Eden Burning (35 page)

Perhaps, though, she dozes after all, or is so drowned in her trouble that it seems a sort of sleep. She starts up, aware of a change in the texture of the night. There is a sound of swishing under the wind rush. It is like footsteps in tall grass
or tissue paper crackling lightly in a box. She thinks maybe Richard is making the sound, but he is lying quite still on his side in the other bed. A storm must be rising. She sinks back into crowding thoughts.

After a while she hears the roar of surf. That’s odd, because the house is too far from the beach for surf to be heard. It puzzles her, but not too much. She is too tired. She turns again into herself.

Suddenly then, unmistakably, there is the salty tang of smoke. There is a new sound, a sizzle and snap as of meat frying and jumping in a pan. She gets out of bed and stands unsurely, dizzily, in the center of the room, trying to orient herself. Something is burning somewhere. Then all at once she understands. Jolted to panic, she rushes to the bedroom door and tears it open. A gust of incredible heat, like an eruption of the sun, flings her backward into the room. The entire hall and the stairway are blazing! Smoke flames into her lungs. With frantic force she tries to push the door shut, but the strength of the roaring heat is like the strength of a hundred men. She fights to breathe. Now the flames catapult into the room. They are taller than soldiers; they are an army advancing with their fearful weapons drawn. They catch the sheer curtains and the carpet; they reach for the ruffled shoulders of her nightdress and her long black hair. Her lungs are agony.

“Richard!” she screams.

Barely awake, he stumbles to the window, pushes the screen out and her out after it. There is a terrible mingling of cries in her ears, his as the sweeping fire sets him ablaze, and her own as she escapes it, to fall in fainting terror onto the net of the ancient boxwood hedge beneath the window.

Dr. Strand’s private clinic lay on the outskirts of Covetown, above Government House. For fourteen hours Francis had been there, waiting. He had paced, attempted to read, and briefly, lightly, dozed. Now at midnight he stood at the window, looking down upon the harbor and the moving lights of cars.

The doctor came from across the hall with another report. “We’re monitoring her pressure, Mr. Luther, and it’s holding. She’s fairly comfortable right now. The medication, you know.”

Francis, wondering whether his confidence in the doctor was justified, nodded. The man had a good reputation and gray hair, which always bred a certain amount of confidence in the beholder.

“We’ve time yet to make the decision. Naturally, I’ll avoid a cesarean section if I can.”

One must have seen hundreds of cartoons and jokes about young husbands waiting outside delivery rooms. For some reason people found humor in the situation, God knew why, when in reality a man’s head was plagued with doubts and questions. Some men must be torn with love of their wives and fear for them, while some would be praying first for the safe arrival of the child, though that was wrong, wrong, wrong …

“A good patient, plenty of courage,” Dr. Strand was saying. “She wants this baby. No complaints, not a murmur out of her. A woman of pride.”

“Yes, great pride.”

But suppose this were Kate’s child? Guilt ran hot and cold
down his spine; his spine was naked, all of him was naked and exposed.

He hadn’t been with Kate that often, a dozen times perhaps since Marjorie’s pregnancy, not counting the time they had flown to a hotel in Barbados together. All night long the wind had rattled lightly in the palms. He’d got her a bouquet of gardenias—they grew almost wild down here—whose musky sweetness, reminding him of something, had kept him awake. It had reminded him of his father. Yes, yes.
(Don’t tell your mother, son; I wouldn’t hurt her for the world.)
And he hadn’t hurt her. He hadn’t walked out on his children, either. But then, his woman had not been Kate.

What do we ever know about anyone? he wondered now. I’d given up believing that my mother would ever come to St. Felice. For what subtle reasons, out of what fears she stayed away so long surely I never knew; maybe she herself never knew. His thoughts spun, driving, hurling him from Marjorie to Kate, back to his parents and to the child now struggling to be born. Oh, let it be safe and well, let it be a son who will be to me what my father and I never could be to each other!

He hadn’t realized he was holding his head in his hands until the doctor touched him on the shoulder.

“You need a drink. If it weren’t worth one’s life out in the streets I’d go get you one.”

At once he became alert. “What’s happening? Have you heard?”

