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 he 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 dwindle 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.”
and then she would reply with the full swing of her eloquence, “it is because you and such as you think only of yourself and not of jamaica, that jamaica has come to such a pass as this. why is there a pack there as you call them in the honourable house of assembly? why are not the best men in the island to be found there, as the best men in england are to be found in the british house of commons? a pack, indeed! my father was proud of a seat in that house, and i remember the day, maurice cumming, when your father also thought it no shame to represent his own parish. if men like you, who have a stake in the country, will not go there, of course the house is filled with men who have no stake. if they are a pack, it is you who send them there;—you, and others like you.”
all had its effect, though at the moment maurice would shrug his shoulders and turn away his head from the torrent of the lady’s discourse. but miss jack, though she was not greatly liked, was greatly respected. maurice would not own that she convinced him; but at last he did allow his name to be put up as candidate for his own parish, and in due time he became a member of the honourable house of assembly in jamaica.
this honour entails on the holder of it the necessity of living at or within reach of spanish town for some ten weeks towards the chose of every year. now on the whole face of the uninhabited globe there is perhaps no spot more dull to look at, more lethean in its aspect, more corpse-like or more cadaverous than spanish town. it is the head-quarters of the government, the seat of the legislature, the residence of the governor;—but nevertheless it is, as it were, a city of the very dead.
here, as we have said before, lived miss jack in a large forlorn ghost-like house in which her father and all her family had lived before her. and as a matter of course maurice cumming when he came up to attend to his duties as a member of the legislature took up his abode with her.
now at the time of which we are specially speaking he had completed the first of these annual visits. he had already benefited his country by sitting out one session of the colonial parliament, and had satisfied himself that he did no other good than that of keeping away some person more objectionable than himself. he was however prepared to repeat this self-sacrifice in a spirit of patriotism for which he received a very meagre meed of eulogy from miss jack, and an amount of self-applause which was not much more extensive.
“down at mount pleasant i can do something,” he would say over and over again, “but what good can any man do up here?”
“you can do your duty,” miss jack would answer, “as others did before you when the colony was made to prosper.” and then they would run off into a long discussion about free labour and protective duties. but at the present moment maurice cumming had another vexation on his mind over and above that arising from his wasted hours at spanish town, and his fruitless labours at mount pleasant. he was in love, and was not altogether satisfied with the conduct of his lady-love.
miss jack had other nephews besides maurice cumming, and nieces also, of whom marian leslie was one. the family of the leslies lived up near newcastle—in the mountains, that is, which stand over kingston—at a distance of some eighteen miles from kingston, but in a climate as different from that of the town as the climate of naples is from that of berlin. in kingston the heat is all but intolerable throughout the year, by day and by night, in the house and out of it. in the mountains round newcastle, some four thousand feet above the sea, it is merely warm during the day, and cool enough at night to make a blanket desirable.
it is pleasant enough living up amongst those green mountains. there are no roads there for wheeled carriages, nor are there carriages with or without wheels. all journeys are made on horseback. every visit paid from house to house is performed in this manner. ladies young and old live before dinner in their riding-habits. the hospitality is free, easy, and unembarrassed. the scenery is magnificent. the tropical foliage is wild and luxuriant beyond measure. there may be enjoyed all that a southern climate has to offer of enjoyment, without the penalties which such enjoyments usually entail.
mrs. leslie was a half-sister of miss jack, and miss jack had been a half-sister also of mrs. cumming; but mrs. leslie and mrs. cumming had in no way been related. and it had so happened that up to the period of his legislative efforts maurice cumming had seen nothing of the leslies. soon after his arrival at spanish town he had been taken by miss jack to shandy hall, for so the residence of the leslies was called, and having remained there for three days, had fallen in love with marian leslie. now in the west indies all young ladies flirt; it is the first habit of their nature—and few young ladies in the west indies were more given to flirting, or understood the science better than marian leslie.
maurice cumming fell violently in love, and during his first visit at shandy hall found that marian was perfection—for during this first visit her propensities were exerted altogether in his own favour. that little circumstance does make such a difference in a young man’s judgment of a girl! he came back fall of admiration, not altogether to miss jack’s dissatisfaction; for miss jack was willing enough that both her nephew and her niece should settle down into married life.
but then maurice met his fair one at a governor’s ball—at a ball where red coats abounded, and aides-de-camp dancing in spurs, and narrow-waisted lieutenants with sashes or epaulettes! the aides-de-camp and narrow-waisted lieutenants waltzed better than he did; and as one after the other whisked round the ball-room with marian firmly clasped in his arms, maurice’s feelings were not of the sweetest. nor was this the worst of it. had the whisking been divided equally among ten, he might have forgiven it; but there was one specially narrow-waisted lieutenant, who towards the end of the evening kept marian nearly wholly to himself. now to a man in love, who has had but little experience of either balls or young ladies, this is intolerable.
