by Isobel Chace
The Atlantic was not the dull grey I had expected. It varied from the colour of gun-metal to vivid shades of deep green and blue. But the best experience was kept to the last. The West Indies lay beneath us just as the sun was setting. It was like a stage set with a gamut of reds and greens, blues and orange, violet and splashes of silver topping the picturesque waves as they broke against pure sand shores. It could have been a different world from the one we had left that morning. Here winter was unknown and only the occasional freak storm spoilt the equable days that followed one another in this paradise.
Mr. Hendrycks leaned across me to get the first glimpse of his homeland. “That’s Trinidad!” he said at last.
“But it’s so close to the mainland,” I exclaimed.
He laughed. “It probably broke off a few thousand years ago,” he suggested. “That’s Venezuela over there.”
I stared at the piece of South America that I could see out of the window. It gave me an odd feeling to think that this was the New World that I was seeing, a world that I had never expected to visit in my whole life. I knew so little about it. The only thing I knew about Venezuela was that it produced oil in staggering quantities and so was a rich country by any standards. Beside it, Trinidad was small and inconsequential, but I was prepared-to fall in love with the island just the same. It was to Trinidad I had come.
“Is anyone meeting you?” Mr. Hendrycks asked.
I nodded confidently. “My uncle is. I wrote him that I was coming.”
“I see,” he said stiffly.
I felt obliged to be polite. “Are you being met?” I enquired.
“Oh, sure. If she hasn’t got tired of waiting for me. She’s probably met every flight this week!”
It was the first time I had heard about this mysterious “she”. Was she his wife? I longed to ask him, but remembering that it was none of my business, I refrained.
“You’re lucky!” I murmured.
“In a way,” he sighed. “She’s certainly beautiful, and her father is a friend of mine.”
“But?” I prompted him.
He smiled rather sadly. “I’m not sure that there are any buts,” he said abruptly. “Why should there be?”
I shrugged. How was I to know? But I thought there was a but somewhere if he would only admit it. He didn’t sound entirely enthusiastic about this beautiful unknown she!
The plane banked sharply downwards and I lost all interest in everything except our landing. Beneath us was the small city of Port of Spain, looking small and remarkably free of skyscrapers. I thought I saw the Hilton Hotel standing back from the city in a park which might even have been the hotel’s own grounds, and I wondered what it would be like to stay there. Quite a different experience from the small place where I planned to spend the night, I thought with a smile.
We touched down beautifully. I was hardly aware of when the tyres hit the strip and then we were taxiing along towards the airport buildings and we were all straining to get a first look out and to catch a first glimpse of our families and friends who were waiting to greet us.
It was a nervous moment when we passed through the various controls. How would I recognise my uncle? Perhaps it would be one of my cousins who would have come to meet me? How on earth would they recognise me? I must have looked a bit panicky, for Mr. Hendrycks said: “You’re sure you’re being met?”
“Oh yes! Someone will come,” I answered certainly, more to reassure myself than him. “I’ll just wait a few minutes, though, because we might not recognise each other immediately.”
He was obviously impatient to be gone. He glanced across the one remaining barrier that stood between ourselves and the crush outside and waved to someone. “I don’t see your uncle,” was all he said.
“There’s quite a crowd, though, isn’t there?” I observed. I sounded nervous now, almost as nervous as I felt. It was rather a pretty crowd. The people ranged in colour from the fairest blonde to chocolate brown. There were obvious Negroes, those of a paler hue, descendants of Europeans, and quite a number of Indians, the women in saris and their men in shirts and trousers just like everyone else.
We escaped through the barrier in a sudden rush and found ourselves in the thick of the waiting crowd. Mr. Hendrycks was engulfed by welcoming people— especially, I noticed, by one person in particular. He had been right in describing her as beautiful. She was. Her fair hair had been bleached in the sun and her blue eyes showed to perfection against the tanned skin of her face.
“Dan darling,” she said clearly as she kissed him. “What happened? Did you have to stay away so long?
“I missed my connection,” he said gruffly.
