The Lorimer Legacy (14 page)

William wasted little time in polite exchanges about health or children, but came straight to the point.

‘I've just returned from Jamaica,' he said.

The statement came as a second surprise to Margaret, for it was not often that he tested his own ships. ‘Was the voyage for pleasure or business?' she asked, realizing even as she spoke how foolish the question was. William was not a man to do anything for pleasure alone.

‘Trading conditions are changing,' he told her. ‘For a long time the sugar industry has been showing low profits. I've had letters from planters in Jamaica, declaring their intention of changing their crop from sugar cane to bananas; and Ralph, who started in the banana trade in quite a small way, has been extremely successful.'

‘Ralph!' exclaimed Margaret, astonished. It was as a Baptist missionary that their younger brother had gone out to Jamaica in 1882. Such was his devotion to his congregation that he refused to take all the home furloughs to which he was entitled, so that Margaret had not seen him for some years. But he had married her best friend, Lydia, and the two women corresponded regularly. Nothing in Lydia's letters had suggested that Ralph had abandoned his vocation.

‘I mean, in the plantation which he manages on behalf of his congregation,' William explained, impatient of the interruption. ‘Well, in their letters, the planters enquire about markets, but most of all they need to know that ships could be waiting when the crop is ready. Sugar and rum can wait for their passage, but bananas begin to ripen as soon as they are cut. I thought it wise to go myself to see how the ships should be equipped and whether the expense will be worth while.'

‘And what did you decide?'

‘To enter the trade,' he said. ‘I was able to evolve a satisfactory plan to make sure that the fruit would arrive on the quay only as the ship enters the port. But that's of no interest to you. My news is that I advised Ralph of my arrival and he came to Kingston to meet me. We were
able to spend a pleasant evening together. I am charged with a message to you. He and Lydia hope most particularly that you will pay them a visit. Ralph was anxious for my opinion as to whether this would be possible. But I had no idea, of course, how much you are tied by your professional responsibilities.'

Margaret did not make any immediate comment. Because the supervision of students comprised a large part of her hospital work, the contract of her appointment had been drawn up in academic rather than purely medical terms. Like a university teacher she was allowed, if she wished, to take a sabbatical year at any time after completing her first six years in the post. The prospect had been a tempting one when she first qualified for it a year earlier, for she would have welcomed the chance to travel, collecting information and statistics on the subject in which she now specialized, infant mortality. But she had postponed her decision because she wished neither to interrupt Robert's schooling nor to abandon him to the care of servants. To spend part of the year in Jamaica would be of only limited value to her proposed research, but it would not be impossible. She had always had a particular fondness- for her younger brother, and her girlhood friendship with Lydia had been strengthened by all the strains and pleasures of the life they had shared as medical students; so she had a double reason for considering the request.

‘Has he any special reason for the invitation?' she asked.

‘He has sent a letter.' William handed it over. Margaret frowned over Ralph's tight handwriting as she read its first paragraphs slowly.

‘My dearest sister,

‘William will have told you of my hope that you will visit us.
There have been many times during these past years when I have wished for your company, but I have known that I had no right to distract you from duties as important to you as mine to me. My request now is not so much to offer you a holiday as to appeal for your help. Lydia finds herself again with child. I will not disguise from you the fact that the discovery of her condition was not altogether welcome. The loss of two of our little ones in the fever epidemic three years ago inspired us both to feel that we should praise God for the health of our surviving children, and not risk the lives of any other infants in a climate such as this.

‘But God's will must be done, and we prepare to rejoice in the gift. Lydia is of course anxious because during the period of her confinement our community – which by now is a large one -will be without medical attention. It was she who first voiced the thought of the good turn you could do us by coming here. Although I adopt that thought as my excuse for writing to you, in order that Lydia shall not guess the cause of my own anxiety, I am, to tell the truth, a little troubled in my mind. At Lydia's age childbirth may not be easy. I cannot too strongly express the relief I should feel if I could know that you would be here as our guest when the time comes. I owe to you my good fortune in marrying the best wife any man could have. Will you help me to keep what you helped me to find?'

