric cars flew by, stirring up a cloud of dust which almost blinded one, and which for a moment shrouded the street with a moving, impalpable veil. There was life here, there was movement, and while the revivalists prayed and preached in the distance, the candy sellers near by plaintively invited the young to come and purchase their wares, the proprietors of little ice-cream carts declaimed vociferously that they sold the best cream ever manufactured, and the vendors of pea-nuts screamed out that baked pea-nuts were strengthening, enlivening, and comforting. This was the life of the street.

At the right-hand corner of the lane, where the Chinaman’s shop stood, was a gas-lamp, and the gossiping groups about the spot indicated that it was a favourite rendezvous of the people of the vicinity. Susan never condescended to linger for a moment there; that would have been beneath her dignity. But Maria, her rival, sometimes paused at the corner when going for a walk, to talk for a while with a possible admirer or with a friend if she should happen to meet one. To-night Maria was standing under the gas-lamp conversing gaily with two girls. Evidently she was in a happy frame of mind.

“Yes,” she was saying, in answer to a question put to her by one of the girls, “I am goin’ to tell her so. She is proud an’ she is forward; but she will soon sing a different tune. I wonder what she would say now if she did know dat her lover write me two letters last week, an’ say that him love me! I don’t answer him yet, but him say him coming to see me to-morrow night. You watch! If I want to teck Tom from her, I have only to lift me little finger. An’ I am not too sure I won’t do it.”

She laughed as she spoke of her prospective victory over Susan; but her friends, though they hated Susan, were not particularly delighted with the news they heard. They were agreed that Susan ought to be humbled, but that was no reason why Maria should be exalted. It was, therefore, not altogether in a cheerful tone of voice that the elder one asked Maria:

“Y’u think Tom going to come to you?”

“Him almost come to me already,” replied Maria, with pride. “Look what him send for me last night!”

She thrust her hand into her pocket as she spoke. As she was taking out Tom’s present, Susan and her sister emerged into the light.

Both Susan and Maria caught sight of each other at the same moment. And each realized in a flash that the other knew the true position of affairs. The glare of hate from Susan’s eyes was answered by a contemptuous stare and a peal of derisive laughter from Maria. Susan’s sister and Maria’s friends at once understood that a desperate struggle had begun between the two.

Maria’s ringing jeer was more than any ordinary woman could tolerate. Susan tried to answer it with a laugh as contemptuous, but failed, her wrath choking her. Then she put all pretence aside, and swiftly moving up to Maria she thrust her face into the face of the other girl. “See here, ma’am,” she hissed, “I want to ask you one thing: is it me you laughing at?”

“But stop!” exclaimed Maria, backing away a little, and defiantly placing her arms akimbo. “Stop! You ever see my trial! Then I can’t laugh without your permission, eh?” Saying which she laughed again as contemptuously as before, and swung round with a flounce so as to bring one of her elbows into unpleasant proximity to Susan’s waist.

“I don’t say you can’t laugh, an’ I don’t care if y’u choose to laugh till you drop,” cried Susan bitterly; “but I want to tell you that y’u can’t laugh at me!”

“So you’re better than everybody else?” sneered Maria. “Y’u think you are so pretty, eh? Well! there is a miss for you! She can’t even behave herself in de public street, though she always walk an’ shake her head as if she was a princess, an’ though she call herself ‘young lady.’ But perhaps she think she lose something good, an’ can’t recover from the loss as yet!” And again that maddening peal of laughter rang out.

Susan did not answer Maria directly. She eyed that young woman swiftly, and noticed that her dress was old and her shoes poor and dusty. This gave her the advantage she needed in dealing with a girl who was all contempt while she herself was all temper. She turned to her sister and to Maria’s friends, and pointed to Maria with scorn.

“Look at her!” she cried. “Look how she stand! Her face is like a cocoa-nut trash, and she don’t even have a decent frock to put on!”

Maria might have passed over the reference to her face; she knew it was only spiteful abuse. But the allusion to the scantiness of her wardrobe was absolutely unforgivable. If not exactly true, it yet approached perilously near the truth, and so it cut her to the quick. No sooner were the words uttered than Maria’s forefinger was wagging in Susan’s face, and:

“Say that again, an’ I box you!” she screamed.

“Box me?” hissed Susan. “Box me? My good woman, this would be the last day of you’ life. Take you’ hand out of me face at once—take it out, I say—take it out!”—and without waiting to see whether Maria would remove the offending member, she seized it and pushed Maria violently away.

In a moment the two were locked in one another’s arms. There was a sound of heavy blows, two simultaneous shrieks of “Murder!” and a hasty movement of about forty persons towards the scene of the combat.

Catherine now thought it time to interfere. She threw herself upon the combatants, making a desperate but vain attempt to separate them. Maria’s friends protested loudly that Susan was ill-treating Maria, though, as the latter was at least as strong as Susan, it was difficult to see where the ill-treatment came in. A dignified-looking man standing on the piazza loudly remonstrated with the crowd for allowing “those two females to fight,” but made not the slightest effort himself to put a stop to the struggle. The little boys and girls in the vicinity cheered loudly. The one thing lacking was a policeman. Noticing this, the dignified-looking man audibly expressed his opinion on the inefficiency of the force.

“Let me go, I say, let me go!” gasped Susan, her head being somewhere under Maria’s right arm.

“You wants to kill me!” stammered Maria, whose sides Susan was squeezing with all the strength she possessed—“murder, murder!”

But neither one would let the other go. Neither one was much hurt as yet. The struggle continued about a minute longer, when some one in the crowd shouted, “Policeman coming!”

Then indeed both Susan and Maria came to their senses. They separated, and vainly tried to put on an appearance of composure. It was time, for yonder, moving leisurely through the crowd, now composed of over a hundred persons, was the policeman who had been spied by one of the spectators. The girls made no effort to run, for that would surely have provoked the policeman to an unusual display of energy, and, justly angered at having been compelled to exert himself, he might have arrested them both on the charge of obstructing him in the execution of his duty. They waited where they stood, their eyes still flashing, their bosoms heaving, and their bodies trembling with rage.

But angry as she was, Susan had already begun to feel ashamed of fighting in the street. She had always had a horror of street scenes; people of her class did not participate in them; before this event she would not have thought it possible that she could ever be mixed up in such an affair as this. Oh, the humiliation of being handled by a constable! She heartily wished she were a thousand miles from the spot.

In the meantime the policeman, having arrived at the outskirts of the crowd, began busily to work his way through to the centre. True to its traditions, the crowd was hostile to him and friendly to the culprits; so some of the women managed to put themselves in his way, then angrily asked him what he was pushing them for.

“What is all dis?” was his first question as he came up to the spot where Susan and Maria stood. “What is de meaning of this?” He looked fixedly at the gas-lamp as if believing that that object could give him the most lucid explanation of the circumstances.

Nobody answered.

“What is all dis, I say?” he again demanded in a more peremptory tone of voice.

“These two gals was fighting, sah,” explained a small boy, in the hope of seeing somebody arrested.

“Mind your own business, buoy!” was all the reward the policeman gave him for his pains, and then the arm of the law, feeling that something was expected of him, proceeded to deliver a speech.

“The truth of de matter is dis,” he observed, looking round with an air of grave authority: “You common folkses are too ignorant. You are ignorant to extreme. You ever see white ladies fight in de street? Answer me that!”

No one venturing to answer, he continued:

“White people don’t fight in de street, because them is ladies and gentleman. But I can’t understand the people of my own colour; they have no respect for themself!”

