Flash of Emerald

by Jane Arbor

  Barbara nodded. ‘Yes, the Chanson Doudou—“Adieu, Foulard. Adieu, Madras.” It’s the Madeninan version of the Madam Butterfly theme about a naval officer who has to leave his island sweetheart to sail with the morning tide. Nothing to do with Vaval, of course. But it’s suitably sad and no Carnival ever ends without its being sung as a kind of bonus dirge for Vaval, whom everyone then promptly forgets until next year.’

  As was expected, Mardi Gras exacted its toll of absenteeism from the plantations, but by the beginning of the next week plans for an unusually early ratoon were under way. Estimates of each day’s probable ‘cut’ were made; the casual labour was alerted to show up at first light, and the designated areas were fired on the previous evening for the treble purpose of driving the canes’ sucrose content up the stems, of clearing the undergrowth and of destroying or banishing any resident snakes or scorpions.

  On Belle Rose, once the television cameras began to roll, there was considerable competition to be within range of their action. The cameras themselves were objects of much interest, the team subjected to much amateur advice. Everyone, from cane-cutters to cane-loaders, from the wives who carried water and picnic meals to their men to the hordes of school-dodging children, wanted to be ‘in’ on the final result. To satisfy the demand of everyone to see himself as the English screens would show him, still shots of each day’s filming were put on show in the canteen, to the infinite jealousy of the other plantations and the vastly enhanced prestige of Belle Rose.

  The harvest was going to be a good one, lasting several weeks. The television team, having got what it came for, was ready to leave at the end of ten days. Ian dated Hope for his last evening and took her to a restaurant in the town where they ate Creole food and danced to a steel band between courses.

  On the way home he stopped his car on a quiet road, cut the engine and turned to her. ‘We’ve got to talk, Hope,’ he said.

  ‘Have we?’ He had been serious all evening, and now he sounded embarrassed. To put him at his ease she said lightly, ‘I’m going to miss you when you’ve gone back. It’s been fun, your being here, and you’ve been awfully good about taking me about.’

  ‘Yes, well—you don’t suppose I haven’t enjoyed it too? Or that the prospect of seeing you again wasn’t all the way behind my getting the Board to agree to send out the team? But—’ he checked and wasn’t looking at her as he went on, ‘There’s this, you see—I did want to come, I did want to see you and I’m going to hate going back. As for my being “good” to you, that’s all hooey. Only—well, the truth is that if—if by showing how much I like you I’ve given you any—any ideas, then I’ve been terribly wrong. Because—Hope dear, try to understand this, can you?—I know I’m not ready to ask any girl, even you, to marry me yet.’

  Hope was silent, knowing what it must have cost him to be so starkly honest. Utterly relieved herself that, for him as well as for her, their weeks of closeness had been no more than an extension of their earlier friendship, she said after a moment, ‘Don’t worry, Ian. I never did have “ideas” as you call them, beyond wanting to enjoy your company and hoping you enjoyed mine. And as I’m—I’m not thinking of marrying yet either, you can’t think how easy you’ve made it for me to discuss it, supposing you’d wanted to, and I didn’t!’

  He kissed her then, quickly, lightly. ‘Bless you,’ he said. ‘For not making me feel a heel. For liking me. For going along—It’s my job, you see. It means so much to me, and I feel I must travel alone while I’m making it a success and until I can offer it to someone—you, perhaps, if I’m not too late?—as something I’ve done, not merely hoped to do. And that’s why—well, if you’re as much my friend as I know you are, you’ll understand.’

  She did. She had always known him as ambitious; that the people above him appreciated his value; that, as her uncle Lionel had prophesied, he would Go Far. Meanwhile she could only envy him for knowing himself so well. If only she could detach head from heart in just the same sane way—She reached for his hand and squeezed it. ‘I’ve told you,’ she said, ‘I do understand. We’re on the same beam, hm? And agreed that we’re staying there?’

  He smiled at her gratefully and started the car. ‘Agreed,’ he said. ‘And bless you again.’

