Island in the Sun Read online

  “If there’s anything I can do,” he said.

  “There’s quite a lot. The trouble is, I’m the Governor’s son. I mustn’t do anything that would let him down. At the same time, well for eighteen months I haven’t seen a woman under thirty who didn’t wear a yashmak.”

  Archer smiled. So that was it. He felt even better about Euan now. At the same time he would have to disappoint him.

  “If that’s what you’re looking for, you’ve come to the wrong shop.”

  “But surely …”

  “I know, I know: those magazine stories about midnight bathing parties, moons, hibiscus, all that glamor stuff. That’s not the way it is, at least not here.” He proceeded to explain. “In the first place,” he said, “this is a small community; it’s everyone’s business to know what everyone is doing. There is no privacy. There are no doors to shut and most of us wear rubber soles; didn’t you notice how I jumped when you came in? I’d no idea you were in the room. Anyone can walk into any bungalow at any time. That’s point number one. Secondly there aren’t more than half a dozen white girls here and they’re intent on getting married.”

  “I’m not out for that.”

  “I’m sure you aren’t. I’m not saying that these young women are not human beings; if they saw an opportunity for adventure without causing scandal they’d leap at it, but normally those opportunities only come when they’re somewhere else. Antigua, Trinidad, Barbados. They’re careful how they behave in their own island.”

  “What about the half-whites?”

  “That’s point number three. Some are very pretty. But they’re a tricky proposition. They have the sound middle-class virtues; they are brought up to make solid marriages. I don’t say that they don’t have wild parties, because they do; but they are on their guard against white men. They know that white men won’t want to marry them, will let them down if trouble comes. They’ve got both their pride and chips upon their shoulders. They’re afraid that a white man would despise them.”

  “But I’ve heard that they were flattered at having a white man paying them attention.”

  “They’d be flattered if he wanted to marry them, but they know he doesn’t.”

  “You surely aren’t going to tell me that white men in Santa Marta never have romances with half-white girls?”

  “Of course I’m not, but it’s not as common as you’d think. And when it does happen, it’s unsatisfactory. It has to be a hole-and-corner business. He can’t take her out in public, there’s nowhere he can take her. It’s not like London or Paris or New York, where you can lead a private life: everyone knows what you’re doing, and if you cause a scandal… anyhow that’s out for you, as the Governor’s son.”

  “It sounded very different in books.”

  “This is not Tahiti.”

  “And think of me counting hours to getting here.”

  “Think of me on a three year stretch. It’s only till the autumn as far as you’re concerned, and you’ll have a good time in lots of other ways.”

  4

  The invitation cards had read 5 P.M. to 7 P.M. The party started in the garden, with tables set under the trees and tea, sandwiches, and ices being served; at sunset, at 6, the gathering would move indoors, for whisky sodas and rum swizzles.

  Euan stood at his father’s side while the guests filed across the lawn to be presented. Two weeks ago he had been living in a pastel world of sand and desert; everything had been flat and ochre brown under a film of dust, even the date palms and the oleanders. Here everything was lush and mountainous, with flowering shrubs flaming in red and yellow against wide branching trees. Government House was built upon a spur and from the terrace he could see the harbor, with its red brick, red-tiled warehouses that the French had built, and the schooners rocking against their moorings; beyond the harbor was a mile long curve of beach with a grove of coconut palms fringing it; a valley of sugar cane wound like a river broad and green between the mountains whose dark flanks were studded with the orange red flower of the immortelle. What a contrast to Suez and its flat sea of desert, to the drab mud houses, and the sullen river. His eyes were dazzled. What a contrast too between those shuffling, silent, long-robed Arabs and these laughing chattering West Indians with their bright blouses and gaudy neckwear, their grinning glistening faces, and their shining teeth. And people talked of the tropics as if they were all one place.

  As Archer announced the guests one by one by name, his father amplified the introductions. “Mr. Codrington is one of our health inspectors. He is also our best fast bowler…. Miss De Voeux is matron of the hospital…. Mr. Lestrange is our Attorney General. A very formidable person.”

  Nine-tenths of the guests had dark complexions; they were of every shade of color and every type of feature. Euan had read a West Indian history before coming out, he had learnt of the immense basic differences between the various West African tribes that had been ransacked by the slave traders of the Guinea Coast. He knew that in the mid-nineteenth century, following emancipation, Hindu labor from India had been indented. He had expected a mixture, but not one like this, every shade of color from sepia to olive gray, every texture of hair from short black curls to a smooth gleaming surface, every variety of profile from flattened nostrils and bulging mouths to aquiline noses and thin lips. He was fascinated. What a place to come to for a holiday. If only he were not the Governor’s son fettered by all the obligations that that involved. If only he were on his own, alone, a tourist.

  For twenty minutes there was a steady stream across the lawn, then there was a tapering off.

  “I must stay at my post a little longer,” the Governor said. “But you needn’t, my boy. You can start campaigning.”

