by Isobel Chace
“I suppose he might,” I agreed doubtfully. “But I don’t know anything about sugar. He might think that that matters!”
“Why should he? Who better to run it for you than your own family? You know, Camilla my girl, I think you’ve got something there. You can tell that Mr. Glover that you’ll have me right behind you all the way. Your cousins too! We’ll make us all rich yet!”
I had none of his confidence when I made an appointment to see the bank manager and tried to screw up my courage actually to go into the bank and talk to him. I put on one of my prettiest dresses to give me confidence, a new dress that I had only just bought and which had been rather more expensive than I had intended. When I got to the bank, though, what I was wearing didn’t seem in the least important in the face of all my other problems. Aaron Glover looked genuinely pleased to see me though when I entered his office. He was just as pleasant and as unexpectedly from self-importance as I had remembered him.
“I thought you’d be in sooner or later,” he greeted me. I had the grace to blush.
“It isn’t easy,” I said, “to manage money at first when one isn’t used to it.”
“No,” he agreed promptly, “I don’t suppose it is. How can I help you, Miss Ironside?”
I explained the problem to him as well as I could. It wasn’t easy because I didn’t want to bring my relations into the picture any more than I had to, but the truth was that without them there wouldn’t have been any worry for me to talk about.
“My uncle wants me to buy a sugar estate,” I ended baldly. “Have I got enough money to do that?”
Mr. Glover nodded. He smelt of the same after-shave lotion that Daniel had and I had a sudden inexplicable urge to ask him if he went to the same barber. “You have enough money,” he said finally. “But are you sure that that’s what you want to do with it?”
I licked my lips. I really didn’t know. “I suppose it’s a sound investment,” I said, hoping to sound businesslike and efficient. “My family could run it for me.”
His twinkly eyes met mine. “Under supervision they might do that,” he said carefully.
I coughed. “Whose supervision?” I asked. “They know a great deal about sugar—They owned a sugar estate in the south of the island.”
“It isn’t quite the same thing,” he corrected me.
“Why not?” I demanded.
“It isn’t easy for me to tell you this, Miss Ironside,” he said uncomfortably. “I understand that the estate wasn’t at all well run. The labour conditions were frightful and little was being done to improve them. The sugar crop was falling each season too. If Mr. Hendrycks hadn’t bought them out when he did, they would have gone bankrupt and might have ended up in court as well for cooking their books. I didn’t want to have to bring this up,” he added unhappily, “but when large sums of money are involved it’s as well to have all the facts before one.”
“I suppose so,” I agreed uneasily. It was better to know, rather than to guess and flounder about in the dark with a mass of unanswered questions about the whys and wherefores of my family’s state of ruin. “You’d better tell me all about it,” I said.
Mr. Glover smiled resolutely, wiping the sweat from his brow with a flamboyant handkerchief. “Things have changed in the last few years, Miss Ironside. Such abuses couldn’t happen now. Shall we leave it at that? It would be more interesting to discuss your own proposed purchase. Of course there would have to be safeguards and the law isn’t as easy as it was, but if you appoint some proper trustees to make sure the estate is properly run, I don’t see any difficulty there.”
“What kind of trustees?” I asked blankly.
“I could act for you,” he offered smoothly. “I’m reasonably well respected in the Island.”
I knew that this was more than true. Mr. Aaron Glover was a name to conjure with. It was rumoured that one day he would go into politics and, that if he did, he would end up as Prime Minister without really trying.
“Would you really?” I enthused. “Can I leave it all to you?”
“We shall need another trustee,” he warned me. “And I must repeat my doubts about your uncle and cousins running the place for you. I’m sure any responsible trustee would insist on some other arrangement.”
“Who would the other trustee be?” I put in, trying to pretend that the hollow feeling in my middle was not shock but a pleasant sense of excitement that I was going to be a property owner in my own right.
“I suppose Daniel Hendrycks would be the best man,” Mr. Glover said immediately. “You will have to have an outlet for your crop into his refinery—”
“No!” I cried out, stung. “Anyone but him! Can’t you see what that would do to my uncle?”