I tried to move away from him. It was time, I felt, to leave him tactfully alone, in fact to lose him altogether. Besides, I wanted to meet my own family away from his watchful, observant eyes. But I was not quick enough. His hand shot out and grabbed my arm even while he kissed her back with slow, enjoyable deliberation.
“Pamela, this is Miss Ironside. She won a fortune on the football pools, or something, and has come out to visit her family.”
The girl’s eyebrows swept up her forehead. “Did you say Ironside?”
“I did. Have you seen them at the airport? They’re supposed to be meeting her.”
Pamela shook her head. She looked at me curiously. “I’m Pamela Longuet. Have you another name besides Ironside?”
“It’s Camilla,” Mr. Hendrycks supplied.
“Hullo, Camilla!” Pamela smiled at me, but I knew she wasn’t entirely pleased to see me. “I do hope your family soon turn up. You must forgive us if we rush away, but we’ve been expecting Daniel for days and the ice in his drink must have completely melted by this time!”
“Of course,” I smiled back. She wasn’t a particularly small girl, but I felt like a lamp-post beside her. “I’ll wait for the crowd to thin out somewhat—”
“There they are!” Mr. Hendrycks cut me short. He dived into the crowd and grabbed a rather shabbily dressed man by the arm. They spoke to each other for a moment and then the man turned to look at me. He wasn’t in the least like my father. He was small, with thin dry hair that had fallen out in patches. His clothing had been worn so long that it had taken the shape of his body and his boots badly needed a polish and probably repairing as well. Could this be my uncle?
Mr. Hendrycks brought him right up to me, a pleased smile on his face. “There you are, Miss Ironside! May I introduce your uncle?”
It was Pamela who pulled him away, and I was grateful to her, for my face must have been a study. I didn’t know whether to hold out my hand or kiss him on the cheek. And he was just as much at a loss. “Are you really Camilla?” he said at last.
I nodded and sniffed because emotion always reduces me to tears. “Uncle Philip?”
He laughed suddenly. “You’re Camilla!” he agreed. ‘You’re the spitting image of the Ironsides!” He made a face at me. “I was an outsider from the moment I was born. You can’t go by me!”
I found myself laughing back at him, laughing and crying at the same time in a way that made hay of my make-up.
“Oh, Uncle Philip,” I said, “I am glad to be here!”
“Of course you are,” he agreed comfortingly. “Just what we needed too! Camilla, m’dear, my home is yours for as long as you need it.”
It should have made me feel at home, but it didn’t. It was all the fault of Daniel Hendrycks! He had sown my path with doubts and now I couldn’t get rid of them!
CHAPTER TWO
The air was silky and full of strange fragrances when we went out into the streets of Port of Spain. I don’t know what I had expected, but this more than fulfilled all my dreams. We walked down Charlotte Street because my uncle wanted me to savour the atmosphere. There had been a great fire in 1808, he told me, and now the city was built on a wide-streeted grid plan that was easy to master. Charlotte Street had been given its name because at that time Queen Charlotte had been consort to the King of England. It
was in Charlotte Street that my uncle lived.
I was puzzled by this. It seemed difficult to believe that anyone grew sugar in the middle of a city, but I was so bemused by the new sensations and sights all around me that I hardly cared. Never had I seen so many truly beautiful people, who walked with a swing and laughed easily and with their whole bodies. They were all colours and kinds, but all shared the same sense of movement and rhythm which showed in their walk and the way they talked. It gave an infectious air of gaiety to the street as the oyster stands turned on their lights and an enormous Negress offered peeled oranges from the refuge of a doorway.
The houses began well, but towards the end of the street they had an air of decayed elegance that looked as though they would soon fall into pieces altogether. Built of wood, they were sadly in need of a coat of paint to enhance the ancient carvings that had been cut deep into the wood.
“That’s home!” Uncle Philip roared as we came within earshot of his house. “I’ll tell the boys we’re coming.” He proceeded to do just that, bawling the information at the top of his voice. “Wilfred! Cuthbert! Come and meet your pretty cousin! Come out, I say! Where are you?”
