Island in the Sun Page 3

  She spoke on a note of indifference that roused him. It was he now who was being dared, and she did not appear to care two cents whether he called her bluff or not. His vanity was hurt.

  “You’re talking nonsense. What could hurt me, who could hurt me?”

  “That’s fine, then, if that’s how you feel.”

  She still held his eyes with hers. There was in them an expression that he had not seen before: it was not hostility, it was more appraisal. He hesitated, vaguely apprehensive, as though a curse of some kind had been laid on him. He was superstitious, as most West Indians are.

  “Would you rather not?” she said. There was in her voice an accent of contempt. That accent decided him. He had got to show her who the master was.

  “Come along,” he said.

  The sight of them coming up the drive was a cause of unbounded relief to Denis Archer. Thank heavens, he thought, and hurried over. “You’re very late,” he began, then checked. From under the trees he had only noticed Boyeur, with his brown and white buckskin shoes, and his chocolate colored pinstripe suit; he was vaguely conscious of a companion at his side, but he had taken no note of her. Now suddenly he saw her. He started, stared, and a shiver passed along his nerves. It was not the first time he had felt that shiver and he knew what it meant. Hell’s bells, he thought; it was the last thing he had wanted to have happen here. Anyhow, with this kind of girl. Who on earth was she? It was the first time that he had seen her. He had thought that he knew everyone on the list.

  “You’re so late,” he said, “that I was beginning to think I’d forgotten to invite you.”

  Boyeur laughed, a loud, self-confident laugh. “You need not have worried about that. I knew there was a party and if I hadn’t received an invitation, I would have rung up to ask if there was some mistake.”

  “You would?”

  “I should assume, naturally, that His Excellency would want me to this kind of party. I am sorry that I was late, but I have much work on my hands. I never know how I manage to get it done. By the way, you do know my cousin don’t you, Margot Seaton?”

  “No, I don’t think I do.”

  Her hand was dry and cool; it had short lean fingers. At the same time the skin of her palm was very soft. Her clasp was firm. As they shook hands the bangles on her wrist shook together. Margot Seaton? The name meant nothing to him. He could not remember it upon the list. She was looking at him straight. Had she felt anything when that shiver passed along his nerves, or had it been only on his side? He turned to Boyeur.

  “I know that your cousin will excuse us, but H. E. wishes you to meet Wilson Romer, an American newspaper proprietor. I’m sure Miss Seaton can look after herself. She must know everybody here.”

  “I shall be quite all right.”

  Her voice was deeper than he had expected, almost a contralto.

  He led Boyeur across the lawn to the American, effected the introduction, started them talking, moved away.

  He looked about him. Everything seemed to be going well. The more elderly who were seated had sorted themselves into strict color groups, white and near white, brown and black. Exactly what H. E. had dreaded, but how could it have been helped; nothing anyhow could be done about it. You could not reorganize people once they had sat down; but as far as the standing and ambulatory groups were concerned, there was a sufficient mingling of color groups to impress the editor. There was a lot of noise. Everyone seemed happy.

  He turned slowly round in search of anything that might be out of order, then he checked, conscious again of Margot Seaton. She had joined a group of youngish people; she was laughing and talking, but he had the sensation that she was watching him. He hesitated. Better not, he thought. Nothing but trouble lay along that road. Yet he knew himself too well not to know that when that kind of a shiver passed along his nerves he would have no peace of mind till he had learnt what it was all about. He walked across to her; as he approached, she moved away slightly from her group. So she had been watching for him. It had been on her side too, not only upon his. His heart began to pound. She took a step sideways, turning her back upon the group, so that he need not join in the general conversation; she gave him the impression that she knew what was in his mind, understood and welcomed it.

  “How is it that I’ve not seen you anywhere around?” he asked.

  “Probably because you buy your toothpaste at The Cosmos.”

  “What do I take that to mean?”

  “I work in the Bon Marche.”

