The White Witch of Rosehall

by Herbert G. De Lisser

  Mr. Rider’s eyes glowed with appreciation as the feast proceeded, and when Robert, thoughtlessly, asked him to have some wine his eyes snapped and he was about to accept. Then, with a great effort, he mastered his impulse. ‘Better not, Rutherford,’ he said. ‘The time is coming, I am afraid, when I shall not be able to refuse, and I don’t feel like refusing even now. But if I touch the stuff today I may be done for during the next couple of weeks, or longer. I may go on drinking as long as there is anything to drink, and there is plenty here. Still, one glass mightn’t hurt me perhaps—eh, what do you say? But no, better not. I want to see tonight what is going to happen: you know what I mean. I am afraid that if I once taste that wine———’

  ‘Very good,’ said Robert hastily; ‘and I, too, don’t think I should have anything to drink. Fact is, I have been taking far too much since I have been here. There hasn’t passed a day when I haven’t drunk something strong, and lots of it some days. I drink too much.’

  ‘We all do,’ said Burbridge, ‘that is the custom here; and today being Christmas, I am not prepared to abstain. I have not been abstaining. If it were not for that wretched woman up at the House we should be able to enjoy our Christmas as we should. She is the bane of our lives!’

  ‘Just as all roads lead to Rome,’ smiled Rider, ‘so do all Burbridge’s remarks now tend towards Mrs. Palmer, in an uncomplimentary fashion. But he is right; strange as it is, we are all undoubtedly affected this Christmas Day by her actions.’

  Robert nodded his head in gloomy acquiescence. This turn of the conversation expressed his own mood. This could not be a merry Christmas party for any man with humane impulses and feelings. And though he had just said he didn’t think he should take any liquor, he mechanically stretched out his hand for some wine, and continued to drink during dinner.

  He knew that Burbridge was not allowing anything to disturb him; Burbridge had long since grown hardened to sights and sounds and actions that must have shocked and disgusted him once upon a time. But Rider was different; periodical drunkard though he was, his heart remained tender, not in a maudlin but in a real and true sense, and he had a gentleman’s instinct for fair play and generosity. As for himself, Robert realised now that he had come to have a genuine liking for the unfortunate young woman who had so quaintly and boldly, without meaning to be forward, insisted upon installing herself as his housekeeper. That, he felt with genuine sorrow, was scarcely a crime to be punished almost with madness and perhaps by actual death. She was naïve, foolish maybe, impetuous and reckless. Something of a savage. But bad and corrupt—no, he knew she was not that.

  The meal ended quietly. Yet Psyche was, on the whole, well satisfied, for if Massa Rutherford was silent and showed but a poor appetite, Psyche knew the reason, and, as Millicent was her cousin, she felt that this loss of appetite was a fitting tribute to the condition of a member of her family.

  Dinner over, the men again repaired to their veranda, where Burbridge tilted his chair against the wall, placed his feet against the railing, and very soon fell asleep, Rider and Robert were less somnolent, yet they too felt lethargic, depressed, burdened each by his own weight of thought, and not perhaps unaffected by the early Christmas meal. There were occasions when the meaning of his fallen estate came to Rider with a peculiar poignancy; today he felt his position with a more than exquisitely unpleasant keenness. Yet, he said to himself, it might actually have been worse. He knew he was helping young Rutherford, and he might be able to aid Millicent also: that was possible. So he was not quite useless, not utterly an outcast. And maybe, he thought, some day he might be able to give up the drink altogether; just as he could refuse it today, so he might be able to refuse it altogether in the future. But in his heart of hearts he doubted his strength.

