Tree of Paradise Read online

  It was his turn for silence. Meaning to surprise him, she evidently had. Then he said 'It goes : "The Devil is beating his wife again." That is, the Devil losing the fight when the sun continues to shine, and winning it when the rain persists. But how did you know?'

  'I told you—I remembered. I was born on Lai-aye,' she said.

  He threw her a swift glance. 'You were? When?' He paused. 'All right, I know it's a question no gentleman asks, but you are young enough not to mind. So when?'

  'Twenty-two years ago.'

  'Then I beat you to it by ten years. And so-?

  'My people went back to England when I was eight. My mother had always disliked the Caribbean, and none of us has been back since.'

  'Where did you live when you were here?'

  'In Calvigne. But there was another house to which I used to be taken to spend the day, and sometimes, for a treat, to sleep there for a couple of nights. It was the original planter's house on the estate. It was all sugar then, of course.'

  'And it's still there, on Louvet land, though exactly on the border of Marquise.' He paused. 'Well, that puts a frame round you, so here's one for me. I was born here too. My father was French descended—"Vance" is a corruption of "Voyance"; my mother was Scottish—hence Elyot. When the French owned Laraye, they were generous with their gifts of land, and my great-great-grandfather's share was Marquise, also under sugar until the trade failed. Both of my parents died in the Calvigne fire which destroyed a lot of the town. But meanwhile my father had gone into banana-grow-

  ing early, and since I've inherited, I've expanded a lot.'

  Donna said, 'So we've heard from my uncle.'

  'And if you were listening to all I was saying to my friend Grant just now, you'd have heard that I'd be willing to take over Louvet at the right price.'

  'The right price as it appears to you—or to Uncle Wilmot?'

  'A good question. But I'm afraid the principals haven't got as far as discussing price, owing to the door of prejudice which your respected relative keeps firmly closed.'

  'Though if he doesn't want to sell, does that necessarily make him the dog in the manger you accused him of being to your friend?' Donna retorted.

  'I declare, you were listening to future purpose, weren't you ?' his tone mocked her. 'But as I understand the epithet, it means the refusal to give up, for stubbornness' sake, something you don't value yourself. So in the circumstances, I stand by "dog in the manger". What, for instance, do you know about the Louvet land?'

  Donna drew a sharp breath. 'I've only just arrived! How should I know anything for it or against it?'

  'Sorry.' He didn't sound particularly contrite. 'What I really meant to ask was whether—news of its present condition having percolated through to Torrence And Son—you were on a mission of inspection perhaps. But that, I daresay, you could tell me is no affair of mine?'

  'Yes, well—you're right,' she said.

  'Right? Then you are—?'

  'Right—that it's no affair of yours,' she snapped, and waited for the snub to take effect, which it did not.

  He only laughed. 'Door-slamming on purposeful discussion evidently runs in your family! However, let's not press the point,' he offered. 'How long, then, are you staying—on holiday?'

  She was glad of the switch of subject. For, forced on to the defensive for her uncle's management of Louvet, she would have hated him to know how shrewd had been his guess as to the reason for her open-ended errand to Laraye. She answered him indifferently, 'I don't know. It depends—' And before he could ask on what it depended, added, 'How far have we to go now? Are we nearly there?'

  'Just about. Presently you'll get a glimpse of the sea again—the Anse Louvet, that will be, and then we drop down to your uncle's house.'

  And drop they did—suddenly and precipitately at a V-fork off the road—down a badly ridged track leading to a wide stretch of crab grass on which Elyot Vance made a big U-turn with the car and backed it up to the side wall of the house, a long, open-verandahed bungalow which faced outward to the Anse Louvet, the tiny bay below from which it took its name.

  Donna recognised the house from snapshots of it. On cold winter days in England she had often longed to experience the brooding heat from which that shadowed verandah would afford relief if you wanted it. She had pictured the grey-to-pink of tropical dawns, and sunsets overseas streaked green through blue to pure amethyst, and her imagination had heard the high chirrup of tree-frogs which, as a child, until she learned differently, she had supposed were eccentric birds which sang all night. Whenever she had thought about it, she had known an ache of memory of this island. And now she was here again. And the heat was indeed intense. And there was no one of her own to welcome her. And the verandah was shabby, with gaps in its balustrading and the paint of its woodwork cracked, and in contrast with the glare outside, the inner recesses of the house were dark as caves.

