The Flood-Tide (6 page)

‘Well, now, you wanted to talk to me?' Jemima said, closing the door behind her. 'Is it about Thomas?'

‘How did you guess?' Flora said innocently. Jemima smiled.

‘Shall I guess some more? You are in love with him, and he with you. You want to be married. I take it he asked you after dinner, when you went slipping off together into the gardens?'

‘You really do know everything,' Flora said. 'Then -you don't mind it?'

‘Mind it? I think it is the best thing possible. You are exactly suited to each other. I knew how it would be when he came home. So, is that all you wanted to tell me?'

‘Not quite,' Flora said, frowning a little. 'It is true that Thomas asked me, and I said yes, but I don't know whether I should have. You see, I don't know what to do, who to ask. Now Papa is dead, I suppose that my brother Charles is the head of the house, but he is in America, no-one knows quite where; and Angus is only a year older than me. Who gives permission? Can Thomas ask Cousin Allen? After all, I have lived here in your care for a long time. What should we do?'

‘Your brother is the proper person to ask,' Jemima said. ‘You are under age, and his permission will be necessary. It will be for him to approve and to release the money your father left you. Allen and I can make our recommendation on your behalf, but I cannot think that Charles will object in any case.'

‘But we don't know where he is,' Flora said with some agitation. 'And even if we had a direction for him, a letter would take too long going and coming.'

‘Too long for what? I am sure you may become engaged to Thomas while you wait for Charles's official approval. I think Allen and I could go so far as to license an engagement.'

‘You don't understand,' Flora cried. 'Thomas and I want to be married at once, before he has to sail, and
Ariadne
will be ready after Christmas at the latest. Once he sails, he may be away for years. He may—' She stopped herself abruptly, but Jemima knew what she was thinking, having thought the same things herself about Allen. Life was such a hazard, and the life of a traveller at even greater risk. Suppose Thomas never came back? Flora wanted to grasp her happiness while it was within reach, and Jemima could not blame her.

‘My dear,' she said gently, 'I do know how you feel. But the best we can do is to write to your brother at the direction on his most recent letter, and wait for his reply.

In any case, he is bound to be returning to England soon - he never stays away more than two years.'

‘But—'

‘I know, I know. It is hard. But we are all in God's hand. What He wants for us will happen. We can only do our best, and keep faith.’

Twice in the course of half an hour Jemima had felt how useless she was. Leaving Flora, she met a servant on the stair and sent her for the rosemary water for William, and then, seeking consolation, she went towards the chapel, thinking Father Ramsay might be there. But passing the steward's room and seeing a light in there, she turned towards another consolation. Allen was at the table, bent over a heap of paperwork. She went quietly up to him, and he reached out for her hand without looking up, and drew it fondly against his cheek.

‘I did my best not to leave things for you,' Jemima said, ‘but there were always some matters—'

‘You worked miracles,' Allen replied. 'I'm not complaining. If you were away for nearly three years, there would be more than this awaiting you on your return. I am quite sure you do three-fourths of the work of the estate.'

‘But there is always something I neglect,' she said discontentedly. He looked up at her, saw her mood, and put down his pen. 'I was thinking that I was as little use to my children as my parents were to me. It is Flora and Father Ramsay who have brought them up and shaped them.’

Allen kissed her hand, and put it back against his cheek. ‘We can all of us only do our best,' he said, unconsciously giving her back her own words. 'What have I been to them or to you?'

‘Everything to me,' Jemima said quickly. He stood up, pushing the papers away and extinguishing the reading-candle, and then drawing her to him with an arm about her waist, moved towards the door.

‘And now that I am to be Justice of the Peace, I will have even more to do. So, if we are to have any time together at all, we must have more hirelings. A housekeeper to take the work of the house from you, a steward to run the estate - whatever it takes, Jemima, I am determined upon it.'

