Bride in Barbados (17 page)

"Oh, are we near Sam Lord's Castle?"

He glanced at her. "Yes. You've heard of it?"

"Jonathan took me to see it."

She saw his lips clamp together, as if he were keeping in
angry words, and she wished that she hadn't mentioned Jonathan. She
couldn't bear this trip if they were to be at sword's points all the
time. She made an attempt to divert his attention. "This is a beautiful
view from up here."

He remained silent for a moment, then said, "We're in St.
John's Parish now. The church is one of the nicest on the island. Would
you like to see it?"

She found herself agreeing, thinking that the longer they
delayed reaching their destination, the longer it would be before she
would be sharing the intimacy of a beach cottage with Travis.

The church sat on the edge of the cliff overlooking the
east coast; a sign informed passers-by that they were 825 feet above
sea level. The building was of the same gray-colored stones as the
church she had visited in Bridgetown, but here no town buildings or
traffic detracted from its lovely isolation. The grounds were large and
well kept. They got out of the car and strolled toward the church.

"An older church was destroyed by a hurricane in 1831,"
Travis said. "This one was completed a few years later. A descendant of
Constantine the Great, of Turkey, is buried in this churchyard. He came
here after his family was driven from Constantinople. Want to have a
look at his gravestone?"

Susan agreed and they walked among the old graves, along
with a few other visitors, until they found the moss-encrusted marker
where the name "Ferdinando Paleologus" was almost obscured. Inside, the
church was cool and modestly furnished. A woman was kneeling at the
altar. Unwilling to intrude, they stood at the back and looked around
without talking, and Susan felt an almost palpable atmosphere of peace,
so much so that she was reluctant to leave when Travis touched her arm
and gestured toward the door.

When they were in the car again, she asked suddenly, "Was
your family Anglican?" She had never wondered before.

"Yes. My grandmother was quite devout, I've been told,
although she died when I was too young to remember her. There are
churches closer to the plantation than St. John's, but I've always
thought I'd like to have my own children baptized here."

Susan looked at him quickly, but the remark was evidently
a casual one with no hidden meanings. Yet she would not have guessed
that Travis had any religious feelings whatever. "How far are we from
the cottage?"

"Only a few miles now."

All too soon, Travis turned the car down a narrow,
descending road and stopped beside a small, isolated, wind-whitened
dwelling. He took a key from his pocket and opened the door, and Susan
followed him inside.

In contrast to the outside, which the elements had
weathered severely, the interior was attractive and colorful, the walls
painted pale yellow, flowered curtains at the windows. The wood floors
shone with the deep patina of many waxings, and there were
bright-colored rag rugs scattered about. There was a central room with
rattan couches and chairs, padded with cotton cushions in blue and
green, at one end and a small kitchen at the other. A round maple table
and chairs separated the two areas. Susan breathed easier when she saw
that there were two bedrooms opening off the main room. A third door
led into a bath.

Travis set their suitcases down beside a couch. "Do you
like it?"

"It's very cheery," she admitted.

"It was nice of Kay to offer to loan it to us for a week."

The knowledge that it was Kay Harte's cottage did not set
well with Susan, although she made no comment. She couldn't help
wondering, though, if Travis and Kay had ever stayed here together. She
found that she resented that thought and pushed it away. She picked up
her small case.

"I'll take this bedroom," she said, "and you can have the
other."

He did not respond to the obvious way she was letting him
know that nothing had changed between them, even though he insisted on
calling this a "honeymoon". But there was a mocking gleam in his eyes
for a moment before he looked away.

"Kay said we'd find a stock of groceries in the kitchen.
If we need anything else, I can drive into the nearest town." He walked
over to the cabinet and was looking inside, taking inventory of the
contents. Then he opened the refrigerator. "Good. Milk and eggs. Kay
was here a couple of days ago. She seems to have left us well
supplied." He closed the refrigerator and turned to look at her. "How
about a swim before lunch?"

