Trade Wind (95 page)

Olivia was so happy that she wanted everyone else to be equally happy, and it disturbed her to think that the breach between Hero and her betrothed was still unbridged, and that Nathaniel Hollis showed no sign of relenting toward his niece. She urged George Edwards to speak to Mr Hollis on Hero’s behalf, and though the Colonel was strongly averse to interfering in other people’s private affairs he had, in the end, reluctantly done so: and with gratifying results.

Uncle Nat, who had never yet been known to go back on his word, swallowed his pride and sent to tell his niece that he would like to see her. Though even then he would not come himself to The Dolphins’ House and he had not written, but only sent a verbal message by Colonel Edwards.

“I hope you will go, my dear,” said Colonel Edwards, who had developed a fatherly affection for this girl whom he had once considered to be both tiresome and unwomanly. And he had added, somewhat unexpectedly: “Don’t be too hard on him.”

Hero imagined that he referred to Uncle Nat, but George Edwards had been thinking of Clayton. And it was Clayton and not Uncle Nat who awaited her in the drawing-room at the Consulate.

“I was afraid you wouldn’t come for me,” admitted Clay, “and I wanted to see you alone, and not in Frost’s house where there would have been a crowd of people to distract you. Besides, I thought they might not let me in.”

She had actually not recognized him for a moment and thought that it was some stranger who stood there, for his broken nose altered his Byronic good looks in a startling fashion, though the effect was not unpleasing. He was still a handsome man and always would be; but the broken nose added character to a face which had previously lacked it.

He had changed too, in other ways; for no one who had lived through the terrible holocaust of the last two and a half months had been im-affected by it. For better or worse the horror of those weeks; the sights and sounds, the sickening, inescapable stench and the fear; had changed them all.

“I’ve been thinking—” said Clay.

He had thought to some purpose, and now, once again, he asked Hero to marry him. Not for any of the reasons that had seemed good to him before, but only if she herself felt in need of a refuge and protection, and because he sincerely wished to offer her both.

“I reckon I’m not much of a fellow,” admitted Clay ruefully, “and I know darned well you could do a whole heap better for yourself. I’ve done a lot of things—and thought plenty more—that were pretty low-down and that I’m sorry for. But if you feel you could marry me after all, I’d do my damnedest to make you happy. It would be a real privilege to do so. I mean that, Hero. I truly mean it.”

“I know,” murmured Hero; because there was something in his eyes and face and his voice that had never been there before, and that she recognized as sincerity. She wondered why she should never have noticed its absence before, and supposed that she must be growing up. Which was a humbling thought, for she had prided herself on being adult from the age of fifteen.

Looking soberly at Clay she realized that he too had been young and careless, but that his youth had died in the epidemic as surely and almost as painfully as any of the victims it had claimed. Yet she did not believe that he had changed very much.

There were two people in Clay. His wild, dissolute father and his humdrum, home-loving mother. The first had had its fling, and it was always possible that the other might take over, and that one day Aunt Abby’s son would become one of those men who, while liking to boast that they were gay dogs in their day, look back on their own escapades as mere boyish devilry, and conveniently forgetting that they ever strayed into forbidden territory, loudly deplore the immorality and dishonesty of the rising generation. Yet even then she doubted if he would ever be able to resist temptation, whether it came in the form of easy money or women.

Clayton said urgently, breaking the long silence: “I’d be good to you, Hero. And if—if there is a child, his child, I swear I’ll try and care for it as much as if it were my own. Because it will be yours. And because it was my fault, all of it. If I hadn’t…But there’s no sense in going over all that again. I just want you to know that I know I was responsible, and that I’ll do everything I can to make up for it.”

But there was not going to be a child and now was the time to tell him so. Only all at once it was unimportant, and she said instead: “Do you love me, Clay?”

“Why, sure. What I mean is, well I’m—”

But Hero had seen the answer to that question in his face before he spoke, and she laid a hand on his arm, checking him, and said quickly: “You don’t have to say anything. Clay. I shouldn’t have asked you that, because I know that you don’t; I guess I’ve always known. Not in the—in the way I mean it And without that, none of the rest is enough.”

