The Moonlit Garden

by Bomann, Corina

  “You’ve lost your mind.”

  “Not at all. I’m completely serious. Could you ever envisage becoming my wife? Living by my side, here, on Sumatra?”

  “You’re forgetting that my profession requires me to travel the world. And I have absolutely no intention of giving up my violin and my concerts.”

  “You wouldn’t have to. We’d merely have a main residence here. You’d go on your tours and, if you allowed it, I’d accompany you. And if ever your agent allows you a break from creating world history, you’ll be here with me, and we can go on long trips exploring the jungle, or whatever else you want.”

  Rose shook her head. “You’re forgetting your fiancée.”

  “Engagements can be broken off.”

  Now Rose was convinced that Paul really had lost his mind. Perhaps it would be better to leave right now and let Paul explain why his “fiancée” had made such a quick exit. She edged back and, keeping the sheet drawn tightly around her, finally stood.

  “I don’t know what’s moved you to make me such an offer so early in the morning, but I’m sure you must be having another joke at my expense.”

  “I’m not joking at all!” Paul said, looking taken aback as he moved away from the bed.

  “That’s even worse! Don’t you realize what the consequences would be? What a scandal it would cause?”

  “I don’t care! I’ve been turning it over and over in my mind all night. I only know that it feels right. That it’s the right thing to do.”

  Rose shook her head. Her heart was thumping wildly. She had also toyed with thoughts of what it would be like to be his wife, but she had never in her wildest dreams thought that he might be contemplating it seriously. And she was still convinced that the heat was affecting his reasoning. How else could he have come upon the idea of wanting to dissolve his engagement?

  “I shouldn’t have come with you,” she said eventually, unsure whether it was disappointment stirring in her breast, or something else. “Please leave me now. I must get dressed. Whatever else happens, I have to play out this farce for a while longer.”

  Paul looked at her steadily. His expression was one of disappointment mixed with longing. Could he perhaps be serious? But even if he was, it was completely crazy!

  “All right,” he said finally. He sighed and lowered his eyes in perplexity. “Please forgive me. I thought . . . ”

  Rose was all too eager to know what he thought, but before she could summon the courage to ask him, he turned and left the room.

  With a huge knot in her stomach, Rose appeared in the dining room, where the cook had prepared a wonderful breakfast for them. The three men were already engaged in lively conversation. They stood as she approached.

  “I hope you slept well, Miss Warden,” the plantation owner said in English, which was indeed less than good.

  “I slept very well, thank you,” Rose replied, trying to keep any trace of an accent from her voice as she believed van den Broock was still testing her.

  As she sat down, she glanced at Paul, who was taking his seat like the others. But he stared into his teacup as if he had found something extremely interesting in there. Rose could see the disappointment in his features. Feeling confused, she looked into her own teacup, where clouds of milk were blooming in the tea, which a Sundanese servant had silently poured for her. Had she just lost an opportunity?

  When Paul had left her room, she had believed she had done the right thing, but now she doubted herself, and this doubt spoiled her appetite and kept her silent.

  She did not brighten up until they set out to view the plantation.

  “I hope the walk won’t be too strenuous for you, Miss Warden,” van den Broock remarked as they strode across the courtyard to the accompaniment of the bloodhounds’ barking.

  She wanted to reply that she had walked a lot farther than a mere tour of a Sumatran plantation, but fortunately she knew how to hold her tongue.

  “I like to take long walks. You’ve no need to worry about me.”

  The plantation owner laughed. “I really believe you’re marrying the right woman, Lord Havenden. We need this kind of spirit on Sumatra.”

  Paul just nodded, still refusing to look at her. Fortunately, van den Broock appeared not to be concerned by the lack of any display of affection between them. He paused for a word with the burly manager who had so effortlessly tamed the bloodhounds on the previous day, and then he asked Paul, Rose, and the attorney to follow him.