He spoke more in sorrow than in anger; almost as though he were bitterly lamenting the deficiencies of the working classes. But Susan, though in trouble, would not even then allow herself to be classed with the policeman and others in the category of “common folkses.” “I am not common,” she answered defiantly; “I am not your set!”

“Silence, miss!” thundered the policeman, scandalized. “I am the law! Do you know dat?”

“I never see a black law yet,” cheekily replied Susan, who thought that, if she had to be arrested, there would be at least some satisfaction in humiliating the policeman.

“If y’u say another impertinence word I will arrest you!” was the policeman’s threat. “Now de whole of you walk right off! Right off, I say, or I teck you all to jail!” He included the crowd with one comprehensive sweep of his arm, perceiving that his edifying attempt to awaken in his audience a sense of respectability had not been favourably received.

There was no disputing his authority, especially as he had begun to get angry. Susan knew, too, that she had mortally offended him by claiming to belong to a better class than his: which remark had also lost her the sympathy of the greater part of the crowd. So she was the first to take advantage of his command, and Maria followed her example by disappearing as quickly as she could. In another minute or two the normal activity of the street had been resumed, and the policeman had again started upon his beat, hoping that he would no more be disturbed that night. But both Susan and Maria knew that the fight would have a sequel. For war had now openly been declared between them.

CHAPTER III
THE CASE IN COURT

“I will have to bring ’er up!”

It was Susan who spoke. She had returned to the house, where the news of the fight had preceded her. The whole family had been on the point of issuing forth to her rescue when she appeared, and now they were again assembled in full conclave to discuss at length this new aspect of the situation.

“ ‘Vengeance is mine,’ ” quoted her aunt; “but there is a time for all things. An’ if y’u don’t teach a gurl like Maria a lesson, she will go far wid you.”

“She is a very rude young ooman!” exclaimed Mr. Proudleigh with indignation, following up his sister’s remark; he felt that he must lend his daughter his moral support. “Ef I was a younger man,” he went on, “I would . . . I would . . . well, I don’t know what I wouldn’t do! But Mother Smit is a dangerous female to interfere wid, and de cramps is troubling me in me foot so badly dat I wouldn’t like ’er to put ’er hand ’pon me at all.”

“Ef she ever touch you,” his wife broke in, “old as I is, she an’ me would have to go to prison.”

“You was always a courigous gal, Mattie,” said the old man approvingly; “but I don’t want to see y’u get into any quarrel; an’ to tell you de trute, I don’t t’ink I could help you at all. Susan is goin’ to bring up Maria, an’ that is a satisfaction. I are going to de court-house wid ’er to encourage her.”

“But suppose Susan lose the case?” Catherine suggested. She had been a witness of the encounter, and though she fully intended to forget every fact that would make against Susan in the court-house, she was sagacious enough to realize that Maria’s friends would not do likewise.

“Lose me case?” asked Susan incredulously. “That can’t be done! She provoked me first, an’ the judge must take note of that. Besides, I am goin’ to put a good lawyer on her: not a fool-fool man that can’t talk, but a man who will question her properly an’ make her tell de truth.”

“Dat is right,” said Mr. Proudleigh with proud anticipation of coming victory. “Sue, I advise you to get de Attorney-General.”

“I never hear about him,” Miss Proudleigh remarked; “an’ it won’t do for Susan to get a lawyer we don’t know. But who to get?”

As Mr. Proudleigh knew nothing about the leader of the local bar except his name, he decided not to urge the claims of that high official upon his daughter. One after another, the names of the several lawyers of whom the family had heard were mentioned, and their various merits were discussed. As this was to be the most important case ever tried—or at least so the family thought—it was of the utmost importance that the brightest legal luminary should be obtained: the difficulty was to select one from the many whose reputation for ability commended them all as fit and proper persons to prosecute Maria Bellicant for assault and abusive language. At last Miss Proudleigh suggested a lawyer whose cleverness in handling witnesses determined to perjure themselves had often appealed to her admiration. Having once mentioned his name with approval, the worthy lady thought it was incumbent upon her to argue away all that might be said against him and all that might be urged in favour of other solicitors; and at length Susan decided that she would go to see Lawyer Jones in the morning. Miss Proudleigh was so delighted with the prospect of having Mr. Jones proceed against Maria, that during the rest of the time she remained at the house she could talk of nothing but that lawyer’s merits. But on leaving she reminded Susan of the value of prayer as a consolation for all the troubles of life, and suggested that supplications made properly and in a reverent spirit might lead to Maria’s being afflicted with manifold ills throughout the rest of her days.

After Miss Proudleigh had left, the family sat up until twelve o’clock discussing the fight and the coming case. And in many of the yards and houses of the lane the fight also formed the topic of discussion. In the yard where Maria lived some thirty persons assembled to express their sympathy with her and to give fervent utterance to the hope that she had beaten Susan properly. They were comforted on learning from Maria that she had. Mother Smith herself performed a sort of war dance about the premises, showing in pantomime what she would do as soon as she should lay hands upon Susan and Susan’s people, down to the third and fourth generation. Everybody agreed that Maria had been most shamefully ill-treated, and one of the girls who had been with Maria at the street corner went so far as to “think” she had seen Susan draw a pair of scissors out of her pocket, presumably to stab Maria. Indeed, in some of the tenement yards it was actually reported that blood had been drawn, one eye-witness even undertaking to describe the wounds. Altogether, it was a very exciting night in that section of the lane in which the girls lived, and almost every one was glad that Susan had at last met her match.

The excitement was kept alive the next day by the news that Susan had brought up Maria. Maria had been expecting this, for she had rightly calculated that no girl in Susan’s financial position would forgo the luxury of a case in court after such a fight. Maria was poor, but she felt that the only proper thing to do in the circumstances was to “cross the warrant”; so she went and crossed it that same day, and Mother Smith began to sell some of her scanty stock of furniture to raise enough money to employ a lawyer.

Susan acted very rapidly when her mind was made up. After leaving the court-house she had sent a note to Tom telling him to come round to see her that night; and Tom, who had already heard about the fight, came as requested.

He was a short, stoutish young fellow of about twenty-six years of age, and somewhat lighter in complexion than Susan. His watery eyes, weak mouth, and tip-tilted nose showed a man of little strength of character; you would rightly have described him as a nondescript sort of person. He took great pride in his appearance, always used cheap scents on Sundays, and carried on his amours as surreptitiously as possible. He had a horror of domestic quarrels, and though it was true that he had been attracted by Maria’s appearance, fear of Susan’s temper had kept him fairly faithful to his vows of eternal constancy. He had flirted just a little with Maria. He had made her one or two presents. He had written her a couple of letters; he was rather (perhaps dangerously) fond of writing letters. But Susan overawed him, and in the midst of these amorous exercises he had devoutly hoped that she would never suspect him of even speaking to Maria. Judge of his consternation, therefore, when, after greeting him coldly and saying that she had sent for him because he did not seem to care now about coming to see her as often as before, she launched out upon a sea of reproaches, and overwhelmed him with perfectly just accusations. Naturally, he denied all intercourse with Maria, though remembering with a sinking heart that his own handwriting might be produced against him. But Susan evidently knew nothing about those letters: perhaps he could induce Maria to return them to him. He began to take heart—too soon. For Susan did not believe a word he said, though she pretended to do so in order to gain the end she had in view. She heard him out to the end, and after he had expressed his indignation at the conduct of Maria, and agreed with Susan that that young woman deserved severest punishment, she quietly said:

“I bring Maria up to-day.”

Tom was thunderstruck.

“You mean,” he stammered, “that you going into a court-house with that girl?”

“Yes,” she answered; “I make up me mind.”

