Jason, Veronica

by Never Call It Love

  "Stop that! I was on the other side of the island looking for him last night. And today I went down to the cove to see if—"

  "Liar," she said quietly. "Liar and murderer."

  "Elizabeth, for God's sake! If I had done what you think I did, wouldn't I have recovered my money before I pushed him into the sea?"

  Because she had known he would say that, she had had all day to think of her answer. "Perhaps you did not know it was sewn into his coat. Or perhaps you did know, and left it there so you could say to everyone what you have just said to me. Your money was still in his coat, and so you could not have been the one who killed him.

  "Or perhaps," she went on, her voice thickening, "you hated him so much that for the moment you forgot about your money. All you wanted was to kill him. And you did, and then you came back here and got into bed beside me—"

  "Elizabeth!"

  He took a step toward her. She shrank back. "Don't touch me. How can you think I would ever let you touch me?"

  He looked at her bleakly for a long moment. This was how he had thought it might be. From now on the body of that unspeakable degenerate would he between them, an uncrossable barrier.

  "Very well. If that is what you prefer. I will never touch you again."

  His footsteps went back along the hall. She stood rigid until she heard him ride down the drive and turn toward the town. Then she slumped into a chair and sat huddled against the backrest, hands covering her face.

  Something had happened to her time sense during the past dreadful hours. Now she did not know whether fifteen minutes had passed, or twice that, before she became aware of the hot, heavy silence in the room, broken only when some insect struck against the jalousies. Nor did she know how long it was after that that she became conscious of her terrible aloneness.

  Suddenly the pendulum of her emotions swung. What if Patrick had told the truth? Without her knowing it, Christopher could have made other enemies since coming to this island. Or, if he had been last night in one of those grog shops or brothels on Harbor Street, he could have become embroiled in a drunken argument with some soldier or merchant sailor, someone who had followed him out into the night...

  Patrick had said, "I will never touch you again." Had he also meant that he would never see her again?

  As Jeanne and Jules led her back to the cart that morning, she had been vaguely aware that, next to a vacant anchorage where for the past week a Portuguese merchantman had lain, men were loading rum barrels aboard an American ship. What if it was due to sail with the next tide? And what if Patrick, after obtaining his money from the commissioner, had gone aboard it?

  She tried to reason the thought away, but then panic overcame her, and she stopped even trying to reason. She knew only that she must try to find him. She ran down the hall and snatched a lantern from its hook beside the kitchen door. Hands shaking, she struck a flint. Then the lantern cast a swinging swath of light over the graveled path as she ran back to the stable.

  Only minutes later she drove the gig across the town square. Light shone from the inn's open double doors, and farther along the street, from the windows of the commissioner's office. Was Patrick in there? She dared not take the time to find out. Perhaps even now that American merchantman was lifting anchor.

  She started down that sloping street where no respectable woman ever ventured except to or from some ship, and only then with an escort. She was halfway down the street when she reined in. There in front of a grog shop, tethered to a hitching post, was Patrick's bay gelding with the white forehead blaze.

  As she got out of the gig and crossed to the grog shop's open door, she did not even see the men and women on the sidewalk, staring at her in astonishment. Just inside the doorway, she halted, dimly aware of yellow lamplight, of the smell of rum and tobacco smoke and cheap scent, of the raucous sounds—loud male voices, shrieking feminine laughter—which gradually died as person after person in the low-ceilinged room caught sight of her.

  As yet, Patrick had not done so. He sat at a table, laden with a half-filled bottle and three glasses, against one smoke-blackened wall. Two women sat with him, a thin brunette of about thirty-five, and a much younger and quite pretty blond. Although Patrick, somber gaze fixed on his almost empty glass, seemed unaware of it, the blond had her arms wrapped around his neck and was whispering in his ear.

  For a moment Elizabeth felt dizzy with relief. Then she experienced something else, a surge of irrational anger at the blond woman. Aware that she trembled, she walked toward the table.

