by Isobel Chace
“Had a good time?” he drawled by way of a greeting.
Cuthbert shook his head at me. “You shouldn’t have gone out without telling us, cousin. Our father is busting mad. He wants to know what you’re going to do about the post you had this morning.”
“Nothing,” I said blandly.
“Nothing?” they repeated together.
“Absolutely nothing,” I agreed calmly.
Wilfred expelled his breath slowly through his blown-out cheeks. “I can’t wait,” he said, “for you to tell Father that!”
I could wait only too easily. I stepped round him as I went up the stairs to my room. Daniel was right, I thought as I looked at myself in the glass; I did look peaky. It was partly because I was still pale from the English winter whereas everyone around me was tanned, but behind the paleness there was a tightness, an inability to relax, that I had never noticed before. It was those dratted bills! I thought irritably, but I knew it was more than that. It was sheer worry about the practical business of living with my new relations. It had been so long since I had lived in the same house with anyone that I was nervous of the whole business. It was quite silly, but it wouldn’t be banished by refusing to think about it. It was something that I would quite soon get used to, I was sure. I would even get used to vying with my cousins for the use of the bathroom and the strangeness of never knowing whether they would be in or out, for why were they at home now when they ought to be out working?
Patience came and shouted at the foot of the stairs that lunch was ready. I went slowly down the stairs again and took my place at the table. Patience brought in a dish filled with enormous baked sweet potatoes and panted all over them as she heaved them on to the table. That and corn on the cob was the substance of practically every lunch that I had in that house. Both grew locally and were cheap to buy, and that, in the Ironside household, was a matter of prime importance.
I was conscious of my cousins watching me closely as I slit my potato’s red skin down one side, halved it, sprinkled it with salt and added oodles of butter for good measure. I had only ever eaten a sweet potato once before, but I had liked it, and I liked it now just as much.
We must have been half way through the meal when my uncle came in. He sat down on his chair, his face lined with worry, but then he saw me and he smiled. “I’m sorry to come to the table looking so dirty,” he said pleasantly. “I haven’t much time at lunchtime, you know.”
I was only too glad to know that someone in the household was working, so I smiled back at him, feeling little prickles of relief all through me. I had been worrying about nothing, I told myself, nothing at all! Of course my uncle was working! He probably made very good money too!
“I wanted to talk to you some time,” he went on cheerfully. “But you’ll want get settled in today. You won’t want to bother your pretty head about our mundane family affairs—”
“She doesn’t intend to do anything about it, Father,” Cuthbert burst out, unable to keep silent any longer.
“And how do you know?” Uncle Philip demanded icily. His eyes were as cold as steel and Cuthbert swallowed nervously and looked anxiously at his brother for help. “Well?” his father pressed him mercilessly.
“Sh—she said so,” Cuthbert muttered.
My uncle turned his whole attention to me. “Well, Camilla?” he asked me.
I was annoyed to find myself as nervous as Cuthbert had been. I took a mouthful of potato and chewed it carefully into pulp. “There were some bills that someone had put on my breakfast tray this morning,” I began in a voice that squeaked dangerously. I cleared my throat with determination. “I said I wasn’t going to do anything about them,” I went on bravely.
My uncle smiled, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Of course not,” he said smoothly enough. “Nobody expected you to. It was just to let you see what the situation is. We can’t have anyone here who isn’t prepared to pull their full weight. You understand that, don’t you?”
I knew that I should have got up then and there and walked out on them, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. My uncle didn’t even look like my father and yet there was a certain likeness in the sound of the voice, in the sudden glint in the grey eyes.
“All right,” I said in a funny, husky voice I scarcely recognised as my own. “I’ll pay them. I’ll pay them all. But there mustn’t be any more or I shan’t play.”