  When they reached the bungalow another car—Craig’s—stood outside, and when Ian took Hope to the door and parted from her with another light kiss, Craig was coming out. The two men exchanged nods and went together to their cars, leaving Hope to question—Craig, visiting Barbara again and at night? What had he to say to her after all this time of neglecting her? And had he known, Hope wondered, that she herself would be out, so that he would find Barbara alone?

  That question was soon answered when she went into the house to find Barbara clearing wine-glasses and snack plates. Barbara said, ‘Oh, you must have met Craig as he left. Soon after Ian called for you, he rang up and asked if he could come over, and he concluded you would be spending your last night with Ian.’

  He hadn’t wasted much time, thought Hope. She had left with Ian at least three hours ago. Feeling that as it had been she who had told Barbara about Craig’s captured stranger, she was entitled to know more, she asked, ‘You said you thought Craig would tell you about the man he caught on Vaval night—so did he?’

  Barbara nodded. ‘Yes. As I guessed, he was a waiter at one of the out-of-town hotels who had asked for an appointment to meet Nelson, my husband, and Craig at the flat Nelson and I had then. They hadn’t a clue as to why he wanted to see them, and they never did learn, because he didn’t turn up and afterwards he disappeared from the island completely.’

  ‘To Barbados, he told Craig,’ Hope prompted.

  ‘Yes, and though Craig made enquiries at the hotel and all over town, there wasn’t a trace of him.’ Barbara paused. ‘You see, it had to be Craig who asked about him because the day they had arranged to meet was the one that Nelson and Roland de Faye were lost at sea. Before he went, Nelson told Craig he wasn’t going to waste a sailing trip just to hear what this man’s business with them was; Craig could meet him alone instead. But though Craig waited at the flat with me for hours—until nearly midnight—the man didn’t turn up. And then we heard about Nelson and Roland’s being missing, you see.’

  ‘Oh, my dear—!’ Hope looked at the cruel irony of the story, and ventured, ‘So that if Nelson had kept the appointment, he wouldn’t have lost his life that night?’

  Momentarily Barbara’s lips twisted to bitterness. ‘Nor would Roland. He couldn’t handle that sized craft single-handed and anyway, Craig was so much better a sailor than either of them that if he had gone along that day, perhaps none of it need have happened. But it did.’ With a gallant effort she squared her shoulders and managed a smile. ‘And when it had, I daresay you can understand that looking for and finding this other man didn’t seem at all that important, can’t you?’ she finished.

  Admiring her courage, Hope said, ‘Except that you could think, rightly, that he was the indirect cause of all your loss. Didn’t Craig think that way? And does he know now why the man didn’t show up? Or what he’d wanted to say to your husband and to him? I heard him threaten that he meant to find out.’

  Barbara was stacking the nest-tables she and Craig had used. Not looking at Hope, ‘Yes, Craig does know now. So do I,’ she said, and stopped. Then, as if she regretted the implied snub of telling Hope no more, she added, ‘I’m sorry, Hope. Craig knows, and he’s told me. But we’ve got to leave it there. It concerns—someone else too much. Do you mind?’ And when Hope shook her head, she made a conscious effort to change the subject.

  ‘Meanwhile, listen—you know I’ve nearly finished work on my dictionary? Well, when I’ve corrected the last draft, Craig is going to send it for checking to a professor of etymology who’s a friend of his, and then he’ll help me to get it published, at first locally, and then further afield. What do you think of that?’

  Hope said, ‘I’m so glad for you. But you always did deserve wha
tever success it has. Did Craig promise you this tonight?’

  ‘Yes. He’d always promised to help, but we settled the details tonight. We talked for a long time—more than we’ve been able to for ages—about all sorts of things. About Crispin, for one. Craig says Victoire isn’t engaging another governess for him, which means the poor pet will be left more to himself than ever. We talked about you too,’ Barbara added. ‘Craig said he’d never known any girl quite as—well, “collected” was his word—as you.’

  Hope’s heart quickened its beat. ‘Collected? What did he mean by that?’

  ‘I asked him, and he said that if one took Tina as the most uncollected, featherbrained, teetering example in recent sight, and you as her opposite pole, that was what he meant. He said if you were warned you were about to step on a land-mine, he’d back you to go ahead without a downward glance.’