  The plantation was spread over a number of terraces and looked like a piece of paradise. The cries of monkeys reached them from the distance, and colorful birds flew by over their heads. Rose was reminded a little of her visit to her grandmother all those years ago, but she soon realized that van den Broock had no real intention of creating a garden here. As was the way with the Dutch plantation owners, all the land was put to practical use and managed to bring in the maximum profits.

  The sugarcane grew particularly well here. On one side of the plantation the green shoots pushed their way toward the sky, while at the other end the long, sturdy canes with their sharp-bladed leaves were being cut down. The men who worked here almost all wore light-colored, wide-legged pants and simple cotton shirts, a few of them working bare-chested. Their heads were bound by bandanas to soak up the sweat. They skillfully stacked and bundled up the harvested sugarcanes and carried them down to the sheds for further processing.

  Van den Broock did not follow the workers but led his visitors farther upward. His plantation did not extend the full way up the mountainside, but the highest terraces offered an amazing view of the landscape, which looked like a green sea with waves breaking over the edge of the plantation.

  “There have been times, especially in the early days, when I wondered if I could succeed. My father established the plantation, but he didn’t live long enough to see it come to fruition.”

  “Then its success must have been thanks to you,” Paul replied.

  “Well, I worked hard at least,” van den Broock replied with apparent modesty, although Rose could hear the pride in his voice. “But now I’ve reached a point where I can’t take it any further alone. I need a strong partner, one who will help me expand.”

  “I hope I can live up to your expectations.”

  “You should think hard about it. Owning a plantation can be very demanding. It’s likely that you’ll have to spend many months of the year here on Sumatra. You should ask yourself whether your future wife and family will accept that.”

  Paul looked at Rose, who lowered her eyes uneasily. But why? It was not up to her whether he could enter into this business. She was not to be his wife, but this Maggie! This Maggie, who had no feelings for Sumatra and who clearly longed for nothing more than to leave. She found this thought strangely worrying. Not because of the island but because of Paul. And because of her own feelings. She had never been in love, and so she had no idea how it felt. But the burning in her breast could fit the description.

  They eventually turned away from the cultivated area and followed a small party carrying sugarcanes down to the sheds, from which a loud rattling could be heard.

  It was mainly women who worked in the bamboo buildings, pushing the sugarcane into a huge press, whose grinding gear was driven by a steam engine via a broad belt. The clattering and chugging drowned out all other sounds, and even van den Broock’s remarks could hardly be heard.

  Rose watched in fascination as the machine drew the sugarcane into its depths and ground it up. If an arm was pulled in between the iron teeth, there would be no hope of rescue. But the women worked extremely cautiously, with routine and precision in movements that they had obviously repeated endless times.

  The thick, golden-brown juice flowed along a bamboo channel into a vessel that, once full, one of the women would take over to an open fire. There it would be boiled and the viscous syrup poured into molds.

  “This is our gold,” van den Broock claimed, holding a cooled lump up for them to see
. “No one can say how long the gold mines will continue to yield. But the riches here will never dry up, as long as we have this fertile soil beneath our feet.”

  As van den Broock went on at length about the amazing opportunities offered by the sugar trade, Rose noticed that the women who worked here kept looking over at their master a little fearfully before quickly averting their eyes. Some of them looked quite thin beneath their clothes. Did the plantation owner not care for them properly?

  During her childhood Rose had occasionally heard tales of how some plantation owners arbitrarily seduced, beat, and exploited their workers. In the city they had hardly been aware of it. Obviously the native workers in the harbor had labored hard, but no one ever saw the Dutch openly treating their workers badly. Her father took care to ensure that the people who worked for him had enough to eat and could provide for their families.

  But now Rose had a queasy feeling in her stomach. After all, she, too, was half native. Even if that was not obvious from her appearance, she suddenly felt ashamed to be standing there with van den Broock, watching these women with their large, fearful eyes. She rarely had misgivings about the Dutch being the masters of this country, as they had been here since long before she was born. But at that moment, she thought it unjust that the master of the plantation had these women laboring for him—and clearly didn’t pay them well, judging by their skinny bodies and hollow cheeks.