“An’ then,” he protested heatedly, “my name will be called, an’ I will be mixed up in it! What you talkin’ about, Sue?”

“You’ name won’t be called,” she answered inflexibly. “What you fretting about? If you know, as you say, that you have nothing to do with Maria, you needn’t trouble you’self. It is me bringing her up, not you. Who is to call you’ name?”

Tom looked into her face, and realized that there was no turning her from her purpose. The two were alone in the day-sitting-room; but even if the rest of the family were there, he reflected ruefully, that would hardly assist him.

“I don’t like it,” he muttered dismally.

“Don’t fret about anything,” she cheerfully advised him as he bade her good-night. “You’ name won’t come into the case.”

But Tom left her with a sinking heart.

The eventful day of the case dawned at last, and found Susan and her family in a state of intense excitement. The case was to be tried in the Police Court, a building which had once been a barracks for the Imperial soldiers when troops were stationed in the city of Kingston. The courtyard of this building opened on one hand upon the city’s central park, a large plot of land planted out in umbrageous evergreens and flowering shrubs; on the other hand, it opened upon one of the city’s busiest thoroughfares. Thus on the one side was an oasis of peace and beauty, while in the adjoining street to the west all was squalor and confusion. This street itself was filled with little shops and crowded with clamouring, gesticulating people. A market was there, and the echoes of shrieks of laughter and sudden volleys of abuse sometimes came to the magistrates and lawyers as they transacted their business in the court; but they accepted these minor interruptions as part of the settled order of things, and never complained about them. Carts rattling over the brick pavement, electric cars passing at frequent intervals and incessantly sounding their gongs to warn the careless people out of their way, diminutive venders shouting out the nature and superior quality of their wares—all this, with the inevitable clouds of dust which swept over and enveloped everything, made up the life and activity of the street. And dominating the whole scene stood the weather-worn, ugly, two-storeyed building which to so many thousands of the people was the awe-inspiring symbol of a vague and tremendous power called Law.

Both Susan and Maria knew the place well. They arrived there with their attendant retinues at a little before ten o’clock, the hour at which the court began to sit. Policemen were to be seen about the large courtyard, clad in white jackets and blue serge trousers and white helmets. They were the visible and self-conscious representatives of might, majesty, dominion, and power. Habitual criminals made remarks about them as they passed up and down amongst the scores of people who loitered in the courtyard; but they paid no attention to these, for freedom of ambiguous speech is the privilege of all habitual criminals.

Soon after their arrival, Susan and Maria entered the court-room with their friends to wait until their case should be called. They had been there more than once before as spectators, but now, as the principal actors in such a tremendous drama, they gazed about them with new and strange sensations.

The room was furnished in the plainest manner possible. At the southern end of it was a platform, on which stood a desk and a chair: these were for the magistrate. To the magistrate’s right was the witness box, and just below his desk was a table, with a number of chairs around it. Here the court serjeant, one or two police inspectors, and the lawyers sat. Behind these, and facing the magistrate, was the dock; behind this dock were ranged a few wooden benches without backs, and apparently designed for the purpose of inflicting the maximum amount of physical discomfort on those who might choose to sit on them. These were for the use of the spectators.

A case over, a trifling thing relating to a young lady with fifteen previous convictions for abusive language, the case of Susan Proudleigh v. Maria Bellicant was called. Maria, as the accused, took up her stand behind her lawyer, who rose and informed the magistrate that he appeared for her.

“Susan Proudleigh!” called the court serjeant, and Susan rose. But the policeman at the door, who acted as the crier of the court, would not be defrauded of his privilege of shouting out her name; so immediately his voice was heard screaming, “Su—u—u—san Pounder! Su—u—u—san Pounder! Su—u—u—san Pounder!” And another policeman outside took up the cry with, “Su—u—u—san Plummer! Su—u—u—san Plummer! Su—u—san Plummer!” and was about to return the verdict of “No answer,” when he learnt that the lady was inside.

Susan was motioned towards the witness box after Maria had vehemently pleaded not guilty to the charge of assault and battery. She felt nervous as she gazed around the crowded room, but she was comforted by the reflection that she looked very well in her white lawn frock trimmed with blue ribbons, with hat to match.

She took the book in her hand as directed, and swore that she would tell nothing but the truth. Then she stated her case.

“My Honour, I was walking me way quite quiet an’ peaceful down Blake Lane on Thursday night last week; I was goin’ for a walk, my Honour, an’ thinking about——”

“Never mind what you were thinking about,” said the magistrate; “go on.”

“Yes, my Honour. I was thinkin’ about me poor old father at home, when all of a sudden I see Maria Bellicant at the corner. I was goin’ to tell ’er good evening, because as I know I never do her nothing, I had no bad feelings against ’er, and——”

“Oh, never mind all that!” interrupted the magistrate impatiently; “we don’t want to hear about your feelings. Tell us the facts.”

This was distinctly disconcerting. Susan, who had been trying to manipulate her th’s properly so as to make a good impression upon His Honour, now began to think he was prejudiced against her. However, she went bravely on.

“I go up to Maria, my Honour, an’ I was going to say, ‘Good evening, Maria,’ when she look at me an’ laugh. An’ she say, ‘Look at this wort’less gal!’ I say to her, ‘But, Maria, why you call me wort’less?’ an’ I go up nearer up to ’er in a friendly spirit; an’ she take ’er elbow an’ push me, an’ I hold ’er hand, an’ she collar me an’ begin to beat me, an’ I bawl for murder.”

She paused, for this was her version of the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Her lawyer asked her a few questions, the answers to which all tended to corroborate her story. She felt quite satisfied, believing that she had already won the case; but Maria’s lawyer rose very quietly, and intimated that he desired to ask her a few questions.

“Your name is Susan Proudleigh?” he asked, the tone of his voice suggesting that he thought the name might be an alias.

“Yes.”

“You live at No. 101 Blake Lane?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Your intended’s name is Thomas Wooley?”

“What has that to do with the case?” asked the magistrate.

“A great deal, your Honour,” answered the lawyer. “Now, Susan,” he went on, “remember you are on your oath! Your sweetheart’s name is Thomas Wooley, isn’t it?”

Susan looked at him dumbly. But his “Answer me!” was too peremptory to be disobeyed.

“Yes,” she answered, and her heart sank, for she remembered what she had said to Tom about his name not being called.

“And he is tired of you, isn’t he?” her questioner continued mercilessly, rejoicing in her confusion.

“What you mean?”

“Answer my question, miss!” was again the command.

“No; him never tell me so.”

“Ah, now, don’t you know that Thomas is in love with Maria?”

“I don’t know dat at all; in fact, you ’ave no business——”

“Don’t you dare argue with me! Now when you met Maria Bellicant that night, and when you told her that she had stolen the clothes she had on——”

“I never tell ’er so!” Susan burst forth. “I tell ’er she didn’t ’ave a decent dress to wear!”

“Oh! so you provoked her, did you?”

Susan perceived that she had blundered, but the lawyer did not give her a chance to recover herself.

“Why did you provoke her? Answer me at once!” he insisted, and she was about to blunder further, when her lawyer rose and asked the magistrate if his client was to be intimidated and bullied in that fashion? He suggested that Susan had offered no provocation whatever, and, although the magistrate promptly stopped him, Susan caught the cue. She had to admit, however, that she had struck Maria after she herself had been struck, and Maria’s lawyer was satisfied that Susan’s principal witness would admit far more than that.

