Eden Burning

by Belva Plain

  The sweet night fell in a jalousied room above the garden of Cade’s Hotel.

  She woke once from half sleep. “Have you ever had a white girl?” she asked him.

  “No,” he said, astonished.

  “Why not?”

  “I never wanted to.” He could have had them, prostitutes, near-prostitutes, and once the sister of a Cambridge Fellow. Piqued by curiosity about him, no doubt. A novelty, he’d have been.

  “Funny,” Désirée said.

  “Not funny at all. Anyway, I don’t want you to talk like that.”

  He drew her to him. The dark, dark beauty of her! Warm perfume of windblown grass and sun, fragrance of night, of woman and earth! He had it all, all he would ever want, this one only, no other. Flowers, moist on a ledge in the unexpected corner of a desert. The blue eye of a lake on a towering mountain. Landfall after a long, long voyage.

  SEVEN

  Ruin, on the day it descends, is actually no more sudden than is disease. The rot that is cancer was not created in the instant of discovery; slowly, unrecognized or only unacknowledged, it has long been making its secret way. And so it is with the secret disappointment in a marriage or with a financial collapse.

  For some time Francis had been aware of trouble behind the closed door of the inner office. With hints, frowns, questions, and long silences, his father had revealed that something of consequence was happening within the company. It had to do with an enormous, risky loan, a grandiose project and unreliable people—in short, a gamble. Canneries and food processing were involved; as news leaked out and auditors, hastily summoned, moved in and out of the rooms pulling papers from file drawers, it came to be spoken of by some sardonic underlings (although never where they thought Francis could hear, for after all, he was a partner’s son) as the Tomato Scandal.

  It was as the Tomato Scandal that it burst at last onto the front page of the morning papers. In his newly furnished dining room above Central Park, Francis read: RESPECTED FIRM TO GO UNDER, S.E.C. INVESTIGATORS REVEAL.

  My God! How had his father allowed this to happen? And did it really merit a two-column headline? At the same moment he knew it was naïve of him not to understand that the failure of such a house as Luther, Baines and Company was front page news, indeed. He broke out into a sweat.

  “What is it, Francis? You look as if you’d been struck by lightning,” Marjorie said.

  “I have been.” He handed the paper to his wife.

  While she read, he watched her. They had been married for only eight months, and he was still not over his surprise at having won her, who was so smooth and assured, so different from himself. He was still not accustomed to the sight of her, fresh and animated as she was even in the mornings, wearing her silk robe and with her short dark hair perfectly in place. Her lips moved as she read—he always teased her about lip reading—and he wondered what she could be thinking about this failure of the family which she had so recently joined. She had very high concepts about duty and honor and status. Her own family was not rich, but it had distinction, and she was, he knew, very proud of that. He had met her at a cousin’s party. Funny, he hadn’t even wanted to go that night, either. But his father had been distressed when he had mentioned that he might not go, so he had gone, and there she had been.

  His father had been distressed about him for more important reasons, too. He was thirty years old and he still hadn’t done what was expected of him, namely, joining the firm. Instead, he had gone to South America with the Peace Corps; he’d taught school on an Indian reservation in New Mexico; he’d worked as supervisor on a dairy farm in upstate New York. He’d embarked on a master’s degree in history. That’s what he’d been doing when he met Marjorie.

  A tall girl with magnificent dark eyes, she had a cool, quiet manner that said “quality.” But it had been her voice that drew him. Funny, to be so moved by a simple thing like a voice, so that you kept coming back and back and couldn’t stay away. It was like listening to the rush of water or staring into flames. Even her laughter soothed him, registering somewhere, he estimated, in the middle strings of a harp—he knew little about musical instruments—it soothed him, giving promise of tender and exquisite delights.

  He had almost come to blows with his cousin.

  “She’s a cold fish, Francis. Not your sort. Can’t you see she’s not your sort?”

  His cousin hadn’t understood! He had common tastes; naturally, Marjorie’s classic calm, her classic reserve, would baffle him. As for himself, he was entranced. She was like no girl he had ever known.

