Chapter 9: The Overseer

Mr. Ashman was sitting on his veranda, moodily looking towards the slave village where dwelt the workers on this estate; the scene was so familiar to him that, while seeing, he might be said to see it not. The huts of the slaves stood in their own little gardens in which grew the fruit-bearing trees and vegetables that these people cultivated for their own use. Breadfruit and banana spread luxuriant leaves above and around the houses, creating a welcome shade during the warmer hours of the day; yam-vines clung to sticks stuck almost upright in the soil; the purple of the potato plant showed itself on tiny hillocks in which the tubers ripened. It was a settlement, this, and those who inhabited it were mostly at home at this hour; work had ceased in the fields, and from numerous fires trailed upwards into the air blue smoke of burning wood with which the bondswomen cooked their families’ evening meal. The fires themselves could be seen shining in the dusk, lending a touch of bright picturesqueness to the village. Stars were peeping forth, and the breeze of the December evening was delightful after the heat and turmoil of a strenuous day. Mr. Ashman looked upon it all, but gave it no thought, for his mind was on far weightier and more intimate subjects. He was deeply troubled, and anger smouldered in him. His concern was to find a way by which to solve his difficulties, and no way that promised success could he discern at the moment, think he never so deeply.

As the man in charge of Rosehall and Palmyra he was somewhat anxious about the dangerous situation which he knew was developing in this part of the country, and perhaps in every other parish, though just what and when the climax would be he could not guess. There was trouble abroad. Word had got about that a decree which freed the slaves had arrived from England and was being kept back by the masters, and the slaves were in a state of dangerous excitement. The work on estates went on as usual, force of habit and fear of the whip were still potent with these people. But there were grumblings, plottings, and the belief was spreading that, at some date not distant, and at a given signal the slaves would rise, give the properties over to the flames, loot, murder their masters, and thus would take by savage means what they believed was being withheld from them. That some outbreak would occur Mr. Ashman did not doubt; but in the meantime he knew he could do nothing. Even the whipping those six men had been given at Palmyra had not wrung a single word of confession from them. One could only wait and be vigilant. And, anyhow, the threatening danger, though it might be serious, was general; of more importance to him was the danger that menaced him personally and alone, and from an altogether different quarter.

For three years he had been practically master of Rosehall and Palmyra, their affairs having been entrusted to his management. He had been more than that, too; he had been Annie Palmer’s lover. He recalled their first meeting, Annie’s husband had been dead a month, and had, as was the custom, been buried on the estate, and some ugly rumours had floated about as to the cause of his death. The slaves of Rosehall had whispered, the white mechanics and book-keepers had also talked below their breath; but no one had come forward to make any positive assertion, and he would be a bold officer of the law who should charge the owner of great estates, and a woman at that, with murder, unless he possessed the amplest, most convincing proof. Yet Montego Bay wondered and hinted, and he had heard this talk. He had gone to the Bay on business at about this time, he having terminated his connection with a property in Westmoreland and being engaged in looking for another position that should suit him. He had an excellent reputation as a capable overseer; he was not doubtful about his future. Certainly he had never thought of making application to the owner of Rosehall, would have laughed at a suggestion that he should do so. But while he stayed at Montego Bay Annie Palmer had ridden into town one morning. Chance brought her to the lodging-house at which he stopped, and in the corridor leading to the dining-room they met that day.

John Ashman was muscular, well set up, arrogant in mien, rough in manner, but of a certain handsomeness of which he was very well aware. Annie was dainty, bright, alluring, with an eye for a fine-looking man and a rage for the possession of anyone she fancied. Her impulses were lightning, her will imperious; she overrode obstacles in her path with a fine scorn and disregard of consequences. She did not know who this man was, but she saw at once that he was well-favoured and that he gazed at her intently and with admiration flaming in his eyes. He knew who she was; word had gone about the house that Mrs. Palmer of Rosehall was in it, and at first sight of her he was aware that this could be no other than the woman about whom all the town had been talking, the woman whom most people had begun to whisper of as of dreadful character even in a land where there was not much delicacy and where the uncertainties of the immediate future (due to the rumoured abolition of slavery and the equalising of master and slave) had soured tempers and turned many men into disgruntled brutes. She seemed to Ashman more lovely than common report had painted her, more fascinating than he could possibly have dreamed. Her character? What did he care about that? Or rather, it rendered her more enticing to him, for now he was filled with admiration of her force and daring. It came to him swiftly that only a bold and ambitious man deserved to win and hold such a woman, and if any man failed to hold her and perished, there was little reason to waste tears over such a weakling.