This witness was a young man, one Hezekiah Theophilus Wilberforce. Catherine had taken ill almost at the last moment, fear of the court-house having much to do with her sudden illness; so Susan had had to fall back upon the assistance of Hezekiah. Had she been sophisticated she might have tried to obtain the services of a professional witness. A few of these are always to be found in every West Indian town of any importance, and they perform the useful function of swearing to things they never saw. You relate the circumstances to them, and they find that they were in the vicinity of the occurrence (whatever it was) on the day or night in question; and, if they were not seen by any of the other witnesses, that may be attributed to the fact that the excitement was intense.

These men are well known to the magistrates and lawyers, and sometimes they are called upon to explain their astonishing ubiquity. But a man is by British law considered honest until he is proven to be a scoundrel, so these witnesses continue to flourish like green bay trees. Susan, however, knew nothing of the high mysteries of the law and the customs of the court. So Hezekiah had been selected by her, chiefly on the strength of his own recommendation, as a person most likely to give a graphic and satisfactory account of the ill-treatment she had suffered at the hands of Maria Bellicant.

Hezekiah had always had an ambition to figure as something in a court of justice. Not being able to prosecute anybody himself, he longed for the time when he should “kiss de book,” and then proceed to tell a story which should assist in sending a fellow-creature to prison. On his name being called, he came into the court all smiles, and holding high his shining head, as one who realized the importance of being a witness. He repeated the story that Susan had told, varying it only by a detailed description of the treatment to which she had been subjected. Asked by the magistrate why he had not attempted to separate the girls, he replied with a grin that “horse don’t have business in cow’s fight,” a reason which, he thought, amply explained his apparent cowardice. That said, he was about to step down from the box, not anticipating that anything further would be required of him, when Maria’s lawyer abruptly asked him where he was going to?

He paused, confused by the sharp and even threatening tone of the lawyer, who knew his type well.

“Hezekiah, what do you do for a living?” was the first question put to him.

The question was quite unexpected, and it was simply impossible for Hezekiah to answer it straightforwardly. For the truth was that he did nothing for a living. While he stared open-mouthed at the lawyer, wondering what to say, the latter called His Honour’s attention to the fact that the witness could not answer a simple question about his own means of livelihood, and then suggested that Hezekiah must either be a thief or a loafer.

The magistrate was peremptory. “What do you do for a living?” he asked.

“Me mother help me, sah, an’ me uncle,” stammered poor Hezekiah, reduced to the sad extremity of telling the truth.

“Now, sir!” thundered the lawyer, “do you mean to tell me that a big man like you is living on a poor old woman? And have you nothing better to do than come to the court-house and tell lies?”

“I don’t tell no lie, sah!” grumbled Hezekiah.

“Don’t be impertinent, sir! Now remember you are on your oath: didn’t the Chinaman at the lane corner once threaten to put you in charge for stealing a pack of Rosebud cigarettes off his counter?”

The question came like a thunder-clap. Hezekiah’s love for these cigarettes was well-known to all his friends, but he had fondly hoped that that little episode, which might have had so unpleasant a termination, had been forgotten by the Chinaman himself. How did the lawyer know of it? In his bewilderment it did not dawn on him that his whole life-history, in so far as Maria knew it, had been told with point and circumstance to Maria’s lawyer.

Fear now took possession of him—abject fear. A few more questions like the last, and his reputation in the lane would be ruined for ever. He moved about in his circle as a man of some importance, for he played the guitar, swore with remarkable fluency, and claimed superiority on the ground that he neither worked nor wanted. This examination was not at all what he had bargained for. As he explained afterwards, the lawyer took a mean advantage of him. But the fierce interrogatory had had its effect; for when the lawyer asked him, “Now, didn’t you see Susan Proudleigh assault Maria Bellicant first?” he meekly answered, “Yes.”

After that the truth, or as much of it as Hezekiah could remember, came out. All that Susan’s lawyer could do was to prove that Maria had been as quick to quarrel as Susan. Long before the witnesses were finished with, it had become clear to the magistrate that he had here a simple case of jealousy to deal with, and, as he had acquired something of a reputation as a maker of compromises (which satisfied nobody) he thought he would interpose at this point and so still further add to his fame as a peacemaker.

Looking sternly at Susan, he told her that she could go on with the case if she liked; but that though it was clear that he would have to fine Maria for provoking her to a breach of the peace, by putting her hand in her (the prosecutor’s) face, which act amounted to a technical assault, he saw clearly that when Maria Bellicant’s case came on he would also have to fine the present prosecutor. Both had used insulting words; both were to blame. So he would advise them to make up their differences out of court, especially as they appeared to be two decent young women.

Being a man of decided views on morality, he was particularly hard on Tom.

“That young man, Tom Wooley,” he said, “has really been the cause of this quarrel. I wish he was here so that I could deal with him. But I hope that some one will tell him what I say. He seems to be a very loose character, and I fear that there are only too many such in Kingston. I have no doubt that he is deceiving a number of other women, and his acts may lead to some of them going to prison one day.” The speaker glanced at the reporters to see if they were taking down his little speech. Satisfied that they were, he went on to urge upon the girls the necessity of leading a respectable and self-sacrificing life. This they most faithfully promised to do, all the while thinking him an old crank who interfered too freely with other people’s business. Much pleased with the apparent result of his efforts to rescue Susan and Maria from the broad and easy way, and proud that he had effected another compromise, he ordered the serjeant to call the next case, and the young women and their several friends left the court.

Maria was delighted, for Susan had to all intents and purposes lost her case. Hezekiah was dazed, his mind being awhirl with new and uncomplimentary thoughts about His Britannic Majesty’s courts. They were to him places where mean advantages were taken of truthful witnesses, and in his heart of hearts he knew also that he had fallen from grace for ever, in so far as Susan was concerned. As for Susan, she was furious. She had not succeeded in getting Maria punished. She had been lectured by an “ole fool” as she called the learned magistrate. Worst of all, Tom’s name had been repeatedly mentioned during the trial. It had been an entirely miserable affair, and, for her, a humiliating defeat.

CHAPTER IV
WHAT CAME OF THE CASE

The thing about the trial that seemed to Miss Proudleigh the unkindest cut of all was the utter failure of Lawyer Jones to rise to the occasion and pulverize his legal opponent with arguments. She had accompanied Susan to the court-house with proud expectancy. Lawyer Jones had been recommended by her, and she felt that she had certain proprietary rights in him; that she was, in a way, responsible for his good behaviour as a lawyer. And now he had failed, failed miserably; he had disgraced her; she regarded him as guilty of a base deception. On the way home she urged this point of view upon Susan, and her brother agreed that the lawyer had indeed acted most strangely.

“The whole of them cheat me!” said Susan bitterly. “There is no justice in dis country at all. From the judge down, them is all a set of thief!”

“Solomon say that it is better to chop a baby in two dan go to law,” observed Mr. Proudleigh, “an’ I see to-day dat him is quite right. Now if you did half murder Maria, them would only fine you, an’ you would have de satisfaction to know that you give it to her properly. Instead of dat, you bring ’er up in a respectable style, an’ put a lawyer on ’er, an’ pay him two pounds to persecute her, an’ all de justice you get is dat the judge tell y’u to make up de quarrel or him will fine you too!”

“Leave them all to God!” said Miss Proudleigh piously.

“Leave them to de devil, you mean!” Susan rapped out. “The judge abuse me about me intended, an’ the lawyer take me money and don’t do nothing for it; an’ now you tell me to leave them to God! The truth of de matter is that all these judge an’ all these lawyers is simply humbugging poor people in this country. Them want nothing better than for we to leave them to God, so long as them can get de money. But while we walk to church to pray, them drive in motor-car!”

