The President sat on the lawn of Government House reading from a sheaf of cablegrams to a group of interested guests. In this fashion came daily to St. Kitts the important news of the world; after submission to the President, it was nailed on the court-house door, and then printed in a leaflet, called by courtesy a newspaper. If it arrived when the President was entertaining, he always read it to his guests, and the little scene was one of the most primitive and picturesque in that land of contradictions and surprises. Far removed from the barbarism of utter discomfort, with rigid social laws, and a proud and dignified aristocracy, these smaller islands of the English groups are equally innocent of the comforts and luxuries of modern civilization.
Behind the house a party of young people had not interrupted their game of croquet, and Julia, who was taking her first lesson, was as oblivious to the news of the great world she so longed to enter as to the prospect of marrying a man who was mercifully absent.
Two of the group about the President’s chair also disengaged themselves as soon as the reading finished, instead of lingering to comment. One was Mrs. Edis, always indifferent to mundane affairs, and the other Captain Dundas, who saw his opportunity to have a few words alone with the mother of Julia. He had made up his mind to speak, and was the man to find his chance if one failed to present itself. He led her to a chair under a palm, whose leaves spread just above her head when seated, and she was glad of the shade and rest. The Captain took a chair opposite. He would have liked to smoke, but dared not ask permission of a woman whose skirts had been made to wear over a crinoline. However, he was quite capable of arriving at the sticking point without the friendly aid of tobacco. Having the direct mind of his profession, he began abruptly:?—
“Madam, there’s something I’ve got to say, and I may as well get it out. France” (he utterly disregarded the menacing glitter in the eyes opposite) “means to marry your daughter, and I mean that he shan’t. If you don’t listen to me here” (Mrs. Edis was planting her stick), “I’ll say it before the whole company.”
Mrs. Edis sat back. The Captain went on, breathing more deeply. “It’s all very well for you to say that you know the world, Mrs. Edis, because you have seen a few dissipated men and unfaithful husbands. The Harold Frances haven’t come into your ken. Only the high civilizations breed them. There are plenty like him, not only in England, but in Europe and the new United States of America. They are responsible for some of the unhappiest women in the world, perhaps for the revolt of woman against man. It isn’t only that they are petty but absolute tyrants in the home; clever women can always circumvent that sort; but they’re the kind that debase their wives, treating them like mistresses, to whom nothing exists in the world but sex, and as they are vilely blasé, the sort of sex which is but the scientific term for love has long since been forgotten by them, if they ever knew it. Many are born old, perverted by too much ancestral indulgence. All sorts of books are being written to protect the poor girl from the seducer, or the man who would sell her into the life of the underworld; it seems to me it is time some one should start a crusade in behalf of the well-born, the delicately nurtured, the women with inherited brains who might be of some use in the world if not broken or hardened by the roués they marry. Mind you, I’m no silly old saint. I’m not inveighing against the young blood who sows a few wild oats; I’m after the scalp, as the Americans say, of the thousands in the upper classes that are bad all through, like Harold France, and who’ll get worse every day of their lives. Do you follow me, ma’am?”
“I don’t think I do. The whole subject is one which I have never discussed with any man, and is deeply repugnant to me, but as my child’s happiness is at stake, I waive my own feelings. Please go into details. Just what do you mean?”
The Captain gasped. “I—well—I—can’t do that exactly, you know,” he stammered, wiping his face with his large red silk handkerchief. “But—you see, the bad women—and men—of the great capitals of the earth—have taught these young bloods too much. Some it don’t hurt. There’s plenty of good men in the upper world, even when they have been a bit wild in their youth; but men like France—with a rotten spot in the brain?—”
The old lady sat erect. “Do you mean to say that France is insane?”
Here was the Captain’s opportunity. But, after the mental confusion of the night of the ball, not only was he disposed to question what had seemed at the moment a flash of illumination, but he knew the pickle awaiting him if he accused a man in France’s position of insanity. He was risking much as it was; he was not brave enough for more. He had his own and his family’s interests to consider. A suit for slander would relegate him to private life, unhonored either as admiral or knight. His wife desired passionately to be addressed by servants and other inferiors as “my lady.”
“Well—no—I can’t say that—”
“I ask you to answer me yes or no. Have you ever seen Mr. France do anything which leads you to believe him a lunatic—for that, I infer, is what you mean by a rotten spot. And if you have, why, may I ask, have you been so insensible to your duty as to permit him to remain in the navy?”
“Oh, I assure you, madam, you misunderstand. A man may have a rotten spot in his brain, which will make him a horror to live with, and yet be as sane as you or I.”
Mrs. Edis leaned back. “You have described to me a man precisely like my husband. He drank too much, he thought too much of love-making when he was young, but he got over it. I, as a dutiful wife, resigned myself. That, I fancy, is the history of nine out of ten wives. After all, we have a great many other things to attend to. Husbands soon become an incident.”
“Oh, dear! Oh, dear!” The Captain cast about desperately in his mind. Meanwhile Mrs. Edis also was thinking rapidly. Such fears as he may have excited having been laid, she reverted to her original purpose to hoodwink him.
She sat erect with one of her abrupt movements and brought her cane down into the gravel. “In a way you are right!” she said harshly. “Men! I hate the lot of them. After all, why should my girl marry now? If she and France want to marry, let them try the experiment of a long engagement—two years, at least. I will talk to him—put him on probation. Let him resign from the navy when he returns to England and settle down here under my eye.”
“Good! Good!” exclaimed the Captain, who knew that France would never return.
“During this visit, I’ll probe him, watch him with my girl. If I don’t approve of him, I’ll ask you to keep him—on board until you leave. In any case, he shall consent to an engagement of two years. Will you assist me?”
“Certainly, ma’am, certainly.”
And so the fate of Julia France was sealed.