Seven for a Secret (35 page)

There was a deep regret in his voice, and I wanted to ask him more about their relationship. I knew that she had loved him: I fancied he had loved her too. There was so much I had to learn. I could not expect to know it all at once.

“I want to hear more about Karia,” I said.

“So this is her house and we are her guests.”

“I live here too.”

“As her guest?”

“Not exactly.” There was a brief silence and then he went on: “You have probably heard about my rather cheque red career. Your mother and I, we parted. You know why.”

“You were not happy together.”

“She was well rid of me. We could never have been happy together. I was by no means a saint … not in the least like your Luke. 1 am afraid 1 am rather different, and with a man like me there must be … relationships.”

“You and Karia?” I asked.

He nodded.

“We share the household.”

“You could have married … or couldn’t you?”

“Well, yes. I am free now. She was married once … married for her money, I suppose. Perhaps not entirely, but it would have been an incentive, I dare say. He might have robbed her but he didn’t because she is a shrewd businesswoman. He died. Yes, we could marry, but here it is not the same as an English village where the neighbours keep a sharp look-out to make sure society’s laws are observed. Karia does not think of marriage. Nor I. But that does not prevent our enjoyment of each other’s society. Now, you are not shocked, daughter?”

“I don’t think so. I guessed that was how it might be. She is a very kindly person.”

“She is interesting half-native, half-Anglo-Saxon. It makes an interesting combination. I met her in Egypt. She has travelled somewhat. I liked her freshness, her frankness, and her happy disposition. Live for the day, that is her doctrine, and I suppose it is mine. We were friends in Egypt and then when my affliction began to descend, she looked after me. I was in a low state. I feared blindness, my dear Frederica, as I had never feared anything in my life. I even went so far as to pray.

“Dear God, leave me my eyes, and take everything else.” And the Lord ignored my request, but He gave me Karia. ” He gripped my hand tightly for a moment. Then he went on:

“Karia was wonderful. She is the eternal mother. Why do such women not have children? She was with me through my despair. She was very important to me. And she brought me here to this house left to her by her doting father. She is rich by island standards; she owns thousands of highly productive

coconuts. She is a businesswoman and looks after the plantation as well as any man could, and she looks after me like a mother. Besides her coconuts she has my eternal gratitude. Frederica, I could never have come through to accept my blindness without her. “

I said: “Aunt Sophie would have cared for you. You could have come back to us.”

He shook his head.

“No,” he said.

“I know she would, but I could not go back to her. There were times when I thought of it … before the blindness began to come on. You see, in the first place …”

“I know. She told me. She thought you would marry her, and you married my mother instead.”

“So you see …”

“She would have understood.”

“It wouldn’t have worked. I really was not worthy of Sophie. I could never have lived up to what she would expect.”

“She wanted you for what you are.”

“But she had my daughter a much better bargain.”

“And it is Karia who looks after you. You share her house … her life.”

“It is what she wants.”

“And you are happy here?”

He was silent for a few seconds.

“Well,” he said at length, “I have a good life. And now I have come to terms with this. There are compensations in all things. I am overjoyed when I recognize a footstep. I say, ” That is Macala coming or young Mandel. ” I know Karla’s footsteps. I am acutely aware of the inflection in people’s voices. And so 1 get through my days. 1 think of the pleasures of the past, and there were many of them. The unpleasant things 1 try to dismiss. 1 am often able to do that. It is quite an art, you know.

Sometimes 1 say to myself, “You are blind. Perhaps your most precious possession has been taken from you, but there are these compensations.”

Then 1 count them. 1 have the love of Karia and now my daughter has come all the way across the world to see me. “

A week had passed and I felt that I had been a long time on the island.

At night I would lie awake and wonder about Crispin and Aunt Sophie and I would ask myself if I had been right to come. It had been a wonderful experience to meet my father, and to be aware of an immediate rapport between us which made me feel that I had known him all my life. That was because of Aunt Sophie. I could see that he must always have had a way of winning people’s affection. He already had mine.

