He saw, for there was a young moon in the sky, the figure of a man approaching him, a white man quite evidently. He knew who it was.
The stranger approached the veranda confidently, but waited at the foot of the steps leading up to it before venturing to ascend. ‘Come up!’ Ashman ordered, and the man obeyed.
Even in the obscurity of the veranda it could be seen that this person was in shabby attire, and in the light his shoes would have been perceived to have gone some way towards dissolution. That he had walked it from where he had come, too, stamped him at once as a poor white, ‘a walk-foot backra,’ a man who was down in the world pretty badly, since to walk in a land where all white men rode or drove was a flaunting advertisement of poverty and degeneration.
‘You applied to me for a job some months ago, Rider,’ Ashman began without any preliminaries. ‘Do you still want a job?’
‘I do, sir.’
‘And you think you can keep sufficiently off the rum during this crop to be worth your keep?’
‘I should hope so. ‘Tis not in mortals to command success, but—’
‘You are not in the pulpit now; you haven’t been there for many years, Mr. Rider, so you needn’t preach to me,’ interrupted John Ashman roughly. Yet, curiously enough, he had a sort of respect for this peculiar, shabby individual standing quietly before him, for he knew that Rider was considered a highly educated man. Richard Rider, M.A., had been a curate in the Kingston parish church ten years ago, and would probably have been its rector in another five years but for his predilection for drink. He had drunk himself out of a church that had been quite ready to overlook occasional lapses and even a constant state of intoxication which did not include exhibitions of street staggering and lying down in the gutter; but when Mr. Rider had been often drunk both in and out of church, his bishop was compelled to take some notice of his actions. Accordingly, Rider had been demoted to a country church, but there, free from all restraint, and finding nothing in the manners and morals of his congregation to inspire him with the belief that they cared sixpence about religion, he had become more frankly an adherent of the bottle than even when in Kingston. So be had been permitted to retire from his office as practising priest and had found situations as a bookkeeper in those times when he kept sober; for there were occasions when he was comparatively sober for weeks and months. Ashman, who knew a good deal about him, hoped for the sake of the work to be done that the present was one of the sober interludes of Mr. Rider. ‘You can live in that room,’ he said to him, pointing to a little annexe to his own house. ‘The other two bookkeepers live together and there is no space there for you. How long you remain here will depend upon yourself. Where’s your luggage?’
‘It is not considerable, a nigger could bring it on his head.’
‘I should think so. We’ll send for it tomorrow. If you go outside now they will give you some grub.’
Rider went off, but Ashman continued to sit and stare at nothing and think his own sombre thoughts. It was about nine o’clock now; the fires in the negro village had long since died down, the slaves had all retired, weary from their long day’s labour. A sound as of footsteps again broke the silence; Ashman observed a figure which resolved itself into that of a woman as it drew nearer. She came right up to the house, saw him, and ran up the veranda steps. She seemed to know the place very well.
‘Millie? I have been expecting you! Sit down.’ This invitation was a token of friendship; Millicent looked about her, noticed a chair in the corner and plumped herself into it.
‘Well, how goes everything?’ questioned the overseer keenly.
‘He went up last night to the Great House again, an’ stay there all night, Busha.’
‘I know that.’
‘It don’t do him no good, for when he come back home he wanted to drink. He drink more all day today than I ever notice him do before, though,’ she added truthfully, ‘he went to work all the same.’
‘I know that too,’ said Ashman moodily; ‘and have you said anything to him?’
‘I tell him about Mrs. Palmer; what she is and what they say she do to all her husband, but it don’t make no difference. Sometimes he insult me by shutting me up, sometimes he only laugh and say I forget myself an’ that I better be careful. But he don’t seem to care.’
‘Did he say he would tell her?’ anxiously asked Mr. Ashman.
‘No; I ask him straight if he was goin’ to, an’ he say no, but that I am running a big risk. But it’s not doing him any good, for though he been here only a few days he is different already. He’s more careless-like, don’t seem to mind nothing at all now. She is doing him bad. I hate her!’
‘So it doesn’t seem as if he loves you, does it?’ inquired Mr. Ashman mockingly.
‘I don’t know.’ Millie hesitated. ‘He talk to me now more than before; and ask me a lot about meself. I think he getting to care for me, an’ that is natural, Squire, for I care for him an’ I am pretty.’
‘Millie,’ said Mr. Ashman slowly, following an idea that had come into his mind, ‘don’t you think your grandfather might help you? He is fond of you, isn’t he?’
‘He love me to death,’ said the girl proudly. ‘But what is he to do? He is strong, but (dismally) Mrs. Palmer strong too. She is so strong that she can live in a haunted house, where they hear all sort of noise day an’ night, and yet she get no harm.’
‘The haunting is probably done by some of the damned house people,’ remarked Mr. Ashman scornfully. ‘That banging of doors and murmuring is all the work of one or two venturesome brutes who want to keep up the story of duppies in the place for their own reasons. If it was worthwhile I would investigate it. Perhaps your very grandfather put up one of the house servants to bang those doors! I have long suspected it. Mrs. Palmer is not as strong as your grandfather, Millie.’