But Ashman, even as he thought, while, with unconscious rudeness, he stared at Annie, did not dare to put himself forward, in his own mind, as the young widow’s suitor. Her husbands had been gentlemen, men in independent positions and of the class that ruled the country; he was but an overseer. A domineering, imperious man who had won upwards from the ranks of the book-keepers; but an overseer only; and such did not aspire to the hands of great ladies unless those ladies showed for them a marked preference. And even then it was not marriage that was usually suggested. Barriers of class were upheld where sometimes every other barrier went down.

Annie Palmer knew much about the nature and the impulses of men, and something of what was passing in Ashman’s mind she understood. She saw that his stare was not that of curiosity only. It was that of a man who was taken by a sudden admiration, one who required but little encouragement to be brought to a lovely woman’s feet. She seized the opportunity; a trifling question—”Where is the dining-room, please?”—opened an acquaintanceship between them. She told him that she wanted someone to manage her estates, now that her last husband was dead. She learnt from him that he was free; when they parted that day he had been appointed overseer of Palmyra and Rosehall, with more than an overseer’s general authority. Within the next few days he was Annie’s accepted lover. This relationship had endured for nearly three years; then he had noticed recently that she had grown cold, more difficult to deal with, less satisfied with him. Then happened the advent of Robert Rutherford, and Ashman had realised that he must fight for his ascendancy or lose everything, must break the intimacy between Annie and this upstart or be speedily broken himself.

He had never lived at the Great House; Mrs. Palmer had never suggested that he should do so. But then his quarters were comfortable, and an overseer must keep constant watch over his charge. He had been often and often at the Great House, and had learnt, indirectly, all that there was to hear about Rosehall and its previous owners. He did not doubt now that they had come to their end by violent means; Annie Palmer was capable of anything that her passions or her interests might suggest. When once she was on her estates she made little effort to disguise her disposition; it was irksome, painful to her to be anything but herself; she had for too long given free vent to her feelings, yielding swiftly to the inclinations she experienced, to care to pretend before him. She might make him her lover but she did not forget that he was her inferior, and she was not accustomed to caring about what her inferiors might think of her. They were there to obey, to administer to her convenience or her pleasure; if she chose to be gracious to them, that was kindness on her part, but with them she would be herself always. Queen of Rosehall by unquestioned, imprescriptible right, her subjects must submit to her will and be delighted when she showed them the smallest degree of favour.

But if that favour were withdrawn! That was the thought which rankled in John Ashman’s brain just now. A week had passed since Robert’s coming to Rosehall, and already some ominous things had happened. Last night Robert had been to the Great House again; Ashman himself had seen him ride away from it this morning. Yesterday Annie had sent for her overseer and instructed him to employ another book-keeper, a man who might do for a temporary job on the estate. “Another man is needed, John,” Mrs. Palmer had said; “Mr. Rutherford is not accustomed to this work, and it would be folly to depend too much upon him.”

“Then why not get rid of him?” Ashman had not unreasonably asked. “Why keep a useless person on the estate?”

“He is here to learn planting,” she replied; “I have explained that to you before. And he is a friend of mine. That is another very good reason.”

“Let us understand one another plainly, Annie,” Ashman said. “This book-keeper was with you on the very first night he came to Rosehall. What does this mean? That you have taken him as your c——?” He paused upon an ugly word. He did not wish to press the quarrel too far.

“Say what is in your mind,” she smiled, looking him straight in the eyes. “Don’t think about my feelings, I beg of you. Don’t let me trouble you in the slightest. Go on! I am taking him as my what?”

“You are throwing me over for him?”

“You haven’t been so much of a devoted lover of late, have you?” she asked him, with a little sneer.

“Are you trying to make out that I am to blame for your treatment of me?”

“Well, there are your twins over at Palmyra, you know, John, and they are not yet three months old. And there is—but this is all unnecessary. You are a good man on the estate, and you know you are welcome to remain as overseer. But please remember that we are not husband and wife.”

“Perhaps I am lucky in that,” he answered grimly, stung to a significant remark.

She started. Annie Palmer hated any allusion, however indirect, to the death of her husbands; she would occasionally speak of it herself, but grew white with anger (with which was blended dread) whenever she thought that someone else was hinting at it. Ashman had been wise hitherto to keep off that forbidden ground. Jealousy and temper had now betrayed him onto it.

Annie’s gaze narrowed, and for one long minute she sat silent, her fingers beating a tattoo upon the table at which both of them were sitting. She would have ordered this man peremptorily out of her sight and off the premises at once but that the crop must be taken off day by day now, and that there were disquieting rumours about the disposition and plottings of the slaves. But, if not now, a little later certainly Ashman must go. But if he knew too much—and he could have found out much in these last three years—was it safe that he should be allowed to go, with a thirst for revenge in his heart? That was a question to be answered later on.

