Caribee

by Christopher Nicole

  He lay on the sand, and watched the moon drifting across the sky before beginning its plunge into the ocean beyond. Watched, too, the first pale fingers of dawn creeping across the Caribbean Sea before him. Those fingers he had watched too often, and not many of the memories were pleasant.

  He got up, stood on the water's edge, gazed at the endless dark sweep of the Caribbean, and listened to the soft crunching on the sand behind him.

  'An early riser?' Anne Warner asked.

  'As are you, madam.'

  'Anne,' she said. ‘I sleep badly. I am too excited. I have dreamed of this island for too long.'

  He turned. She wore an undressing robe, and her hair was loose. 'And now it is all yours.'

  She smiled. 'Surely it is yours as well? Will you walk with me?"

  'Madame....'

  'Anne. If you will not call me Anne, then you must call me Mother. The choice is yours, but be sure I shall respond to your choice. Your father is disturbed by your aloofness, and I am disturbed when your father worries. I would walk, and I know nothing of this island or its creatures. I wish you to accompany me.'

  He fell into step at her side. 'There is nothing on this island for you to fear. No animal, at any rate.'

  'You have destroyed them all? But then, have you not also destroyed anything human I might fear?'

  'Yes,' he said. ‘I have destroyed them all.'

  She walked up the beach, and gazed into the forest. They were beyond the limits of the burnt out tobacco fields, now, and where the path hacked through the trees commenced. 'What lies beyond there?'

  'Another house, once. Hal Ashton's plantation.'

  'Can we go there?'

  ‘If you feel you can walk five miles.'

  'Ah.' But she walked down the path anyway. In a moment they were lost to sight from the beach. 'Why do you dislike me, Edward?’

  ‘I do not dislike you, Anne. Perhaps I am still too surprised at discovering you here. My Father had not suggested that he was proposing to marry again.'

  'And of course, he had the Indian woman to warm his bed,' she remarked. 'But a savage can only be a poor substitute for comfort.'

  'And you seek to give him, comfort?'

  ‘It is my duty, as a wife.'

  'And duty is everything.'

  She stopped. ‘I would have you explain that remark.'

  ‘I meant that you made a strange choice of husband, to come half way across the world to a life which must necessarily lack the refinement of that you have known, and which does possess a certain aspect of danger as well, all for a man old enough to be your Father, and indeed, I would estimate, somewhat past the age at which he can be a father.'

  'There is quite a speech. Would you have me repeat it to Sir Thomas?'

  'You may if you choose, madam. I am known for my forthrightness.'

  Her forehead was clear, although her cheeks were pink. ‘I see,' she said, and continued her walk. ‘I am well aware that it is unlikely I shall be blessed with motherhood. But then, it is a mixed blessing, is it not, leaving as it does the woman incapacitated for long periods, and no doubt shortening her life into the bargain, and leaving her, too, at the mercy of that most debilitating of instincts, the desire to protect her child.' Her head half turned. ‘I assume you have no objection to my being forthright?’

  ‘I respect you for it.'

  'Good. And then, of course, I may also claim to have a ready made family, might I not?" ‘Indeed, madam, if you choose.'

  Once more she stopped. ‘I do so choose, but I would order it, also, as I choose. I see myself as the link between your father and yourself, between his ideas of how such a colony as this, such as a community as tins, should be governed, and yours. For make no mistake. I am aware that your points of view are as different as it is possible to suppose. He has told me all he can remember of you, and every opinion he has ever held of you. He respects you from the bottom of his heart for the part you played in recent events here, but he knows too that you are less of his son than, say, Philip, when it comes to opinions and ambitions.'

  'My brother and I are different, madam, most certainly. Yet we have proved that we can work well in harness.'

  'As brothers should. But there cannot be a joint governor, in St Kitts.'

  'Madam, you project too far and too fast. My father may not provide you with all the satisfaction you desire in your bed, but he is very far from approaching death.'

  Her head came up and her eyes seemed to gloom around him. 'You are very blunt, sir.'

  ‘It was a quality you desired, but a moment gone.'

  'And you, of course, know much about satisfying a woman in her bed, Edward, with your French lass.'

  ‘I am a man, madam. As perhaps you have observed.'

  ‘Indeed I have.' She moved suddenly, grasped his hands. ‘I would not quarrel with you. Edward. I shall not quarrel with you, no matter what may occur. I brought you here this morning because this last fortnight I have sensed your mistrust. You have asked yourself questions about me, and found no answers. I would have you ask them of me. Indeed, there is no need. I married a man old enough to be my father. As you have just said, he is still a man, and at the Court of King Charles there are not so many of those to be found. Besides, England is an oppressed country; the very air is heavy with the taint of treason and mistrust. Your father promised me a new life in a place where the air is sweet. I believed him. I still believe him. Do I love him? I will say truly, perhaps I do not, as a girl should love her husband.' The fingers were eating into his flesh as she reached for breath. Her voice lowered. 'And yet I would be an empty-headed little fool did I not consider my situation in its every aspect. I have left all behind, for the sake of Tom Warner, and his St Kitts. And his family. He is not an old man, yet he is approaching age. And who may say when death will strike? Then indeed I would be at your mercy.'

