And Ma had certainly been dismayed when her baby had announced that she wanted to marry Rafael Diaz. At least initially. She had allowed herself to be persuaded by Father’s enthusiasm for the match, and by the promise that she would be allowed to ‘vet’ both Cuba and her prospective in-laws before the engagement became official. But Ma’s resistance to the idea had been based entirely on the fear of letting her little girl become part of another society which hovered on the brink of destruction; a Creole herself, she had liked Rafael from their first meeting, and the thought that Toni might be going to recreate some of the glories of her own girlhood had been a powerful catalyst.
Joe simply disliked Rafael. It was impossible not to be aware of this, however hard he tried to be polite. The dislike was composed of many things, obviously. Joe was all male beast, like all the McGann men; he had no use for elegance and fine manners, well cut clothes and manicured hands. Then there were brotherly reasons, which she could appreciate, such as the imminent removal of herself to Cuba, out of the United States, and the mere fact that she would cease to be a McGann and become a Diaz de Obrigar — how romantic that sounded. He also clearly felt that Rafael was an unstable hothead, and Toni had to admit, at least to herself, that whenever he got on to the subject of Cuba and Spanish rule her fiancé abruptly changed from a gentle, thoughtful, charming young man into an angry, vehement patriot, whose words sometimes even frightened her. But she always reminded herself that attitudes like that had to be a part of every young man’s character, and that lacking that spark of aggression Rafael might just be the fop Joe obviously considered him.
Another cause for doubt? Sometimes Toni felt quite angry with her brother for interfering in her idyll. Almost from the moment of her first meeting with Rafael she had basked in his obvious adoration. She had never experienced that before, at least combined with the right man. She knew she was attractive; she could see that every time she looked in her mirror. But she was also absurdly tall, for a woman, five feet ten inches in her bare feet — one reason why she had spent so much time in her bare feet this summer was to make sure she always remained at least an inch shorter than Rafael. Thus although whenever she visited New York she caught men giving her second glances, nearly all of those she had actually met, whether the sons of Pa’s business acquaintances or Joe’s navy friends, had been shorter than herself, and even if they had not all been put off by that fact, she certainly had been.
Rafael was tall enough, just, and he really was terribly handsome, with his fine features, his little moustache, his brown complexion, his willowy body which suggested delicacy of health but was actually far stronger than it appeared. He also possessed the most perfect manners — perhaps too perfect — and, as she had tried to explain to her brother, an elegance which she found tremendously attractive.
Added to which was that enormous excitement generated by the fact of who he was, that he would be inheriting far more than a mere plantation, but also an ongoing fight for the freedom of his people — every time she recalled the story of the Virginius and the murder of Harry Lisle her blood boiled with outrage, just as her heart swelled as she thought of Sir Lambton Loraine’s proud stance on the side of justice. To think that she was going to be part of that tradition, that she would actually meet someone like this John Lisle, bent on vengeance — she found herself wondering what he would look like.
None of those things, of course, to which could be added Rafael’s undoubted wealth and the romance of living in a semi-tropical paradise, were really quite sufficient to base a lifetime on, she knew. That depended on the man himself. When he had kissed her, it had been a first for her, apart from members of her own family. She had been utterly surprised, and apprehensive, her ideas on actual physical contact between the sexes having been based on the novels she had always read so avidly and her mother’s single piece of advice on the subject: ‘Beware of men who wish to paw you.’ She had braced herself to throw off Rafael’s hand, but he had never touched her. He still hadn’t except for her hand. She didn’t know whether or not she was disappointed about that, especially now they were all but betrothed.
But that too had surprised her. She had supposed that having half told him she would marry him, all future initiatives and decisions would be hers, at least until she gave him the go ahead to speak with Pa. But as she had carefully considered the prospect, and found it more and more attractive, especially as Pa knew both Rafael’s parents and seemed to like them so very much, so it had seemed that Rafael had had second thoughts. She had been disconcerted, having allowed him to kiss her several more times, discovering it to be a most enjoyable pastime. When he had taken himself off to New York to visit with some friends of his father’s she had been quite put out. But when he had returned, she had been in a seventh heaven. Because his doubts seemed to have been swept away, presumably by their separation. His certainty, his renewed ardour, had ended her own doubts, and she had been utterly happy. Until now. Oh, damn Brother Joe, she thought angrily.
*
But she regained her confidence when Joe returned to his ship, and she could concentrate on the excitement of getting ready for the coming visit to Cuba. Rafael had already left to return home and prepare his parents for the invasion by the McGanns, and there was a lot to be done at home, as Ma wanted to run up some new outfits for her, while Pa got hold of a professor from New York to teach her the rudiments of Spanish, although Rafael had assured her his parents spoke English fluently. And then at last the great day arrived and they left the looming winter cold of New England on board a steamship which was to take them to the sunlit south. Joe had joined them in New York, in a somewhat better humour, as it had definitely been confirmed that he was to be made Executive Officer — or Senior Lieutenant — of the new battleship Maine, as soon as she was commissioned, which would be a great advance on his present post of Second Lieutenant on an ancient cruiser, and a very definite step in the right direction. This had quite restored his faith in human nature, at least as represented by the Navy Department.