  Patrick looked up. An almost ludicrous expression of shock came into his face. He got to his feet so abruptly that the clinging girl lost her balance and nearly fell from her chair.

  "Elizabeth! What in God's name…"

  He came around the table, seized her arm, hustled her out into the night. On the sidewalk, he tossed a coin to a bystander, a wizened little man with graying dark hair. "Take my horse to the livery stable." Then he was in the driver's seat of the gig, with Elizabeth beside him, He wheeled the vehicle around, and with a lash from the whip, sent the pony trotting up the slope.

  He did not speak as they rattled across the square and passed the stretch of houses beyond. Then, as they moved between the two walls of black jungle, he demanded, "What did you plan to do? Denounce me to the assembled riffraff as a murderer?"

  She began to weep. "I was afraid yon were gone. I was afraid I would never see you again."

  It took him a moment or two to realize the significance of her words. Abruptly he reined in. He caught her to him, kissed her mouth that tasted of tears, and her throat As she clung to him, fingertips digging into his wide shoulders, she felt all her emotions of the past few hours—the fear and the bitterness and the hatred—give way to her need for this man's lovemaking.

  He said, in a thickened voice, "We'll go home now."

  CHAPTER 36

  Afterward Elizabeth often wondered if their child had been conceived that night. Certainly, never before had she been so abandoned in her response, so open to him. Afterward, too, she felt shocked at the realization that their frenzied lovemaking followed only hours after Christopher's death. It was as if the very ending of his sorry existence had made her poignantly aware of her own living body, and of its need for the man who held her.

  When at last they lay quiet, he said, staring into the darkness, "You know, don't you, that perhaps I can never prove to you that I told you the truth earlier this evening?"

  "Yes." In the absence of any sure knowledge about Christopher's last moments on earth, there would always be that dark question in her heart. Then she said, "But I will believe you without proof. I will believe you because I must believe you."

  He drew her head onto his shoulder and stroked her hair. "Then that will suffice."

  In those latitudes, funerals could not be delayed. The next afternoon, Christopher was buried in the little public graveyard, two miles from the center of town, where those not of the Catholic faith were laid to rest. No clergyman was present, but Colin had persuaded a gaunt-faced man from Boston, a ship's carpenter and an elder of the Plymouth church, to read the Twenty-third Psalm beside the grave. When she and Patrick had deposited Colin at the inn and then returned to their own home, Elizabeth sat down and wrote to Donald Weymouth, telling him that Christopher had died "by drowning," and asking him to tell her mother.

  Two weeks later, unable to find anyone who would admit even to seeing Christopher the night he died, the police commissioner and the town surgeon, who was also the coroner, gave as their verdict that Christopher Montlow had met "death by misadventure."

  As the weeks passed, bringing a return of the rains that drenched the island for a few hours almost every day, and bringing a quickened tempo to the island's social life, Elizabeth felt relieved that the etiquette of bereavement forbade her and Patrick taking part. She did not relish the thought of idle chatter at the morning coffees and endless talk of war at the evening parties. It was chiefly a naval war now. Th
e English, resigned to the eventual loss of the colonies, now used their battle frigates to harry the French along the North African coast and in the Caribbean. As yet, no English men-of-war had appeared in their particular part of the far-flung West Indian archipelago. But she could imagine the talk at those parties, the women expressing their fears, the men gallantly reassuring them that they need not trouble their lovely heads, because the French fleet, although usually invisible beyond the horizon, patrolled ceaselessly to protect Haiti and its neighboring islands. No, just as well to be away from such talk. Just as well to live quietly with Patrick, and wait with what patience she could muster for a letter from Donald or her mother.

  No letter came from either of them. But on one of the rare sunny afternoons that April, as she was about to hang freshly laundered curtains at the dining-room windows, she looked out and saw Donald Weymouth walking down the road. The curtains dropped from her hands, and she stood motionless, unable to believe that he was on this tropical island thousands of miles from the vicarage at Hadley. He turned in at the gate.

