Sugar in the Morning (18 page)

“I wouldn’t have bought it if I hadn’t wanted to!” I said weakly.

Uncle Philip recovered himself a little. “Of course she wouldn’t have done!” he said, too heartily. “I told you so.”

Wilfred looked from one to the other of us, shaking his head from side to side. “It doesn’t make any difference. I’m not coming.”

“What will you live on?” his father asked him, still hoping to break him down.

“Money!” he answered tersely. “What I can make from buying and selling in the market place. It will be my money, honest money, and that’s the way it’s going to be.”

I waited in silence for a renewed explosion as his family tried to argue with him, but there was none. Uncle Philip managed a weak smile and slapped his son on the back. “Well, that’s all right then. I’ve never been one to force on you anything you didn’t like. You know that!” He turned eagerly to Cuthbert, hardly able to conceal his hurry to be gone, with or without Wilfred. “Get moving, son,” he barked at the younger brother. “The train won’t wait for us!” He bustled out of the room, the train tickets in his hand, hurrying Cuthbert before him. I think he was already telling himself that it had never been a part of his plans that Wilfred should come with us.

There was a long silence after he had snapped the door shut behind him. It was Wilfred who broke it, a Wilfred who looked older and more responsible than I had ever seen him before.'

“Look, Camilla,” he said. “It isn’t that I don’t thank you for getting this place and trying to push us on to our feet, it’s just that I’ve got to make my own way, without them and without you. Can you understand that?”

I nodded. “But where will it lead?” I asked him.

He smiled suddenly. “I shan’t be a millionaire, is that what you’re thinking? It won’t matter. I’ll be my own man and, with a bit of luck, one day Pamela Longuet will be my wife. She wouldn’t look at me if I stayed a field worker on a sugar estate
!”

“But—” I began. I stopped myself from going on with what I had been about to say. “Do you think she will? Marry you, I mean,” I said instead.

He looked me straight in the face, a twinkle of amusement dawning in the back of his eyes.

“I think she might,” he drawled.

The train was as crowded as my uncle had said it would be. Half the passengers clung on to anything they could grab outside and whooping and cheering as we groaned our way out of the station, their shirts flapping in the wind. We who sat in staid respectability inside the compartment gasped each time it looked as if someone might lose their precarious footing, but I doubt that we ever went fast enough to put any of these agile young men in actual danger.

My own family were subdued. Even Patience was silent as she stared out of the window at the passing scenery. I tried to follow her example, but the even rhythm of the wheels got into my blood and what had been a small seed of excitement grew and expanded as the wheels hurried round, getting slowly faster and faster.

I remembered suddenly that Daniel had said he would have the house ready for us, but of course he wouldn’t be expecting us today—but he might be there and that was all that mattered. Even the image of Pamela Longuet queening it in his family home faded into insignificance as I dwelt in my thoughts on the house and the sugar fields, and the extraordinary fact that they would belong to me. If Daniel was going to be there, it all would have been worth while. I had wondered if it would be, if I could bear to see him daily when he had someone else in his heart and not myself, but now I knew the answer to that. Anything was worth it, just to see him now and then. It was all I would ask and—I swallowed a sudden lump in my throat—it looked as if it was going to be all I would get!

CHAPTER TWELVE

THE stone lions that guarded the gates of the house and garden were just as I remembered them. Their Chinese faces grinned a welcome, their tongues lolling out of their gaping mouths. Beyond stood the house with its curly, oriental-looking roof shining in the hot sun.

“Do you like it?” I asked my uncle and Cuthbert anxiously.

My uncle grunted. “I know the house well,” he said briefly.

I winced, remembering how Mrs. Longuet had told me about my family in the very sitting-room where we were now going to live ourselves.

“
But you don’t, do you, Cuthbert?” I pressed him.

Cuthbert shook his head. “I don’t remember ever coming here,” he said.

Patience was the first one out of the taxi we had hired from the station. She stood in the driveway, taking great gasping breaths of pleasure to be back. She loaded herself up with the luggage and with her arms bulging she walked slowly to the front door. A push was all that was needed for it to open. It had been left on the latch and there was a short note pushed through the side that hinged the door to its support. It fell to the floor, without Patience seeing it and she trod it underfoot as she passed into the hall.

It was astonishing, I thought, how quickly the dust had gathered on the porch and even in the house. I picked up the note and brushed it against my other hand impatiently, wondering who could have left it.

It was quite brief, and had been written in a flowing, feminine hand which I thought must have been Mrs. Longuet’s.

“
To Philip Ironside: Be happy here for as long as you can be, for it won’t be for long. Nothing has changed!”