The letter continued for several pages, but as soon as Margaret had satisfied herself that the news they contained had no further bearing on the subject she left the rest to be read later.

‘Do you think I should go?' she asked William.

‘It's not for me to say whether you're able to do so. But I can confirm that Ralph is worried about Lydia's condition. As a doctor you will know best whether his fears are justified.'

‘Lydia is younger than I am,' Margaret said. ‘But even so –' She calculated in her head that her friend must be almost forty-six. ‘Yes,' she said. ‘There is a risk. Two risks, in fact, to the mother and also to the child. But –' She thought anxiously for a little while. ‘Two of her own
children have died. Can they really expect me to endanger the life of my only son?'

‘I can offer two answers to that,' said William. ‘The first is that Ralph assures me that the threat to health is now much less. There is very little malaria. Nor has there been any epidemic of yellow fever since the children died. The climate is certainly a difficult one for babies and small children. But Ralph considers that a healthy boy of Robert's age should suffer no discomfort. The sea voyage, in addition, will be good for you both.'

‘And your second answer?' prompted Margaret, since he seemed to have forgotten.

‘That you can if you wish leave Robert in England. He's old enough now to go away to school – and since he has no father, I think it would be to his advantage to do so. A good many schools offer special arrangements for boys whose fathers have died. I could settle this for you, and shoulder what costs may still be necessary. And in the holiday while you are away he would be welcome to make my home his own.'

‘Why should you do so much for him?' Margaret asked the question to keep the conversation alive while she continued to think about her decision.

‘Because I'm a rich man. Because I sympathize with the misfortunes you've suffered. And because at one time – indeed, on two occasions – I would have expected to maintain you in my household for the rest of your life. You saved me that expense. I regard myself as still in your debt.'

‘Shall we have dinner?' said Margaret. ‘And of course you will spend the night here. I'll tell you tomorrow what I've decided.'

By the morning she was clear in her duty. She ought not to have forgotten, even for an hour, how Lydia had come to her help in the weeks which followed Charles's
death, when in the misery of bereavement she had put the life of her unborn child at risk. Even if friendship were not a strong enough reason for the voyage to Jamaica, there was a debt of gratitude to be repaid, and it was a fortunate chance that she was entitled to leave her hospital duties, with the right of return.

She had already decided, however, not to take Robert with her. Perhaps her concern for his health was a fussy one, but she knew that she would not enjoy her stay if she was worrying about the risks. The offer of a home for his holiday from school she would accept, regarding it more as a gift to Ralph and Lydia than to herself. Her reluctance to owe William anything perhaps still stemmed from the memory of a cold interview many years before, when she had needed to ask a favour of him in order to embark on the medical studies of which he so deeply disapproved. She was sure, she told him now, that if a reduced fee could be arranged for Robert she would be able to pay it herself.

‘You will at least accept your passage from me, I hope,' he said. ‘I plan to include accommodation for ten passengers on each of the banana boats. The crossing will be fast and I expect it to be very popular when it becomes known; but for the first few voyages there will be berths to spare, so the offer costs me nothing.'

Margaret could not help smiling when she realized that William understood her feelings. She had quarrelled with him often enough – but perhaps, she told herself, he had always acted for the best as he saw it. She watched without protest as he called Robert to his side, questioned him gravely about his school work, and dismissed him with the usual tip of a rich uncle, a whole sovereign. There had once been a time when she might have seen such a gesture as patronizing, but she realized now that such a reaction would have been touchy. The observation
gratified her. It was because she earned a good salary on her own merits and was able to live in comfort, not needing to be helped or pitied by her brother, that they could be friends again – not as brother and younger sister, not as rich man and dependant, but as equals.

