‘Oh.’ That was clearly not the response she had expected.
‘Myself included,’ he went on. ‘I but wish … that times were different. More settled, perhaps. But I am sure you will be happy here.’
‘Will I, Mr Lisle?’
‘We shall all take great care that you are, Miss McGann,’ he promised her, and went down the stairs.
She remained looking after him for a moment, allowing the flush she could feel burning her cheeks to subside, then went back inside.
‘It is nice of you to be so sympathetic to poor Jack,’ Christina remarked. ‘I am sure he appreciates it.’
‘He is a strange man,’ Toni said. ‘He quite gives me the shivers, to think of the emotions that must be boiling inside there.’
‘Yes,’ Dona Carlotta said. ‘Fortunately, he keeps them well bottled up, my dear Antoinette, so there is nothing for you to worry about. Now, what about a game of whist before we retire?’
*
‘How long has Lisle been living here?’ Joe asked Rafael, as they played chess on the verandah the next morning.
‘Oh, a long time. Let me see … Father met him in England, when he was only a boy. That was just after his father had been murdered by the police. Did you know about that?’
Joe nodded.
‘Well, as I say, Father had known Harry Lisle before, and when the tragedy happened perhaps he felt responsible for the son. Anyway, they came to an arrangement … ’ he checked himself, realising he had nearly said something he shouldn’t. ‘I mean, he had very little money, so when he was a grown man, Father offered him a job, and a home, here in Cuba. He did not come immediately. I believe he served in the British army for a few years, in Africa. He came out here in 1885. Yes, eight years ago.’
‘Odd,’ Joe remarked.
Rafael raised his eyebrows. ‘My father is well known for his generosity.’
‘Oh, I don’t doubt that. It’s odd that Lisle should have accepted the position, coming to the very place where his father was executed … unless he was dreaming of revenge. I know your sister thinks that’s why he came here.’
He studied Rafael’s face, but the boy merely shrugged and moved a piece. ‘It’s possible, I suppose. But if he was, he has surely got over it by now. Certainly he has never attempted to take revenge. Christina is a romantic dreamer. She reads all the wrong books.’
‘And yet he has remained here.’
Rafael shrugged again. ‘I think he likes the place. It is an easy place to like, is it not?’
‘Oh, sure it is. I just wondered if there could possibly be any other reason.’
Rafael frowned. ‘I am sure there is not. But perhaps you should ask him. It is your move.’
*
Was the boy lying or not? Combating Joe’s pleasure in Obrigar was the persistent feeling that neither Rafael nor Arnaldo were being absolutely straight with his father or himself about their connection with the gun runners, or the bandits in the hills, or with Lisle. Last night he had supposed he would rather not know the truth. This morning he was not so sure. Because while the possibility that the Diazes were smuggling guns into the insurgents was a sufficiently disturbing thought, it was more on account of Christina than Toni. The feelings he had first experienced for the girl had in no way diminished. Every time he saw her he found her more attractive. But was she too being deceitful? He did not see how her father and brother could be running guns through the plantation and both she and her mother not be aware of it. Was that what there was between her and Lisle? Because there was something. Or there had been once, which was an even more disturbing thought. It was something he had to discover, if he was ever going to have any peace of mind again — because he understood that he was well on the way to falling in love. And despite his contemptuous remark to his father when he had first heard of Toni and Rafael, it had been just about at first sight.
But he had to know about Lisle. He tried tackling Toni on the subject, because of her interest in the man — even if it was obvious only to him — there was something he had to know about. ‘Happy?’ he asked her, as they strolled in the rose garden later that morning.
‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘Isn’t this place heavenly?’
‘Agreed. And Rafael is everything you expected? And hoped?’
‘Of course,’ she said, not looking at him.
‘What about his family?’
‘They’re absolutely charming. Don’t you think Christina is a beaut? I know you do.’
‘Agreed. But also very unusual, don’t you think?’
‘Unusual?’
‘Well … she doesn’t seem to have any boyfriends. With looks like hers you’d expect all the young bloods of Santiago to be crawling around her like flies.’
