Sugar in the Morning (7 page)

“Of course not,” I said.

We went in the family banger, as Cuthbert referred to the ancient family car that must have been nearly as old as I was. The engine grumbled even in neutral and I was convinced that it would break down if we attempted the gentlest slope.

“What is this Blue Basin?” I asked at last, inwardly resigning myself to the probability of having to walk home. “How far away is it?”

Cuthbert grinned. “Nervous?” he asked.
“
It’s
only about twenty miles—the round trip, not just there!
”

So we wouldn’t have to walk further than ten miles, I thought, if he was right about the distance, which I doubted. I looked down at my plain, flat-heeled shoes and thought that there were some advantages in being tall, if only that it discouraged one from wearing very high heels, and walking any distance in high heels is no joke at all, let alone ten miles!

After a while I forgot my anxieties about the car and settled back to enjoy the scenery. The Blue Basin turned out to be at the head of the Diego Martin Valley and to get there we had to go through the River
Estate
which is maintained by the university for experi
ments
w
ith
cacao, so there was plenty to look at
—
notably
the
sixteen miles of hibiscus hedge that lined the road. There were coral trees too, sometimes called the immortelle trees, and with some reason for they have been known to flower even after having been cut down and sawn up for firewood! Frangipani, the orange trumpet vine, bougainvillea, plumbago and the crepe myrtle all vied with one another for the traveller’s attention.

Cuthbert was supremely unaware of their haunting fragrance and riotous beauty, but it took me the whole trip to the Blue Basin to assure myself that he really took them for granted. It seemed incredible to me who had never been in such lush surroundings before. Left to myself, I would have stopped, exclaimed over and admired a hundred different bushes, trees and shrubs, but Cuthbert drove stolidly past them all.

“
You just wait till we get there,” he said at intervals. “If I’d thought we might have taken the whole day and brought a picnic, but it doesn’t matter, everything looks swell in the evening light here.”

We came to a sudden stop and he parked the car with a flourish, patting the wheel much as if he had been congratulating an irritable horse for performing as well as could be expected. “Well, we made it!” he said brightly. “From here we walk.”

We were still in the cocoa plantations sheltered by the immortelle trees. The roads were flat and tunnelled their way through the well-ordered trees, allowing the cooler mountain breezes to waft back and forth. There was strong smell of earth and growing things that had been newly watered and the occasional flash of a bird that might have been a humming bird—a brightly-coloured jewel darting through the air.

When the plantations came to an end, we found ourselves in citrus groves and maize fields, all neatly marked at their boundaries by hedges of golden vars. Elsewhere in Trinidad one could see the dark scarlet of the red variety of this plant, known locally as dragon’s blood, which separated house from house, plantation from plantation, and parish from parish. It was typical, I thought, not to have fences but a bright flowering hedge that was as attractive as it was utilitarian.

I heard the water cascading downwards long before we came up to it. The Blue Basin was only a few minutes’ walk up a steep, narrow path after we came to Beausejour village. We nearly missed the path, but Cuthbert, who must have been there often before, realised that we were on the wrong track and took us firmly back to the beginning again. By the time we were near enough to hear the full music of the water singing about us, I was sweating in every pore. It had better be good, I thought, and then we rounded the last
bend and there it was.

We stood and looked down on it, a cascade of water falling into a blue pool beneath that was surrounded by sheer sides of rock and vegetation. Beneath the upper pool were several smaller ones that were fed by the overflowing water in a multitude of smaller waterfalls. Above this great well of living water was the hot blue sky that peeped down into it through the surrounding trees. The water was extremely cold and the whole place was practically deserted despite the almost arrogant beauty of the views all about us. A few youths, their bodies hard like polished nuts, disported themselves in the cold water. Two of them were Hindus and wore the sacred thread of the Brahmin, but their companions were a mixture of Negroes and Europeans. They were all of
th
em beautifully made and shared the same lithe hardness that seemed typical of the Trinidadian youth. They were like so many modern Pans playing in their own sacred pool, and I felt like an intruder as I followed Cuthbert down to the edge of the pool, where he spread out his towel and lay flat on his back, slowly and deliberately drawing on an American cigarette.

“
O
h
, Island in the sun
,”
he began unexpectedly to
sing: “
Willed to me by my father's hand!
It’s beautiful, isn’t it? Have
you ever been anywhere more beautiful? And it’s mine, every stone
of it! It’s
mine and it’s yours and it’s theirs!” he added with a wave of his hand towards the youths. “That’s one thing that Daniel Hendrycks can’t take away from us!”

