Man-woman relationships -- Fiction; Novelists -- Fiction; Secretaries -- Fiction; Voyages and travels -- Fiction; West Indies -- Fiction
"It must go in--exactly as it happened," I answered. "I had no valid
excuse for the contemptible things I did. The public will consider it
all a piece of fiction. I think it necessary to show the extent to which
I lost my reason when I believed I had lost you. It is much safer in a
novel to abuse the 'hero' than the 'heroine.'"
Seeing that nothing would move me she went on as I dictated and when the
boat was due to arrive at Jamaica the next day we had reached the very
words you are now reading. I had apparently recovered my strength
entirely. That night I slept as soundly as if I had never known illness
or mental trouble. In the morning we went early upon deck to see the
entrance to the Harbor and had a pleasant talk with Captain Tindall, one
of those affable and handsome men that England produces in such numbers
and assigns to this duty all over the world.
Inquiry had convinced me that there was but one suitable place to stay
at in Kingston--the Myrtle Bank Hotel--and the result proved the wisdom
of my choice. While open to some slight criticism--as what hotel is
not?--it was on the whole a delightful home to us during our brief stay.
There being no more work to do at present I occupied the hours in talks,
walks and drives with Marjorie, happy as the butterflies among the roses
in the pretty park which separates the hotel from the shore.
We went one day to visit a camp of soldiers in the suburbs, on another
to the Constant Spring Hotel, situated six miles from town in a mountain
nook, to Castleton Gardens and Hope Gardens, beautiful for situation and
high culture, with lovely roads leading to each. Again, we took the
train to Spanish Town and drove to Bog Walk, as pretty a bit of scenery
as one could desire. And later we passed several days at Mandeville,
some fifty miles or so away, a village perched among the hills 2100 feet
above the sea, where the scent of coffee flowers and orange blossoms
fairly filled the delicious air and the thermometer recorded a degree of
heat more grateful than that to be found in the lowlands. I noted the
mercury at 70 when I went to bed, at 60 when I rose, and at 75 when the
sun was in the zenith. I really do not know another spot more charming
in any land, in March or April.
Besides this we visited Montpelier, Montego Bay and Port Antonio, seeing
at the latter place a steamer of the Boston Fruit Company setting sail
for the Hub with an immense cargo of bananas and oranges. The country
thereabout is one field of those fruits, combined with the stately
cocoanut palms, while a short distance away tobacco is grown that rivals
the famed product of unhappy Cuba. On the 28th we bade farewell to the
island, with genuine regret on my part at least, and took the little
"Beta" of the Halifax line for Bermuda.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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