Island in the Sun

  Island in the Sun

  by Alec Waugh

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter One

  1

  Maxwell Fleury rarely smoked. He was on that account peculiarly sensitive to the odor of tobacco. The moment he came into the house he was conscious of the scent upon the air of a cigarette stronger than those which his wife and sister used.

  He crossed into the drawing room.

  It was three o’clock on a February afternoon. The windows were open to combat the West Indian heat and a breeze was blowing from the hills. Yet the smell was stronger here. He sniffed. Turkish tobacco or Egyptian. Who would smoke that kind of cigarette, foreign, expensive, and exotic, in this remote obscure little British island?

  He glanced at the ashtrays by the sofa; no cigarette stubs. Only someone with an acute sense of smell would have known there had been a visitor. Who had been here? At breakfast there had been no talk of plans. His mother was visiting in Barbados. His father had been with him all the morning, going over the estate accounts in the office. They had lunched together at the club. Who had been here besides Sylvia and Jocelyn?

  He turned to go upstairs; he needed his siesta, but with his foot on the first stair he stopped. The smell had again grown pungent. There was a lavatory underneath the staircase. He opened the door leading to the toilet; the wood seat was raised; a man then: who?

  From outside came the crunch of wheels. Then the sound of voices; Sylvia’s and Jocelyn’s. No third voice. They came into the hall, chattering and laughing; their hand-baskets bulged with towels; they were sandy and disheveled. He stepped toward his wife; he liked her this way; she seemed so much more approachable than when her blonde hair lay smooth above her ears, with her cheeks masked with make-up and her skirt falling from her waist in level folds.

  He let his hand fall upon her shoulder; her skin was damp under her blouse; her flesh was soft and yielding; but he was conscious of a movement of withdrawal.

  “I’m hot and sticky. I’m for a shower right away,” she said.

  “I’m set for a siesta too.”

  “I took mine on the beach.”

  “Were there many there?”

  “The usual bunch. The Kellaways, most of the younger set, and Mavis.” Mavis was her sister.

  “How’s Mavis?”

  “Fine: her heart’s nearly mended. I’ll tell you later.”

  She bounded up the stairs; supple and slim and rounded.

  “I’m going too,” said Jocelyn.

  He turned toward her. She must know who had been here this morning, but his pride would not let him question her. Besides, was she on his side? She and Sylvia had always been loyal allies: they had been known as the inseparables, she and Sylvia and Mavis.

  In silence he watched her follow his wife upstairs. They should be such close friends, he and she. Just the right difference in age, three years, twenty to his twenty-three. Most men would have thought of her as the perfect sister, friendly, good-natured, easily pleased and easily amused, pretty and fresh and blonde, with a strawberry and cream complexion and very even teeth. Women liked her, men were attracted by her. Why hadn’t they become the friends they should? His fault, he supposed, as usual.

  Self-doubt and self-distrust fretted him as he undressed. What was wrong with him? What was there about him that put people off, that held people back? He stared at his reflection in the glass. He was tallish, athletic, strong; he had regular features, a pale complexion, smooth dark hair. What had Sylvia against him? He never flirted; he didn’t drink. He was crazy over her. No one could call him “a bad match.” The Fleurys might not be rich—who was in the West Indies now?—but they were one of the oldest families in the islands. Their estate house was quoted in every guide book as one of the finest survivals from the patrician days when the sugar islands of the Caribbean had been the focal point of European foreign policy, and the phrase “rich as a Creole” had been in general use. When Sylvia got bored with living in Belfontaine, she was always welcome here, in Jamestown, in his father’s house. What more could she want? What more, as the daughter of a Barbadian bank manager, could she have hoped for, here in Santa Marta with its perennial lack of eligible males?

  He stretched himself dejectedly under the mosquito net. There was a party at G.H. that afternoon to welcome the Governor’s son on a vacation visit. He needed sleep, but his mind was racing.

  The door-handle slowly turned and Sylvia stole in.

  “It’s all right, I’m not asleep,” he said.

  As she sat at her dressing table, brushing out her hair, he could see her reflection tripled in the three-sided mirror. There was not an angle from which she did not charm him.

  She began to talk about the party.

  “I wish you could have been on the beach today. All the girls are frantic about H. E.’s son. Doris found a photo of him in a back number of the Tatler. He’s certainly good-looking. They’re all saying the same thing, that he can’t have any entanglement or he’d not be coming here. They’re so many Cinderellas; it’s not surprising; he’s not twenty-two yet and a title.”

  She chattered brightly on. No reference to that unknown visitor. Jealousy tore at him. She had never loved him, in the way that he did her. At first he had scarcely noticed. That kind of love, he had assured himself, came afterward, in a woman’s case. It hadn’t though. He had tried to content himself with what she gave him: a passive, nonchalant acceptance; but all the time there had been that niggling torturing suspicion, that sooner or later there would come, there must come into her life the man to whom she could respond.