Wrath had made Susan a rebel, and contemptuous of the things she had always regarded with respect; but Miss Proudleigh had her Christian reputation to think of, and she could not join her niece in her violent protest. As for her father, though he was inclined to think Susan was right, he did not care to express his opinion of the judge too freely in the open street.

When they got home, Susan stationed herself by the window, her favourite point of vantage, and there she sat for hours nursing her anger. Now and then, as she looked around her, the pride of possession filled her soul. The room contained two American rocking-chairs, and five cane-seated chairs of a yellowish hue. There was a long wooden bench without a back placed against one of the walls, and two dealboard tables, both covered with gaudy worsted spreads. On one of them was a kerosene lamp, a couple of hymn books, and a few earthenware ornaments. The other was crowded with thick tumblers, some of fantastic shapes, and a heap of cheap crockery ware. On the walls hung coloured prints of the King and the Royal Family, and pictures of ladies dressed in exiguous garments, and smoking cigarettes with an air of enjoyment. All these things belonged to her. They had been given to her by Tom. And in the inner room she had an iron bed on which was a straw mattress, and two more chairs, and a big trunk containing her clothes, and a basin-stand, on which she kept her “china” basin and ewer. She had, besides, a large looking-glass on a little table in the room. And all these household gods were comparatively new.

She took pride in her furniture. Only married people of her class usually had as much, and certainly Maria had not. “After all,” she more than once muttered to herself, “I ’ave a comfortable house to come to, an’ perhaps Maria don’t ’ave a penny to-day.”

Yet she was not long comforted by this reflection. Maria had practically triumphed, and her success at the court-house might embolden her to attempt to capture Tom outright. Susan did not care much for Tom; in fact, she rather despised him. But times were hard in Kingston, and lovers were not easy to obtain; so if Maria should succeed. . . . “But that can’t be done,” she concluded; for what was Maria when compared with her?

Susan was not given to following out a train of thought for any length of time; she usually jumped from one subject to another as it came up in her mind. But the experience of that morning, and its unknown but dreaded consequences, caused her now to dwell lengthily upon the days before she became acquainted with Tom. Her past had not been a pleasant one. Her father was a carpenter, and when in good health he had earned a fair amount of money by working at his trade. But some sixteen years before he had been prostrated by a severe attack of rheumatism, and when he recovered he found that he had almost lost the use of his lower limbs. Then her brother went away to Nicaragua, and only wrote occasionally, sometimes sending a few dollars to his parents. After her father’s illness her mother had turned washerwoman, and what the old woman earned helped to keep the family from starvation. Her father did a few light jobs, when he could get them, but these did not bring in much. Susan herself, on leaving the Government elementary school when a little over fourteen years of age, had tried to find a situation; but there was hardly anything she could do at that age.

In those days she lived in a yard-room with the rest of the family. She could remember herself as often standing at the gate of the yard, her feet thrust into a pair of slippers, and looking with envy at those girls who could afford to wear shoes and go to all the Sunday-school picnics and treats. There were days when she went to bed without dinner, a fate by no means unknown to hundreds of other persons in her position. On other days she was glad if her dinner consisted of a piece of dry bread. The rent of the room her family occupied was always the great problem that faced them continually; for if it was not paid their few belongings might be levied upon, and the old people would have to go to the almshouse. Semi-starvation was better than that, so they not infrequently starved.

When she was nearly eighteen, what she called “a luck” befell her. She was in the habit of attending, every Wednesday evening, a little church near where she lived. There had been revival meetings in that church a short time before she had taken to going to the services, and nearly everybody in its immediate neighbourhood had been converted. Amongst these converts was a young fellow of nineteen, a clerk by occupation; and seeing Susan in the church once or twice, he was moved to attempt the saving of her soul. He only succeeded in losing his heart.

For some months he gave her five shillings a week out of the fifteen he earned; then he unfortunately lost his situation, and Susan’s father awoke to a sense of outraged morality. It was edifying to hear Mr. Proudleigh lecture that young man on the moral obliquity of endeavouring to “draw a youthful feminine away from religion.” There was no arguing with him, for very little argument is left in any youth who has lost his situation; so the young man quietly drifted out of Susan’s life.

For some time longer the family was compelled to exist on the mother’s earnings and on what Mr. Proudleigh’s son in Nicaragua occasionally sent home. It was then that Susan tried her hardest to obtain work of some kind. But it required influence to secure a position as a barmaid; the small shops had as many assistants as they required, and in any case usually employed young women fairer than she was; as for crochet-making, that had become so common that very few persons now cared to trim their clothes with crochet. She might have got a situation as nurse in one of the wealthier families of Kingston, but to domestic work she had a strong aversion. It was not, in her opinion, genteel. She did not want to be what she called “a common servant.” So she waited in idleness day after day, a prey to discontent, and wondering if her luck would ever turn.

It did turn when she was twenty years of age. She was standing at the gate of her yard one Sunday afternoon, very plainly dressed, but with her hair neatly combed and plaited. Tom was walking down the lane, with no object in particular, and seeing her all alone he thought he might as well try to make her acquaintance and have a little chat with her. As he was well dressed, from his polished yellow boots up to his new straw hat, Susan did not object to his inquiry after her health; and being thus encouraged he made further advances.

That afternoon he talked of trifling things for about a quarter of an hour. The following evening he again walked down the lane, and Susan was once more at the gate. On the subsequent night, when Tom met her by appointment, she asked him why he did not come inside, and on his accepting her invitation he was welcomed by her family with every mark of cordiality and respect. In fact, they all went out of the room and left him with Susan, so that the young couple’s conversation might not be interrupted in any way.

A week after that, she removed into the house which she now occupied. Thus she had realized, at a bound, one of the great ambitions of her life.

But now Maria was trying to come between her and Tom. And this case—now that she had lost it, she was rather sorry she had taken it to court. Tom’s name had been repeatedly called, and he had warned her against that. And her money, the money he had originally given her, had gone for nothing. If that had been all she would not have cared much, but she felt sure she had not yet heard the last of the fight and the trial. She wished she could believe that she had.

It was in an uneasy frame of mind that she ate her dinner by the window that evening, putting her plate on a chair in front of her. She was still eating when her aunt returned to the house for the purpose of further discussing the details of the case; and it was only then that Susan’s father and the others came into the sitting-room, which they had avoided all during the day, perceiving that Susan was too sorely sick at heart to appreciate conversation.

Miss Proudleigh, who, more than all of them together, was versed in the newspaper reports of the courts, had conceived a brilliant idea, and wished to lose no time before letting Susan know of it.

“I thinks, Susan,” she said, after she had sat down, “that the case was not try fair. An’ I thinks you ought to appeal.”

“Appeal?” asked her brother. “What is dat?”

Now Miss Proudleigh did not know exactly. So she answered vaguely, “Something to make de case try right.”

“That won’t help,” said Susan decisively. “De judge tell me I better drop the case, an’ I agree. It is all done away wid now. What is bothering me is the way de judge talk about Tom. It’s going to be all over Kingston to-morrow, for I saw the newspaper man writing it down. What a piece of bad luck fall upon a poor gurl to-day! An’ I didn’t do a single soul anyt’ing.”

“But don’t it finish now?” asked the old man hopefully.

“I don’t know about dat,” Susan replied. “Tom’s name call, an’ him going to vex.”

This was indeed what everybody feared; but Miss Proudleigh had a never-failing source of comfort in her principles as a religious woman.

