Sugar in the Morning (19 page)

I fell awkwardly and a spark from the fire fell on my dress. In seconds it was alight and flaring about me.
I panicked and ran first this way and then that, but it was Daniel who caught me and who wrapped
me in his coat, stifling the flames before they could do any real damage, other than scare me out of my wits.

The men were scared too. They were afraid of being recognised and of having to pay for the damage they had wrought. They were frightened too of how badly hurt I was and whether that too would be laid at their door. I was conscious of a great deal of shouting, and the woman’s voice, acid with fury, demanding that they didn
’
t give up. I heard Daniel’s voice too, calm and restraining, and I began to giggle. He looked at me with concern and I giggled again.

“King Darius said to the lions:—

Bite Daniel. Bite Daniel.

Bite him. Bite him. Bite him
,
”
I quoted apologetically.

H
e grinned.
“
Grrrrr
!”
he finished for me, and we laughed together.

The crowd had begun to fade away. My knees felt weak and I sat down hastily before I fell down, feeling
suddenly sick and aware of the pain that the flames had caused on my naked skin. I was not badly burned, but badly enough for it to be sore and for my skin to
feel tight and peculiar.

Daniel squatted down beside me and gathered me
into his arms.
“You were magnificent, darling,” he said. “You were:

—as fine as a melon in the cornfield,

Gliding and lovely as a ship upon the sea.

And he covered my face with his kisses.

Patience anointed my hands and arms with a paste that she said would take all the sting out of the very superficial bums I had received. I sat at the table in the kitchen while she did so, with Daniel watching every movement like a jealous lover as yet unsure of
his rights.

“Relax, Daniel,” I told him. “The damage isn
’
t too bad, is it? And the Longuets have gone anyway. They’ve done their worst, so things must get better from now on, don’t you think?”

“I don’t know,” he said slowly. “Where are these
notes you received?”

Patience shook her head at me. “Are you worr
it
ing Mr. Daniel with those? Mebbe it’s as well at that!”

Daniel stared down at the notes, his face grim and unyielding. “Don’t worry about them,” he said at last.
“I’ll cope with them.”

“What will you do?” I asked, anxious lest he should
do anything to hurt himself by helping me.

“I’ll get on the telephone to the person concerned and see that they stop,” he said simply.

He would have done it then and there, but at that moment my uncle and Cuthbert came in, their faces still black with smoke and weariness, after setting a
guard around the estate in case there was any further trouble.

“Oh, it’s you!” Uncle Philip greeted Daniel gruffly.
“
I suppose we should thank you for your help.”

“Not at all
!”
Daniel retorted pleasantly. He turned to me and grinned. “It’s
my
land and
my
sugar!” he mocked me. “Do you really feel like that?”

I blushed. “I never thought I’d feel anything at all for a few canes of sugar—” I began, abashed by the look in his eyes.

“
There
’
s nothing like it
!”
Uncle Philip said with a sigh. “To smell it again is sheer heaven. To work in the fields on Ironside land again is a dream come true!” I felt mean then that I had said it was mine. I should have said it was ours, that it was Ironside land, for that is what it was. I gave my cousin an apologetic look and he smiled at me.

“It was one in the eye for Pamela!” he grinned. Daniel frowned at him, but it was too late. Once launched, nothing could stop Cuthbert from what he had to say. “Did you hear her?” he demanded from the room at large. “Did you just hear her? Wilfred will be lucky if he can turn her into a human being—”

“
Cuthbert
!”
I broke in hastily.

It was too late. His eye had caught the notes in Daniel s eye and he snatched them from him, his amusement turning to disgust. “Good lord, did she have to write these too?”

“I thought she was in Port-of-Spain,” I said uneasily.

“
I hoped she was,” Daniel agreed. “But she must have come back for this. She wanted to go on working at the refinery, but of course that’s impossible now—”

I
was aghast. How could he speak so calmly about the girl he loved, the girl he had invited to his family
h
ome
,
the girl who had always, until this minute, seemed to be so suitable for him in every way?

“But, Daniel, you can’t sack her!” I said.

He took the notes back from Cuthbert. “She’ll go back to the States with her parents,” he said flatly. “They wanted a holiday by themselves for a few weeks, but the sooner she goes the better.”

“Wilfred won’t thank you for that!” Cuthbert chimed in.

“But you can’t, Daniel!” I said again. “It’s only what she’s always heard about the Ironsides. You can
’
t blame
her for that!”

“I can and I do,” he retorted simply. “I’ll go and telephone her now.”

He went while Patience finished putting the paste over my arms. Uncle Philip and Cuthbert looked at one another and winked. “We’d better go and wash, Cuthbert muttered.

“That’s right!” Patience said sternly. “The two of you aren’t fit to sit down at table! And as for you, Miss ’Milla, you can set yoursel’ in the sittin’ room, while I gets this meal started
!
”

She pushed us all out of the kitchen, deaf to my entreaties to be left alone to suffer.