Mr. Glover sighed. “I don’t think it’s very practical not to consider him very carefully,” he reproached me. Your family’s feelings are more buoyant than you suppose. I can assure you of that!” he smiled. “I went to school with your cousins, you know. Also we have to consider that without Mr. Hendrycks’ active support we are unlikely to get anywhere at all.” There was a subtle threat in these last words that told me that without I Daniel I could not expect him to act for me either.
“I shall ask my uncle what he thinks,” I said stoutly.
Mr. Glover pushed the telephone over to my side of his desk. “I should do that, Miss Ironside,” he agreed. “Meanwhile I shall go and look into the details of your account and see how big a mortgage you will require and if there is anything suitable at present on the market.”
My uncle was cock-a-hoop about the whole idea. He didn’t care who was named as a trustee as long as he could live on the estate and watch the sugar grow. Even to my prejudiced ears it sounded a tiny bit irresponsible, but my comments that it would all mean a great deal of hard work for us all were completely ignored.
“Sign on the dotted line, my girl,” he crowed. “That’s all you have to do! You can leave the worrying to the rest of us!”
“That’s what you’d really like?” I was really pleading for reassurance, but I didn’t get any.
“I’ll tell you one thing, darling,” he snorted into the phone. “If you don’t hurry yourself, your cousins and I will be cutting somebody else’s canes again this year!”
I put the telephone back on to its cradle and sat in silence waiting for Mr. Glover to come back. If I had never had the money in the first place, I thought miserably, I wouldn’t have had to make these unbearable decisions now. It was too much to ask, that I should bury everything I had into such a project. I didn’t want to grow sugar! I didn’t even like sugar!
Mr. Glover came back looking remarkably pleased with himself. “We’re in luck!” he announced. “The Longuet place is coming up for sale. You couldn’t do any better!”
“Longuet,” I repeated thoughtfully, aware that somewhere I had heard that name. “Pamela Longuet!” I brought out in triumph. “Any connection?”
He nodded. “Her parents. Do you know her?” His eyes regarded me with interest as if he were trying to puzzle out where I could have possibly met her. “Pamela is the only child,” he went on. “Her parents are getting rather old and they want to sell.”
“What about Pamela?” I asked.
He grinned. “There are rumours—” he said expressively. “She will marry soon and then she will have no need of the estate. At least I imagine that’s what her parents have in mind. The money will be more useful to her as a dowry.”
“I suppose she’s going to marry Daniel,” I said with calculated indifference.
He looked up quickly. “So you’ve heard that too!” he said with the immediate Trinidadian interest in gossip. “People sure do talk about one another in this place!”
“People talk anywhere,” I said in defeated tones. Truth to tell, I hadn’t heard any talk at all. I had just known that Daniel was hardly likely to be fancy free, waiting for one of the despised Ironsides to fall in love with him. Of course he had plans for his own future and who else would
it be but the rich, the charming and the hard-working Miss Pamela Longuet who would attract his attention as a suitable partner?
“How long will it take to buy?” I asked abruptly.
Mr. Glover spread his fingers thoughtfully. “Nothing gets done during Carnival. But I’ll get on with it, don’t you worry. I’ll call you as soon as we need your signature. Otherwise you can safely leave everything with me. Okay?”
I rose and shook hands with him. “Okay,” I agreed. I summoned up a smile. “Thank you, Mr. Glover. Thank you very much.”
To my surprise he looked embarrassed. “ ’Tweren’t nothing!” he muttered. “And call me Aaron, do. Everybody round here does. Mr. Glover makes me think you’re talking to my father!”
I laughed. “All right, Aaron. My name is Camilla.”