  Then, as she realized the undoubted reason for his presence, grief twisted her heart. The shock was not as great as it might have been. These past weeks, even as she had felt an increasing hope that she carried new life within her, she had sensed that her mother no longer lived.

  She moved to the door, opened it. Donald said, with that grave, gentle smile she once had loved so much, "Hello, Elizabeth."

  For a moment, overwhelmed by memories of her mother, and of home, and of this man she had once planned to spend her life with, she could not speak. Then she said, "Come in, Donald."

  When she had led him into the parlor, she turned to face him. "My mother is dead, isn't she?" Then, as he hesitated: "You can tell me. Somehow I have known it."

  He reached out and took her two hands in his own. "Yes, but it did not happen as you might think. I never told her of your letter. She was very ill when I received it. I did not know what to do, except pray for guidance." Wryness touched his voice. "The guidance never came. While I was still undecided, your mother died one afternoon in Mary Hawkins' arms."

  Elizabeth withdrew her hands. She said, from a tight throat, "I think you did receive guidance. I am glad she never knew what was in my letter. And now you have come all this way..."

  She broke off, and then said distractedly, "Forgive me, Donald. Please sit down. I will make us some tea."

  He did not move. His gaze, fixed on her face, held such a strange, searching expression that for a moment she thought he had not heard her. Then he said, "Thank you, Elizabeth, but please don't make tea. There may not be time for it."

  She said, bewildered, "Not time for..."

  "The Netherlands ship I came on will sail for Haiti in a few hours. It stopped here only to discharge me and one other passenger. Perhaps I will sail with it. It depends upon you."

  She waited, a silent question in her eyes. He said, "I did not want you to be alone when you learned of your mother's death. But I had still another reason for coming here. You see, there is a young woman, the daughter of a family who moved into my parish six months ago. I have found myself becoming fond of her. But first I had to learn if there was any hope that you would come back to England with me, now that Christopher and your mother..."

  Breaking off, he again searched her face with his eyes. "Your feelings for me have changed, haven't they, Elizabeth?"

  She remembered herself standing in the muddy Irish road in Donald's arms, remembered saying, "I will always love you." It seemed to her that it was another woman in another world who had spoken those words. She shrank from answering his question, but she knew that the very least she owed him was honesty, complete and immediate.

  "Yes, Donald, my feelings have changed."

  Again that searching gaze. "But you do love someone, don't you? You have... a fulfilled look now, not that lost one you had in Ireland." He paused. "You love your husband?"

  "Yes."

  "And he loves you?"

  "I don't know," she said painfully. "Perhaps as much as he could love any woman. Perhaps not. I just know that I cannot leave him." She added, "Oh, Donald! Forgive me!"

  He had paled slightly, and his smile was a bit uneven, but still it was a smile. "For something you cannot help? I think I knew as soon as you opened the door to me. But I had to come here. I had to know whether you were entirely lost to me, before..."

  He broke off. She said, "Oh, Donald! That young woman. I hope she knows how fortunate she is."

  His smile was quite steady now. "If she refuses me, perhaps you will write her a letter extolling my many virtues."

  "There will be no need for such a letter! And, oh, Donald! Be happy."

  "I shall try. As you must know, my poor Elizabeth, from the many times I quoted him to you, Samuel Johnson is my favorite sage. The good doctor says that it is the duty of the wise man to be happy. I shall try to be wise." He reached out and touched her cheek. "I had best get back to the ship now. Good-bye, Elizabeth."

  ***

  That night in bed, with Patrick holding her close, she wept out her grief for her mother. When at last she lay quiet in his arms, she expected him to ask the question he had not asked when, earlier that evening, she had told him the news Donald had brought.

  Instead he said, after a while, "Weymouth must have sailed with that ship, all right I heard that some Englishman came ashore for an hour or so and then went back aboard."

