Poor Little Life. A FAMILY EPISODE. (From Chambers Journal.)

Waikato Times, Volume XXII, Issue 1824, 15 March 1884, Page 1 (Supplement)

Poor Little Life. A FAMILY EPISODE. (From C hambers Journal.)

Poor little life, that toddles half an hour Crowned with a flower or two, and there an end. I. " Pebohed on the lofty watch-tower of the Company's wharf, Kingston, Jamaica, " Sir Lord NWson Fsquire " had been occupied since daylight in looking out for the English steamer. The owner of this self-bestowed and patrician appelative was an old negro of uncertain age, and bare feet, and whose powers of vision verged on the miraculous. Long before the steamer was visible to the most experienced nautical eye armed with one of Dollond's best glasses, Lord Nelson had seen the tips of her masts rising above the hbrizon. Nay, it was popularly supposed that 1 before she was

actually visible even to him, he waa able to prognosticate her approach by certain signs in the sky itself, whose secret he guarded as if it had been hidden treasure. " Coming, boy ? " inquired the clerk at the foot of the scaffolding. 41 Yes, massa ; him coining, fe true. Him pass Morant Point now, an' de paseengers dey land at nine-thirty." "All right, then. Hoist the flag ! " And up went the red flag at the top of the Gazebo, giving notice to all Kingston that the anxiously expected Ehoine was in the offing. " Cho I dese steps is mos' distressful," s&fd the old negro, descending the ladder backwards. 11 It's you that's getting old, Nelson ! " said the clerk, shaking hia head. " A man can't live fot ever, even an old sinner like you. Come down quickly, and go and tell Captain Eoberts. You'll find the superintendent in his office." "Dat bery true, what you cay Massa De Souza," retorted the negro with a grunt. " But if you tink I is gwine to die to oblige you, sa, you is bery much mistaken. Hi 1 after my fader lib till he couldn't lib any longer, do you tink me is gwine to die, jus' becausing you cay lis getting old. Cho 1 it 'tan too 'tupid." And the old man, having thus clenched the argument, retired with many a sniff and snigger and chuckle of satisfaction to obey Mr. De Souza's commands. Seven miles away, in the upper piazza of one of the largest " perms " in the Linguanea plains, a group of fair girls were seated over their morning coffee. Clad in loose white muslin dressing-gowns, with long dark hair floating over their shoulders, and sprigs of myrtle or oleander in their bosoms—chattering, yawning, indolent, and altogether delightful — they formed a charming pf&ure of tropical grace and beauty. " The flag's up 1 " cried Evelyn, suddenly starting to her feet. " Mother I " she called to a lady extended on an Indian wicker-work chair in the inner apartment — " mother I the steamer's signalled. George will be here in about a couple of hours." There was an instant rush to the jalousies. The shutters were thrown open ; glasses were produced ; and the whole family, struggling, shouting, leaping, dancing in the wild frenzy of their excitement, craned their necks to catch the first glimpse of the eagerly-looked-for mail. " Yes ; there she is 1 " exclaimed Evelyn. " Where ? " cried Sibyl, the youngest of the trio, peering on tiptoe over her sister's shoulder. " There— look 1 passing the Palisades. You can just see her smoke over the tops of the cocoa-nuts at the lighthouse." " No ; it's only the mist," said Eleanor. "Mist? Nonsense I It's the steamer's smoke — There 1 I told you so, Eleanor," added Evelyn triumphantly, as the flash and the smoke of the signal-gun announced her arrival at Port-Eoyal. " You've no time to lose, girls," said Mrs. Durham, approaching her daughters. "Go and bathe and dress. I'll tell Tom to get the carriage, and you can all drive down and meet your cousin. I'll stay at home to welcome him to Prospect Gardens. You will make my excuses for not coming to meet him. But the drive in the sun wjuld knock me up for a week; and besides, you know there would not be room for all of us. Now, Evelyn, you are the eldest. Try and keep these riotous sisters of yours in order. And, children, mind your cousin has no sisters of his own, and is not accustomed to the madcap ways of three witless pickles of girls." " All right, mother I " said Evelyn, with a saucy toss of her head. "I won't disgrace the family, never fear. I'll be dignity and discretion itself. I'll be as stately as Lady Longton when she's receiving company at a Queen's House Ball ; and if he offers to kiss me, I'll hold up my fan and say : ' 0 fiie ! you naughty man ! ' " "But she'll let him do it, all the same," added Eleanor. " Go along with you, you silly girls I You'll be too late, if you don't be off to your bath at once ; and acting on their mother's monition, the three bright maidens flew down the marble steps and across the courtyard to the bathing-house, and were soon all three splashing and swimming and laughing amidst the cool and crystal water. Mrs. Durham of Prospect Gardens was the widow of a high official in the colony. Her husband had been Attorney- General of Jamaica at a time when that office was even of more importance and influence than it is