Ashman saw the look in Annie’s face, had a startled realisation of the trend of her musing, and when he had left her yesterday it was with less self-assurance than he had ever felt. He had wounded Annie, who had evidently ceased to care for him; who indeed had never deeply cared for him. He must be wary in his movements now; she would plan to keep him silent if she could not keep him tame. But if Rutherford could be got rid of? In that case present disagreements might be forgotten, old relationships resumed: he wished that, for in his own fashion he loved this extraordinary woman. But how to get rid of Rutherford? Annie had killed one of her husbands, it was said, with the aid of the old devil, Takoo, and by herself the others; but Takoo was the girl Millicent’s grandfather, and Takoo would protect the boy. Besides, murder was terrible; if he struck at Rutherford he could never escape suspicion. His only hope was that Millicent would be able to convince Robert that he ran an awful risk by continuing to be Annie Palmer’s lover, that she would be able to assure the new book-keeper that Annie had been thrice a murderess, and that, shocked and rendered afraid, young Rutherford would flee from the estate.

As to his remaining as a book-keeper, that was but a mere farce now. Even now he, Ashman, was waiting for the man for whom he had dispatched a messenger that same day, after receiving Mrs. Palmer’s orders that Robert was to be relieved of much of the harder work which a book-keeper was expected to perform. Robert clung to his book-keeper’s room, shame, pride, a feeling of loyalty to Burbridge, all operating in his mind to keep him to that decision; but Ashman wondered how long it would be before he broke down under the pressure of Annie’s wish and solicitations—for Annie had said plainly to John Ashman that Robert might come shortly to take over one of the vacant rooms in the Great House. Annie cared less than ever she had done for such public opinion as existed; her strong will would undoubtedly influence the young man. Ashman had seen many a man arrive from England with the noblest resolves and the highest ideals, and sometimes in a week these all seemed to disappear as completely as if they had never existed. Why should Rutherford be different? He was not acting differently, anyhow, thought Ashman with a bitter smile.

He saw, for there was a young moon in the sky, the figure of a man approaching him, a white man quite evidently. He knew who it was.

The stranger approached the veranda confidently, but waited at the foot of the steps leading up to it before venturing to ascend. “Come up!” Ashman ordered, and the man obeyed.

Even in the obscurity of the veranda it could be seen that this person was in shabby attire, and in the light his shoes would have been perceived to have gone some way towards dissolution. That he had walked it from where he had come, too, stamped him at once as a poor white, “a walk-foot backra,” a man who was down in the world pretty badly, since to walk in a land where all white men rode or drove was a flaunting advertisement of poverty and degeneration.

“You applied to me for a job some months ago, Rider,” Ashman began without any preliminaries. “Do you still want a job?”

“I do, sir.”

“And you think you can keep sufficiently off the rum during this crop to be worth your keep?”

“I should hope so. ‘Tis not in mortals to command success, but——”

“You are not in the pulpit now; you haven’t been there for many years, Mr. Rider, so you needn’t preach to me,” interrupted John Ashman roughly. Yet, curiously enough, he had a sort of respect for this peculiar, shabby individual standing quietly before him, for he knew that Rider was considered a highly educated man. Richard Rider, M.A., had been a curate in the Kingston parish church ten years ago, and would probably have been its rector in another five years but for his predilection for drink. He had drunk himself out of a church that had been quite ready to overlook occasional lapses and even a constant state of intoxication which did not include exhibitions of street staggering and lying down in the gutter; but when Mr. Rider had been often drunk both in and out of church, his bishop was compelled to take some notice of his actions. Accordingly, Rider had been demoted to a country church, but there, free from all restraint, and finding nothing in the manners and morals of his congregation to inspire him with the belief that they cared sixpence about religion, he had become more frankly an adherent of the bottle than even when in Kingston. So he had been permitted to retire from his office as practising priest and had found situations as a book-keeper in those times when he kept sober; for there were occasions when he was comparatively sober for weeks and months. Ashman, who knew a good deal about him, hoped for the sake of the work to be done that the present was one of the sober interludes of Mr. Rider. “You can live in that room,” he said to him, pointing to a little annexe to his own house. “The other two book-keepers live together and there is no space there for you. How long you remain here will depend upon yourself. Where’s your luggage?”

“It is not considerable, a nigger could bring it on his head.”

“I should think so. We’ll send for it tomorrow. If you go outside now they will give you some grub.”

Rider went off, but Ashman continued to sit and stare at nothing and think his own sombre thoughts. It was about nine o’clock now; the fires in the negro village had long since died down, the slaves had all retired, weary from their long day’s labour. A sound as of footsteps again broke the silence; Ashman observed a figure which resolved itself into that of a woman as it drew nearer. She came right up to the house, saw him, and ran up the veranda steps. She seemed to know the place very well.

