by Alec Waugh
The grains of earth rattled on the coffin. The bugle sounded. The rifles volleyed their final tribute. Jocelyn turned away. It was over: or at least that was over. Now her battle began.
Euan was waiting for her at the gate leading from the cemetery.
“I’ve parked the car in the club,” he said.
It was only a couple of hundred yards away.
“Let’s go to that beach where we went the first afternoon.”
She was grateful to him for suggesting that. Let it end where it had begun.
“We’ll get there as the sun sinks,” she said.
“Perhaps I’ll see the green ray at last.”
“So you haven’t seen it yet.”
“Not yet. Whenever there’s a chance of seeing it, I blink at the last moment.”
“Like that night at Belfontaine.”
“Like that.”
He had brought the small Austin. It was a cozy car with a bucket seat in front. Would she ever drive in it again? She supposed she would. The thing would taper off. There’d still be picnics, dances, parties. The sooner she got out of Santa Marta the better. Why couldn’t her parents revert to the original plan and go back in May?
“This business of Colonel Carson must be worrying your father a good deal,” she said.
“He takes things in his stride.”
It was lucky that they had this to talk about: something dramatic, of interest to them both; so that they hadn’t to make conversation. “What do you feel about it yourself?” she asked.
“About Carson?”
“No, about the effect that it’ll have outside the island. It’ll be reported in all the papers.”
“I imagine so, with Bradshaw here.”
They laughed together, with a certain ruefulness. The same thing was in both their minds. It was cozy that they were able to make a joke of this. They really were in tune, talking the same language. It should not be too difficult when the showdown came.
“I suppose he’s afraid that tourists will be scared away,” he said.
“If you were an American going on a holiday, wouldn’t you think twice about going to an island where a white man had been murdered?”
“I suppose I should.”
“Have you heard of a similar incident happening in any other island?”
“Not since the days of the slave revolts.”
“That’s just my point. What’s the general idea at Government House about how it happened?”
“That it was a thief, surprised by Carson’s coming back sooner than was expected.”
“That makes it worse from the tourist’s point of view. If it had been a crime passionel it would have been quite a different matter.”
“And it couldn’t have been that, could it?”
“I don’t see how it could.”
The talk flowed smoothly. They had always felt at ease with one another; right from the very start, from that “welcome here” party at G.H. They genuinely understood each other. It was a pity things had gone the way they had.
It was close on six when they arrived. The sun was sinking fast into the water. It was a cloudless day.
“We should see the green ray tonight,” she said.
They sat in silence, looking toward the horizon. The sun grew larger, redder, yellower; the pace of its descent increased. The sky grew paler as the sun’s color deepened. The edge of the sun touched the sea.
“Only another minute now, don’t blink,” she said.
“I won’t.”
It was less than a minute: the sun was cut in half then only a quarter showed: an eighth, a segment and then unmistakably there was for a second’s span the flash of emerald.
“I didn’t blink,” he said.
“You really saw it?”
“I saw it.”
“So now you’ll admit it wasn’t an old wives’ tale?”
“Haven’t I always believed everything you told me?”
It was ironically appropriate that on this last day they should see the green ray together.
“Let’s go and swim before it’s dark,” he said.
But she did not move. She had had enough of this. It was time to put him out of misery. Besides she wanted to see his expression. She had to make it as easy as she could for him.
“I suppose you and your father discussed that article of Bradshaw’s.”
“Of course.”
“It upset him, didn’t it?”
“On the contrary he seemed relieved.”
“Relieved?”
“He said that it had forced all our hands and that he was very glad about it.”
“What did he mean by that?”
“It always paid, he said, to get the blow in first. There’ll be a lot of gossip in the town. Everyone will be wondering what we’re going to do. We can stop all that gossip by telling them right away. We’ll announce our engagement at once and have a celebration party.”
“He said that, did he?”
“That’s what he said to me last night. I asked him at lunch whether Carson’s death would make any difference. He said heavens, no, we weren’t having public mourning. Carson wasn’t a relative of ours. It’s Friday today. He said we’d cable the announcement to England over the weekend. It should be in the Times on Wednesday. We’d announce in that day’s Voice of Santa Marta that we were having a party at G.H. on the Saturday in celebration.”
“And what did he say about our getting married?”
“I asked him that. He said, ‘First things first. Let’s get this engagement settled, then we’ll begin to think about what heroes in Victorian novels called “naming the day.”’ I thought that rather a neat way of putting it.”
She smiled through the fast falling dusk. Neat. It was much more than that. H.E. was no fool. He’d not only disarmed criticism but with one gesture he’d got the whole colored population of Santa Marta on his side. No one could say after this that G.H. drew a color bar. But that did not mean that he was going to run the risk of having a grandson, the eventual heir, with thick lips and crinkling curls. When it came to marriage he’d stall, he’d raise difficulties, devise separations, play for time, hoping that when Euan got back to England he would find somebody more suitable: not only more suitable, but suitable.
“Let’s go and swim,” she said.
