by Herbert G. de Lisser · 1915
Historical Fiction · Classics
A comic novel by the Jamaican writer Herbert G. de Lisser about a proud young woman in Jamaica and her search for a husband, partly set among Jamaicans working on the Panama Canal.
Content note: Written in 1915, the book uses dialect and attitudes about colour and class of its time.
“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.