I had many conversations with him. He would sit under the trees listening to the gentle rise and fall of the waves and he would talk about his life. It was very clear that he was happy to have me there.

It was at night when the great longing for home would come to me and I could not shut out the memory of Crispin’s face when he had pleaded with me not to go. I could hear his voice saying, “I will find a way.

There must be a way. ” I would try in vain to shut out the memory of the shrubbery at St. Aubyn’s and the thought of Gaston Marchmont lying there.

The island was a beautiful place but, I supposed, it was like most tropical islands waving palm trees, lush foliage, heavy rain showers and burning sunshine, carefree people, lazy, seeking no other way of life.

I was amused by Tamarisk’s interest in the place. I think this was largely due to the deep desire she had to get away from home. I did not believe that she was guilty of her husband’s murder but, as she said, the wife in such cases generally came in for a certain amount of suspicion.

She would laugh a great deal at the antics of the children; and there

was no doubt that they were particularly interested in her. There were usually one or two following her wherever she went. Some were bold enough to come :

up and touch her white arm and her hair, which she often wore loose about her shoulders.

She had always enjoyed being noticed, and she showed her appreciation and quickly became the children’s ;

favourite.

We would explore the island. We would pause to look at the potter squatting near the shore as he made clay pots, platters and drinking vessels. To his delight, we bought some. A group of children -Tamarisk’s admirers-watched the transaction in glee.

There were other salesmen squatting on mats made from coconut fibre.

There might be passengers when the ferries came in and they wanted to be ready for these prospective customers. What they had to offer were mostly carved images, paper knives and beads.

We were warned to be careful of snakes and not to go through the thick undergrowth without a guide.

We had, of course, visited the mission house-a bleak place like a barn with a thatched roof. There was little to make it inviting. The walls were plain and the only adornment was a crucifix hanging there.

“What a dreary place!” said Tamarisk to Luke who was showing it to us.

There was a cupboard at one end of the room and a blackboard on an easel.

“It is meant to be a schoolroom,” said Luke.

“Where are the pupils?” asked Tamarisk.

“They have yet to come.”

Luke had introduced us to John Havers and his sister Muriel. They had been on Casker’s Island for two years and they admitted that they had made little progress and had been mainly ignored by the islanders. I “It was different in our previous place,” said John Havers. I “That was bigger and not so far away from everywhere.

Here one has to start right from the beginning and the people do seem rather indifferent. “

That is why Mr. Armour has come,” went on Muriel.

“And you don’t have any pupils yet,” I said.

“Some come but they don’t stay. I used to give them cakes at eleven o’clock if they came in the morning. 1 tried to teach them, but I am sure they were only waiting for the cakes. They would eat them, smile and then run off.”

“Bribery,” commented Tamarisk lightly.

“I fear that is what it amounts to,” said Muriel Havers.

“Poor little things,” said Tamarisk afterwards.

“But I don’t think they would want to be taught by Miss Havers, however good those cakes were.”

Meals at Karla’s were always merry affairs. Karla’s and my father’s personalities made that inevitable. The food was lavish and we were waited on by numerous servants who pattered in and out soundlessly on bare feet.

Both Karia and my father talked of the life they had led in Egypt;

there always seemed some amusing anecdote to relate and we would sit on long after the meal was over.

“Poor Luke,” said Tamarisk one day.

“Think how different it must be at the mission with the Havers.”

“They are good people,” said Karla.

“But they are some times too good to know how to laugh. Life is too serious for them. I pity them.”

“Could we ask them here to dinner?” asked Tamarisk.

“Oh my!” cried Karla.

“I am sorry. I should have thought to ask them.”

“As a matter of fact,” said my father, “I was thinking that we should have asked your friend Luke immediately. He was so good to you on the journey out.”

“Of course we must,” replied Karla.

