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.”