“I don’t know how you mean it But I’m very fond of you, and I’d do my best to make up to you for all you’ve been through. And at least you’d be safe. There won’t be any talk, because as my wife…”

But Hero was not listening to him any more. She was discovering with amazement that she did not want to be safe: that she did not care how many people talked or did not talk—

She said hurriedly, cutting across something that Clay was saying about ‘respect and devotion.’ “I’m very grateful to you, Clay, and I’m sure you would be good to me. If I loved you, I’d take advantage of you and say ‘Yes,’ which would be mean of me, because one day you would meet someone you could truly love, and find yourself tied to me: and never forgive me—or yourself. But I don’t love you, so I can’t do it. And I’m not going to have a child, so you don’t have to worry about me.”

“You’re in love with him!” said Clay abruptly.

Hero stared at him without replying, and was suddenly very still. It was a totally unexpected statement and one that presented her with an answer to something that, curiously enough, she had never even thought of asking herself. Perhaps because it was so patently impossible. Faced with it now, her instinct was still to reject it immediately and with anger. But she did not do so. She considered it instead for a long while and in silence, and when at last she spoke there was astonishment in her voice, and an odd note of wonder:

“Yes,” said Hero slowly. “Yes, I guess I am.”

Clay said harshly: “You can’t possibly marry him!”

“I know.”

“Well, thank God you’ve got that much sense! Has he asked you to?”

Hero shook her head, and Clay said: “No, I don’t imagine he would. He must have some sense of fitness! And in any case he’ll be taken off to stand trial as soon as the
Cormorant
gets in, and if he doesn’t swing he’ll get ten years—if not twenty!”

“I don’t believe it. They couldn’t do that now. Not after all that’s happened.”

“Why not? Old Edwards is a mighty stubborn man, and he’s got a set of hard and fast ideas on the subject of justice. I guess he isn’t going to pass them up just because Rory Frost let you use his house to keep a parcel of starving kids in. It’ud take a heap more than that to make him go back on his word!—you’ve seen enough of him to know that.”

“Yes,” said Hero slowly. “I—I hadn’t thought about it. It all seems so long ago. I’d forgotten…”

She thought of it now, and realized that Clay was right. The Colonel might be disposed to take a less rigidly censorious view of Rory Frost while the cholera raged and there were other and more immediately urgent matters to occupy his attention. But he was, as Clay had said, a stubborn man, and now that the epidemic was over he would not allow his personal feelings to interfere in any way with what he considered to be a straightforward question of justice. He had already passed judgement on Rory and he would not go back on that.

Clay said: I’m sorry, Hero. But it won’t last. Once you’re away from here you’ll find you’ll soon forget about him. You’ll get over it.”

“I-guess so.”

“What do you plan to do?”

“I don’t know, Clay. Go back to Boston I suppose—and forget all about it!” Hero’s voice was suddenly bitter.” I shall go to Ladies’ Luncheons and Musical Evenings, and play whist and take a stall at the Church Bazaar, and behave myself. And forget about…about the sun and the rain and the salt water, and the ‘
men whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders
—’”

“What’s that?” asked Clay, looking puzzled. “What men are you talking about?”

“Nothing: just something that Papa once said to me when I was a little girl.”

“Oh, I see,” said Clay, who did not. “Then you’ll be coming back with us on the
Norah Crayne
?”

“I suppose so, if Uncle Nat doesn’t mind.”

“Mind? Why should he mind? He’ll be delighted. He’s waiting to see you, but he let me see you first.”

“I’m glad. I was afraid he meant it; about never speaking to me again. I couldn’t have borne that.”

“He was blazing angry with you for going off with Frost after what had happened. But he knows what you did during the epidemic, and he’s real proud of you. He’s waiting out on the terrace. I’ll send him in to you.”

Uncle Nat had greeted her kindly enough, but his manner was distrait and he was looking old and worn and dispirited. The tragedy of the cholera epidemic had shaken him badly, and now there was this news that his only child was already married and gone to a strange country. Hero’s behaviour was still a sore subject and one that he had no wish to discuss, and he confined himself to remarking that he guessed there were faults on both sides and least said soonest mended. He was, he said, sorry to hear that she had decided not to marry Clayton, but reckoned that in the circumstances she was probably right. They had both been through too much that they would not be able to forget, and maybe they would be happier apart. Hero must come back to the Consulate as soon as possible, and he hoped she would make arrangements to do so, because George Edwards, who had told him of the excellent work she had done during the epidemic, had also said that it was now virtually ended and there was no longer any reason why she should not return home.

