by Belva Plain
“Judging by the progress I’m not making, I shall never finish it.”
Nicholas asked curiously, “What is your inspiration? Your family history?”
“Oh, I should imagine so. I’ve been learning more about them since I came here. One, who’d been taken prisoner in the Battle of Worcester, came in Cromwell’s transports. Another was a poor soul from a debtor’s prison. And one was a governor. A mixed bag, as you see.” Francis laughed.
“So you have really come back to stay, have you?”
“Yes, I’ve been in New York a few times to visit my parents, and each time the sight of the city did me in. Eleuthera! It’s well named. It’s my freedom.”
“I wish,” Nicholas said, “you’d finish what you were saying a while earlier, Mr. Luther.”
“Francis, please, if you’re to be Nicholas.”
Nicholas inclined his head. “Francis. You were telling us about some of your plans for this place of yours. Of course you must know that your model village is already being talked about.”
Francis interrupted. “Please! I’ve got ten houses up for my permanent workers, that’s all I’ve done. Nothing for the seasonals. Nothing even worth talking about yet.”
“Don’t underestimate it. That’s a fine beginning, an example to others.”
“I’m not sure how much of an example it will be. I’m afraid, in my short time here, I am already thought of as a troublesome disturber of things as they are.” Francis tapped the table thoughtfully. “However, it’s my money, what little of it there is, and I can tell you there’s little enough! Luckily I don’t crave enormous wealth. I’d just like to pay off my mortgage one day, that’s all.”
“You see,” Patrick said, “you see, Nicholas, why I wanted you to meet each other. It’s a basic attitude, men of good will—” In his eagerness he floundered, feeling himself naïve, his emotion overflowing too visibly.
Nicholas leaned toward Francis. “Our good friends, Patrick and Kate Tarbox, brought me here out of the goodness of their hearts. Let me put things in a nutshell. Now that we’ve at last got universal suffrage, independence is only a few years away. Huge tasks await us. After political autonomy must come economic stabilization. Huge tasks! My party wants to come to power on this island. It’s a democratic party, the New Day Progressives, young men with plans. But—and let me make this clear—we are not radicals. We don’t want to confiscate. On the contrary, we want the support of the planter class, of those more enlightened members of it who will cooperate with us toward greater prosperity for all. And frankly, I need your help.”
“My heart and conscience are with reform, but I’m not a political man,” Francis objected.
“On the contrary, you are. A man who can see a need and take steps, even take one step toward alleviating it, is political. And as Patrick has just said, it’s an attitude. An open-minded attitude. Oh, don’t worry, I’m not asking you to make any immediate public declarations which would embarrass you! I understand your position very well,” Nicholas said astutely. “All I want is to get acquainted with you and to feel that in you I have a mind and an ear to consult with. It’s a gradual process, this bulding of a sympathetic understanding. May I, then, from time to time, have your ear?”
“That surely! I’m always glad to listen. I enjoy an evening visitor anytime. Patrick knows that. I believe I hear the supper bell.”
Patrick’s sense of ease evaporated in the dining room. Now, at this formal table, with Negro servants passing silver platters, he felt acute discomfort. And he wondered what the servants were thinking or would say out in the kitchen.
He looked around. An ill-assorted group, as the world saw it: the whites in their patrician home; the two black children—quiet and well behaved, or they could not have been brought here—with their tight braids; Désirée, silent in her pride and so vivid that the other two women faded by comparison. Marjorie Luther is frosted, he thought. A frosted woman, with fine skin, white as paper. Her silk was pale, her pearls were milky. He embarrassed himself with a flashing image of her in bed with Francis. She would be cool, he imagined, surely not like Désirée! Still, one never knew. And Francis had such great heart! He hadn’t been ready for marriage. He was only now waking up out of ignorance. All this went through Patrick’s mind while he unfolded the napkin and picked up the spoon.
Silence fell over the table. The incongruity of the gathering must have occurred to them all. And needing to break the silence, he addressed the hostess.
