Too Young to Marry

by Rosalind Brett

  His glance at her across the table was half surprised. “That’s an odd tone—from you. Getting bored?”

  “Not a bit. I just want to share sometimes.”

  He said easily, “You’re sharing all the time, little one. We’ll take a picnic along the coast on Sunday. All right?” She nodded and took a small piece of fish on to her fork. The subject was changed, though Paul had not time to talk much. He drank his coffee standing, picked up the car keys, then looked back at her from the doorway. “You’re looking pale. Been gardening?”

  “No. As a matter of fact, Bill Ramsay called in for ten minutes.”

  “Bill?” That gave him pause. “What did he have to say?”

  “Congratulations and good wishes.”

  “He should have waited till he was invited.”

  “He’s our nearest neighbor, after all. I thought it was nice of him.”

  “Bill’s all right,” he said, “but don’t encourage him to come often.” And with a “So long” over his shoulder, he walked out.

  Lorna remained in her chair, drinking coffee; it tasted more bitter than usual. But she was not the brooding type and she had learned long ago, during lonely school holidays, that introspection could be painful. So she took the coffee-tray to the kitchen, had a bright word with Jake and came back to the living-room to play a few records. Paul had a good selection of classics and fairly popular dance music, and on the whole Lorna preferred the gramophone to the radio. Out here in the islands radio reception was noisy, the programmes almost incomprehensible. Now, she listened to the Waldstein and remembered how at school she had told herself that one day she would have a room of her own, television, a gramophone and some friends. Well, she had a room of her own and she could do without television. And friends? She could wait a little longer to meet Paul’s. She had Paul himself...

  She shied away from the thought, but not before she had reflected that no one had ever possessed him, or ever would.

  The afternoon slipped away. She made some tea, drank it and decided to bathe before dark. It was cooler out among the trees as she walked down to the beach. The workers had knocked off at five, and the long straight road was deserted, except for a few small, flat-faced brown children who had spent the afternoon wading for fish. They gave Lorna drowsy smiles, hitched their faded cotton shorts about naked waists and went on plodding on bare dusty feet.

  When Lorna reached the beach it was almost deserted. There were a couple of tiny boats under one of the palms, and three girls of her own age were bathing in the small natural lagoon which lay to the left of the main beach. It was a pretty lagoon, cradled in pinkish-grey coral, and the girls bathed only in short batik skirts, with their long black hair loose about their shoulders. As Lorna dropped her wrap and kicked off her sandals, the girls came out of the water, thrust back their hair and quite naturally loosened the skirts, shook them out to their full length and secured them about their bodies under the armpits. Their movements were graceful and fluid, their light laughter as they ran away among the trees echoed tantalizingly.

  Lorna swam in the calm bay, saw the evening blue of the sky deepen into purple and blackness descend upon the trees. The palms leaned over the beach, their roots deep in the sand and their fronds swaying, grotesque and beautiful, against the sky. She felt she could float for ever in that gentle tide, but it was after six, and she had a mile to walk.

  She came out, belted the wrap about her and trod into her sandals. The road was dark now, with fireflies flitting fitfully among the branches. The night pests were beginning to hum, trying their wings for resonance and chirruping ecstatically at the result. She smelled forest scents faintly tinged with woodsmoke from the distant village. The islanders cooked in brick ovens in the open; pork and taro roots, yams, and a flour concoction which they ate with sugar cane.

  She was about two hundred yards from the bungalow when car beams picked her out. Paul, she thought instantly, and for some reason her heart began to beat heavily, up near her throat. He braked and got out, came round to the front of the car and gripped her arm.

  “God, you scared me stiff,” he said curtly. “Don’t ever do this again, Lorna! You’ve all day for bathing, and I won’t have you go down there alone in the evening.”

  “It was light when I went out,” she said. “It’s not late, even now.”

  “It’s dark and you were out alone.”

  “You’ve said yourself that the islanders are trustworthy.”

  “I’m not arguing about it—just telling you. Get into the car.”

  She did, and sat silent while he reversed and drove up to the bungalow. They went inside, and after a moment’s indecision she looked at Paul’s back as he went to the cabinet to pour a drink, and then went on to her bedroom. She put on a print frock, changed the beach sandals for plain white ones and tidied her hair. Her lips were pale with salt, and on an impulse she went to the bathroom and splashed her face with water, came back to add a little lipstick. Still feeling a shade queer, she returned to the living-room.

  Paul looked up from reading a letter, nodded towards a glass of orange juice. “Like a dash of something strong in it?”

  “No thank you. Paul, I’m sorry I annoyed you.”

  “I was scared more than annoyed. Don’t do it again, there’s a good girl.”

  “Go down to the beach at twilight? It sounds the right thing to do, somehow.”

  “It’s not funny, my child. In the darkness you could have taken the wrong path and landed at some else’s bungalow. That might not be a catastrophe, but I wouldn’t care for it. You may not realize it yet but you have a position here.”

  “Have I? I haven’t met anyone but Bill.”

  “You’ll meet them all in time. Meanwhile, you’ll have to realize that you’re the wife of the General Manager of the Panai Rubber Corporation. This island would hardly exist if it weren’t for rubber.”

