Mrs. Edis and Julia slept at Government House, but rose early and returned to Nevis by the sail-boat that carried merchandise between the islands, and, now and then, an uncomfortable passenger. Its sails, twice too big and heavy, ever menaced an upset, and fulfilled expectations at least once a year. Mrs. Edis, steadying herself with her stick, took no notice of the plunging craft, or the glory of the morning. The sapphire blue of the Caribbean Sea looked the half of a pulsing world; the other half, the deep, hot, cloudless sky. Nevis, fringed with palms and cocoanuts, banana and lemon trees, glittering and rigid, drooping and dim, rose, where it faced St. Kitts, with a bare road at its base, but spread out a train on its farther side to accommodate the little capital of Charles Town and the ruin of Bath House. In this month of March the long slopes of the old volcano were green even on the deserted estates. Here and there was an isolated field of cane. The wreckage of stone walls, all that was left of the “Great Houses,” broke its expanse; or the spire of a church, surrounded by trees and crumbling tombs. High above, a regiment of black trees stood on guard about the crater; their rigor softened by the white cloud so constant to Nevis that it might be the ghost of her dead fires. In the distance were other misty islands; about the boat flew silver fish, almost blue as they rose from the water; in the roadstead were the three cruisers; and countless rowboats filled with chattering negroes, dressed in their gaudiest colors, bent upon selling fish and sweets to the paymaster and youngsters of the squadron, or ready to dive for pennies.
Mrs. Edis sat staring straight before her with a rapt expression that Julia knew of old and admired with all the fervor of a young soul eager for enthusiasms. She would in any case have believed the tyrannical old woman, kind to her alone, quite the most remarkable person in the world, but her mother’s lore, her long fits of abstraction, when mysticism descended upon her like a veil, not only inspired her young daughter with a fascinating awe, but gave her a pleasant sense of superiority over those girls upon whom the planets had bestowed mere mothers.
Julia roamed steadily about the tipsy boat, her mane of hair, torn loose by the trade-wind, swirling about her like flames, sometimes standing upright. Her mouth smiled constantly; her large gray eyes, one day to be both keen and deep, were merely shining with youth on this vivid tropic morning. The man gazing at her through his field-glass from the deck of the flag-ship trembled visibly, and felt so primal that he believed himself embarked upon one of those purely romantic love affairs he had read about somewhere in books.
“That’s the girl for me,” sang through his momentarily rejuvenated brain. “Rippin’! Toppin’! Words too weak for a bit of all right like that. To hell with all the others! Chucked them overboard last night. Hags, the whole lot. Hate subtlety, finesse, women of the world—all the rest of ’em. Wild rose on a tropic island, so fresh—so sweet—Gad! Gad!”
He almost maundered aloud. The Captain, watching him, thought he had never seen a man look more of an ass, and wondered at his dark suspicion of the night before. What if he really were but the common wild young blood, run after by women for his looks and prospects? Why should he not meet the one girl like other men and settle down with her? But although sentimental, like most sailors, he shook his head vigorously. He knew men, and France was not as other men, whatever the cause. He was merely lovesick at present, not reformed. Of course it was possible that his diseased fancy would be diverted by one of those honey-colored wenches down among the cocoanut trees on the edge of St. Kitts, or that a second interview with a girl of such disconcerting innocence might put him off altogether. But if it should be otherwise—the Captain had made up his mind to act.
The boat reached the jetty of Charles Town. Mrs. Edis was assisted up and into her carriage, and her agile daughter pinned her hair in place and jumped on her pony. The rickety old vehicle had been bought sometime in the forties, the horses and the pony were of a true West Indian leanness, Julia’s hair tumbled again almost at once, and Mrs. Edis wore a broché shawl and a bonnet almost as old as the carriage. But the odd little cavalcade attracted only respectful attention in the drowsy town almost lost in a grove of tropical fruit trees. At one end of Main Street was the court-house, there were two or three small stores, perhaps six or eight stone dwelling-houses still in repair, and as many wooden ones, but between almost every two there was a ruin, trees and flowering shrubs growing in crevice and courtyard. The great ruin of Bath House, far to the right, windowless, rent by earthquake and hurricane, choked with creepers and even with trees, looked like the remains of a Babylonian palace with hanging gardens.
The narrow road, after leaving Main Street, wound round the base of the mountain; opposite St. Kitts a branch road led up to what was left of the old Byam estate, inherited by Mrs. Edis from her father, and granted to an ancestor in the days of Charles I. Great House stood on a lofty plateau, not far below the forest, a big, square, solid stone house, built extravagantly when laborers were slaves, and with a small village of outbuildings. The large garden was surrounded by a high stone wall, and beyond the servants’ quarters, granaries, and stables, were vegetable gardens, orchards, and cocoanut groves. Sugar-cane still grew on the thirty acres which remained of the old estate, but in this era of the islands’ great depression, yielded little revenue. Mrs. Edis possessed a few consols and raised all that was needed for her frugal table and for that of her improvident son.