  'My mercy, madam?'

  She smiled. Her breath rushed against his face. 'Perhaps not in law. Your father has written a new will, in winch he has appointed me executrix. I have a certain knowledge in these matters.'

  How casually she let it slip. But her eyes continued to shroud him, seeking his reactions. 'You are fortunate, madam.'

  She pretended to pout. 'How many times have I asked you to call me Anne? Now I beg you, Edward. I look to that future, while determined to play my full part in the present. Thus I could not bear to have you opposed to me. Give me your friendship, Edward. More. Give me your love. Do not look on me as a mother. And especially as a stepmother. Look on me as a sister, and be sure that I shall be the truest sister man could ever possess, could ever desire, an eternal source of aid and comfort, and of love, Edward.'

  He gazed at her, from a distance of not more than six inches, shrouded in breath and eyes, in perfume and anxious womanhood; her lips were parted and her teeth gleamed at him. By Christ, he thought; Yarico was right. Sister? She means to make more sure of me than that

  With a violent tug he freed his hands. 'Are you mad, madam? As well as criminal?'

  She frowned, and stepped back. ‘You had best explain.'

  'No, no, madam. You take me for a fool, I think. Is my father that old and decrepit? Are you that voracious? I have a sister, who lies dying in England. I shall have no other. And I do not lack for lovers, I assure you.'

  She smiled yet again; her mouth widened while her eyes remained cold. 'You should be careful how wildly you speak, Edward. Sir Thomas is presently well disposed towards you, but he still has much to remember, and he would take it badly should you insult his bride.'

  'His....'

  ‘I am that still. Certainly to him. He trusts me, for that very patience with which I submit to his inarticulate desires. For the very frustrations which I so willingly suppress in order not to embarrass him. He values me above all other creatures, Edward. You would do well to remember that.

  Only those who have my trust and support can prosper here.'

  He stood in impotent rage, and then turned and stamped d
own the path.

  'And be sure you regain control of your temper and your expression before you reach the beach,' she called after him. 'Or shall I have to explain to your father how you sought me privily in order to assault me, at least with words?’

  He checked. But to go back would be fatal. And yet, now that their enmity had come into the open ... he burst through the trees and ran down the beach. Tom Warner looked up from the plans over which he brooded with Harry Judge, while early as it was the sound of axes rang through the still air, and the morning chattered with vibrant activity.

  'Edward? What has happened? You look as if you have met a ghost.'

  'And did not Lady Warner accompany you?' Judge demanded. 'No harm has befallen her?'

  'No harm, sir.' Edward said. 'Father, I have come to a decision.'

  'A decision?' Tom queried.

  To leave this place.'

  To leave St Kitts? By God.' He looked past his son to where Anne Warner was just emerging from the path. 'You have quarrelled with your stepmother. I saw it coming. Now come, I will have a reconciliation.'

  'No, Father,' Edward said. 'She but confirmed a resolution which has been running through my mind for some days.' He became aware of people, downing then tools and waiting, and listening, to hear the outcome of this crisis.

  'And you'd leave? To go where? These islands are your home. Your past and your future. Above all, your future. I'll not have it.'

  'Nor would I leave these islands, sir. You offered me Nevis.'

  'And you refused. I have appointed Tom Hawley.'

  ‘I know that, sir. But does not your dream encompass more than just these islands?' He chopped to his knees, marked the sand. 'Here is St Kitts with Nevis just south of it, and Montserrat farther south yet. Bastions, you could say. Here on the west is the open sea. Naught to fear from there, once this island is held. But to the east, where the remainder of the Leewards cluster fast... you'd do well to have an outpost in Antigua.'

  'Antigua, by God,' Tom said.

  The boy is right,' Judge said. ‘It is something I meant to discuss with you.

  'But it will take more force than I can spare. There are Caribs on Antigua.'

  'Not many, to be sure. And I am used to dealing with the Indians, Father.'

  'And I will go,' Yarico said.

  Tom gazed at her, frowning.

  ‘Philip?' Edward asked.

  Philip flushed, and glanced up the beach to where Anne Warner waited. I'd as soon have done with fighting and pioneering.'

  So he had already been made the object of her advances.

  'Well, then,' Edward said. ‘I must recruit from amongst your people, Father. Not more than a dozen will be needed. With Yarico and my wife.'

  "There is another problem,' Tom said. "The banns are not yet completed.'

  "Then forget the banns,' Edward shouted. 'We can be married this afternoon. You are ruler here. You make the laws and you dispense with them, when the occasion arises.'

  'And this is such an occasion?" Tom demanded. 'You come bursting out of that wood with all of the impetuous haste I remember and dislike from your youth, and claim that everything must be done to your satisfaction on the instant? I had looked for your support, here in St Kitts.'

  'You shall have my support, in Antigua. I swear it.'

  'And will you not need mine, in even greater proportion, while I have not the means to provide it?'

  ‘I shall call upon you for nothing, Father.'

  'By Christ, if I could understand what is happening,' Tom said. 'Anne, sweetheart, can you explain this situation? You have heard what this madman wishes?'

