by Alec Waugh
“I don’t suppose you see much of the Prestons, do you?” he inquired.
She shook her head.
“Not oftener than we can help. She tires me.”
“Me too.” He turned to Maxwell. “You know all about that trouble of theirs with Graham don’t you?”
“Who doesn’t? It’s their only topic of conversation.”
“What’s your view of it?”
“That Graham’s a coward.”
“Has he any cause for being one?”
“He probably has now, after letting the peasants get out of hand. They think they can do anything they like.”
“If Preston wins his case, will it make things difficult for the rest of you?”
“It might, but it’s high time we had a showdown.”
Maxwell spoke in the resentful tone that was now habitual with him.
They went in to lunch; into a high cool room, darkened by closed shutters. The long walnut table was well polished; the silver shone. The fish soup was cold without being iced. Sylvia was a good manager. A radio was playing dance music. Did they have it on, Fleury wondered, to take the place of conversation? They seemed to have little to say to one another. It was only because he was here that the ball of talk kept moving. What were they like when they were alone together? More than once he noticed his son fixing on Sylvia a pensive look he found difficult to describe.
“Have you wondered what effect your going in for politics will have upon our own laborers?” he asked.
“That’s the last thing I should consider.”
“Twenty years ago it was considered beneath the dignity of our class to offer ourselves at the hustings. We would never put ourselves in the position of having to solicit from them.”
“That was all very well when the nominated members had a majority, but when this new constitution comes into force, the island will be run by the legislators whom the islanders have chosen themselves; some of us will have to convince them that we are the right people to run the island.”
“Do you think it’ll increase your prestige to argue with them?”
“I’m not going to argue with them. I’m going to give them the facts. I’m going to tell them not to be silly fools. I’ll tell them they’re uneducated, that they’d better place their trust in men who are.”
His father let that pass. There was little chance as he saw it of his son being elected. It might be as well for him to learn his lesson. But his heart was heavy as he lay out afterward for his siesta. He felt tired and old and lonely. Thank heaven, Betty would be back tomorrow.
When the heat had slightly lessened they went round the estate. It was mainly coconuts, but sugar cane was planted round the house with a little cocoa in the foothills. The hillside looked very lovely with the immortelles covering the tender shoots with their orange-red parasols.
A couple of laborers who were supposed to be collecting coconuts were siting on their haunches, smoking. Maxwell blazed out at them.
“Lazy sods, what you need is an overseer with a whip! That’s the only way you can be got to work. Come along now, on with it.”
There was venom in his voice. He doesn’t like them, his father thought. And that was the one thing a West Indian would not forgive. He’d forgive anything in the long run to the man who liked him. Probably that was what was wrong with the estate. The men didn’t like Maxwell; they wouldn’t work for him. It was as simple as all that.
A little farther on Fleury noticed that there had been a minor landslide and a ditch was dammed. A pond of stagnant water had formed.
“Mosquitoes’ll breed there,” he said.
“I suppose they will. I must get it seen to.”
“Is anyone responsible for keeping a special lookout for that kind of thing?”
“I am myself: but I can’t be expected to go round the estate every day.”
He spoke casually, with indifference. His father made no comment. Maxwell had flown into a fury over an idle laborer when everyone knew that a West Indian laborer spent half his time squatting on his heels, yet he was not checking stagnant water. That was what was wrong out here: scenes over trivialities and no attention to what really mattered.
“No,” he said when the tour was finished, “I won’t stay on for tea. I want to be back before it’s dark.”
He also wanted to look in at the Jamestown Club. Colonel Whittingham, the chief of police, was usually in there at that time. He would like a word with him before reporting to the Governor. Whittingham was noisy, garrulous, and drank his full share of swizzles, but he knew what was going on.
His views coincided with Fleury’s own. “I’m a policeman,” he said, “and I don’t like trouble. Which is exactly what we’re likely to get in Santa Marta, with this damned fellow Boyeur telling them all that they’re exploited. And your section of the island is as inflammable as any.”
It was close on seven when Fleury got back to his own house.
As he came into the house, the telephone bell rang. It was Denis Archer.
“I’m sorry to trouble you, sir, but I think that you went to Preston’s place today.”
“I did. Yes.”
“Fine. H. E. has to go to Antigua tomorrow for a conference. He wanted to have your views on that affair before he left. He wondered if you could dine here; it’s very short notice I’m afraid.”
“It isn’t that, but Jocelyn’s here alone.”
“He’d thought of that: he’d be delighted to have her too. If you both can, then I’ll beat up another girl. You could? Oh splendid. H. E. will be delighted.”
It was a successful party, in the way that impromptu parties so often are. The talk flowed easily. But Fleury did not fail to notice that though Jocelyn and Euan Templeton had a lot to say to one another, the young man’s eyes kept glancing across the table at Mavis Norman; she was very obviously his choice. Not surprisingly, he supposed. She had the glamor of experience. The eloquence of those glances across the table strengthened an idea that had come to Fleury during the drive back.