‘Maybe she’s not interested in men.’
‘Just what do you mean by that?’
‘Well … some girls aren’t. Or maybe she’s waiting for Mr Right?’ Toni glanced at him, slyly. ‘Why don’t you chance your arm?’
‘You don’t think she could be bespoke?’
‘I don’t see how she can be,’ Toni said seriously. ‘As you say, there’s nobody else around, is there?’
‘Well … ’ Joe pretended to consider the matter. ‘There’s Jack Lisle.’
‘Jack Lisle?’ Toni cried. ‘Oh, really! What a ridiculous suggestion.’
‘What’s ridiculous about it?’
‘Well … he has to be fifteen years older than she is, at the very least. And he works for her father. Girls like Christina don’t marry their father’s employees.’
‘I would have said he was more a close friend than an employee,’ Joe remarked mildly. ‘So I guess you don’t like Mr Lisle, right?’
‘I didn’t say that.’ She was flushing. ‘I think we had better go in.’
‘Tell me what you do think of him.’
She faced him. ‘Why should I?’
‘Because I’m interested. You know Father thinks he’s a dangerous man.’
‘Oh … Father has these bees in his bonnet … ’
‘So what do you think?’
Toni tilted her head back to stick out her chin. ‘I think he is a very nice man. Very … very positive.’
‘More so than Rafael?’
‘Oh, really Joe, sometimes you are quite impossible. How can there be any comparison? I am going to marry Rafael. That means Jack, Mr Lisle, is going to be my employee too. So there.’
She stamped off, leaving him wondering just what she had told him.
*
Certainly she had said, chance your arm. Indeed, he wondered, why not. What did he have to lose? But he would have to go about it the right way. This was Cuba, and manners were at once old fashioned and rigid. Besides, where Christina, with her distant friendliness, was concerned, he felt somewhat happier about the indirect approach.
‘Come in, Joe, come in,’ Don Arnaldo said from behind the huge desk in his office, which was piled with paper. ‘Accounts, surveys, work sheets. Had my father not brought me up to be my own manager, and insisted that I maintain this system, I would have abandoned all of this to an attorney years ago.’ He flicked a paper. ‘They rob a life of pleasure. And I have neglected them during your visit. I shall be sorry to see you go.’ He held out a box of cigars.
‘I will be sorry to leave Obrigar, sir,’ Joe agreed, taking one as he sat down. ‘I wonder if we might have a chat?’
‘Why, of course, my dear fellow. Would you like me to close the door?’
‘I’ll do it.’ Joe shut the door, sat down again, and carefully lit his cigar. ‘I know this may sound rather odd, in view of, well, Toni and Rafael and all that, but … I’m afraid I have fallen in love with your daughter.’ He knew no other way but directness.
Arnaldo Diaz leaned back in his chair, watching smoke wreath into the air about him. ‘She is a most lovely girl,’ he agreed.
Which was hardly the answer Joe had been expecting. Not that he had really known what to expect. But he could not stop
now. ‘So I am here to ask your permission to ask her to marry me,’ he said.
‘What a splendid idea,’ Don Arnaldo said. ‘But to be correct, I should discuss the matter with my wife, and with Christina as well, before giving that permission. As you are leaving tomorrow, I promise I will do that immediately after luncheon.’
Once again, not the reply Joe had been expecting. ‘I hope you do not think I am being presumptuous, sir? I’m afraid I must tell you that I can offer her nothing of the luxury she enjoys here, the servants … but I think Rafael will have told you that we manage to achieve a very solid comfort on Long Island … ’
‘Good heavens, Joe, there is no need to apologise, I am flattered. I am sure both my wife and daughter will also be flattered. To have you married to Christina, while Toni is married to Rafael, why, that would surely be to cement our families forever.’
Once again, an odd point of view, Joe considered. He was beginning to feel distinctly put out. ‘But perhaps there is someone else with a better cause than my own,’ he ventured.