  Anne Warner came down the beach, her hair fluttering in the slight breeze. ‘I have heard, Sir Thomas. And I understand. I think your son feels constricted by his surroundings, since our arrival. He is too used to having the entire island at his disposal, at his command. You have told me how he was ever a wayward youth. And how he was ever a disappointing youth, while bound by your laws and your penalties. And we have all seen how he has blossomed forth into a veritable leader of men, when forced to his own devices.' She was close now, and smiling at Edward. ‘I say let him fulfil his ambition, and yours, and spread the Warner wings a few miles farther afield.' The smile was cold.

  11

  The Carib

  ' ‘Tis not so mountainous as St Kitts, to be sure,' remarked Peter Willett. He stood on the poop deck of his ship and conned the approaching shore through his glass.

  'And green,' Edward said. If anything, greener than St Kitts.'

  'Unless it is merely because it has not been burned out so many times,' the sailing master observed. 'And like all these pesky islands, it has naught but an open beach. It is my opinion, Master Warner, that the true reason the Spaniards have ever passed the Leewards by, and the Windwards, is that they like their ships to he secure during the storm months. And so do I, or any sailor. Lacking proper harbours, these colonies you and your Father plan will never be aught but huts scattered along a shore.'

  ‘I have no doubt that you are right,' Edward agreed, peering through his own glass at Antigua. 'But as these islands are all our present situation permits us to inhabit, why, we must do the best we can, and hope that one day fortune will be our friend.' He frowned, his eye pressed hard against the copper rim of the telescope. 'As, by God, she may well have elected to do. Is that not a break in the shoreline, Mr. Willett?’

  The sailing master frowned in turn, and checked his compass. They had sailed round the southern end of St Kitts, taking the narrows between the Christ child and Nevis, and with the wind, unusually, in the north west, they were now beating up towards the southern part of Antigua, where the island was to some extent flat in the front it presented to the sea. ' 'Tis a fact the beach ends, and then resumes some distance farther along. But I would say it is naught but an outcrop of rock, and best avoided.'

  'Mr. Willett,' Edward said. ‘I do believe you are a pessimist. Look at the beach, man. Even on the sand there is a thin line of white. If that darker area were rock there would be endless surf. But there the water is unbroken. We'll stand towards it, if you please.'

  ' 'Tis your father's ship we risk.'

  'And my father's instructions were for you to set me ashore where I chose. And I choose that bay, if indeed it is a bay. If not, with the wind where it is, we shall have ample time to run back out to deeper water. I would have you stand in. Now.' He left the poop and went down the ladder to the waist, pausing for a moment at the top of the next ladder to consider the group huddled there, staring at the land which was to be their home. If they could make it so. There were eight of them, five of them hardly older than himself, already opting for the increased danger but, they would be hoping, increased freedom of the sub-colony, removed from Tom Warner's iron discipline. The other three men were married, and had their wives clustering close, homely females, pink cheeked and buxom, peering with anxiety at the forested slopes ahead of them. They too were young enough to work hard, and not yet burdened with the problems of motherhood. He had had to refuse two couples because they already had children. He had no means of knowing whether survival, even for adults, was possible on Antigua.

  Much would depend on Yarico, the only mother. She stood by herself, as she nearly always stood by herself. Except for little Tom, of course. He never left her side, and whenever he seemed tired, he was in her arms. Father had insisted that she wear a gown on St Kitts, but today she had once again reverted to her loin cloth, and remained, as ever, an entrancing and bewildering sight, the more so to the white women than to anyone else, he supposed. She gazed at the approaching land without expression. There were her people there, and only she would be able to talk with them, freely. Not even he would know what she would be telling them, just as not even he fully understood what went on inside her mind. She looked at ease and at peace. But then, she had looked at ease and at peace when she had stood close to him at his wedding ceremony, yesterday afternoon. Throughout the festivity she had stared at
him, and none other.

  Aline stood by herself, close to the rail. Anne Warner had found new clothes for her to wear, but no doubt with some malice, had dressed her as one of the ordinary women, in a plain grey gown with a high white collar, which shrouded her figure in a shapeless sack. But Aline had refused the equally anonymous white cap which the other women wore, and had left her hair free and undressed, save for a bow at the nape of her neck. And no garments could hide the splendour of that face. Yet today it was not laughing. This morning, when she had dressed herself, and regarded herself in Anne's glass, she had burst into a shout of that tremendous sound he had almost forgotten. For now she was married. And yet, not married. They had spent not a moment alone since the deed had been pronounced. Of course there had been far too much to be done, with the accumulating and listing of all the equipment they would need, with the farewells, with the celebrating which had gone on long into the night. But for that morning on Mount Misery she would yet be a virgin, although a bride of more than twelve hours. Yet she had herself shown no great anxiety to be with him. No doubt she was as apprehensive as himself. And now? She glanced at him, as he approached, and then looked away again, pink spots in her cheeks. Aline Warner. Assuming that Anne Warner would see to it that Little Tom never took his rightful place, Aline was the cornerstone of the Warner dream, the woman on whom the continuation of the family in the West Indies would depend.