Lorimers at War (28 page)

The permission caused a moment's delay, since Ralph's office contained only one chair. Duke fetched his own from the adjoining cubicle. For a while Ralph stared at the young man's intelligent brown face and was satisfied that he had made the right decision.

‘If Brinsley had lived, he would have taken over the management of the plantation,' he began. ‘But Brinsley is dead. Whom the gods love, die young.' He fell silent again, not concealing his bitterness at the loss of his son.

‘You have another son, sir,' Duke reminded him.

‘Grant is only a child. And in any case – well, there's no need for me to pretend any longer.' He laughed at the admission. ‘Never did pretend very much, did I? I can't bear the thought of him taking over the work that I've built up over so many years. He's not fit to manage. He's
not able even to walk over the ground. If I try to picture it, I'm revolted. That is un-Christian of me, but we must be honest now. And practical. You understand?'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘I recognize my duty to Grant,' Ralph continued. ‘I've made due provision for him. It's all in this letter to my nephew, Mr Lorimer. I have funds in England, and they are to be managed in Grant's interest until he is twenty-one and then used to buy him a business or a partnership or an estate somewhere else – whatever his talents at the time suggest. But not in Jamaica.'

His silence this time lasted so long that Duke must have wondered whether the conversation was at an end. Then Ralph broke it abruptly.

‘I have one more son,' he said. ‘Has your mother never told you who your father is, Duke? Never discussed him with you at all?'

‘No, sir.'

‘But you must have wondered. And guessed the truth, perhaps, although we have never spoken of it.'

This time it was Duke's turn to be silent. ‘I'm guessing now, sir,' he confessed at last. His eyes, unshocked, stared steadily at Ralph. Duke was accustomed to wait for instructions. It was an indication, perhaps, of the strength of the Lorimer strain, for any full-blooded Jamaican would have wept and flung himself into his father's arms.

Perhaps the restraint was imposed by Ralph's personality. He had long prepared for this interview, promising himself that it must be conducted on strictly business lines.

‘You had little help from me in your childhood,' he said. ‘But I shall make up for that now. You've proved that you're honest and competent. You know the work, what needs to be done. And I can trust you, can't I, to remember that the land must be used for the benefit of all the people here? They will be your people.'

‘Yes, sir. But not for a long time, God willing.'

‘Perhaps not for ten years. Perhaps tomorrow. God alone knows. I shall leave you the whole plantation when I die. But there's one condition. Kate.'

‘Kate is my sister, then,' said Duke softly.

Ralph glanced across at the young man. Surely he could never have hoped . . . No, of course not. Duke was married to an island girl and his son, Harley, was already four years old. He had been such a close friend of Kate's when they were both children that he was bound to be pleased by his discovery of the relationship. That was all.

Ignoring the interruption, Ralph continued his exposition. In his heart he feared that Kate was dead. But it was necessary to act on the presumption that she would one day return; he must give formal recognition to hope. He had given thought to the necessary details and, although his concentration was flagging and he wanted to be alone so that he could have a drink, he forced himself to explain to Duke how a second trust fund must be created, with Arthur Lorimer as trustee, into which the profits of the plantation would be put for the next ten years. ‘One third for you, as well as the salary you pay yourself. One third for the people. One third for Kate, if she is alive, or for her children if she has any. After ten years, if she cannot be traced, my nephew will divide her portion between yourself and Grant. You understand why you have to wait?'

‘Yes, sir. But I don't ever want to take what's hers. If she comes back, it must all be for her. All the land.'

‘No.' Ralph saw no need to mention his fear that if Kate did survive the Revolution she might prove to have been infected by its philosophy. From childhood she had been a passionate defender of the underdog and it was too easy to imagine her refusing an inheritance or accepting it only to give it away. ‘No,' he insisted. ‘You are the heir. The land is not to be divided, and it's for you. Kate's a
doctor. To have an income would be useful to her, but she doesn't need land and she wouldn't know how to run it. I want you to have it. You have always been obedient, and you must obey me in this. Is that clear?'

‘Yes, sir.' Duke rose to his feet. As always, his head was held high and his back straight. He had inherited his bearing and fine features from his mother, Chelsea Mattison, whose beauty as a young woman had proved irresistible. From his father he had inherited a powerful physique and a shrewd head for business. His body was as strong and athletic as Brinsley's had been – and he shared the same love of cricket – but his nature was more industrious and his character more serious. He was serious now as he looked at Ralph. ‘Maybe you don't want I tell anyone outside about this,' he said. ‘But just once I have to say it out loud. Thank you, Father.'

The emotion of the moment, unexpected because he had thought to have it under control, caused Ralph to choke and cry out. He opened his arms to embrace his son, allowing his senses to register the feel of the strong muscles and the smooth skin. It was right for him to be ashamed of his responsibility for Duke's birth, but he was proud to have such a son. He had lost his merry, hardworking wife, his golden boy, his lion-hearted daughter, but after all there was still someone to love. There had been occasions before this one when he had wept in Duke's arms, but his tears then were caused by rum and depression. Now he cried for joy.

Afterwards he made a copy of his message to Arthur, in case a U-boat should sink the ship which carried the original. The next day he travelled to Kingston and arranged for the separate dispatch of the two identical letters. Then, in his lawyer's office, he signed the will which had already been drawn up in accordance with his instructions.

The reminder that he still had family ties apart from Grant should have renewed his interest in life and
restored him to cheerfulness. Instead, the assurance that he had settled his affairs on earth led his thoughts more towards the next world, as though he had not only chosen an heir but already handed over the inheritance. Knowing that it was in good hands, he no longer even pretended to interest himself in the management of the plantation. But he was still the pastor, and still every Sunday, shaved and sober, he preached to the congregation with some of the old fire and taught the Sunday School with some of the old patience. For the rest, he grew listless and slovenly.