She shook her head doubtfully.
‘Your grandfather must know that you are living on this estate now?’ he asked.
‘Yes, he know, and he don’t quite like it. Only yesterday he say to me that trouble going to come on me because I live here as Marse Robert’s housekeeper, an’ I tell him I am not a real, regular housekeeper, but he say that I will be—and that make me glad. But me gran’father very sorrowful; he warn me against Mrs. Palmer.’
To this, for a while, Ashman said nothing. He was buried in thought. At last:
‘So old Takoo thinks you are in for trouble, eh?’
‘So he tell me, but perhaps he is wrong.’
‘Perhaps; but suppose he thought that Mr. Rutherford had anything to do with your trouble; would he be angry with him?’
‘Lord! He would kill him!’ exclaimed Millicent, raising her voice in sheer terror. ‘Me gran’father is awful when he get out o’ temper; and if you or anybody else do me anything he would never rest till he revenge me.’
Ashman knew that Takoo would not consider as an ill deed the taking of this girl as a mistress, or ‘housekeeper,’ by any white man for whom she cared; that kind of action Takoo would look upon as normal and even as highly meritorious. But should Robert lead to any harm being done to Millicent, whether by Annie or someone else, the old man might hold him responsible; and, of course, it would be easier for Takoo to wreak his vengeance on a mere bookkeeper and a stranger than on Mrs. Palmer or even on the overseer. Ashman wished no particular harm to Millicent, though he saw no reason why he should particularly wish her well. She was a mere pawn in the game he was playing. He had always been hard and selfish; his life, his circumstances, had further helped to make him so. He was known as a stern taskmaster; his object in life had been the material advancement of John Ashman; his great ambition had always been to rise from overseer to attorney, to the position of a man in charge of many estates, with overseers under him. From that to ownership was often but a short step, as he well knew. He would have worked with Millicent to get rid of Robert Rutherford; if that end could not be achieved with the girl’s aid, why should not her grandfather be the instrument
of Rutherford’s disappearance from the scene? She might suffer, but she would have to take her chance of that. Robert Rutherford must go; must go absolutely; there must be a complete severing of the ties that now existed between him and Annie Palmer. And Millicent had just given a hint as to how Robert’s elimination might be brought about.
‘It’s getting late, Millie,’ said Ashman, rising. ‘Come and see me soon again, and tell me everything that happens. By the way, are you going to Marse Robert tonight?’
‘Yes,’ she answered simply.
‘Well, good night.’
Chapter Ten—THE EXPLOSION
WITH rapid stride and sinuous swinging of the hips Millicent took her way towards the bookkeepers’ quarters. She knew she would find Robert in his room tonight, for Burbridge would sit up in the still-house. Tomorrow night would be Robert’s turn, if he wished to undertake the work. For it was no longer compulsory for him, and she had heard that another bookkeeper would be about on the following day. Mr. Rutherford was being allowed to do much as he pleased.
When she reached the little house she perceived a light shining through the crevices. She was going to the room which she had, without invitation or specific permission, made her own, when she changed her mind. She knocked at Robert’s door.
‘Come in,’ his voice bade her, and she entered to find him sitting by his table, a glass of rum and water by his hand. He had thrown off his jacket and was taking a ‘night-cap’ prior to going to bed.
‘Well, Millicent, what’s all the news?’ he asked her cordially; ‘what brings you here at this time of night?’
‘You know I live here, in de next room,’ said Millicent, looking down at him, ‘an’ I thought as I would ask how you are, an’ tell you good night.’
‘I am very well, thank you, Millie, though I have had a pretty strenuous week of it.’
She did not know what ‘strenuous’ meant, but guessed its meaning.
‘You was up last night?’ The inquiry was really an affirmation.
‘Yes, mentor; I was up some part of the night.’
‘You didn’t come in till morning, an’ you work all day today. That don’t good for you, Marse Robert; don’t you know you may get sick, an’ die?’
‘It is possible. But I say, Millie, I never imagined when I left England that I should find here a brown lady to take such an interest in my welfare, and lecture me on the error of my ways. Is that customary with housekeepers?’
‘Yes; if they like you. Tell me something, Marse Robert.’
‘What is it?’
‘You ever say anything to Mrs. Palmer about me? You ever tell her I am looking after you?’
‘I haven’t mentioned you, no,’ said Robert, conscious now that he had deliberately refrained from saying anything about Millicent to Annie. She of course had asked him who was attending to his creature comforts in his quarters, and he had assured her that Burbridge had made ample arrangements for him. Mrs. Palmer had come to the conclusion that Burbridge’s servant was attending upon Robert also.
‘Don’t tell her.’
‘Why?’
‘Because she might want to stop me. She can prevent me coming here, you know,’
‘Of course. But frankly, Millie, why shouldn’t she if she wants to?’
‘You want her to?’ asked the girl plaintively.