  It had been only sensible, upon marrying her, to go into his father’s firm. After all, he’d had his years of leafy wilderness and exotic places; having Marjorie meant, of course, supporting her. So he had been well aware of his good fortune in being able to embark so easily on the new life; to have this dining room with a view of the park where on Sundays they went bicycling or skating together, this bedroom where they lived their lovely nights.

  Marjorie laid the paper down. “We ought to go over there,” she said.

  “Over where?”

  “To your parents. It’s only right that we should be with them.”

  Yes, of course it was. Marjorie would see that.

  The scene in the dining room of his parents’ house was the same as the one they had left. Coffee cups had been shoved aside to make room for the spread newspaper. His mother was reading it; Margaret was dribbling the milk from her cereal spoon. His father, who was standing at the window, turned around when Francis and Marjorie came in.

  “Why didn’t you tell me it was this bad?” Francis asked gently.

  “You couldn’t have done anything.”

  That was true enough. More to the point, he wondered what he could do now. He sat down beside his mother and put his hand on her arm.

  Richard observed the gesture. “It’s your mother I feel for,” he said. “I thought we could get out of it quietly. But the damn newspapers—”

  Teresa looked up. A familiar vein twitched in her cheek and her lips were tight, as if her hand had been pressing them shut so that whatever passion or rage was within might not be allowed to escape. Francis had seen that, often enough. It was nothing new.

  After a moment or two she spoke.

  “Richard, I don’t care about that. Today’s scandal will be forgotten next week. All I care about is that my children don’t suffer because of this.”

  “I suppose,” Richard said, in a shaky voice, “I suppose what I should do is commit suicide. Like Wayne Chapman. You remember when Chapman, Searls and Fitler crashed twelve years back and Wayne went out the window?”

  “What would that solve?” Teresa asked.

  Prattling, Francis thought. His father’s appalling offer, which he intended to be so tragic, was only foolish melodrama. His mind turned and turned.

  “There’s the property on St. Felice. It’s Mother’s, so it won’t be touched by all this.”

  Teresa spoke again. Her voice was flat, without accusation, and this very flatness made it all the more accusatory. “The property on St. Felice is gone and has been for a long time, Francis, except for one piece, my grandfather’s rundown place in the north. I learned that this morning.”

  “Gone?” Francis echoed. “I don’t understand.” He looked from one to the other of his parents.

  “Tell them, Richard,” Teresa said.

  “Well, you see, expenses were high and with so much tied up in securities—” Richard faltered.

  Fool, Francis thought.

  “I had to raise cash from time to time. So I disposed of the properties. Oh, I got a fair price for them, I didn’t throw them away! Herbert Tarbox bought them for his son, for Lionel. I always got a very fair price—I can show you all the documents.”

  Francis ignored him. “So your brother, your half-brother, has it all,” he said to his mother.

  “Not everything,” Richard corrected. “There’s the place your mother mentioned—”

  “El
euthera,” Teresa said, sighing.

  Francis demanded scornfully, “Why didn’t he buy that, too?”

  “He didn’t want it.”

  “And you did all this without Mother’s knowledge? Just like that?”

  “Not just like that. From time to time, over the years. I had power of attorney. She never knew anything about business, anyway.”

  Richard turned back to the window. Francis followed his gaze to the back yard, where a late, wet snow was falling on what in a month’s time would be a showy bed of imported tulips.

  And suddenly, the incredulous outrage in Francis melted into pity. His father was totally gray: his hair, his face, his flannel suit. His wrists, with the fine watch—“the most expensive watch in the world,” he had boasted—were helpless as the hands of the dead. Poor, proud fool. The world, his particular world, would judge him with contempt; it had small patience with failure. Almost, Francis could feel more sadness for him than for his mother, who would, as always, weather what she had to.

  Someone had to take charge. “So Eleuthera is left,” Francis said. “We’ll sell it and put the money in trust for Mother. Let’s see what we can get for it.”