  As Elyot Vance took her cases from the car and

  brought them to the verandah steps, a stout West Indian woman—Juno, no doubt—emerged from the shadowed interior. She wore a garish flowered overall, a jangle of bracelets on each bare forearm and a quiff of scarlet ribbon and feathers pinned to her topknot of black hair. She reached for the suitcases, but Elyot Vance eluded her and carried them into the house. As she and Donna followed him in, she stated with conviction, 'You not come today, missus. You come tomorrow. Mister say so, so I know.' And then, as if accepting the very real fact of Donna's presence, she bared magnificent teeth in a smile and adding, 'But you here now. So I go, make room ready for you. Today or tomorrow —what matter?' She disappeared, humming Old Man River off-key as she went.

  As her sight adjusted from sun glare to ordinary light, Donna looked about her. There was no hall; the verandah gave directly into this room through a half wooden, half glass sliding wall. There was too much furniture of mediocre quality; the white distemper of the remaining three walls was yellowing to beige, and in an island which was rich in flowers, still nobody had troubled to arrange any here. It was obviously a room where people lived. But it had no air of being loved.

  Watching her, Elyot Vance asked, `So far—up to expectation? Or worse than? Or better?'

  She guessed he was testing her reaction to the house, but, on the defensive for it, she pretended to think he meant her impressions of Laraye.

  'How can I tell? I've hardly seen anything yet,' she said, and knew she hadn't deceived him when, on a short laugh, he retorted, 'And in the face of the enemy, loyalty is all, isn't it?'

  'The enemy? What enemy?'

  'The one that I assumed too hastily "And Son" had come out to face, and got snubbed for my pains. Of

  course, you're on holiday merely. So may I wish you a good welcome and good swimming and realities which don't let your memories down?'

  'Thank you,' said Donna. 'And thank you for coming to my rescue. How far away do you live yourself ?'

  'Through the plantations, not very far. By the road, a few more twists and climbs, and my house stands high enough to afford a view over almost the whole of Marquise. How good, by the way, is your memory of the plantations?'

  'None. Or very few. I told you, we left Laraye before bananas became the main crop instead of sugar. At work I've filed data on bananas, and invoiced bananas, and hunted lost consignments of bananas, and typed hundreds of letters about them—'

  'And slipped on the odd banana-skin, I daresay?' 'Yes, that too,' she smiled.

  'Without ever having traced a bullhead through its cycle from push-out to harvest and shipment and ripening? All that paperwork theory, and you haven't wanted to know?'

  'But of course I have, and I do know the whole process in theory,' she defended herself. 'It's just that I haven't seen it in practice, and I'm sure that my uncle will rectify that while I'm here.'

  'Of course,' her companion agreed blandly—too evenly altogether for Donna's recollection of his out-spoken criticism of Louvet and Wilmot Torrence when he hadn't known she had overhe
ard. But she couldn't very well pick a fresh quarrel over a mere tone of voice into which she may have read more irony than he had intended, and even surprised herself by realising that she didn't really want to quarrel with him—as long as he didn't deliberately provoke her.

  She watched him as he left her to go back to his car; liked his athletic stride, the carriage of his head, the

  purposeful way he moved—physically attracted to him, yet guardedly hostile at the same time. It was a curious contradiction, this—being halfway to liking someone, yet resenting both his effect on her and his casual indifference to what she thought of him!

  He got into his car, turned it, but at the sound of another car coming down the steep slope where two couldn't meet abreast, he halted and waited until the other—a slightly battered estate car—lurched into view and was pulled inexpertly to a jolting stop by a driver who could only be Donna's uncle, a lean, narrow-shouldered figure, wearing spectacles and a flop-brimmed panama hat. He would have known her as a baby, but they had never met since, and in the snapshots she had seen of him he had never appeared younger than he did now, nor had he ever been photographed in any but just such an ancient hat.