‘Good heavens, no,’ Don Arnaldo said. He got up and came round the desk. ‘I am most flattered, Joe, as I have said. I would be delighted were Christina prepared to accept your suit. But … I must ask her first. I know you will understand that.’ He grinned. ‘The days when a father could merely point his finger and say, marry that man, are over, I’m afraid. Perhaps rightly so. My Christina’s happiness is of great importance to me, and to her mother.’
‘And to me, of course, sir.’
‘I am sure of that. You will have your answer by suppertime.’ He clapped Joe on the shoulder. ‘Yes, by suppertime. And I hope and pray it will be the answer you desire. I will speak with them immediately after lunch.’
He hurried off, leaving Joe gazing after him, feeling more put out than ever. Don Arnaldo had been effusive, as he too often was … but he certainly could not feel he had actually been welcomed as a future son-in-law. Damnation, he thought, wishing he had forgotten protocol and gone straight to Christina herself.
*
Toni dressed for dinner with great care. Her last night on Obrigar, for … nearly six months. That seemed an eternity. She would be nineteen, when she returned. But when she returned, it would be forever. Mistress of Obrigar! Mistress of … she gazed at herself in the mirror while the black maid brushed her hair before piling it up, and was disturbed to discover that she was blushing at herself. She could not help it. The most outrageous thoughts kept creeping into her mind.
As Joe had been able to tell? Joe was always sticking his nose in where it wasn’t wanted. For the first time she was glad that, having used up all his furloughs for die year and now needing one next May, he would not be coming home for Christmas.
Of course she doubted Joe had really noticed anything about her feelings for Jack Lisle; he had noticed a certain amount of rapport between Lisle and Christina, and he was clearly falling in love with Christina himself. The great oaf. So why didn’t he do something about it? And leave her alone.
To do what, there was the question. A question she had been rejecting every time it had posed itself, even in the small hours of the morning. She had never met a more attractive man than Jack Lisle. Even thinking about him gave her an odd sensation. The thought of being kissed by him, the way Rafael kissed her, was quite breathtaking. But she was going to marry Rafael. There was simply no way out of that. She had actually considered standing up the other night at the family meeting — just before the arrival of that dreadful little Lumbrera — and saying, no, I don’t want to go through with it. I’ve changed my mind because I’ve met someone I’d rather marry than Rafael. She hadn’t done that, of course. It had been impossible to contemplate the reactions of her own family, much less the Diazes'. And it would have accomplished nothing, because there was no way she could not marry Rafael and then marry his overseer — even supposing Jack was the least interested in her. Besides, he was even an inch shorter than she. As if that truly mattered. Her reservations in the past had been those of a silly girl. Now she was suddenly discovering herself to be a woman.
And what else? A potential wanton? A scarlet creature who would marry a man of whom she was very fond, but who she was sure now she did not actually love, just in order to be near a man with whom she knew she could very well fall in love? What a mess. What a risk!
Yet that was what she knew she was going to do, and she was actually glorying in every moment of it. Besides, there was Obrigar. She had wanted adventure, excitement, to fill her life. Here she was discovering everything she had ever dreamed of. Of course she would never take her relationship with Lisle — of which he seemed quite unaware — any further than dreams. But what was life without dreams, even if some of hers were suddenly of the distinctly criminal variety, such as all the Diazes dying off and her being left owner of Obrigar, with Jack Lisle as her manager … ‘Ow,’ she said, as there was a sharp tug of her scalp.
‘Well, miss, you does be nodding your head so,’ the girl said, so far as Toni could understand her Spanish. ‘Like you had a happy thought.’
Toni bit her lip. Oh, what a happy thought.
*
From the window of his bedroom, Joe McGann looked down the drive towards the cane field and the factory. Even on a November evening, in this climate it remained light until well after six o’clock, and he could watch the peons returning from the fields, straggling gangs of weary men, but happy enough, laughing and chattering amongst themselves. Because this was a happy place. Whatever the insincerities of Arnaldo Diaz and his son, however deeply they were actually committed to the cause of Cuban nationalism, they had the knack of creating happiness as well as wealth, which was not something that could be said of every plantation owner, whether in Cuba or in the United States — or in the West Indies, so far as he had been able to observe. For that they had to be complimented.
