by Alec Waugh
There had been very little difference then between himself and Jimmy Templeton. Their own house had been as impressive as Tavernslake though it had been in the family for two generations instead of six. Jimmy’s father was a peer whereas his was not, but with the power of the House of Lords curtailed after Lloyd George’s budget, the difference between a peer and a landlord had not been great. They had foreseen for themselves, he and Jimmy, the same kind of life. How different their lives had been.
Jimmy’s name in a Brain Trust Quiz would have been picked up by nine in ten. It was fame too, not notoriety. No blot had tarnished his reputation, in public or in private life, as a cricketer or as a soldier. His name was more honored than his father’s. In comparison how obscure had been his own life. Only the people he had personally known had heard of him. Yet he did not think of himself as a failure. He had performed his various duties as well as he could and not ineffectively; step by step he had done what had seemed the right and the wise thing to do; in his own world he was an object of respect and of affection. How differently though it had turned out from the way he had expected.
He had imagined that he would lead a life like his father’s. The running of an estate in England had seemed a full occupation when he was a boy. What reason had there been for doubting that the lands which had provided his father and grandfather with an honored place in the community would fulfill the same function for himself? Money was coming in from Santa Marta. He had looked on that money as the interest from invested capital, as his friends looked on their dividends from diamond mines in South Africa.
He had never considered himself a part of West Indian life. Even though he had himself been born here. The West Indies had never been real to him. His father had rarely talked of them. Once, when he himself had said, “I’d like to go there one day and see our estate and some of our relations,” his father had shaken his head. “If you follow my advice, that’s the last thing you’ll do.”
Had he been wrong to ignore that warning? How could he tell now? At the time it had seemed sensible, with the slump hitting simultaneously his English investments and his revenues from Santa Marta, with his capital depleted to meet the death duties under his father’s will, with Arthur’s school bills to be met and his brothers-in-law in difficulties: surely it had been prudent to see for himself what the situation was. And indeed what would have happened if he had not come out? With the estate badly if not dishonestly handled by an inefficient manager, he might have been bankrupt within ten years. He had had to get the estate reorganized. How could he have foreseen that the slump would become an economic blizzard.
Step by step he had done what had seemed the best thing at the time. Until now he had no regrets. But today, seeing Jimmy and his son together on the lawn he had realized suddenly, not so much what he had lost as what his children had lost through him. He compared Maxwell with Euan Templeton. What a difference; and Jocelyn: what future was there for her here? She was twenty now. The years went by so quickly. Something must be done about it soon.
But what? He felt inadequate. He had none of the instincts and capacities of the careerist. In a day when every Englishman of a certain class had been brought up to an assurance of security through the mere fact of having been born an Englishman, his duty had been clearly marked: duty to his family, his school, his country, “the white man’s burden.” On the map that hung above the schoolroom mantelpiece a sixth of the world’s surface was painted red: there was no talk of a commonwealth or of self-governing dominions. He had his own foreordained niche in the empire. One day he would run the estate that his father had inherited from his father. Until that time, as an officer in the county regiment he would fit himself for his responsibilities. It was not for him to organize a career; his instinct, deep-rooted in his nature and his training, was to accept unquestioningly the responsibilities that each new day brought; but nowadays in a changing world that was not enough. Something had to be done quickly about Jocelyn. He had realized that today. When Betty came back, the question must be tackled seriously.
4
In the White House half way up the hill, the Governor was studying the three copies of the London Times that had come down by the morning’s plane. He had a power of concentration that enabled him to detach himself from the day’s events and discover by a quick turning of the sheets what there was of interest or concern to him. There was little as far as he could see. The birth and death columns contained no familiar names: no letters of condolence or congratulation to be written. He marked three answers to questions in the House on colonial policy for Archer to cut out and file. They were midweek issues; no football scores. He folded them and rose. It was time for bed. He was at peace with himself and with his world. It was good to have Euan here. It was high time that he and the boy got to know each other. Letters were a poor substitute, and he was glad that the period of rapprochement should take place here. He wanted to be looked up to by his son and there was all the difference in the world between a general who goes down to the War Office every morning in a bowler hat like any Whitehall clerk, and the Crown’s representative abroad in whose presence everyone has to stand until he himself is seated.
Across the harbor he heard the wail of a liner’s siren. Wilson P. Romer’s ship. She was late in sailing. Trouble on shore, he supposed, with members of the crew. He must ask Whittingham about that tomorrow. He hoped nothing had happened to disturb the good impression that he wanted to color the editorials of the Baltimore Evening Star. He walked to the window. He watched the ship draw slowly from the quay. Its band was playing “Some enchanted evening.” Its sound grew fainter, the ship grew smaller, like a toy boat in a bath, as it passed behind the spur of the hill that flanked the harbor.
5
In the lounge of the liner Wilson P. Romer, a cigar in his hand, a whisky soda on the table, was giving an account of his day.