“Your cook, I would wager, is from Martinique.”
“How did you know? Is the soup too spicy?”
“No, no, it’s perfect. My mother came from there, and she’s a wonderful cook. You must ask yours to make some of their recipes. Turkey with curry sauce—ah, that’s something to remember!”
“Tell me some I should ask for, then.” Marjorie Luther bent into the candlelight, pretending interest.
“Well, there are steamed palourdes, for instance. Clams with lime.” He sought for something exotic to make interesting conversation. Actually, he had little interest in food. “Acra de morue, that’s codfish fritters with green peppers. A typical dish.”
“I shall certainly try that,” Marjorie Luther said politely.
Silver clinked on china. Father Baker ate with an old man’s greed, attentive to his plate, while Désirée fussed over the little girl and the others were apparently mesmerized by Morne Bleue, which filled the tall windows at the end of the room. This time it was Nicholas who rercued them from silence.
“Do I hear rightly that your mother has thoughts of going home to Martinique?” he asked Patrick.
“She talks about it. I don’t want her to go, but she’s getting older and seems to be feeling some pull toward her family land, or what’s left of it.”
“Do you all know about ‘family land’?” And Nicholas explained. “It’s a concept that has nothing to do with the legal code. It’s custom, out of Africa. You can move away from the land for years, for a lifetime, but if it belonged to one of your ancestors, you have the right to come back and live on it and to eat the fruit that grows on it.”
“And to be buried there,” said Kate, turning away from the twilight on the Morne.
“You know that!” Nicholas remarked in some surprise.
“I’ve learned a few things in my time,” she retorted with a smile.
“In the West Indies,” Nicholas continued, “this land is almost always what was granted to a slave when he was freed.”
“I should be making notes,” Francis said, “for my history.”
“That you’ll never write,” Marjorie added.
“Your husband,” Nicholas said graciously, “has many irons in the fire. The day must not be long enough for him.”
“I hope not too many irons,” Marjorie replied.
“My wife is always afraid I work too hard,” Francis said, apologizing for whatever it was that was going wrong at his fine table in the benign and mellow evening.
Kate threw out a question. “Speaking of irons in the fire, what about the new party? You men relegated us to the lawn, even though that’s what I came to hear about.”
“Oh,” Nicholas said, “we talked a bit. No decisions yet.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Kate said, “because that’s the reason Patrick and I wanted to get you together. Of course, I am always in too much of a hurry, I know.”
Marjorie drank water, picking the glass up and replacing it with a harsh thump.
Kate went on speaking softly and rapidly. “We shall never get anything good done in this place without government. You all know that. Volunteer efforts just can’t do what needs doing. That’s something I never could get across to my husband. Not that he’d work with you people anyway, if I could get it across. He wouldn’t even come tonight and sit at table with blacks, you know that.”
Marjorie picked up her glass again and set it down so decisively that the water, tipping over, made a little puddle on the polishe
d wood. It was as though she had drawn an audible gasp, although she had not.
“Don’t be shocked, Marjorie,” Kate said. “These are my friends. They know the facts of life. I speak openly with them.”
“That you do,” Father Baker agreed. “From the first words you ever spoke.” He looked around the table with fond pride. “I knew Kate before she was born. With all her faults, I love her and I usually agree with her, too, although not always.”
“Not on birth control,” Kate said quickly. “Family planning, I should say. It sounds better and is more accurate, besides.”
“It’s a curious thing,” Nicholas remarked, “how population has become the number-one issue in Central America. It wasn’t always so. Most people, I think, don’t know that during the slavery period there were more deaths than births. The difference was made up for by importation from Africa.” His finely modulated voice took command. Everyone moved to face him. “I suppose to some extent it was undernourishment and overwork, but chiefly it was disease. Now medicine has rid us of yaws and cholera, of yellow fever and typhus. So as a result, we are crowding ourselves off the island. Off the planet, for that matter.”