His congregation were tolerant people. Conscious of their own transgressions and mindful, too, of the prosperity he had brought them during the thirty-five years of his pastorate, they took little notice of his bouts of drunkenness. Under the influence of rum he now became silent, not rowdy. He was waiting, they realized, for God to call him Home. In a curious way their respect for his holiness grew with this realization. Patiently and lovingly they waited with him.

The music room at Blaize had been preserved from the hospital's increasing demands for space. In it, Alexa spent an hour every morning practising her vocal exercises. If Piers, her husband – or anyone else – had asked her directly, she would have had to admit that she did not ever expect to return to the stage as a prima donna. The nights of triumph, the applause, the curtain calls, the bouquets – all these were gone for ever.

Were she to be honest with herself, she would admit also that this was not entirely the fault of the war. Her international career had effectively come to an end when she consented to become Lady Glanville. The interruption was intended to be no more than temporary, but the
tásk of producing an heir had proved less simple than she anticipated. It was part of the bargain she had made with Piers that he should have a son, and a good many months had been wasted on the baby daughter who died within a week and the renewed hopes which ended in miscarriage.

After the eventual achievement of Pirry's birth there had been just one season in which, with health and voice restored, she had sung the leading parts in her own opera house; but she was as well able as anyone else to recognize that this was only a hobby, a tiny tributary of the main stream of opera. The war had robbed her of even this, but it would scarcely have been possible in any event for Lady Glanville to have stepped back into the place which Alexa Reni had vacated.

For one thing, she had already – earlier in 1917 – passed her fortieth birthday. As a young woman she had scornfully dismissed singers who spoiled the great reputations of their youth by continuing to perform after their voices passed their peak, vowing never to make the same mistake herself. If her career had not been interrupted, she now confessed to herself, that vow would have been broken. But she was realistic enough to recognize that if she were to attempt a full return to the stage she would be using her reputation only to ruin it.

To her surprise, the discovery did not depress her. With a husband who adored her, she no longer felt the need to make conquests and collect tokens of admiration: her private life was contented to the point of placidity. As for her professional life, it was enough that she had once been at the very top of the tree. She had been ambitious as a young girl and her ambitions had been fulfilled. No one could deprive her of the memory of success and so she was able to let the experience of it slip away.

Not that any of that made any difference to the perfection of her approach. The soldiers to whom she sang nowadays, whether in camps or hospitals, had little interest in opera, preferring to hear ‘Keep the home fires
burning' or the hit songs from
Chu Chin Chow.
Either alone or in the concert party she had organized she gave them what they wanted, but with a quality of voice which would have satisfied the most meticulous critic of a performance at the Royal Opera House.

On a frosty day in November 1917, her first engagement was at a rehabilitation centre. Margaret had asked her to inspect the various training schemes in operation there, in case any of the ideas and techniques could be put to use in the convalescent wards at Blaize; and the commandant of the centre had expressed himself delighted to give her lunch and act as her personal guide before the afternoon recital began.

‘Our chief problem here is one of morale,' he explained as they moved quietly from one room to another. ‘All our patients have been too severely wounded ever to return to the army. In a medical sense, they've come to the end of their convalescence by the time they're sent here. They're as fit as they ever will be again, but all of them are disabled for life. We try to train them for some new career, but naturally they arrive in a state of great depression, and they're very reluctant to leave here and face the world again. We have to be rather brutal with the men who have finished their course – push them out, in point of fact. On the other hand, we sympathize with those who are just arriving and haven't yet come to terms with their disabilities. The first classes they attend are what you might call therapy rather than formal training. In the old barn, for example –' like the hospital at Blaize, the centre was a temporary conversion from a country house – ‘we're running an art class for men who've lost the use of one or both legs but still have their hands and eyes undamaged. One of our patients – the only civilian here – turned out to be a professional artist. A very talented chap. He acts as instructor – that's
his
therapy. The idea is that if one of them turns out to have any talent, he ould be more intensively trained either to
teach art or to take up commercial drawing; but in any case it does them all good to feel that they're capable of producing
something.
They'll be packing up in the next few minutes ready for your concert, so they won't mind being interrupted.'

He pushed open the door. Outside, it was a bitterly cold day. But inside the barn the air was made hot and stuffy by three paraffin stoves grouped round a makeshift platform on which a model was posing. A dozen men in hospital blue sat round the platform, their chairs and easels widely spaced so that the instructor could move between them in his wheelchair. The opening of the door allowed the cold air to stab into the barn. The model was too well-trained to move, but the instructor looked round in slight irritation. Alexa gasped in a sudden shock as she recognized the man who had been her first love. She felt her arm being seized by her companion. Before she had time to understand what was happening she was outside again, with the door slamming behind her.

Dizzily, she leaned for a moment against the wall of the barn while the commandant exploded into an apology which she did not understand.

‘I'm so sorry, Lady Glanville. My fault entirely – I should have warned them – you must forgive me – I do apologize.'

‘What are you talking about?' Alexa asked faintly. It was clear to her that she was expected to reassure him, but since she saw nothing for which he could be blamed she found it difficult to choose the right words.

‘The model,' he said. ‘Mr Lorimer wasn't expecting a lady visitor, of course. I allow him a free hand in the choice of subjects. But of course if I had told him you were coming, he would have found something more suitable today.'

‘Was the model naked, then?' Alexa had a vague impression of the profile of a young man, almost certainly blind; but she had been distracted before her eyes could take in the rest of his body.

‘You didn't see? I was afraid – you looked so startled – and quite justifiably so.'