The door was flung open and a large woman came out. A Negress, she had her head wrapped up in a large scarlet handkerchief exactly like an American Mammy. Her silk shirt was too small for her and her voluminous cotton skirt could have fitted around her twice over. Her broad grin showed more teeth than I had ever seen on any other human being.
“Tha’s welcome you am!” she boomed. “The boys coming by and by. They’s changing their clothes. Her gigantic arms enfolded me to her broad bosom while her laughter rumbled on. I liked the warm smell of her and the hard muscular feel to her arms.
“I’m Camilla,” I began hesitantly.
“You is!” she agreed. “I’se Patience. Ain’t got no other name, not so’s I remember. Everyone calls me Patience.”
“She runs the house and things,” my uncle put m helpfully.
“I sure does!”
I wondered what to say. In the end I compromised by grinning broadly back at her, and apparently this was all she wanted, for she disappeared into the house again, yelling for my two cousins.
They spilt out on to the street still pulling on their clean shirts and smoothing down their exuberant hair. They were quite fascinatingly good-looking and they knew it. The elder, whom I judged to be closer to thirty than to twenty, held out his hand to me. “Welcome to the family homestead, Cousin Camilla,” he drawled.
“You’re surely welcome!” echoed the younger brother.
My uncle turned on them furiously. “And what do you suppose she’s going to think of you if you speak that way?” he demanded.
“What should she think?” the elder son returned.
Uncle Philip sighed heavily. “They’ve had no mother to soften their ways,” he apologised. “This is my elder son, Wilfred. Cuthbert is the younger one.”
“If you’re good you can call me Bert,” Cuthbert added in an undertone. I sympathised with him. They were neither of them names that I would have chosen, but I knew they had both recurred in the family from time to time and I supposed that my uncle had more family feeling than I had at first suspected.
“It’s lovely to meet you all!” I exclaimed. It was so long since I had had any family that my voice broke, but I caught myself up and managed a smile. “I didn’t know I had such a handsome family!”
“Nor we that we had such a tall cousin,” Wilfred returned coolly.
“Now, now, boys!” my uncle put in warningly.
“Oh, I don’t mind,” I assured him hastily. “I am tall, I know, taller than any of you.”
My uncle went into the house and ushered me in beside him. He shook his head at me and smiled, his eyes twinkling in the gloomy hall. “Mebbe you are tall for a lass, but you’re not taller than that Daniel Hendrycks, are you now? But then,” he went on sarcastically, “there’s no one in the whole island that’s taller than he!”
The brothers stiffened at the mention of his name. “Daniel, did you say?” Wilfred drawled. “Now how did you get to know our Daniel?”
I was determined not to take them too seriously. “I booked his passage out here, as a matter of fact,” I said casually. “It was my job, you know.”
“But—” Cuthbert began. His brother cut him off sharply with a look. “But,” he said again, “you were released from having to toil for a living by your good fortune. Lucky you!”
I shrugged my shoulders. “It makes a nice change being a lady of leisure,” I agreed. “But I don’t think I’d like it for ever!”
I began to take in my surroundings with an increasing sense of awe. The heavy Victorian furniture and multitudes of pictures, of the Royal Family, dubious ancestors, and even of film stars, littered the walls wherever I looked. Large, healthy pot plants stood on every window-sill and the tables were all neatly covered with burnt orange coloured squares of cloth, as useless as they were hideous.
“How long have you been living here?” I asked in hollow tones.
“A few years,” Uncle Philip admitted. “Patience keeps the house going. She likes it the way it is, so we’ve never bothered to change it. Besides, we’re not as modern in our ways as you are in England.
“No,” I agreed. “As a matter of fact Victoriana is all the rage now.”
“But you don’t like it?” he prompted me.
“I didn’t say that,” I said.
He laughed. “You didn’t have to. Never mind, my dear, do what you like with the place. I give you a free hand to make any alterations you care to. Is that fair enough?”
I liked him better than ever. “It’s more than generous,” I said gratefully. “I’ll try not to do anything that you don’t like.”