“Millie? I have been expecting you! Sit down.”

This invitation was a token of friendship; Millicent looked about her, noticed a chair in the corner and plumped herself into it.

“Well, how goes everything?” questioned the overseer keenly.

“He went up last night to the Great House again, an’ stay there all night, Busha.”

“I know that.”

“It don’t do him no good, for when he come back home he wanted to drink. He drink more all day today than I ever notice him do before, though,” she added truthfully, “he went to work all the same.”

“I know that too,” said Ashman moodily; “and have you said anything to him?”

“I tell him about Mrs. Palmer; what she is and what they say she do to all her husband, but it don’t make no difference. Sometimes he insult me by shutting me up, sometimes he only laugh and say I forget myself an’ that I better be careful. But he don’t seem to care.”

“Did he say he would tell her?” anxiously asked Mr. Ashman.

“No; I ask him straight if he was goin’ to, an’ he say no, but that I am running a big risk. But it’s not doing him any good, for though he been here only a few days he is different already. He’s more careless-like, don’t seem to mind nothing at all now. She is doing him bad. I hate her!”

“So it doesn’t seem as if he loves you, does it?” inquired Mr. Ashman mockingly.

“I don’t know.” Millie hesitated. “He talk to me now more than before; and ask me a lot about meself. I think he getting to care for me, an’ that is natural, Squire, for I care for him an’ I am pretty.”

“Millie,” said Mr. Ashman slowly, following an idea that had come into his mind, “don’t you think your grandfather might help you? He is fond of you, isn’t he?”

“He love me to death,” said the girl proudly. “But what is he to do? He is strong, but (dismally) Mrs. Palmer strong too. She is so strong that she can live in a haunted house, where they hear all sort of noise day an’ night, and yet she get no harm.”

“The haunting is probably done by some of the damned house people,” remarked Mr. Ashman scornfully. “That banging of doors and murmuring is all the work of one or two venturesome brutes who want to keep up the story of duppies in the place for their own reasons. If it was worth while I would investigate it. Perhaps your very grandfather put up one of the house servants to bang those doors! I have long suspected it. Mrs. Palmer is not as strong as your grandfather, Millie.”

She shook her head doubtfully.

“Your grandfather must know that you are living on this estate now?” he asked.

“Yes, he know, and he don’t quite like it. Only yesterday he say to me that trouble going to come on me because I live here as Marse Robert’s housekeeper, an’ I tell him I am not a real, regular housekeeper, but he say that I will be—and that make me glad. But me gran’father very sorrowful; he warn me against Mrs. Palmer.”

To this, for a while, Ashman said nothing. He was buried in thought. At last:

“So old Takoo thinks you are in for trouble, eh?”

“So he tell me, but perhaps he is wrong.”

“Perhaps; but suppose he thought that Mr. Rutherford had anything to do with your trouble; would he be angry with him?”

“Lord! He would kill him!” exclaimed Millicent, raising her voice in sheer terror. “Me gran’father is awful when he get out o’ temper; and if you or anybody else do me anything he would never rest till he revenge me.”

Ashman knew that Takoo would not consider as an ill deed the taking of this girl as a mistress, or “housekeeper,” by any white man for whom she cared; that kind of action Takoo would look upon as normal and even as highly meritorious. But should Robert lead to any harm being done to Millicent, whether by Annie or someone else, the old man might hold him responsible; and, of course, it would be easier for Takoo to wreak his vengeance on a mere book-keeper and a stranger than on Mrs. Palmer or even on the overseer. Ashman wished no particular harm to Millicent, though he saw no reason why he should particularly wish her well. She was a mere pawn in the game he was playing. He had always been hard and selfish; his life, his circumstances, had further helped to make him so. He was known as a stern taskmaster; his object in life had been the material advancement of John Ashman; his great ambition had always been to rise from overseer to attorney, to the position of a man in charge of many estates, with overseers under him. From that to ownership was often but a short step, as he well knew. He would have worked with Millicent to get rid of Robert Rutherford; if that end could not be achieved with the girl’s aid, why should not her grandfather be the instrument of Rutherford’s disappearance from the scene? She might suffer, but she would have to take her chance of that. Robert Rutherford must go; must go absolutely; there must be a complete severing of the ties that now existed between him and Annie Palmer. And Millicent had just given a hint as to how Robert’s elimination might be brought about.

“It’s getting late, Millie,” said Ashman, rising. “Come and see me soon again, and tell me everything that happens. By the way, are you going to Marse Robert tonight?”

“Yes,” she answered simply.