“Susan,” she said, “you must have faith. When did you’ intended see you de first time? Wasn’t it on a Sunday evening? Now if it was on a Monday or a Saturday or any other day of de week, you would say it was a sort of accident. But when an important events take place on a Sunday, all of a sudden, it is you’ business to acknowledge that the Lord have made special interposition in your behalf. You mustn’t be ungrateful, Sue. The Lord is not mocked. Blessed is de man that trusteth in Him. An’ though the text says ‘man’ it mean woman too. Everything is goin’ to go right. Tom won’t vex too much.”

“That is what I thinks meself,” agreed Susan’s father, who was only too glad to catch at any ray of hope. “Susan is de child of many pr’yers. From the day she born to dis day, I been prayin’ for her. Not a thing can happen to her! De night before she became acquaint wid Mister Tom, I dream dat a mango tree grow up in me room, an’ I know that same time that somet’ing was going to happen. Now last night I dream dat a cow maltreat Mother Smit, an’ at first I thoughted that Susan was goin’ to win de case. But I see now dat it mean that Mister Tom is not goin’ to ’ave nothing more to do wid Maria.”

“Well, sah,” answered Susan petulantly, “all I have to say is, that you’ prayers didn’t ’elp me much this morning!”

This, Susan’s latest expression of infidelity, simply startled her audience. Their Providence was one that struck with blindness or instant death any of His creatures who dared to question His wisdom or goodness, and who bestowed no blessings upon those who worked on the Sabbath Day. To other sins He was lenient. He always allowed ample time to the sinners to repent of them. One could also think hard things of Him, for what was not spoken aloud might escape the hearing even of the higher Powers. But so openly to doubt the efficacy of prayer, as Susan had done, was to tempt Providence; and she herself felt a little frightened after the words had escaped her.

Miss Proudleigh, who herself had much of Susan’s temper, and who could never forget that she stood high in the estimation of her “leader” in the Wesleyan chapel of which she was an honoured and vocal member, would not allow this last speech of Susan’s to pass without reproof.

“If you goin’ to talk like that, Susan,” she said severely, “I will ’ave to leave the premises. I can’t sit down an’ hear you laugh at pr’yer. I don’t want to be include in the general judgment; for when the Lord’s time come to laugh, Him going to laugh for true.”

Her indignation having been expressed, faith immediately rose to higher heights, and she went on.

“As fo’ Maria, she will be punished, an’ you an’ me will live to see Mother Smith beggin’ bread. ‘He will smite the oppressor, an’ the wicked He will utterly destroy.’ I am goin’ to pray for Maria an’ her mother. I am goin’ to pray that them won’t have bread to eat; an’ when a woman like me kneel down an’ pray, her pr’yers must be heard!”

“I gwine to pray too,” cried the old man, with enthusiasm. “Four knees is better than two. I are going to church next Sunday night to offer up me supplication against all Susan’s enemy. Sue,” he concluded, turning to his daughter, “you don’t happen to have a small coins about y’u to lend your ole fader? I feel weak in me chest, an’ a little rum an’ anisou would help de feeling.”

This request for a loan, coming after his expressed determination to pray against her enemies, could not well be refused by Susan; and she was about to hand him threepence, when the front door opened quickly and Tom stepped into the room.

As he entered, the old man rose and gave him a military salute. But on this occasion Tom simply brushed past him without saying anything, and went at once to Susan. Such brusqueness was unusual, and Mr. Proudleigh, still in the military attitude, stared at Tom with wonder in his eyes.

The young man was angry. They all saw that. At any other time they would have left him alone with Susan, but now curiosity got the better of respect, and they remained to hear what he had to say.

“Susan,” he began, without even bidding her good evening, “didn’t I tell y’u not to take the case to court?”

“You goin’ to quarrel wid me about it now?” was her answer. “It’s not my fault dat I lose it! It’s Hezekiah wid his foolishness. An’ instead of sympathizing with me, you walk into the house, like a nager man, an’ don’t speak to nobody! See here, Tom, if it’s because I lose the money you give me, I will work an’ pay you back.”

“Never mind, Susan, never mind,” interposed her aunt, anxious to play the blessed part of peacemaker. “Mr. Tom don’t say anything of an aggravating nature. Two young people mustn’t quarrel. You is to live in peace, an’——”

“I don’t want to hear anything from you,” snapped Susan. “Tom ’ave no right to come into de house like this.”

Thus she tried to put Tom in the wrong, feeling that if she frightened him by a display of temper he would not say very much about his name being called in the court-house, a circumstance which she herself regretted greatly.

But the old man, alarmed at Tom’s attitude, and fearing lest Susan should drive him away at a time when Maria, and probably others, were spreading their nets for him, thought that now was the opportunity for proving to Tom that in every important domestic crisis he would have the head of the family on his side.

“Susan,” he commenced, with some fear in his heart as to how she would receive his admonition, “I don’t exprove of you’ conduct. Mister Tom is a young man, an’ a young man is supposed to get aggravated. Ef I did know that him tell you positive not to take de case to court, I would have tell you the same meself. The fact of de matter is, I did tell you so. For when you look upon one thing, an’ also upon another——”

But Susan would listen to no more. She sprang from her chair. “See here!” she asked, looking rapidly at each of them in turn, “you all want to abuse me to-night? What I do any of you? Eh? What you interfering with me for?”

But Tom was now in a desperate mood, and Susan’s rage did not seem to frighten him.

He glared back at her. “Didn’t I tell you I didn’t want me name call in the court-house?” he demanded. “Y’u had no business to fight with Maria. If you didn’t speak to her, she couldn’t have troubled you. But you infernal women——”

“Don’t call me infernal, Taam! Don’t y’u call me infernal! It’s not because you paying me rent that you must use me an’ take an advantage of me as if I was a common street gurl. Don’t y’u do it, Tom!”

“Well, whether you like it or not, I say it already,” replied Tom bitterly. “As to the rent, y’u will have to pay it yourself next month!”

“Oh yes?” retorted Susan. “So you gwine to Maria, eh? Well, I tell you straight that I will pull every plait out of she head! An’ as for you, me good man, I don’t know what foot you goin’ to take to walk go to Maria’s house!

“Lor-r-rd!” she screamed. “Look what this man come an’ tell me to me face! Him say him going to this woman, Maria, an’ is leaving me!” and she burst into angry tears.

“I didn’t say that at all,” Tom muttered sullenly. “I said I am not going to pay any rent next month. Somebody go to-day an’ tell Mr. Jacobs all that de judge say about me, and Mr. Jacobs pay me two weeks’ wages and tell me him don’t want me any more.”

It was only too true. Tom had many friends who envied him his job, and it was one of these who had hastened to his employer with a full account of Susan’s case. In his narration this friend had managed to convey the impression that Susan and Maria were not the only two ladies who enjoyed the good things of life at Tom’s expense; and as Mr. Jacobs thought that it was not Tom, but he himself, who might later on suffer through Tom’s excessive gallantry, he concluded that the wisest thing to do was to get rid of his philandering employee at once. Thus had the blow fallen with dramatic swiftness. Susan realized what it meant. She ceased sobbing. This was no time for angry tears. Even her aunt felt that a religious text would not relieve the gravity of the situation. The old man gazed in blank amazement at Tom. Susan’s mother and sister were dumbfounded.

“Then what y’u going to do, Tom?” It was Susan who asked the question; she knew she was the cause of the crisis, but did not wish to face the blame. “P’rhaps,” she went on, without waiting for an answer, “you will get another job? Mr. Jacobs can’t say y’u rob him, an’ him must give you a character paper.”

Tom shook his head despondently. “When a man lose his job in Kingston,” he said, “it is the hardest thing for him to get another one.”