  She stayed where she was, curious to see how the two men would greet each other. They did it with exchanged nods across the width of their cars; whatever the other man said briefly brought her uncle's glance sharply towards the house. Then Elyot Vance drove on, and Wilmot Torrence got out of his car. He was carrying a bundle of books in an ill-secured webbing strap, and as Donna ran down the verandah steps to meet ,him, the strap slipped and the books cascaded at their feet.

  With an exasperated 'Tchh ' he stopped to grope for them before he addressed Donna with a slightly aggrieved, 'Well, so you've arrived. But you were staying over in Antigua tonight—how is it you have got here today?'

  She retrieved a book he had missed and handed it to him. 'That was last night in Antigua, Uncle. I arrived there by jet from London yesterday, and came down by the island plane today.'

  `I'm sure you were to stay two nights in Antigua,' he grumbled. 'That would mean you'd have been here tomorrow, and if you hadn't muddled things so, Bran or I would have met you, of course!'

  `But of course I know you would,' Donna soothed.

  `Instead you had to accept a lift from that fellow, Vance. Why didn't you telephone from the airport to say you were there, and then wait for Bran or me to come down for you?'

  'I did ring you, and spoke to Juno, who said you were both out. And when Mr Vance offered—'

  `Putting us under an obligation to him, which must have pleased him no end! I suppose he told you who he was—that he's that—that outsider from Marquise?'

  To Donna, 'outsider' was about as outdated an aspersion as 'cad' or 'bounder'. If her father had used it of anyone she would have teased him, 'Oh, Dad, don't be so square!' But as she dared not laugh at her uncle in this mood of grievance against both herself and Elyot Vance, she said quietly, 'Yes, we exchanged names and case-histories of a sort, and when I knew he was your neighbour, and that I shouldn't be taking him out of his way, I saw no harm in ' She broke off to add impulsively, 'Anyway, Uncle, does it matter very much? I'm here now, and so glad to be ! And do you realise I don't remember ever seeing you in the flesh before? Nor Bran? And what do you think of me? Am I much as you expected—or not ?'

  They looked at each other in silence. Of him she noted how narrow-chested he was, how bony and old—though he could only be about fifty-five—were his hands; how parchment-tanned he was, how his brows beetled over his short-sighted eyes, and how vague was his scrutiny of her.

  She doubted whether, put to the test even a minute or two hence, he could come anywhere near to describ-

  ing her as she would assess herself. Reasonably slim and long-legged; brown hair, centre-parted and shoulder-length; complexion—fresh?, English?, natural?—she wasn't sure. Eyes, grey-green—she would have preferred them green, but except in certain lights, had to settle for grey; one dimple, and a nose which flattery would call retrousse or tip-tilted, but which honesty knew was merely upturned or even snub. There was nothing at all 'rosebud' about her lips; her mouth was too wide; her father often teasingly warned her against stretching it further with laughter ...

  But in answer to her invitation of 'Well?' all her uncle said was, 'Well, I've seen your photograph, so I knew what to expect. You've a nice colour and there's a look of your father about you. But all you young girls are pretty much alike these days, with your figures as skinny as laths and your hair as straight as rope. I suppose you've seen Juno, and she knows you're here?'

  Donna told him yes, and carried some of the books for him into the house. Glancing at their titles, she saw they were botanical treatises and she remembered what she had heard about his hobby—the study of Caribbean flora. Some time she must ask him about it, for if she had ever known the names of the island flowers, she had long forgotten all but the bougainvillea and the poinsettia which everybody knew.

  Her room was at the far end of the bungalow, with a little outside stairway of six steps to the lawn below. Juno showed her to it, demonstrated how the window-shutters worked—(`But we only close dem against de rain,'), turned down the bed, and to Donna's inquiry about a mosquito net, stated firmly, 'No need. No mosquitoes on Laraye no more,' making it a fact with which there was no dispute.

  By the time Donna had unpacked and showered and changed the early dark of the tropics was falling. There

  had been a golden sunset over the sea, the day wind had dropped and the crickets and the tree-frogs had begun to rival each other's chorus, and hearing them again in reality, she thought, 'I never knew how I missed them until now.'