  Jocelyn Fleury, from the shade of a banyan tree, saw Euan move away from his father’s side and stand on the terrace, hesitant, looking round him. I’ll will him to look my way, she thought and stared at him. His glance moved across the lawn; it came nearer, reached her, checked. She smiled and he smiled back with recognition. So he did remember her. There was of course every reason why he should. There was a close family connection. Their fathers had been at school together, had come from the same part of England. The Governor had made a special point over their introduction. But even so, there had been so many introductions.

  One up to me, she thought, as he stepped from the terrace.

  As he came to her across the lawn, he looked like a character in a film: handsome and new and wholesome. Such a change from the men she had been seeing every day.

  She was standing by the Archdeacon.

  “I don’t need to remind you, do I,” she said, “that this is Father Roberts?”

  “Of course you don’t.”

  He looked from the one to the other, then spoke to the Archdeacon.

  “It’s a curious thing, Father, but I know more about this young lady than she does about herself.”

  He employed an artificial, mock-humorous, slightly facetious manner. He’s most likely shy and doesn’t want to show it, Jocelyn thought.

  “How is that?” the Archdeacon asked.

  “I was born within ten miles of her. I knew her grandparents. I know her cousins, I know all the people and the countryside that her parents knew when they were young. None of which she has seen herself.”

  “He’s quite right, Father. I left there when I was two. I’ve not been back.”

  “I could tell her more about the country of her birth than her own parents could, and in just the same way, she could tell me a great deal more about my father’s present country than he knows himself.”

  The Archdeacon smiled. He was on the brink of fifty. Tall and thin, with a long pointed nose and finely modeled mouth, he combined an ascetic appearance with an air of benign patrician worldliness. He gave the impression that life had treated him generously and that he was appropriately grateful. He was wearing a white soutane. He had long thin fingers and his nails were polished.

  “I’m very sure she could,” he said.


  “Then don’t you think I should be wise to put myself in her hands?”

  “You’d be most wise.”

  Jocelyn turned toward the priest. It pleased and amused her that Euan should have adopted this device of addressing her through an intermediary. It was a game that had an undercurrent of accepted intimacy; moreover it enabled them to talk to one another without being rude to the holy man. She continued to accept the formula. “I wonder what he would most like to have me tell him, Father.”

  “I should like to get a day to day, hour to hour picture of the life that is led here by the upper crust young women of her age. Then I’d know how to organize my own day. Don’t you think, Father, that that’s a sound idea?”

  “It would be help.”

  Jocelyn laughed. “It would take me a very long time to tell him that.”

  “Perhaps it would be easier if she were to give me a demonstration.”

  “Now what, Father, does he mean by that?”

  “If we spent a day in each other’s company, by the end of it I should have at any rate a rough idea of how a girl spends her day here in comparison with the way she would in England.”

  “I’m afraid he’d find that very dull.”

  “Perhaps half a day then. I don’t even know when she would go and swim.”

  The Archdeacon re-entered the conversation. “That depends, you will find, very much upon the day. On Sunday, for instance, I trust after Church, but anyhow before lunch, it is a general social custom to drink rum punches on the beach, but on week days, I think I am right in saying, the residents of the island bathe far less often than you in England fancy. You’d agree with that, Jocelyn, I believe.”

  “Most certainly.”

  “Then perhaps if Miss Fleury would let me know when she will swim tomorrow, I could call for her and drive her to the beach.”

  It was eventually decided that they should swim together the following afternoon. In ten minutes they had become friendly. This is fun, she thought. I like him.

  There was a pause. He was probably feeling that he ought to be doing his duty by his father’s guests. She’d make it easy for him.

  “I mustn’t monopolize you,” she said. “There are a great many people here who want to meet you. Let’s see now who there is.”

  They turned together, looking across the lawn. “There’s Mr. Lestrange over there, and Mrs. Norman whose daughter married my brother. Then there’s my brother…”

  But his attention was already caught.

  “Heavens, what a surprise. I’d never realized he was here.”

  She followed his glance. He was staring at a tall, wiry young man with short crinkly hair and an olive pale complexion.

  The Archdeacon followed his glance too. “So you know Grainger Morris then?” he asked.

  “I’ll say I do. He was in the Middle East last summer. He told me he came from the West Indies, but Santa Marta at that time didn’t mean a thing to me.”

  “Did you see much of him?”

  “As much as I could. It wasn’t easy. He was in too great demand. I don’t know if you know the way it is out there, but the Welfare Authorities send out lecturers from England to boost the troops’ morale: they’re all right in their way, most of them, though some are dreary, but to get somebody like Grainger Morris who, as an athlete, was a hero to half the men before he started, now that was something.”

  There was a glow of hero worship in the young man’s voice. The Archdeacon chuckled inwardly. This was a situation after his own heart. Grainger Morris was the son of a Santa Martan business man. He had won a state scholarship to Oxford and had recently returned to the island after seven years of spectacular success in England. He had won a blue for cricket and for rugger: he had been president of the Union. At Oxford and in London he had been a welcome guest in any house, but here because of his color he could not join the Country Club. His friendship with the Governor’s son would frame an amusing social comedy.

