Edward went on cutting the pages of his newly-arrived magazine in grim silence for a few minutes longer; then he said: ‘I wish to goodness he could get engaged and married offhand to Nora Dupuy very soon, Marian, and then clear out at once and for ever from this detestable island as quickly as possible.’
‘It would be better if he could, perhaps,’ Marian answered, sighing deeply. ‘Poor dear Nora! I wish she’d take him. She could never be happy with that horrid Dupuy man.’
They didn’t dare to speak, one to the other, the doubt that was agitating them; but they both agreed in that half-unspoken fashion that it would be well if Harry pressed his suit soon, before any sudden thunderbolt had time to fall unexpectedly upon his head and mar his chance with poor little Nora.
As Harry Noel rode back to Orange Grove alone, along the level bridle-path, he chanced to drop his short riding-whip at a turn of the road by a broad canepiece. A tall negro was hoeing vigorously among the luxuriant rows of cane close by. The young Englishman called out to him carelessly, as he would have done to a labourer at home: ‘Here you, hi, sir, come and pick up my whip, will you!’
The tall negro turned and stared at him. ‘Who you callin’ to come an’ pick up your whip, me fren’?’ he answered somewhat savagely.
Noel glanced back at the man with an angry glare. ‘You!’ he said, pointing with an imperious gesture to the whip on the ground. ‘I called you to pick it up for me. Don’t you understand English?’
‘You is rude gentleman for true,’ the old negro responded quietly, continuing his task of hoeing in the canepiece, without any attempt to pick up the whip for the unrecognised stranger. ‘If you want de whip picked up, what for you doan’t speak to naygur decently? Ole-time folk has proverb, “Please am a good dog, an’ him keep doan’t cost nuffin.” Get down yourself, sah, an’ pick up your own whip for you-self if you want him.’
Harry was just on the point of dismounting and following the old negro’s advice, with some remote idea of applying the whip immediately after to the back of his adviser, when a younger black man, stepping out hastily from behind a row of canes that had hitherto concealed him, took up the whip and handed it back to him with a respectful salutation. The old man looked on disdainfully while Harry took it; then, as the rider went on with a parting angry glance, he muttered sulkily: ‘Who dat man dat you gib de whip to? An’ what for you want to gib it him dere, Peter?’
The younger man answered apologetically: ‘Dat Mr Noel, buckra from Englan’; him come to stop at Orange Grobe along ob de massa.’
‘Buckra from Englan’!’ Louis Delgado cried incredulously. ‘Him doan’t no buckra from Englan’, I tellin’ you, me brudder; him Trinidad brown man as sure as de gospel. You doan’t see him is brown man, Peter, de minnit you look at him?’