He remained somewhat sceptical about her romance with Rafael, but she thought that would be put right by time.
And for her, it was the journey of a lifetime; she had never been farther afield than New York before. To her disappointment, Pa had chosen a ship which did not call at Havana. Apparently, while there was a railroad connection between the capital and Santiago de Cuba, the capital of the south, it was a long and uncomfortable journey; Pa had opted to sail direct to Santiago. It was difficult for Toni to accept the concept that Cuba was so big; every country in the world, and especially islands, seemed so small on the map when compared with the bulk of the United States. But within a week of leaving New York, not only were they beneath blue skies and enjoying warm winds, with the serrated backbone of the island being revealed to her on the northern horizon, but they were entering the twisting, tortuous approach to the harbour of Santiago, past a whole succession of exciting points of interest, which Joe delineated for her; Morilla Point on the right, surmounted by Morro Castle — there was apparently a Morro Castle protecting Havana as well — then between high cliffs on which were perched the inner forts of La Socapa on the left and Santa Catalina on the right, where the passage narrowed to well under four hundred yards — ‘Which means there is no way any fleet could ever force its way in here, so long as those guns were manned,’ Joe told her — then past Smith Cay on the left, with the picturesque Perros Cove on the right — perros apparently meaning dogs — which led to Nispero Inlet beyond.
Still steaming north, the steamer now appeared to be running aground, but a moment later she came abreast of Punta Gorda, and there, opening away to the north east, was the harbour itself, a large expanse of water, dotted with anchored ships, at the north east extremity of which was the city of Santiago, a romantic colonial town, with verandahed houses and sloping roofs to combat the tropical rainstorms of the hurricane season.
The steamer anchored off, as there was not sufficient water by the wharves
to go alongside, and the passengers were ferried ashore by lighter. There were a great number of armed soldiers and policemen on the dockside — more in one place than Toni had ever seen before — but everyone seemed very relaxed and good humoured, and there was hardly any inspection of the Americans’ luggage, before the McGanns were allowed through into the outer hall of the customs building, where Rafael and his father were waiting for them.
‘Jerry, my old friend,’ Arnaldo said in English, embracing the somewhat embarrassed captain. ‘To meet you again, after all these years, and in such pleasurable circumstances … ’ he kissed Ma’s hand. ‘My dear Mrs McGann, it is such an honour … and you, you will be Joseph. I have heard so much about you.’ But these were only preliminaries, because then he took both of Toni’s hands. ‘My own dear daughter,’ he said. ‘I do consider you that already, you know. And you must look on me as your papa.’
He was a good deal more effusive than Toni would have liked, but there could be no doubting the warmth of his greeting. She allowed herself to be embraced and kissed on both cheeks, and was then released to face Rafael.
‘Sometimes,’ he said, ‘when the nights have been very dark, I have had nightmares, that you would not come.’
When he said things like that, staring at her with those dark eyes, she almost wanted to melt. ‘I’m a girl of my word,’ she said, and kissed him, to the evident delight of his father.
*
It was, apparently, a considerable journey from Santiago to the plantation, so that although Toni was anxious to see her future home, it was necessary for them to break their journey. They left that afternoon, which was also disappointing, as she was not given time to see the only thing she really wanted to in Santiago, the infamous slaughterhouse outside which the men from the Virginius had been murdered. They travelled in an ancient coach which Don Arnaldo said had been in his family for years, something Toni could well believe, as they bounced and rattled over the very uneven road; she envied the two young men, for Rafael and Joe had been given horses, with which they rode well ahead of the others — but that, she felt, was a good thing, as they would get to know each other and perhaps even like each other.
The track, it could never be called a road, led along the coast, at the top of low cliffs which looked south over the sparkling north Caribbean Sea, and was dominated on their left by a high mountain called the Gran Piedra. Beneath this mountain they finally arrived at the little port and bay of Daiquiri, where there was a small hotel, the whole of which had been booked by Arnaldo Diaz for his party for the night. Fascinated and delighted by the scenery, so utterly unlike that of Long Island, with casuarinas soughing in the breeze, coconut palms dotting the hillsides, and the ribbon of beach which ran along two hundred feet beneath the protecting cliffs, Toni found herself even more entranced by the avocado pear and the fried fish which was served for supper, the rum she was given to drink and which quite made her head spin, and by the mosquito nets beneath which they were required to sleep, with good reason, as there were bugs everywhere.
But all that paled into insignificance when they proceeded the next day, by carriage, and just before noon, when the sun was very hot, came to the top of a slight hill, having turned inland from the sea, and saw the plantation. Her future home! She was astonished at the size of it, and for the first time really understood some of the occasionally irritating condescension with which Rafael had viewed the McGann acreage. She wanted to command the coachman to whip his horses ever faster to get her to the house more quickly, as she gazed at the freshly ratooned cane fields — instead of planting from fresh seedlings after each grinding, a costly business, shoots from the cut stalks, called ratoons, were invariably used, thus enabling one cane stalk to provide as many as sixteen crops — the huge factory, the bowing peons they passed on the track, the royal palms, the barking dogs, the smiling women as they approached the house, and then, the house itself, so much more like a fortress than a country mansion … and the people waiting for them on the verandah.
