Small Island: Chapter 3: Hortense Summary & Analysis

In a flashback, Hortense describes her childhood. Her father, Lovell Roberts, is a “government man,” well-known and almost worshipped in her town, Savannah-La-Mar, long after he’d left. Her mother, a “country girl” named Alberta, gave birth to her out of wedlock. Hortense remembers her mother’s smell and her favorite endearment, “me sprigadee,” but not much more. Hortense is light-skinned like her father, and Alberta knows that “with such a countenance” she has a chance at “a golden life,” instead of growing up poor and uneducated like her mother. In hopes of a better future, Alberta gives her daughter to Lovell’s wealthy cousins.

Philip Roberts is Lovell’s cousin, a wealthy man who controls all the district’s produce. Because of his wealth, he’s respected throughout the neighborhood as an adjudicator of disputes. His wife, Martha, is known for her unusually light grey eyes. Hortense is told to call her Miss Ma. The couple have one son, Michael, to whom they are devoted.

Alberta’s mother, Miss Jewel, takes the young Hortense to her cousins’ house. Alberta agrees to move to Cuba, while Miss Jewel stays to work as a servant in the Roberts’ house. For all Hortense’s childhood, her grandmother takes care of her like a nurse, calling her Miss Hortense when other people are around and “me sprigadee” when they are alone.

As a young girl, Hortense sits quietly in the henhouse and watches the hens lay eggs. Michael comes to find her, and Hortense is frustrated, since Michael always disrupts the hens in order to see them run around in fright. Hortense carefully carries a new egg in the house, but Miss Ma gives the credit to Michael and thanks him, while scolding Hortense to stay out of the henhouse. Hortense says that Michael is always getting her into trouble. He likes to have her as an accomplice when he climbs trees or goes wading in the stream, but Mr. Philip always says it’s “not godly” for little girls to do these things.

Every time the family sits down for a meal, Mr. Philip conducts a long prayer, which often turns into a sermon on his own strict religious beliefs. While they eat, Miss Ma lectures the children on proper table manners.

Eventually, Michael leaves home to attend boarding school. While Mr. Philip chides Michael about remembering his religious principles, Hortense pinches herself so as not to cry. Michael brags that he’s going to learn about “the whole world,” while Hortense stays at the ordinary day school singing “silly rhymes.”

After Michael leaves, Hortense spends more time with Miss Jewel, helping her with the chores. Miss Jewel has a habit of singing while she works, replacing the words of hymns with her own lyrics. Hortense says that instead of  “Mr. Roberts wash him sock at night,” she should sing, “While shepherds watch their flock by night.” Miss Jewel doesn’t know what a shepherd is, and when Hortense explains, Miss Jewel counters that there are no shepherds and no sheep in Jamaica. Hortense explains that the song is about England, where there are many sheep and where Jesus was born. Hortense tries to teach her grandmother poems about England that she’s memorized at school, but while her grandmother is eager to learn, she continues to replace the words with her own.

When Hortense turns fifteen, she finishes school and goes to work at a private school for children “from good families.” She enjoys helping the bright students and handing out books, which smell new and fresh unlike the used books at her government school. Hortense’s school is run by two American missionaries, Stella and Charles Ryder, who tell her that they are there to help the “poor negro children.” Hortense wonders if they’re aware that their school caters only to the richest and fairest children in the districts.

Hortense is fascinated by Mrs. Ryder, the “whitest woman [she] had ever seen.” Everyone in the district gossips about the Ryders, both because Mrs. Ryder is unusually independent and likes to drive herself around, and because Mr. Ryder is known to conduct dalliances with local women and has perhaps fathered illegitimate children.

While Hortense is working at the Ryders’ school, Michael returns home. Mrs. Ryder gives Hortense an old dress for the occasion, and she stays up for many nights mending it. When he arrives, Michael seems very different—he has a deep voice and stylish clothes, and he shakes his father’s hand like an equal. After dinner, Mr. Philip begins to read from the Bible as usual, but Michael interrupts him, saying that he’s learned that the earth moves around the Sun, contrary to the teachings of Genesis. Michael wants to discuss new concepts like this with his father, but Mr. Philip is enraged that his son dares to speak at the table and to contradict his ideas. He storms out of the room, followed by Miss Ma. For her part, Hortense decides she’s completely in love with Michael.

In the following days, Hortense analyzes Michael’s every action for evidence that he reciprocates her feelings. Eager to show off, Michael tells her to ask him about the League of Nations or the “Irish questions;” Hortense thinks that he wants to impress her, but she doesn’t know enough about these subjects to converse with him.

When Hortense returns to work a few days after Michael’s arrival, Michael escorts her to the schoolhouse. As it turns out, he’s already acquainted with Mrs. Ryder—she says they met at church, while he contends it was at the grocery store. Michael gets into the habit of walking Hortense to and from school, which she believes is a sign of his romantic interest in her.

Some days later, a hurricane strikes the town. Hortense and Mrs. Ryder are alone in the school, preparing the building for the storm. Mrs. Ryder is excited, while Hortense is praying that the roof doesn’t collapse. Suddenly, Michael arrives at the school, soaked through from the rain. Hortense is touched that he’s come to be with her, but he runs past her to Mrs. Ryder’s side. Addressing her by her first name, Stella, Michael says that he came because he was worried for her safety. With the hurricane “crashing” around them, Mrs. Ryder is frightened and glad to have him there. As the night passes, Michael and Mrs. Ryder begin to hold hands, and Hortense realizes that Michael is love with her employer, not her. She’s desperate to escape the room, but she can’t leave because of the storm.

When the rain finally abates, Hortense runs out of the school, only to find Mr. Ryder’s car “wrapped around the base of a tree” by the road. Mr. Ryder is inside, dead. Distraught and confused, Hortense informs the gathering crowd that Michael and Mrs. Ryder are alone in the schoolhouse.

By the time Hortense returns home, the entire town is gossiping about the incipient scandal. Miss Ma is in tears at the thought that Michael has been “committing a mortal sin” with a married woman; in her distress, she hits Hortense several times. Hortense runs to her old haunt, the henhouse, and squeezes in among the hens.

In the aftermath of the scandal, Mrs. Ryder leaves the island, while Hortense closes up the school. A local newspaper publishes an article suggesting that Michael may have murdered Mr. Ryder. When Hortense returns home three days later, Michael is gone. Miss Ma tells Hortense tersely that he’s gone to England to join the Royal Air Force (RAF). When Hortense shows her distress, Miss Ma reprimands her, but the young girl still can’t keep from weeping.