The three men all grinned with relief. My uncle leaned over and patted me on the hand. “You’re a good girl, Camilla!” he said warmly. “I can see you’re an Ironside through and through!” He attacked his potato with renewed vigour, looking thoroughly pleased with himself. “Ah, living with us you’ll be so glad you came to Trinidad, you’ll never want to leave. Isn’t that right, boys?”
Wilfred and Cuthbert exchanged nervous glances. “That’s right!” they agreed in unison. But they didn’t seem nearly as sure as their father was.
CHAPTER FOUR
I paid the bills that afternoon. I changed my dress and went out into the town to find the bank where I had deposited all the money that I had won with my Premium Bond. On the way I saw the outsides of both the Anglican and the Roman Catholic Cathedrals, both of which had been built at the same time and in an unusually ecumenical spirit for that time had both been endowed by the same Governor, the Anglican one because that had been his own faith, the Catholic one because that was the faith of the majority of the citizens of the island. But then tolerance was a feature of the West Indies, where men of all colours and shades of opinion mixed and intermarried and were caught up in the cheerful rhythm of the steel bands that played on every street corner, seeking the fame that unfortunately was the destiny of only the very few.
The bank was easy enough to find. The marble foyer was pleasantly cool after the afternoon heat outside. I made my way over to the counter and told the teller who I was.
“You would like to see the manager, perhaps?” he suggested. “He will tell you of all the various services we can offer you.”
I accepted this offer because previous to my win I had never had a large balance before and wasn’t sure whether one usually saw the manager or not. It seemed likely as it had been offered so quickly, but I must confess I was nervous as I sat on one of the padded chairs and waited for him to see me.
My first thought was that he was surprisingly young when the door into the manager’s office was flung open and he came out to greet me. He was a small, compact man with a milky coffee skin and bright, merry eyes that were the very antithesis of his responsibilities.
“My name is Aaron Glover,” he said as he shook me warmly by the hand. “How can I help you?”
I explained who I was and was much gratified to find that he knew all about my account at the bank, indeed that he had been waiting to make my acquaintance.
“You must be congratulated on winning such a large sum of money!” he exclaimed with real pleasure. “And how nice that you came to Trinidad! What are you doing now?”
I told him about Uncle Philip and.my cousins. “I’m living with them at the moment,” I ended lamely.
“Ah yes, Mr. Philip Ironside.” The sparkle went out of his eyes and a faint look of condemnation crept over his coffee-coloured face. “I think you might run into difficulties there,” he said at last.
I opened my handbag and produced the bills, laying them in a pile on his desk. “I want to pay these now,” I said.
He leaned back in his chair and looked from me to the bills and back at me again. “Are you sure you know what you are doing, Miss Ironside?”
I nodded. “I agreed with my uncle that I would pay them,” I said.
He pulled the bills towards him and went rapidly through them. It was impossible to tell what he was thinking and so I didn’t try. Now that I had explained why I had come I was weary of the whole business.
“You realise that they come to a, quite considerable sum of money?” Mr. Glover said disapprovingly.
“Yes, yes, I do. But
I can afford to pay them, can’t I?”
The twinkle came back into his eyes and I thought that he was really very nice even if he was being awkward. “You can afford to pay these bills,” he said carefully. “But there will be more and more. You know that, don’t you?”
“I’ve told them I won’t pay any more,” I said stubbornly.
He shook his head. “Well, I can’t stop you, Miss Ironside,” he muttered with a sigh. “If you leave them with me I’ll see that they are all paid. Meanwhile I will see about your cheque-book and have that and a statement of your balance with us sent round to you. We have some rather pleasant cheque-book covers. Do you prefer any particular colour?”
I chose one without thinking and then turned impulsively towards him. “Mr. Glover,” I began. Mr. Glover, what does my uncle do?”
His astonishment broke slowly over his whole body. “Do?” he repeated.
“What work does he do?” I pressed on regardless.
Mr. Glover looked embarrassed. “Why don’t you ask him?” he suggested.
“Because he turns me off without giving me any answer,” I told him frankly. “Is that what you’re going to do?”