“Riots and demonstrations all over the island. A big tax protest over in Princess Mary parish. Somebody fired on the police, they fired back, and there were three killed, some wounded. More over at the south end too, I think. Anyway, Lord Frame expected this a week ago, it seems. There’s a cruiser on the way from Bermuda with a detachment of troops. That’ll straighten things out, if,” the doctor finished glumly, “if they get here in time. Why don’t you stretch out on the couch? I’ll be back.”

Francis lay down again. He was deeply tired. Far easier to labor in a field than to endure such pressure in the head and spirit! This could be disaster night, he thought, recalling old tales of rebellion, the night of the sword. Attempting to console himself, he reasoned that that sort of thing didn’t fit the twentieth century, and was immediately aware of his own absurdity. Not fit the century of Hitler and Stalin?

He woke to the sound of rustling. In the lamplight, on the other side of the room, Lionel was reading. He moved his lips and strained his neck over the newspaper as a man does who is not accustomed to reading.

“Hello. Have you been here long?” Francis asked.

“Only a few minutes. I ran the gauntlet. The governor’s declared martial law. The town’s full of rioting drunks and scared merchants and planters who’ve rushed in from the country, afraid to be out there alone. Cade’s Hotel is jammed. How’s Marjorie doing?”

“We don’t know yet. They’ll probably have to operate. It’s awfully good of you to be here, Lionel.”

“That’s all right. Family, after all. Besides, I happen to be fond of Marjorie.”

“Well, she likes you, too.”

I must be better at dissembling than I knew, Francis thought. He felt—he felt sly, in the presence of this bluff, bumbling man, having to hide his sometimes furious jealousy that the man had lived with Kate and “had” her. “Had.” An antique, yet still expressive, use of that simple verb. Had. Possessed. Her dear flesh.

He became aware that Lionel was looking at him quizzically.

“Damned hard for you, Francis. May I say something frankly?”

“Yes, of course.”

“I know about you and Kate. Don’t ask me how. People find out things.”

“I won’t ask.”

“That’s what I meant by ‘hard for you.’”

“Yes.” And hearing his own laconic voice, like that of a stage Englishman, Francis thought, I don’t know what else to say.

“If you had seen her first instead of—” Lionel began and stopped.

Instead of Marjorie? Oh, if only—! But it might not have made any difference if he had. Too young, without experience and so in awe of beauty, he had not been half the man he was now. And so the lovely, brief enchantment had simply slid away as imperceptibly as the change of seasons in a northern country.

“She would have been right for you,” Lionel resumed. Not meaning to, he was twisting the knife. “What are you going to do?”

“Oh, God,” Francis said and murmured, “We’ve a child now.”

Lionel nodded. “Of course. And you don’t want to smash Marjorie’s world. Well, you can have it both ways, can’t you? The family at Eleuthera and the little place in town. It’s done all the time.”

Kate had already offered that. Better than nothing, she’d said. But she ought to have more.

And he said so. “Kate deserves more. For that matter, so does Marjorie.”

Lionel smiled. There was kindness and a certain amusement in the smile.

“You’re really in a moral bind, aren’t you, old man? I’m sorry for you. You know, I always have felt a little sorry for you, anyway. You take everything too seriously, too hard and heavy. I suppose you can’t help it.”

“I guess not.”

“We both Know I’m a rougher sort than you. I don’t seem to feel about a lot of things the way you do. You suffer. To me you’re a little soft in the head. Oh, I like you in spite of it, make no mistake! It’s just that I think you’d be a whole lot
better off if you stopped worrying about other people so much and looked out for yourself.”

“Maybe you’re right.”

Words, words! You are what you are, and Francis could no more be Lionel than Lionel could be Francis. Still, he had looked out for himself that morning, hadn’t he? Or perhaps it had not been on his own behalf that he had issued that defiant order to get the crop out; perhaps really it had been because he was now thinking of the child, of money and safety for his child. Already it made a difference. He hadn’t yet seen its face, but it made a difference.

Lionel returned to the newspaper. And Francis sat on, straining for sounds from across the hall which might have meaning, but there were only passing footsteps, conveying nothing. He studied a row of “arty” photographs on the wall: horses knee-deep in pangola grass, which made him think of Kate; veranda columns casting shadows, as at Eleuthera; black children in a schoolyard, as at Gully, where he had first met Patrick …

The lights went out.

