by Belva Plain
“Shouldn’t they be in school?” Francis asked.
“They leave in crop time to help out. They need the money.” And as Francis made no comment, Lionel added, “Trouble is, these people have too many kids; they can’t possibly support them all.
“We’ve got a central mill in town now, a big change from the days when each estate had its own mill. If the island were large enough, we could have a railway to get the stuff there faster. You can’t let the stalks lie in the sun a minute too long or the juice will ferment, and then it’s no good.”
At the farthest boundary of the property lay the village, like all of them that Francis had seen. He had a quick impression of rotting wood, bare dirt, chickens and goats, before they moved on.
“I’ve got a tip-top manager, but even so, it’s not the same as when you’re on the job. Oh, I could get myself a house in town or on the beach and drive out here every couple of days, but I like to keep an eye on the ball myself. And my dad does the same. That’s why he survived when so many others went under. You’ve got to know business, too, dealing with commission merchants; they take options on your crop and then at the last minute decide they’ve overbought and turn you down. It’s tough.” Lionel sighed.
I don’t see him married to Kate, Francis thought, surprised that this intrusive thought should have come into his head, when actually he had been listening with real interest to all this information, so new and different from anything he had ever known.
They trudged on. “Yes, that’s why you have to have at least two export crops to make it pay. Bananas are the best. They require very little care except pruning. Of course, nothing’s perfect! There’s a pesky little animal, the taltuza, something like a rat, that eats the roots. And we’ve had Panama disease—that’s a fungus—but for once the government acted promptly and we wiped it out with lime.”
They had walked uphill away from the cane toward the Great House. Two fawn-colored horses whinnied delicately behind a fence.
“Kate’s pets. She’s an expert horsewoman, but she treats those two like lap dogs. Comes of having no children, I suppose.”
Francis was silent.
“The doctor says she can’t have any. Took her ovaries out after the last miscarriage.”
“I’m sorry,” Francis said.
“Yes. Well. So, we were talking about bananas. It looks easier than it is, let me tell you. You’re at the mercy of world markets, depressions, and wars. During the war you couldn’t ship, at all, naturally. Now sometimes the ship is overloaded; you’ve got your load on the dock and they won’t take it on. So you leave it there for the goats. And sometimes the inspectors reject your stuff—when there’s nothing wrong with it, mind you; it’s just that they’ve got too much and they want to keep the price up on the other side. Tough. Yes, we’ve had some hard times here. And now there’s all this talk of independence. I tell you, your head can swim. Still, it’s home, it gets under your skin. I wouldn’t leave. At least, I don’t think I ever would.”
“You’ll be managing Drummond Hall for your father when he goes?”
“Yes, Kate will help me. She’ll keep the books, ride over and look around. Another pair of eyes.” They reached the steps. “I’ll drive you back to Father’s. I’d ask you to stay to lunch but Kate’s in town. I’m to meet her at half past twelve.”
Francis felt the sinking of slight disappointment. Ridiculous! “That’s all right. You’ve given us a lot of your busy time. It was especially nice of Kate to take us to Eleuthera that day.”
“Oh, she loved it! She loves traveling around, showing things to visitors. She’s a good girl, Kate is. You know,” Lionel said, with embarrassment sitting oddly on his bulk, “the other night at the wedding, maybe you thought I was a little hard on her…. You don’t have to say whether you did or not. We get along fairly well, she and I, only her problem is she’s a bleeding heart and it’s going to get her into trouble some day. That’s the fact of it, and it makes me sore as hell.”
He did not want to see Kate exposed. And he repeated, awkwardly, “Well, you’ve all been very good to us.”
“Anything we can do, just ask. Anything worrying you, just speak up.”
“Nothing worrying us, except Marjorie’s being afraid she hasn’t brought enough clothes for all the hospitality!”
“That’s no problem. Try Da Cunha’s. They’ve got French dresses and what-all stuck away in the back. Marjorie could outfit herself for two years to come.”
“We shan’t be here that long, I’m afraid.”