Babies fortunately allow plenty of time to prepare for their arrival. Several weeks were needed before arrangements were complete both for Robert's schooling and for Margaret's own replacement at the hospital. It was on a day late in March that she stood on the deck of a Lorimer Line banana boat at the end of its voyage to Jamaica. For a moment, as the vessel turned past the Palisadoes, the reef which stretched its long arm to shelter Kingston Harbour, she stared down into the sea. Somewhere below were the remains of Port Royal, the home of Sir Henry Morgan's privateers and once known as the richest and wickedest city in the world before it was engulfed by a tidal wave. But there was nothing to be seen now except the suddenly calm water. Raising her eyes to the island ahead, she was surprised by its mountainous outline. Kingston itself lay in a flat crescent at sea level, but the hills pressed round the port in a tight semicircle, cutting off the breeze so that the atmosphere suddenly became oppressive.

As the ship drew near to land she saw Ralph waiting to greet her on the quay, wearing a wide straw hat and a black suit made of a thin cloth. He had always been tall, but since their last meeting he had become too thin, and at the same time had begun to stoop, so that his coat
hung shabbily from his shoulders. His face looked anxious. Perhaps that was because he had not yet caught sight of his sister. As soon as he did, he took off his hat and waved it in welcome.

The gesture revealed that his hair, once the colour of bright straw, had been bleached by the sun until it seemed from this distance to be already white; and he had been so long away from English fashions that it straggled over his neck instead of being cut close to the head. Looking at this tired, rather drab figure, it was difficult to remember the bright vitality of the young man in a white blazer who twenty-seven years ago had been Captain of Cricket at Clifton College.

As she stepped ashore, rocking slightly on her feet after the voyage, it occurred to Margaret that Ralph was the only person who made her feel conscious of her age. William had in a curious way always been middle-aged. The passing of years had carried him by now into his fifties, where he had properly belonged ever since his youth, so that his appearance and personality had come into accord, giving him an air of authority where once he had seemed only crafty. But Ralph, so handsome and athletic as a boy, had always been someone whom Margaret regarded as young. Seeing his lined face now in the bright tropical light, she was reminded that he was not young any longer. And whatever his age, Margaret herself was older.

But Ralph's energy had not diminished. As soon as he had greeted her, with even more than his usual affection, he issued a series of orders which caused her baggage to be brought off the ship and carried away towards the railway station. Margaret would have preferred to keep it in sight, but the quay was piled high with boxes of bananas and almost before the ship was finally tied up the work of loading had begun, making it difficult for the
passengers to move easily away. The loaders sang as they worked, tossing the boxes from hand to hand as though they weighed nothing. Margaret had seen plenty of coloured men in the Bristol docks, but nothing had prepared her for the blackness of these Jamaicans with their close-cropped curly hair and the powerful muscles of their legs and shoulders, which their shabby clothes hardly covered at all. She marvelled at the steadiness with which they worked. Although it was still early in the day, she herself felt overpowered by the heat and humidity.

‘Is it always as hot as this?' she asked Ralph.

‘This is the cool season.' The answer was not reassuring. ‘It will end soon, I'm afraid. That's yet another cause for my concern about Lydia. One would not by choice bring a baby into the world at the hottest and wettest time. My first wish, before I wrote to you, was that Lydia should return to England for a few months. But she wasn't willing to be away from me and our people for so long. You'll at least find Hope Valley less oppressive than Kingston. We have a little height, and very often it catches a breeze. I'm afraid the approach to it may prove fatiguing, when you've travelled so far already. But there's no help for it. And the train will leave almost at once.'

He was right to anticipate her fatigue, but the warmth of her reception made up for it. Laughing women and children greeted her with cheerful shouts when they reached the village, and Lydia was waiting outside her home in welcome. It was such a pleasure for Margaret to see her friend again that their kissing and chattering continued for some time, while Ralph smiled indulgently and the two children, Kate and Brinsley, hovered shyly in the background.