‘But can we—'

‘Afford it? Yes, I think so. And besides, we must - I am Sir Allen now, and you are Lady Morland. We have a position to keep up.’

Jemima laughed, the tension leaving her body quite abruptly. 'Well, call it what you like, if it means that I shall have leisure to be with you, and touch you, and talk to you.' They walked out into the passage and turned towards the stairs. 'By the way, I have been talking to Flora. Thomas has spoken at last.’

*

Charles and Eugenie were taking their walk in the driest part of the day. He had been astonished, used as he was to the busy, active women of his own family, at how little Eugenie did, but he was beginning to fit himself to the languid pace of her days, and to find it less strange as each day passed. She rose at nine, and took an hour to dress for her daily devotions at ten in the chapel. At eleven she took her breakfast, then from twelve to four she performed her daily tasks: she sewed a little, read a little, wrote a letter sometimes, and took her walk. At four they dined; at six they took tea. Then came the evening's occupation, more sewing, conversation, or cards, or sometimes music, Eugenie playing upon the harpsichord and singing. Supper came in at nine, and at half past ten she retired for the night.

Even the walk, the most active part of a day spent otherwise mostly upon the sofa, was performed slowly, and with some ceremony. The weather must be fine, the paths dry. Eugenie would have her hat and her parasol and her black and white spaniel, and her Negro maid would trot along behind carrying a cushion, in case ‘mis' wanted to sit down somewhere, and a handkerchief and lavender water and a book and whatever other toys and nonsenses Eugenie thought she might need during the expedition. Mrs Craven, Charles's landlady in Yorktown, had said with peculiar emphasis that Eugenie was 'a proper young Creole lady', and from what he observed and what he gathered from the servants, he learnt that Creole ladies were famous for their ignorance and indolence, perfected and polished to a fine art.

Eugenie had told him about her education during their walks. He loved to listen to her light, sweet voice with its faint and lilting drawl, so different from any other Maryland voices he had heard. This, and her divine indolence, were the product of the four years she had spent 'back home' in Martinique.

‘I have lots of cousins there,' she said, 'and Papa did not want me quite to forget our origins. So he sent me to the convent of Les Dames de la Providence, where all the best familes send their girls. I went when I was ten, and stayed for four years.' At the convent she was taught to read, write, embroider, sing, play the harpsichord, and to dance the Court dances. She also learnt what to Charles was her only real academic attainment - to speak and write perfect French. But she had acquired there also this divine and languid grace, her enchanting Creole drawl, and her charming, polished social manner, all the things that made her, for him, unlike any other living creature he had ever encountered.

‘It is so beautiful on Martinique,' she told him, and in speaking of 'home' she grew almost animated. 'It is hot there, and green, and rich in colours - the orchids such as you have never seen, and amaryllis of such brilliant colours, like Turkish headdresses. And the scarlet flambeau trees, and the hibiscus, and the bougainvillaea climbing all other the porch, and the jasmine and honeysuckle - the scent of it, Charles! When I came back, I brought a piece of jasmine in a pot, to remind me. That is what you see climbing on our porch here. It seemed to like the transition. I should have broke my heart if it died.’

She told him about the forest of tall palms and banana trees, tangled with creepers and filled with birds of brilliant plumage, which darted and swung in the green shade, vivid as jewels. She told him about the fabulous insects, as big as birds and as gaudy, and the pink lizards who would sit all day on the ceiling of her bedroom, whom it was bad luck to harm. And she told of the terrors of the tropical land, the ants who marched in columns like soldiers, devouring all in their path, of the poisonous snakes and spiders and little black scorpions, of the earthquakes and the fear of hurricanes and of the island's volcano. It had been for her a time of wonder and intense life, and he listened with sympathy as well as interest, not telling her that he knew about tropical islands, for in her words his memories took on a new significance.