  “Oh.” He did not know why it should surprise him, but it did.

  “I’ll change my patronage,” he said.

  “We’ll appreciate that.” She said it on a note of mockery; he felt very young. He could not think of anything to say.

  “You’re wondering what I’m doing here,” she said.

  “Well…”

  “As a matter of fact, I haven’t any right.”

  “How’s that?”

  “I wasn’t invited. Mr. Boyeur dared me; he said it would be all right if I came in with him. I knew it wouldn’t be. But I don’t like being dared. So I came along.”

  “I see.”

  There was a pause. His heart was thudding, but he could not think of anything to say that would make sense.

  “Next time I’ll see you’re properly invited.”

  “That’s very good of you.”

  Her eyes never left his face. There was mockery in them still, but there was kindness too, as though she both liked him and were sorry for him. I must find something to say, he told himself.

  Sharply across the noise of talk, silencing it, rang the first bugle notes of “The Last Post.” Dusk had fallen; the Union Jack was being lowered. Everyone stood to attention. As the last note sounded the Governor turned toward the house. It was the signal for the cocktail party to begin. Archer knew what his duty was. He had to get into that house before the Governor, to see that everything ran smoothly. “I’m sorry,” he said, “but I’ve got to see that everything goes well in there.”

  “Of course you have.” She said it as though he were a small boy afraid of being late for school.

  From his vantage point on the terrace before the two small brass cannons that stood one on each side of the main entrance, the Governor watched his guests file through the French windows into the dining room. Although no alcohol had yet been served, they were chattering animatedly. They seemed to be having a good time; they wouldn’t be having a good time unless they were happy coming here, and they wouldn’t be happy coming here if their host wasn’t a person whom they could trust. If they trusted him, he’d done half his job. The P.M.—a friend of long standing—had made it very clear to him why he had been chosen for the post.

  “It is most important,” he had said, “that we should have in Santa Marta someone whom the West Indians can like and trust; it’s a help if that person has no ax to grind. They’re touchy in these small places, they consider that in the past we’ve sent out second-grade administrators at the end of their careers, who want to avoid trouble at any cost, and finish with a K. You’ve got all the decorations that you want already. You couldn’t get anything out of Santa for yourself. Then there’s your cricket; the natives know about you. You’ve toured there with the M.C.C. They’ll respect you before you start.”

  That was half a year ago. Having been here now three months, he felt that he had got his eye in. If trouble came, he would know how to deal with it.

  As to the kind of trouble that might come, he had been carefully briefed by the Minister of State.

  “Things are moving fast, possibly too fast,” he had been told. “But nationalism is in the air. It’s no use fighting it; we must work with it. Every colony wants Dominion status. We’re committed under the Charter of the United Nations to a policy of developing backward peoples. In the past we’ve waited until our hand was forced, then yielded gracefully. That won’t do any longer. We shall make mistakes, inevitably. But it’s better that those mistakes should be th
e result of overconfidence than overcaution. As you know, we have agreed on universal suffrage for Santa Marta. They may not be ready for it, but it’s something that must come. Better for it to come too early than too late. Then there’s a new constitution drafted which will give a majority in the Council to the elected members; it’s for you to decide how soon that can be implemented. But this is the point to keep in mind—move too fast rather than too slow.”

  It was the kind of advice that Templeton liked to follow; he had always believed in hitting a bowler off his length. Elections, the first since the introduction of universal suffrage, were shortly due, and the announcement of the new constitution a few weeks before would effectively illustrate the policy “too fast rather than too slow.” Yes, he thought, as he watched his guests file amicably into his dining room, I’ve got the pace of the wicket now.

  He was turning to join his guests, when a hand fell upon his elbow and a powerful transatlantic voice boomed in his ear.

  “I appreciate more than I can say, Your Excellency, all you’ve done to make me feel at home here. I shall certainly carry back with me to America the warmest memories of your hospitality.”