“It’s what I’d like to do! But I won’t,” he went on disarmingly. “As far as I know all your family is at present unemployed. It’s a problem here, you know. Our people don’t want to go to England for your weather!”
I was hardly listening to him. “Unemployed?” I gasped. “But what about the sugar?”
“The sugar?” He seemed as puzzled as I. “Oh, you mean the Hendrycks’ plantation? I believe your family does go there in the season. I expect they earn quite a bit then. Enough to see them through most of the rest of the year.”
“You mean they cut sugar?”
“That’s right,” he nodded. “Daniel Hendrycks owns quite a slice in the south of the island. I believe they go down there and do a spell for him. Daniel has a name as being a mighty fair employer.”
“I’m sure he has,” I said bitterly. I rose hastily to my feet, anxious lest I should betray my outraged feelings. It would have been easier to bear, I thought mutinously, if when they had worked they had worked for anyone else but Daniel Hendrycks. Why did he have to own everything and be so sure of himself? And how on earth did my family manage to live if none of them worked regularly?
“It’s very kind of you to have seen me,” I said stiffly to Mr. Glover.
“It’s my pleasure, Miss Ironside,” He hovered for a minute with my hand still in his. “I shouldn’t upset yourself too much. They’ve lived for a mighty long time that way.”
“But nobody should have to!” I burst out. “It’s inhuman!”
“It can be,” Mr. Glover agreed seriously. “It can also be a way of life for some people.”
I knew he was trying to warn me, but I wouldn’t listen. I was sure that my uncle was being victimised and I knew that I hadn’t yet heard the whole story, not by a long chalk! But I would find out. I would find out every detail of what had happened to the sugar plantation that I knew he had owned at one time, and I would find out why he didn’t own it now!
Outside, in the sunshine once again, I felt decidedly more cheerful. There was a whole street market going on in Charlotte Street and I lingered to watch one of the steel bands as it beat out the latest rhythms. The young men were gaily handsome in their bright colours and they swung their hips with abandon as they attacked the old petrol cans they had turned by magic into musical instruments. Their calypsos were gay and their attitude uncaring. Could it be that they too were out of work?
There were other people making elaborate fancy dress costumes, sitting on the ground and gossiping as they worked. The costumes looked like so many playing cards and the kings and knaves carried elaborately ornamental banners in their hands. It might be only January, but they were already getting ready for Carnival, the time that the whole Island lived for, the final fling before the dreary period of Lent.
I discovered my cousins at one end of the market helping to sell the zizzy coloured materials that went into the costumes. Wilfred was especially successful at this. He stood on the edge of the pavement and screamed his wares until he had gathered a fair-size crowd around him, and then he would tell the most outrageous jokes, while he flattered the passers-by, urging them on to making bigger and better costumes than they had ever had before. They didn’t need much urging either. It was a matter of pride, even if one was stony broke, to appear at least once a year in a costume fit for a king, a millionaire, or at least a lover.
“You’ll be going to the Carnival too, cousin, Cuthbert reminded me slyly. “Don’t let the opportunity of a lifetime pass you by!”
“I won’t,” I promised him. “Have you got your own costume yet?”
“Oh, sure,” he replied. He broke away from the crowd and linked his arm through mine. “Shall we leave them to it?” he suggested. “Wilfred can manage on his own.”
“Does he do it for fun?” I asked.
Cuthbert gave me a sour look. “What do you think? It only makes peanuts, but we need the money. Hasn’t it dawned on you yet that we live from hand to mouth and haven’t too many scruples as to how we manage?”
“It’s occurred to me,” I confirmed. “You don’t seem to enjoy it very much.”
“Would you?”
“No, I agreed. But I think I might do something about it.”
“Like what?”
I really didn’t know. “Isn’t there any work at all that you could get?” I asked him. “There must be something?”
“There is—if we care to beg for it from Daniel Hendrycks,” he said bitterly.
