No Defense, Complete - Gilbert Parker
Sheila had drawn near, and Dyck made a gesture in her direction. "She
does not know," he said, "and she should not hear what we say now?"
Mrs. Llyn nodded, and in a low tone told Sheila that she wished to be
alone with Dyck for a little while. In Dyck's eyes, as he watched Sheila
go, was a thing deeper than he had ever known or shown before. In her
white gown, and with her light step, Sheila seemed to float away--a
picture graceful, stately, buoyant, "keen and small." As she was about to
pass beyond a clump of pimento bushes, she turned her head towards the
two, and there was that in her eyes which few ever see and seeing are
afterwards the same. It was a look of inquiry, or revelation, of emotion
which went to Dyck's heart.
"No, she does not know the truth," Mrs. Llyn said. "But it has been hard
hiding it from her. One never knew whether some chance remark, some
allusion in the papers, would tell her you had killed her father."
"Did I kill her father?" asked Dyck helplessly. "Did I? I was found
guilty of it, but on my honour, Mrs. Llyn, I do not know, and I do not
think I did. I have no memory of it. We quarrelled. I drew my sword on
him, then he made an explanation and I madly, stupidly drank drugged wine
in reconciliation with him, and then I remember nothing more--nothing at
all."
"What was the cause of your quarrel?"
Dyck looked at her long before answering. "I hid that from my father
even, and hid it from the world--did not even mention it in court at the
trial. If I had, perhaps I should not have gone to jail. If I had,
perhaps I should not be here in Jamaica. If I had--" He paused, a flood
of reflection drowning his face, making his eyes shine with black sorrow.
"Well, if you had! . . . Why did you not? Wasn't it your duty to save
yourself and save your friends, if you could? Wasn't that your plain
duty?"
"Yes, and that was why I did not tell what the quarrel was. If I had,
even had I killed Erris Boyne, the jury would not have convicted me. Of
that I am sure. It was a loyalist jury."
"Then why did you not?"
"Isn't it strange that now after all these years, when I have settled the
account with judge and jury, with state and law--that now I feel I must
tell you the truth. Madam, your ex-husband, Erris Boyne, was a traitor.
He was an officer in the French army, and he offered to make me an
officer also and pay me well in French Government money, if I would break
my allegiance and serve the French cause--Ah, don't start! He knew I was
on my last legs financially. He knew I had acquaintance with young rebel
leaders like Emmet, and he felt I could be won. So he made his proposal.
Because of your daughter I held my peace, for she could bear it less than
you. I did not tell the cause of the quarrel. If I had, there would have
been for her the double shame. That was why I held my peace--a fool, but
so it was!"
The woman seemed almost robbed of understanding. His story overwhelmed
her. Yet what the man had done was so quixotic, so Celtic, that her
senses were almost paralysed.
"So mad--so mad and bad and wild you were," she said. "Could you not see
it was your duty to tell all, no matter what the consequences. The man
was a villain. But what madness you were guilty of, what cruel madness!
Only you could have done a thing like that. Erris Boyne deserved death--I
care not who killed him--you or another. He deserved death, and it was
right he should die. But that you should kill him, apart from all
else--why, indeed, oh, indeed, it is a tragedy, for you loved my
daughter, and the killing made a gulf between you! There could be no
marriage in such a case. She could not bear it, nor could you. But please
know this, Mr. Calhoun, that she never believed you killed Erris Boyne.
She has said so again and again. You are the only man who has ever
touched her mind or her senses, though many have sought her. Wherever she
goes men try to win her, but she has no thought for any. Her mind goes
back to you. Just when you entered the garden I learned--and only
then-that you were here. She hid it from me, but Darius Boland knew, and
he had seen your man, Michael Clones, and she had then made him tell me.
I was incensed. I was her mother, and yet she had hid the thing from me.
I thought she came to this island for the sake of Salem, and I found that
she came not for Salem, but for you. . . . Ah, Mr. Calhoun, she deserves
what you did to save her, but you should not have done it."
"She deserves all that any better man might do. Why don't you marry her
to some great man in your Republic? It would settle my trouble for me and
free her mind from anxiety. Mrs. Llyn, we are not children, you and I.
You know life, and so do I, and--"
She interrupted him. "Be sure of this, Mr. Calhoun, she knows life even
better than either of us. She is, and has always been, a girl of sense
and judgment. When she was a child she was my master, even in Ireland.