“You’ll be here longer than you think. Unless you just want to go and leave things in the hands of Atterbury and Shaw.”
“I may have to do that. But what I’d really like is to have a nibble before I leave. And I think—it’s nothing short of miraculous—but I think we may possibly have one. I don’t know whether he’s a land speculator or what. Fellow from Puerto Rico. Well, we’ve cut the price to the bone, that’s probably the reason.”
Lionel nodded. “It’s the only way.”
And they drove back to Drummond Hall.
Mr. Atterbury saw Francis to the door. “My man expects to hear pretty quickly from his lawyers in Puerto Rico. I think it’s fairly safe to say we’ve got a sale, Mr. Luther.”
Francis, thanking him, held up two crossed fingers. He had left the borrowed car parked in the back of the building, but for some reason he did not feel like returning yet to the tennis-and-lunch regime at Drummond Hall, and he went on down Wharf Street, past the classic Georgian facade of Barclay’s Bank to the square.
It was market day, and the town bustled with real life: he had already drawn a distinction between the “real” life of the island and the suave amenities of his relatives’ homes. Busses from the country were still bringing people in, barefoot women wearing home-woven straw hats and cotton dresses in every imaginable electric color. Children of every age darted among mounds of bananas, breadfruit, fish, and coconuts. Yellow dogs—all the dogs here seemed to be of one variety so that, although they were mongrels, they had almost evolved into a breed—prowled in the shade and scratched at their mange.
Francis stood for a while observing this animation, then walked around the corner. At the orphanage he stopped to listen to a rehearsal of the children’s choir; he had heard them sing on the previous Sunday at the cathedral service. The orphanage was opposite a cemetery. He walked across the street and leaned over the railing, thinking that this would be, after all, an agreeable place in which to spend eternity! Date palms and palmettos framed the space; the graves were elaborately trimmed with conch shells. In the cool, fragrant morning air, the pure child voices sang “Now Thank We All Our God.” And feeling a pleasure serene as a beatitude, he waited until the hymn had ended.
Now quite familiar with the map of the little town, he turned into the arcades. The leaning houses with their narrow windows and crumbling iron lace balustrades might, were it not for the deep black shade of the fig trees in the yards, have been standing on the Place des Vosges in Paris. At the next small square he paused before a round bronze plaque set in the middle of the pavement. It was still legible: “In this place on the eleventh of July in the year 1802 Samuel Vernon, late a member of His Majesty’s Council, died by hanging for the murder of his Negro slave Plato.”
“Gruesome, isn’t it?”
Kate Tarbox smiled from under a large native straw hat. “This one went a little too far. It amused him to watch men being beaten to death. Even his peers got disgusted with him, finally. So they tried him and hanged him.”
Francis shook his head. “A very complex society!”
“Oh, yes! And it still is. What are you doing in town?”
“Just ambling about. And you?”
“I have a little office over there. The Family Counseling Service. Yes, I know it’s like trying to empty the ocean with a soup spoon. I saw your raised eyebrow.”
“Did I raise it? I didn’t mean to.”
There followed then th
at moment of indecision during which one can either speak the few graceful words necessary to terminate the meeting or else take up another subject which will prolong it.
Francis said, “I was thinking, as long as I’m here, I might pick up a few presents to bring home. I thought maybe, do you—would you make a suggestion?”
“There’s always Da Cunha’s. I don’t know what you want to spend.”
“Something middling, let’s say. A pin or some beads, maybe.”
“Da Cunha’s, then.”
They walked back through the market square. Francis felt conspicuous; he was so tall beside her, and he was used to walking next to Marjorie, who was almost his height. In high heels she was even with him; they were known as a handsome couple.
He needed to say something. “I don’t recognize half these vegetables. Those are beets and cabbage, of course, but what’s that stuff?”
“Akee. That’s cassava. Those are pomegranates next to the melons.”
“Pomegranates? Like the Bible?”
“Like the Bible. Those are tamarinds, that’s sour sop. And plantains, they taste like bananas, but we serve them hot. And there’s breadfruit.”
