Jane’s Career: A Story of Jamaica
Chapter 13
When Sathyra walked into her yard that evening, after a day’s experience that she had found very annoying, she was surprised to find that Jane had arrived before her, and had actually moved out of the room the few things she possessed. Jane, in fact, had risen to the occasion; she had decided that it was impossible for her and Sathyra to live together any longer, and had proceeded to make arrangements for an immediate removal.
Her character for decency and trustworthiness stood her in good stead at this crisis. She explained her situation to some of the girls and women at the liquor establishment, persons with whom she was on good terms and whom she had assisted in one way or another at different times. More than one of these offered to share a room with her as joint-tenant; a couple even told her that she could stay with them until she got a place of her own. But her dispute with Sathyra was too new, the cause of it too common, for her to wish just then to share any other woman’s apartment. She rightly guessed that her working friends would have gentlemen coming to see them at some time or other, and this might lead to a repetition of the painful experience she had just endured.
She had another plan. She borrowed a few shillings from her friends, struck work at twelve o’clock, and went out and bought a canvas cot. Thus was a bed secured. She then went home, after engaging a man to take the cot to the yard in which she lived; arrived there, she took her scanty possessions out of the room in the presence of Father Daniel and some others (for fear she should be further accused of stealing), then went next door, where she knew there was a room to rent.
These latter things she had not, but one or two boxes served to take the place they would have occupied. The rent of the room was four shillings a month; and though she could not pay this amount in advance, as was the custom, she was allowed to move in on condition that at the end of her month the money would be forthcoming.
Sathyra was relieved to find her gone, though, with the inconsistency of human nature, she regretted that Jane had shown herself so resourceful. She was still unpleasantly near, too, so that if Sampson wished to pay her attentions there was nothing to prevent him doing so. However, realising that this could not now be prevented, Sathyra shrugged her shoulders and awaited events. “If she wants to teck him, she can teck him,” she said, with fine philosophy.
But Jane did not want Mr Sampson. For the first time in her life she was thrown absolutely on her own resources. She had lived under Mrs Mason’s care, such as it was; she had shared a room with Sathyra. She had come to Kingston under Mrs Mason’s protection, and had left Mrs Mason to go under the protection of Sathyra. But now she had to depend upon herself entirely; she was her own mistress in every sense of the word. She was lonelier than she had ever been before; yet, on the other h