“Well, good night.”

Mr. Ashman was sitting on his veranda, moodily looking towards the slave village where dwelt the workers on this estate; the scene was so familiar to him that, while seeing, he might be said to see it not. The huts of the slaves stood in their own little gardens in which grew the fruit-bearing trees and vegetables that these people cultivated for their own use. Breadfruit and banana spread luxuriant leaves above and around the houses, creating a welcome shade during the warmer hours of the day; yam-vines clung to sticks stuck almost upright in the soil; the purple of the potato plant showed itself on tiny hillocks in which the tubers ripened. It was a settlement, this, and those who inhabited it were mostly at home at this hour; work had ceased in the fields, and from numerous fires trailed upwards into the air blue smoke of burning wood with which the bondswomen cooked their families’ evening meal. The fires themselves could be seen shining in the dusk, lending a touch of bright picturesqueness to the village. Stars were peeping forth, and the breeze of the December evening was delightful after the heat and turmoil of a strenuous day. Mr. Ashman looked upon it all, but gave it no thought, for his mind was on far weightier and more intimate subjects. He was deeply troubled, and anger smouldered in him. His concern was to find a way by which to solve his difficulties, and no way that promised success could he discern at the moment, think he never so deeply.

As the man in charge of Rosehall and Palmyra he was somewhat anxious about the dangerous situation which he knew was developing in this part of the country, and perhaps in every other parish, though just what and when the climax would be he could not guess. There was trouble abroad. Word had got about that a decree which freed the slaves had arrived from England and was being kept back by the masters, and the slaves were in a state of dangerous excitement. The work on estates went on as usual, force of habit and fear of the whip were still potent with these people. But there were grumblings, plottings, and the belief was spreading that, at some date not distant, and at a given signal the slaves would rise, give the properties over to the flames, loot, murder their masters, and thus would take by savage means what they believed was being withheld from them. That some outbreak would occur Mr. Ashman did not doubt; but in the meantime he knew he could do nothing. Even the whipping those six men had been given at Palmyra had not wrung a single word of confession from them. One could only wait and be vigilant. And, anyhow, the threatening danger, though it might be serious, was general; of more importance to him was the danger that menaced him personally and alone, and from an altogether different quarter.

For three years he had been practically master of Rosehall and Palmyra, their affairs having been entrusted to his management. He had been more than that, too; he had been Annie Palmer’s lover. He recalled their first meeting, Annie’s husband had been dead a month, and had, as was the custom, been buried on the estate, and some ugly rumours had floated about as to the cause of his death. The slaves of Rosehall had whispered, the white mechanics and book-keepers had also talked below their breath; but no one had come forward to make any positive assertion, and he would be a bold officer of the law who should charge the owner of great estates, and a woman at that, with murder, unless he possessed the amplest, most convincing proof. Yet Montego Bay wondered and hinted, and he had heard this talk. He had gone to the Bay on business at about this time, he having terminated his connection with a property in Westmoreland and being engaged in looking for another position that should suit him. He had an excellent reputation as a capable overseer; he was not doubtful about his future. Certainly he had never thought of making application to the owner of Rosehall, would have laughed at a suggestion that he should do so. But while he stayed at Montego Bay Annie Palmer had ridden into town one morning. Chance brought her to the lodging-house at which he stopped, and in the corridor leading to the dining-room they met that day.

John Ashman was muscular, well set up, arrogant in mien, rough in manner, but of a certain handsomeness of which he was very well aware. Annie was dainty, bright, alluring, with an eye for a fine-looking man and a rage for the possession of anyone she fancied. Her impulses were lightning, her will imperious; she overrode obstacles in her path with a fine scorn and disregard of consequences. She did not know who this man was, but she saw at once that he was well-favoured and that he gazed at her intently and with admiration flaming in his eyes. He knew who she was; word had gone about the house that Mrs. Palmer of Rosehall was in it, and at first sight of her he was aware that this could be no other than the woman about whom all the town had been talking, the woman whom most people had begun to whisper of as of dreadful character even in a land where there was not much delicacy and where the uncertainties of the immediate future (due to the rumoured abolition of slavery and the equalising of master and slave) had soured tempers and turned many men into disgruntled brutes. She seemed to Ashman more lovely than common report had painted her, more fascinating than he could possibly have dreamed. Her character? What did he care about that? Or rather, it rendered her more enticing to him, for now he was filled with admiration of her force and daring. It came to him swiftly that only a bold and ambitious man deserved to win and hold such a woman, and if any man failed to hold her and perished, there was little reason to waste tears over such a weakling.