Cuthbert stared at me insolently. “He who pays the piper calls the tune,” he muttered. ‘You’re learning fast, sweet cousin.”
I swallowed. I hadn’t understood that it was my money that would pay for all the changes. Perhaps I had been stupid, I thought with embarrassment. Perhaps now was the time that I should arrange with my uncle how much I should pay for my keep? But when I tried to bring up the matter, he shrugged all such matters to one side.
“We’re not here much, girl. We’ll consider it all when we see how things work out. How’s that?”
“It’s fine,” I said. What else could I say? I would have liked to have known exactly where I stood, but it was a relief to know that they didn’t spend much time in the town house. Obviously they had to look after the sugar for most of their time. Why hadn’t I thought of that before? And the answer to that I knew quite well and it annoyed me all the more. It was all because Mr. Daniel Hendrycks had seen fit to rouse my suspicions about my family. But I wasn’t going to allow his barbs to affect me one bit! Not if I could help it!
Patience offered to show me up the stairs to my room. The stairs were wooden like everything else in the house and years of polishing had turned them black and given them a shine that put my shoes to shame.
“You must be a marvellous housekeeper!” I complimented Patience.
“I is, honey, I is!” she agreed. “Is it the truth that you has money? We could sure do with some in this house. You’se seen how things is with us—”
“I suppose sugar hasn’t been paying very well recently?” I enquired gently, trying not to sound inquisitive.
Patience’s laugh boomed out. “Sugar? My, my, now what put that to come into your head?”
“I don’t know,” I said meekly. “I just thought my uncle had something to do with sugar. Doesn’t he?”
“I s’pose he does. It’s a short season,” she added gloomily. “Need more than a sugar crop to keep our fires burning. Reckon it was lucky you is come! You’m surely welcome In this house!”
She threw open a door and sailed into the room she had allotted to my use, well pleased with the preparations she had made. I gasped with surprise when I saw how pleasant and feminine she had made
the room. The bed was an ancient iron one, painted white, and covered with a cotton counterpane of the most delicate shades of green, pink and white. There were flowers everywhere, hiding the bareness of the plain wooden furniture. Most of them I had never seen before, but the sheer intensity of colour and scent was exotic and startling to one who had that day left a wintry England.
“Oh, what a lot of trouble you’ve been to!” I exclaimed gratefully.
“’Tweren’t no trouble. You’se welcome. You settle, Miss ’Milla. That Wilfred’ll bring your bags and I unpack your pretties right now. Don’t you bother none!”
It was pleasant to be waited on. It was not an experience that had ever come my way before, but Patience was so delighted to have another woman in the house that she seemed all set to spoil me to death. Her happy chatter went on and on as I explored my new home. I found I had a small bathroom all to myself, with the bath and basin built out of solid marble—relics, I supposed, from more affluent days. The lavatory was china and decorated with large blue roses that might or might not have been hand-painted, but which were certainly dramatically beautiful. Perhaps, I thought, there was something to be said for the Victorian character of the house after all.
“I see you’ve cleared out some of the carpets and coverings from up here,” I said to Patience.
She nodded her enormous head. “Sure have. It ain’t my business downstairs. I keep them flowers going an all. I polish and I scrub. And there be some right pretty objects down there. There’s modern and modern, that’s what I says!”
“There is indeed!” I agreed, and was rewarded by her large, warm smile. She hugged herself gleefully and hovered in the doorway waiting for Wilfred to bring up my suitcase. Every now and then she bellowed down the stairs to hurry things up, but as nothing happened at all I supposed that they had all got used to her shouted comments and were able to ignore them more or less completely.
“I come here with the mistress,” she volunteered after a while. “She’m dead now. Pretty a little creature as ever you clapped eyes on! I sure loved that one.” She shrugged. “I’se still here on account o’ her. Couldn’t leave her boys with anyone strange. But we sure did , miss her! Miss ’Milla, that one was the pick of this bunch. I’se telling you and I’se know it for a fact!”