Rafael and Joe had ridden on ahead, and were standing beside the two women. Rafael’s face was full of pride and happiness as he watched his betrothed coming up the steps. While Joe … Toni realised that she had never seen Joe looking quite so thunderstruck, as he stood beside Christina Diaz. But then, she realised, she had never seen a woman as beautiful as Christina herself before, either. Her heart gave a tremendous surge, as she realised that even Joe was going to fall for this family, or at least, one part of it. She hardly heard the introductions, smiled mechanically at Carlotta Diaz, herself embraced Christina, shook hands with the other waiting women, the wives of the various overseers, she gathered, who had come to meet their future mistress, then with their husbands … and then her heart, still pounding painfully, seemed to stop altogether as she came face to face with the man at the end of the line.
‘My chief overseer,’ Arnaldo Diaz said at her elbow. ‘And my greatest friend, Jack Lisle.’
Chapter 4
The Plantation — 1893
While Lisle’s face had all the strength and determination Toni had anticipated, he was so much younger, and more handsome, than she had imagined he would be. But then, she realised, she had not really imagined him at all. He had been a concept, a representative of vengeance, of a man determined to bring down the tyranny that ruled over Cuba. That he might be a living, breathing human being, who was also devastatingly attractive and would one day be smiling at her, had never really occurred to her.
And now he was taking her hand to kiss it.
He was Arnaldo Diaz’s overseer, and therefore would one day work for Rafael, and thus … for her?
‘It is my great pleasure, Miss McGann,’ he said, speaking English, as had the others. But for him it was a mother tongue.
‘I’m so glad to be here,’ she said. And never had she been more sincere.
*
‘Well, Joe, what do you think of it now?’ Jerry McGann came into the bedroom his son was using, and where Joe was carefully dressing for dinner, as he had been warned they did every night at Obrigar. His father was already wearing evening dress, while he studied himself in the mirror, laboriously knotting his black bow tie; his dark blue mess jacket waited on the back of a chair, while the Negro valet who had been appointed to help him hovered anxiously — he knew a lot more about tying bow ties than his temporary master, but the white man had insisted on struggling by himself.
‘Quite a set up.’ Joe stepped back and looked at himself some more, then frowned at his father. ‘How does it look?’
‘Lopsided. But it’ll do. You never could knot a bow. Quite a set up. You can say that again. But what charming people.’
‘Oh, they are,’ Joe agreed, with more warmth than his father had hoped for. ‘I apologise unreservedly. Although I have to say … ’ he glanced at the valet.
‘Say it. Don Arnaldo tells me none of the servants understand English.’
‘Well, to own all of this, and then to risk it all for the sake of a little political freedom … ’
‘Now there’s an odd point of view, for an American. If those old Virginia planters of a hundred years ago, Washington amongst them, hadn’t been prepared to risk all their wealth for a little political freedom, we’d still be saluting the Union Jack. Thank God there will always be people who will take that chance. Who, just because they own places like this, feel called upon to lead their society, whether for good or bad. My father-in-law was one of them.’
‘And it brought him nothing but disaster,’ Joe pointed out, unabashed.
‘True. Anyway, we don’t know Arnaldo is involved in politics.’
‘Isn’t that one of the things we are here to find out?’
‘Supposing it can be done tactfully,’ Jerry reminded him.
They walked down the stairs together. ‘Is this place anything like Grahame’s plantation at Louisiana?’ Joe asked.
‘I suppose all sugar plantations have to be vaguely similar. It’s much drier here. In Louis
iana there were the bayous all around. Not that Don Arnaldo has an irrigation problem; he tells me enough water comes down from the hills to supply all his wants. You can’t grow cane without a lot of water.’ They reached the bottom of the stairs, and saw Christina Diaz crossing to the drawing room doorway in front of them, wearing a deep pink off-the-shoulder evening gown. ‘What a lovely girl. Don’t you agree?’
Which Joe knew was the question he had been waiting to ask all evening, as both he and Ma had undoubtedly observed his double take when he had first met his future sister-in-law.
‘I think she is charming,’ Joe said carefully. ‘I like her a whole lot more than her brother.’
*
They were seated beside each other at dinner. ‘I do not think I have ever met an American sea captain before,’ Christina confessed. She spoke very carefully, as her English was not quite as good as the rest of her family’s.
‘Well, you haven’t met one yet,’ Joe told her. ‘One day, perhaps.’
‘Oh, all of those gold stripes … ’
‘There are only a couple,’ he pointed out. ‘I’m a lieutenant. Quite a senior lieutenant, though.’
‘Then you will soon become a captain,’ she insisted.
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