He turned to Mavis.
“I saw your sister today.”
“How was she?”
“As always, very pretty.”
He paused, looking at Mavis thoughtfully.
“Would you say she really liked it there?”
“How do you mean, liked it?”
“Do you think she’s bored… no, let me put it this way: if you were out there, would you miss the clubs and parties?”
“I’m very different from my sister.”
She said it with a twinkle. She’s a nice girl, he thought. What was going to come of her? What was going to come of any of them, for that matter?
“Suppose you were in her position, would you welcome a chance of being brought back into town?”
“I’d leap at it; but then I’m me.”
He nodded: the sisters were very different. But would any girl of twenty enjoy living on an estate, with no neighbors, no child, no real responsibilities? It was easy to get servants in Santa Marta. Sylvia only had to issue orders. How did she spend her days; reading, listening to the radio? Was that one of the causes of Maxwell’s restlessness, the knowledge that his wife was discontented? It might make all the difference if they came into Jamestown; why shouldn’t Maxwell undertake the office side of the work, and let someone else run the estate; Preston for example? Their properties adjoined: then he and Betty could take Jocelyn home.
It might work out. But Maxwell would need careful handling. He must not feel that he was being displaced.
“And now,” Templeton was saying, “what would you young things like to do? Your father and I, Jocelyn, have one or two matters to discuss. Would you like to play bridge, or turn on the gramophone, or go for a drive?”
They voted for the drive: the moon was nearly full. They would take their bathing suits. The Governor led Fleury into his study.
“Now,” he said, “tell me about it.”
He listened attentively, without int
errupting.
“What kind of a chap is this Preston? Would you say he was a solid citizen?” he asked.
“I would.”
“He had a good war record. I’ve checked up on that. We want to do all we can for our ex-officers. Crown colonies aren’t much use if they don’t give a chance to our own nationals. Would he feel ill-used if I asked him to drop his appeal?”
“His wife would.”
“Wives can be the devil.” He paused. “I take it that you, in his position, wouldn’t have appealed?”
“In my case the situation would not have arisen. The matter would have been stopped at the start. I don’t quite know where or how, but I’m sure it would have been. A peasant wouldn’t have tried to take advantage of me that way.”
“Then you do think it was sharp practice.”
“You know what these people are. They don’t think it dishonest to cheat a white man.”
“The sooner they learn it is the better. I don’t see why an ex-soldier should be given a raw deal because of the custom of the country.”
“In two years’ time he’ll probably be grateful to you for intervening.”
“You think if I don’t intervene, there may be trouble.”
“There’s a possibility.”
“You do, now that’s most interesting. I’m very grateful to you. I’ve said it before and I say it again, it means more than I can say to have one person whom I know and trust. How little I guessed forty years ago when you led me onto the field at Lord’s that we should be meeting under these conditions. Do you know I don’t think there’s a single other person on that side about whom I know for certain if he’s alive or dead.”
“I’m sure that I don’t.”
They told you when you were at school that you were making friendships that would last your life. But it wasn’t true, the Governor thought. You were limited at school by your age group and the house you were in. There were only a dozen or so boys with whom you stood a chance of being a friend, and the things you had in common with them were matters of immediate association. It was different at a university, where a freshman could meet a graduate on equal terms: when you were yourself mentally developed, knew your own tastes and plans: you could take your pick out of an entire generation. At a university you did make friends that lasted you through your life. At the same time curiously enough there were few links greater than those that held together those who had been at the same school, even if they had not spoken ten words to each other during their five years there, or had indeed not even been contemporaries: there was such a wide common ground of joint experience.
For an hour they talked of masters and boys that each had known. When finally Fleury rose to leave, Templeton repeated what he had said before. “I don’t know what I should do without you here.”
Fleury left believing that the Governor proposed to take his advice. He would have been surprised could he have known what the Governor was thinking. When I was sixteen Julian Fleury was my captain, he was thinking. And I looked up to him. I mustn’t forget that’s forty years ago; our positions are now very different. I have a far wider experience of life than he has. My judgment is the likelier to be sound. He can tell me a lot, but I must be on my guard against being overinfluenced by him because he was my senior then.
Chapter Six
l
On the following afternoon Julian Fleury drove out to the airport to meet his wife. She had been away two weeks, and he was conscious of a quickening excitement. It was good to feel like this after thirty-five years of marriage. He was lucky, very lucky.
As she came down the gangway of the plane, he had the same sense that he had had in their days of courtship of seeing her afresh, for the first time. She waved, and her mouth was smiling; a warm and friendly smile, very like Jocelyn’s: perhaps too much like Jocelyn’s; perhaps that was why they had never been wholly natural with each other.
Betty had kept her figure. Had he half closed his eyes, he would not have known whether it was she or her daughter that was coming across the asphalt to him.
“Darling. It’s lovely to be back.”