I folded it neatly and put it away in my pocket, a hollow, sinking feeling within me as I thought of the sheer spiteful malice that must have inspired the writer.

“What is it, Camilla?” Cuthbert asked me. He had come up behind me and must have seen me putting the note in my pocket.

“It’s nothing,” I sai
d
awkwardly.

He looked unconvinced, but at that moment he didn’t like to argue with me. He was clearly impressed by his new surroundings and longing to explore the place, and he was very conscious at that moment that the whole estate, the house, everything, belonged to me rather than to his part of the family.

“Don’t look so distressed,” he whispered. “We’ll make a go of it
!”

“We shall have to
!
” I retorted.

Uncle Philip finished paying off the taxi and watched the car depart down the drive. “I never thought I
’
d live to see such a sight again!” he said at last.
“
To see a taxi going down my own drive. To have space
!
That’s what we’ve all been lacking, children, room to breathe!. Just feel that air! Sniff it! Can you smell the sugar? We’ve come home at last!”

Cuthbert laughed. “The house on Charlotte Street wasn’t so bad,” he said.

Uncle Philip shrugged. “It was a stop-gap, boy. No more than that
!”

He wouldn’t come into the house. He threw the briefcase he was carrying, together with his coat and the newspaper he had been reading, on to the porch,
and strode off to take a look at the estate for himself. There was a new spring in his step and a commanding look to his back. Perhaps he really could run the place, I thought hopefully. It would be good if he could.

“
Was that a note I saw you hiding away?” Cuthbert asked as soon as his father was out of earshot. He asked the question reluctantly, as if he didn’t really want to know and could hardly wait for the answer.

“I think Mrs. Longuet must have left it,” I answered. “It’s not important.”

But Cuthbert was not convinced. “Do you think there
’ll
be others?” he asked anxiously.

“
I shouldn
’
t think so,” I replied with a great deal more confidence than I was feeling.

“I hope not. It would upset the old man.” But Cuthbert was incapable of worrying for very long. A smile broke across his face and he was off like a rocket, rushing through the house, looking at this and that as he hurried along.

I followed him more slowly. It was hard to take in the fact that this house now belonged to me. I wandered through the bedrooms, wondering which one to have as my own. The Longuets had occupied the biggest, a room decorated in sea green and gilt and with a heavily encrusted ceiling. Not that one, I decided, it was too much of a good thing! I went hastily through another door and found myself in what had obviously been Pamela s room. It was pretty and the smell of her scent seemed to have become impregnated into the walls. I could almost imagine her standing at the window and smiling at me, a faint superior smile, because although I had the Longuets’ house for my own, she was happily ensconced in Daniel’s family home!

“Miss ’Milla?”

“I’m up here!”

Patience came struggling into the room, carrying my
luggage which she deposited in the middle of the plain white carpet. “Why’s you in here?” she asked crossly.

“I was just looking round,” I explained inadequately.

She wrinkled up her nose, smelling each corner of the room. “We’se got cleaning to do!” she said darkly. “This house ain’t had more’n a touch for some days now. You’d best be gettin’ on some old things, Miss ’Milla! We can’t have it smellin’ of them Longuets, not an instant longer!”

I protested in vain that we had only just arrived and that I wanted to have a good look round first. Patience was adamant. She wouldn’t settle until the whole house was gleaming and fresh, nor would she do so much as get something to eat until she had assured herself that the kitchen was as clean as the one she had left in Charlotte Street.

I am afraid I proved a reluctant helper. I was far more interested in the house itself and the furnishings I had inherited from the Longuets. Most of them I liked well enough, but a few changes would be a pleasant luxury for their taste was more ornate than mine. Still, one couldn’t complain. The general effect was very pleasant indeed. It would provide the whole family with a proper background, not perhaps in the same class as the Hendrycks’ home, but a very satisfactory kind of house to entertain in a
nd
make one’s own.

I was exhausted by the time we had finished. Patience had elected to do the downstairs, so I was left with the bedrooms. I had made up a bed for each of us, pleased to discover that the linen cupboard was full to bursting with sheets and blankets. I was just finishing the last bed when Patience uttered a scream of wrath down below. Anxiously I went to the top of the stairs and peered down into the hall below.

“What is it?”

“
Has you seen this?” An irate Patience waved a piece of paper through the banisters. “Well, has you?”

I knew without looking at it that it was another note.
“
I found the first one,” I told her wearily.

“
They sure meant him to see it,” she responded, her great body shaking with anger. “Is you thinkin’ there’s one in the office too?”