  Richard took up the idea. “Yes, yes, I can write to Lionel to put it into the hands of a local agent.”

  Francis made a swift determination. “No Lionel. No local agent. I want to take care of it myself.”

  His mother started. “What do you mean? Go there in person? Go down to St. Felice?”

  “Why not? It’s the only way to get anything done. Do it yourself.”

  “That’s ridiculous! You don’t know anything about the area! You’d be wasting time and energy. What do you know about property values down there? It’s ridiculous!”

  “Not at all,” Francis said. Excitement mounted in him, the adrenaline of anger, adventure, and action. “How energetically will Lionel pursue your interests? Maybe he would and maybe he wouldn’t. No, I’m the one to go.”

  “I don’t want you to, I said.” The pulses in Teresa’s neck were visible. Her cheeks were dark red. “That long trip—it’ll come to nothing—”

  “I can’t understand your objection,” Richard spoke timidly. “Unless you’d prefer to have me go. One of us really should.”

  “You have enough to handle here,” Francis told him.

  “No one listens to me!” Teresa cried shrilly, pathetically. Her calm, that air of being able to stand up under any amount of pressure, was suddenly shattered. Certainly, she had had enough of a blow this morning to shatter it. Yet strangely, or so it seemed to Francis, she was more distressed by the prospect of his journey than by the crumbling of their fortunes. And why?

  But he laid his hand on her shoulder. “Leave it to me, please, Mother,” he said gently. “I’ll work things out.” Firmly he added, “Marjorie and I will leave next week for St. Felice. And you’re not to worry, hear?”

  The light crashed down from the sky, stunning the senses like a bugle call in the morning.

  “My God, how marvelous!” Marjorie cried.

  They had been standing among bundles and crated chickens on the schooner’s deck since dawn, watching the landscape emerge from the sea in a haze of lavender and gray where day encroached on night. A Turner, thought Francis, who like his father frequently conceived of reality copying art, rather than the other way around. Now, in one instant in this shower of light, everything clarified itself: a clump of roots, a line of surf, a steeple.

  The man beside them at the rail, a seedy fellow of uncertain age with a wry mouth, had been talking for the last half hour. He was “in dry goods, shoes, overalls, nigger wares.” Francis had started at the ugly word.

  “Been coming here since before the Depression. Missed the war, naturally, but now I’m back on the old route. Things are no different. The nigger is still the nigger. A lazy animal. Give him rum and a woman, that’s all he wants.”

  There was no place to move, or Francis would have moved away.

  “You folks putting up at Cade’s Hotel, are you? It’s the only place in town except for some dirty boarding houses. You’ll see some funny types at Cade’s. Salesmen like me, of course, but mostly English tourists. Retired army people and professors. They come to hike around and study birds. You folks putting up at Cade’s?” he repeated.

  “No. We have relatives here. We’re visiting.”

  “Now, I’ll bet, I’ll just bet, you folks have come for the wedding!”

  “Wedding?”

  “Some planter’s daughter. Tarbox, one of the big owners, is marrying the governor’s son.”

  Francis wished he were more adept at lies and evasions.

  “We’re related to the Tarboxes. And there is to be a wedding, but not until next month.”

  “Oh. It was in the papers, anyway. So you’re related,” the man said, with sudden respect.

  Ah, well, poor guy, Francis thought, making the swift change from disapproval to forbearance which was so typical of him, poor guy. Now we have become important.

  “You planning to stay long?”

  “Not very.”

  “You wouldn’t want to. It’s a dull place. Hasn’t changed in three hundred years. Why, there are parts here without roads, just trails into the mountains! Nobody comes here much, as I told you, except millionaires on their yachts. They like out-of-the-way places. They drop anchor in the harbor, go ashore for a drink with the planters at the country club or the men’s club in town, no women allowed. Some of these planters, boiled-shirt types, are worth their weight in gold, but some of them are dirt poor, up to their ears in debt. I wouldn’t take the whole island as a gift.”