Yet she was obedient and faithful, and kept her head in all vexed things.
She will have her way, and she will have it as she wants it, and in no
other manner. She is one of the world's great women. She is unique. Child
as she is, she still understands all that men do, and does it. Under her
hands the estates in Virginia have developed even more than under the
hands of my brother. She controls like another Elizabeth. She has made
those estates run like a spool of thread, and she will do the same here
with Salem. Be sure of that."
"Why does she not marry? Is there no man she can bear? She could have the
highest, that's sure." He spoke with passion and insistence. If she were
married his trouble would be over. The worst would have come to him--like
death. His eyes were only two dark fires in a face that was as near to
tragic pain crystallized as any the world has seen. Yet there was in it
some big commanding thing, that gave it a ghastly handsomeness almost;
that bathed his look in dignity and power, albeit a reckless power, a
thing that would not be stayed by any blandishments. He had the look of a
lost angel, one who fell with Belial in the first days of sin.
"There is no man she can bear--except here in Jamaica. It is no use. Your
governor, Lord Mallow, whom she knew in Ireland, who is distant kin of
mine, he has already made advances here to her, as he did in Ireland--you
did not know that. Even before we left for Virginia he came to see us,
and brought her books and flowers, and here, on our arrival, he brought
her choicest blooms of his garden. She is rich, and he would be glad of
an estate that brings in scores of thousands of pounds yearly. He has
asked us to stay at King's House, but we have declined. We start for
Salem in a few hours. She wants her hand on the wheel."
"Lord Mallow--he courts her, does he?" His face grew grimmer. "Well, she
might do worse, though if she were one of my family I would rather see
her in her grave than wedded to him. For he is selfish--aye, as few men
are! He would eat and keep his apple too. His theory is that life is but
a game, and it must be played with steel. He would squeeze the life out
of a flower, and give the flower to his dog to eat. He thinks first and
always of himself. He would--but there, he would make a good husband as
husbands go for some women, but not for this woman! It is not because he
is my enemy I say this. It is because there is only one woman like your
daughter, and that is herself; and I would rather see her married to a
hedger that really loved her than to Lord Mallow, who loves only one
being on earth--himself. But see, Mrs. Llyn, now that you know all, now
that we three have met again, and this island is small and tragedy is at
our doors, don't you think your daughter should be told the truth. It
will end everything for me. But it would be better so. It is now only
cruelty to hide the truth, harsh to continue a friendship which will only
appal her in the end. If we had not met again like this, then silence
might have been best; but as she is not cured of her tender friendship
made upon the hills at Playmore, isn't it well to end it all? Your
conscience will be clearer, and so will mine. We shall have done the
right thing at last. Why did you not tell her who her father was? Then
why blame me! You held your peace to save your daughter, as you thought.
I held my tongue for the same reason; but she is so much a woman now,
that she will understand, as she could not have understood years ago in
Limerick. In God's name, let us speak. One of us should tell her, and I
think it should be you. And see, though I know I did right in withholding
the facts about the quarrel with Erris Boyne, yet I favour telling her
that he was a traitor. The whole truth now, or nothing. That is my view."
He saw how lined and sunken was her face, he noted the weakness of her
carriage, he realized the task he was putting on her, and his heart
relented. "No, I will do it," he added, with sudden will, "and I will do
it now, if I may."
"Oh, not to-day-not to-day!" she said with a piteous look. "Let it not be
to-day. It is our first day here, and we are due at King's House
to-night, even in an hour from now."
"You want her at her glorious best, is that it?" It seemed too strange
that the pure feminine should show at a time of crisis like this, but
there it was. It was this woman's way. But he added presently: "When she
asks you what we have talked about, what will you say?"
"Is it not easy? I am a mother," she said meaningly.
"And I am an ex-convict, and a mutineer--is that it?"
She inclined her head. "It should not be difficult to explain. When you
came I was speaking as I felt, and she will not think it strange if I
give that as my reason."
"But is it wise? Isn't it better to end it all now? Suppose Lord Mallow
tells her."
"He did not before. He is not likely now," was the vexed reply. "Is it a
thing a gentleman will speak of to a lady?"
"But you do not know Mallow. If he thought she had seen me to-day, he
would not hesitate. What would you do if you were Lord Mallow?"