She came into his arms, and there was again under his nostrils that faint scent of lilac. It was a real kiss of welcome.
“I feel incomplete when you’re away,” he said.
The plane had grounded at four o’clock.
“Is anyone home?” she asked.
He shook his head.
“Sylvia and Maxwell are at Belfontaine. Jocelyn’s out with Euan Templeton.”
“Now that’s something I want to hear all about.”
They had so much to tell each other that it was hard to know where to start.
“This is the best part of going away,” she said. “All the time I kept saying to myself when anything amusing happened, ‘how I shall enjoy telling Julian this.’”
They had so much gossip to exchange that they had finished tea, and the sun had already sunk behind Trois frères before they began to talk about their children.
They had left that last, because it was something serious. They were neither of them completely happy about their children. Yet they were conscious that they did not see their joint problems from the same angle. It was the one issue on which they did not see eye to eye, and they avoided it as much as possible. Without wholly recognizing that they did, they resented their children’s having disturbed their harmony; the father feeling resentful toward the son, the mother toward the daughter.
“Have you heard from Maxwell?” he asked finally.
“No.”
“He’s planning to run for council.”
“Why?”
He did not try to explain. He gave her the bare details.
“Poor little boy,” she said.
There was a note of pity in her voice that irritated him. Why should Maxwell evoke that warmth? What had he done to deserve sympathy? He’d had the best there was.
But it was not against his wife but against his son that he felt that irritation.
“Does he stand any chance of getting in?” she asked.
“I shouldn’t say so.”
“Won’t that make him feel worse than ever about everything?”
“It needn’t. No other white man will get in. He’ll not be out of things. It may make him feel less alone. He’ll be in the same boat with others.”
“That’s always been his trouble hasn’t it, being out of things?”
It had been, but why had it; others hadn’t felt that way. Why couldn’t Maxwell have accepted the West Indian pattern. He did not want to discuss the boy: it made him angry. He couldn’t let that happen on Betty’s first evening home. He switched the subject.
“I’m worrying about Jocelyn too,” he said.
“Oh.”
There was a bleak lack of interest in that “oh” that matched, on her side, the irritation that her “poor little boy” had stirred in him; an irritation not against him but Jocelyn. He steeled himself. He had too often skimped a discussion of Jocelyn’s problems, so as to avoid a tension with her mother. He was guiltily aware that more than once he had failed to fight Jocelyn’s battles, out of a reluctance to disturb the harmony between himself and Betty. They talked of the injuries done to the children of an unhappy marriage, but the children of happy marriages were victims too: the parents resenting having their children come between them. Had not that happened to Maxwell and to Jocelyn? He’d got to be firm now.
“She must be got out of here. She must be sent back to England.”
“We’ve discussed that before. She’d feel very lost.”
“She would, if she went alone. We must go with her.”
“We?”
“You wouldn’t want to go alone, I wouldn’t want to be six months without you. We need a change.”
“It will cost a lot.”
“We can afford it.”
“What about the estate, what about Maxwell? Do you trust him to run it single-handed?”
“I’ve thou
ght about that.”
He told her what he had planned.
“I suppose it’s all right if you say it is. If you seriously think six months for Jocelyn in England is worth all this bother.”
It was said grudgingly. Confound the children, he thought. Why can’t they leave their mother and myself alone. A second later he was despising himself for thinking that. They were his children. He must fight Jocelyn’s battles.
“It’s absolutely essential in my opinion. Who is there for her to marry here? We don’t want to have her turn out a Mavis Norman.”
“Do you think that’s likely?”
“She might do even worse. She might become a shriveled spinster.”
“It’s your decision, Julian.”
There was a pause. They had said all they needed, more than they had wanted.
“Have you talked to the children about this yet?” she asked.
“I wanted to see you first. I did not want to say anything to Jocelyn till I had talked to Maxwell. It might improve matters between himself and Sylvia.”
“It might.”
“We can discuss it on the night of the Nurses’ Dance. Jocelyn is dining at G.H. We’ll have them to ourselves.”
“That’s a good idea.”
“And now don’t you think we should be going to the club. They’ll all want to hear your gossip.”
As they walked through the hall toward the car, he slipped his arm through hers, pressing it against his side.
“Nothing must come between us. Nothing.”
She returned the pressure.
“Nothing,” she said. “Not ever.”
2
On the eve of the dance Sylvia bathed and in her dressing gown lolled back in a long chair, while Jocelyn dressed for the G.H. dinner.
“Do you know who’ll be there?” Sylvia asked.
“A mixed crowd, the usual ones and one or two unlikely ones.”
The usual ones.
Fifteen months ago she would have been one of those. Now she was a matron, and only went on young people’s parties as a chaperone.
“Who are the unlikely ones?”
“Grainger for one, and then a cousin of David Boyeur’s, someone I’ve never heard of, Margot Seaton. Denis asked me to be nice to her. He said she might be shy.”