  She returned to the living room to find the table laid for the evening meal and her uncle on the verandah, drinking a rum punch, with ice and passion-fruit juice, and she chose the same for herself. She had expected that by now her cousin Bran might be home, but when she asked about him, his father's tone made such a grievance of their never knowing when to expect him that she was discouraged from discussing Bran any further for the moment.

  He had still not arrived when Juno served their dinner of minced beef and sweet potatoes with a cole-slaw salad, followed by a gateau which owed more to stodgy sponge than to cream or icing. Her uncle ate as if it were a chore which bored him, and Donna found herself wondering whether his obvious lack of interest in food had ever irked his wife, who had died while Bran was a schoolboy of twelve. But perhaps he had been different then. More—alive.

  For two people with business interests more or less in common, their talk over the meal was rather laboured. Wilmot asked after his brother and sister-in-law, whether the former had a substitute secretary for Donna, and how the business was doing at the English end. But the answers she gave him led to no expansion of the subject, and her own careful questions to him evoked much the same lacklustre response.

  Poor, was his laconic verdict on the current banana harvesting. As had been the last; as would probably be the next. He couldn't afford the necessary labour force, and once laid off, it got snapped up by the big estates which could 'carry' a few bad crops. A combination of

  sharp practice and inherited wealth could send the owners of thousand-acre estates, like Marquise, laughing all the way to the bank. It was poor, small plantations like Louvet which had no slack to take up when things went wrong.

  Donna winced slightly at 'sharp practice'. Elyot Vance was too sure of himself and hypercritical of other people. But, reluctant to think of him as a cheat, she made no comment, and asked instead about Bran and his particular role on the estate.

  `Bran?' Wilmot's tone dismissed Bran. `If ever I had to depend on his application to the job, I'd be out of luck. Growing bananas—or anything else—isn't his scene, he says, whereas the social one is, it seems. He wants to work for and with people of his own kind, he claims. And at the moment, that, means getting on the tourist band-wagon, acting as a kind of freelance guide to the island, for one of the h
otel owners—a woman—who runs a tours service on the side. On call by telephone at any hour, if you please—a common taxi-driver, no less!' Bran's father finished in distaste.

  Donna suppressed a sigh and abandoned the subject of Bran as being unprofitable to any accord with her uncle. What could she say or ask him which wouldn't lead to yet another sour tirade? Ah, perhaps his hobby —But before she could frame a question, Juno came through from the adjoining room, Wilmot's estate office, where she had answered the telephone.

  'Mister Brandon,' she announced. 'He ring to say he on late drive with party into mountains. He not come home after. He sleep with Missus le Conte instead—'

  `He's doing what?' exploded Wilmot with a violence of which Donna would have judged his dourness incapable. But Juno only beamed her innocence of an unforgivable gaffe.

  'He stay at de hotel, like he done before—often.

  Missus le Conte find him spare room. Back to breakfast in morning, he say,' she amended calmly.

  `That's better,' growled Wilmot. 'All right.' He let her go, then rose from the table. 'Yes, well—it's early yet,' he said awkwardly to Donna, 'but I daresay you're tired after your journey, and I've got some work to do. So if you would like to make an early night of it, you needn't stay up for me.'

  Donna was not tired, but though too early as it was for bed, she was not unwilling to escape to her room. She had remembered her little private flight of steps to the outdoors; no one was going to know if she made a small foray into a night that was as warm as an English June day, before she wasted the rest of it—her very first night ! —in sleep.

  She had not even put on a coat when she tiptoed down the steps and picked her way across the rough grass in the direction of the sea. At the far edge of the grass there was a hedge of russet-leaved crotons; beyond the hedge the land dropped sharply down to the shore, a small crescent of sand, reached by a flight of uneven rock steps, on which the tideless sea lapped and curved, sometimes lazily, sometimes with a surging rush of foam, as if to show that mere wavelets were not all it could muster when it liked. For less sheltered coves than this, the foam warned, it had plenty of menace and rollers in reserve.