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Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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I ALWAYS had a hearty contempt for my cousin George, and for his part he had a very lively hatred of me. When relations are thus affected towards one another, they seem to go to greater lengths than those united by no tie of blood. George, too, had a great capacity for hating; all the force of his nature seemed to centre in it; and in our case the ill-feelings were strengthened by our seeing so much of one another, for his estate—he was an orphan—marched with my father's.
How our enmity arose I cannot remember; it seems to me to have always existed. The first thing I can recall at all is his pushing me—from behind, of course, that was George's way—into the content tank by the boiling-house. I think his ways of showing his hatred for me first aroused my contempt. As small boys we fought with varying success. At school we did not fight; for one reason, fighting was abhorrent to the spirit of our Barbadian schoolfellows; for another, when once aroused to take the trouble to fight, I could not have enough of it.
But we became rivals at cricket. It is our one game out there, and we played it all the year round. He grow up a magnificent bat; a big, broad-shouldered follow with a tremendous reach. Even on those fast treacherous wickets he could collar the fast bowling. I could bowl more than a little, and I could bowl George. He hated me the worse for it. Cautious against other bowling, his inveterate passion for scoring off me turned him into one of those players who will have their hit, when playing mine. I knew his weakness, and kept one unvarying ball for him, medium pace, straight, and pitched a little short. If need were I bowled it to him over after over, but he generally put the ball into the hands of the long-field about the middle of the second. In the end he grew to dread my bowling: fancied, I believe, that there was a fatality about it, and that rendered him an easy victim.
He vented his hatred on me in a number of mean tricks. If he could got hold of anything he thought I prized, he would spoil or destroy it, and lie about it afterwards. Once he let my pony down and cut its knees.
Outwardly, indeed, we were on good terms. I could not take the trouble to be on terms of open hostility, I did not care enough about him. He, I think, was of the opinion that he could do me more harm by keeping up the appearance of friendliness. As boys we drove every morning into Bridgetown to school together; and I had to keep a sharp lookout on my books, or he would contrive to drop them out of the buggy. When he succeeded he lied about it. When the masters or the boys looked shyly upon me I know that George had been at work behind my back. It was scarcely worth the trouble of inquiring into; they came round after a while. My more intimate friends, between whom and me he was always trying to provoke quarrels, after a while grew to disbelieve him.
He tried to provoke me, too, by outshining me in every way. He was never happy unless he had smarter clothes, a better pony, and finer bats than I. He had much more money, because his estate was larger than my father's, a hundred acres larger. It does not seem much to English people, but in Barbados, where the largest estate is about five hundred acres, it is a great difference. Besides, a hundred acres in sugar meant, in the good times, between fifteen hundred and two thousand a year. In this effort he failed signally; I did not care whether his possessions were better than mine or not. But one way or another, he made my school life far more disagreeable than it might have been.
He had a pretty turn for cruelty. I have known him in the holidays take overseer's work for a day, purely for the pleasure of cowhiding the little negroes. He always took the third gang, the little boys and girls who do odds and ends of work about the estate, being too weak for the heavier field labour. I have not much sympathy for the negroes, having lived amongst them; but, riding out one day, I came upon him by a cane piece mercilessly lashing a wretched little negro girl for some trifling fault or other. I stopped him quickly enough; we had one of our rare open quarrels, and I thrashed George.
He used to beat his servants, too, till he was fined ten pounds for knocking down his groom. His horses and dogs he treated shamefully. Still he was popular with his neighbours, for he was open-handed and full of animal spirits.
Above all, he was a great favourite with women. There was a masterfulness about him that they liked. He was good-looking, too, dark, with regular features, and a devil-may-care expression. He exercised, as well as I could make it out, a physical fascination upon them that they could not resist. Women seem to like men who look as though they would maltreat them. They spoiled him, and he despised them.
One woman he did not despise, and that was his sister Margaret. He feared and hated her. He feared her because when as a boy he tried to bully her, her finer and more fearless spirit had mastered him, and he had never freed himself from that mastery.
My fondness for her was reason enough for his hatred. I had always loved Margaret, and always shall love her. Afterwards he hated her more, because, whatever the yield was, he had to pay her five hundred a year out of his estate. She had, too, a valuable little estate of a hundred and fifty acres on the opposite side of my father's, and was reckoned an heiress. I knew well enough that he would do everything he could to prevent my marrying her, for if the estates were joined I should be in the better position. But I had such implicit trust in Margaret that I did not fear anything he might do.