“As in Mutiny on the Bounty.”
“Right! Captain Bligh brought it from Tahiti. Easy feeding for the slaves. You can practically live on it. Here’s Da Cunha’s.”
An exotic black girl with waist-length hair came forward.
“Désirée,” Kate said, “this is my friend—no, my nephew. I’m his aunt by marriage, isn’t that ridiculous? Anyway, this is Mr. Luther. He needs to buy some presents.”
The thick, arched walls were of the eighteenth century. The ceiling fans, placidly whirring, were of the nineteenth. Singapore and Somerset Maugham, Francis thought. Liquor and crystal, porcelain and silver, made a lavish sparkle. In a glass-covered case lay a discreet selection of diamond watches.
His negotiations were few. Having quickly made his purchases, a doll for Margaret (who was twenty-four), three silver pins for his mother and remaining sisters, and some cigars for his father, they left the shop.
“Isn’t she a beautiful girl?” Kate asked. “I always feel so insignificant beside her. An African princess.”
“She is beautiful, but you don’t have to feel insignificant beside anyone,” he said, with automatic gallantry.
“She’s married to a schoolteacher. Her father’s a labor leader, Clarence Porter. A friend of mine.”
“Of yours and Lionel’s?” Francis inquired cautiously.
Kate laughed without mirth. “No, certainly not of Lionel’s.”
And he remembered having had, on the ride to Eleuthera some days before, an impression of melancholy, of loneliness and exclusion.
“How about lunch?” He spoke abruptly.
“I’d like that.”
“You name the place, then.”
“There is only one place outside of the country club. Cade’s Hotel on the other side of the harbor.”
From light they entered into the dimness of mahogany. A few men were seated at lunch among the dark portraits. They went out again into light and took a table in the shade of the garden wall.
Kate took her hat off. Her bright hair, released, curved about her freckled cheeks, grazing her chin. He had a sudden memory of Marjorie in the bedroom, of her clear pronouncement: Oh, yes, she undressed you with her eyes. He went warm with embarrassment.
But Kate’s eyes now were on the menu. “The fish is always good. It’s deep-sea, mostly. Abrecca, ballahou, salmon, grunt—”
“I’ll have salmon. It’s the only one I recognize.”
They settled back. Her hand, resting on the table, displayed a large, square emerald ring which he had not noticed before. It was in perfectly good taste—son of a flamboyant father, he was critical of excessive display—yet it did not seem to belong to this particular woman, with her simple dress and sandals, her simple manner. Marjorie would have worn it with flair and style. Too bad, because he could not afford, and probably never would afford, to buy one for her.
“You’ve really got rid of Eleuthera? A lot quicker than we expected.”
“I think so. Of course, the lawyers have all sorts of papers to go over, still.”
“So then you’ll be leaving.”
“I should go home now, but if it’s only a matter of another week or two before we get everything signed up, it’s probably wiser for me to stay and see it through.”
“You’ll come back.”
“It’s not around the corner. What makes you think so?”
Her face crinkled in a smile. “Oh, those long tides will bring you. And the wind and the clouds on Morne Bleue.”
“The clouds on Morne Bleue. I said you talk poetry, didn’t I?”
“Seriously though, there’s a lot you haven’t seen. Christmas and Old Year’s night, what you call New Year’s Eve. Do you like calypso? Steel bands?”
He nodded.
“You ought to hear the real thing at carnival time, not what they give you in tourist hotels on the big islands. Everybody ‘runs mask.’ The costumes are marvelous, and the singers make up original songs; they’ll make one up about you if you ask. The streets are jammed. It’s a circus, a revel. You have to see it to believe it. Then on Ash Wednesday it’s all over.” She snapped her fingers. “All over, like that.”
“Well, maybe I will see it sometime.”
“How odd that your mother, who grew up here, never told you about it! But perhaps,” Kate reflected, “she might have had unhappy memories. Not getting along with a difficult mother—”
“If I have heard that once,” Francis interrupted, “I have heard it a dozen times: ‘How odd that your mother never talked about St. Felice!’”