  Again she waited. But he just stared up at the darkened ceiling, one arm around her, the other crooked behind his head. Was he afraid to ask what emotions that brief reunion with Donald had brought her, or was he so confident of her that he did not need to ask? Or did he, quite simply, regard the question as of no importance?

  She wondered if she would ever really know him, and what went on inside his dark head. Perhaps not But it was best to resign herself to ignorance. She had learned how completely her emotions bound her to him. Now there was a new bond. These past few days, she had become certain that again she was pregnant And pray God that this time the child would live.

  ***

  On a night a few weeks later, Patrick stood in the distillery's cooking shed, uncrating two iron rollers that, once installed, would be used to extract juice from the sugarcane fed into them. Shipped from France, and then carried by mule back up to this low-ceilinged shed, they would replace ancient stone rollers that, cracked and eroded by a half-century of use, were no longer efficient.

  Through the open doorway of the adjoining room that housed the huge rum caldrons, he could see Colin seated at the littered desk in one corner. He was bent over a ledger, oblivious of the sound of Patrick's chisel and to the throb of drums higher in the hills. It was definitely the dry season now. For three days no rain had fallen. And so the blacks, obeying the call blown on a conch shell— an eerie, drawn-out sound that had echoed two hours ago through the early darkness—had slipped out of their ramshackle quarters and made their way through wind-stirred cane fields and along all-but-invisible forest trails to the meeting place.

  Suddenly through the drum throb Patrick heard something else, a deep, rolling sound like distant thunder. For a moment he stood motionless, realizing what the sound must mean, and thinking bleakly: So perhaps we'll have to run again. Then he dropped the chisel, left the shed, and crossed the narrow dirt road carved out of the hillside. From there he could look down the tree-covered slope to the coastal plain and the lights of the little town, and then out over the black water. Out to where ships' cannon flashed, raining iron on the island of St.-Marc. Evidently the fortress on St.-Marc had been caught unprepared, because there was only occasional answering fire.

  So English men-of-war had managed to slip through the French Caribbean patrol to attack the small island. And there were many ships. Cannon fire flashed from all along a rough semicircle that appeared to be about a mile in length. It would not take such a force long to subdue St-Marc. Probably English longboats, under cover of cannon fire, we
re already putting men ashore. And once they held St.-Marc, it would be St.-Denis's turn. He thought of cannon pounding the fort to rubble, and of the pinkish beaches reddened with blood as the invaders fought the fort's outnumbered survivors with musket and sword. He thought of himself and Elizabeth and Colin sailing under guard back to England, where he and Colin would receive a speedy trial and an even speedier strangling by the hangman's rope.

  Stomach tightened into a knot, he realized that the English, in their present mood, might not be too gentle even with his pregnant wife. After all, she had not only come here with him but also stayed with him, a rebel with a price on his head.

  Until Colin spoke, Patrick was unaware that his brother had limped across the road to stand beside him. "There are four American merchant ships tied up at the wharf."

  As Patrick turned to look at him, Colin added, "Since they won't want to fall into English hands, they must be hurrying preparations to sail now. If we could sail with them..."

  Instantly Patrick realized that one of those American ships could offer the best solution, perhaps the only solution. But the captain might ask a stiff price for taking three passengers aboard at the last minute.

  He asked swiftly, "Colin, how much money do you have?"

  "Damn little. A few louis in my pocket, and perhaps two hundred dollars American back at the inn."

  And the only other money they had between them, Patrick realized grimly, was in the distillery strongbox. "Come on."

  They hurried back to the long shed. Kneeling at the strongbox beside the desk, Patrick opened it and took out a leather bag containing coins—English sovereigns and French louis and American dollars. The bag had been much heavier before Patrick took delivery of those iron rollers that afternoon. The rollers were useless to them now, just as the whole distillery was useless, and the little house Elizabeth had refurbished, and everything else they owned except money.