"No, not to-day," she persisted. "It is all so many years ago. It can
hurt naught to wait a little longer."
"When and where shall it be?" he asked gloomily. "At Salem--at Salem. We
shall be settled then--and steady. There is every reason why you should
consider me. I have suffered as few women have suffered, and I do not
hate you. I am only sorry."
Far down at the other end of the garden he saw Sheila. Her face was in
profile--an exquisite silhouette. She moved slowly among the pimento
bushes.
"As you wish," he said with a heavy sigh. The sight of the girl anguished
his soul.
CHAPTER XVIII
AT SALEM
The plantation of Salem was in a region below the Pedro Plains in the
parish of St. Elizabeth, where grow the aloe, and torch-thistle, and
clumps of wood which alter the appearance of the plain from the South
Downs of England, but where thousands of cattle and horses even in those
days were maintained. The air of the district was dry and elastic, and it
filtered down to the valleys near like that where Salem was with its
clusters of negro huts and offices, its mills and distilleries where
sugar and rum were made. Salem was situated on the Black River,
accessible by boats and canoes. The huts of negro slaves were near the
sugar mills, without regard to order, but in clusters of banana,
avocado-pear, limes and oranges, and with the cultivated land round their
huts made an effective picture.
One day every fortnight was allowed the negroes to cultivate their crops,
and give them a chance to manufacture mats for beds, bark-ropes,
wicker-chairs and baskets, earthen jars, pans, and that kind of thing.
The huts themselves were primitive to a degree, the floor being earth,
the roof, of palm-thatch or the leaves of the cocoa-nut tree, the sides
hard-posts driven in the ground and interlaced with wattle and plaster,
and inside scarcely high enough for its owner to walk upright. The
furniture was scant--a quatre, or bed, made of a platform of boards, with
a mat and a blanket, some low stools, a small table, an earthen
water-jar, and some smaller ones, a pail and an iron pot, and calabashes
which did duty for plates, dishes and bowls. In one of the two rooms
making the hut, there were always the ashes of the night-fire, without
which negroes could not sleep in comfort.
These were the huts of the lowest grade of negro-slaves of the fields.
The small merchants and the domestics had larger houses with boarded
floors, some even with linen sheets and mosquito nets, and shelves with
plates and dishes of good ware. Every negro received a yearly allowance
of Osnaburgh linen, woollen, baize and checks for clothes, and some
planters also gave them hats and handkerchiefs, knives, needles and
thread, and so on.
Every plantation had a surgeon who received a small sum for attendance on
every slave, while special cases of midwifery, inoculation, etc., had a
particular allowance. The surgeon had to attend to about four hundred to
five hundred negroes, on an income of L150 per annum, and board and
lodging and washing, besides what he made from his practice with the
whites.
Salem was no worse than some other plantations on the island, but it was
far behind such plantations as that owned by Dyck Calhoun, and had been
notorious for the cruelties committed on it. To such an estate a lady
like Sheila Llyn would be a boon. She was not on the place a day before
she started reforms which would turn the plantation into a model scheme.
Houses, food, treatment of the negroes, became at once a study to her,
and her experience in Virginia was invaluable. She had learned there not
to work the slaves too hard in the warm period of the day; and she showed
her interest by having served at her own table the favourite olio the
slaves made of plantains, bananas, yams, calalue, eddoes, cassavi, and
sweet potatoes boiled with salt fish and flavoured with cayenne pepper.
This, with the unripe roasted plantain as bread, was a native relish and
health-giving food.
Ever since the day when she had seen Dyck Calhoun at Spanish Town she had
been disturbed in mind. Dyck had shown a reserve which she felt was not
wholly due to his having been imprisoned for manslaughter. In one way he
looked little older. His physique was as good, or better than when she
first saw him on the hills of Playmore. It was athletic, strenuous,
elastic. Yet there was about it the abandonment of despair--at least of
recklessness. The face was older, the head more powerful, the hair
slightly touched with grey-rather there was one spot in the hair almost
pure white; a strand of winter in the foliage of summer. It gave a touch
of the bizarre to a distinguished head, it lent an air of the singular to
a personality which had flare and force--an almost devilish force. That
much was to be said for him, that he had not sought to influence her to
his own advantage. She was so surrounded in America by men who knew her
wealth and prized her beauty, she was so much a figure in Virginia, that
any reserve with regard to herself was noticeable. She was enough
feminine to have pleasure in the fact that she was thought desirable by
men; yet it played an insignificant part in her life.