“But he doesn’t own the whole of Trinidad,” I objected reasonably.
“As far as we’re concerned he might just as well,” Cuthbert said morosely. “All the land he has now used to belong to us. It would still be ours if there was any justice. Wilfred and I were brought up to look after the great acres of sugar, but now it isn’t there and we don’t know how to do anything else.”
“But what happened?” I demanded.
“It was a family fight,” he said with an engaging grin, as if I couldn’t really expect it to be anything else. “We had the estate and grew the sugar and that was okay. Father rather cleverly married into the family that ran the nearest refinery and everything in the garden was rosy. My mother had been a Hendrycks—they still have the refinery—but unfortunately for Father they didn’t approve of the marriage and that was that. They wouldn’t take our sugar, and when they wouldn’t nobody else would either. We managed for a while but then we began to sell off the land. Daniel, scenting a good thing, bought it up as fast as we could get rid of it. We didn’t even know what was happening until we suddenly found he owned everything and we absolutely nothing!”
“But surely they couldn’t do that to part of their own family!” I said angrily. It sounded monstrous to me.
“The Hendrycks have a very good idea of their own consequence,” Cuthbert reminded me, laughing. “I’m afraid the Ironsides just aren’t good enough for them!”
But your mother was Daniel’s aunt!” I said blankly.
“Sure. When he was a boy she dandled him on her knee like the rest of us, but we were the poor relations, and in Trinidad that still means something. The Ironsides don’t count and the Hendrycks do. It’s as simple as that.” He whistled through his teeth to show that he didn’t care what the Hendrycks did or didn’t do. I admired his spirit.
“There are other things on this island besides sugar.” I said stoutly, going back to the central problem of his possible employment.
“Oh, sure!” he mocked me. “But what do I know about them?”
I gritted my teeth. “You could learn!” I said fiercely, and I began seriously to consider the various possibilities that might be open to him. “Tourism,” I said at last. “That’s what you can do. You can show people around Trinidad—”
“Here, hold it! I don’t bang the beat in a steel band or anyt
hing fancy like that!”
“It doesn’t matter,” I answered doggedly. “People come here for holidays, so there must be money in it somewhere. I’ll think about it.”
He gave me a dying look and then his irrepressible grin broke out. “I’m sure you will,” he agreed. “Meanwhile let’s go down to the beach and have a swim.”
I hesitated just long enough to allow the glorious thought of the navy blue sea and the white tropical beach to sink in properly. There was nothing that I would like better. I could already imagine myself lying on the fine sand in the shade of a palm tree with the water lapping about my feet. Besides, I had to make a start at getting a proper tan to give me the same healthy look that everybody else had in Trinidad. It would provide also a couple of hours during which I wouldn’t have to think about Daniel, and that was important to me just at that moment. He bothered me, and I didn’t like being bothered. I wasn’t used to it! Nobody had ever bothered me before in quite the same way. I was even beginning to hate the image of him I conjured up so easily in my mind’s eye. The man was a monster. A perfidious monster. And yet I could hardly wait to see him to cross swords with him again. With my new knowledge about him, I might even win the battle, and that would be a most satisfactory state of affairs. I imagined him sueing for peace and the thought brought a smile of sheer pleasure to my face.
Cuthbert flicked his fingers in front of my eyes. “Hey, come back here!” he commanded, affronted by my dreamy expression. “I’ll race you home for our swimming things. Okay?”
“Okay,” I agreed lazily, but he won hands down because I could scarcely stir myself into a run, I was so hot and sticky. It didn’t take me long however to get into my swimsuit, to find a towel, and to pull my dress on again so that I would look more respectable for the bus journey down to the beach.
Cuthbert was waiting for me in the hall. He was smaller than his brother and fairer, but otherwise they were very much alike, and very much like their father too. They all had the same eyes that crinkled easily into laughter, even when they were not really amused. He was smiling now as I walked down the stairs towards him. “That didn’t take you long!” he said easily.