  Was this that moment? Why hadn’t she mentioned that male visitor? Who had smoked that cigarette?

  2

  The Governor’s son, Euan, had arrived in Santa Marta on the previous evening. For the last eighteen months he had been stationed in the Canal Zone on military service. His father had felt that after so dreary and at times dangerous an assignment he deserved a holiday before going up to Oxford in the autumn.

  As Maxwell Fleury tossed with racked nerves under his mosquito net, a mile and a half away, in the long low colonnaded building half up the hill, on whose terrace from a tall white flagpole the Union Jack was flying, Euan’s father, His Excellency Major General the Lord Templeton issued his final instructions for the party to his A.D.C. Captain Denis Archer.

  Ostensibly the party was being given in the young man’s honor but a secondary project was involved. The proprietor of the Baltimore Evening Star, Mr. Wilson P. Romer, was in transit on a winter cruise and it was desirable that so influential a personage should carry back with him to America a favorable impression of the island.

  “The native West Indian,” the Governor was saying, “is highly susceptible to American opi
nion. Harlem is to him what Mecca is to the Arab—the spiritual and cultural center of his race. He places higher value on a paragraph in a New York paper than a pronouncement from the throne. If we handle Mr. Romer tactfully, articles may appear in the American press that will make our work here easier.”

  He spoke with the firm confident voice of one who is accustomed to giving orders. He was in the early fifties, gray-haired, of medium height with a trim, spare figure, and a military bearing. His chief feature was a long straight nose.

  “But I’m not only concerned,” he was continuing, “with the effect that Mr. Romer’s articles will have upon the Santa Martans. I want the Americans themselves to be assured that we are pursuing here a democratic policy. Americans in the light of their own history distrust the colonial principle; many of them suspect, and naturally, that the money which they are pouring into Europe under Marshall Aid is being spent by us not in helping backward peoples but in strengthening our hold over them. I want to convince Mr. Romer that even if we are batting on a tricky wicket, we are keeping our bats straight.”

  Lord Templeton frequently illustrated his addresses with similes and metaphors from the cricket field. He had been a prominent and successful player. Many considered that he had only been prevented by his military duties from earning an England cap at Lord’s.

  “Mr. Romer,” he went on, “can do us a great deal of good; he can also do us a great deal of harm. We must ensure that he does the one and not the other.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The Governor looked at Archer sharply. Nothing could be more deferential than his A.D.C.’s manner, but, now and again, his voice assumed a tone that inspired misgivings. Had he been wise in his selection? For a widower such as himself, the need for a satisfactory A.D.C. was primary. Before World War I, it had been easy enough to find healthy, athletic young men of family and education, who were glad to occupy amusingly and inexpensively three of the dozen years that must be spent in relative obscurity before they inherited the family estate. But now, after the second war, it had become difficult to find competent, responsible, well-bred young men who were ready to give up three years to an occupation that had no future. The job needed very definite qualifications, and the fact that many of those qualifications were of a type more often to be found in women than in men, had led to embarrassing situations in more than one Colonial establishment. Templeton had been on his guard.

  On the whole he was satisfied with his choice. Denis Archer had literary ambitions; that did not predispose Templeton in his favor, but it provided a reasonable alibi for a young man’s readiness to spend three apparently purposeless years in the West Indies. Archer had a good war record and played reasonable tennis; he was tall, blond-haired, and had an effective profile, but he did not look a poet. He washed, his hair was a little long, but it was tidy; his ties were uneccentric. Finally the General had learnt that his time at Oxford had been cut short on account of an injudicious friendship with a woman student. That clinched the matter. Whatever Archer was, he was not “one of those.” He might, he decided, go farther and fare worse.

  Three months’ experience of Archer’s capabilities had confirmed that first impression. He might have fared worse, but occasionally he felt apprehensive. “When in doubt, play back,” he told himself, and continued his instructions.

  “The color problem,” he said, “is one on which Americans are touchy. Mr. Romer must be shown that as far as Government House is concerned, the various sections of the community meet on equal terms. The party must not, that is to say, be allowed to form itself into separate groups of white, near white, brown and black. If you see such groups forming, break them up. I want Romer to meet representative members of the community, men and women whom he can describe on his return as types. I shall of course make a certain number of these introductions myself; a man like the Attorney General is flattered at being especially selected to meet a visiting fireman. At the same time Romer must not feel that his hand is being forced; some introductions must be made by you.”

  An invisible attendant of the scene would have concluded, “Here, now, is a typical example of the Englishman who from the day of his birth until his death never questions, never needs to question the essential foundations of his faith. As a soldier, and as the eldest son of a fourth Baron, his path of duty and responsibility has lain clear. The crown, the altar, and the hearth, those three allegiances have ruled his life.”