  She took the glass of orange juice between her hands, held it tightly. “I certainly don’t want to do anything to upset you in any way. You must know that. Paul, may I speak frankly?”

  He had been bending over the letters on the table, but now he straightened into someone very tall and wide shouldered and somehow remote. “I prefer it,” he said, a guarded note in his voice. “What’s on your mind?”

  She had to hesitate before saying, “I’ve heard that the Governor of the Islands is your uncle.”

  “That’s right,” non-committally. “Did Bill Ramsay tell you?”

  “Not willingly. He thought I knew. If others are aware of it why shouldn’t I be told?”

  “Because it’s not important. The way I saw it was that what you didn’t know you could learn gradually. That day I met you at the airport I made a few tentative remarks before getting down to fundamentals; from your replies I gathered that you didn’t know I had connections with the Governor, and it didn’t seem to me to be the time to tell you.”

  “Why?”

  A shrug. “You’d have thought yourself not good enough to marry into the Garfield family. Ridiculous, of course, but schoolgirls with romantic ideas are made that way.”

  “I’m eighteen, Paul.”

  “Don’t I know it,” he said, and finished his drink.

  She tightened against the hurt. She had seen him a little hard on occasion but not like this. Surely the fact that she had stayed too long at the beach was not the cause of the ... steeliness in him? She, made herself drink the orange juice, took their glasses out to the kitchen and came back to sit down with a book.

  He pushed the letters together, said evenly, “I have to go over to Main Island for a meeting on Friday. Normally, I stay there a night or two, but this time I’ll leave early on Friday morning and get back by eight o’clock. Seeing that you know Bill Ramsay, I’ll get him to come over at about five and stay till I return.”

  “You needn’t. I’ll be all right alone.”

  “I’d rather you had someone here with you.” He picked up the letters and placed them i
n the top drawer of the desk. “I’ll take you over there some time, but not just yet.”

  “Does your uncle know about me?”

  “Of course he knows. I wrote to him the day before we were married.”

  “Doesn’t he want to see me?”

  “He’s not a snob, if that’s what you’re getting at. It wouldn’t worry him that you’re the daughter of a commercial agent.” His smile was sardonic. “He has respect for my good taste.”

  “But he must have thought the way we married was rather ... peculiar.”

  He pushed his hands into his pockets, looked down at her. “There are a good many peculiar things in this part of the world, Lorna, and people don’t question them very much. The old chap was shaken because he naturally thought I’d marry at the Residency, but he’ll get over that and fall for you quite hard. You need have no qualms about Uncle Ronan.”

  “Has he a wife?”

  “She’s his second wife. A trifle cynical and cold-blooded, but I get along with her. There’s a daughter of her first marriage and Sir Roman has a son. The young people are almost the same age.”

  “Quite a family,” she managed.

  “Actually, only Sir Roman and his son, Colin, are related to me, and I expect you’ll like them both. Colin’s a bit volatile for his age, but there’s no real harm in him.”

  “Is it because of your uncle’s wife that you’re not taking me with you on Friday?”

  He answered smoothly, “She’s a middle-aged hawk, Lorna, and you’re a jenny wren. Before you meet Lady Alys Garfield you’ll have to be very sure of yourself—brimful of youth and confidence. At the moment all you have is the youth. I’m not going to subject you to a spate of adult satire which you wouldn’t be able to handle.”

  Keeping a taut rein on her distress she said, “But will I ever be able to handle it? How can one be confident enough to ... to get the better of that kind of person?”

  “There’s only one way,” he said coolly. “A happily married woman can deal with anyone. That’s why I intend to keep you away from the Residency for the present.”

  There was no answer to that. Lorna sat very still, looking down at her book; spots of high color showed in her cheeks and her mouth was compressed, but against her skin the thick brown lashes were appealing and sweet. Paul lingered, regarding her; then he shifted towards the door, saying,

  “Main Island is two hours away by launch, and none of the Garfields ever come here except by invitation. You’re my concern, not theirs. I’d like you to meet the old man some time—and perhaps Colin—but there’s no hurry.”

  “Won’t they all realize in time that my avoidance of them is deliberate?”

  “In time?” He seemed to ponder this; then he asked with a touch of humor, “How long do you suppose it will take to make you into a thoroughly happy married woman?”

  She replied seriously, still looking down at the book, “I wish I knew the answer. I can’t help realizing that I’m inadequate.”

  “You’re doing fine,” he said. “But there’s just one thing, Lorna. You’re occasionally uncertain, aren’t you?”

  “Quite often.”

  “It’s inevitable—but how do you think when you’re uncertain? Do you feel as if you have the world on your shoulders—or do you remember, rather thankfully, that you’re not alone any more, that you can always turn to me?”

  She raised her glance then, to meet his, and she smiled shyly. “I’m hardly ever uncertain about anything or anyone, except you, and it’s mostly small things like ... like not knowing whether you’d dislike having me walk down the road to meet you at lunch-time, or what you’d say if I took an interest in the rubber.”

  “Is that all? My advice is that in that kind of thing you should please yourself—within reason.”