he only met her twice after that before his return to mount pleasant, and on the first occasion that odious soldier was not there. but a specially devout young clergyman was present, an unmarried, evangelical, handsome young curate fresh from england; and marian’s piety had been so excited that she had cared for no one else. it appeared moreover that the curate’s gifts for conversion were confined, as regarded that opportunity, to marion’s advantage. “i will have nothing more to say to her,” said maurice to himself, scowling. but just as he went away marian had given him her hand, and called him maurice—for she pretended that they were cousins—and had looked into his eyes and declared that she did hope that the assembly at spanish town would soon be sitting again. hitherto, she said, she had not cared one straw about it. then poor maurice pressed the little fingers which lay within his own, and swore that he would be at shandy hall on the day before his return to mount pleasant. so he was; and there he found the narrow-waisted lieutenant, not now bedecked with sash and epaulettes, but lolling at his ease on mrs. leslie’s sofa in a white jacket, while marian sat at his feet telling his fortune with a book about flowers.
“oh, a musk rose, mr. ewing; you know what a musk rose means!” then she got up and shook hands with mr. cumming; but her eyes still went away to the white jacket and the sofa. poor maurice had often been nearly broken-hearted in his efforts to manage his free black labourers; but even that was easier than managing such as marion leslie.
marian leslie was a creole—as also were miss jack and maurice cumming—a child of the tropics; but by no means such a child as tropical children are generally thought to be by us in more northern latitudes. she was black-haired and black-eyed, but her lips were as red and her cheeks as rosy as though she had been born and bred in regions where the snow lies in winter. she was a small, pretty, beautifully made little creature, somewhat idle as regards the work of the world, but active and strong enough when dancing or riding were required from her. her father was a banker, and was fairly prosperous in spite of the poverty of his country. his house of business was at kingston, and he usually slept there twice a week; but he always resided at shandy hall, and mrs. leslie and her children knew but very little of the miseries of kingston. for be it known to all men, that of all towns kingston, jamaica, is the most miserable.
i fear that i shall have set my readers very much against marian leslie;—much more so than i would wish to do. as a rule they will not know how thoroughly flirting is an institution in the west indies—practised by all young ladies, and laid aside by them when they marry, exactly as their young-lady names and young-lady habits of various kinds are laid aside. all i would say of marian leslie is this, that she understood the working of the institution more thoroughly than others did. and i must add also in her favour that she did not keep her flirting for sly corners, nor did her admirers keep their distance till mamma was out of the way. it mattered not to her who was present. had she been called on to make one at a synod of the clergy of the island, she would have flirted with the bishop before all his priests. and there have been bishops in the colony who would not have gainsayed her!
but maurice cumming did not rightly calculate all this; nor indeed did miss jack do so as thoroughly as she should have done, for miss jack knew more about such matters than did poor maurice. “if you like marion, why don’t you marry her?”
miss jack had once said to him; and this coming from miss jack, who was made of money, was a great deal.
“she wouldn’t have me,” maurice had answered.
“that’s more than you know or i either,” was miss jack’s reply. “but if you like to try, i’ll help you.”
with reference to this, maurice as he left miss jack’s residence on his return to mount pleasant, had declared that marian leslie was not worth an honest man’s love.
“psha!” miss jack replied; “marian will do like other girls. when you marry a wife i suppose you mean to be master?”
“at any rate i shan’t marry her,” said maurice. and so he went his way back to hanover with a sore heart. and no wonder, for that was the very day on which lieutenant ewing had asked the question about the musk rose.
but there was a dogged constancy of feeling about maurice which could not allow him to disburden himself of his love. when he was again at mount pleasant among his sugar-canes and hogsheads he could not help thinking about marian. it is true he always thought of her as flying round that ball-room in ewing’s arms, or looking up with rapt admiration into that young parson’s face; and so he got but little pleasure from his thoughts. but not the less was he in love with her;—not the less, though he would swear to himself three times in the day that for no earthly consideration would he marry marian leslie.
the early months of the year from january to may are the busiest with a jamaica sugar-grower, and in this year they were very busy months with maurice cumming. it seemed as though there were actually some truth in miss jack’s prediction that prosperity would return to him if he attended to his country; for the prices of sugar had risen higher than they had ever been since the duty had been withdrawn, and there was more promise of a crop at mount pleasant than he had seen since his reign commenced. but then the question of labour? how he slaved in trying to get work from those free negroes; and alas! how often he slaved in vain! but it was not all in vain; for as things went on it became clear to him that in this year he would, for the first time since he commenced, obtain something like a return from his land. what if the turning-point had come, and things were now about to run the other way.
but then the happiness which might have accrued to him from this source was dashed by his thoughts of marian leslie. why had he thrown himself in the way of that syren? why had he left mount pleasant at all? he knew that on his return to spanish town his first work would be to visit shandy hall; and yet he felt that of all places in the island, shandy hall was the last which he ought to visit.
and then about the beginning of may, when he was hard at work turning the last of his canes into sugar and rum, he received his annual visit from miss jack. and whom should miss jack bring with her but mr. leslie.