“Let’s you and me try and forget what’s past and make a fresh start,” said Uncle Nat.

He kissed Hero’s cheek, and murmuring something about files, returned to his office and did not see her leave. Two of the Consular servants escorted her back to The Dolphins’ House, because she had refused to let Clay do so. Not that she thought there would be any further scenes if he should encounter Rory Frost, but it seemed better not to risk it. There was, after all, nothing left to be said, and no profit to be derived from vain repetitions and the repaying of violence with violence.

She walked in under die carved dolphins and past the beaming Mustapha Ali and thought:
This may be the last time.
Because five words of Clayton’s had demolished the wall of pretence and evasion that she had so carefully constructed in order to hide from herself the fact that she had not been staying on for the sake of the remaining children, nor because Uncle Nat did not want her back and she was unwilling to impose on the kindness of Olivia or Thérèse or Millicent Kealey; nor for any of the other reasons that she had used as an excuse for not leaving The Dolphins’ House. But simply and solely because of Rory.

There was good in Rory as well as bad: she knew that now. Yet neither the good nor the evil counted any longer, and it was this that was terrible to her. It frightened and humiliated her to find that a physical attraction (it could not be more than that!) was strong enough to make her hunger for the mere sight of a man whose code and conduct and way of life was detestable to her. ‘
Adventurer, black sheep, blackguard
’—a slave trader I It reduced her in her own estimation to the level of an animal, but though she could feel bitterly ashamed of it, she could not alter it; for he had awakened something in her that she had not known she possessed, and now it possessed her. It was like a virus in her blood—a fire and a raging thirst She could not hear his voice without remembering it murmuring endearments, or look at his hands or his mouth without recalling the caressing touch of them: the slow delight of his kisses. ‘
One of Frost’s women
’…

There was only one thing she could do, and that was to go away quickly; and now that Uncle Nat had asked her to return to the Consulate there was no longer any excuse for not doing so. ‘
If thy eye offend thee, pluck it out
’…But this was not just an eye. It was not so simple as that A heart would be harder to pluck out One could live without an eye: but without a heart—?

I must leave today
, thought Hero.
I must leave at once
…

She went slowly up the winding stone stairways and along the verandahs that were empty now and echoed softly to the sound of her footsteps, and thought how beautiful the house was, and how familiar it had become. As familiar as Hollis Hill…

A door ahead of her opened and Batty Potter came out of a room at the turn of the verandah, his arms full of assorted garments and followed by Jumah, who was staggering under the weight of a large sea-chest Hero stopped and enquired what they were doing.

“Packing,” said Batty dourly. “‘Aven’t you ‘card? We’re off. The Captain’s been give notice to quit.”

“To quit? You mean he’s—you’re going? But why? When? Where are you going, Batty?”

“‘Ome. So ‘e says, and ‘e wouldn’t say it if ‘e didn’t mean it.”

“But I thought…Batty, what’s happened? I don’t understand—”

“S’easy enough. There’s a new ship in with another barrel of mail that she picks up at the Cape, and the Colonel ‘e gets word as ‘is replacement is arriving in tuthree days, and ‘oos a’bringing ‘im but the
Cormorant
, And the
Cormorant
’s orders is to pick up Captain Rory and take ‘im back to stand trial.”

“No! No, Batty I They mustn’t—they can’t—” Hero’s voice was a whisper and she sat down with some suddenness on the sea-chest that Jumah had got tired of carrying. Knowing that they could, and feeling empty and helpless.

“Can’t they!” said Batty and expectorated viciously. “No knowing what them pig-‘eaded barstids can’t get up to! But the Colonel ‘e comes round ‘ere ‘arf an hour back and tips Captain Rory the wink to light out quick; and stay out. Because if so be ‘e ain’t ‘ere when the
Cormorant
puts in, then there ain’t nothing they can do. And nothing more won’t be said neither; ‘e gives ‘im ‘is word on that So they shake ‘ands like gents, and there y’are.”