“I only spent thirty hours ashore,” he said, “but that for a journalist is ample. A journalist knows what to look for. In the same way that a camera can take in a second a picture that would require forty hours of an artist’s time, a journalist can get a swift, vivid, accurate first impression; if he stays longer he loses that impression. He does not see the woods for trees. But in those first hours his perceptive antennae are alert. He misses nothing. His trained sense tells him what to accept and what to reject.”
He outlined his technique.
“At that garden party of the Governor’s I knew right off which were the men, and women, that it was worth my while to meet. I picked the significant types. There was the Attorney General, a man almost completely black, well trained, wise, I’ve no doubt, but pathetically anxious to convince me that a colored jurist could be as impartial as a white; he was one of the older generation, brought up in a day when the colored man had few civic rights.
“Then there was the conservative ancien régime type of planter. He wasn’t by any means the reactionary you might suppose. He wasn’t intolerant; he wasn’t unliberal, but he felt things were going too fast. Then there was the young labor leader who was afraid that things were going too slowly, a brash young man in some ways, but intelligent, oh yes, very definitely a young man of parts. He wants to have his island transformed tomorrow, or rather today, on what he believes to be the pattern of the English Welfare State.
“And then at the head of it all, holding in his hands the strings of these separate and often conflicting interests, is the Governor. Gentlemen, I was most impressed by him.” He paused, dramatically. “I am myself a one hundred per cent American. I have no doubt that the future of the world lies with the American people, that out of our melting pot we have produced the finest race the world has seen. At the same time I must admit when you find an Englishman, cultured and informed, a man of the world, who has rid himself of insular prejudices, an aristocrat by birth but a liberal in politics who has kept abreast of modern ideas, I would be inclined to argue that as an individual type … well, gentlemen, all I can say is that Lo
rd Templeton is all of that.”
It came as the peroration to some fifteen minutes of uninterrupted oratory. There was a pause, each of his five companions waiting to see who would take the stage and how; manners demanding that a straight switch should not be made into another subject. The topic must be allowed to taper off.
“And what do you think yourself of the immediate future of the island? How would you compare its prospects with those of our own Virgin Islands?”
The editor smiled knowingly. “I’ve a hunch that it’s all going to be much more interesting than anyone on that island thinks. And I’m going to back my hunch. I’ll tell you how I propose to do it. I’m going to send one of my staff down there to cruise among the islands and keep me posted as to what’s going on.”
He said it with an air of finality; he had delivered his last word and was now ready to concede the chair. The permission was promptly taken up.
“A journalist I met last fall was telling me …” one of the group began.
Wilson P. Romer sipped his whisky, drew on his cigar, sat back in his chair, and followed his own thoughts. Bradshaw was the man to send. Bradshaw needed a change. He had been on one job too long. He was getting into a rut. He needed to be revitalized. Bradshaw had been on his mind for a long time now. Younger men were clamoring for his job. But it would break Bradshaw’s heart to be pensioned off. Here was the solution. Bradshaw knew his oats. If there was a story here, he’d find it. He’d have no rivals, no younger men to beat him to it. Bradshaw for Santa Marta; that was how to fix it.
Chapter Four
1
Travel agent folders of the Caribbean present the islands in terms of unbroken sunlight, white gold beaches, and towering mountains. All those things are to be found there, but rarely all in the same island. Dominica is mountainous and majestic, but it has no sand beaches off which it is safe to swim, and there is more rain than sunshine there. Antigua and Barbados have beautiful beaches and steady sunlight, but they are flat. A few islands like St. Lucia do, however, have mountains, white beaches, and a dry climate. Santa Marta is one of such lucky ones; its succession of beaches along the Leeward coast not only provides admirable facilities for smuggling—it is estimated that two-thirds of the rum that is shipped from Santa Marta finds its way back to the groceries by small boats within forty hours—but makes bathing picnics one of the chief occupations of the residents, a fact which explains why the Country Club did not own a beach. On Sunday mornings as the Archdeacon had pointed out there was a general agreement to meet at Grande Anse after matins, but otherwise the patricians were glad to avail themselves of one of the few opportunities for privacy that the conditions of their life allowed.
The beach that Jocelyn Fleury had chosen for her party on the afternoon following the Governor’s party was ten miles out of Jamestown and one of the least frequented. It was for that reason that she had chosen it. She did not want Grainger Morris to be embarrassed by the presence of her friends. It was also a very pretty beach, edged with coconut palms, with a wide spreading mango tree to whose shade you could retire when the sun grew too hot; there was no village within two miles; behind it towered the high peak of the Diadem; on the horizon were the shapes of islands so shadowy that you were not certain whether they were clouds or mountains. It faced northwest.
“There’s always a chance of seeing the green ray there,” Jocelyn informed the newcomer.
At half-past three that afternoon the A.D.C. was the victim of nervous turmoil. He had driven the Governor to the cricket ground; on his way back he had passed the Bon Marche pharmacy; he had slowed down, and turning his head had seen Margot Seaton in its center, standing by a vitrine, demonstrating an article to a customer. Their eyes met, and she had smiled; he stamped on the accelerator.