He had sat down, no longer angry, but a prey to despair. His natural weakness was beginning to reassert itself.

“But you can’t live widout working?” said Susan. “You mean to say that y’u don’t know anybody who will hire you? Don’t you have education?”

“Yes, Mister Tom,” her father remarked encouragingly, dipping into the conversation; “a ejucated gen’leman like you is not common. Trust to God!”

But Tom was not to be comforted. “I been with Mr. Jacobs six years,” he said, “an’ everybody is goin’ to say that it is funny him discharge me all of a sudden.”

“Then what you goin’ to do?” Susan asked again.

“I’m going to Colon.”

“Colon?” repeated Susan, with mingled hope and fear in her heart.

“Yes; Colon.”

“Well, Colon is a very good place,” said the old man reflectively. He was entertaining hopes of being taken to Colon himself. “I thinks Miss Susan will like it.”

“I can’t take her. I don’t have sufficient money.”

“Then what you goin’ to do wid me?” asked Susan, seeing her worst fears about to be realized. “Leave me here?”

“I will send for y’u, Sue,” Tom answered, “if I get a job. But I don’t know what is goin’ to happen. . . . It’s all your fault.”

This was so true that the rebuke was accepted in silence. But Susan did not wish to be left behind, for Maria and her mother to triumph over her downfall.

“Tom,” she pleaded, “take me with you! I can work, an’ there is plenty o’ work in Colon.”

“We all can work,” said her father anxiously, though why he should have included himself was something of a mystery. “I have always wanted to go oversea like me son. The fambily could makes you very happy, Mister Tom.” He paused, for he saw that nobody was paying any attention to him.

Tom, in fact, was explaining to Susan how impossible it was for him to take her to Colon with him, and was mingling his explanations with weak reproaches. Susan listened dumbly. She was thinking how few of her friends and acquaintances would sympathize with her; how the front house would have to be given up, and perhaps some of her furniture sold. Nor was that all. For if Tom did not send for her, as he promised, the old life might have to be resumed; and that would be more intolerable now than before. She would miss all that she had become accustomed to. She might have to face actual want—she who had for one full year enjoyed what she considered luxury. . . .

“When you goin’?” she asked at length, after Tom had said his say.

“Saturday.”

This was Wednesday night: three days more and he would be gone.

She cried, this time in real distress. Tom was touched, or he thought, erroneously, that she was crying because he was going to a foreign land where he would be far away from her.

“Don’t fret, Sue,” he said, trying to soothe her. “Colon is a place where a lot o’ money is making now. If I strike a job, you will be all right. In the meantime y’u must do you’ best.”

What that best was, and how it was to be done, was not apparent to Susan. But the old man faithfully promised Tom that Susan would do her best.

“An’ when you is arrive, Mister Tom, write to de ole man,” Mr. Proudleigh added, rising, for Tom had risen to go.

“God bless you, me son,” said his wife, as Tom shook hands with her; “you has been kind to Miss Susan.”

“Put your trust in de Lord,” said Miss Proudleigh, “an’ He shall renew thy strength.”

Susan’s sisters said nothing; Susan herself put on her hat to walk with him a portion of the way home, partly for the purpose of discussing certain financial matters, partly to make sure that he did not call at Maria’s yard.

They went out together, and then Catherine remarked:

“If Susan didn’t take de case to court, this wouldn’t happen.”

“What we gwine to do now?” asked Mr. Proudleigh dolefully.

No one answered the question.

CHAPTER V
LETITIA’S INVITATION

“I don’t do too badly this week,” said Susan, as, sitting at the threshold of a little room, which was one of a range in a yard, she slowly counted a number of small silver and copper coins which she held in her lap.

“How much you make?” asked Catherine, who sat on a little box near to the door, watching Susan’s addition with interested eyes.

“I make eight shillin’s and sixpence, an’ two shillin’s is owing out to me, all of which is profit. If I did ’ave anybody to go an’ dun for it last night, I would ’ave ten shillin’s an’ sixpence this morning. Next week I going to sell more, for I am goin’ to put more things in the shop.”

“Business is good,” said Catherine, “but it will soon get better; so even if Tom don’t send for you, Sue, you will be all right.”

“Yes, I am independent now,” returned Susan, with a touch of pride in her voice; “but I sick of this life. Every day it’s de same thing. I ’ave to work too hard, an’ sometimes I don’t make as much in a day as I use to spend on car ride when Tom was here. I feel so tired, I can’t even go to church dis morning. An’ yet I have some good frock. I going to save up money meself an’ go to Colon, even if Tom don’t send for me.”

“That is a very good resolution, Sue,” said her father, speaking from inside of the room. “Colon is a better place dan Kingston. I hear dat you can earn money there like water, an’ that’s de place I want to go to. Ef you’ brother could only send me a few dollars, I would give it to you, an’ then you could go an’ send for the whole of we.”

“Yes, sah,” replied his daughter. “I would send for you, an’ mammee, an’ Eliza. Kate could go wid me. P’rhaps Kate would get an intended in Colon.”

“I wish so,” said Catherine wistfully; “de young men in Kingston don’t have nothing.”

“It wasn’t so when I was a young man,” observed Mr. Proudleigh, harking back to the past. “In dose days a man could make plenty money, an’ he treat de females like a king. Me first sweetheart rob me over ten pounds, an’ yet I didn’t miss it. But now a man don’t ’ave ten shillin’s to give a gal, much less ten pounds for anybody to rob.”

“You right,” agreed Susan. “Dis is not the place for me. Colon or Port Limon is the country to go to, an’ if me business prosper I going to save an’ go there.”

She nodded her head determinedly, then tied the money in the corner of a handkerchief, put it in her pocket, and went towards the back of the yard.

Her father came out and sat on the spot she had vacated. He did not like to question Susan too closely, but of Catherine, who was of a milder disposition, he had no fear.

“Kate,” he said, “you t’ink Susan will really save money to go away?”

“So she say, papee,” Catherine answered. “An’ she doing very well. She make ten an’ six this week, an’ she goin’ to make more.”

“That is good,” said the old man. “Ef you go wid her you mustn’t forget you’ ole father, Kate. I don’t want all me children to be away from me when I dead. An’ if you don’t send fo’ me when you go away, I don’t see how I can ever go.”

As Kate saw no immediate prospect of leaving Jamaica herself, she did not pursue the conversation. And both she and her father continued sitting there for some time in silence, gazing at nihility, and thus keeping the Sabbath day holy.

They were still living in a lane, but not the lane in which they had lately lived for fully a year. This one was called Luke Lane, and their yard was situated near the northern end of it, close to North Street. It was some eight weeks since Tom had left, and much had happened in the interval. The first four weeks had been a trying time for Susan, for, even before Tom sailed for Colon, Maria and her mother had heard of his dismissal. They spread the news rapidly and all Susan’s enemies rejoiced without any attempt at concealment. They assembled at the gates of their yards when she passed up and down the lane, and laughed loudly. They made remarks which she knew were intended for her hearing. Maria, remembering Susan’s fatal allusion to her dress, attired herself every Sunday in her most gaudy garments and went to see some people who lived opposite to Susan, so that the latter’s cup of humiliation should be full. She knew that Susan’s establishment could not be maintained long after Tom’s departure, unless some extraordinary piece of good fortune should befall her. This Maria confidently hoped would not happen: she had missed taking Tom away from Susan; but still there was great satisfaction in knowing that if she had lost what she might have had, Susan had lost what she actually had possessed.

Susan endured all these insults with considerable fortitude, and went about her business quietly, keeping her own counsel as to what she intended to do. About a month after Tom had left for Colon, she and her family, aided by a cart, removed what remained of her furniture (for she had sold some), and went to live elsewhere.