“And 1 will ask Tom Holloway to come too.”

“Tom Holloway,” my father explained, ‘is the manager of the plantation. He’s a good sort, don’t you agree, Karla? “

“He is a very good sort. But he is a little sad and lite is not meant to be sad.”

“We should like to meet him, shouldn’t we. Tamarisk?” I said.

“But of course,” was her response.

“We will do it tomorrow,” said Karla.

“Would they be able to come on such short notice?” I asked.

Karla gave one of her frequent loud bursts of laughter.

“They don’t get many invitations to dine out, I can tell you. They’ll come.”

“Social life on Casker’s Island is a little restricted,” added my father.

“They’ll come.”

Before they did my father told me a little about Tom Holloway.

“He had been in England, importing the mats which were made from one of the products of the coconuts. What uses that old coconut can be put to! Well, one of the products is the fibre to make mats and rugs and suchlike. Tom Holloway sold them all over England. Then his wife died in childbirth and the child with her. He can’t get over it. Karla met him now and then on business and she was appalled by the change in him. You know her nature by now. She sees someone in trouble and she has to help. Well, she had this idea that Tom needed a complete break with the past, so she offered him the job of managing her plantation.

And to her surprise he accepted. “

“And did it help?”

“I think perhaps a little. It’s two years now or nearly that-and he’s the faithful sort. I think he forgets for a time and he is very keen on the plantation. He’s learned how to handle these people. He enjoys the work. Karla would like to see him settled which isn’t easy over here.”

“What a fine woman Karla is!”

He nodded, looking pleased.

The dinner was a success, though Luke was a little

Z9i

dejected, 1 noticed. The happy optimism he had shown on the ship was slightly less bright. John and Muriel Havers talked earnestly of the mission, but I could not help feeling that they had very little understanding of the people among whom they were living.

I remarked to my father afterwards that they seemed to regard the people as savages rather than ordinary simple folk who might not care to have other people’s ideas thrust upon them. I fancied too that Muriel did not approve of my father’s relationship with Karla.

Tamarisk was very amused and when they had gone and we had retired, she came to my room to discuss the evening.

“What did you think of it?” she asked.

“That it went very well. I think Luke was glad to get a good meal.”

“Poor dear,” said Tamarisk lightly.

“He’s a disappointed young man, I fear. I am not surprised living in close contact with that dreary pair.”

“They are not exactly dreary. Just out of their depth, I think.”

“Out of their depth! They’re missionaries, aren’t they? They ought to be in their depth. An island right away from everywhere and the population in need of conversion! Poor Luke! We’ll have to see him more often and cheer him up.”

“I think we should.”

“I wonder what your father thought of it all?”

“I shall hear in due course. And how do you feel now, Tamarisk? About everything?”

“I don’t think about it all the time now.”

“That’s good.”

“Do you?”

“I think a lot.”

“There was no need for you to go away like that.”

“My father wanted to see me.”

“You were just engaged to Crispin. Oh, I know you don’t want to talk about it.
had to get away. Gaston was my husband and he had been murdered.”p>

“I understand. Of course 1 understand. I felt I had to get away, too.”

“Because of this thing that happened? You don’t know anything about Gaston, do you?”

“No. No. It wasn’t about that.”

“You’re cagey,” she said.

I did not answer but left it at that.

At the same time I did feel that, whatever this adventure was doing for Tamarisk, it was not much help to me.

The next morning Tamarisk and I went out together. We had not gone far when we were seen by three or four children who were squatting on the ground playing some game. As soon as we approached they rose and ran towards us, their eyes on Tamarisk. They went into fits of uncontrollable giggling.

“I am glad,” said Tamarisk, smiling, ‘that I amuse you so much. “

That made them giggle the more. They watched her expectantly, as though waiting for her to say something more.

We walked on and they followed. We went down to the shore past the men squatting on the ground with the mats on which their goods were displayed.