Sugar in the Morning (17 page)

I sat up very straight. “Quite. I know you would have preferred to have had Pamela brought to your door, but at least now you’ve got her permanently on the doorstep!”

“Oh!” he sounded surprised. “Did she tell you how long she’s staying?” he asked curiously.

“Why should she?” I retorted.

“I just thought she might have done
,”
he granted
.

He was silent for a minute and then he said
:
“I’m going back south tomorrow. I suppose you’ll be coming shortly yourself? Aaron says the papers are practically complete.”

“I suppose so,” I agreed in a voice that was dangerously near to breaking. What would it be like living next door to him and Pamela? I wondered bleakly.

“I’ll have the place ready for you,” he said.

Charlotte Street was still so crowded that it was quite impossible for him to take me right home to my door. Thankfully, I made my escape as soon as I could, though I was surprised when he got out of the car also and came round to my side, holding the door for me.

“It hasn’t been a very successful day, has it?” he said wryly.

I threw back my head in a proud gesture. “Hasn’t it?”

He gave me a long rather sad look and then slammed the door shut behind me. It was a symbolic action that somehow slammed me out of his life. He was going back to Pamela and that was the only thing that mattered to both of us.

“You’re tired,” he said. “We’ll talk the whole thing out when you get to the sugar estate.”

I said nothing. I stood and watched him get back into the car, wave his hand in a polite gesture of goodbye, and drive off. I was unhappy and I didn’t know what I was going to do, but of one thing I was quite certain
:
I was not
tired
—any more than he was!

The fag end of Carnival was disappointing after the splendour of the spectacular morning. Even Patience was too tired to dance any more, and the only people who were still in business were the stallholders who
were doing a roaring trade with their cooling drinks and snacks. The Plantagenets stood around, the steel band only making occasional attempts to play yet again the calypso which had held them together all day.

“Where’ve you been?” my uncle asked me testily. He looked tired and older. He had a mug full of rum in his hand and was evidently hoping to regain his spirits and zip from drinking the lot neat.

“Isn’t it time we all went home?” I countered hopefully.

“Home?” he said wryly. “Where’s that?”

“I’ll take you,” I offered.

He laughed. “Will you?” he asked whimsically. “When? When do we go south, Camilla? When do we get back to the sugar fields? Tell me that!”

“The papers are all signed,” I said.

His face cleared. “You mean there’s nothing standing in our way now?”

I shook my head. Only my cousins, I thought, and the shadow of Daniel reaching across from his refinery.

“We’ll go tomorrow!” Uncle Philip exclaimed. “We’ll go tomorrow as soon as Patience can shut up the house.”

I didn’t answer. The steel band started another round of the Plantagenet calypso, but it was soon drowned by another band, bigger than ours, who had come across the park in search of food and further amusement. Patience, suddenly tired, grabbed me by the wrist and said, “We’ll be gone now, Miss ’Milla. Ain’t fun now. If we stay longer, we’ll have some headache in the morning.”

‘You’ve said it, man!” my uncle chimed in. He was only too anxious that we should go home. I thought with some amusement that he really did intend that we should all hurry off to the sugar estate the next day. I waited to feel some stir of excitement in my blood, but there was nothing. All I could feel was a dizziness from noise and confusion and a longing for my bed.

The sun was setting, lighting the sky into a dramatic, fiery red. I have never seen sunsets such as those they have in the West Indies in any other place. Here they are uniquely beautiful, with a hushed drama that filled the whole sky with glory. In a few hours Carnival would be over for another year and the mad planning for the next one would have already begun.

Patience overslept the next morning. It was such an unusual event that it had the whole family at sixes and sevens.

“That settles it,” I said to my uncle, “we shan’t be going south today!” But I had reckoned without his determination to go as soon as possible.

“There’s nothing to wait for,” he grunted. “Go and wake Patience up. Tell her we’re travelling this afternoon, whether she’s ready or not!”

Patience’s room was smaller than mine and was full of bulky furniture in which she jealously kept her few possessions. Her bed was narrow and her great bulk was apt to overflow it when she turned from side to side. In the darkness, I tripped over her shoes and went sprawling on to the floor, landing on the heap of clothes which was where she had dropped her costume of the day before, too tired to put it away as she had mine.

“Wha’s matter?” she grunted.

“Patience, wake up!” I answered quickly. “Uncle Philip is determined that we should take possession of the sugar estate today. Can you pack in time?”

A broad grin spread across her features. “I was jes’ thinkin’ ’bout that,” she said. “Out of my way, honey!
I has things to do!”

When I went back to the dining room, my uncle had already gone and only my two cousins were there, struggling to get themselves an adequate breakfast of coffee and fresh fruit. I avoided catching Wilfred’s eyes, busying myself with the coffee percolator.

“Has Aaron given you the all-clear to move in?” he drawled softly across the table.

“Not yet,” I said stou
tl
y. “But it’s all signed and sealed, so I suppose it’s all right.”

He grinned gleefully. “And what if Pamela’s parents are still in residence when you get there?”

“They won’t be,” I said quickly. “They’ve already gone to the States.”

“And how did you come by that interesting bit of information?” he asked.

I didn’t answer. I poured myself out some coffee that had at last become dark enough for my taste, and sat down to drink it. Cuthbert looked up and smiled at me.

“Did Carnival come up to your expectations?” he asked pacifically.

“I loved it!” I sat back in my chair remembering the swirling colour and the exuberant noise of the steel bands, the witty words of the calypsos—and Daniel in his Tudor rig, looking dashing and debonair. “It was
fun
!” I added.