AS children Margaret and I were always together, and in the holidays during my school years. Indeed, I am inclined to think that Margaret was the chief factor in the formation of my character. Certainly I should never have thought half the things worth taking trouble about that I do, had it not been for her power of inspiring me.
We played together and quarrelled together—at least she did. I believe she found me a disappointing person to quarrel with, I could not, except on rare occasions, take the trouble. She had fits of rage of amazing intensity. She would tug at my hair, till I got hold of her hands and held them firmly. Then she would kick my shins, whereupon I would lay her on the ground, still holding her hands till she grew quiet. Elsie used to stand by, looking scared out of her life, saying, "Don't hurt her, Tristram, she can't help it."
I, too, had an idea she could not help it, and used to sit patiently holding her. She was ashamed of these fits; I think the contrast of my coolness shamed her, and they grow less frequent as she grew older. However angry she was, she never hurt Elsie.
Elsie McClaren, the daughter of our Scotch overseer, was my foster-sister, and our companion and pet, being a year younger than Margaret, and three years younger than I.
My mother died a few days after I was born, and Mrs. McClaren reared me along with her little boy. By way of return my father arranged for Elsie to share Margaret s governess. Playmates as children, when I was at school the girls never left me alone. After I had got home, and had my tea, in the middle of my evening debate as to whether it was not too much trouble to prepare my lessons for the next day, I used to hear a scurry of footsteps, and in they ran, demanding help in their evening work. I had to help them, and then Margaret would insist on my doing my own.
Elsie was thus always our companion. She was a pretty, fragile little thing, and we made a great pet of her; the best of everything was for Elsie. In return, I am afraid we made her the butt of our youthful wit. She took it in excellent part, she never thought we could do wrong, and was entirely dominated by our stronger natures.
George rarely joined us. When he did, there was sure to be a quarrel; he would bully Elsie. I am pleased to remember it was the one thing I always thrashed him for. So we all grew up together, Margaret into a beautiful girl of a fine high spirit, Elsie into a pretty dreamy girl with a passion for music, and I into their very obedient servant.
WHEN she was fourteen Margaret went to England to school, and spent all but three months of the cool season every year there. Every year she returned prettier and more charming, with a colour in her cheeks which was all that was needed to make her ravishing, and my boy's passion for her grew stronger and stronger. It was now she who became the teacher, having so many things to tell me, and at sixteen she began to develop ideas; then it was she began to teach me how many things were worth taking trouble about. One of them was Elsie's education. I had my doubts about the use of it, for Elsie was not bright, but she worked patiently at what she was told.
AT last the time came for me to go to the university. George, being my elder, went six months before me to Cambridge, as I was going to Oxford. Those six months were the happiest of my life, I think, for Margaret was at home, we were always together, and I was bowling better than ever. Margaret went over with me to England to stay with friends in London. To my surprise I got a scholarship at one of the smaller colleges; and it procured my entrance into a congenial set. I did a certain amount of work, read a great deal that was more interesting to me, played my cricket, and became a noted speaker on colonial matters at the Union.
Of George I saw a good deal in the vacations. Margaret had another idea, the idea of making us friends. I had the strongest doubts as to its being worth while. I heard of him us living a very fast life at the university. Only his cricket prevented its being faster—he got his blue in his second year—and I knew that he went the pace in town. He had got into a set of men with money, whose occupation was to put it to a bad use. He could stand the pace very well. He had the accumulations of a long minority to spend, and he spent them.
TWO years after I had gone to Oxford my father died, and when all the affairs were settled I bethought myself of doing something for Elsie. I knew that she was dull and unhappy in Barbadoes, when both Margaret and I were in England, and I determined to bring her over, and let her cultivate her musical talent.
I wrote out to her parents, the arrangements were soon made, and she came. George sneered at the scheme once or twice, but was disregarded. She was placed at a good school in Kilburn, and made excellent progress. In the vacations I took her to concerts, and she taught me a finer appreciation of music than all the critical dissertations of my Oxford friends. I had a protecting, brotherly fondness for her, greater indeed than the fondness of most brothers for their sisters. Everyone, indeed, was fond of her; for she was a creature of an innocent gentleness of nature that charmed her way into their hearts.