now. Herself a Creole— a person born in the West Indies, without reference to what are called in Jamaica " complexional " distinctions — and belonging to one of the oldest families in the colony, she still retained much of the pride, perhaps more of the prejudices of the old plantocraoy ; the haughtiest, the most conservative, and the least pliable of aristocracies, yet, notwithstanding all its faults and shortcomings, one of the most generous and the most ill-used. But the influence of her husband — an Englishman — has toned down some of the more conspicuous of these prejudices ; at any rate, it had eradicated from her mind that jealousy of imperial influence and imperial institutions, which was, and perhaps still is, one of the most obstinate obstacles to the prosperity of the colony. She had frankly accepted the new constitution, when in 1866 that " unutterable abomination," the House of Assembly, had decreed its own extinction. She had sided with the adherents of Governor Eyre during all the long and bitter struggle which had succeeded the suppression of the so-called Jamaica rebellion. She had extended the hand of hospitality to the succession of governors, colonial secretaries, judges, and officials of all grades who had been imported into the colony from England, with the happy result that she had consolidated her social influence, and established her social position upon a basis which preserved for her the repect of all but the most irreconcilable Creoles, while it procured *foy her the esteem and friendship of all the inner circle of the administrators of the new regime. Hence an introdnction to Prospect Gardens not only secured to the favoured stranger the entrde to the best society in the colony, but opened to him the door of one of the pleasantest houses in new Jamaica. The late Agent-General had been a man of very considerable means. He was also well connected. His elder brother, Sir George Durham of Deepdale, was oue of the largest proprietors in the west of England. But the baronet had died within a year of his brother; and the title was now held by his son and only child, whose arrival it was that the family at Prospect Gardens were now expecting with such noisy demonstrations of delight. He had come out to spend Christmas with his cousins, and to make the acquaintance of his aunt, whom he had never seen. To Evelyn he was already known ; for Evelyn had been at school in Englahd, and her holidays had bean spent at Deepdale. But two years had elapsed sjnee she had returned to Jamaica; and within these two years, the thin, delicate slip of a girl, whom George was accustomed to tease and torment all through the summer day, had expanded into a lovely and elegant woman, whose powers of inflioting torture on the other sex were at least equal to his own. As for Eleanor and Sibyl, the shared their sister's beauty, without perhaps sharing her peculiar sunniness of disposition. They were at that objectionable age when the child has not yet become a woman. Eleanor waa four* teen; Sibyl was nearly twelve. They had all the inconvenient outspokeness of children, and all the coquetry of more advanced years.

-Lilt-,) Wv-ic uUujjltt ii. t..0 mxs-0i,,, i... >.n^^. -.Ot {in the practice of flirtation. But they were full of promise, and bade fair to be m due time, like other true and charming women, at once the delight and the torment of the opposite sex. Certainly, when the three fair girls, in the bewitching light attire of tropioal climes, armed with fans and parasols and green veils to protect them from the vertical sun, had been packed into the family coach, their mother might be pardoned the sigh of satisfaction with which she regarded the children, as they drove down the long avenue of mango and tamarind trees on their way to town. " They would be thought beauties even in England," she said to herself ; " and they're as good as they are pretty. Now, if George " But she did not finish her sentence. She smiled, and shook her head sadly, and returned to the house to give orders for the preparation of her nephew's breakfast. " I wonder if George will recognise us ? " said Eleanor, as thr caniage rolled in the grimy courtyard of the Company's wharf. " Becoguise ws / " said Evelyn. " Eecognise me, you mean. I'm the only one of the family he has ever seen ; and besides, yon don't suppose he would take the trouble to to notice such chits as you ! Keep the eyes about you, girls 1 Lo-k out for the handsomest young man you ever saw— even in your dreams; with blue eyes and a fair moustache. I hope we're in time. The passcngera have begun to leave the ship already, Look! there's some of them having their luggage examined at the custom-house shed." Down they came from the landing-stage, one after another, in a continuous stream — passengers male and female, young and old, white, black, brown, and yellow — English and Creoles, Cubans and Yankees, •' true Barbabadians born," Jews and Gentiles — a variegated and cosmopolitan crowd. Grinning negroes shouldering portmanteaus ; English women ladeu with handbags and flower-pots ; oue or two coloured clergymen tricked out after the latest fashion of