Eden Burning

  He wet his lips. “What did you want of me?”

  “Bail money. I’m awfully short or I’d never come bothering you with all you’ve got on your mind. I just hate to see a man like Patrick spend a night locked up, that’s all.”

  He couldn’t believe what hé was hearing. And he tried to speak without betraying outrage.

  “For my part they can hang him tonight,” he said in a flat voice.

  Kate stared. “You can’t mean that?”

  “My father was burned alive in my house, and my mother escaped by the grace of a miracle; you ask me whether I mean it?”

  “It wasn’t Patrick’s doing, Francis! For God’s sake, you don’t think he crept out here that night and put a torch to your house, do you?”

  “His were the brains behind the hands that did it. You can’t tell me otherwise.”

  “I sure as hell can tell you! And I sure as hell will!” Kate’s indignation crackled.

  “He is not the man we thought he was. Open your eyes—”

  “Maybe not the man you thought, but—”

  “He could have helped me save my crop! At least he could have made an attempt. But he refused. And after that went about giving inflammatory speeches right at my doorstep. He knew the temper of the people, but instead of protecting me, his friend, he whipped them up—”

  “Inflammatory speeches! He couldn’t give one if he tried! He wouldn’t know how to inflame anyone, he talks way over most people’s heads, like a schoolteacher. If he ever wants to go into politics he’ll have to learn to do better, let me tell you.”

  “He did well enough, apparently. Lionel told me—”

  “Lionel!” Kate’s scorn was hot. “Oh, now I see the connection! So it’s Lionel who put his words in at Covetown, he’s the one who’s responsible! So he’s turned out to be a rotten informer—I really never thought he’d stoop that low, no, I didn’t!” She got up, snapping and unsnapping the clasp of her purse. “Francis, listen to me. Listen to me. To me; not Lionel!”

  He didn’t hear her. He was hearing, instead, Patrick Courzon’s cool voice: “You’re too feudal for these times.” He was hearing Osborne’s lament: “We did all we could, Mr. Luther.” He was standing in mournful rain looking at cinders where his proud house had been.

  “Bastard!” he cried. “Dirty, arrogant, ungrateful bastard! And you actually came here to plead for him! Is that why you came? Not to be with me, but because you were thinking of him?”

  She was dismayed. “You don’t mean that. You know I came for you! But I did think I could also ask you to help one of the best human beings you or I will ever know. I certainly didn’t dream you had any crazy idea like this in your head.”

  “Crazy? It’s one thing to have understanding, Kate, to be compassionate, to be”—in the turbulence of his anger he stammered—“to be liberal, but you carry it too far; you’ll excuse anything in one of your underdog protégés. Arson. Murder. Anything!”

  She put a hand on his arm. “Francis. Please. You’re not talking sense. Don’t fight with me. This is us, Francis and Kate.”

  “No, Kate. You can’t get around me that way. I’ve had a blow between the eyes. Life doesn’t hand out many blows like the one I’ve had this week,” he said bitterly.

  “Don’t you suppose I know that? But we’re talking about two different things.”

  “We’re not. It’s the same thing. You’re making a hero out of someone who’s partially responsible for what I’ve suffered. That hurts me, Kate. I can’t forgive it.”

  She withdrew her hand. Neither of them spoke for a minute or two. Sounds of awakening activity, a slammed door and voices from the kitchen wing, announced that the afternoon was late and time was hurrying.

  “I would like to talk reasonably to you,” Kate said at last.

  “I’ll talk reasonably. But first you have to be loyal to me,” he said quietly.

  “Even if it means stabbing a friend in the back? An innocent friend?”

  “He’s not innocent. That’s the whole point.”

  “But if I think he is?”

  Her very stance was stubborn, her proud head and shoulders defied him. More now than in her first flaring anger he felt the force of her will.

  “You’ve built a stone wall,” he said, with a tired gesture. “I can’t get through to you.”

  “There’s a wide door in that wall. It’s your narrow-minded prejudice that won’t let you open it.”

  “Prejudice! What the hell are you talking about? You know very well I’m not prejudiced.”

