The Sugar Islands (14 page)

As the years passed, he often found himself regretting the still evenings when he and the captain had sat side by side on the doorstep of their cabin silent for hours upon end. He was philosophical about it. Men solaced you mentally; women physically. You couldn't have a thing both ways. And at least his wife left
him to himself. She was content enough that he should spend the days riding round the plantation, supervising the work desultorily. He was happy doing that. He loved riding slowly with the sun hot upon his back, through the long fields of sugar-cane, to the cocoa-covered hills where the red flowers of the immortelle protected the young shoots. He loved to watch the negroes move along through the lines of cane, cutting at the green spears with their long, rounded knives; and the women, with their skirts tucked up above their knees, treading the cocoa seeds, polishing them with their hard-soled feet.

His happiness was at its height during the season of the sugar crop. It was a happy time. Even the most meagre of the negroes looked healthy when once the mills were set, not for that but for the thick, drained juice that negroes sweated in the fields and boiling houses; the thick and golden juice that time would mellow and ferment into that magic potion that could cure all griefs and heighten every happiness.

His love of wine was the sole issue that ever disturbed the harmony of his married life. His wife liked rum; unquestionably. She was in that respect appropriately companionable. But she was more interested in money than in rum. And as the price of sugar was considerably higher than the price of rum, she would persist in an attempt to improve and increase the output of sugar, even if it meant injuring the rum. She would, for instance, suggest that the skimmings should be sent back to the clarifiers instead of to the still-house; and when it was very pertinently explained that the rum crop would thereby be reduced by a third whatever the corresponding gain in sugar, she had the effrontery to suggest an increase of the amount of dunder which would doubtless affect the flavour of the rum but would restore the bulk.

On that point Roger was very firm.

‘My rum shall not be interfered with.'

‘But it shan't,' his wife explained. ‘Not yours, at any rate. That rum's for sale. None of it shall come into the house. We will have some especially good rum laid down for you.'

But Roger shook his head.

‘No,' he asserted. ‘No. It's too great a risk. You never know where you'll end if you start monkeying with liquor. I'm not even sure that it isn't a mistake to use just skimmings. I'm not sure we shouldn't use the cane juice itself.'

On that last point, Sara was able to dissuade him.

It would be too sweet, very much too sweet,' she explained. But as for the skimmings . . . well, if he insisted. Gracefully but reluctantly she yielded.

He patted her affectionately on the shoulder. Take it for all in all, she was an admirable wife.

His only real source of worry was his children. They were daughters which was in itself a disappointment. He would have liked a son. All the same they had been rather appealing when they were young. They were like puppies, affectionate, helpless things that needed you. It was a pity they could not have remained like that. So soon they became self-willed, self-important persons with ideas and ambitions of their own.

It was their ambitions that Roger found particularly galling. The elder of them, Claudine, had very grand ideas. She had had them from the moment she could speak. On her fifth birthday she demanded a slave for her private use. At seven she began to criticize her home.

‘It's a pity we're so poor,' she remarked one day.

Her mother bridled.

‘We're not poor.'

‘Then why do you and father wear such shabby clothes?'

She eyed her parents contemptuously.

‘At Everard's home,' she said, ‘they have silver knives and forks.'

At the age of ten she became dissatisfied with the actual fabric of her home.

‘You say we are not poor, and yet we live in a wooden house. All my friends have stone houses.'

Her mother was, on this point, inclined to agree with Claudine. She examined her accounts and decided that a limestone house was within their means.

It was a decision that for a year added little to Roger's comfort. The wooden bungalow was consigned to a mulatto overseer. And a large stone house was built, with a courtyard and an imposing gateway. It was draughty in the wet season and very hot in August. The immense mahogany table that ran down the centre of the dining-room was profuse with silver. At one end of it sat Sara, very fashionably and uncomfortably clothed after
the manner of the French ladies of the court. Across the other end of it Roger reclined negligently in an open-necked shirt and sleeves rolled above his elbows. The long table was the one thing in the new house of which he thoroughly approved. It was so long that conversation was impossible.