High-Church manmillinery ; Cuban ladies with lace mantillas on their heads, clamping along on shoes whose high heels clattered iike pattens ; halfa dozen planters or so with black alpaca coats and bearded face ; a few young men of the Howell and James type, come out to be " assistants " in some Kingston storey a couple or more solid, square-faced, sandy-haired Sootoh book-keepers, consigned to sugar-estates in Trelawnep or St. Ann's ; and the übiquitous, tiaveliing English member of parliament, spectacled and aggressive, determined to investigate to its hidden depths the whole bearings of the intricate Colonial question. But no George, nor any one that looked like Geoege. Already the work of coaling the steamer had begun; and a long line of men and women, coal " boys " and coal " girls " — blaok as the coals they carried, chanting a wild recitative, and walking with that pecular dorsal swing which is characteristic of the blaok race all over the world — were trooping up the gangway, to empty their baskets into the hold. Still no George, nor any one that looked like him. At last, when the patience of the girls was all but exhausted, and their spirits had sunk to zero, there appeared on the landing-stage an unmistakable Englishman. He was youug — about four or five and twenty. He was dressed in light tweeds. He had a pair of tan-coloured gloves on his hands. He wore a short, trim beard, of ft shade between gold and auburn ; and in defiance of all the Company's regulations, he wa3 smoking a cigarette. A bedroom steward at his heels carried a portmanteau and a travelling-bag. He sauntered slowly down the stage and across the courtyard to the shed where the custom-house officers were at work upon the passengers' luggage. As he passed the Durham's carriage without even so much as a glance at its fair occupants, Evelyn muttered a timid " George 1 " but he took no notice, and held on his leisurely way. "If that isn't George, I'll eat him 1 " cried Evelyn in her vexation. " Look, sissy 1 " said Sibyl ; " there's the steward with his luggage; and see, it is George ! There are his initials, G. D., on his handbag." " 0 please I " said Evelyn to a white-coated constable who happened to be standing near her, " run after that gentleman and teli him to come here. I want to speak to him. Look I he is just going out through the gateway." " Yea, miss," said the constable, saluting, and starting off at the double. " You, sa 1 Hi 1 you, sa 1 Lor' ! him don't hear me. Hi 1 you, sa 1 " The gentleman turned, and waited till the constable made up to him. " Well, what is it ? " he inquired. "You see dem missy in that buggy, ya I " he said, pointing to the Durham's carriage. "Well?" " Dey want speak wid you ; dats all ! " Sir George turned sharply round, and throwing away his cigarette, approached the carriage. "By Jove! it can't be— Evelyn!" he cried. " Yes ; it is I, George. And here's Eleanor ; and this is Sibyl." And then handshakings commenced all round, and a series of cousinly salutes, which the girls submitted to with equanimity. " But he kissed Evelyn twice for our once," said Sibyl to Eleanor afterwards. " I told you she wouldn't object," remarked her sister. " And as for me, I had never any intention of objecting," remarked Sibyl. # " O you ; you're a child ; it doesn't matter for you. But Evelyn — humph t I'll have to keep my eye upon her 1 " " Tom has engaged a dray for your luggage, George," said Evelyn, after these prelimi. naries had been adjusted. "Here's one *f the clerks coming with yoar keys. Mannie — that's one of our boys, George ; that whity« brown nigger over there with a white puggree round his wide-awake — will oome out with it. It will be at the perm almost as soon as we are. Tom 1 " she added, addressing the coachman, "have you got the ioe from the ice-house ? " " Yes, missis." " And the pine-apple and the naseberries ? \ " Hi ! yes, missis. Dem all in there," pointing to the boot of the carriage. " Very well. Tell Mannie to call at the post-office for the letters. And that's ail, I think. Let us go home." Never had George enjoyed a merrier or a more interesting drive. Everything was new to him, everything was strange to him. He did not know which interested him most, his winsome companions, with their ceaseless flow of musical chatter, and all their bright, happy, girlish, cousinly ways ; the beauty of the crumpled, verdure-covered hills ; the gracej ful forms of the tropical vegetation; the quaintness of the gaily-painted, jalousied toy-like wooden houses; the street scenes the broad grins, merry faces, and marvellous get-up of the peasantry. He told Evelyn it made him think he was looking through a kaleidoscope, S3 sudden were the changes, so brilliant the combination of colour which met his gave at every moment. " I lid not believe there were so many niggers in the world," he remarked, as the carriage drove slowly past the entrance to the Sollas market, and looking in through the open gateway, he saw the busy, noisy, chaffering crowd, packed aa olose as herrings in a barrel. " What 1 Does the heathen Chinee live in Jamaica 1 ' he exclaimed, as a blue-jaoketod, (Continue© on Back Pag*. .