  When the thirst came upon him it was fierce and raging, not to be suppressed. He would believe sometimes that he had the craving under control at last, and would begin to plume himself upon that, when, suddenly, he was gripped by it and then would sell his shirt for a drink. Many such experiences had rendered him cynical about his resolutions; yet every now and then he would make such resolutions. Even while gravely doubting, he half believed, and at the root of this belief was hope. Today it came into his mind that perhaps, if he could get back to England, he might be able to open another and better chapter of his life. He thought of Robert; he too, if he remained in Jamaica, might become, if not an outcast (for he had means), at any rate a poor specimen of a man: he had seen such things. Robert would have a good career at home. It was better that he should return as quickly as possible. Even supposing that this girl, Millicent, whose paternal grandfather had been a gentleman and a man of authority in the country, should recover, that would actually not be for Rutherford’s good, unless he resolutely refused to remain in Jamaica. A lifelong liaison with the girl, and children, and drink, and no real obligation to work (which might mean more drink and other liaisons), what was there in all this save the deterioration of a young fellow who had fine instincts and was a gentleman? In the tropics some men throve; those were the men of stern fibre or of a sort of brutal hardness. These tropics, with their large servile population and small aristocracy of proprietors who lived in a world of the narrowest mental and moral horizons—what a horror they actually were! If they did not become physically the white man’s grave, they formed for him as deadly a spiritual sepulchre. It was death anyway.

  ‘Why don’t you go back home, Rutherford?’ he asked, apparently apropos of nothing, turning to watch how the young man would take his suggestion.

  ‘That is exactly what I was thinking of,’ replied Robert, somewhat surprised. ‘It is as if you had read my thoughts.’

  ‘I am glad to hear it,’ said Rider. ‘This is hardly the sort of place for you. If you go to Barbados later on, you know, you will go as the head, and then conditions will be different. But here———’

  ‘I don’t think Barbados will ever see me,’ asseverated the younger man; ‘I have had enough of all this “eternal sunshine and happy, laughing people”. I can almost hear some of them laughing from here, they scream so loud. And yet it would not take much to make them cut all our throats, if what you yourself believe is true.’

  ‘It is true,’ said Rider, nodding his head decisively.

  ‘Well, that’s just it. These slave tropics may look and sound mighty fine on the surface, but they are nastily dangerous underneath. Yes; I have come to the determination that they don’t suit me. But neither do they suit you, Rider.’

  ‘I know that,’ answered the other simply; ‘I found that out long ago.’

  ‘Then why didn’t you leave?’

  ‘I suppose I drifted along till it was too late. I had nothing to return to, you see; I feared that if I went back to England there would no longer be a place there that I could make for myself. Once here, I was in a sort of prison. Turn me out into the free world again, and I should be at my wits’ end. It was all cowardice and weakness, of course; and something worse. The life here, for a man like me, was infinitely easier than it could be in England. My duties were light, my pay was sufficient to keep me, and I could do what I pleased to a great extent without being called to account for it. I liked the life, at first; I didn’t realise what it was leading me to. I liked the drink; I didn’t grasp that it was making me a drunkard. When I did, I was down. And here am I. But you—as Burbridge is always saying—with you it is quite different.’

  ‘I am going,’ said Robert resolutely; ‘I have been coming to that conclusion, and I have decided within the last ten minutes. But I think you are wrong about yourself. You could go back—now. And now is the best time to go.’

  ‘I cannot walk upon the wild waves, my dear boy, and sea captains do not give passages for nothing. And if I sent the hat round the results would be trifling, and I should suffer the shame of having begged in vain. Not that Englishmen are not sent home by their friends; they are. But I have no friends, and my few acquaintances would believe (and could not be blamed
for believing) that I had merely fallen back upon a quite unoriginal method of raising drinks.’

  He spoke flippantly to disguise the seriousness of his feeling.

  ‘I have thought of that,’ said Robert; ‘I wouldn’t have mentioned the matter if I hadn’t. But you can get the money for your expenses without any difficulty. I can advance it to you.’

  Rider looked at him with a peculiar expression on his face.

  ‘Advance?’ he said. ‘You really mean that you will give me the money.’

  ‘I couldn’t offer a man like you money,’ returned Robert, somewhat embarrassed; ‘but once you were in England it would not be difficult for you to repay it.’

  ‘You are offering it to me in the nicest way you can think of,’ said Rider quietly. ‘You mean that if I can repay it I may; if I can’t, you won’t mind that. It’s deuced decent of you, Rutherford, and I thank you with all my heart.’