IN the next year I got my blue. Our chance of beating Cambridge was small. George had been in splendid form all the summer, had made four centuries, and carried out his bat twice. On the way up to town we were discussing our chances; and I happened to say I had taken his wicket scores of times. It seemed to set the captain thinking. I knew he did not think much of my bowling; indeed, I think he underrated it. I had got my blue for my fielding; and I was a useful bat. However, he said nothing.
Cambridge made fifty for no wicket, George had hit five fours, and had the bowling collared. To my surprise, I was put on to bowl. I began to bowl him the old ball. The first over was a maiden, the first in the match. The second over George faced me again, and it was a maiden. The third over he hit me for two, and the other man hit me for two. The third ball of the fourth over he put into the hands of cover point. His score was sixty-seven short of the century. I got three more wickets, and made a painstaking thirty-five.
I opened the second innings with a ball which George drove into the hands of the man over my head in the long field; and we just won the match. After it was over, and we were all in the pavilion, he said with a pleasant smile which did not reach his eyes, "I'll be even with you, old man, for taking my wicket in both innings," and I believed he would do his best.
AT the end of the year, owing to the development of the beet-sugar industry, the price of cane-sugar, which had been steadily falling, fell very low indeed, and our incomes fell with it. I had plenty of money in English investments, so I did not mind very much. George, who had had much more, had spent most of it.
We were both living in town now, having left the universities, and he began to say he would have to live in Barbados. Margaret had gone out there for a few months, and wrote to say that the prospect was alarming; and my attorney urged me to come out, and look into things for myself. I was leading a very pleasant life among my friends in town and was going to marry Margaret in the summer. I thought it hardly worth the trouble.
ONE morning I was startled by a telegram from Elsie's school saying she had disappeared, having gone to her master in town the day before and never returned. Of late she had gone by herself, being old enough and, knowing her way very well. I was in a state of great dismay; but it seemed no very difficult thing to find her, and I set the usual agencies to work, keeping the matter very quiet.
But the days went by and they proved useless. I set others to work, and threw myself into the search with an energy that surprised me. I wouldn't for worlds have had any harm befall the dear child, and I was responsible for her. Even George, when he heard of it, showed a greater concern than I had ever known him show about anything that did not immediately affect him; and it was all the more strange since he had always treated her with a contemptuous indifference, while she had shrunk from him and avoided him.
He helped me greatly in my search, and was fertile in excellent suggestions. But it was all in vain; whoever had arranged the disappearance was a master hand, and had taken precautious that effectually baffled discovery. It was so well done that it was impossible she could have arranged it herself. But there was no clue either to anyone who could have helped her in the matter or to her motive. All I could think of was that at the last concert I had taken her to she had been rather absent minded, and there was a light in her eyes I had never seen in them before. George's hypothesis that there was a man at the bottom of it was the only tenable one; even Margaret said as much in her letters.
I was grieved, amazed, and angry. Months rolled on, and I never abandoned the search though every fresh effort grow sickening in its hopelessness. My marriage with Margaret was postponed, and she went out again to Barbados with George, to keep house for him. She had an idea that she had her duties to her brother and her negroes. Further than asking her what good she expected do to either, knowing them as she did, I didn't reason against her purpose, having learnt by experience that reasoning was useless; but if I told her my way of thinking and left her alone she would work around. Then I went on with my search, and began to see more of my friends again.
SIX months later Margaret's letters all at once ceased. Six weeks, three mails that is, passed by and no letters. When the third mail had come, and I was again disappointed, I said goodbye to my friends, shut up my rooms, and started for Barbados. I had not been in the island for five years, and my old friends were very glad to see me. But on all sides I was met by the cry of "ruin."
Sugar had fallen to the lowest, and would never rise again. However, it seemed to me that there was at any rate a living to be made out of it still.
I found George grown a thorough Barbadian. He had always been more of a Barbadian than myself, though both of us were English by birth and parentage. He had always been more proficient than I in that curious corruption of English, the Barbadian language, and now he spoke it habitually. His old hatred of me, which I thought had lessened somewhat in England, had, under the influence of old associations, recovered its old virulence. His first act was to stick me with a bad horse, and great was his joy.
But what was my distress and dismay to find that Margaret would have nothing to do with me; treated me with icy, contemptuous coldness; was barely civil to me when it was necessary; but otherwise avoided or ignored me. I could get no opportunity to speak to her alone, so I wrote and asked her to explain. She wrote back, "I know all."—not a word more.