  Then one of the women looked right at her. Her eyes were as dark as the fertile soil of the plantation, and Rose noticed that she had a scar on her cheek. It looked like the result of a blow with a switch. Had van den Broock done that? The woman’s eyes burned into her soul.

  “Miss Warden? Are you coming?”

  A voice pulled her from her thoughts. Without her realizing, the men were already at the door. She looked once more at the woman, who had returned to the heaps of sugarcane, before turning away with a numb feeling in the pit of her stomach.

  After being in the sheds, which were filled with a heavy, sweet scent, the air outside seemed fresh and sharp. A low rumble sounded from the mountains. The sky had been clouded over the whole time. Was rain now on its way? Rose felt a strange desire to stand outside beneath a shower, in the hope that the rain would clear her mind and wash away her confusion. But even if the storm came, she couldn’t simply run out and welcome the water with open arms. Rose Gallway might be able to do so in an unobserved moment, but Maggie Warden would certainly never consider behaving in such a way.

  “We should be making our way back. The rain comes in very quickly around here, and we wouldn’t want the lady to get soaked from head to toe.” With these words van den Broock trudged ahead, leading them back along a narrow, almost concealed path.

  No sooner had they returned to the house than Rose was drawn back into her thoughts and the memory of that morning’s conversation. Paul had decided to take up the investment in the plantation, and with van den Broock’s agreement, the two of them sat down together with the attorney to discuss all the details of the transaction.

  As neither the “fiancée” nor any other woman was allowed to be present at the meeting, Rose sat by her bedroom window, from which she could look out over the garden. Surprisingly, there were European fruit trees here, which must have been planted by van den Broock or his forebears. They were flourishing but looked a little out of place, as if they belonged in a garden in England or France.

  Paul’s question had felt just as inappropriate. To become his wife might open a lot of doors, but it would also close a lot. Above all, though, was the fact that she yearned for him. She couldn’t imagine anything better than living with him. Before him, she had not had any such feelings toward a man. And she couldn’t imagine another man ever having such an effect on her again.

  In between her thoughts of Paul she was again plagued by her guilty conscience about the workers. Would anything change if Paul became a shareholder? Perhaps she should advise him against taking it on. But could she do that? She was not his fiancée; she was not someone who could tell him to do anything. Perhaps that would change if she accepted his proposal. If she became his wife, she would be able to not only satisfy her personal desires, but at some stage perhaps also do something for the women here. She surprised herself with it all—until then her head had been filled only with music, and she had never concerned herself with wider issues. But the women’s looks had opened a door in her heart, and suddenly Paul’s proposal did not seem such a bad, inappropriate idea.

  That night, she found that she couldn’t stay in bed for long. All that had happened plagued her to such an extent that she rose and began to pace restlessly up and down. What was the right thing to do? It still seemed completely absurd that Paul had proposed marriage to her, but was that not what she had secretly dreamed of? Had he somehow sensed her wishes?

  Rose rested her forehead against the window and smiled softly, imagining Paul’s face as he asked her to play his fiancée. Was it not the case that lovers behaved completely irrationally? Mrs. Faraday had always warned her against losing her heart, because with it she would also lose her head. She didn’t have the feeling that she had lost her head, but if her former teacher was right, Paul was showing strong signs of being in love. What more could she wish for? Paul returned her feelings. And if she looked at it rationally, she had also acted stupidly in secretly coming away with him. As sheet lightning flashed outside her window and raindrops pattered on the panes, she came to a decision: she had to speak to Paul!

  She quickly threw on her dressing gown and tiptoed to his room. Paul was lying in bed, breathing peacefully, but jumped up when he sensed her presence.

  “Rose!” he cried out in surprise. “What are you doing in my room?”