For the most part he ignored his family. Their demands for a higher social standard he accepted in the same spirit that he accepted the irritating sallies of a mosquito. They could give their parties if they chose. But on the whole he was definitely relieved when Claudine announced that she was going to marry an officer in the French Marine and return with him to France.

The nuptials were amply celebrated. Sara wept copiously.

‘We shall never, never see her again,' she said.

‘No,' said Roger, ‘I don't suppose we shall.'

He had hoped that life would be easier with Claudine away.

It wasn't much.

His second daughter, Averil, had very similar ideas to her sister. There was the same talk of clothes, of parties, of the right thing, and the right people. Roger supposed that it amused them. He was content enough as long as they left him quiet.

One day Sara came to him in an agitated state.

‘Averil,' she announced, ‘is going to have a baby.'

The announcement quite interested Roger.

‘I wonder if it'll be a boy,' he said.

It was rarely that Sara got annoyed with Roger. This was one of the occasions on which she did.

‘That isn't the point.'

‘Isn't it?'

‘Of course, it isn't. The point is that the young man's got to marry her.'

‘Who is the young man?'

‘André Gastoneau.'

Roger ruminated.

‘Is that the weak-looking young fellow with too much money, who was sent out here because Paris had got too hot for him?'

‘That's it.'

‘But she can't possibly want to spend the rest of her life with him.'

‘It's not a question of what she wants. She's got to marry him.'

‘I don't see why.'

‘Roger, don't be dense.'

Roger shrugged his shoulders.

‘Oh, very well then. Have the young fellow up for dinner.'

It was a good dinner on which Roger concentrated in whole-hearted appreciative silence. He did not speak till the last dish was cleared away. Then he turned to his black butler.

‘Have my pistols brought in here, and that priest.'

To the astonished young man upon his left he explained that there was going to be a marriage ceremony. The young man was too astonished to protest.

‘You can make your home here if you like,' said Roger, when the service was at an end.

History proceeded to repeat itself. Roger's grandchildren were very like his children. They were boys, that was the only difference. The younger, Edouard, was well enough. He seemed happy, pottering round the plantation, talking to the negroes and overseers, going down into Port de Paix to chatter with the sailors in the bars. But the elder, Louis, was a combination of his

mother and his aunt. He had the same grand ideas.

§

To Roger life seemed little different from what it had been a generation back. Sara and himself were a quarter of a century older. There were two young boys instead of two young girls. Of his son-in-law the climate had taken speedy toll. There was, in Averil, an extra woman, but that was all. In just the same way that his aunt and mother had, Louis, seated half-way down the long table, looked with disgust at Roger's open shirt. He had persuaded his grandmother to dress reasonably. She had not, in fact, needed very much encouragement. He wondered how soon he would be qualified to take his grandfather in hand sartorially. ‘I must wait,' he thought.

He waited till his eighteenth birthday. It was then through his grandmother that he approached him.

‘Couldn't you do something about grandpa's clothes?' he asked.

There was to be a party on the occasion of his birthday. It was most important that his family should not be a discredit to him.

‘He just can't sit down to dinner like that, can he, Granny? And he could be made to look quite presentable. He's not bad looking. Couldn't you persuade him?'

Sara was more frightened of her grandson than of her husband; reluctantly she set about her task.

‘We're having a dinner party for Louis's birthday,' she explained. ‘It will be rather an occasion. They will all be coming in elaborate clothes. We were afraid that if you came in those clothes, you would feel out of things. You would, now, wouldn't you?'

Roger fixed her with a slow, long glance.

‘No,' he said at length.

‘But you'd be happier, surely, looking like everybody else.'

‘Why?'

A helpless expression came into her face.

‘Please, darling, please,' she said. ‘If only to please me.'