But Ashman, even as he thought, while, with unconscious rudeness, he stared at Annie, did not dare to put himself forward, in his own mind, as the young widow’s suitor. Her husbands had been gentlemen, men in independent positions and of the class that ruled the country; he was but an overseer. A domineering, imperious man who had won upwards from the ranks of the book-keepers; but an overseer only; and such did not aspire to the hands of great ladies unless those ladies showed for them a marked preference. And even then it was not marriage that was usually suggested. Barriers of class were upheld where sometimes every other barrier went down.

Annie Palmer knew much about the nature and the impulses of men, and something of what was passing in Ashman’s mind she understood. She saw that his stare was not that of curiosity only. It was that of a man who was taken by a sudden admiration, one who required but little encouragement to be brought to a lovely woman’s feet. She seized the opportunity; a trifling question—”Where is the dining-room, please?”—opened an acquaintanceship between them. She told him that she wanted someone to manage her estates, now that her last husband was dead. She learnt from him that he was free; when they parted that day he had been appointed overseer of Palmyra and Rosehall, with more than an overseer’s general authority. Within the next few days he was Annie’s accepted lover. This relationship had endured for nearly three years; then he had noticed recently that she had grown cold, more difficult to deal with, less satisfied with him. Then happened the advent of Robert Rutherford, and Ashman had realised that he must fight for his ascendancy or lose everything, must break the intimacy between Annie and this upstart or be speedily broken himself.

He had never lived at the Great House; Mrs. Palmer had never suggested that he should do so. But then his quarters were comfortable, and an overseer must keep constant watch over his charge. He had been often and often at the Great House, and had learnt, indirectly, all that there was to hear about Rosehall and its previous owners. He did not doubt now that they had come to their end by violent means; Annie Palmer was capable of anything that her passions or her interests might suggest. When once she was on her estates she made little effort to disguise her disposition; it was irksome, painful to her to be anything but herself; she had for too long given free vent to her feelings, yielding swiftly to the inclinations she experienced, to care to pretend before him. She might make him her lover but she did not forget that he was her inferior, and she was not accustomed to caring about what her inferiors might think of her. They were there to obey, to administer to her convenience or her pleasure; if she chose to be gracious to them, that was kindness on her part, but with them she would be herself always. Queen of Rosehall by unquestioned, imprescriptible right, her subjects must submit to her will and be delighted when she showed them the smallest degree of favour.

But if that favour were withdrawn! That was the thought which rankled in John Ashman’s brain just now. A week had passed since Robert’s coming to Rosehall, and already some ominous things had happened. Last night Robert had been to the Great House again; Ashman himself had seen him ride away from it this morning. Yesterday Annie had sent for her overseer and instructed him to employ another book-keeper, a man who might do for a temporary job on the estate. “Another man is needed, John,” Mrs. Palmer had said; “Mr. Rutherford is not accustomed to this work, and it would be folly to depend too much upon him.”

“Then why not get rid of him?” Ashman had not unreasonably asked. “Why keep a useless person on the estate?”

“He is here to learn planting,” she replied; “I have explained that to you before. And he is a friend of mine. That is another very good reason.”

“Let us understand one another plainly, Annie,” Ashman said. “This book-keeper was with you on the very first night he came to Rosehall. What does this mean? That you have taken him as your c——?” He paused upon an ugly word. He did not wish to press the quarrel too far.

“Say what is in your mind,” she smiled, looking him straight in the eyes. “Don’t think about my feelings, I beg of you. Don’t let me trouble you in the slightest. Go on! I am taking him as my what?”

“You are throwing me over for him?”

“You haven’t been so much of a devoted lover of late, have you?” she asked him, with a little sneer.

“Are you trying to make out that I am to blame for your treatment of me?”

“Well, there are your twins over at Palmyra, you know, John, and they are not yet three months old. And there is—but this is all unnecessary. You are a good man on the estate, and you know you are welcome to remain as overseer. But please remember that we are not husband and wife.”

“Perhaps I am lucky in that,” he answered grimly, stung to a significant remark.

She started. Annie Palmer hated any allusion, however indirect, to the death of her husbands; she would occasionally speak of it herself, but grew white with anger (with which was blended dread) whenever she thought that someone else was hinting at it. Ashman had been wise hitherto to keep off that forbidden ground. Jealousy and temper had now betrayed him onto it.

Annie’s gaze narrowed, and for one long minute she sat silent, her fingers beating a tattoo upon the table at which both of them were sitting. She would have ordered this man peremptorily out of her sight and off the premises at once but that the crop must be taken off day by day now, and that there were disquieting rumours about the disposition and plottings of the slaves. But, if not now, a little later certainly Ashman must go. But if he knew too much—and he could have found out much in these last three years—was it safe that he should be allowed to go, with a thirst for revenge in his heart? That was a question to be answered later on.