Susan was just beginning to realize how difficult it was
going to be, staying there alone with Travis for a week, and she shook
her head. "You go ahead. I think I'd rather get settled in my bedroom
and read for a while."

His response was a grunt that could have meant anything,
and then he lifted his suitcase and took it into one of the bedrooms.
Susan entered the other and set her case on the bed. Then she sat down
beside it and glanced about. The room was small, furnished with a plain
pine bed and dresser, a rag rug on the floor.

She felt suddenly bereft and very much alone, as if she
had come to the end of the world. Seven days of this seemed like an
eternity.

"You've spent most of this holiday cooking." Travis, from
a chair at the other end of the main room, watched her moving about the
kitchen. It was the evening of their fifth day at the cottage.

What he said was true. Desperate to fill up the time, she
had cooked two meals a day—only two because Travis had
insisted on making breakfast, saying it was the only meal simple enough
for him to handle.

She'd found a recipe book full of intriguing sounding
dishes and had driven into the nearest town to buy ingredients that she
couldn't find at the cottage.

Although she had been doing some cooking on the weekends
lately, she had gone about it grudgingly, resenting doing even that for
Travis. But being isolated with him in the cottage had made her look
upon the activity as a form of salvation, and so she had lost herself
for hours in meal planning and preparation. When she wasn't in the
kitchen, she read the books she had brought with her. After trying to
coax her to come swimming and snorkeling with him the first two days,
Travis had given in and let her be, going off for hours by himself.

"I had to have something to do," she responded as she
carried an elaborate shrimp salad to the table.

Travis came to the table and eyed her creation with a
pensive expression. "Looks time consuming. The making, not the eating.
But this isn't exactly what I had in mind when I said you needed to get
away."

Oddly, even though they had spent little time together
these past few days, except for meals, Susan felt less on guard with
him than at any time since she had learned about the will. She realized
that this was because he had seemingly decided to keep his distance. He
hadn't spoken of their relationship at all, although she had expected
him to use the holiday to try to return to her bed. Now she was
beginning to hope that he was considering the requested divorce.

He sampled the salad, nodding his approval. "Delicious."

"Thank you. I've never really enjoyed cooking before, but
I'm discovering it can be a creative outlet."

"Must be restful, too. You're looking less tense than when
we came."

"Yes… I think being here has helped."

"Good. I was worried about your health." He was wearing a
burnt-orange ribbed-knit shirt, v'ed in front to reveal his strong,
sun-bronzed neck and the beginning of dark, curling chest hair. His
narrow-eyed regard made her feel too scantily clad in shorts and a
strapless, elasticized knit top. She was tempted to remind him that
being forced to stay married to him against her will was not exactly
conducive to good health. But she didn't want to disturb the uneasy
truce they seemed to have reached.

"Would you like a hot muffin?" she said to change the
subject. She offered him the straw basket and he took a muffin,
splitting it to add butter. They ate in silence for several moments,
and Susan felt herself beginning to tighten up inside. Was it only her
nerves that made the silence between them seem fraught with unspoken
meanings? Why couldn't she think of something impersonal to say? The
harvest! Yes, that would do. She would ask him about the cane harvest.
That was a harmless enough subject.

But even as her lips parted to say the words, he broke the
silence. "I'll do the dishes tonight."

"Oh, no, that isn't necessary—really."

"I insist. When you're finished eating, I want you to sit
over there on the couch and watch me work for a change."

"All right." She didn't want to argue with him, certainly
not over something as meaningless as who should wash the dishes. So she
finished her meal and relaxed on the couch, picking up a paperback
novel that lay on the floor with a page turned down to mark her place.

"I've been thinking that you might be happier if you had
some work to do when we return home," Travis said as he began carrying
dishes to the sink.

"What kind of work?" she asked cautiously.