The sea was warm but its fresh cleanliness was a relief, a solace after the long tiring day. She came out of the water first; sat on the sand where they had sat on that first picnic. Much had happened since. Then he had been concerned with Mavis. He was a young man on a holiday; after eighteen months’ active service he had wanted a lighthearted casual romance. Mavis had seemed accessible. He had not been looking for a wife.
He was not in a marrying mood. It was all a mistake this talk of marriage. She had known it from the start. For a little, she had let herself be dazzled by the prospect of a new way of life. But the dream had faded now. In one way she was relieved.
She rose. The sand flies were beginning to sting.
“I’m not going in again,” she called.
She dressed quickly. It was the bad hour for mosquitoes. She raised the windows of the car. She had a sense of peace, completer than she had known since that day he had proposed. All along since then she had felt in a false position. Now she was in control. She knew exactly what she wanted.
“Have you got to be back at any fixed time?” she asked him.
“I told my father not to wait if I wasn’t home by eight.”
“There’s a grocery store three miles farther on. We could get a tin there and some biscuits and some rum.”
They drove out to a strip of headland. There was no moon, but it was a cloudless evening; the stars created a dim twilight.
“Are you hungry?” she asked.
“Not desperately.”
“Then let supper wait.”
She switched on the radio, twiddled the knob, picked up a dance band in Puerto Rico. He might want to talk; she did not want
to have him talk. There was nothing that needed saying. She lifted up her feet and tucked them under her, leaning against his shoulder. When she had seen herself as his future bride, she had felt herself restrained by a sense of loyalty, both to her parents and to his father. You could not cheat behind their backs those who had trusted you. It was different now. She had made a pact with herself. She was never going to marry Euan. She was going to do what she liked.
Chapter Seventeen
1
At Belfontaine, Sylvia and Maxwell sat alone on the veranda. The long slow day had passed with no car swinging round out of the roadway. Maxwell had started each time that he heard the drone of the engine, his ears alert, hearing it roar louder and then die away. In Jamestown they were talking of Carson’s death; in the village they were talking of it: in every bungalow along the road it was the first topic of conversation. To this house alone no news of the drama had penetrated, the one house where it mattered.
“Shall we have one more swizzle?” Sylvia asked.
He rose to stir it; any action was a relief. Enforced inaction had set his nerves ajangle. He must do nothing out of the ordinary. He could not drive around to see the Prestons, even though he had a reasonable excuse to discuss the changeover when Jocelyn and his parents went back to England. It would be so unusual an occurrence that the Prestons would remember it afterwards; “As a matter of fact,” Preston might say, “young Fleury did strike me as being in rather a curious mood that night.”
He had a reasonable excuse for going down into the village to the police station, to arrange about his speech tomorrow. But he had thought it safer not. He had sent a message by his overseer. He had told his overseer to have the speech announced in the village and to send a boy on a bicycle round the estates that lay within his area.
The overseer had come back an hour ago.
“Everything fixed?” he had asked.
“Yes, sir, everything O.K.”
“Has the boy started out?”
“Yes, sir, that boy has gone.”
Maxwell had looked at him, waiting, in the hope that he would make some addition, start a conversation, but nothing came. The man seemed in a hurry to get away; probably to continue the argument about Carson’s death. He would have to wait till the next day; perhaps till the paper came.
He spun the swizzle stick, beat the rum and ice with its flavoring of lime and angostura into a froth, then filled the glasses. He remained standing as he drank it. He could see the lights of the village twinkling across the bay; the wind rustled through the palm fronds; the bullfrogs were croaking by the stream; far away in the hills he could hear the beat of drums. Life throbbed and pulsed on every side of him, yet he had the sense of being completely isolated here with Sylvia; all this life and living round him, with he and she apart from it.
“Shall we have dinner now?” she asked.
“We might as well.”
She rang the hand bell at her side. A minute later the maid came onto the veranda. “All ready, mistress.”
As she rose from the chair, tonight as on the previous evening, he passed his arm round her waist. “You’re all I’ve got, you’re my whole world,” he said.
There was a tremor in his voice. He means it, she thought. What had happened to him these last two days? He was a changed person. Before he had wanted her, now he needed her. It made all the difference.
2
It was after twelve when he rode back next morning from his tour of the estate. Had Bradshaw arrived yet? He looked for his car but did not see it. He was glad he hadn’t. It would be easier if he learned the news from the paper. The paper must have arrived by now. Had Sylvia already seen it? Most likely not. He rode round to the stables, handed his horse over to the groom, entered the house by the back door.
“Hullo there,” he called out.
“Won’t be a second.”
The answer came from the bedroom. He hurried through onto the veranda. No, no paper there. He turned into the dining room; not there either, nor in his study. He paused, puzzled, on the brink of calling out to ask where it was, but checked himself in time. He had never before shown any anxiety about the paper. He had to watch himself all the time. He went into his dressing room to shower before lunch. Perhaps the paper was in the kitchen, tossed there by the carrier, and because there had been no mail, Matilda had not bothered to bring it up. “I’ll get the punches ready,” he called out to Sylvia. That gave him an excuse for going down into the kitchen.