I sat down beside him. “I don’t suppose he would want to,” I said pacifically.

Cuthbert laughed without amusement. “Oh, don’t you
?
My poor, poor, innocent cousin!” He finished his cigarette with decision and jumped easily to his feet. “I’ll race you into the pool!” he shouted, as gay as he had been bitter. “Last one in isn’t a true Ironside!”

I didn’t mind at all that I lost the race by alm
o
st a minute. The blissful thought of that cold blue water was something I wanted to savour slowly. I was going to let it creep over me with a shivery chill that diving in would spoil. It was going to be like a great ice-cold drink that one could feel the whole
way down in sharp contrast to the prickly heat outside. But, in the event, it wasn’t like that at all. I had barely reached the pool when some other people arrived and the female half of the party shot past me in a perfect dive into the depths of the water. I just had time to see that she was pretty and well-rounded, when she surfaced and laughed at someone behind my back. When he dived in too I saw with a sinking feeling that it was Daniel. Trinidad could be a mighty small island and there seemed to be no escaping him.

I was not a particularly good swimmer, but I could dive with a flawless perfection that belied my true stature in the water. The sight of Daniel made me dive now. The waters parted to receive me, knocking the wind out of my lungs because though I had expected them to be cold
I
had not known quite how could they really would be. Nevertheless I forced myself to swim across the basin under the water and only to come up, with slow elegant movements, right on the other side. To my annoyance, I found that Daniel was right beside me.

“How did you get out here?” he asked me cheerfully.

I nodded towards Cuthbert, but Daniel showed no signs of noticing that I was not alone.

“You must meet Pamela Longuet,” he went on, grinning all over his face. “Hey, Pamela, come and meet the latest of the Ironsides property!”

The pretty girl, who had met Daniel at the airport, swam easily over to us. They all swam like fishes, I thought resentfully. I was having increasing difficulty in keeping up in the water and was half afraid that I would sink right before Daniel’s proud and mocking eyes. Pamela trod water happily and extended a friendly
hand.

“How nice to come across you again so quickly,” she said with the engaging affection of a young puppy. “Daniel said you might be persuaded to come and work in the refinery office with me.”

I spluttered helplessly and made a final effort to look languid and at ease. “Oh, did he?” I said crossly. “There’s no chance of that!”

Pamela looked upset. “Have I said something out of
turn?” she asked.

“Not in the least!” I smiled at her. In a now or never effort, I struck out for the safety of the bank and pulled myself out of the water, shaking my wet hair out of my eyes. Pamela came too, her anxious expression calculated to thaw the coldest heart.

“Oh dear, I did say something wrong!” she said. “Daniel will be furious with me
!
”

“I can’t think why,” I said in chilly tones. “It was
he
who said it in the first place, after all!”

Pamela took a corner of my towel to wipe her face. She spread her legs out into the sunshine and began to look on the bright side of the whole incident. “It would be rather fun to have you working there, she began.

Cuthbert, who had been standing watching the whole incident with calculated indifference, strolled over to us. “Hi, Pamela,” he grunted. “Having the afternoon off with your boss?”

Pamela shrugged her plump shoulders. “Why not?” she giggled.

“Why not?” he repeated. “I thought you were one of the eager little worker bees and only the Ironsides were drones?”

“Don’t be so silly, Cuthbert!” she snubbed him prettily. “You and Wilfred are always decrying yourselves. I don’t suppose you’re half as bad as you make yourselves out to be!” She turned her back on him and watched Daniel dive into the pool from an outcrop of rock that provided a natural diving-board. “Did he say your name is Camilla?” she questioned me, not bothering to listen to the answer. “Why don’t you come and look at the refinery, even if you don’t intend to work there?”

I glanced at Cuthbert’s mutinous face. “I may do, one day,” I said.

She appeared to be satisfied with that. “Isn’t Daniel marvellous!” she exclaimed. “Don’t you wish you could swim like that?”

I obediently followed Daniel’s progress in the water, but I was too busy wishing that I had the other girl’s cuddlesome figure rather than my own lanky leanness to have time to wish that I swam as well as he did.

“It’s time we went home,” Cuthbert said pointedly behind me.

“Is it?” I enquired lazily.

“Come on!” he urged me with determination.