Kate was astonished. “I’m sorry. I really didn’t mean to pry.”
He was ashamed, then, of his irritability. “No, I’m sorry—”
She shook her head. “I do say things that are too personal, I know I do. It’s a terrible fault. I should bite my tongue for saying that about your grandmother.”
“Don’t bite it. I haven’t been fond of her either, the few times in my life that we’ve been together. I don’t suppose it’s easy being her daughter-in-law.”
“She tolerates me, barely. That’s because of my ancestry. I have excellent ancestry.” She chuckled.
“Tell me!”
“Well, we were planter families on both sides, who lost everything when the slaves were freed. By the time I came along there was no money at all. My father had been beautifully educated, in England, naturally. He was a clergyman, a good friend of Father Baker’s, who’s sort of kept an eye on me since my parents died. He’s a wonderful person, not one of those clergymen who mouth forth. He believes in works.”
He wanted to ask, How ever did you come to marry Lionel? but of course did not.
And just then she said, as if he had actually asked the question, “Lionel wanted to marry a girl with colored blood. He’s still in love with her. Naturally, that was impossible, so he married me.”
“I see!”
“She won’t admit it, which is shameful, although it’s not her fault that she won’t. It’s the world’s.”
“Then how do people know?”
“Everybody knows everybody else’s ancestry. And most people are related to each other if you go back far enough. For instance, I’m related to the Da Cunhas about six generations ago. One Jew, back there, and the rest Scottish and French since then.”
He wanted to know more, but she said merely, “I used to go in for genealogy when I was young. I’ve more important things to do now.”
“When you were young!” he mocked.
“I’m thirty. I’ve told you.”
“So am I.”
“You look older. I imagine you always have. You feel responsible for things, for people.”
“As a matter of fact, I do,” Francis said thoughtfully.
Noontime stillness lay like a warm hand on the little garden. Whe
n they had first sat down, birds had been flickering, but now they had gone to rest and there was no sound except the drip and splash of water from the mouth of a stone cherub set into the wall.
… but of course that was impossible, so he married me. The words kept repeating themselves in his head.
“Have I bored you with all my talk?”
Francis started. “Bored? No, keep on, please.”
“Lionel says I’m a walking storehouse of useless information.”
“Not useless to me,” he said graciously. “Tell me, those odd trees on the other side of the wall, what are they?”
“Sabliers. Sandbox trees in English. They used to fill the seedpods with sand and use them to sprinkle parchment. Feel better, now that you know that?”
“Oh, much! Now another: What, exactly, is Creole?”
“It means someone born here who is purely European, that is, purely white. Anything else you want to know?”
“Dozens of things, but right now I’m enjoying the fish.”
… of course that was impossible, so he married me.
“I suppose you do some traveling?” he asked.
“We went abroad on our honeymoon. Lionel is serious about work, though. So we don’t go very far very often.”
“Do you feel you’re missing anything, do you feel that an island is confining?”
“Not really. People in large cities like to talk about all the things going on there—six orchestras, four ballet companies, a dozen theaters—but when you pin them down, actually most people don’t do very much of all that. I have a record collection—it’s my chief extravagance—and a good piano. Books are a problem, though. Our bookstore is small and things have to be ordered. It takes forever.”
“I’d be glad to send you stuff when I get home. Or,” he corrected himself, “Marjorie will, if you send a list.”
“That’s very good of you.”
“Tell me what else you do besides reading and playing the piano and riding your horses and the—Family Counsel, is it?”
“You’re not laughing at me?”
“Why ever should I do that?”
“Some people do, you know. I’m thought to be eccentric. Not practical.” She folded her hands under her chin. Her nails were unvarnished; only the emerald glistened. “But I see myself as very practical. You’ve seen how people live here; aside from its not being morally right, it isn’t wise to allow it to go on, because the day will come when they won’t accept these conditions anymore. People like Lionel want things to stay exactly the way they are, but even a child can see that they won’t.”