  ‘Which I’d call foolhardy rather than collected, wouldn’t you?’ remarked Hope.

  ‘That’s what I said,’ agreed Barbara. ‘And that I doubted if you were really as cool as he thought. I knew you were warm-hearted, and understanding with Tina and altogether a dear. But he said the only time he’d ever seen you a bit vulnerably excited or eager was the night when you saw the green ray with him. Which reminds me—you’ve never told me that you did see it, have you?’

  ‘No, I—’

  ‘Why not? You must have known I’d be glad you had.’ Barbara’s tone was more kind than accusing, and since she and Craig were evidently back on their old terms, whatever they were, Hope felt that Barbara could hardly be hurt by the truth she had shrunk from telling before. She said diffidently, ‘I didn’t tell you because of the foolish thing Craig did after I’d seen the ray. We were in his car at the time and—well, suddenly he kissed me—just like that!’

  She watched a little smile come and go on Barbara’s face. ‘Kissed you? Why?’ Barbara asked.

  ‘He said you had to have a witness that you’d really seen the ray, and that the kiss was a kind of traditional thing which was always observed.’

  ‘But it embarrassed you—coming from him?’

  ‘Well, naturally. We—we’ve never been on those terms.’

  ‘But after he explained that it didn’t mean anything personal? You didn’t mind then?’

  ‘Not so much. I couldn’t very well, if it really is the custom here. Which it is, isn’t it? You should know,’ Hope urged.

  ‘And so should Craig,’ Barbara pointed out.

  ‘Then it was true? It was only a gimmick, as he said?’

  There was a tiny pause. Then, ‘Of course. Just an age-old bit of ritual which you needn’t have resented at all,’ Barbara confirmed, leaving Hope to the final abandonment of a vainly harboured wish—that ‘the custom of the country’ wasn’t all which had prompted Craig; that he might have known a genuinely warm impulse to kiss her when he had.

  Victoire had not allowed Crispin to visit Barbara again, and since Tina’s departure the only news they had of him was through Craig, who said there were no plans for sending him back to school until after Easter. Meanwhile Hope knew that Craig often took him along when he had journeys to make by car, and one day he mentioned that he hadn’t yet redeemed a promise he had made to Crispin to drive him to see his old friends, Victoire’s former houseman and woman, Matthew-John and Sadie, who were now at the Montgaye estate.

  ‘I have to see Lucien Montgaye on business,’ Craig said. ‘I shall be lunching there, so I’ll take Crispin to spend the day, and if you’d care to come along too, you’re welcome.’

  It was his first offer to Hope of a whole uncommitted day off, and she accepted it as the unexpected bonus it was. He brought Crispin down with him to the office in the morning, and when he had dealt with his correspondence they set out, Hope sitting beside him, Crispin with the whole of the back seat on which to sprawl and bounce.

  Montgaye, not far to the north as the crow flies, was a morning’s journey by necessary detours around creeks, and tortuous skirtings of the lower mountain slopes. It was altogether strange country to Hope—the sugar plantations of the southern coastal plain left behind, giving place to jagged volcanic rock at the seaboard and tropical forest inland.

  Monsieur and Madame Montgaye ran a cocoa estate, their home as unlike the Belle Rose Great House as could be. It was granite-built, low and squat, its thick walls a wonderfully cool insulation against the heat outside. Crispin raced at once to find Sadie and Matthew-John, while the Montgayes and their guests drank pre-luncheon swizzles in the shutter-darkened salon, while the men talked the business Craig had come to do.

  Crispin claimed the privilege of eating in the kitchen quarters. The others lunched on iced calaloo—a crab soup; chicken steamed with rice and saffron and coconut ice-cream as pudding. The siesta hour which followed saw the men going out on a leisurely tour of the estate which Hope would have liked to join, if Madame Montgaye hadn’t expected her to rest and take coffee under the giant immortelles which, Madame explained, were grown and nicknamed ‘Mama Cocoa’ for the protective shade they afforded to the crops.

  Madame was a bright, friendly woman with a lively interest in her neighbours which she prompted Hope to satisfy.

