Susan Proudleigh. Herbert George De Lisser
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Herbert George De Lisser
Susan Proudleigh
Published by Good Press, 2019
EAN 4064066199500
Table of Contents
CHAPTER IV WHAT CAME OF THE CASE
CHAPTER V LETITIA’S INVITATION
CHAPTER VI SAMUEL JOSIAH JONES
CHAPTER VIII SUSAN GIVES “A JOKE”
CHAPTER X “THE SWORD OF THE LORD”
CHAPTER II JONES CHANGES HIS MIND
CHAPTER III SUSAN SETTLES DOWN
CHAPTER IV THE FLY IN THE OINTMENT
CHAPTER V THE SUBSCRIPTION PARTY
CHAPTER VII SUSAN’S LAST EFFORT
CHAPTER II CATHERINE LEARNS SOMETHING
CHAPTER IV THE NIGHT OF THE FIRE
CHAPTER V THE ANONYMOUS LETTER
CHAPTER VI SAMUEL’S DETERMINATION
CHAPTER VII WHAT HAPPENED AT CULEBRA
CHAPTER IX JONES SPEAKS IN THE PREDICATE
This story was first published serially in the Jamaica “Daily Gleaner,” under the title of “Susan: Mr. Proudleigh’s Daughter,” having been presented by the Jamaica Tobacco Co. to the reading public of the Island of Jamaica.
BOOK I
CHAPTER I
SUSAN’S DILEMMA
“I know I ’ave enemies,” said Susan bitterly; “I know I am hated in this low neighbourhood. But I don’t see what them should hate me for, for I never interfere wid any of them.”
“Them hate y’u because you are better than them, and because y’u don’t mix with them,” sagaciously answered Catherine, her second sister.
“That they will never get me to do,” snapped Susan. “I wouldn’t mix with a lot of people who are not my companions, even if them was covered from top to toe with gold. It is bad enough that I have to live near them, but further than that I am not going. It is ‘good morning’ and ‘good evening’ with me, an’ that is all.”
“Then them will always hate you,”, said Catherine, “and if them can injure y’u them will try to do it.”
Catherine referred to most of the people living in the immediate vicinity, between Susan and whom a fierce feud had existed for some months. It was born of envy and nurtured by malice, and Susan knew that well. She dressed better than most of the girls in the lane, she lived in a “front house,” while most of them had to be content with ordinary yard-rooms. She frequently went for rides on the electric cars, whereas they could only afford such pleasure on Sundays and on public holidays. She carried herself with an air of social superiority which was gall and wormwood to the envious; and often on walking through the lane she had noticed the contemptuous looks of those whom, with greater contempt, she called the common folks and treated with but half-concealed disdain. On the whole, she had rather enjoyed the hostility of these people, for it was in its way a tribute to her own importance. But now a discomforting development had taken place in the manner in which the dislike of the neighbourhood habitually showed itself.
This evening Susan sat by one of the windows of the little house in which she lived, and which opened on the lane. It contained two tiny rooms: the inner apartment was her bedroom, her two sisters sleeping with her; the outer one was a sitting-room by day and a bedroom at night, when it was occupied by her father and mother. The house had originally been painted white and green, but the dust of Kingston had discoloured the painting somewhat; hence its appearance was now shabby and faded, though not as much so as that of the other buildings on either side of it. Opposite was an ancient fence dilapidated and almost black; behind this fence were two long ranges of rooms, in which people of the servant classes lived. The comparison between these and Susan’s residence was all in favour of the latter; and as this house overlooked the lane, and was detached from the buildings in the yard to which it belonged, its rental value