“And you saw Pamela there,” Wilfred put in, shooting his arrow into the dark but finding a bullseye as I could feel myself colouring guiltily. Not that it mattered that they should know about my enforced trip to the Hendrycks’ house. It hadn’t been my fault that I had gone there and had found Pamela in residence. But I didn’t want them to know about it all the same.

“I don’t think Pamela cares much for Carnival,” I said.

“Did she tell you that?” Wilfred asked curiously.

“She might have done,” I said. “I think Daniel told
me so once. I imagine that some people would find it noisy and a bit wild.”

“
Especially
Pamela!” Cuthbert agreed.

Wilfred yawned with a pretended indifference. “She’s pretty enough to be able to get her romance at other times of the year!” he commented bitterly.

“Pretty?” Cuthbert gasped. “Brother mine! You must like her a whole lot to say that
!”

Wilfred shrugged, “Stick to your own affairs, little brother!”

“It doesn’t matter anyway,” Cuthbert said crossly, thoroughly annoyed by the way the conversation was going. “She’s going to the States with her parents and we shan’t be bothered with her any more.”

Wilfred only smiled. It was a knowing smile that maddened both Cuthbert and me. What could he know? I wondered. Did he know where Pamela was now?

“Don’t you pay him no mind!” Patience said from the doorway. She was fully dressed, but the lines of sleep still showed in her cheeks and her eyes were scarcely open. “What’s it to you, both of you? If we’se off today, we’se off, and I’se not sorry neither!”

“Did you see Pamela yesterday?” Cuthbert asked her flatly.

Patience sniffed. “And what’s it to you if I did?” she countered cagily.

“Nothing,” he admitted. ‘Tm not complaining because she’s off to the States!”

“The Longuets are already gone,” Patience said guardedly.

“But not Pamela,” Wilfred added. “How very interesting
!
And she’s not down on the estate, so where is she?”

“How’s I to know?” Patience snapped back. “You boys go and get your things together. I’se not waiting to clean your rooms
!
”

Wilfred stood up slowly. “But then I’m not coming,” he said smoothly. “I’m staying in Port-of-Spain where I’m my own man. Nothing personal, cousin,” he told me casually. “But you can buy the rest of the family a soft berth. I’m about to see what kind of a living I can make by my wits. Pamela Longuet wouldn’t think it a proper kind of life, but I’ll like it well enough
!”

“I’m coming with you,” Cuthbert said earnestly. He was scarlet in the face with disapproval at his brother’s behaviour. “You’d have to pay me to stay away!”

“Our father too!” Wilfred drawled with contempt.

“You’ve still got to tell him!” Cuthbert reminded him fiercely. Some of Wilfred’s bravado fell away from him and I felt quite sorry for him.

“That’s my business!” he snapped, but he still looked uncomfortable, and still more so when his father came back into the room.

“The seats on the train are booked
!”
Uncle Philip glowed with triumph. “There was no possibility of going by bus today. I imagine the train will be pretty crowded too!” He turned to me, a slight frown between his eyes. “You know,” he said, “this is the only time of year that the railways pay. They lose millions of dollars every year, except for this week when they make a profit! And this is the time we go on them! Never mind, Camilla will enjoy all the crowds as long as we can find a seat.”

Wilfred faced him squarely. “I’m not coming, Father,” he said, “so that will be one less seat to find.”

Uncle Philip went first white and then a curious mottled red. “What nonsense is this? Of course you’re
coming. Aren’t you my son? Haven’t we been waiting all these years to get back on the land? What’s got into you, boy?”

“I’m not coming,” Wilfred repeated stubbornly.

His father smote the air with his fist. “Then explain to me why not!” he shouted.

Because I won’t be bought!” Wilfred roared back. “I’m not one of your pretty men to be bought by my cousin’s money—”

“
Pretty
men
?
”

Wilfred nodded. “It won’t be yours, Father, you know that. It won’t even be Camilla’s, because she’ll be far too busy laying it at Cousin Daniel’s feet—”

“My dear boy,” Uncle Philip exploded, “what are you talking about?”

“The
facts
,
Father!
”

I wished myself anywhere but there. It is seldom that I have felt so uncomfortable, or so much at a loss as to how to defend myself, or even to smooth over what looked like being an increasingly nasty quarrel. Like Cuthbert, I kept quiet for as long as I could, but my uncle was thoroughly roused now, and there was little doubt but that we should all be dragged into this family dispute and that Wilfred would neither forget nor forgive if either of us were to argue against him.

My uncle swung round and faced me. “Tell him, girl, tell him that the place is going to be Ironside property!”

“Run by courtesy of Daniel Hendrycks,” Wilfred put in quickly.

“Does it really matter?” I asked wearily. “It’s all in the family.”

“The Hendrycks family or the Ironside family?” Wilfred countered.

I sighed. “My name is Ironside,” I reminded him flatly.

He laughed. It was an ugly sound that grated on my
ears and brought the colour rushing to my cheeks. “For how long?”

“For as far as I can see into the future!” I said.

He laughed again, but to my relief he didn’t go on with the subject. Instead he renewed his attack on his father, which was almost as bad.

“As for you, old man, how can you live on your niece, and without a thought as to what it’s costing her? As long as there’s some land down there bearing our name, you feel vindicated! Have you thought what it will be like when you get there? People have long memories, I can tell you that!”

He might as well have struck Uncle Philip across the face. Cuthbert started involuntarily, screwing up his mouth in an effort to say something, anything that might retrieve the family’s dream before Wilfred shattered it beyond all hope.

“But Camilla wanted to buy the estate, didn’t she?” he managed.

Wilfred obviously thought that such a remark was beneath contempt. He waited politely for me to deny it, knowing quite well why I had bought it and the muddled thinking that lay behind the whole deal. I thought my own doubts must have been written across my face, so clearly did his features reflect what he thought about it all. My mouth went dry.