  ‘Then you will go?’

  ‘Gladly. That is———’

  ‘What?’

  ‘If my resolution holds. If I don’t go back so badly to the drink before we can start, that I won’t be able to do the little things necessary and take myself to the ship.’

  ‘That will be all right,’ said Robert. ‘We’ll go together, and even if you are drunk I will carry you on board. I am strong enough to do that literally, you know.’ He smiled as he spoke, but Rider knew he was in earnest.

  ‘Good. It is agreed then. I might almost say that your coming to Jamaica was providentially designed in my interests, Rutherford; I should see a miracle in this thing if I were not disposed to be sceptical about any modern miracle. By Jove! To think that I might actually see the Old Country again! Might? I am going to! This is farewell to Jamaica for me.’

  He fell to silence, thinking over this wonderful, unexpected stroke of good fortune. It was almost too good to be true.

  Robert rose. ‘I am going over yonder,’ said he, pointing in the direction of the negro village, ‘to see how those folk are enjoying themselves. They seem to be having high jinks.’

  ‘And you had better get a couple of hours’ sleep when you come back,’ advised his companion. ‘We may be up all night.’

  Robert nodded and went off on foot, leaving Rider to think over alone the new prospect that he opened out before him. Rider knew it was through a feeling of delicacy that Rutherford had left him to himself.

  Chapter Eighteen—THE EXORCISM

  THE throbbing of distant drums came to their ears; it waxed and waned, rolled and staccatoed, seemed to die away, and then began again.

  Other like sounds came to their hearing, from south and east and west, but Rider and Robert Rutherford pushed steadily on in the direction of this particular faint muttering and rumbling sound from the south, for Rider had carefully inquired his way and knew that he was right in persisting in his course.

  ‘The other drummings are for dances’ he explained; ‘it may be Sunday night, but the people are making merry, though perhaps not so much so as they would have done a few years back. You could easily be misled by all these contradictory noises, but I know the way. I fancy that where we are going has been often used before for some startling ceremonies.’

  They were both on foot. Horses might have betrayed their presence once they had arrived; indeed they might have been observed long before they could arrive. But Rider hoped that, by keeping within the shadow of the trees, they would not attract any attention. Many persons were moving about tonight, and it would not be strange if two white men should be seen abroad, so long as they were not noticed when close to the site of the projected exorcism.

  The moon had risen. It was growing full-orbed. Preoccupied with his own affairs as he was, Robert had yet watched it night after night as it had increased in size and splendour, as it had grown from a slender sickle attended by one lustrous star, brightening in the west as the sun went down and then suddenly flashing into radiance with the swift dramatic coming of the tropical darkness, until it had become a globe of silver sailing serenely among the lesser lights which paled and disappeared as it pursued its progress to the sea. He had seen it bathe the looming hills and fields of cane in a soft argent glow, had seen the answering glimmer from the metallic inner surface of the multitudinous leaves, and had, unconsciously, been touched and moved by the beauty of the scene, so unlike anything he had ever known before. Tonight, however, he gazed at the moon with somewhat different feelings. It was like a lantern set up for the illumination of the earth, and they did not want to be seen. They were shunning observation. Darkness would be their kindest friend tonight. But even as he thought, a mass of cloud, materialising swiftly out of the shining blue, floated across the face of the moon and everything grew crepuscular, sombre, as though a dark shroud had been flung across the world. Presently the moon struggled out from behind the shadow, but now Robert noticed that here and there in the sky were other small banks of drifting cloud.

  ‘Looks as if it were going to rain,’ he said to Rider.

  ‘It is quite likely it may rain later on; there has been a feel of it in the air for hours. Clouds are gathering. Even if it doesn’t rain we shall have spells of darkness soon,’ Rider answered.

  ‘I am hoping for that. I am wondering what would happen to us if these obeah people caught us spying on them.’