He nodded his head. If she put it that way, all well and good. But if she imagined this decorating business was going to be any fun for him—

‘Darling,' she said, and kissed his forehead. ‘Now it would be best, wouldn't it, if we asked Louis what he thought about it.'

It was the cue Louis had been waiting for. He was fecund with suggestions. He knew exactly the shade of green that his grandfather needed; the type of stocking; the pattern for the brocaded waistcoat; the buckled shoe.

Roger listened indulgently. Sara had let him have the kind of rum he wanted. She was entitled to make him wear the kind of clothes she wanted. He surrendered himself into her hands.

As a result of that surrender, he found himself a week later in a collar that was stiff and tight against his throat; in padded clothes that weighed upon his shoulders; in pointed leather shoes that pinched his toes; seated at the head of a long table with a comely, soft-scented, languid-eyed woman on either side of him; with Sara, extravagantly coiffed and extravagantly clothed, seated at the other end. In between them was a row of elegantly attired men and women. More glasses and more knives than a whole ship's company could need were set in front of him. Behind each chair stood a white-coated, bare-footed figure. His plate had been piled high with food. His wineglass sparkled. He drank
two glasses hastily, but they left him in much the same condition that they had found him.

He tweaked the calf of the nearest servitor.

‘Bring me some rum, quickly.'

Warm, sweet, mellow on the tongue, it flowed reassuringly along his veins. He felt better after that. First the lady on his right, then the lady on his left addressed a series of remarks to him. The remarks did not seem to call for any particular answer, so he made none. The ladies turned away and began to talk to the men on the other sides of them. There was a great volley of talk, swelling, loudening and softening like the sea on a fair day. As half a century back he had lolled in his cabin listening to the sea, Roger sat now in his high armchair, savouring content.

Every few minutes the white-coated negro at his side set some fresh dish in front of him. He had never imagined there could be so many varieties of food. They could do what they liked to his plate as long as they replenished his glass at seemly intervals. He would have been very happy had not the collar been so close about his throat, nor the coat so heavy on his shoulders, nor the shoes so tight about his toes. He was very hot. The sweat ran in long streams down his cheeks. Most of the guests were in a similar plight. The faces of the women were scarlet. Each man's forehead was beaded heavily.

‘I wonder if their feet hurt as much as mine do,' he thought. Had he been less stout he would have bent down and flicked them off.

Interminably the meal ran its course. There was a scraping of chairs. The women rose to their feet. Roger at the head of the table remained seated. He always remained seated at the table. He did not like drawing-rooms and padded chairs. He liked to lean across the table on his elbows, a glass in front of him, a decanter at his side, and sit there brooding till he fell asleep and his servants carried him upstairs to bed. He always felt easier when Sara had left the room.

‘Take off my shoes, there's a good fellow, Jean,' he said to the negro who was filling up his glass.

He felt happier when his feet were free. Then he broke the clasp of his collar and eased his throat. It was only the heaviness of the coat that irked him. The room was cooler now that the women were away. He leant forward on his elbows, the glass
clasped between his hands. From the end of the table came a murmur of talk, like a tide ebbing. He dozed a little, to be aroused by the tap of Louis's hand upon his shoulder.

‘Grandpa, hadn't we better go into the other room?'

Roger blinked at him uncomprehendingly. To leave the table. What an extraordinary suggestion. Yet it was very clear that Louis was not joking. There was almost a critical expression on Louis's face.

‘We should join the ladies.'

‘why?'

‘It's late.'

‘Is it?'

Roger could not understand what had occasioned the solemnity in his grandson's face. If Louis wanted to go, why shouldn't he. But there he was pleading fretfully for his grandfather to accompany him.

‘We can't stay here for ever. And we can't go without you. You must see, surely.'

Roger did not see. He grunted and leaned forward on his elbows. Louis left him. Presently the murmur of talk at the end of the table ceased. He leaned his head forward on his hands, and snored.