‘Today I shall show you my favourite walk,' Eugenie said that morning as they strolled along the path in front of the house, beside the white roses, coming to the end of their season now. Bendy, the little black and white dog, trotted ahead, sniffing here and there and looking back every few moments to see Eugenie was still following. 'It is up to the knoll, you see over there?' Her voice took on animation, as if it was a great expedition they were undertaking, but the knoll was only two hundred yards from the house, a perfect little hill shaped like an upturned cup, with a path winding up to the crest, topped with a clump of beautiful trees, whose foliage, not yet turning, looked blue in its shadows.

Charles assented, and they walked in silence for a while. Then she said, gazing into the distance as if she were making the most casual conversation, 'So you leave us the day after tomorrow? Do you really have to go?'

‘I think I must,' Charles replied, feeling his heart bump at the second question. 'You see, I have sent a number of plants on ahead, but I must be home to attend to them before they die, which they will if they are left in a warehouse. And the weather for the crossing will be so much worse if I leave it too late.’

She said no more until they had reached the summit of the little hill and were standing in the shade of the trees, looking at the view.

Now you can see the Patuxent River properly,' she said. ‘And the extent of our land - from that line of trees, over there, all the way to the shore of the Bay. Our ancestors were amongst the first settlers, so they got the best land.' She turned her head to look at him, and her grey, clear eyes seemed to hold some question, to be searching for something in his face. 'We are cousins, of a sort, you and I?'

‘Cousins, I suppose, though very distant ones,' he said, not sure whether she wanted them to be related or not.

‘It is very pleasant here at Christmas,' she said, and though the statement seemed a random one, he knew there was a connection somewhere. 'Many of our neigbours visit us, because on the whole Americans do not keep Christmas so much as we do, and they like to see how we do it. When you came, I hoped - Papa hoped that you would stay for Christmas.'

‘If I stayed for Christmas, I probably would not be able to leave until spring,' Charles said, and Eugenie smiled -he was sure she smiled, fleetingly, before she turned her face away again to contemplate the view.

‘Yes,' she said. 'That seems probable.' A pause. 'So you will go. A pity.' And at once she changed the subject by pointing out to him a blue crane, flying over the river.

Dinner that day was evidently a special one, though no special occasion had been announced. There was fried chicken, a local speciality, with a pungent sauce, and oysters, and a boiled lobster, and cold roast teal, and a dish of fish done in some kind of sauce that burned the tongue and made Charles's eyes water.

‘A West Indian speciality,' Philippe told him, not without amusement. 'We call it pepper-pot.'

‘It's very good,' Charles gasped, 'once you get used to it.'

‘You are determined to leave us, after so short a visit?' Philippe asked next. Charles glanced across at Eugenie, but she was busy with her glass, and did not look up. The lace of her sleeve fell back as she lifted it, showing the white and tender curve of her forearm.

‘I'm afraid I must,' Charles said, wondering how he found the courage. 'The journey—'

‘I understand. I should like to ask you if you would do us the honour of visiting again - for a longer time perhaps. Have you plans to come back to America?'

‘I have not yet planned - but I shall certainly return. Next year, perhaps—'

‘You will think me importunate, but I should like to engage you for a visit, perhaps next summer. You could stay all summer, and we could show you something of the country. There are few places we cannot reach by boat.’

Philippe's eyes held his, and they, too, contained some message.

‘We have so little company here, so few visitors. We should be honoured if you would return.’

Charles left early in the morning, when the mist still lay like milk over the river and the strange cries of water birds echoed hollowly in the fluky half-light. The servants were ready with the sailing pinnace to take him to the trader, anchored in the Bay, which had promised him passage to New York. It was too early for Eugenie to be up, but he felt her presence everywhere, as if he could know she was thinking about him. The white mist and the dark shadows, and the slow sound of water slapping the unseen piles of the jetty, were somehow full of her. Philippe came down to wave him off, but the morning was too cold for long farewells. They clasped hands once, and the boat was shoved off, and in seconds the landing stage and the master had been swallowed in the white murk.