  ‘They wouldn’t harm us physically tonight, unless they were ready for an instant outbreak, which is not probable,’ said Rider. ‘But they would scatter; they would never allow us to see them breaking the law. Besides, they are keenly alive to ridicule, to contemptuous laughter: that is the one thing that these people shrink from. They may think we are foolhardy to flout ghosts and devils, yet when we laugh at them for their belief in such things they have an unpleasant feeling that they look like children or simpletons, and they are not happy. So they hide their faith and their curious cults from the eyes of the white man, though when a manifestation of these cults takes the form of a little poison in one’s morning coffee, the African’s religion becomes a very serious matter?’

  ‘And they do poison?’ asked Robert, thinking of what he had heard about old Takoo.

  ‘Now and then, but only the desperate and really dangerous characters. The majority are safe enough to trust that way. When you consider their condition, and that they have set their hearts for years on becoming free, the wonder is that they have never attempted to wipe us out wholesale. You could hardly blame them if they did.’

  They had now left Rosehall; they had ascended the low hills behind that estate, and were making their way carefully very near to where the principal cultivations of the bondspeople were; they had followed a trail made and used mainly by the slaves who had their plantations among these hills. The custom of the country, now reinforced by law, was that each slave should cultivate a small piece of his owner’s land for his own family’s sustenance. At least one half-day a fortnight, and more commonly a half-day a week, was allowed him for this purpose. The lands thus set aside were situated at some distance from that part of the estate farmed for the proprietor’s benefit and were usually among the surrounding eminences which could not economically be put under cane, or of which the soil was poor. Here, of a Saturday afternoon, would be found crowds of the people, hoeing the ground, weeding at the roots of their growing crops, digging holes for the planting of the yam or the potato in its season, making provision, in short, against anything like famine. Thus they in reality supported themselves by their labour, and here, as in every other rank of human society, differences made themselves plainly apparent.

  For some of these people only worked as much as was necessary to ensure that they should have what foodstuffs they would need, while others took particular pains to get the most that they could out of the not very fertile soil. The latter wrestled with the earth and from it drew, not only sustenance but some degree of wealth. There were thousands of free blacks all over the country; there had been for decades. These had purchased their freedom with money gained by s
elling the surplus of their products, the yield of their little fields. Everything that they produced was theirs by custom and the force of public opinion; long since it had been found that if this were not to be so there would be very little effort put forth by the slaves on these plots of land. The price of a slave had steadily risen in the last twenty or thirty years, and still men and women bought their freedom by hard work and thrift. Takoo had done so some forty years ago. And Takoo, by what he made out of lands that he had since acquired by cash purchase, and even more by what he had been paid by awestruck people who went to him covertly for aid against dark supernatural powers (or for means to bring those powers to do their will), had accumulated what was for him and those in his position a respectable fortune. Most of what he had he intended for Millicent. He had said so openly. He had determined that she should be respected by all of her class and those below it, looked up to as a young woman of wealth, regarded as a superior, treated with deference. He had succeed in this aim; he was proud of his success because he was proud of her. But in the last few days his pride had given place to a horrible fear. And tonight he would know whether he had toiled all these years to good purpose or in vain.

  The moon shining out brightly just when they were passing by a clearing, Rider with a gesture drew Robert’s eyes to some peculiar objects hung on trees here and there among the little plantations. Tiny bags were a few of these, others again were miniature bundles tied with dried tendrils or with string; one or two were the skulls of animals, cats they seemed.

  ‘Protective charms,’ he explained. ‘There are thieves everywhere, and these cultivations are left for days together with no one near them. They would be entirely at the mercy of predatory persons but for such obeah charms. There is hardly a man within a radius of twenty miles who would venture here by day or night to rob these provision grounds. He would believe that the magic inherent in the charms would work him harm. He might even think that a special ghost, perhaps a relative of the owner, haunted the particular ground he had robbed, and then his state would be almost as bad as Millicent’s and he would have to pay some obeahman heavily to take the ghost off him. His plight would be worse if it were the spirit of a child that was plaguing him; child ghosts seem to be particularly vicious.’ Rider laughed, but somewhat sadly. ‘You may from this gather an idea of the difficulties which a practising parson has to contend with in this country. The irony of it is that some of them hardly ever guess what is going on under their very noses.’