  They were well into the bay. At one side stood the remains of a fort, surmounted by cannon, which even now pointed at the schooner as it approached.

  “Used to take potshots at pirate ships,” the salesman said, showing off for Marjorie. “Cannon like those look small, but they can do a lot of damage. Some of the planters used to keep one on the roof for when the niggers went killing on the rampage. It could happen again today, too; it’s not farfetched, let me tell you. And when they do, it’ll be bloody. You’d better hope you won’t be here when it happens.”

  The words fell like a shadow on the morning.

  “Yes, these islands have seen a lot of blood.”

  Francis shaded his eyes. The streets were steep, for the town had grown up the side of the hill. The center was a three-sided square, the street along the waterfront marking its fourth side. He could see arcades and wrought-iron balconies: the French had left their mark.

  Someone was throwing coins into the harbor. Two black boys dove off the dock and retrieved them. The salesman, laughing, dug in his pocket.

  “Nigger kids sure can swim! Well, I’ll bid you good-bye. Enjoy your stay. One thing, you’ve got to hand it to the climate here. Always a breeze. And it won’t start raining till June, but you folks’ll be gone by then.”

  “He didn’t paint a very good picture,” Marjorie said.

  At the foot of the gangplank a colored man tipped his straw hat.

  “Mr. Luther, suh? Mr. Herbert sent the station wagon. He say welcome to St. F’lice and excuse him, please, it being banana day. They waiting lunch for you at home.”

  A fragrance, half-sharp, half-sweet, struck Francis in the face. There was languor in it, the perfume of blooming things, mingled with the sea smell of salt and tar. His heart accelerated.

  How many generations since the first François had set his foot down in this place? “In the year of Our Lord sixteen hundred and seventy-three—”

  He was embarrassed by his own emotion.

  “But surely,” said Julia Tarbox, for the third time since their arrival, “you knew young Julia’s wedding was tonight.”

  “We thought it was next month,” Marjorie said. She was flustered, which was unusual; Marjorie didn’t fluster easily. But Julia had authority.

  “I thought I had written Tee that we’d advanced the date. Not that it mattered,
since she wasn’t coming anyway. Of course it’s marvelous that you’re here. Shall we?” She pushed back her chair and everyone rose from the lunch table. “We’ll have our drinks on the veranda. There’s a breeze.”

  The long veranda faced a lawn so brilliantly green as to seem unreal. Beyond the flower borders and a low white fence five or six horses grazed in rich pangola grass.

  “Oh, how lovely,” Marjorie said.

  “Yes, isn’t it? Lionel’s place is, too, in a different way. They’ve a view of the water. He and Kate were so sorry to have missed your wedding, but the trip would have been too much for her after her miscarriage.” Plantiveness crept into Julia’s voice. “I never could understand how Tee could have stayed away all these years! And not to come for her sister’s wedding! We managed to come up for yours! And yet, you know I wasn’t even there when she herself was married. I don’t know—her grandfather sent her abroad and the next thing I knew she was married. She was scarcely grown. I don’t know.” No one said anything. And Julia brightened, clasping her still youthful hands. “At least it will be festive tonight! You know, here in the privacy of the family I can admit there’s something dreamlike about it all. Julia marrying the son of Lord Frame!” She sighed, then turning to Francis, said abruptly, “So your father has managed to lose everything, has he? To tell you the truth, I’m surprised it didn’t happen long before this.”

  Herbert Tarbox coughed. “Isn’t that putting it too strongly, Julia?”

  “The truth is the truth.”

  “The truth is not always easy to know.” Herbert’s firm voice surprised Francis; all during the lunch he had deferred to Julia. “I’ve known struggle in my lifetime. Women don’t know what it is. It’s not just getting money, it’s holding on to it. You’ve got to have luck with you.” His big red hand clutched the glass of rum on the armrest of his chair; his big red knees bulged from his khaki shorts. “I want to say something to you, Francis. You must be having some thoughts about the sale of all this property. I’d like you to look at the papers, so you’ll know that I paid your father top price for every acre.”