Back in his office he discovered that his hand was trembling. He could hardly hold his pen. He could not concentrate upon his report. The sentences would not take shape. He sat at the desk motionless. He’d have to leave it to the next day. Steady, he warned himself. Steady. This is the danger point.
He knew the sky-signs. His experience in gallantry might not be extensive but it had been intense. Not only had it abruptly terminated his career at Oxford, but in London he had only escaped being cited as a corespondent because the defendant, an exceedingly free-hearted lady, had deserted him at the eleventh hour for a man better fitted to support her. Having read in a novel that there was always a point at the beginning of a love affair where you could withdraw yourself into safety, he had vowed when he joined the Governor’s staff that next time, when he reached the danger line, he would stop on the safe side of it.
It had been easy to make himself a promise like that when he was high over the Atlantic in an airplane. It was very different here, when adventure beckoned. The minute hand on his watch pointed to the number nine. He tidied his desk, locked away a confidential document. The Continental was five minutes away. He had time to drive through the town.
He slowed down as he reached the drugstore and craned his neck; he could not see her; she must be behind the counter, or gone out for tea. His foot rested on the accelerator, but he did not press it. He reminded himself that he needed a new tube of toothpaste. He pulled on the brake.
She was standing behind the counter.
“I want a tube of toothpaste,” he informed her.
“Certainly. What kind?”
“Do you have Eucryl?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’ll have that.”
“The large size or the small?”
“What is the difference in price?”
“The large size is thirty-six cents, the small size twenty-four.”
“How much difference in size?”
“The large size is nearly twice as large.”
“Then the large size is the better bargain.”
“Yes, it’s the better bargain.”
“I’ll have the large size.”
She took the tube from the glass case. He laid three shillings on the counter. He watched her pack up the parcel. The bangles on her wrists rattled as she folded the paper over. Her fingernails were painted a purplish red, they were rounded and short, the varnish matched her lipstick. As she leant forward, he could see her breasts. On this hot afternoon, her skin looked cool and firm. If he got out of this shop with nothing said, he’d have stayed on the safe side of the danger line. If he made no move now, he never could. Everything hinged on the next sixty seconds.
She fixed the package with Scotch tape.
“There.”
She handed it across and their eyes met.
He felt weak, defenseless, chained; yet he was conscious of a vibrant, triumphant sense of power.
“I’ve got to see you again, somewhere not here,” he said.
“That is up to you.”
There was a moment of silence. Her glance met his steadily. He had not the slightest idea what she was thinking.
“Are you going to the Nurses’ Dance?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“We’ll dance together then.”
She nodded.
It was more of a relief than he had dared to hope. The danger line was passed; there was no going back. He was committed. The last two lines of a sonnet by Clifford Bax ran through his mind—
What bright spirit impelled towards delight
Was ever known to finger out the cost?
He drove to the Continental in what he described to himself as an anapaestic mood.
The others were already waiting. They all crowded into Jocelyn’s car; Jocelyn drove, with Euan sitting between her and Doris. Doris, in one of her garrulous moods, acted as a guide, pointing out the landmarks.
“Isn’t it curious how the French names stick, calling a bay an anse, a mountain a morne, a factory a boucan, the harbor the carenage. I wonder if it would have been the same if the French had taken Barbados from us, or if they’d have altered all the English names into French.”
Euan scarcely
listened. His attention was concentrated upon Mavis. He could see her reflection in the driving mirror. Now and again he looked round to ask her something. She was prettier than he had suspected. Had he really made an impression on her?
Jocelyn at the wheel was thinking, There was one thing certainly to be said for Doris; when she was in the mood she made a party go. Not that she was a substitute for Sylvia. The inseparables had been one thing. This new trio was another. Perhaps they’d made a mistake in trying to maintain it as a trio. They should have formed a group of five or six, with interchanging units. Archer sat silent in a corner. He was a dull dish, Mavis thought.
The car drew up beside a narrow bay; the sand was white, the water a faint blue deepening to dark. The girls changed in the car, the men behind a cluster of mangrove bushes. Euan was in the water first. How cool, how invigorating it seemed, after the tepid tideless Mediterranean. He stretched himself upon the sand and Jocelyn sat beside him. I must find out what he’s really like, she thought.
What was he planning to do, she asked him, when he came down from Oxford.
He shrugged. He had no fixed plans, he said. “I’ll have three years there. That ought to give me time to make up my mind.”
“What about the Army?”
“Not for me, no thank you. There may be a war in the next ten years. If there is, there’ll be only one thing for a regular army subaltern, to stay with his regiment and the men he’s trained. Nothing could be duller. But as a civilian I might land myself something dramatic.”
He was employing again in self-defense his artificial manner. Jocelyn was amused by it and intrigued. What lay behind this manner?
“That’s a curious reason for not being a regular soldier.”
“But it makes good sense. I’ve heard a lot of military talk, and a good deal of military grumbling, and I’ve come to the conclusion that three-quarters of the glamor jobs in the last war were performed by men who were civilians at the start of it.”