Romance Classics (133 page)

“The bananas will be shipped abroad to France, Holland, in refrigerated ships,” he explained. “Wrapping the stems will prevent their being damaged by ripening en route. The island ships about ninety thousand tons of fruit a year, in good years. But a great deal of it, about seventy percent, is grown by farmers who find it easy to plant a few trees in their own back yard and have a small cash crop. We go in mostly for sugar cane here; and most of our cane goes into rum!”

He smiled at her and added, “But don’t think our people suffer because of any lack of food. I insist that
Martiniquais
are among the best fed in the whole island group. We even have a citrus belt.”

“I notice that just about everybody looks happy and well-fed,” Kristen agreed as she walked with him back toward the jeep.

The narrow road was bordered on either side by acres of cane, and the cutters were busy in it, slashing the cane near the roots, stripping their leaves and trussing them into bundles, which women and boys hoisted on their heads and carried away toward waiting trucks to be hauled to the mill.

Kristen was within a few feet of the jeep when a cane cutter shrilled a loud cry and leaped forward, his machete poised. Kristen gasped, and found herself swept up into George’s arms and lifted to the jeep as the machete flashed down and down and down again. Then the cutter leaped back, and his white teeth made a broad slash in his dark, sweating face.

“My darling, oh, my darling!” said George, his voice no more than a murmur as his arms held her so tightly against him that she could feel the hard, uneven thudding of his heart.

“What was it?” she asked faintly, when she could speak. “What did I do to make him attack me?”

“Attack you? My dear girl, it was a
fer-de-lance
and he killed it,” George told her. “You almost stepped on it.”

She caught her breath and hid her face against him, and heard him say something to the cane cutter; then George put her into the jeep.

“I’ll take you straight back to the house,” George said hoarsely. “You’ve had a terrible shock. I can’t tell you how sorry I am. The foul thing was flushed from the cane when the men started cutting. They were after it, and it darted right across the path.”

Kristen shuddered as she sank down on the seat, her shaking hands over her white face.

“I wasn’t looking where I was going. It was stupid of me.”

“It wasn’t at all; it was all my fault. I should have warned you,” George said brusquely. “I knew about them; you didn’t.”

And Kristen remembered Madam Chapin’s story on the ship coming down. Marisa’s mother, whom he had adored, had been killed by one of these deadly creatures. How it must have brought back to him all that bitter, heartbreaking experience! And when he had held her close and had said, “My darling, oh, my darling!” those words had been addressed to the memory of another woman who hadn’t been as lucky as she.

He turned to the cane cutter, said something to him in the native
patois
, and the man turned, relieved, to resume his work. As George got into the jeep, he looked down at Kristen anxiously.

“Feeling better?” he asked.

“Just feeling terribly foolish,” she admitted with a valiant attempt at a smile. “I didn’t even see the snake! I just saw that man rushing toward we with that awful knife, and I thought he’d gone berserk. I’m sorry I was such a fool.”

“Don’t say that!” George seemed angry. “It was perfectly natural. I should have warned you—I’m the fool!”

“Please,” Kristen pleaded. “Madam Chapin told me about—what happened to Marisa’s mother. I know how all this must have brought that dreadful experience back to you.”

Swiftly, as though he resented the reminder, he said, “Don’t even think about it. Fernand was smarter than I am. And now I’ll take you home.”

The girls came floating down the stairs, looking gay and lovely in their light summery dresses, and Eileen and George stood at the landing of the outside steps and watched them drive off.

Eileen watched George anxiously as he turned and went back into the house. In the drawing room, she saw him go to stand at the French window, looking down at the black volcanic beach against which the surf was flinging great misty curtains of lacy white.

“She’s a very lovely girl, isn’t she?” Eileen broke the taut silence.

“Very,” George said over his shoulder.

“And you’re more than a little in love with her.” Eileen’s tone made it a statement, not a question.

George wheeled about as though she had struck him. She saw the amazement in his eyes, the sudden tautness of his jaw.

“In love with Kristen?” he asked as though he found the idea completely fantastic. “What a ridiculous—why, she’s my daughter’s age!”