The outbuildings surrounded a hollow square, in which there was a large date-palm, a banana tree, a pump, and a spring in which the washing was done. Scarlet flowers hung from pillars and eaves. Under the trees and the balconies of the houses the blacks were sleeping peacefully when roused by a kick from the overseer, himself but just awakened by his wife. “Ole Mis’ come!” The words might have exploded from a bomb. Julia, who by dint of argument with her languid pony, and some chastisement, was ahead of the carriage, laughed aloud as she saw the negroes scramble to their feet and rush out into the cane fields, or busy themselves with the first service their heavy eyes could focus. In a moment the courtyard was a scene of something like activity; even the chickens were awake and scratching round the crowing cocks, the dogs were barking, the pic’nies jabbering, and along the spring was a broken row of blue, red, yellow, purple, the black or honey-colored faces of the women hardly to be seen as they vigorously rubbed the stones with the household linen.
Julia turned her pony loose, ran through the thick grove in the front garden, the living room of the house, and up between the vivid terraces with their dilapidated statues and urns to the wood, where she frisked about like a happy young animal. In truth she felt herself quite the happiest and most fortunate girl in the Caribbees. For two long years she had looked forward to her first ball at Government House, and although many West Indian girls came out at sixteen, her mother had been as insensible as old Nevis to her importunities. How many nights she had hung out of her window watching the long row of lights marking Government House, picturing the girls of St. Kitts, those enchanting creatures with whom she had never held an hour of solitary intercourse, dancing with even more mysterious beings in the uniform of Her Blessed Majesty. She had read little: a volume or two of history or travel, several of the romances and poems of Walter Scott, which she had discovered in the aged bookcase. Her mother took in no newspaper but the leaflet published on St. Kitts, and she had led almost the life of a novitiate; but the serving women had whispered to her of the fate of all maidens, and she had an unhappy sister-in-law with a beautiful baby, who, although she cried a good deal, was still another window through which the puzzled maiden peeped out into Life. But she was quite as ignorant as the murky depths of France demanded.
She dreamed of the Prince (in Her Blessed Majesty’s uniform), who would one day bear her to his feudal castle in England and make her completely happy, but of the facts of love and life she knew no more than two-year-old Fanny Edis, who cuddled so warmly in her young aunt’s breast. Such instincts as she possessed in common with all girls were confused and suffocated by the yearnings of a romantic mind with an inherent tendency to idealism. Beyond the narrow circle of her existence was an endless maze, deep in twilight, although casting up now and again strange mirages, faint but lovely of color, and of many and shifting shapes. She wanted all the world, but she was really quite content as she was, her mind being still closed, her true imagination unawakened. Such was the famous Julia France in the month of March, 1894.
To-day she was happy without mitigation. The ball at Government House had no sting in its wake. She had been one of the belles. Not a dance had she missed, and she knew that, thanks to one of her governesses, she danced very well. To be sure the young officers in Her Blessed Majesty’s uniform had perspired a good deal, and a big and rather horrid man had tried to monopolize her, but at least he had been the best dancer of the squadron, and his rivals had looked ready to call him out. Also, the other girls had been jealous. Julia was human.
“After all, one goes to a party to dance,” she thought philosophically. “The men don’t matter.”
Dismissing France she reviewed the other young men in turn, but shook her head over each. Not one had made the slightest impression on her. The Prince was yet to arrive. And then she laughed a little at her mother’s expense.
So far, she owed the only excitements of her life to her mother’s practices in astrology. She knew that old M’sieu, who had lived at Great House until his death shortly after her eighth birthday, had instructed her mother deeply in the ancient science. Many a time she had stolen out into the garden at night and watched the two motionless figures on the flat roof of the house. They were sequestered for days at a time in Mrs. Edis’s study, a room Julia was forbidden to enter. Julia, however, had hung over that tempting sill upon more than one occasion, and long since discovered that every book on the walls related to astrology and other branches of Eastern science; had gathered, also, from remarks at the dinner table while M’sieu was alive, that it was one of the most valuable libraries of its kind in the world.
She also knew that M’sieu had cast her horoscope the very moment that old Mammy Cales had brought her up to Great House in her wonderful basket, as he had cast the horoscopes of all her brothers, whose only survivor was the wretched Fawcett. Her ears had been very sharp long before she reached the age of eight, and she knew that the planets had conspired to make a great lady of her in a great country (the queen’s of course); she also knew that her mother had cast her little daughter’s horoscope herself a month later, and the result had been the same. The dates had then been sent to the leading astrologer in Italy, and again with the same result. Therefore had Julia, happy and buoyant by nature, grown up in the comfortable assurance that the wildest of her dreams must be realized.
She had shrewdly divined that last night at Government House had coincided with the first of the fateful dates announced by the planets of her birth, and that her mother, having no intention of deflecting the magnet of fate, had postponed her introduction to the world of young men until the third of March; which, extraordinarily, had brought no less than three cruisers to the little world of St. Kitts. And the poor old planets, for whom she felt an almost personal affection, had been all wrong, even when so ably assisted by her august parent! She felt a momentary pang at the unsettling of her faith, the loss of her idols, then curled herself up and went to sleep on the soft cheek of the old volcano.