  “You don’t think you are, but you are, Francis. Suddenly I see it. You were enraged that Patrick Courzon, a mere native, could refuse you, when he ought to be so grateful for your attentions that he’d turn himself inside out for you. And that’s the real reason why you’re blaming him.”

  He was exhausted, wounded, and baffled. That she could turn on him like this! That she could fail to comprehend what was so plain! Enraged, he went to the attack.

  “You’re a blind fool, Kate. A fool and a fanatic. I hate to tell you, but maybe Lionel does see you clearly, after all. Certainly he’s known you longer and better than I have.”

  “That’s a filthy thing to say! Damn you, Francis!” Her eyes threatened rage. “If you can say a thing like that, we have nothing in common. I don’t want to cheapen myself, or I’d slam my fist into your mouth for saying that.”

  “Perhaps,” he said, “perhaps you’d better leave. We’re not on the same side, are we?”

  She went to the door. “God knows I’m not on your side! And God help me, I never want to be!”

  He heard her heels clack furiously down the hall, heard the door close and then the sound of the car starting down the drive. The sofa pillows were disarranged where they had lain together. Thoughtfully, he put them back in place. Everything had happened so quickly, all that enthralling beauty, that sweet ravishment, turned into this sick churning in the pit of him!

  The one time, the only time he’d needed her total devotion, in the greatest crisis of his life, she’d drawn back, withholding a part of herself to give to the very man who had hurt him the most! So he hadn’t known her, after all, had he? Nor had she known him.

  We are ensnared and beguiled.

  You are singing to yourself in your car on a fair day; you are at the pinnacle of health, but around a curve, on the other side of a hill, a moment later you are crippled and ruined in a heap of crumpled metal. Or you are talking to a friendly stranger in some pleasant place; you are laughing, having a drink together, but a moment later his face turns mad and he points a gun at you. That’s the way it happens.

  He went inside and took a shower and then, because he still felt dirty, took another. A supper had been prepared for him, but he was unable to swallow it. Brandy went down more easily. He had never drunk very much, but he took the bottle into his bedroom, wanting numbness, wanting forgetfulness, and kept on drinking. There was a whirling in his head. Fire soared and glass crashed; black men hurled murderous rocks and Patrick Courzon sneered; Kate’s mouth twisted with contempt; Marjorie withered on a hospital bed; his parents screamed for help; his mother’s bruised eyes grieved. All whirled as the walls spun, until at last came vicious nausea, then exhaustion, and finally, sleep.

  Patrick Courzon was released, of course, along with all the union leaders. Only those who had committed violence were sentenced. The magistrate, an Englishman in a white wig, facing a series of black barristers in the same white wigs, made a graceful little speech about freedom of speech and the right to strike. The centuries-old system of justice, transplanted from the foggy north to the dripping heat and fly-buzz of the Covetown courtroom, worked.

  The strike had not been altogether a failure, either. Some two weeks after it had been put down, the planters met and agreed to improve the wage scale by fifteen percent, which was almost, but not quite, what the workers had asked for in the first place.

  Ironically, the two people who could most nearl
y relate themselves to Francis’ emotions were Lionel and Marjorie.

  Even Father Baker could offer only platitudes in the form of kindly counsel. “I know it’s unspeakable for you, Francis. But hatred corrupts the soul. For your own sake you must try to conquer it. Especially since we don’t really know who the guilty ones are.”

  Putting in a roundabout plea for Courzon! And Francis gave cold dismissal: “I know perfectly well who they are, Father.”

  Nicolas Mebane offered an alibi and self-exoneration with his condolences. Almost at once upon arriving back in St. Felice, he had come hurrying to Eleuthera, bearing in hand a splendid silver bowl engraved with Megan’s name, from Da Cunha’s collection.

  “I can’t tell you how much I regret not having been home when this tragedy—when all this mess—occurred.” His mobile face bore a solemn dignity. “Perhaps I shouldn’t say it, but, well, I almost believe it wouldn’t have happened if I’d been here.”

  “Then you agree with me? You’re putting the blame where I put it?”