  “The troops were crazy over him,” Euan was continuing. “He didn’t speak down to them, he met them upon equal terms. I remember an evening lecture of his when they asked so many questions that I thought we’d never get him back to the mess for dinner. I must go across and say hullo to him.”

  There was no doubting the genuineness of his delight at finding Morris here. It would make, the Archdeacon decided, a pretty problem for the Santa Marta socialites. How would they react when they found that the man they wanted to fête held as his chief friend on the island a man whom they did not consider eligible for their club. He foresaw a good deal of quiet amusement during the next few months. It should provide the A.D.C. with some useful copy for that book of his. Where was that young man by the way? He wanted to be introduced to the American visitor.

  The young man was having, as it happened, an awkward moment. The party had been in progress forty minutes and he had failed to put into action one of his chief’s first instructions. He had not introduced David Boyeur to the American tycoon. He had not in fact seen Boyeur and he was beginning to wonder whether he had sent him an invitation. He could not, he told himself, have been so careless as to forget Boyeur of all people. But he knew very well he could. “I need a secretary,” he told himself.

  Looking ahead, he saw himself in five years’ time with his novel of the West Indies a Book Society choice, on which M.G.M. had taken up its option. He pictured himself in chambers in Albany, in a long silk dressing gown, warm and glowing from his bath; his dark, slim secretary was sorting his correspondence. “Good morning, Mr. Archer, now don’t forget that you’re lunching with Lady Forester and that you’re being interviewed by Woman’s Own at four.” For the moment he stood stock still with the bustle of the party noisily surging round him, picturing that fate-favored mortal. Then he pulled himself together. He was not in Albany, he was in a West Indian garden, and he was not Denis Archer the brilliant new star in the literary firmament, he was Captain Archer, a dishwasher, a dogsbody, the lowest of all created things, a colonial governor’s A.D.C. and a highly incompetent one at that. Where was that damned man, Boyeur?

  He need not have been so self-critical. Boyeur had had his invitation. He was at that moment engaged in violent argument outside the Government House gates with a highly picturesque young woman. Little and lithe, dark, brown-skinned, with smooth straight hair, her features were delicate, her lips were thin, her nose almost aquiline. Her hands and feet were small. Her mother had come from Trinidad. She did not know who her father was. There was no sign of African blood in her appearance; she seemed a mixture of Indian and Spanish. She was twenty years old. Her name was Margot Seaton. She worked in the Bon Marche drugstore and for two years she and Boyeur had in the local phrase “been going steady.”

  “No,” she was saying. “No, I can’t go in. I’ve not been invited. I can’t crash a party at G.H.”

  “You can if you’re with me.”

  He spoke arrogantly, flinging out his chest. He was tall, broad-shouldered; he had little if any white blood in his veins. His lips were thick, his teeth very white and even, his nose broad at its base. He was dressed flamboyantly, with brown and white buckskin shoes, a chocolate colored pinstripe suit and a long thin canary yellow tie. He wore a Homburg-shaped hat made of straw, with a wide bandanna band. The colors harmonized on him. He was a striking creature.

  “You bet it’ll be all right. If you’d been my sister they’d have said, ‘Why, bring her.’ I’ll say that you’re my cousin. What’s the difference.”

  “There’s a big difference.”

  “Not where David Boyeur is concerned. They’re afraid of David Boyeur. They don’t want another strike.”

  He beat his fist upon his chest. He was enjoying himself immensely. A week ago she had remarked, “I wish I was going to the Governor’s party.” “That’s easy,” he had replied, “I’ll take you.”

  He had talked her into it. He had bought her a dress for the occasion. He had enjoyed her delight in the preliminaries.
But what he had enjoyed most had been the knowledge that at the last moment her nerve would fail her. It was what he wanted. It would put him in a strong position. He would be able to tease her on his return. He would tell her whom he’d met, what he’d said to them, and how they’d answered him, even if he had no more than seen them across the garden. “You’d have enjoyed yourself. You were an idiot to stay away,” he’d say, “and you could so easily. I told H. E. that you’d been afraid to come. You should have heard him laugh. Any relative of mine was welcome in his house, he said.”

  That was how he would put it, how he would chuckle at the disappointment in her face; she would feel humble, abashed, in the way that she never was. She never looked up to him in the way she should, she was always aloof. There was no question of his being her master, there were uncomfortable signs that it was the other way about, that she used him. This would teach her a lesson.

  “Come on. Don’t be a yellow-belly.”

  “Very well; let’s go then.” The suddenness with which she changed her attitude took him off his guard.

  She noted his hesitation. “Are you quite sure that you want me to come?” she asked.

  “Of course, why not?”

  “It may get you into trouble with the Governor. It can’t do me any damage, I’m far too humble, but it could damage you.”

  He threw out his chest again.

  “It doesn’t affect David Boyeur whether His Excellency the Governor thinks well of him or not. David Boyeur stands on his own two feet.”

  “Very well, in that case—” She paused, she was looking at him very straight. “Think again. You may regret my going in. If you say so, I’ll go right home. I don’t care either way, it’s up to you.”