“Oh, are you going?” Pamela put in sweetly. “I am sorry. Never mind, I’ll see you at the refinery!” She sat up and called across to Daniel: “Dan dear, Camilla’s going! Come and say goodbye!”

There was something rather funny about the maternal way she said it, but there was nothing funny about the eager expression that told the whole world how very much she wanted to please him. And Daniel would take it all as no more than his due, I thought with a sudden spurt of anger. I got quickly to my feet and pulled my dress on over my still dripping costume, packing up my things with hands that were all thumbs in my urgency to be gone.

“I didn’t think even
he
could spoil this place,” Cuthbert muttered glumly.

“Don’t let him!” I advised crisply. I shook hands with Pamela and nodded a distant farewell to Daniel Hendrycks.

“Goodbye!” he called out to me. He laughed suddenly. “Goodbye, long legs!”

Cuthbert and I were in such a hurry to get back to the car that we practically fell down the steep path to the village and walked in complete silence back through the fields and the flat roads of the plantations. I was angry with Pamela for being such a silly little thing, with Daniel for ruining a perfectly good afternoon, and most of all with myself for the treachery of my thoughts, for I was already planning how I would visit his beastly refinery. It wasn’t to see him, but to see how the sugar was processed, but even so I knew it would be wiser not to go.

“And who is Pamela?” I said suddenly, aloud.

Cuthbert stared at the road ahead of him. “Pamela’s father owns a lot of sugar too,” he said in stony tones. “He wouldn’t be interested in her otherwise!”

We fell into silence again and there was only the bright song of the birds to be heard as they sped from flower to flower, that and the leaves of the cocoa trees rustling in the evening breeze.

CHAPTER FIVE

D
oing
nothing in particular is something which grows on one. For a couple of days I still felt at a loss at not having to do anything at all that I didn’t want to, but gradually this state of affairs began to seem very enjoyable indeed and I would not have had it any other way. I had my cheque-book, which gave me an immense feeling of satisfaction, and I had my cousins, who were also doing nothing, to entertain me whenever I felt so inclined. If I thought about visiting the refinery at all, it became less and less pressing, and my interest had practically evaporated by the time I next saw Daniel.

He was coming out of a barber’s shop just as I was passing by. He had just had his beard trimmed to his
satisfaction and was feeling very pleased with life indeed.

“Hullo, long legs!” he called out to me.

I abandoned the plan which had half formed in my mind of pretending that I hadn’t seen him and waved a dispirited hand in his direction. “Hello, Daniel,” I said.

“Tell me,” he said, presenting his face for my inspection, “do you think I ought to shave these sideboards off altogether
?
”

He smelt strongly of a rather exotic after-shave lotion. I sniffed carefully and blinked. “Wow!” I said.

He grinned at me. “Glad you approve!”

“I’m not sure,” I said carefully, “that I do approve. You smell like a bunch of flowers!”

He wasn’t put out one jot. “Why not?” he demanded expansively. “It only adds a few cents on to the bill and it has a nice cool feel to it.”

“I’m so glad you think so!” I snapped. I had not yet forgiven him for his greeting. My legs might be long, but there was no reason for him to remark on the fact.

“When are you coming to look at the refinery?” he reminded me. He was still smiling as though I amused him very much indeed even if he wasn’t prepared to say why.

“I—I don’t know,” I stammered.

“There’s no time quite like the present, you know,” he said gently, but with a touch of firmness that made me suspect that he knew how I had succumbed to doing nothing at all.

“I can’t,” I burst out.

“Can’t or won’t?” he retorted, still quite calm and very superior.

I sighed. “Won’t, I suppose,” I admitted. “Can’t you see that it would really be rather disloyal of me?”

“No, I can’t,” he said frankly. “But have it your own way. It will still be there if you change your mind.” He shook his head at me. “You can’t go on like this, Camilla. You know it as well as I do!”

I swallowed down my first sulky response. “I don’t see that it’s any business of yours!” I said.

His mouth tightened in anger. ‘You’re right,” he said. “It isn’t my business. I’m sorry I bothered you, Miss Ironside.”

I didn’t like being left with such icy politeness. Still less did I like the knowledge that I had brought it on myself and that it would be entirely my own fault if he never spoke to me again. It was a rude awakening from my dream of leisured freedom. The knowledge, that I had so far kept at bay, that even twenty-five thousand pounds would not last for ever descended on me like a great black, depressing thunder-cloud.