“
I dare say,” I said carefully. “The best thing is to ignore them, I
’
m sure of that. I think Mrs. Longuet was funny about some things.”

“
This ain’t
Mrs.
Longuet!” Patience said flatly.

“But it looks like a woman’s writing!” I exclaimed.

“It ain’t Mrs. Longuet
!”

I straightened up, feeling my aching back as I did so. “Don’t tell me any more!” I begged. “I don’t want to know!”

Patience gave me a sulky look. “If you’se sayin’ so. But—”

I fled back to the room I was doing. I didn’t want to know how it was that she knew that the notes hadn’t been written by Mrs. Longuet. I didn’t
w
ant to know anything about them at all.

When the telephone went, Patience was still sulking and she wouldn
’
t answer it. I was gratified to discover that there was a second receiver upstairs and I took the call there.

“Hullo,” I said.

There was a lengthy silence. “Who’s that? Where’s Mrs. Longuet?”

“She’s gone,” I said baldly. “This is Camilla Ironside.”

“
Ironside
?”
There was a gasp followed by a chuckle. “You’ve moved in already? I wish we’d known! Mrs. Longuet left instructions about a welcoming party for you—”

“
Oh, please don’t bother!” I interrupted him.

“It’s no bother. Besides,” he drawled, “I’m an obedient kind of person. I follow instructions, see. It pays me well.”

I swallowed. Was there some kind of threat underlying his words? But there couldn’t be
!
“W
ell, it’s very kind of you, Mr.—Mr.—?”

“Just a caller,” he said. “Tell your uncle I called, won’t you?” The telephone went dead and I put the receiver down with suddenly cold hands. The Longuets,
I remembered miserably, had been very popular locally and the Ironsides had not! But surely nobody would wish us any actual harm?

The telephone jangled again almost immediately and I jumped, and nearly dropped the receiver as I picked it up for the second time. I muttered a rather timid Hullo, sure that it was a mistake and that I hadn’t put the receiver back properly from the previous call. Part of me knew that it wouldn’t make it ring again even if I hadn’t, but the feeling persisted and I was more than half afraid that the same voice would greet me over the wire. But it was Daniel, warm and reassuring, who spoke into my ear.

“I was told you’d arrived! I didn’t expect you for a day or so yet! Is everything all right?”

“Y-yes, I think so.”

I could almost hear him smiling. “You don’t sound very sure!”

“Daniel, I’m not!” I wailed. “Do you know anything about a party to welcome us?”

There was a short, tense silence. “No,” he said cautiously. “What kind of a party?”

“I don’t know. Mrs. Longuet left some instructions—But, Daniel, there’s more! There are notes which have been left all over t
he
place. They’re—they’re addressed to Uncle Philip—”

“Who wrote them?”

“I don’t know!” I almost sobbed. “I thought—Patience says it isn’t Mrs. Longuet, but it looks like a woman’s handwriting.”

“I see. Have you thrown it away yet?”

“No.” My voice quivered ominously. “I haven’t shown them to Un
cl
e Philip either. I thought I’d found the only one, but Patience came across one too, and now Uncle Philip and Cuthbert have gone to the office and I’m afraid they’ll find one there. They were
meant
to be found! It’s rather horrible.”

There was another short silence and I wished that I could have known what he was thinking. Was I just fussing about nothing? Was that what he thought?

“It isn’t anything really to bother about!” I said quickly, too quickly because he must have known that I was anxious. “It’s funny, if you can look at it that way, I suppose.”

“It doesn’t sound at all amusing to me,” he assured me dryly.
“
Look, Camilla, I’ll be over straight away.
I
was coming anyway, but I’ll come earlier still. Tell Patience that
I’ll
be eating there with you and that I’m hungry. Will you do that?”

“Y-yes. Yes, of course I will.”

“I’ll be about ten minutes,” he said. He put down the telephone before I had a chance to a
r
gue, and after a minute or so I did likewise, my worries suddenly gone as I realised that in just a few minutes he would be there with me, taking charge of anything that might happen.

I went downstairs straight away to tell Patience that he was coming. She nodded approvingly and handed over the notes which she had collected from the various rooms downstairs. They were all written in the same flowing, feminine hand.

“Tell me, why couldn’t this be Mrs. Longuet’s writing?” I asked her.

“I’se seen it,” she said immediately. “Honey, hers is
a crabbed little hand.”

“There was a man on the telephone who said she
’
d made arrangements fo
r
some kind of party to welcome us,” I told her. “He didn’t sound as friendly as he might have done, though.”