“Now, Miss ’Milla, none of that! You do as you’re told! Mr. Daniel will be there soon enough to talk to you.”

I wasn’t sure that I wanted to talk to Daniel. I didn
’
t know what he would have to say and I was strangely nervous that it wouldn’t be at all what I wanted to hear. Daniel quoting poetry in the middle of a burning field was quite different from Daniel, grimly angry, returning from talking to Pamela whom he loved. He could kiss me out there amidst the smoke and the ruined sugar, but here in what was still the Longuet sitting room, he would probably hate me because I wasn’t Pamela and because, unwittingly, I had caused all this trouble.

But when he came he didn’t look as though he hated me at all. He looked quite as nervous as I felt, and I noticed that the fire had singed his beard on one side, giving him a quaint lopsided look.

“D-did you get her?” I broke into the silence desperately.

He nodded. “Oh yes!” he said. “There’ll be no more trouble from that source
!
”

“Then it doesn’t matter if she goes or stays, does it?”

He walked across the room and stood absolutely still beside me. “It matters to me,” he said. “I’m not prepared to have her near you. Can’t you understand that, Camilla? I can’t bear to have any more trouble come to you through Pamela or anyone else!”

I shrugged. “My shoulders are broad,” I said.

He smiled. I could feel the tension leaving him and his usual good humour returned bringing the laughter to his eyes.

“Darling,” he said, “I can’t think why I’ve waited so long! I wanted everything to be exactly right. I wanted the people here to accept you for yourself first. The Ironside story was dead and buried and should have mouldered in the earth long ago. It would have done if the Longuets hadn’t kept it alive! But I knew they had only to see you and they would know that you were something different, someone special—and not only to me! Camilla, it all went wrong—”

I reached up and laid a finger across his mouth. It was an intimate action that I wouldn’t have dared a few minutes ago, but now he had given me the courage to tell him my side of it.

“It all went right!” I whispered. “My uncle is back on the land he loves. Wilfred can try for Pamela if he wants to, and Cuthbert is happy to be here with his father—”

“And you?” Daniel put in, smiling.

“And I’m happy to be here with you,” I said bravely.

“Darling!” he said warmly. “I wish I’d made better arrangements, all the same. I made Pamela leave here—I even said she could stay at the house in Port-of-Spain so that she wouldn’t be here when you came, but she must have come down today when she heard you were
coming.”

“It doesn’t matter!” I insisted.

His arms went about me and I winced as he touched my raw skin. He was immediately concerned and repentant. “It doesn’t matter!” he repeated in a funny, tight voice. “You might have been burnt to a crisp!”

“But I wasn’t!” I said stoutly. I laughed up at him. “Daniel, would you mind very much kissing me again here in the Longuets’ sitting room—”

I didn’t have time to finish. He held me tight in the most satisfactory way and kissed me, gently at first, on the lips. And then, as he forgot my injuries, anywhere he could reach.

“When are you going to marry me?” he asked.

I backed away from him, laughing. “I think it had better be rather soon!” I gasped. “I—you—oh, you know what I mean
!
”

He laughed again, a great hearty laugh such as I hadn’t heard all day.

“I know exactly!” he agreed. And he kissed me
again.

Cuthbert was quicker than his father at cleaning up for dinner, and he walked into the sitting-room just as we were arguing as to which one of us loved the other the most as an excuse for talking at all. It was the sound of the voice we wanted to hear, and words were quite unnecessary at that moment. It was enough to clasp hands and know that we were loved.

“Wilfred was about right,” Cuthbert said. “He said you’d hand the estate to Daniel on a plate!

Uncle Philip was just in time to hear the end of his son’s remark. He went quite white, but his expression remained dignified and sad.

“He said she’d lay it at his feet!” he contradicted Cuthbert, his voice breaking a little.

Daniel grinned at him. “But it’s Ironside land!” he smiled. “I don’t want it. I want Camilla Ironside, not her few acres of land
!
”

“You’ll have to manage it for me, Uncle Philip,” I put in. “I want to go and live with Daniel, not here on my own
!”

The three men laughed and I laughed with them. We were still laughing when Patience called us to go into the dining-room to eat.

“My, my,” she said, “it’s been a crazy day and that’s a fact! Mr. Daniel, Miss ’Milla, how’s soon is we gettin’ out of this house
?
”

Daniel kissed her on the cheek. “Are you coming to work for the Hendrycks again?” he asked her.

She glared at him and then at me, her mouth screwed into a pugnacious line. “Jest you keep me away!” she threatened. “Jest you try it, either one of you, jest you try!”

It was my uncle who restored peace to the table. “It’s only fitting,” he said calmly. He filled his glass to the brim with rum and turned to face us.

“To the future Mrs. Hendrycks,” he said. He drank deeply. “And the Ironsides,” he added with rather greater enthusiasm. “The Ironsides, every one of them!”

Daniel winked at me. “To the Ironsides,” he repeated meekly. He tipped his glass against mine and smiled. “To the one I love,” he said.