Ashman saw the look in Annie’s face, had a startled realisation of the trend of her musing, and when he had left her yesterday it was with less self-assurance than he had ever felt. He had wounded Annie, who had evidently ceased to care for him; who indeed had never deeply cared for him. He must be wary in his movements now; she would plan to keep him silent if she could not keep him tame. But if Rutherford could be got rid of? In that case present disagreements might be forgotten, old relationships resumed: he wished that, for in his own fashion he loved this extraordinary woman. But how to get rid of Rutherford? Annie had killed one of her husbands, it was said, with the aid of the old devil, Takoo, and by herself the others; but Takoo was the girl Millicent’s grandfather, and Takoo would protect the boy. Besides, murder was terrible; if he struck at Rutherford he could never escape suspicion. His only hope was that Millicent would be able to convince Robert that he ran an awful risk by continuing to be Annie Palmer’s lover, that she would be able to assure the new book-keeper that Annie had been thrice a murderess, and that, shocked and rendered afraid, young Rutherford would flee from the estate.

As to his remaining as a book-keeper, that was but a mere farce now. Even now he, Ashman, was waiting for the man for whom he had dispatched a messenger that same day, after receiving Mrs. Palmer’s orders that Robert was to be relieved of much of the harder work which a book-keeper was expected to perform. Robert clung to his book-keeper’s room, shame, pride, a feeling of loyalty to Burbridge, all operating in his mind to keep him to that decision; but Ashman wondered how long it would be before he broke down under the pressure of Annie’s wish and solicitations—for Annie had said plainly to John Ashman that Robert might come shortly to take over one of the vacant rooms in the Great House. Annie cared less than ever she had done for such public opinion as existed; her strong will would undoubtedly influence the young man. Ashman had seen many a man arrive from England with the noblest resolves and the highest ideals, and sometimes in a week these all seemed to disappear as completely as if they had never existed. Why should Rutherford be different? He was not acting differently, anyhow, thought Ashman with a bitter smile.

He saw, for there was a young moon in the sky, the figure of a man approaching him, a white man quite evidently. He knew who it was.

The stranger approached the veranda confidently, but waited at the foot of the steps leading up to it before venturing to ascend. “Come up!” Ashman ordered, and the man obeyed.

Even in the obscurity of the veranda it could be seen that this person was in shabby attire, and in the light his shoes would have been perceived to have gone some way towards dissolution. That he had walked it from where he had come, too, stamped him at once as a poor white, “a walk-foot backra,” a man who was down in the world pretty badly, since to walk in a land where all white men rode or drove was a flaunting advertisement of poverty and degeneration.

“You applied to me for a job some months ago, Rider,” Ashman began without any preliminaries. “Do you still want a job?”

“I do, sir.”

“And you think you can keep sufficiently off the rum during this crop to be worth your keep?”

“I should hope so. ‘Tis not in mortals to command success, but——”

“You are not in the pulpit now; you haven’t been there for many years, Mr. Rider, so you needn’t preach to me,” interrupted John Ashman roughly. Yet, curiously enough, he had a sort of respect for this peculiar, shabby individual standing quietly before him, for he knew that Rider was considered a highly educated man. Richard Rider, M.A., had been a curate in the Kingston parish church ten years ago, and would probably have been its rector in another five years but for his predilection for drink. He had drunk himself out of a church that had been quite ready to overlook occasional lapses and even a constant state of intoxication which did not include exhibitions of street staggering and lying down in the gutter; but when Mr. Rider had been often drunk both in and out of church, his bishop was compelled to take some notice of his actions. Accordingly, Rider had been demoted to a country church, but there, free from all restraint, and finding nothing in the manners and morals of his congregation to inspire him with the belief that they cared sixpence about religion, he had become more frankly an adherent of the bottle than even when in Kingston. So he had been permitted to retire from his office as practising priest and had found situations as a book-keeper in those times when he kept sober; for there were occasions when he was comparatively sober for weeks and months. Ashman, who knew a good deal about him, hoped for the sake of the work to be done that the present was one of the sober interludes of Mr. Rider. “You can live in that room,” he said to him, pointing to a little annexe to his own house. “The other two book-keepers live together and there is no space there for you. How long you remain here will depend upon yourself. Where’s your luggage?”

“It is not considerable, a nigger could bring it on his head.”

“I should think so. We’ll send for it tomorrow. If you go outside now they will give you some grub.”

Rider went off, but Ashman continued to sit and stare at nothing and think his own sombre thoughts. It was about nine o’clock now; the fires in the negro village had long since died down, the slaves had all retired, weary from their long day’s labour. A sound as of footsteps again broke the silence; Ashman observed a figure which resolved itself into that of a woman as it drew nearer. She came right up to the house, saw him, and ran up the veranda steps. She seemed to know the place very well.