Patience went pale, giving her the curious grey look that black people have when they are either frightened or ill. “My, my, Miss ’Milla, an what sort of a party
did he mean
?
”

“I don’t know,” I said slowly. “But there was trouble here with my uncle once before, wasn’t there?”

Patience gave a tight little nod to her head, her eyes huge and wild. “I’se heard tell—” she began. “What time will Mr. Daniel be here?” she ended abruptly.

“Any moment now,” I said. Our shared relief grew into something almost tangible. ‘He said he
’
d be ten minutes,” I added.

Restless, I went to the front porch and stood there for a while looking at the waving fields of sugar which surrounded the house. They were burning off the rubbish on the field nearest the garden and I could see my uncle standing proudly on the edge of the blackened canes, already directing operations with a waving hand and a curious bonhomie that was supposed to hide the nervousness he was feeling. In another hour it would be dark, I thought, and he and Cuthbert would come back to the house, pretending to themselves that they had done the same thing every day for the last year. He couldn’t possibly have found one of those notes, or he would have come inside sooner, seeking the
comfort of the family.

The fires were growing, but I knew that someone was looking after them. Tomorrow, I supposed, they would cut the cane and deliver it to Daniel
’
s processing plant and refinery. I looked at it harder, trying to
convince myself that the crop was mine, that it belonged to me, but it was still too foreign to anything I had ever owned before. It was so much larger and altogether quite inconceivable. It was frightening too, for we would
need our neighbours and if they didn’t accept us what would we do then
?

Daniel
’
s car turned into the drive a few minutes later. He stopped it fairly near the gate and got out, looking about him and sniffing the wind. I saw him run over to the fence that divided the burning field from the garden and heard him shout to my uncle: “Get that fire under control!”

My uncle flapped an idle hand. “Hullo, son,” he greeted Daniel happily.

“G
et that fire under control!” Daniel roared at him. “You’ll have it all going up in a minute
!
”

I ran down the drive towards them, my heart in my mouth. It must have been my imagination, but I could distinctly smell petrol now. Daniel turned and saw me coming.

“Camilla, go back to the house!” he pleaded.

But I couldn
’
t leave him. The field was suddenly full of people, ugly-looking people with fiery torches blazing and cans of petrol in their hands, and they weren’t just stopping with the one field. Already they were being directed from one to the other, whether they were ready or not.

“Is this the welcoming party?” I asked Daniel g
ri
mly.

“Could be.”

“But how could she?” I cried out. “Whatever happened before, surely it didn’t deserve this?”

Daniel gave me a push back in the direction of the house. “Go home, Camilla,” he said again. “This isn’t for you!”

But it was! Standing on the edge of the field and
watching the wanton waste that was being inflicted all about me, I knew that these were
my
fields. It was
my
sugar and
my
life, and how
dared
they do this to
me
?

I ran to the nearest man and tried to stop him spraying the petrol over the sugar. “Do you work for me?” I asked him angrily.

He hesitated for a second and I grabbed the can from him. We fought over it silently for a few seconds and the warm fluid ran over our hands and arms.

“Let go, miss,” he pleaded. “There are loose sparks everywhere!”

“I know! And just who is paying you to do this?”

“I’ve worked for the Longuets for a few years,” he admitted sourly.

“I thought so
!”
I shouted. “I thought so! And what do you plan to do now? Follow them to America?” The man hesitated again, and in that instant he was lost. I wrested the can of petrol away from him and stood in the middle of the field, daring anyone to throw any more over the fire. The men fell back, deflected if only for a moment from their first purpose. And into that moment of hesitation strode Daniel.

“This is Camilla Ironside, the new owner of the estate,” he announced, in ringing tones that reached to every corner of the burning field. “Some of you will be working for her—”

“An Ironside?”

“Would you rather be unemployed!” Daniel snapped back.

“I’ve worked Longuet sugar—”

“And now it’s
Ironside
sugar!” Uncle Philip screamed in anguish. The men turned and looked at him. They left Daniel and I where we were standing and advanced towards him, looking very ugly indeed.

“It is
my
land and
my
s
ugar!” I said clearly. I drew myself up, glad of my height and that I could look down on most of them, which gave me a natural advantage that could hardly be beaten. “What have you against
me
that you burn my property and insult my relatives with ancient feuds fought by other men? The Longuets are gone. Will they feed your families? Will they heal the bu
rn
s you’ll get if you throw any more petrol about on
my
land
?
”

The men retreated from my uncle and stood, sheepishly looking at the ruined field. I had won! I knew I had won! But then a female voice came from the back of the crowd. “Cowards! You’ve been paid once
!
Burn the sugar
!”

The men surged forward and knocked me off balance.