The Lorimer Line (41 page)

Until his plans were complete, Ralph kept his own counsel. Then one Sunday morning he addressed his congregation more directly than usual. The next day, he told them, he would preach at six in the morning at the Baptist Hole. The words he spoke then would change their lives, and every adult member of the community who was not in paid employment must be there. He did not ask but ordered them, using the tone of voice which he had so often heard from his father. It was the first time he had spoken in such a way, and he was conscious of his hearers' approval. They had not understood his reasoned sermons, so carefully prepared, but now he was going to tell them in simple terms what they ought to do, and they would obey. The idlest of the unemployed men had not come to the chapel, but he could trust their women to see that they kept the morning rendezvous.

They were all there before him, waiting at the foot of the waterfall as dawn broke. As he climbed to the ledge of rock from which he could see them all, even the children were silent. He began to address them, and it was as though he had been visited with the gift of tongues. All the reticence and hesitations of his upbringing fell away from him as he reminded his people of the oppression under which their fathers had suffered, the poverty in which they themselves lived. His audience groaned in sympathy for themselves as they listened: they began to rock and moan. Then, as his mood changed, so did theirs. ‘Hallelujah!' they cried out, and ‘Amen!' as he called to them that the Lord spoke through him, promising His people a land of milk and honey. It was not through the long journeyings of the children of Israel that they would come at last to the Promised Land, but by many days of labouring in
the vineyard. He was here to lead them to their new future: they would start the work at once.

He had prepared a hymn with which to encourage them, but was given no chance to introduce it. As though she had known in advance the words with which he would come to an end, Sister Martha emitted a sound which was something between a wail and a trumpet call, and within seconds the whole congregation was singing. As they sang, they formed themselves into a procession and began to march: not like soldiers, but swinging their hips and shoulders and clapping their hands. ‘Hear ye the word of the Lord,' they chanted, over and over again: the words were appropriate but the rhythm was disturbing.

Ralph, however, did not allow himself to be disturbed. He placed himself at the head of the procession and led it towards the Bristow land. As they went, the men dropped away to collect their cutlasses and rejoined the line at its end. By seven o'clock every adult member of the community who was fit to work and had no paid employment was slashing at the undergrowth, while the children and the older women pulled the cut vegetation out of the way, separating it into wood which could be burned when it was old, foliage which would make fodder for the animals, and debris which was fit for nothing but a bonfire.

It was not to be expected that the first frenzy would last for more than a day. Ralph reminded himself of his duty to see that the children were schooled. The women must spend part of their day about their domestic duties, and the land already under cultivation in the valley must not be neglected. But the unemployed were expected to put in a full day's work, and the others to come whenever they could.

In the months which followed there were many difficulties. Those whose homes were cramped expected that they could build new ones on the newly cleared land. Those who owned no ground looked for their own farms. Ralph's own ideas were at variance with these hopes. If the new
project was to be self-supporting the land must be used to raise two or three crops in a quantity which could be profitably sold. He recognized the need in the first year to plant annual crops, such as corn and melons, partly in order that a quick harvest might provide encouragement for the future and partly to raise funds for the purchase of banana plants and cattle. But even this could be better done in large fields worked by all the villagers than in a patchwork of individual plots.

He was not a sensitive man, and was so sure of his own rightness that it took him some time to comprehend the depth of the feeling which opposed him. Of the members of his congregation only the three oldest had been slaves; but what the others had learned from their fathers and grandfathers had affected their whole thinking. It was part of their freedom that they should work their own land.

Once he had understood, Ralph saw that he must compromise. He redrew his plans, allocating plots of uncleared land on annual tenancies, and fixing rents for them not in money but in man-hours of work on the common area. His assumption of authority was more acceptable to the congregation than the most democratic attitude with which he had begun his ministry, and he himself found it congenial. He did not realize that, however faithfully he might perform his Sunday duties, he was every day becoming less of a pastor and more of a planter.

But something else was happening which he could not disguise from himself so easily. An instinct which he did not attempt to rationalize had made him leave the land immediately around Bristow Great House out of his plans. He told himself that there was quite enough work to be done elsewhere, that it would be a pity to disturb old Rascal while he still lived. More truthfully he did not wish to associate himself with his slave-owning great-great-uncle by visiting the house too often: nor did he want to be disturbed by meeting the Mattisons. But it became his habit on every evening except Sunday, just before sunset,
to walk round the boundaries of the cleared land as they gradually extended. It was on one of these walks that he first caught sight of Chelsea Mattison.

At that time he did not know her name, of course. All he knew was what he could see, that she was the most beautiful creature in Jamaica. She was washing clothes in the Bristow river when he first caught sight of her, and he stood still at once, so that she should not know that she was observed. Her skin was a creamy brown and her nose was long and straight. She sang as she beat the clothes, and her brown eyes flashed as brightly as her dazzling white teeth. She was a tall girl, with a neat, small head on a long neck. Her shoulders were square and her hips slim and she held herself with a straightness which Ralph had never seen in England. His sister Margaret had suffered many hours strapped to a backboard as a child, and her good posture showed it, but this girl's taut slenderness was something outside Ralph's experience. Had he been nearer, he could hardly have restrained himself from touching her. As it was, his eyes studied her body, trying to memorize it.

She was wearing a bright cotton cloth, twisted round her body beneath her arms and revealing most of her long legs. When she had finished her work she stepped into the stream and splashed herself all over for coolness. The wet cloth clung tightly to her skin. She was full-breasted, Ralph saw, in spite of her youth and slenderness. He groaned silently to himself and turned away, unable to bear the sight any longer. But every evening after that his walk took him in the same direction.