“Then would you be willing to include the subject in your platform?” Kate spoke earnestly.
Nicholas smiled. “With the usual ten-foot pole, I would,” he said candidly. “After all, you have to get elected before you can accomplish anything. Isn’t that so, Mrs. Luther?”
“Oh, of course,” Marjorie acknowledged.
A consummate tactician, Patrick thought, as Nicholas continued, “It’s a fortunate thing, I always say, when a community has citizens like you ladies. Active, educated women…. Women always have so much more concern for the basics, for the quality of life. I believe your husband said you’re a graduate of Pembroke, Mrs. Luther? My fiancée went to Smith. Doris Lester, from Ohio. I should be honored if you would meet her after we’re married.”
Marjorie took interest. “When will that be, Mr. Mebane?”
“A Christmas wedding.” And he added, Patrick knew, so that there would be no misunderstanding, “Her father is a minister of the African Methodist Church.”
The atmosphere, thanks to Nicholas, had grown lighter. “And have you found many changes here after your time abroad?” Marjorie asked, addressing him but not Patrick, who had also come home from abroad. It is his charm, Patrick, thought, not minding.
“Not really. We’ve been asleep here for centuries. But”—and as if to warn, Nicholas raised his hand—“but let me tell you, change is on the way. We already have daily flights to the main cities of the Caribbean, with connecting flights to here. Eventually we’ll have a jetport of our own, connecting us directly with Europe. All this will affect the way we live and the way we must be governed.”
“It quite makes one’s head swim, doesn’t it?” Marjorie said smoothly. “Unfortunately, I am not at all political.”
“That’s what I said a while ago,” Francis said.
“Everyone is political, or becomes so,” Kate corrected.
“A profound statement,” Nicholas observed pleasantly, as they left the table.
In the car, Désirée complained, “I’m exhausted! All that heavy talk! It’s like carrying bundles till one’s arms want to drop off. If you notice, I barely said a word.”
“It was intelligent conversation,” Patrick objected. “Your father would have enjoyed it.”
“Oh, you and Pop! Tell the truth, weren’t you feeling uncomfortable in there?”
“Maybe a little, but only because of her. Francis is an honest man, an independent. He didn’t have to ask us. He wanted to. There’s surely no advantage to him in having people like us in his house.”
“No? You don’t think he’s counting on Nicholas coming into power? Maybe he’s smarter than the rest of them. Looking out for the future.”
Patrick said loyally, “Even so. There’s more to it than that. Francis Luther likes me and I like him.”
“It’s a queer friendship,” Désirée argued. “Your mother thinks it is. She keeps asking me. It bothers her.”
“Probably,” Nicholas suggested tactfully, “what’s really upsetting her is that she’s leaving.”
“She doesn’t have to,” Patrick replied.
He didn’t say that he had invited Agnes to live with them, now that she was too old to tend the store. No, she had told him, there was no room for two women in one house. Yet she was going back to live with a cousin. And he knew that neither time nor two babies had eased her resentment of Désirée. Indeed, he had once caught her comparing the skin of her arm with his babies’ arms, which were many shades darker than hers. There lay the crux and cause of her anger! Yet in a curious way, and unjust as it was, he could understand and forgive her. Like so many, she was only a victim of universal prejudices. He felt a wave of sadness at losing her; he remembered her long-ago tale of Mount Pelée and how, only a child herself, she had fled to St. Felice.
Désirée spoke from the back seat. “Francis Luther made her have us there today. You can be sure she won’t let any of her friends know she entertained us at her dinner table! Personally, Patrick, I feel humiliated in that house.”
“Forget her,” Patrick said impatiently. “What about Father Baker? Your father can tell you a few things about him. And what about Kate Tarbox? The few services we have, the little we have in the way of hospital care, are mostly her doing. Your father can tell you that, too.”
