ABSTRACT
THE ESTRANGEMENT between father and eldest son was complete by the New Year 1880. The young man, still unwell and doubtless missing his pregnant wife who was still with her family in England, had returned to Jamaica to face his stern and unbending father. Both men were at times reduced to tears by their mutual conflict. They lived close to each other, yet communicated by bitter letters. The disputed serving girl became a ritualistic bargaining counter; one man refusing to countenance her employment, the son insisting on it. (The unhappy woman in the middle died two years later.)
Ordered not to cross his parents’ threshold if he refused to heed his father, the young man replied: ‘I shall be prepared to endure your threat carried out, terrible though it will be, and shall have strength under it. I shall be conscious of having done nothing to be treated so’
Supported by his wife, the young Henry Clarke told his parents that he would ‘patiently wait till your confidence is restored’. It was a bold, reasonable and honest approach. His father took a predictably severe line, claiming the son was out of his mind.