  She spoke compassionately about Barbara. How was she? A sad pity indeed that she had so withdrawn herself after Nelson Paul’s death. She should marry again, la pauvre. But for that it was necessary for a girl to meet men, and whom did Barbara ever meet now but Craig who, if ever a man did, kept his matrimonial plans to himself.

  ... Unlike Victoire de Faye. Now that lady made no secrets of her intention to remain a widow no longer than it suited her! Not of course that she was in as powerful a position on that as might appear from her style of living. For it was said that she had inherited only Roland de Faye’s personal fortune; that Belle Rose wasn’t hers, but was entailed to Crispin, with Craig having all rights of the estate’s administration until Crispin came of age. But perhaps Hope knew the truth of that?

  Obviously Hope did not, and said so with an emphasis which, however, did nothing to check Madame’s pursuit of her theme. Accepting Hope’s hot denial of any knowledge of either Victoire’s or Craig’s private affairs, she said amiably, ‘Alors, no one knows the truth for certain. But there has always been a word said that there must have been some reason why Roland de Faye did not cut the entail in favour of his wife; in short, that where there is smoke there is fire, as they say, and that perhaps he had more reason to trust his friend to do the right thing by Crispin than he had to trust his second wife, who was only the child’s belle-mere, after all.’

  But for Hope this was too near the dangerous ground of gossip, and she was thankful for the diversion of Crispin’s arrival in the garden, bringing such news as he had gleaned from the kitchen—of a litter of kittens, of Sadie’s new dress which Matthew-John had bought her for Vaval, which she would not wear again until Easter, and of the immature cocoa bean which Matthew-John had cut open and given him the juicy seeds to suck.

  Monsieur Montgaye and Craig came back and the party became a foursome again until, when the shadows began to lengthen, Craig said they must go.

  Hope brought away with her a feeling of guilt. Yet how could she have stopped Madame’s voluble tongue telling all she thought she knew, in the hope of learning more? Meanwhile, for all Hope tried to discount it, if it were true, her gossip had been shrewd. It gave Victoire the strongest possible motive for linking her future with Craig’s, and it lent him the arrogant, possessive authority of his treatment of her. He was sure of her. He hadn’t to make even a show of affection. He could befriend and kiss Barbara when it suited him and neglect her when it didn’t. He could go around kissing—other girls—in the name of ‘custom’ and meaning nothing by it. He could want a robot for a workmate, despise her for being ‘collected’ when he got one, and engage himself to a callous vamp like Victoire for a wife. All this—she stole a furtive glance at his profile, praying that it needn’t be—if the gossip were true.

  T
he conversation was mostly with Crispin until he quietened and Hope’s glance into the driving mirror showed her that he had fallen asleep. She signalled the fact to Craig by dropping her eyelids and a backward jerk of her head, and they were silent until they were driving through the streets of the town, when Crispin woke with a start.

  ‘Crumbs!’ He had clapped a hand to the pocket of his shirt and produced a bundle of four or five letters which he surveyed with dismay. ‘Belle-mere asked Doria to post them, but she wasn’t going out, so she gave them to me, and I forgot. So where can I do it now?’

  ‘Just round the corner, on the Rue de la Vierge,’ Craig told him. ‘But wait, fellow,’—as Crispin was about to scramble out into the stream of traffic—‘give them to Hope. I’ll stop, and she’ll post them for you.’

  ‘O.K.’ But as Crispin passed them forward Hope fumbled taking them and needed to shuffle them tidily when she had them. She looked down at them, then stiffened and still made no move to get out when Craig had rounded the corner and stopped the car.

  ‘What?’ he asked.

  ‘This—’ she said, heedless of all discretion, and showed him the top envelope of the small pile, addressed to Barbara in the same clumsy script as she had seen once before.

  Craig took the envelope, scrutinised it, glanced back at Crispin who was absorbed in sorting the contents of another shirt-pocket, and abstracted it from the pile. ‘All right,’ he told Hope. ‘Post the rest.’

  When she returned to the car the letter was nowhere to be seen and he made no reference to it. He drove to the Great House and dropped Crispin there without going in, then on to the estate office where he took out the letter and threw it on his desk.

  ‘The sight of that petrified you,’ he said to Hope. ‘Why?’