“All right, Kate Tarbox. I’ll agree,” said Désirée. “But she’s one in a hundred thousand.” She laughed, reflecting, “Did you see Marjorie Luther’s face when Kate said that about her husband not wanting to eat with us? I thought she would go through the floor, not that she doesn’t agree with Kate’s husband herself, Lord knows.”
Nicholas chuckled. “She speaks her mind, that Kate. An interesting character. I have an idea she can be trusted, too.”
“Trust Kate?” Patrick repeated. “Take my word for it, you can do that.”
“The Luther woman is the much better looking of the two, though. She has height, for one thing,” said Désirée, out of satisfaction with her own height. “And she knows how to wear clothes. That dress cost a fortune.”
Patrick objected again. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Kate has life! She has fire! Take a good look at her the next time.”
“Listen to the man! Anybody’d think you were in love with her,” Désirée told him good-naturedly.
Patrick was stubborn. For some reason it was important to defend Kate Tarbox. “She’s real. One isn’t used to a human being like her. Most people wear a mask. She doesn’t.”
“Well, if she doesn’t wear one, she’d better do it soon, or the whole world will see she’s in love with Francis Luther.”
“That’s ridiculous! Women!” Patrick said, shaking his head at Nicholas.
“Marjorie Luther knows it, too. That’s why she hates her.”
“Oh, women!” Patrick repeated, in mock despair.
Nicholas said quietly, “Désirée is right, you know. I sensed it, too. That’s why I made an effort to draw Mrs. Luther out. The art of politics, my friend. You have to have keen perceptions or you won’t survive.”
“I’m not keen at all,” Patrick said, feeling some wistfulness.
“You’re not fair to yourself,” Nicholas admonished him kindly.
They topped the last hill before the descent into Covetown. Pink and silver gilt and rose touched he rooftops, as the great red ball had begun to lower itself into the sea, and this final splendor rekindled some memory of the day’s contradictions.
“Eleuthera,” Nicholas said softly. “Freedom. A beautiful name.”
“Yes,” Désirée said. “You could certainly feel free in a place like that, couldn’t you?”
“Freedom is relative,” Patrick admonished. “You can live in a palace and have a mind so narrow that you might as well be in prison.”
Nicholas teased, “You haven’t chang
ed since we were at school, my friend. I told you then and I tell you now, you should have been a philosopher.”
“Oh, I never know what he’s thinking,” Désirée said affectionately. And as the car drew up in front of their narrow little house, “What I do know is, I could sit on that lawn forever, looking out at the ocean. Do you think people like them have any idea how lucky they are?”
Long stripes of pink and silver gilt and rose lay over the sea as the horizon tilted upward to consume the sun. The four, when the others had departed, sat out on the lawn with their faces turned to the radiance.
Marjorie was the first to speak, underscoring the nouns. “I don’t know about all of you, but I found that exhausting! So much effort to manufacture conversation, especially with that woman. What on earth was there to talk about? That Nicholas was the best of the lot, a gentleman. He seems more like one of us, although of course he isn’t really, either.”
“That doesn’t sound like you,” Francis chided. And somewhat disturbed before the others, he explained, “Marjorie is too kind to have meant that the way it sounded. She’s not a bigot.”
“No,” Marjorie insisted, “No. I did mean it just as I said it. I don’t like having my house used for a political meeting. To me it was a false occasion. Artificial. What can we have in common with those people, or they with us?”
Father Baker answered calmly, “We may have to have—apart from any moral considerations—we may have to have much in common before we’re through. They are going to be running the government here sooner than you think. The British Empire is being chipped away. India is already gone, and the rest of us are going, make no mistake about it.”
Marjorie was in a mildly argumentative mood. “I don’t see why you people are so ready to give up, to humor all these agitators! These people don’t have such a bad life, you know. The climate couldn’t be easier. You go down into the markets and see all those piles of marvelous vegetables and fish and—”
Father Baker interrupted. “Surely you must have learned by now that there’s not nearly enough food to go around and not enough money to buy what there is.”