“I know!” he laughed. “A pretty name it is too.” Walking home past the shops I saw that Woolworths had broken out in a rash of plastic masks and paper costumes that told their own story of how near we were to Carnival time. Small boys, hidden by the hideous caricatured faces of famous people, dashed back and forth in the crowded street, exploding rockets that sounded like gunfire amidst squeals of delight. The sun was hot and there was not a single cloud in the sky. I felt very alone and foreign and I longed for the cool green fields of England and the iron grey of the English sea.
The Ironsides were rejoicing. I felt apart from them as I watched them, drinking rum, laughing loudly and singing the occasional saucy calypso, none of which were ever finished. They drank rum in the typical Trinidad manner, in a long cool drink called Planters Punch. As far as I was concerned the accent should have been on the last word, for it had a kick that could blow your head off! It was made with the juice of half a lime, two ounces of Demerara, a teaspoonful of grenadine and a generous dash of Angostura bitters. To this concoction was added ice and soda water and then, beware, it slid down as easily as an iced fruit drink, to backfire later if one’s head was not as hard as iron.
I didn’t really much like the taste of rum. Heavily disguised, or served hot with lemon, I found it just palatable, but to me it remained ‘Demon Drink’ rather than a solace and if anything else was offered I invariably chose that because it tasted nicer.
Now, while my family rejoiced, I struggled with my pride as to how I was going to climb down and ask Daniel if I could visit his refinery after all. This problem was not one I could shelve for very much longer. Aaron had already obtained a verbal agreement on the sale of the Longuet estate which, while my family rejoiced, made my spirits sink even further. In the end I decided that rather than face Daniel at all, I would write to Pamela Longuet thus happily bypassing Daniel, and would get her to invite me to look both at her family’s estate and the sugar refinery. I must admit I was rather pleased with this solution. I turned it over and over m my mind and could find no flaw in it. So, to the accompaniment of Wilfred singing to some yellow bird in a banana tree, I sat down and composed a cool, elegant letter in my best handwriting and posted it there and then before I had time to have any second thoughts about it.
The answer was not long in coming. Miss Longuet was delighted that I wanted to visit her. She suggested that I should take a bus from Port-of-Spain down to the south of the Island where she would meet me. More, she would be charmed if I would stay the night as she understood it was I who was actually buying the sugar estate from her parents.
My family were less delighted at the idea of my going on such a mission by myself.
“I’ll come along and keep an eye on you,” Wilfred offered lazily.
“And why you?” Cuthbert demanded. “Have you been the one who has been showing her round the island? She prefers my company, don’t you, Camilla?”
“I don’t want either of you!” I exclaimed impatiently. “If I take anyone it will be Patience.”
“Patience?” they gasped.
“Why not?” I asked flatly. The idea was beginning to grow on me. It would be nice to have Patience’s salty good humour on the long bus journey and she wouldn’t be in the least afraid of Pamela’s parents with their money, and pretty, affable ways.
“Well, if you must,” my cousins said at last, but it was plain they found me completely barmy even to contemplate taking Patience on such a trip. Patience herself was pleased to be going, however. She sorted my clothes with a fierce eye for what would and what would not be appropriate for such a visit.
“We be back for Carnival, Miss ’Milla, no? I’se not likin’ to play mas’ away from home.’
“Of course we’ll be back,” I assured her without interest. “You don’t mind coming with me, do you, Patience?”
She stood with her arms akimbo, her great face beaming with pleasure. “I’se say not! Jest like ole times, Miss ’Milla! Jest like ole times!”
Patience was a tower of strength during the journey. It was she who bought our tickets for the bus while I stood and waited for her, in a welter of noise and excitement.
“One thousand dollars has to be won!” screamed the wireless. “Buy your tickets here for the Tobago State Lottery. One thousand dollars must be won this week!” The tannoy system of the bus company chimed in with various messages for passengers and attendants alike. Occasionally someone burst into song as they brushed the tickets away from the pavement, or tried to earn a little bit extra by carrying a richer man’s suitcase on to the bus.
“Come on, Miss ’Milla! We cain’t be standin’ here all day!” Patience hauled me on to the bus after her ample form and seated me on one of the seats while she saw to putting the luggage away. “Don’t you move one inch, Miss’ Milla, you’se hearin’ me?”