Eileen shook her head, smiling faintly.

“She’s twenty-four, George.”

“And I’m forty!”

“And she is by no means indifferent to you.”

“That’s utter, arrant nonsense!”

Eileen shook her well-groomed, handsome head.

“Is it?” she asked gently.

“Well, but of course it is. A young, radiantly lovely girl like Kristen—and an old codger like me—why, it’s indecent!”

“Oh, I don’t say that she is in love with you—yet! But she’s poised on the brink, George. Just the smallest, gentlest bit of wooing from you—”

“Which I shall never offer, I assure you.”

Eileen was silent for a moment, and then her eyes met his squarely.

“Do you think that’s quite fair?” she asked gently. “Either to yourself or to her?”

“Eileen, I think you must be out of your mind.”

“I have eyes, George, and I’ve watched her. She is very much attracted to you; and I know that you must care for her. I know you so well, you see, darling. She’s the first woman you’ve really looked at in ten years.”

“But she’s not really a woman, Eileen. She’s just a young girl.”

“You don’t really believe that, George.”

He jammed his hands into his pockets and walked the length of the room and back again.

“When I held her in my arms this morning,” his tone was low, husky, and she sensed that he was scarcely conscious that he was speaking aloud, “she was soft and warm.”

“And you are very lonely,” Eileen said gently. “Don’t you suppose I understand, darling? Don’t you suppose I’m lonely, too?”

He turned sharply and looked down at her where she sat, came to her and put a hand on her shoulder.

“It’s a very long and lonely road you and I have walked, George,” she told him softly. “I am so very glad that perhaps the road is going to be shortened for you.”

“But not for you?”

She shook her head, her smile tremulous, and then she shrugged.

“Who can tell?” she mused. “That’s something only the future can show us. I’ve always thought that if you married again, I might go back to England. I do have ties, there, you know. Clyde’s family were very good to me; they’d be so glad if I’d come back and root the tenants out of the Manor, and settle down there again.”

“If you want to go back, Eileen, you must.”

“If you marry again—”

“That’s nonsense! Marisa is practically grown up now.”

“Marisa is at an age when she needs the restraining hand of an older woman more than at any other time in her life.”

George’s smile was faint, untouched by mirth.

“I hardly think Kristen would have much influence over Marisa.”

“Because they are so much of an age? That’s where you’re wrong, George. Marisa adores Kristen and, what’s more, respects her. Kristen is many years older than Marisa in all the ways that count.”

Suddenly George straightened and gave a mirthless laugh.

“I don’t see anything funny—” Eileen protested.

“Don’t you? I find it hilarious! You and I are sitting here calmly discussing whether or not I should marry a girl who would probably laugh in my face if I so much as mentioned being in love with her!”

“At least you owe it to her to ask her—”

“
Owe
it to her?”

“Well, I mean you have given her the opportunity to fall in love with you.”

“I can’t believe anything so utterly fantastic!”

“Men!”
said Eileen.

“And this young dancer that Marisa is so excited about,” George pointed out, “what about him?”

“Well, what about him?”

“Do you think she could dance with him as she does and not be in love with him?”

“Oh, George, don’t be a fool!” Eileen protested, half laughing, half exasperated. “You know the way they dance together is all part of their act. It’s good show business to let people think you are enraptured with each other. Kristen calls him ‘Leon,’ yet Marisa insists all his friends call him Lee! Does that sound as though she were in love with him?”

She stood up, suddenly weary of the argument. “I only wanted to let you know, George, that I feel fairly certain Kristen is genuinely interested in you. And because you are a man, you’d probably never realize it. And now that I know you are in love with her, whether you admit it or not—well, I thought perhaps the knowledge that I would go back to England, very willingly, might help you to decide what to do.”

She went out, and he heard her go up the stairs.

She had left him with a problem that made him feel dazed.

He went up to bed at last, but it was a long time before he could get to sleep …

For the rest of Kristen’s visit, Marisa kept her so occupied that there was no chance for George to talk to her alone. He wondered a little if Kristen might not be avoiding him, and cursed himself for the hurt the thought gave him.