Neither Wilfred nor Cuthbert were interested in sharing my sudden worries about money. They had got
used to my paying the household bills and generally seeing that the house was kept up and that their tailors’ bills were paid. They saw no reason to change such a delightful state of affairs.

“You’re our rich cousin, aren’t you?” they said with superb indifference. “You like living with us, don’t you?”

In despair I went to my uncle. “We’re spending money like water,” I told him frankly. “It can’t go on!”

Uncle Philip, pleasantly full of food, yawned thoughtfully. “How are you getting along with the boys?” he asked at last. “Are they nice to you? Which one of them do you prefer?”

“I like them pretty much equally,” I replied, keeping a short rein on my temper. “But that isn’t the point, Uncle. The point is—”

“Sure it’s the point!” he interrupted me. “I keep telling them that one of them had better marry you—”

“Marry me?” I gasped.

He chuckled. “Don’t you fancy the idea? They’re nice enough boys.”

“I don’t fancy being married for my money,” I said haughtily.

“Oh, sure, why not?” he protested. “Who else would you marry?”

I thought fleetingly of Daniel and wished I had not. Why he should come into my thoughts at such a moment, I really could not imagine.

“I don’t know that I plan to marry at all,” I said stiffly. “But meanwhile if we don’t do something there won’t be any money for me to be married for!”

My uncle sat up, astonished. “Here, how’s that?” he gasped.

“I keep telling you,” I said plainly. “We’re spending
too much money. It won’t last for ever, or even for very long if we go on like this.”

I thought at first that perhaps he might not have heard me. A slight narrowing of the eyes and the way he pursed his lips made me realise that he had and that he was thinking about it, thinking as quickly as he could how to rectify the situation and make something out of it for himself and his sons.

“So what are you going to do about it?” he asked in fading tones.

“I don’t know yet,” I told him. “I’m going to consult Mr. Glover. I’ll do whatever he advises me to do.”

Uncle Philip didn’t like that one bit. “What can he know about us?” he asked gruffly. “Does he know that the only work I and the boys understand is sugar?”

“Yes, I think he does,” I said firmly.

My uncle’s eyes grew cunning. “Then he might advise you to buy a sugar estate of your own,” he suggested with barely suppressed excitement.

“I suppose he might,” I agreed doubtfully. “But
I
don’t know anything about sugar. He might think that that matters!”

“Why should he? Who better to run it for you than your own family? You know, Camilla my girl, I think you’ve got something there. You can tell that Mr. Glover that you’ll have me right behind you all the way. Your cousins too! We’ll make us all rich yet!”

I had none of his confidence when I made an appointment to see the bank manager and tried to screw up my courage actually to go into the bank and talk to him. I put on one of my prettiest dresses to give me confidence, a new dress that I had only just bought and which had been rather more expensive than I had intended. When I got to the bank, though, what I was wearing didn’t seem in the least important in the face of all my other problems. Aaron Glover looked
genuinely pleased to see me though when I entered his office. He was just as pleasant and as unexpectedly from self-importance as I had remembered him.

“I thought you’d be in sooner or later,” he greeted me. I had the grace to blush.

“It isn’t easy,” I said, “to manage money at first when one isn’t used to it.”

“No,” he agreed promptly, “I don’t suppose it is. How can I help you, Miss Ironside?”

I explained the problem to him as well as I could. It wasn’t easy because I didn’t want to bring my relations into the picture any more than I had to, but the truth was that without them there wouldn’t have been any worry for me to talk about.

“My uncle wants me to buy a sugar estate,” I ended baldly. “Have I got enough money to do that?”

Mr. Glover nodded. He smelt of the same after-shave lotion that Daniel had and I had a sudden inexplicable urge to ask him if he went to the same barber. “You have enough money,” he said finally. “But are you sure that that’s what you want to do with it?”

I licked my lips. I really didn’t know. “I suppose it’s a sound investment,” I said, hoping to sound businesslike and efficient. “My family could run it for me.”

His twinkly eyes met mine. “Under supervision they might do that,” he said carefully.

I coughed. “Whose supervision?” I asked. “They
know a great deal about sugar
—
They owned a sugar estate in the south of the island.
”

“
It isn’t quite the same thing,” he corrected me.

“Why not?” I demanded.

“
It isn
’
t easy for me to tell you this, Miss Ironside,” he said uncomfortably. “I understand that the estate wasn
’
t at all well run. The labour conditions were frightful and little was being done to improve them. The sugar crop was falling each season too. If Mr.
Hendrycks hadn’t bought them out when he did, they would have gone bankrupt and might have ended up in court as well for cooking their books. I didn’t want to have to bring this up,” he added unhappily, “but when large sums of money are involved it’s as well to have all the facts before one.”