It did not give her conceit. It was only like a frill on the skirts of
life. It did not play any part in her character. Certainly Dyck Calhoun
had not flattered her. That one to whom she had written, as she had done,
should remove himself so from the place of the deserving friend, one whom
she had not deserted while he was in jail as a criminal--that he should
treat her so, gave every nerve a thrill of protest. Sometimes she
trembled in indignation, and then afterwards gave herself to the work on
the estate or in the household--its reform and its rearrangement; though
the house was like most in Jamaica, had adequate plate, linen, glass and
furniture. At the lodgings in Spanish Town, after Dyck Calhoun had left,
her mother had briefly said that she had told Dyck he could not expect
the conditions of the Playmore friendship should be renewed; that, in
effect, she had warned him off. To this Sheila had said that the killing
of a man whose life was bad might be punishable. In any case, that was in
another land, under abnormal conditions; and, with lack of logic, she saw
no reason why he should be socially punished in Jamaica for what he had
been legally punished for in Ireland. As for the mutiny, he had done what
any honest man of spirit would do; also, he had by great bravery and
skill brought victory to the king's fleet in West Indian waters.
Then it was she told her mother how she had always disobeyed her commands
where Dyck was concerned, that she had written to him while he was in
jail; that she had come to Jamaica more to see him than to reform Salem;
that she had the old Celtic spirit of brotherhood, and she would not be
driven from it. In a sudden burst of anger her mother had charged her
with deceit; but the girl said she had followed her conscience, and she
dismissed it all with a gesture as emphatic as her mother's anger.
That night they had dined with Lord Mallow, and she saw that his
attentions had behind them the deep purpose of marriage. She had not been
overcome by the splendour of his retinue and table, or by the
magnificence of his guests; though the military commander-in-chief and
the temporary admiral on the station did their utmost to entertain her,
and some of the local big-wigs were pompous. Lord Mallow had ability and
knew how to use it; and he was never so brilliant as on this afternoon,
for they dined while it was still daylight and hardly evening. He told
her of the customs of the country, of the people; and slyly and
effectively he satirized some of his grandiloquent guests. Not unduly,
for one of them, the most renowned in the island, came to him after
dinner as he sat talking to Sheila, and said: "I'm very sorry, your
honour, but good Almighty God, I must go home and cool coppers." Then he
gave Sheila a hot yet clammy hand, and bade her welcome as a citizen to
the island, "alien but respected, beautiful but capable!" Sheila had seen
a few of the Creole ladies present at their best-large-eyed, simple, not
to say primitive in speech, and very unaffected in manner. She had
learned also that the way to the Jamaican heart was by a full table and a
little flattery.
One incident at dinner had impressed her greatly. Not far away from her
was a young lady, beautiful in face and person, and she had seen a
scorpion suddenly shoot into her sleeve and ruthlessly strike and strike
the arm of the girl, who gave one cry only and then was still. Sheila saw
the man next to the girl--he was a native officer--secure the scorpion,
and then whip from his pocket a little bag of indigo, dip it in water,
and apply the bag to the wounded arm, immediately easing the wound. This
had all been done so quickly that it was over before the table had been
upset, almost.
"That is the kind of thing we have here," said Lord Mallow. "There is a
lady present who has seen in one day a favourite black child bitten by a
congereel, a large centipede in her nursery, a snake crawl from under her
child's pillow, and her son nearly die from a bite of the black spider
with the red spot on its tail. It is a life that has its trials--and its
compensations."
"I saw a man's head on a pole on my way to King's House. You have to use
firm methods here," Sheila said in reply. "It is not all a rose-garden.
You have to apply force."
Lord Mallow smiled grimly. "C'est la force morale toujours."
"Ah, I should not have thought it was moral force always," was the
ironical reply.
"We have criminals here," declared the governor with aplomb, "and they
need some handling, I assure you. We have in this island one of the worst
criminals in the British Empire."
"Ah, I thought he was in the United States!" answered the girl sedately.
"You mean General George Washington," remarked the governor. "No, it is
one who was a friend and fellow-countryman of yours before he took to
killing unarmed men."
"You refer to Mr. Dyck Calhoun, I doubt not, sir? Well, he is still a
friend of mine, and I saw him today--this afternoon, before I came here.