His guess had been correct; the paper lay on the kitchen table; he started, half stretched out a hand, then checked. Would he do that normally? No, of course he wouldn’t. He’d tuck it under his arm, laying it aside as he set out the drinks, then opening it out later with some such remark as “Why one bothers to get this rag at all, I can’t imagine.”
To test his self-control, he took as long as possible setting out the glasses, the savory biscuits, the nutmeg, the angostura, the freshly squeezed lime juice. Then he returned to the veranda.
“I hope that journalist isn’t going to be late,” he said. He opened out the paper. Now.
He blinked. There it was, right across the front in one black streamer. “Murder of Colonel Carson”; then a line of single columns. “Governor Attends Funeral.” “Police Refuse Interview.” He stared transfixed, then pulled himself together. He could not sit here staring; that would not be the normal thing to do.
“Darling, something appalling’s happened, look.”
At that moment a car honked in the road; “Ah, there he is.” He handed her the paper. “Have a quick look at it. I’ve not had time to read it. We’ll get the dirt from Bradshaw.”
Bradshaw could not have come at a better time.
It was Sylvia not he who was asking the first questions. Her voice expressed a mingling of horror, excitement, curiosity.
“It’s terrible, Maxwell’s just shown me this. We haven’t read it yet. Tell us all about it.”
Maxwell looked at her quickly. Did her face, did her voice express anything but the obvious emotions? He didn’t think they did. And she had been taken off her guard. If there had been anything between herself and Carson, she would have betrayed it surely at this moment. Carson, too, had looked surprised in that moment of accusal. Perhaps there had been nothing in it. His jealousy had invented the whole thing. None of this need have happened.
“Tell us all about it. When did it happen, how, where? Is anyone suspected? Who discovered it?”
Her questions rattled one on top of the other with an eagerness that could not have been feigned. No, there’d been nothing in it. There couldn’t have been. He had the proof now of that. None of this need have happened.
He handed Bradshaw his punch and sat beside him. “Is there no possibility of its being suicide?” he asked.
“None at all. It’s quite clear how it happened. He had his head banged against the floor while he was being throttled.”
“What is the police theory?”
“They are refusing to commit themselves, but the general idea is that he surprised a thief, and the thief turned on him.”
“Had he anything to steal?”
“I don’t suppose he had. But the thief wouldn’t know that. He’d think any white man’s house was worth an attempt, and that the best time to try was between six and eight, when he’d be at the club. And so it would have been ninety-nine times in a hundred. I don’t suppose Carson has ever left the club so early since he’s been here.”
“Why did he leave so early?”
“You heard about that, surely.”
“Heard about what?”
“His scene with Leisching.”
“No, I heard nothing.”
“But you were in the club that night. We had a talk.”
“Carson wasn’t there then, at least I didn’t see him.”
“But didn’t you hear about the row?”
“No, I heard nothing. Tell us.”
Bradshaw recounted the incident. If
there hadn’t been that row, Maxwell thought, Carson would not have left the club so soon. They would never have met, he and Carson, at the corner of that unlighted lane. It had been a question of two minutes either way. And if Carson had not got involved in that ridiculous scene with Leisching, he would not have been in the belligerent mood from which the quarrel had sprung.
“I must have only just missed that scene at the club,” he said.
“By about a quarter of an hour I should say.”
“Then if what the police think is true, and Carson surprised a thief when he went back, I must have passed within earshot of his house at the very moment when the fight took place.” He turned to Sylvia. “I never bothered to mention it to you, but I walked that evening to the club. I was worrying about that article of yours, Mr. Bradshaw. I knew that they’d all be wondering how I’d take it. I wanted to clear my mind; I may have been walking past the house at the very moment… to think of it—if Carson had shouted I must have heard him, but of course he couldn’t shout, because he was being throttled.”
“That’s so. He couldn’t shout.”
“But if he had, and I had heard him. It’s strange, isn’t it? I might have saved his life.”
He was watching Sylvia closely. Her face had expressed no sense of personal shock. She had been startled, amazed, curious. But nothing in her manner suggested that the bottom had fallen out of her world. There probably had not been anything between her and Carson. It was something he had imagined in view of her coldness to him; a coldness that he realized now was simply a confirmation of the old adage that love came afterward. In the light of the last two nights he could not believe that Carson had meant a thing to her. He should have let himself be convinced by the incredulity in Carson’s voice. But he had been in no mood then for reason. None of it need have happened.
“If I’d left home a few minutes earlier I’d have met him in the street,” he was continuing. “We’d have stopped and gossiped. He might have asked me in for a drink. Probably he would have done. He must have been feeling lonely, after that scene at the club. He would have wanted to talk it over with someone. We were quite good friends you know, although he was so much older. I expect he would have asked me in; then we’d have found the thief there. It so easily might not have ever happened.”