Nothing in Jamaica remained a secret for long. It could not have been a coincidence that a few months after his first glimpse of her the girl was brought to his house by Red Mattison, who introduced himself as her father. It was on this occasion that Ralph first learned her name, as Red offered the pastor his daughter's services in the house.

‘No, thank you,' said Ralph, his voice hoarse. ‘I am well looked after already.'

‘Sister Martha ol' woman,' Red pointed out. ‘Chelsea fourteen year old. You teach her what you like; she do it. Good strong girl.'

There was no need for him to put into words what he had in mind: it was clear to both men. In just such a way must Matthew have acquired his various housekeepers; who accounted it an honour, perhaps, to bear children of a colour lighter than themselves. Chelsea, although so young, almost certainly had the same idea. Ralph had preached so many sermons on the evils of promiscuity, and had seen his warnings so universally disregarded, that he knew marriage would not be expected either by the girl or by her father. Kindness* and acknowledgement of her position would be enough. He was being offered a gift. There was nothing he would rather accept; and nothing which in his position was more impossible. He forced himself to speak angrily as he turned the girl away, and that night rocked himself to sleep in an agony of frustration.

At least from that time onwards he was able to acknowledge his sinfulness to himself. In the half-dreaming moments between waking and sleeping he indulged his lust: in his prayers and self-reproaches he reviled himself for it. The situation extended itself to become part of his life: an obsession which he could not evade without even greater unhappiness.

Towards the end of his third rainy season in Jamaica, he became ill. The time of his first furlough was approaching, and in his anxiety to see that the farm was left in good condition when he went, he paid even less attention than usual to the heavy downpours of rain which made Jamaica so fertile. Two or three times in a day he became soaked to the skin and then within an hour was steamed dry again by the blazing sun. This was a process which by now he took as much for granted as did the people of the village; nevertheless, when he woke in the middle of one night to find himself shivering with a coldness which no weight of blankets would alleviate, he at first assumed it to be only a
chill. It was Sister Martha, arriving next morning to prepare his breakfast, who recognized that he was suffering from malaria.

He needed to be nursed day and night, and for the first few days was not aware who was caring for him. But as the fever abated he discovered that Sister Martha had found someone to share the task. Chelsea Mattison was sixteen by now, an adult by Jamaican standards. It was she who sat by his bed, patiently cooling his forehead and covering him with blankets again after each bout of tossing. At first he thought he must be dreaming, and later he pretended that he was, lying very still with his eyes closed and listening as she sang under her breath, almost too softly to be heard.

Later, as he recovered his health, the pretence could not be maintained. It was possible - for he had been sweating freely - that she had given him a bed bath earlier in his illness; if so, he had not known about it. Now, when he was almost too weak to move, but perfectly conscious of his surroundings, she brought hot water to his bedside again. As she washed and dried his face and shoulders and chest, smiling directly into his eyes as she did so, he felt an ecstasy which was heightened by his helplessness. She reached his waist, and prepared to roll the blanket down. Ralph gripped her wrist to prevent it. It was the first time he had allowed himself to touch her, although he had suffered himself to be touched; and its effects terrified him. He sent her away, saying that he had no more need of nursing. Then he washed and dressed himself, although his legs would hardly support him.

Chelsea Mattison was only just sixteen, but her judgement was as mature as her body. Eight days later she returned to the pastor's house in the darkness of a tropical evening, and stood silently in front of him. Equally tongue-tied, Ralph discovered that he was too weak to send her away, but not too weak to turn his fantasies into facts. It
was on the morning after this, in an agony of self-disgust, that he wrote his letter to Margaret.

Unhappiness is a good traveller, as anyone discovers who tries to solve a problem with a change of scenery. In the weeks which followed her parting from Charles, Margaret had kept herself busy packing up everything she owned in London and taking it back to Bristol. She needed all the strength of character she possessed to banish her resentment at the unfairness of fate and to summon the determination to make a useful life for herself. In this preoccupation with her own unhappiness, she had allowed the anxiety which Ralph had expressed in his last letter from Jamaica to go out of her mind.

Because of this, her welcome to him on his arrival at Brinsley House for his first furlough was one of pleasure and affection only. She noticed that he was reticent about his own affairs, preferring to talk about her career. But this, she assumed, was because he had not expected to find her in Bristol and was sensitive to the friction which had arisen between her and William over her decision to work in her home city. She shrugged off his worried comments on the strain which showed in her face, explaining it with references to the long years of examinations and the responsibilities of her work since she qualified: she was not prepared to describe the true cause of her unhappiness.

In her own defence she pressed Ralph for details of his life in Jamaica and felt him gradually relax in the warmth of their old affectionate relationship. Leaning on the parapet of the upper terrace and staring down at the river, he described his congregation and the work he had provided for them.

‘So I can flatter myself that my first pastorate goes well,'
he concluded. Then he looked at her with despair in his eyes. ‘But oh, Margaret, what am I going to do about women?'

For a moment Margaret was too much taken aback to answer. But although startled by her brother's outburst, she was not shocked. Her medical training had taught her a good deal about life. Almost twenty-nine now, she no longer had much in common with that young girl who ten years earlier had been disgusted at the thought of marrying an habitué of the Joy Street area. Yet it took her a long time to probe to the root of Ralph's problem. He was a Baptist minister, after all, not a Catholic priest vowed to celibacy.

His own reluctance to elucidate caused a good deal of confusion as she tried to understand his difficulty. At first Margaret thought he was saying that there were no eligible white women in Jamaica - or that, even if there were, they were of the rich planter class who would not expect to live in poverty and who would be rejected by the Hope Valley community. When it transpired that the immediate problem was caused by a brown girl rather than a white one, Margaret began to feel out of her depth. How could she be expected to know what taboos might operate in a country she had never visited, what might or might not be expected of a pastor?