I understood that the Crown had pardoned his mutiny."
The governor started. He was plainly annoyed.
"The crime is there just the same," he replied. "He mutinied, and he
stole a king's ship, and took command of it, and brought it out here."
"And saved you and your island, I understand."
"Ah, he said that, did he?"
"He said nothing at all to me about it. I have been reading the Jamaica
Cornwall Chronicle the last three years."
"He is ever a source of anxiety to me," declared the governor.
"I knew he was once in Phoenix Park years ago," was the demure yet sharp
reply, "but I thought he was a good citizen here--a good and well-to-do
citizen."
Lord Mallow flushed slightly. "Phoenix Park--ah, he was a capable fellow
with the sword! I said so always, and I'd back him now against a
champion; but many a bad man has been a good swordsman."
"So, that's what good swordsmanship does, is it? I wondered what it was
that did it. I hear you fight him still--but with a bludgeon, and he
dodges it."
"I do not understand," declared Lord Mallow tartly. "Ah, wasn't there
some difference over his going for the treasure to Haiti? Some one told
me, I think, that you were not in favour of his getting his
ticket-of-leave, or whatever it is called, and that the provost-marshal
gave it to him, as he had the right to do."
"You have wide sources of information in this case. I wonder--"
"No, your honour need not wonder. I was told that by a gentleman on the
steamer coming here. He was a native of the island, I think--or perhaps
it was the captain, or the mate, or the boatswain. I can't recall. Or
maybe it came to me from my manager, Darius Boland, who hears things
wherever he is, one doesn't know how; but he hears them. He is to me what
your aide-de-camp is to you," she nodded towards a young man near by at
the table.
"And do you dress your Darius Boland as I dress my aide in scarlet, with
blue facings and golden embroidery, and put a stiff hat with a feather on
his head?"
"But no, he does not need such things. I am a Republican now. I am a
citizen of the United States, where men have no need of uniform to tell
the world what they are. You shall see my Darius Boland--indeed, you have
seen him. He was there to-day when you gave me the distinction of your
presence."
"That dry, lean, cartridge of a fellow, that pair of pincers with a
face!"
"And a tongue, your honour. If you did not hear it yet, you will hear it.
He is to be my manager here. So he will be under your control--if I
permit him."
"If you permit him, mistress?"
"If I permit him, yes. You are a power, but you are not stronger than the
laws and rules you make. For instance, there was the case of Mr. Dyck
Calhoun. When he came, you were for tying him up in one little corner of
this island--the hottest part, I know, near to Kingston, where it
averages ninety degrees in the shade at any time of the year. But the
King you represent had not restricted his liberties so, and you being the
King, that is, yourself, were forced to abide by your own regulations. So
it may be the same with Darius Boland. He may want something, and you,
high up, looking down, will say, 'What devilry is here!' and decline. He
will then turn to your chief-justice or provost-marshal-general, or a
deputy of the provost-marshal, and they will say that Darius Boland shall
have what he wants, because it is the will of the will you represent."
Almost the last words the governor used to her were these: "Those only
live at peace here who are at peace with me"; and her reply had been:
"But Mr. Dyck Calhoun lives at peace, does he not, your honour?"
To that he had replied: "No man is at peace while he has yet desires." He
paused a minute and then added: "That Erris Boyne killed by Dyck
Calhoun--did you ever see him that you remember?"
"Not that I remember," she replied quickly. "I never lived in Dublin."
"That may be. But did you never know his history?" She shook her head in
negation. His eyes searched her face carefully, and he was astonished
when he saw no sign of confusion there. "Good God, she doesn't know.
She's never been told!" he said to himself. "This is too startling. I'll
speak to the mother."
A little later he turned from the mother with astonishment. "It's
madness," he remarked to himself. "She will find out. Some one will tell
her. . . . By heaven, I'll tell her first," he hastily said. "When she
knows the truth, Calhoun will have no chance on earth. Yes, I'll tell her
myself. But I'll tell no one else," he added; for he felt that Sheila,
once she knew the truth, would resent his having told abroad the true
story of the Erris Boyne affair.
So Sheila and her mother had gone to their lodgings with depression, but
each with a clear purpose in her mind. Mrs. Llyn was determined to tell
her daughter what she ought to have known long before; and Sheila was
firm to make the one man who had ever interested her understand that he
was losing much that was worth while keeping.