  Mebane said delicately, “It’s difficult…. I find myself between a rock and a hard place, as my father liked to say. Maybe I would have been able to get your crop out without upsetting any applecarts, or rather, banana carts.” He smiled. “Then again, maybe I wouldn’t. It all comes down to knowing how to handle people, doesn’t it? That’s the true art of politics, knowing when to give in and when to demand. It’s never, never easy.”

  The true art of politics was also double-talk and evasion. Francis felt a slight impatience.

  “I know that,” he said.

  “Personally, I don’t think I would have permitted that speech so close to your gates. Still, having the utmost sympathy with your position—if I were in your place I would certainly feel the same—you’ll understand, I hope, that I must make other considerations, too. Patrick and I are closely involved. I have spoken to him, I shall speak to him—”

  “Not necessary,” Francis interrupted. “What’s done is done. So you needn’t upset your own applecart on my account.”

  “The art of politics,” Mebane repeated, “is the art of compromise. And judgment, always judgment! I’m afraid my friend Patrick still needs to learn that.” He sighed. “I sometimes feel I’m walking a tightrope, Francis. I have the organization, building and building with a great public good in mind. So I must keep the balance there. Yet the last thing I want is to lose your friendship over this.”

  “It’s all right,” Francis said. “My opinion of Mr. Courzon and your opinion of him need not influence our opinion of each other. It’s all right.”

  “I’m wonderfully relieved to hear that.” Mebane rose. “I can’t tell you how much. Perhaps some day all this will straighten out. Who knows?” He added quickly, “But the important thing is that you and I are in a sense allied. We’re both concerned with the future of this island, you as a producer, I, it’s to be hoped, in government. And I think we understand each other.”

  Francis bowed his head in acknowledgment. “You will have my support when the time comes.”

  He meant it. Regardless of the double-talk—he was, after all, a politician!—Mebane was reasonable and decent, a practical man. One could talk to him. One had to respect him.

  “If there is ever anything you need and I can do,” Mebane said quietly, “you know where I am.” His brown hand shook Francis’ hand, his heavy gold ring bruising Francis’ knuckles. “Your mother is coming along nicely, I’m glad to hear.”

  “Thank God, yes. I’m putting her on the plane to go home tomorrow.”

  “A stalwart lady. Give her my best, won’t you? And the same to your wife. And the new young lady, by all means,” he added in parting.

  “That was Nicholas Mebane. See what he brought for Megan.” Francis placed the bowl on the bed, where Marjorie sat propped against white lace pillows.

  “Oh, gorgeous! Handmade Danish silver, Francis!” Marjorie’s fingers slid around the bowl, moving carefully with the grain. She turned it upside down. “Yes, of course, look at the stamp. Danish.”

  “Very generous. Overly generous.” Expensive presents made him uncomfortable. A holdover, probably, from his father’s careless taste for luxury.

  “Why not? He’s terribly rich, everyone says. Anyway, I really do like Nicholas. I always have. And that Doris of his. One feels sorry for a girl as clever and good-looking as she is, having that handicap. Being black, I mean. So you see, I’m not the disgusting bigot you always thought I was, Francis. I just never liked Patrick, that’s all. I saw him as a fuzzy-minded troublemaker from the start, you know I did. And I was right, wasn’t I?” she finished triumphantly.

  He didn’t answer. God knew he couldn’t feel her sense of satisfaction! Disillusioned both in a friend and a lover, he could hardly find cause for rejoicing. He was a man who had misread directions and strayed into a wilderness. He had been wrong; he had been wronged. It had all moved so fast! Bewildered, he tried to reconstruct events, but the pattern of events was overlaid by the red blur of anger: Kate’s, Patrick’s, and his own.

  A terrible sense of loss overwhelmed him suddenly, so that his eyes stung with burgeoning tears, and to hide his grief, he bent to pat and rearrange Marjorie’s fluffy pillows.

  “You look absolutely done in. It’s been so awful for you,” Marjorie said softly. “There’s only one thing that could be worse: to lose one’s child.”