pig-tailed, grave, and ginger-coloured Celestial elbowed his way through the throng. "Lots 1 ' said Evelyn. " They keep all the little shops in this part of the town; and when they have saved money enough, they die ;, and their friends pack them up in boxes, andssendjihem home to China to be buried." "TLnd Coolies, too, I see 1 " "Yes, any number. The estates couldn't do without them ; and as for us, we should have no gardens, if we had not them to rely on^as gardeners.— But here we are at the Bacecourse" at last. "What a relief to be out of that hot, nasty, dusty town." "Is there anything going on to-day ? " asked Sir George, astonished at the number of vehicles he met on the road. "It is market-day. That accounts for our meeting so many of the country-people." " But all these carriages." " Oh, it's only our swells — officials and judges and merchants and shopkeepers — going down to Kingston from their countryhouses to their work. We all live at perms — that is, country-houses, in the hills or in the plains at the foot. Look ! That is Queen's house you can just see through the trees. That big white bouse, that looks as if it were right at the foot of the hills, though it's a long way off, is Longwood, where the Colonial Secretary lives ; and that one a little to the right, standing on a slight elevation, is Prospact Gardens" — " And that's our house," interjected Sibyl. George here diverted the conversation by inquiring who was the swell with the red liveries, whose carriage, enveloped in an accompanying cloud of dust, was rapidly approaching them. "Oh, that is the Governor," said Evelyn ; " And Lady Longton is with him. He's not popular ; neither is she. But Lady Longton is very nice to her friends, and dresses beautifully ; only some days, you know, she has no backbone, and doe 3 not seem as if she could be bothered with callers or company. But C-iptain Hillyard, aide-de-camp, is a dear man, and so good-looking ! And then he's so clever too. He sings beautifully, and can do all sort 3 o ( conjuring tricks ; and he draws the funniest caricatures you ever saw. He did one the other day of Sir William drawing a cork. It made Lady Longton laugh till I thought she was going to take a fit. Oh, speak of angels — theie he is 1 see ! — riding down after the Governor's carriage with little Maud Longton. There must be a Council or something going on to day ; that accounts for our meeting so many swells all together. You'll have to leave your card at Queen's House, George. You ought to do it this afternoon ; that's the etiquette, you know. But if you're very tired, 1 daresay it will do on Monday." They had branched off from the main-road now, and were driving along a shady lane, edged with a edge of prickly-pear, over which trailed wreaths of graceful creepers — convolvuli and ijjonifes, the liquorice vine, and the Circassian bean. Negro huts lined the road ; and at the doors, amongst the pigs and the goats and the poultry, gambolled the little black obese picknies, sucking huge joints of sugai-cane, and saluting the occupants of the carriage with the broadest of grins upon their ebony faces. "Look here, Cousin George," said Sibyl, pointing out a low-stoned building with an open piazza, and a great guinep-tree covering it like a huge umbrella — " that is one of our grog shops. You can buy rumfi here and bitter beer, and soap and paraffin oil and salt fish, You see that group of draymen at its side ; they are playing nineholes and the man that looses will have to stand quattic drinks all round." " What is a qnattic drink? " inquired her cousin. "Not known what a quattie drink ia George?" said Sibyl. "A quattic is a penny-halfpenny. "And the smalle&t coin the negroes acknowledge," added Evelyn. "They won't use^the new nickel pennies and half-psnnies at all ; &o the shopkeepers sell them a half-penny-worth of soap, and charge them three-half-pence for it ; and that's very convenient for shopkeepers. — Look, George ; that is a quattie," she added, taking a tiny silver coin from her purse ; " and a very pretty little thing it is too." " It must be a very expensive country to live in," replied George, "if everything is paid for in the same proportion." "Well, not exactly. Of course you pay a dollar for things you could get at home for one or two shillings. But then yon get lots of thing 3 so cheap — meat and fish and tuitlc and poultry and vegitables ; and that makes up for it, you know. But see ! — here we are at the foot of the avenue, and there's Prospect Gardens. You can just see the hingled roof of the house through the trees." "If you will stand up, you can see one of the windows ; and that's my room, George 1 added Sibyl proudly. (Tofyc continued.)