“i’ll tell you what it is,” said miss jack; “i have spoken to mr. leslie about you and marian.”
“then you had no business to do anything of the kind,” said maurice, blushing up to his ears.
“nonsense,” replied miss jack, “i understand what i am about. of course mr. leslie will want to know something about the estate.”
“then he may go back as wise as he came, for he’ll learn nothing from me. not that i have anything to hide.”
“so i told him. now there are a large family of them, you see; and of course he can’t give marian much.”
“i don’t care a straw if he doesn’t give her a shilling. if she cared for me, or i for her, i shouldn’t look after her for her money.”
“but a little money is not a bad thing, maurice,” said miss jack, who in her time had had a good deal, and had managed to take care of it.
“it is all one to me.”
“but what i was going to say is this—hum—ha. i don’t like to pledge myself for fear i should raise hopes which mayn’t be fulfilled.”
“don’t pledge yourself to anything, aunt, in which marian leslie and i are concerned.”
“but what i was going to say is this; my money, what little i have, you know, must go some day either to you or to the leslies.”
“you may give all to them if you please.”
“of course i may, and i dare say i shall,” said miss jack, who was beginning to be irritated. “but at any rate you might have the civility to listen to me when i am endeavouring to put you on your legs. i am sure i think about nothing else, morning, noon, and night, and yet i never get a decent word from you. marian is too good for you; that’s the truth.”
but at length miss jack was allowed to open her budget, and to make her proposition; which amounted to this—that she had already told mr. leslie that she would settle the bulk of her property conjointly on maurice and marian if they would make a match of it. now as mr. leslie had long been casting a hankering eye after miss jack’s money, with a strong conviction however that maurice cumming was her favourite nephew and probable heir, this proposition was not unpalatable. so he agreed to go down to mount pleasant and look about him.
“but you may live for the next thirty years, my dear miss jack,” mr. leslie had said.
“yes, i may,” miss jack replied, looking very dry.
“and i am sure i hope you will,” continued mr. leslie. and then the subject was allowed to drop; for mr. leslie knew that it was not always easy to talk to miss jack on such matters.
miss jack was a person in whom i think we may say that the good predominated over the bad. she was often morose, crabbed, and self-opinionated; but then she knew her own imperfections, and forgave those she loved for evincing their dislike of them. maurice cumming was often inattentive to her, plainly showing that he was worried by her importunities and ill at ease in her company. but she loved her nephew with all her heart; and though she dearly liked to tyrannise over him, never allow herself to be really angry with him, though he so frequently refused to bow to her dictation. and she loved marian leslie also, though marian was so sweet and lovely and she herself so harsh and ill-favoured. she loved marian, though marian would often be impertinent. she forgave the flirting, the light-heartedness, the love of amusement. marian, she said to herself, was young and pretty. she, miss jack, had never known marian’s temptation. and so she resolved in her own mind that marian should be made a good and happy woman;—but always as the wife of maurice cumming.
but maurice turned a deaf ear to all these good tidings—or rather he turned to them an ear that seemed to be deaf. he dearly, ardently loved that little flirt; but seeing that she was a flirt, that she had flirted so grossly when he was by, he would not confess his love to a human being. he would not have it known that he was wasting his heart for a worthless little chit, to whom every man was the same—except that those were most eligible whose toes were the lightest and their outside trappings the brightest. that he did love her he could not help, but he would not disgrace himself by acknowledging it.
he was very civil to mr. leslie, but he would not speak a word that could be taken as a proposal for marian. it had been part of miss jack’s plan that the engagement should absolutely be made down there at mount pleasant, without any reference to the young lady; but maurice could not be induced to break the ice. so he took mr. leslie through his mills and over his cane-pieces, talked to him about the laziness of the “niggers,” while the “niggers” themselves stood by tittering, and rode with him away to the high grounds where the coffee plantation had been in the good old days; but not a word was said between them about marian. and yet marian was never out of his heart.
and then came the day on which mr. leslie was to go back to kingston. “and you won’t have her then?” said miss jack to her nephew early that morning. “you won’t be said by me?”
“not in this matter, aunt.”
“then you will live and die a poor man; you mean that, i suppose?”
“it’s likely enough that i shall. there’s this comfort, at any rate, i’m used to it.” and then miss jack was silent again for a while.
“very well, sir; that’s enough,” she said angrily. and then she began again. “but, maurice, you wouldn’t have to wait for my death, you know.” and she put out her hand and touched his arm, entreating him as it were to yield to her. “oh, maurice,” she said, “i do so want to make you comfortable. let us speak to mr. leslie.”
but maurice would not. he took her hand and thanked her, but said that on this matter he must he his own master. “very well, sir,” she exclaimed, “i have done. in future you may manage for yourself. as for me, i shall go back with mr. leslie to kingston.” and so she did. mr. leslie returned that day, taking her with him. when he took his leave, his invitation to maurice to come to shandy hall was not very pressing. “mrs. leslie and the children will always be glad to see you,” said he.