It was not until the last evening of her visit that he was able to see her alone. She would be going back to Fort-de-France in the morning, and it was not likely that he would have another chance, unless— But he wouldn’t even let himself pursue that thought any further.

Marisa’s young friends had dropped in to say goodbye to Kristen, and it developed into a gay party of youthful good spirits, with much laughter, music, and dancing. When George saw Kristen slip unobtrusively out of the room to the terrace, he drew a deep hard breath and just as unobtrusively followed her.

It was a night of tropical beauty straight out of the most inspired travel folders. A huge moon was so round and yellow that it looked as if one might thrust a fist through its softness. Below the terrace, the surf pounded with its incessant rhythm, and the salt-tangy wind was pleasant on Kristen’s lifted face.

She stood at the curve of the terrace, her face lifted to the soft moonlight. Her eyes were closed, and the wind blew her soft filmy chiffon skirts back a little so that for a moment, as he watched her, he thought of a lovely figurehead on some proud ship.

He made no effort to walk quietly, and before he reached her, she turned swiftly, smiling at him. In the moonlight, she was revealed to him almost as vividly as though she stood in a spotlight. He saw her lovely, friendly smile and felt it warm the dry reaches of his heart.

“I came out to say goodbye to all this,” she told him softly, with a gesture that took in the scene about her. “I shall never forget this visit. You were quite right: Martinique
is
the loveliest spot in the whole world.”

“I suppose you feel, ‘It’s a lovely place to visit, but I wouldn’t care to live here’?” he teased her lightly.

“Live here? Oh, I’m not so sure about that. I think I’d
have
to live here if I hoped to see everything there is to see.” She laughed and turned once more to look out over the restless water.

“You’re very fond of show business, aren’t you?” he probed, carefully keeping his voice matter of fact.

“Well, yes, of course. It’s really the only thing I’ve ever known,” she answered. “And that’s pretty funny, I suppose. None of my people were ever in show business. My sister is studying to be a teacher; and my mother and father couldn’t imagine anything but being farmers. They love it. But they were very understanding when I wanted to be a dancer, and did everything they could to help me.”

“I know they’re very proud of you,” said George.

Kristen laughed. “I think really they’re more puzzled than proud. They thought I’d grow up, marry the boy next door, and settle down to dairy farming. That’s what my sister will do when she has taught for a few years, I know.”

She laughed suddenly and added, “It’s nice to know that when I get too old and too creaky in the joints to go on dancing, they’ll take me in; and I can sit in a corner with a shawl about my shoulders and tell my nieces and nephews what it was like to be a professional dancer.

“Most of all,” she went on, and now her voice had lost all hint of raillery and was deeply earnest, “I’ll have the memory of Martinique and all the lovely things that have happened to me here to tell them about. It’ll always be one of my most cherished memories.”

“Kristen, this boy next door—”

Kristen laughed gaily.

“Oh, there’s no such person. It was just a figure of speech,” she dismissed it lightly.

“I am wondering, Kristen,” he said, and nerved himself for the plunge, for he knew it must be now or never, “whether you could live happily ever after in Martinique?”

He saw the startled look that sped over her face.

“Oh, but I don’t see how that could be possible,” she answered.

“But if a way could be offered? I think there
is
a way, Kristen.” His voice trailed off beneath the almost frightened look in her eyes.

“Oh, but I promised Leon I’d stay with The Act,” she said hurriedly, avoiding George’s stricken eyes. “I couldn’t just walk out on him—not after all his hard work and all the training he’s given me.”

George drew a deep, harsh breath and said pleasantly, “No, of course you couldn’t. I can’t think what I could have had in mind even to suggest such a thing.”

He smiled at her, and even in the moonlight she could see the flash of his white teeth in a mirthless grin.

“I suppose it’s just that we have enjoyed your visit so much that we hate to see it come to an end. Now, shall we go back inside? I think it’s getting a bit chilly out here, don’t you?”

The intensity of her relief struck him like a blow as she brushed past him, moving swiftly as though anxious to escape
from him. And George stood where she had left him, feeling the aching bitterness of smashed hopes that he should never have allowed to spring up in his heart.