It was certain that it was George's doing. He had borrowed large sums of her to increase his plant of machinery. That was a good reason for his trying to separate us. But what possible means could he have employed? I could not guess; I had believed that nothing could separate us.
After a month I began to despair, and to eat my heart out. My life was wasting under my eyes. Life without Margaret was hardly worth while; she had been my life all through the years. My only consolation, and selfish enough, God knows, was that she was growing listless and hollow eyed.
One evening as I sat brooding, after my lonely dinner, my anger and wretchedness rose to the pitch of desperation. I made up my mind to have it out of George that night, if I had to go near killing him in the process. I knew that Margaret was out; for I had met her at tennis that afternoon, and heard her agree to spend the evening with our hosts. I was eager for a quarrel, and all the injuries he had ever done me kept rising in my memory, and aggravating my dangerous mood. It was only half a mile, and calling my terrier, Nipper, I set out to walk. It was a still, stifling night, at the end of the hot season; the moonlight was an intense silver blaze that silhouetted everything in black and the air rang with the shrill notes of hundreds of whistling frogs.
I walked deliberately enough. My purpose was too set for hurry. I was pondering my plan of action. The way lay along intervals, as the paths between the canefields are called. About midway the ground dipped, and the interval narrowed till the canes brushed the wayfarer on either side, and here and there met overhead.
I had gone a few yards down it when I missed Nipper. Looking back I saw him on the edge of the dip, and gave him a whistle. But he stood stock still. I gave him a call; he came a few steps towards me, then with a whine turned and bolted for home with his tail between his legs.
I had never known him do such a thing before. Going on, I presently noticed that there was something curious about the path, and all at once it struck me that it was strangely silent. There were no whistling frogs near it; I could not hear a single note. Speculating on the reasons for this I had almost reached the bottom of the dip when the low wail of a baby broke upon the stillness; and it had not died, when there came a burst of a woman's weeping, a storm of heartrending, heart-broken sobs.
I have always thought a woman's weeping a dreadful sound, but this was full of so intense a misery, so inexpressible, so hopeless a despair, that it absolutely unmanned me. An inexplicable terror kept me unable to move. The conviction that it was no human weeping filled me. There was the peculiar quality in it that it rang in the air all round me, and I could by no means fix the spot whence it came.
It seemed that it would never stop, and when at last it died away in the same low baby's wail among the cane's on the left, the cold sweat was streaming from my pores. I make no pretence to be a man of extraordinary courage, and it was minutes before I could collect my spirit, and master my trembling lips to call out.
There was no reply. I dashed in among the dense cane growth on the left, pushed backwards and forwards among the stiff plants, and found no one. I did not expect to. I narrowly escaped falling into one of those great dry wells, thirty or forty feet deep, that drain the canes in the heavy rainfall. The shock restored me to myself, and I came out of them.
The silence was over; the air was vibrant with the whistling of the frogs. I set off for George's as hard us I could walk. The horrible feeling of someone being behind me was strong upon me, sending cold shivers up and down my spine. Several times I thought I heard the weeping behind me, and stopped to listen. It was my imagination. The worst of it was that the voice of the weeping woman was known to me, but I could not recall whose it was. It was not a negro woman's.
I fairly ran up George's drive, and into the veranda, where he sat drinking whisky and soda.
"Hullo!" he said. "What the devil's the matter? Seen a duppy?"
"Practising sprinting," I said, falling into a chair and reaching for the whisky.
I talked to him for an hour of sugar boiling. I had no heart left in me for a quarrel. I was struggling all the while to recall whose voice it was. I went home round by the road. Nipper came scampering down the drive and yelped and barked round me in extravagant joy.
I PASSED a horrible night; every time I closed my eyes the weeping awoke me. There seemed to have passed into its sorrow a tone of plaintive remonstrance at my not recalling whose voice it was.
At breakfast I made cautious inquiries of the butler, who knew everything that happened for miles round. No strange sound had been heard in the dip.
That day I had to drive into town, and all along the weary white road, there and back, the weeping haunted my imagination. I even fancied I heard it above the din of Broad street. I knew the voice so well, but I could not recall whose it was.
I returned to dinner, and after dinner I felt I must have society, or it would drive me mad. I walked to the neighbour's on the opposite side to George's, and us I drew near the house, I heard Margaret's ringing laugh in the veranda. I had not heard it for months; and she never laughed again that evening. Irritable as I was from harass and want of sleep, this angered me greatly. About eleven our hostess was called away and came back with a vexed air.