Robert looked at her. She was undeniably pretty, and though he guessed she could hold her own and did not lack for strength of character, she was very gentle in dealing with him. He felt he should be very sorry if Millicent were to leave his service. ‘Well, no, I don’t want her to,’ he admitted.
The girl’s face lightened in a flash. A happy smile showed her white, gleaming, even teeth and shone in her eyes. ‘Then you like me, Marse Robert!’ she cried confidently. ‘You like me, or you wouldn’t mind whether I go or stay. Don’t I right?’
‘I think I have told you before that I do like you, Millie,’ he laughed, sipping his rum and water, ‘though you have been awfully cheeky.’
‘Because I tell you about Mrs. Palmer?’
‘Yes. Had you been a man, Millie, you would have been out of this place long ago. But I am afraid I am weak where a woman is concerned, especially a pretty woman.’
She came nearer to him. ‘You think I am pretty?’
‘You know you are.’
‘Yes, I know I are; but I want to know if you think so too. You think so?’
‘I am sure you are, Millie.’
‘Yet you like the mistress better than me. Because she is white an’ you are white? But she don’t love you better than I do, and she is wicked, I tell you, wicked—’
‘Millicent!’
‘I don’t care! It is true. An’ I tell you so because I love you an’ I am afraid about what might happen to you. You don’t know everything. You running a big risk; it may kill you.’
Robert thought that, it was treason to Annie for him to allow this coloured damsel to run on in the way she was doing, to permit her to traduce the woman to whom he had sworn eternal devotion; and yet, he asked himself, how could he prevent it? She was retailing lies, of course, but she believed them; and if she repeated them it was because of her sincere affection for him. He could not be a brute and order her away! He loved Annie—(an uneasy questioning in his mind made him wonder whether he loved Annie as much as he said he did and as he clearly ought, but again, as on previous occasions, he tried to dismiss this question from his mind). But he liked this girl also; with something like comic dismay he had discovered that, in spite of all he had believed to the contrary, a man could care for more than one woman at the same time, even if not with the same degree of intensity. He did not realise that Annie Palmer fascinated him but that he did not love her with such devotion that no other woman mattered to him; he was not sophisticated. He had faced for a few moments the question of marrying Annie. He had hurriedly dismissed it. He had accepted the existing situation, had noticed too that Annie herself never once mentioned marriage, but seemed content with their present irregular relations. His father would not approve of them? No; but his father was thousands of miles away, in a different land, in a different world. Why should he bother to think of what was so distant? This was Jamaica, and why would he not do in Jamaica as others did? To be a model of virtue here would be merely to make oneself ridiculous. In the meantime here was Millicent, and her society was not unpleasant.
‘I am not afraid of being killed,’ he said with a laugh. He finished his drink of rum and water, and mixed himself another. He rather liked the flavour of Jamaica rum.
‘You don’t believe what I tell you?’
‘Of course not! I am not going to believe every lie that you have heard, Millie.’
‘Some day she will know that I looking after you, an’ she will order me not to come back to dis place. What you will say then?’
‘Sufficient to the day is the evil thereof, Millie. Meantime you are still here, and, as you want to be here, that should content you.’
‘Very well, Marse Robert.’ She looked at him in silence for a few moments, then added, in a low voice, ‘good night.’
‘So soon?’ he asked and drained his glass. ‘Why don’t you stay a little longer?’
‘You mean it? You want me to stay?’ Millicent asked eagerly.
‘Of course I do. Take a chair. Better still—’ He drew her down to him and sat her on his knee, laughing the while. Then he kissed her. She threw her arms wildly about his neck and kissed him in passionate return.
Millicent’s eyes were shining now. Her grandfather had told her, only the day before, that she would become the young bookkeeper’s ‘real’ housekeeper, and it seemed as though this prediction were in the way of being fulfilled.
Robert stroked her cheek gently. Then he slipped his left arm round the girl’s waist. ‘You want to know if I think you pretty, eh?’ he asked. ‘I think you very sweet and lovable, Millie, and I am glad that you care for me. Do you like to hear that?’
&nbs
p; For answer she kissed him; then:
‘You will leave here, Marse Robert?’
‘Leave here; but why?’
‘If you love me more than you love she, you will. But I wouldn’t mind so much if she was different. The two of us could have you. It is because I am afraid that I want you to leave. Don’t you understand? She may kill you an’ me together—she will hate me, and if she think you don’t love her as you should—’
‘Don’t talk about Mrs. Palmer, Millie!’
‘All right’ (with a sigh). ‘But you like me all the same?’
‘Yes; I do, and I am going to keep you with me always, do you hear? You are going to stay with me and I am going to care for you.’ (‘Why not? ‘he muttered to himself. ‘Other men do the same. Why should I be a prude?’)
‘You don’t want me to—to go into my own room tonight?’
‘No; you are going to stay with me. You don’t mind?’
‘I want to, she said simply, and her arm stole round his neck once more.
*****
Not more than ten minutes had passed before they heard the sound of a galloping horse. It approached and halted before the bookkeepers’ quarters. Someone alighted, came up the steps; then there was a sharp rap on the door.
The White Witch of Rosehall Page 9