  It was thirty-six hours since Wilson P. Romer had landed on the pier at Jamestown, and seven of those hours had been spent in the Governor’s company, but Templeton could not yet think of him as an individual. He saw him as a type. In doing so, he was being, he readily admitted, imperceptive. But with a foreigner inevitably you noticed first only the divergences from your own norm. In Romer he marked the idiosyncrasies of dress and manner and appearance that stamped him as American; the pitch of his voice, the boyishness persisting into middle age, the neat well pressed suit of summer weight material, the nylon shirt, the “loafer” shoes, the gaudy tie. Romer was no doubt in the same way labeling him as typically English, recognizing the pattern, not seeing the individual beneath. With one’s compatriots one did not notice the pattern, one saw the man as in himself he was. No, he thought, I’ve no idea what kind of a man Romer is. I like him, but I don’t know what he’s like.

  “I saw you having a talk with our young revolutionary,” he said. “How did he strike you?”

  Romer shrugged. “Lord, that type! Young man fighting his way, no background, no idea where he wants to go. But has to amount to something. White or black, they’re always the same. Wait ten years and see where they’ve got to, then they’re interesting, for what they’ve done, or haven’t. Up north we’ve Boyeurs on every bush. But there’s one fellow here that does interest me—this Fleury.”

  “Which one, the son or father?”

  “A fellow in the sixties.”

  “That would be the father. What struck you about him?”

  “Couldn’t place him. You said his family was the oldest one around here. When I was driving round the island someone pointed out his place, but he seems one hundred per cent English to me. Forty years in England, he says, married there, served in the first war in the British Army. How does all that add up?”

  “I’ll tell you.”

  Templeton was impressed. It was quick of Romer to have seen so much. The journalist’s power of detection, he supposed.

  “It’s a curious story. This is the way it was,” he said.

  He outlined the Fleury saga. In many respects it was a typical West Indian story. The de Fleuries in the eighteenth century had been Plantagenets of the Caribbean, the French equivalents of the Warners and the Codringtons. After Waterloo, reluctant to return to a France so different from the one their ancestors had known, they changed their allegiance and anglicized their name. Then came emancipation and the slump in sugar. The Fleurys like so many others became absentee owners. Julian Fleury’s great-grandfather bought a place in Devonshire.

  “It was only a few miles from ours,” the Governor said. “The friendship between our families was a close one. We were in each other’s houses all the time. Julian was at Eton with me. I was half engaged to his elder sister. His wife is a distant cousin of mine.”

  “How did he happen to come back here?”

  “That’s what I’m coming to. His English estate was heavily hit by death duties when his father died. His West Indian properties weren’t making the profits that he thought they should. His sisters were married to men without much money. The situation was disquieting. Julian came out here to see if his affairs were being handled properly. He brought his wife with him and his two younger children, leaving behind the elder son who was at school.”

  That had been in the early 1930’s. Fleury had only meant to stay a year. But the slump had grown more acute, he had put off going back, first one year then the next; then there was the war making a return impossible. He never did go back.

  “Well, isn’t that something now, oldest family in the island and hadn’t seen the place till he was over forty.”

  “Yes, in a sense, though actually he was born here.”

  “He was?”

  “His father came out on a cricket tour, liked it, stayed on and married. But Julian’s mother died in childbirth. His father brought him back to England and remarried there. The sisters that I spoke of are half sisters.”

  “And the older boy? Is he still in England?”

  “No, he was killed in the war.”

  “The last link cut then.” Romer shook his head. “What about his wife? I haven’t met her yet.”

  “She isn’t here today. She’s in Barbados. She seems to like it here.”

  “She does? I’m not surprised. One thing about your English women, they do seem able to adapt themselves. I’d like to talk with Fleury before I leave. By the way, will you point out his son to me before I go.”