They removed late at night, and silently; for Susan’s pride revolted at the very thought of being seen taking last leave of the beloved front house. Removing late at night had its inconveniences, for it was certain to be said that she had left without paying the month’s rent, and without the knowledge of the landlord. Night removals in the West Indies (and they are very frequent) are always attended with this suspicion, a suspicion based upon extensive experience. But in this instance the landlord knew all about Susan’s intention, for she had given him the proper notice, and at the end of the month had gone to him and paid him two-thirds of the rent that was due. As she had been a good tenant, he made a virtue of necessity and generously allowed her to owe him the balance. Yet all this did not prevent it from being circulated in certain quarters of the lane that Susan, true to the principles of many who live in yard-rooms and little front houses, had availed herself of the darkness to cover her rent-escaping tracks.

She heard from Tom before her removal. In his letter he mentioned that the chances were that he should obtain a good situation if he did not fall ill of fever. Like a sensible girl she concluded that his chances of being ill were probably as great as his prospects of getting a job; so she told her aunt, “I better look for meself.” Her way of looking for herself was not original; but it proved successful. Tom had given her two pounds before leaving. She had also saved a few shillings. And this money had come in useful for the setting up of a small business.

She had rented a little shop and had stocked it with the things she knew would sell. The shop was built against the fence, and opened both in the yard and on the lane. It was constructed of odd bits of board and roofed with three sheets of corrugated iron. It could scarcely accommodate two persons. Customers were not allowed inside. They stood in the lane and made their purchases over a counter which was merely a square bit of board cut out of that side of the shop which faced the lane. This counter formed a shutter at night; you fixed it into the opening and secured it by means of an ingenious system of bars and bolts. As thieves might break in and steal, Susan usually removed some of her goods to a safer place at night; the room in which she and her family lived being the only place available to her.

She sold bread and “grater cake” (a cake made of desiccated cocoa-nut stewed with sugar). The prices of this sweetmeat ranged from a farthing to three farthings each, and she did a considerable trade in it. For the children held that a halfpenny spent on a small loaf of bread and a small grater cake yielded abundant satisfaction, and even grown-up people frequently made their lunch off the same articles.

She sold cocoa-nut oil, sugar-cane, mangoes, bananas, and flour-cakes. These last were made of flour and sugar and plenty of baking-soda, were very cheap and filling, and were openly despised by everybody and secretly eaten by all.

She sold Rosebud cigarettes, for that, she wisely calculated, would be a good bait for the boys and men, and she wanted the biggest custom possible.

She sold firewood, and yams and plantains, and gingerbeer. Ice also; and she proclaimed that fact by means of a red flag, hung out diagonally on a pole, and having sewn upon it three ill-shaped letters in white calico which spelt out the word, ICE. She was, in short, a full-fledged higgler, and as she sat in her shop surrounded by boxes and baskets, and little heaps of bread-stuffs, she assumed the important facial expression common to all higglers, though in her case neither ugliness nor slatternliness had set its seal upon her; which alone differentiated her sharply from most of the other women who followed her trade.

There were many of these in the lane. They were rivals, but among them Susan easily stood first. For the stock of none of them was ever worth more than seven or eight shillings, and sometimes not worth even half of that amount. She, on the other hand, had boldly invested thirty shillings in purchases at the start, and the venture had been justified by success.

Her looks helped her. The young men who passed by her shop patronized her and attempted to make love to her; but they were obviously poor, so while she was polite to them she kept them at a distance. Her family was also of great assistance. Her mother made the “grater cakes” and boiled the cocoa-nut oil; her sisters went in the mornings far beyond the northern boundaries of the city to meet the countrywomen coming down to market, so as to buy fruit cheap from them. By this means Susan saved money, an important consideration, for a shilling a day was the very most that she could spend on food for all the family. As for the old man, he rendered no material assistance; but he personally felt that his moral influence upon the situation was immeasurable. With the tattered remains of an old soft felt hat upon his head—he never went without it, for he imagined that it added to his dignity—a pipe in his mouth, and his feet thrust into slippers, he hovered about what he called “de little shaps,” feeling himself the natural protector of his daughter, and the inspiring genius of the family.

He was proud of Susan. The problem of living had presented itself to him with distressing intensity on the night that Tom had announced his intention of going to Colon. He then had seen nothing before himself and his wife but the Union Poorhouse, an institution which he thought of with a shudder. He knew he could do nothing to help himself, though he never would have acknowledged that to anyone; so, even though the girls might shift for themselves, he could see no ray of hope for himself and the old woman. Susan, however, had solved the problem by unexpectedly developing commercial instincts; and he reflected that most of her ability must have been inherited from him, since he had never credited his wife with much intelligence.

As he sat this Sunday morning at the threshold of the single room they now lived in, he felt placidly contented. The shop had become a certain source of revenue, and no Maria could interfere with it. He was quite satisfied not to take much thought of the morrow; and the change that had recently taken place in Susan’s circumstances was accepted by him with a temperamental equanimity which could only be disturbed by fear of the almshouse or of immediate starvation.

He looked about the yard, seeing nothing. Such scenes he had been familiar with all the days of his life. It was an ordinary Kingston tenement yard; the low range of rooms, each room being separated from the other by but a thin partition of board; the broken-down kitchen; the water-pipe continually dripping, so that a part of the yard was never dry; babies sitting in little boxes stuffed with rags to prevent the little creatures from hurting themselves; bigger babies creeping about; wash-tubs everywhere; it was what he had always seen in every similar place. The prevailing squalor did not affect the old man and his wife, and even Catherine and his youngest daughter had reconciled themselves to it. But Susan rebelled; she felt that she ought not to be reduced to living in a yard-room.

This Sunday morning, however, she was better pleased than usual, for she saw that if her custom continued to increase she would soon be in a position to save money. Up to now she had been living on every penny of her profits, for the rent of the shop and the room together was sixteen shillings a month. But good luck was plainly attending her, and already she was speculating upon what she would do in the future.

Presently she returned to where her father and Catherine were still sitting. Catherine made room for her on the box, and Mr. Proudleigh, never happy if compelled to remain silent for long, asked her when next she expected to hear from Tom.

“How can I tell, sah?” was her very reasonable reply. “Him only write me once since he gone to Colon; an’ I wants to believe he must be in the hospital. From all dat I hear about Colon, Tom don’t likely to get on there. Him too soft! Kingston is all right enough; but in Colon—so I hear—if you look on a man too hard, him wants to shoot you; an’ if you don’t look on him hard, him wants to take an advantage of y’u. That is not the sort o’ place for Tom.”

“Then how you expects to go down to him?” asked her father. “Ef him is such a young man of unreligable nature, I don’t see how you can teck up you’self an’ put you’self under his protection an’ care.”

Susan laughed scornfully. “I was ever under his protection an’ care in Jamaica?” she asked.

“No,” said Catherine; “but here everything is quiet. Down in Colon a young gurl must ’ave a young man to look after ’er; otherwise there may be boderation. I wouldn’t like to go down by meself that way.”

“I would go,” said Susan decisively. “After all, whatever y’u meet in this world it is you’ luck. If you to dead in Colon, you will dead there. If you to come back to Jamaica, y’u will come back.”

This fatalistic note, struck with such confidence, awoke a responsive echo in the hearts of her hearers.

“You is right,” said the old man. “A man shouldn’t bother him head about what goin’ to happen to-morrow, for him can’t prevent what is gwine to happen. Therefore, sufficient to de day is the evil thereof. You saving money to go?”