"I never have enough time to keep the plantation ledgers
up to date—or file anything. I bought that file cabinet in
the study a year ago, intending to organize the papers that are crammed
into desk drawers and bookshelves, but I still haven't found the time.
It would be a big help to me if you could make some sense out of it
all. You would probably do a much better job than I, since you've had
some business training."

Susan put down her book. She had an impulse to retort
angrily, say that she wouldn't be with him long enough to take over his
office work. But, aside from the fact that he could stop her leaving
without his consent, she wondered where she would go. Nobody would hire
a pregnant singer, and she wouldn't be able to hide her condition after
a few more weeks. The thought of going to her mother to be treated to
repeated I-told-you-so lectures was almost as distasteful as staying
with Travis and letting him find out about the pregnancy. But she
wasn't ready to deal with those problems yet—the baby and
what she would do after its birth, what Travis would allow her to do.

"Maybe I'll see what I can accomplish with your records,"
she ventured finally. "Once they're organized, it should be a simple
matter to keep them up-to-date on a weekly basis."

He was running water in the sink and turned to look at
her. Instead of meeting his look, she lifted her book again and
pretended to read.

He finished the dishes and came over to the couch.
"There's a cool breeze blowing in off the water. Come for a walk with
me."

Realizing that he had given her no real reason to avoid
him so completely since their arrival at the cottage, she felt inclined
to agree. The cottage was beginning to get to her. While it was
comfortable and attractive, it was also very small, and she had only
left it a few times. "A walk sounds like a good idea," she said,
getting to her feet to follow him outside.

They walked along the beach near the tide line, which was
easily discerned in the moonlight. Travis lighted a cheroot and the
aroma was sweet and pleasant. The endless rhythm of the waves crashing
and receding calmed her as the cool night breeze caressed her skin.
Walking beside him, Susan sighed with a surprising contentment and
gazed out at the sea, dark and mysterious with the moon's reflection
shimmering like a distant puddle of liquid silver.

Travis glanced over at her. "Makes you feel insignificant,
doesn't it? All that power—the sheer inexorability of it."

"It's peaceful now," Susan murmured. "It almost seems
kind, but I know it can be terrifying during a hurricane. Have you ever
been in one?"

"Not a really destructive one, like the one in the 1800's
that leveled St. John's church. Other islands have suffered in this
century more than we. They've experienced volcanic eruptions, too
—like the one that killed my parents."

Susan looked up at him in surprise. It was the first time
he had mentioned his parents to her, except for that once in Miami when
he had said his mother had walked out on him when he was ten. It was
too dark to see his expression clearly, although the angles of his
profile stood out more darkly than the surrounding night. "I never knew
how your parents died," she said. "How old were you?"

"Ten."

The same age as when his mother left. Had his father
deserted him, too? "I'm sorry," she murmured. "I—I know it
was a long time ago, but it must have affected you, losing both your
parents at such an early age."

"I'm sure it did, although I'm not fully aware of the ways
in which I might have been different if they hadn't died. I doubt that
the difference would be as great as you think. I never felt really
close to either of them. They seemed not to need other people, only
each other. I guess I felt left out."

"They must have loved each other very much."

He shrugged. "I'm not sure if it was love or
hate—a mixture more likely. I have clearer memories of their
fighting than of anything else. We came to live at the plantation when
I was seven, and my mother hated it. She always wanted to go back to
England, and they argued about that a lot. I heard them at night after
I'd gone to bed."

Susan had a fleeting picture of Travis as a young child,
huddled alone in his bed, listening to his parents arguing, frightened
by it and perhaps crying. The imagined scene stirred her compassion.
"Why did they stay, if they were so unhappy here?"

"I didn't know at the time. Later, I realized that my
father was too weak to defy my grandfather. Harris would have cut him
off without a cent if he had left. Here, our material needs were taken
care of; my father didn't have to provide for our support. I doubt that
he could have. He was simply a man who wanted to be left alone to idle
away his life in peace. He might even have been content here if my
mother hadn't kept at him all the time."