“Not one inch!” I agreed mildly.
A Negro couple came and sat in front of me. They were very young and I suspected very recently married. The young bride peeped at me at intervals through her enormous brown eyes and shyly smiled when she found that my interest was equal to her own. “Ain’t you got no car?” she asked at last, just as Patience struggled back to take her seat beside me.
“No, she ain’t!” Patience snapped back. “You’se be a sight better mindin’ you’se own business, I’se tellin’ you!”
“It’s all right, Patience,” I said quickly. “We’re already friends.”
But the big woman’s glowering look made the young bride shyer than ever and she spent the rest of the journey whispering sweet nothings to her husband and pointedly ignoring everyone else on the bus.
Behind us someone was listening to a cricket commentary on their transistor radio, a never-ending stream of words that was broken only for the Death Announcements that seemed to be as important a part of death in Trinidad as black crepe had been in Victorian England. It must have been quite a good radio because I could hear every word despite the fact that we were hurtling along the Churchill-Roosevelt Highway at a speed that showed that when they said it was an express bus they meant exactly that.
From the American war-built Highway we turned on to the more recent Princess Margaret Highway that led straight down to the south of the Island. We passed the Caroni Swamp, some ten thousand acres of swampland and mangroves, where the scarlet ibis held regal court in their sanctuary and built impractical, flimsy nests in the mangrove trees in which they hoped to bring up their young.
The flat countryside sped past. Houses stood on stilts amidst the palm groves and banana trees. Red and white Hindu prayer flags were mounted on poles and looked like knights’ lances from the Middle Ages, adorned by their ladies’ favours. Fields which were often used as rice-paddies in the wet weather were now growing vegetables with equal vigour. I saw some muddy water buffalo grazing by the roadside with some shabby sheep and goats and overhead some egrets flew, disturbed from their usual lordly stroll behind the field animals. A number of people had slung home-made hammocks between the trees that surrounded their houses and were now fast asleep in them, sheltering from the midday heat after their early start at work. And then at last there was the sugar, planted in endless rows, green a
nd mauve feathery leaves blowing gently in the wind. It might have been a rather monotonous scene, but I found myself entranced by it all and delighted in the subtle colouring of the crop and the way the long leaves rolled in waves away from the wind much like the waves of the sea.
San Fernando was a more hilly place than Port-of-Spain. We slowed down a little at the outskirts, to my relief, and then rushed on into the centre of the town, pulling up outside the bus depot. Patience hurried out of the bus, a set look on her face, intent on retrieving our luggage, while I stretched my cramped limbs and took my first look round. I couldn’t see Pamela anywhere, but I wasn’t too worried by her absence. She would turn up in time, I thought, and meanwhile there was plenty to see. I shouldn’t have minded if we had been kept waiting for hours just to have an opportunity to watch the passers-by, the Negroes, the Hindus and Moslems who had been imported at one time to save the sugar industry when the notorious slave trade came to an end, the Chinese and those of European ancestry, a happy mixture of laughing, singing people who were all of them beautiful by any standard in their confident love of life and freedom of movement.
“Well, long legs, so you came?”
My mouth went dry as I turned my head quickly to see if it was indeed Daniel. “What are you doing here?” I asked faintly.
He grinned. “Meeting you, what else? Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”
“I didn’t think you’d be interested,” I said.
“Now I wonder what gave you that idea?” he said thoughtfully. “Most men are flattered when someone takes their advice, you know. And that’s what you’re doing, isn’t it?”
I lifted my head proudly. “I was under the impression I was following Mr. Glover’s advice,” I told him.
His eyebrows rose in easy mockery. “Have you come alone?” he asked.
I shook my head and pointed out Patience in the crowd that was still fighting to retrieve their baggage from the back of the bus. At the same moment Patience saw him and, leaving our luggage to its fate, she positively ran across the depot, her big arms flailing the air in front of her.