And yet they were not happy in themselves. Perhaps the past had something to do with that. Because, however impossible it might be to imagine as he looked down on such a peaceful scene, some ten years ago, in the closing days of the revolution, this plantation had been the scene of a bloody battle, in which a last group of guerrillas had sought to defend themselves against the Spanish troops. With them had been Antonio Diaz. No one knew, or had ever confessed, at any rate, the truth about that. Had Diaz allowed them in, or had he, as he claimed at his trial, been a prisoner in his own home? The prosecution had had no doubt that he had been one of the rebels, even a leader. The defence had won the day, no doubt because Antonio had been one of the wealthiest men in Cuba. But also because he had already been dying of cancer. Thus he had been acquitted, even of the charge of harbouring rebels, for which many a lesser man had been hanged in those brutal days, and the plantation had remained intact for his son to inherit.
As a result of which his son, and his family, suffered great tension, Joe thought, great uncertainty as to their true role in life. He wondered if Toni had observed that. He did not think she had, because she was so very happy in herself. And thus he wondered how much of what he had noticed stemmed from the obvious bundle of tensions that was Christina. Tensions for which Lisle was responsible? Never had he taken such a quick and positive dislike to a man he hardly knew.
And yet, what could he between the two of them? As Toni had pointed out, he was at least in his middle thirties to her eighteen — which gave Joe pause for thought, as he was thirty-two — and she was a perfectly brought up young Spanish lady, however she might baulk at being described as Spanish. And in addition, he had Don Arnaldo’s word that there was nothing to stand in the way of his courting the girl — save Christina’s own will. Yet he was aware of being more nervous than at any previous time in his life.
Arnaldo had promised him his answer by dinner. The Cubans ate quite late, by American standards, but it had to happen within the next couple of hours. He went inside to get dressed, his attentive valet always at his elbow. ‘What I would like is a whisky soda,’ Joe said. His Spanish
was not very good. ‘Savvy?’
The man nodded. ‘A whisky and soda,’ he agreed, and left the room, to return within five minutes with the glass. Joe drank deeply, felt immediately better.
‘Drowning your sorrows at having to leave?’ Jerry asked, coming in for their usual pre-dinner chat.
‘Join me?’
‘Don’t mind if I do.’
The valet trotted off again.
‘We may have something to celebrate, shortly,’ Joe said.
‘Well, in that case, I wish to God you’d look more like it. What, for instance?’
‘My engagement to Christina.’
‘What did you say?’
‘Well, virtually. I have requested the permission of Don Arnaldo to court his daughter. He has gone off to check with both her and her mother, but he seemed quite pleased with the idea, so I rather gather that if their answer is yes, then I’m home and dry.’
‘My dear Joe … ’ his father shook his hand. ‘How absolutely splendid. She’s such a lovely girl, in every way. But … I had rather got the impression that you didn’t care for the set up here.’
‘I don’t. Do you?’
‘I’ll confess I’m not over the moon about it. Especially since that fellow Lumbrera appeared, breathing his insidious threats. But I don’t see how we can veto the thing now. I mean, I don’t think Toni would stand for it. I reckon we must just hope and pray that however sympathetic Arnaldo is to the guerrillas, he has more sense than ever to get involved with them, really.’
‘Quite. However, you’ll agree that the best way we can insure that is to get even more bound up with the family, so that Lumbrera will know they have friends.’
‘That’s a very odd reason for marrying someone,’ Jerry observed.
‘Well … that’s not why I’m marrying her. I’ve just flipped. I dream of her, day and night. She’s … she’s just the most gorgeous creature I have ever seen. But I do want to protect her as much as Toni. Really.’
The valet was back, and Jerry took his whisky. ‘Well, I’m delighted to hear you say so. As I said, I think she’s a splendid girl, and I’m sure she’ll make a great McGann, if she can stand it.’ He grinned, and raised his glass. ‘Here’s to you. And to her. And to us, by God.’
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