  The son was by the buffet table. He had been one of the first inside. Standing by the bar he watched the other guests file through out of the garden. One of them almost certainly had smoked that Turkish cigarette. Everybody of any consequence was here. Anyone of sufficient importance to be smoking his own cigarette in the Fleury home would have been invited. The man who had smoked that cigarette must be known to him. Why hadn’t he come up to him with some such remark as, “I was sorry to miss you this morning at your father’s house.” Why? For one reason only, the man hadn’t wanted him to know. And on whose account other than Sylvia’s. If the man was interested in Jocelyn and was unmarried, he would have wanted, surely, to make an ally of the brother; if the man was married, Sylvia would have made some comment to him. She’d have said, “I’m a little worried about Jocelyn. Frank’s not right for her. It’s not getting her anywhere.” Something like that.

  Why was he being kept in the dark? He looked about him angrily. Where was Sylvia? He had been watching her all the afternoon. Most of the time she had been in groups, either with Mavis, Jocelyn, or with Doris Kellaway. The fact that he had not once seen her talking with someone unexpected made him the more suspicious. She must be purposely avoiding the man whom she had seen that morning. Where was she now? Ah, yes, with Mavis and young Templeton.

  He looked at his sister-in-law, thoughtfully. She was two years older than his wife, and every bit as pretty in a warm brown way, with soft rounded features and long-lashed eyelids over hazel eyes. At a first glance most people comparing her with Sylvia would have thought, So that’s the serious one. Sylvia, blonde, animated, wearing more make-up than she needed, with crisp tight-set hair, looked trivial and charming, a girl who lived to be entertained. Actually it was the other way about.

  It was Mavis who was frivolous and flighty, a birdlike creature, always involved in some flirtation. A few weeks ago she had been prostrate with a broken heart over a Canadian tourist who had left the island half engaged to her, only to announce six weeks later his imminent marriage in Montreal to his boss’s daughter. Mavis had cried her eyes out then, but here she was now getting over her trouble quickly; its roots had not gone deep. She lived on the surface. As a wife she would be a friendly, affectionate companion: she wouldn’t have moods, she wouldn’t shrink away. Why couldn’t he have fallen i
n love with her? She’d never be a problem to a man. She wouldn’t tear a man’s nerves with jealousy.

  He moved over to their group. Why was it always he who had to join a group, to make the preliminary effort? No one ever came across to him. As he joined them, silence fell; the way it always did. It was always he who had to restart the conversation. “Are you as keen on cricket as your father was?” he asked.

  A few yards away Julian Fleury stood beside Colonel Carson, the man whom His Excellency had described as a new kind of colonist. Carson was a man of forty; short, muscular, a little bloated, with a close-clipped mustache, who always wore a club or an old school tie. During the war, while he was in the Middle East, his wife had fallen in love with a Pole and he had made a complete break with his past. He worked hard on his estate and was making it pay, apparently. He was not a man for whom Fleury cared particularly. He was obtuse and self-assertive but at the same time there were subjects that he could discuss with Carson that he could not with anybody else. They had been born into the same kind of world.

  They were discussing, as were so many others, the Governor’s son’s visit to the island.

  “What a time for all these fillies,” Carson was remarking. “The rivalries there’ll be. How many of them will still be on speaking terms with one another by the time he leaves.”

  It was said in the patronizing tone that provided Fleury with one of his reasons for not completely liking Carson. But Carson was dead right. He had noticed in his daughter a mounting sense of excitement. All the girls were building daydreams about Euan Templeton. What else could be expected; there was a dearth of men. There weren’t half a dozen of the old white families still resident in Santa Marta, and the livelier young men invariably sought their fortunes in the larger islands, went north to Canada or home to England. It was a problem that had been worrying him on Jocelyn’s account for several months. Who was there for her to marry? He ought to send her back to England, to her aunt or cousins. He had talked it over with his wife more than once. Betty had not been enthusiastic. “Do you think they’d welcome her?” she had said. Then there was the cost. The estate wasn’t making the profits that it should.