“Millie? I have been expecting you! Sit down.”

This invitation was a token of friendship; Millicent looked about her, noticed a chair in the corner and plumped herself into it.

“Well, how goes everything?” questioned the overseer keenly.

“He went up last night to the Great House again, an’ stay there all night, Busha.”

“I know that.”

“It don’t do him no good, for when he come back home he wanted to drink. He drink more all day today than I ever notice him do before, though,” she added truthfully, “he went to work all the same.”

“I know that too,” said Ashman moodily; “and have you said anything to him?”

“I tell him about Mrs. Palmer; what she is and what they say she do to all her husband, but it don’t make no difference. Sometimes he insult me by shutting me up, sometimes he only laugh and say I forget myself an’ that I better be careful. But he don’t seem to care.”

“Did he say he would tell her?” anxiously asked Mr. Ashman.

“No; I ask him straight if he was goin’ to, an’ he say no, but that I am running a big risk. But it’s not doing him any good, for though he been here only a few days he is different already. He’s more careless-like, don’t seem to mind nothing at all now. She is doing him bad. I hate her!”

“So it doesn’t seem as if he loves you, does it?” inquired Mr. Ashman mockingly.

“I don’t know.” Millie hesitated. “He talk to me now more than before; and ask me a lot about meself. I think he getting to care for me, an’ that is natural, Squire, for I care for him an’ I am pretty.”

“Millie,” said Mr. Ashman slowly, following an idea that had come into his mind, “don’t you think your grandfather might help you? He is fond of you, isn’t he?”

“He love me to death,” said the girl proudly. “But what is he to do? He is strong, but (dismally) Mrs. Palmer strong too. She is so strong that she can live in a haunted house, where they hear all sort of noise day an’ night, and yet she get no harm.”

“The haunting is probably done by some of the damned house people,” remarked Mr. Ashman scornfully. “That banging of doors and murmuring is all the work of one or two venturesome brutes who want to keep up the story of duppies in the place for their own reasons. If it was worth while I would investigate it. Perhaps your very grandfather put up one of the house servants to bang those doors! I have long suspected it. Mrs. Palmer is not as strong as your grandfather, Millie.”

She shook her head doubtfully.

“Your grandfather must know that you are living on this estate now?” he asked.

“Yes, he know, and he don’t quite like it. Only yesterday he say to me that trouble going to come on me because I live here as Marse Robert’s housekeeper, an’ I tell him I am not a real, regular housekeeper, but he say that I will be—and that make me glad. But me gran’father very sorrowful; he warn me against Mrs. Palmer.”

To this, for a while, Ashman said nothing. He was buried in thought. At last:

“So old Takoo thinks you are in for trouble, eh?”

“So he tell me, but perhaps he is wrong.”

“Perhaps; but suppose he thought that Mr. Rutherford had anything to do with your trouble; would he be angry with him?”

“Lord! He would kill him!” exclaimed Millicent, raising her voice in sheer terror. “Me gran’father is awful when he get out o’ temper; and if you or anybody else do me anything he would never rest till he revenge me.”

Ashman knew that Takoo would not consider as an ill deed the taking of this girl as a mistress, or “housekeeper,” by any white man for whom she cared; that kind of action Takoo would look upon as normal and even as highly meritorious. But should Robert lead to any harm being done to Millicent, whether by Annie or someone else, the old man might hold him responsible; and, of course, it would be easier for Takoo to wreak his vengeance on a mere book-keeper and a stranger than on Mrs. Palmer or even on the overseer. Ashman wished no particular harm to Millicent, though he saw no reason why he should particularly wish her well. She was a mere pawn in the game he was playing. He had always been hard and selfish; his life, his circumstances, had further helped to make him so. He was known as a stern taskmaster; his object in life had been the material advancement of John Ashman; his great ambition had always been to rise from overseer to attorney, to the position of a man in charge of many estates, with overseers under him. From that to ownership was often but a short step, as he well knew. He would have worked with Millicent to get rid of Robert Rutherford; if that end could not be achieved with the girl’s aid, why should not her grandfather be the instrument of Rutherford’s disappearance from the scene? She might suffer, but she would have to take her chance of that. Robert Rutherford must go; must go absolutely; there must be a complete severing of the ties that now existed between him and Annie Palmer. And Millicent had just given a hint as to how Robert’s elimination might be brought about.

“It’s getting late, Millie,” said Ashman, rising. “Come and see me soon again, and tell me everything that happens. By the way, are you going to Marse Robert tonight?”

“Yes,” she answered simply.

“Well, good night.”