“
I
suppose so,” I agreed uneasily. It was better to know, rather than to guess and flounder about in the dark with a mass of unanswered questions about the whys and wherefores of my family’s state of ruin. “You’d better tell me all about it,” I said.

Mr. Glover smiled resolutely, wiping the sweat from his brow with a flamboyant handkerchief. “Things have changed in the last few years, Miss Ironside. Such abuses couldn’t happen now. Shall we leave it at that? It would be more interesting to discuss your own proposed purchase. Of course there would have to be safeguards and the law isn’t as easy as it was, but if you appoint some proper trustees to make sure the estate is properly run, I don’t see any difficulty there.”

“What kind of trustees?” I asked blankly.

“I could act for you,” he offered smoothly. “I’m reasonably well respected in the Island.”

I knew that this was more than true. Mr. Aaron Glover was a name to conjure with. It was rumoured that one day he would go into politics and, that if he did, he would end up as Prime Minister without really trying.

“Would you really?” I enthused. “
C
an I leave it all
to you?”

“We shall need another trustee,” he warned me. “And I must repeat my doubts about your uncle and cousins running the place for you. I’m sure any responsible trustee would insist on some other arrangement.”

“
Who would the other trustee be?” I put in, trying to pretend that the hollow feeling in my middle was not
shock but a pleasant sense of excitement that I was going to be a property owner in my own right.

“
I suppose Daniel Hendrycks would be the best man,” Mr. Glover said immediately. “You will have to
have an outlet for your crop into his refinery
—
”

“No!” I cried out, stung.
“
Anyone but him! Can’t you see what that would do to my uncle?”

Mr. Glover sighed. “I don’t think it’s very practical not to consider him very carefully,” he reproached me.
Your family’s feelings are more buoyant than you suppose. I can assure you of that!” he smiled. “I went to school with your cousins, you know. Also we have to consider that without Mr. Hendrycks’ active support we are unlikely to get anywhere at all.” There was a subtle threat in these last words that told me that without I Daniel I could not expect him to act for me either.

“I
shall ask my uncle what he thinks,” I said stoutly.

Mr. Glover pushed the telephone over to my side of his desk. “I should do that, Miss Ironside,” he agreed.
“
Meanwhile I shall go and look into the details of your account and see how big a mortgage you will require and if there is anything suitable at present on the market.”

My uncle was cock-a-hoop about the whole idea. He didn’t care who was named as a trustee as long as he could live on the estate and watch the sugar grow. Even to my prejudiced ears it sounded a tiny bit irresponsible, but my comments that it would all mean a great deal of hard work for us all were completely ignored.

“Sign on the dotted line, my girl,” he crowed. “That’s all you have to do! You can leave the worrying to the rest of us!”

“That’s w
hat you’d really like?” I was really pleading for reassurance, but I didn’t get any.

“I’ll tell you one thing, darling,” he snorted into the
phone. “If you don’t hurry yourself, your cousins and I will be cutting somebody else’s canes again this year!”

I put the telephone back on to its cradle and sat in silence waiting for Mr. Glover to come back. If I had never had the money in the first place, I thought miserably, I wouldn’t have had to make these unbearable decisions now. It was too much to ask, that I should bury everything I had into such a project. I didn’t
want
to grow sugar! I didn’t even like sugar!

Mr. Glover came back looking remarkably pleased with himself. “We’re in luck!” he announced. “The Longuet place is coming up for sale. You couldn’t do any better!”

“Longuet,” I repeated thoughtfully, aware that somewhere I had heard that name. “Pamela Longuet!” I brought out in triumph. “Any connection?”

He nodded. “Her parents. Do you know her?” His eyes regarded me with interest as if he were trying to puzzle out where I could have possibly met her. “Pamela is the only child,” he went on. “Her parents are getting rather old and they want to sell.”

“What about Pamela?” I asked.

He grinned. “There are rumours—” he said expressively. “She will marry soon and then she will have no need of the estate. At least I imagine that’s what her parents have in mind. The money will be more useful to her as a dowry.”

“I suppose she’s going to marry Daniel,” I said with calculated indifference.

He looked up quickly. “So you’ve heard that too!” he said with the immediate Trinidadian interest in gossip. “People sure do talk about one another in this place!”