"A message from your brother to say your horse is lame, and the buggy can't come. I'm awfully sorry, my dear, I'm. afraid I can't put you up; the house is full with all the children home from school, and our grooms are all gone home," she said to Margaret.
"Oh, I shouldn't think of such a thing," said Margaret. "I can walk perfectly well. Why, it isn't a mile."
"Will you? Don't you mind? And Tristram will see you home. Your ways are the same."
"No, I don't mind at all; I shall enjoy it in the delicious moonlight," said Margaret; but she frowned. I know it was at the thought of my seeing her home, and grew angrier still. Presently we set out, and went on our way saying very little. If she was afraid I was going to pester her for an explanation, she need have no fear. I was far too angry.
When we came to the path through the intervals I said; "Hadn't you better go home by the road?"
"No!" she said.
"You may get a nasty fright going this way," said I.
"I prefer it," she said, in the tone she would use to a disobedient dog.
"Very well, have your own way," I said, angrily.
When we came to the edge of the dip I led the way into the narrow path, pushing aside the canes for her.
It was deathly still. There was no sound of the whistling frogs, no sound but the brushing of the canes against us; then in, the middle the baby's wail rang out, and the weeping began.
Margaret sprang to my side with, a low, frightened cry of "Tristram!" and clasped my arm. I slipped it round her and drew her close to me. The hopeless unhuman weeping rang round us as we stood, rising and falling and eddying through the air; and died away its before in the child's wail on the left. I was not so utterly terrified this time, but Margaret was a dead weight on my arm. I half carried, half dragged her out of the dip, and paused where the path widened again.
She recovered herself with a deep gasp; then tore herself from me, and panting, her face a blaze of scorn and anger, cried, "You cruel coward! Wasn't it enough for you to spoil my life by your faithlessness, but you must expose me to this!"
"Softly," I said, coldly, my anger had left me as her's rose. "It may be that my faithlessness has spoiled your life, though it seems to me that it is rather yours spoiling mine. But I warned you against this. Whose was the voice?"
"Whose was the voice? Who but you ever heard Elsie cry like that?" she cried.
"Of course, of course. I haven't heard Elsie sob since she was a child, or I should have known it at once," I said, more to myself than to her.
"It is no use your affecting ignorance," said Margaret scornfully. "George showed me her letter to him, telling of your treachery to her and your faithlessness to me, three months ago."
"George showed you a letter from Elsie telling him of my treachery to her and my faithlessness to you, three months ago?" I repeated, dumbfounded.
"Yes, and you've met her here on her way to you, and killed her. Oh, Tristram, you've broken my heart!"
"Margaret," I said, "I swear I've been as faithful to you as ever man was to woman, and I cannot conceive how Elsie can have been induced to write such a lie. But if she were coming to me, how comes she here? It's a mile out of her way from the road to town, the short cut to your house, not mine,"
It was a poor argument, but it told as no more striking one could have done. She was silent a minute, then breathed rather than uttered the word "George."
"George, of course!" I cried, as everything flashed clear to my mind. "He was the scoundrel who enticed Elsie away, to spite me! He made her write the letter accusing me, to keep us apart and get your money! He could always make a woman do anything he liked. Poor little girl! I'd hoped a better fate for her than to fall into his hands."
"Oh, why didn't I ask her what she was weeping so dreadfully for?" said Margaret, beginning to sob. I was near sobbing myself. Then her mood changed, and taking my arm, she hurried along towards the house.
We burst in upon George as he sat smoking in the dining-room.
"There's somebody calling you from the well in the dip!" said Margaret, in a clear, cold voice.
"What the hell do you mean?" he shouted, springing up.
"Elsie is calling you from the well in the dip," said Margaret.
He faced us with his clear pallor going slowly leaden and livid, and his lips trembling.
"I don't understand," he muttered. "It was an accident—she fell in."
It was a palpable, miserable lie.
We turned and left the house.
NEXT day they drew up from the well the skeleton, picked clean by the ants, of a girl, and the yellow hair was Elsie's.
How she came there we could never learn. George has sold his estate, and lives in Paris. He is about to marry a rich young American.
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
Go to Home Page
This work is out of copyright in countries with a copyright
period of 70 years or less, after the year of the author's death.
If it is under copyright in your country of residence,
do not download or redistribute this file.
Original content added by RGL (e.g., introductions, notes,
RGL covers) is proprietary and protected by copyright.