  Up to a point that invisible attendant would have been correct. But only up to a point. Templeton may have had no qualms as to the ultimate purposes of existence, but beneath his impersonal military manner he was constantly harassed by uncertainty. “Am I talking too much?” he asked himself. You cleared your mind by talking out your problems, but he knew, how well, the dangers of that “talking out.” He had been exposed as a junior staff officer to a Brigadier who had droned on and on at conferences, talking so that no one could interrupt his mental processes, lulling everyone into somnolence, then suddenly when he had arrived at a conclusion, pouncing upon his juniors with key questions. Templeton had vowed to keep that Brigadier’s example as a warning. Had he now fallen into the same bad habit? It was very easy to go on talking once you were wound up and if you were a General your rank protected you from interruption.

  Was he talking too much? He could hear himself talking but he could not stop. “Let us take the case of David Boyeur,” he was continuing. “Some of our reactionaries will be surprised to see him here. They think he’s dangerous. I don’t agree. He’s young and brash, but he’ll only be dangerous if he’s handled tactlessly. Power has gone to his head. You can’t be surprised at that. He’s under thirty and he’s not only organized a trades union movement but got it in his pocket. I’ve nothing against the boy: he has as much right to be here as they have. At the same time, I don’t want to give the impression either to them or to him that he’s my protégé. He’s not. It would be better if you did the introducing. Then I can say to Romer afterward, ‘I saw you talking to young Boyeur. I wonder how he struck you?’ I shall be surprised if Boyeur does not make a good impression. The boy’s direct, forthcoming. Then I’ll say, ‘That is very interesting. That’s how he strikes me. If he’s our most dangerous revolutionary, I don’t feel I’ve much to worry over.’ You see my point?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “At the same time I don’t want Romer to run away with the idea that our planters are tiresome reactionaries. They aren’t, the better ones. Julian Fleury in particular. I’ll ensure that Romer has a talk with him. Let me see the list.”

  It was a list indicative of the island’s history and fortunes.

  Fifty miles long and fifteen wide, with a population of a hundred thousand, raising sugar, copra, and cocoa, originally French—it had been captured by the British during the Napoleonic wars—Santa Marta, though never of great strategic or economic importance, had always been an asset rather than a liability on the Imperial sheet, and several of the old planter families had survived the slump that had followed emancipation in the nineteenth century. There were a hundred and fifty names upon the Governor’s list and half of them had a Latin ring—Fleury had been once de Fleurie. The Governor ran his eye down the columns. All of the notables had been invited: the chief planters, the members of council, the government officials, the doctors, a few of the richer tradesmen. Invitations to Government House were a command, and against only two names was there the mark of a refusal.

  “Why aren’t the Prestons coming?” the Governor asked.

  “He asked to be excused, sir. He’s shipping his copra this afternoon.”

  “I see.” Perhaps it was as well. Preston, who had come out since the war, was having trouble with the magistrate in his district. Better not to have to see him till the matter had been arranged.

  He read on down the list.

  “Colonel Carson, now that’s a man you must have Romer meet. A new type of colonist; the retired soldier who’s come out since the war because of high ta
xation and shrunken dividends.”

  Then there was Dr. Leisching. He was a new type too. An Austrian who had been taken prisoner during the war and had not wanted to go back to an occupied Vienna. Most islands had upon their medical staffs a German, a Pole, a Czech or Austrian. Leisching would interest Romer.

  “And the Archdeacon. Be sure that they meet. You get the general idea, Denis. I’ve worked out the strategy. You’re responsible for the tactics.”

  “I see, sir.”

  To himself Archer thought, This will be great copy one day.

  3

  Back in his office, Archer in his turn studied the list of guests. He had met them all, most of them several times; but he kept confusing them, particularly the colored ones, and most of them were colored; they all looked alike. At the end of each day he would summon a mental roll call of everyone whom he had met, visualizing their features, recapitulating the details of their careers and functions. But the next morning when he tried to repeat his homework, names, faces, and occupations blurred into one another. He stared at the list now, prescient of trouble. He was bound to make some mistakes that afternoon, he prayed that none of them would be serious. He had marked the most important notables. John Lestrange, the Attorney General. He knew him all right. But Mrs. Lestrange. He hesitated. Hadn’t he confused her once with Mrs. Arundel? They were both corpulent, with ill-fitting dentures. Wasn’t Mrs. Arundel’s hair less crinkly…

  “Am I disturbing you?”

  He turned with a start. It was Euan Templeton.

  “I’m always at the disposal of the Governor’s son.”

  He said it with a smile and Euan laughed, perching himself on the desk and picking up the list of guests. It was now only a line of names; who could tell what some of those names might not have come to mean to him within a month.

  “I’m relying on you this afternoon,” he said.

  “How do I take that?”

  Euan flushed. He was very much his father’s son, Archer thought: the spare straight figure, the long thin nose, but he had something his father lacked, had lost, or never had, a diffidence that belied the firmness of the clear-cut profile. It was an appealing diffidence that made Archer warm to him. The young man must have had a lonely boyhood since his mother’s death in a motor accident in the blackout, spending his holidays with aunts, with his father’s stiff, precise letters arriving from overseas with military regularity.