  “I . . . I couldn’t sleep,” she confessed, fiddling in embarrassment with the edge of her dressing gown. “I wanted to ask you something.”

  “What was it?”

  “Do you . . . do you really mean it?”

  Paul looked at her sleepily. He still seemed as if he couldn’t believe his eyes or thought he was still dreaming.

  “What do you mean?” he asked drowsily. But he seemed to quickly realize, after seeing the hint of disappointment on her face. “Of course I mean it! Do you want me?”

  Rose saw the eyes of the worker woman before her eyes. And she felt her heart thumping, felt the longing burn through her body. Your dream could come true, a voice in the back of her mind whispered. Don’t let this chance slip away . . .

  “Yes,” Rose answered firmly, ignoring her inner voice that warned her against taking his proposal seriously—there were so many potential obstacles in the way of them marrying. “But it would mean so much trouble for you. You would have to break off your engagement, and your mother . . . ”

  A shadow flitted across Paul’s face but only briefly before a smile drove it away.

  “Don’t worry about that. My mother will like you—she really will.”

  “But I’m not from a noble family. I’ve seen how some aristocrats see musicians as good-for-nothings.”

  “But not a violinist who’s played for royalty! If the governor of Sumatra invites you to play here, that makes you anything other than a good-for-nothing. I’ll make that clear to my mother if she brings it up. But she’s a kind-hearted woman, and even if she does get worked up, she’ll calm down eventually. I promise you, when I introduce you to her, she’ll be charm itself.”

  Rose nodded. At that moment she was prepared to believe anything he said.

  “And what about Maggie?” she objected. “I imagine she’ll be the one hit hardest by disappointment.”

  “Maggie deserves a different husband, believe me. I’m far too adventurous. I found that out here in Sumatra. While I’m interested in everything I can find, she’s even wary of the local people. It would be better if she married someone else, a man who would stay with her in London, who would take her out and introduce her to his friends while ensuring that she has plenty of female company to keep
her occupied with inconsequential conversation about fashion and servants. And it would be far better for me to have a wife who loves adventure, who’s not afraid of the jungle, and who’s adaptable enough to slip effortlessly into the role of my fiancée even when she isn’t.”

  He reached for her hand and held it tight. Rose’s heart was still beating wildly. Now she had no doubt about his sincerity.

  “But the crucial question is, do you love me?” he asked, his eyes fixed on hers. “I love you, and I’m prepared to deal with any adversities if I know you’ll be waiting for me here.”

  Rose searched her heart. Did she love him?

  “Oh yes, I love you!” she replied. “I’ve probably loved you since the moment we met in van Swieten’s garden.”

  Paul pulled her to him and kissed her. “Then let me worry about the rest. I’ll separate from Maggie, and when I return, we’ll get married.”

  His lips met hers again, awakening a wild, unfamiliar longing in her. Although she knew it was wrong, that it went against everything Mrs. Faraday had drummed into her, and that she should know better, should leave the room, she allowed his lips to slip from her mouth, wander down her throat, and pause on her shoulder.

  “Oh, Rose,” he breathed, a shudder running through his body.

  For a moment he was still, gazing at her, exploring the feel of her skin with his hands. His movements set her body alight, aroused something deep inside. She felt an all-consuming longing that came over her occasionally at night without her knowing how to get relief. But now she knew. Paul’s warmth, the scent of his skin, were the answer.

  Her heartbeat thundered in her ears, and when he finally drew her down onto the bed, she didn’t resist. Breathing heavily, Paul drew her nightdress up above her thighs and pulled down his pajama bottoms. Rose couldn’t see him, but when he gently penetrated her, she felt it. It took her breath away. The pain only lasted a few moments before giving way to renewed desire.

  “I love you, Rose,” he gasped as he sank down on her and began to move carefully. Rose wrapped her arms around him and tried to shut out the reproachful voice of Mrs. Faraday calling her a whore.