“Must have struck the power station,” Lionel said. “They’ve already struck the phones, you know.”

A nurse came in with a pair of oil lamps.

“There are fires all over the parish,” she reported. “Our handyman just came in the back way and he says they’ve attacked the wireless station with stones and bottles, broken every window, smashed all the equipment.”

They won’t attack Eleuthera! Francis thought. They won’t go after private homes. Besides, it’s so far out of the way. He said aloud, “I had a hassle this morning.” And he told Lionel what had happened earlier in the day. “I wish there was a phone, though. I’d like to find out what happened, whether they got any of the crop out.”

Lionel shook his head. “You took a chance. Not that I blame you. Damned radical devils! So much for your fine friend Patrick, hey?”

“I don’t know. I was mad as a hornet, but I’ve cooled off some. It’s possible he really couldn’t do anything, although I still think he could have bestirred himself a little for me.”

“There you go, making excuses for everybody! Matter of fact, on my way here tonight somebody told me Courzon was out your way this afternoon giving a very inflammatory speech. Egging the crowd on to pillage and burn, he said.”

Francis shook his head. “No. Impossible. That I won’t believe.”

Lionel shrugged.

“You don’t have to stay here with me,” Francis said considerately.

“It’s safer here. Wouldn’t dare go down into the streets now. Besides, where would I go? The hotel’s full and so’s the club.”

The two men waited, one sleeping with his head back on the chair, the other wide awake, watching the maddening, slow advance of the hours. It was the longest night. The oil lamp flickered weakly. The silence was expectant; one awaited gunfire, and the crashing-in of doors, sounds that must surely explode in the next moment or two; one imagined also dreadful, perhaps final, things occurring in the room across the hall.

In the last hour of the night when, in spite of darkness, some subtle alteration of the atmosphere predicts the dawn, the doctor came back. He looked both weary and pleased to bring an announcement of importance.

“A natural birth. Hard, but we didn’t need to operate, thank goodness. Come in and see them now.”

Not yet out of ether, Marjorie lay with a look of peace on her lips, as if, in spite of her pains, she had gone under with a smile. Her hair curled on her temples as it always did when it was damp. She must have been soaked with the sweat of her struggle.

“She wanted this baby,” Dr. Strand said, “and she fought for it.”

Francis felt his tears collecting. “I’m so glad,” he murmured foolishly. Or perhaps not foolishly: what else was there to feel but simple gladness? He smiled, for once not ashamed—he knew he cried too easily for a man from a northern culture—to let another man see his tears. He reached down and touched Marjorie’s limp hand. She would be a good mother, too fussy, no doubt, as she always was, but a good mother, all the same.

“I’m so glad,” he repeated.

“Don’t you want to see the baby? She’s down the hall.”

“She? I thought you said—”

“I didn’t say anything. You must have imagined it. Why, were you expecting a boy?”

“Well, I thought—” He stopped. He was as disappointed as a child who has been expecting a bicycle for his birthday and has been given a book.

“Sorry, but you’ve got a girl. A pretty one, with a cleft in her chin. Big, too, which was part of the trouble. Here, have a look.”

She had her mother’s dark hair, a whole head of it.

“Enough to tie a ribbon on,” the nurse said.

Francis stammered. “Aren’t they usually bald?”

“Usually.” The doctor laughed. “I told you she was pretty. You’ll have your hands full when she’s sixteen.”

“A girl,” Francis said.

“She’ll mean more to you than ten sons. Take my word for it. You’ll come back and tell me so.”

Well, true or not, she can’t help it, he thought. And he reached down to touch the baby’s hand, as he had the mother’s. The scrap of a hand was warm to his touch. The fingers grasped his finger. Only a few minutes out of the womb, where it had been hanging upside down, a feeble creature floating in warm water, and here it was already making a demand of life! The fingers clung. He had the strangest feeling in his chest, in his throat. And he would not have
pulled his hand away if the nurse hadn’t put the baby back in the crib….

In the waiting room Lionel looked up with a question.

“A girl,” Francis told him. “And both well.”

“Are they, then? Well, good luck, old man! And here’s another good omen for you. Come and behold.”