  He was grateful to her, grateful at this moment for any human touch, any gentle word. Yes, in a pinch, in this pinch, he had to admit, she had been there when he needed her. Dependable and sensible, she had measured up, even calming her own first hysterical demands to leave the island, even accepting at last his reassurances, his determination not to be driven away. Call it a sense of duty or propriety, call it a rigid code of outmoded behavior, call it what you would, he was grateful for it.

  Now he must measure up, too, must pull himself together.

  “Yes,” he said, thinking aloud, “yes, you remember what my father said? ‘Look out for number one. That’s the first commandment,’ he said. Number one being, in our case, three-in-one.”

  “Elementary, I should think.”

  “Not what they teach in Sunday school, though. Well, I’ll start in on that Monday, my dear. I’ve a lot to make up for on account of that crop we lost. Miss Megan needs new shoes.”

  Marjorie laughed. “Isn’t she the cutest thing, Francis?”

  “I think she has the Francis nose.”

  “Nothing wrong with that.” Marjorie yawned and stretched.

  He could not remember when he had seen her so happy, so expansive, so soft. Maybe things would be different now. Maybe, through some miracle, newness and youth would come surging back. That other business, that other woman, had probably been just an aberration, common enough, Lord knew. The man who didn’t have such aberrations was the oddball, really.

  “Oh, I’m sleepy,” Marjorie said luxuriously.

  “Take a nap. Want a cold drink or anything?”

  “Later, thanks. Some lemonade in an hour or so. You are good to me, Francis.”

  “A woman who can produce a baby like ours deserves the best,” he answered lightly.

  Contentment felt warm in him as he went out and softly closed the door. It was only when he was halfway down the stairs that he remembered, queerly enough, that they hadn’t kissed each other once since he had brought Marjorie home.

  The baby was in a cradle on the veranda. Francis was watching her while the nurse went indoors, when a car came to a halt on the gravel drive and Patrick Courzon came up the walk.

  “I’ve come as soon as I could,” he began. “Kate’s told me things. I had to talk to you.”

  Francis did not invite him to sit down. Instead he himself got up and stood leaning against a pillar. “There’s nothing to talk about,” he said.

  “Francis, I was sick when I heard what happened here.”

  Sick, was he, standing there with his bland condolences?

 
“Were you?” he said dryly.

  “Kate says you’re blaming me. And blaming her because of me. She says—”

  “I don’t want to hear what she says.”

  “It isn’t fair not to give me a chance to talk.”

  “You’re scarcely one to talk about fairness.”

  A flush, red bronze, mounted in the troubled pale brown cheeks. One could almost feel sorry for the poor bastard! But no, no! And Francis glanced at his baby, who had made a small sound in its cradle. If she had come a week sooner into the world, she too would have perished in choking smoke. And he felt again that awful outrage, that first sickness at the pit of his stomach.

  “One doesn’t just throw away relationships—” Courzon began.

  “Don’t tell me what ‘one’ does or doesn’t do!”

  “I’m only asking for a chance to straighten out the confusion in your mind.”

  The arrogance of the man! Having identified himself—and Kate, too, yes, she too—with the scum who had literally brought his house down about his head, to dare to speak of “confusion” in his mind! To dare!

  “I’ve told you I have nothing to say to you. You’re lucky I’m managing to keep my temper at all. I advise you to leave me alone.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, Francis.”

  “Yes. Well. You had better go. You’re not welcome here.”

  For long minutes he sat watching the dust that had spurted as Patrick gunned his car. He sat there until the dust had settled. His eyes moved across the drive to the fields where his sleek white Brahmans had gone into their afternoon rest. Far down on the left there gleamed a sliver of beach and an angle of glitter where the sun struck the sea. Behind the house the hill rose in tiers, green on green, bananas and palms and varied groves, on upward to the Morne’s peak wrapped now in cotton cloud. His kingdom, his benevolent small kingdom! Let storms roar outside, let the social rats race and the politicians moil; here, in this kingdom, peace and a reasonable plenty would continue, if he had anything to do with it.

  And unconsciously he stretched out his right arm, flexing the muscles. He looked down again at the sleeping baby. No one, no one, by God, should disturb her peace!