  “But that’s the snag,” she said ruefully. ‘Your reasoning isn’t anything at all like mine!”

  He laughed briefly. “Poor little honey. You don’t know a thing about men, do you—but you’ll learn. If you’re genuinely interested in the rubber I’ll take you round one day.”

  He went out and Lorna sat back. She had mentioned two uncertainties and he had resolved only one of them. The first he had ignored, and she thought she knew why; he didn’t want her rushing out to meet him like a flushed young bride. He had never mentioned it, possibly never would, but there was some aspect of their relationship which had rasped him from the beginning; it was nothing big, merely some small way in which' she had failed him, and apparently went on failing him. That was how it seemed, anyway. If she were more watchful she might be able to work it out.

  As arranged, Paul left Panai early on Friday morning for Main Island. He drove the tourer across the plantation to the coastal village where the rubber was handled, and took the company’s launch which was kept tied up at the landing-stage when not in use. Lorna had no option but to say goodbye to him at the bungalow, and she managed it as casually as he did.

  His big hand ruffled the mid-brown head. “If you get bored go back to bed. I’D bring you a few books and things tonight. Got any special desires?”

  Had she! “Not in the way of goods,” she said.

  “Leave it to me, then. Don’t go far from the house today.”

  “Not even to bathe?”

  “Better not. So long, honey.”

  “Good-bye, Paul.”

  He got into the car and set it moving, raised a negligent hand and was out of sight.

  For about ten minutes Lorna felt forlorn, but presently she was able to face the toast and coffee which Jake had brought out to the veranda.

  The monsoon season was still a few weeks off, and all was soft and pearly with disintegrating mist. The atmosphere was ineffably peaceful, and Lorna remembered her father having once said that the best of the South Sea islands was their all-pervasive sense of freedom. Lorna hadn’t achieved a sense of freedom, of course, but she felt its existence in the islanders, and in Paul.

  She looked across at the couple of wild palms which had been left standing at the edge of the lawn, saw the huge pale brown coconuts up there among the sparse branches. Then she leant forward to get a good view of the couple of flower-beds she had had dug over, ready for planting. By the sound of things there was no laborer in the vicinity, but Jake wouldn’t have much to do today; he could connect up the new plastic hose which Paul, with his tongue in his cheek, had procured for her.

  The day passed slowly but not unpleasantly. Lorna worked lazily, extracting grass roots from the turned soil, raking it over, planting it with the seeds which Jake fetched from his own quarters; seeds, he told her, would germinate within three days, whereas plants transferred from one place to another needed constant care for some time. Lorna mused amid the peace and beauty, made plans for a fruit garden and perhaps an arbor. She went indoors while the sun was at its zenith, but came out again later, to sprinkle the flower-beds once more.

  At four-thirty she showered and got into a clean frock. She drank some tea and put on a gramophone record, went out to pick a few cream and pink sprays of frangipani and brought them back dripping with sticky white juice. The flowers were waxen and unearthy, and fleetingly she thought of the bridal bouquet which Paul had casually tossed to a girl in Panai Town.

  Shadows lengthened; the music drowned the noise of the jeep till it was on the drive and Bill Ramsay was helping a rather shapeless little woman on to the gravel. Lorna snapped off the gramophone and went out to meet them.

  Bill looked slightly harassed. “Hallo, Lorna,” he said. “I promised Paul I’d come along and stay with you, but I’ve just heard that we’ve lost another couple of bales of latex from the latest barge to arrive. He said if it happened again I was to follow the trail while it’s hot, so I’ll have to get moving. I persuaded Mrs. Astley to come over for an hour of two, till I get back.”

  “How nice,” said Lorna automatically. “I’m so glad to see you again, Mrs. Astley.”

  The woman sighed and pushed faded wisps of hair fro
m her forehead. “I hope that’s true,” she said. “I’ve had to leave the preparation of my husband’s dinner in the hands of the servant.”

  It wasn’t a very agreeable start, but Lorna smiled brightly. “Do come in. And thank you very much, Bill. We’ll have enough dinner for you when you’re through.” The jeep roared away. Lorna led the way into the living room and begged Mrs. Astley to sit down. She remembered the woman from her visit to the plantation with her father, but only vaguely. Then, there had been so many visitors to the house that Mr. Astley, the chief superintendent, and his plaintive wife had been only an inarticulate couple among the crowd. But obviously Mrs. Astley was not normally silent.

  She sat down with another sigh and stretched her short legs in front of her. Her shoes were flat and loose, her frock, a Macclesfield silk fashioned many years ago, hung sadly from thickish shoulders, and her hands, surprisingly white and well shaped, were folded together in her lap. Her look of hopelessness was almost uncanny. She was no more than forty, yet the flesh at each side of her chin hung loosely, and there were deep dark grooves below her eyes. In England, she would have been one of those women who are jealous of their own daughters. In the South Seas, she was the epitome of dissatisfaction with everything.

  “Would you like a drink?” asked Lorna politely.

  “I’ll have a spot—gin and lime.” The small pale eyes watched the willowy movements of the girl who was hostess. “I expected Mr. Westbrook to invite us all over to drink your health long before this. It’s most strange that he should keep you shut away here.”