Page 6 of The Summer Country

There had already been claret, claret and punch, made with limes and goodness knew what else. Charles felt as though the very walls were in motion, swaying like the cabin of a ship, and Charles swaying with them. Although the ship from England had never rocked like this, never with this sickening lurch at the pit of his stomach. Charles was a good sailor. He would have said he was a good drinker too, well able to hold his liquor, but the ports and clarets of Lincoln’s Inn were as nothing to whatever had been in that punch.

What had been in that punch?

Charles blinked, hard. “You’re very kind, Mr. Lyons, but—”

“Colonel Lyons,” the other man corrected him, leading him through an arch from the dining room to the great room. Charles wasn’t sure whether it was the drink that made the room stretch into infinity or the contrast with the cramped chambers he had left behind in London. “I’ve served in the militia these past fifteen years now. We’ll have to find you a place now you’re back. It’s a good group of lads. Your brother, for one. He’ll go far if he goes on the way he’s started. Not but what it’s hard for him being a second son, eh? But we all have our place. We’ll have our port on the veranda, shall we?”

The colonel lifted a hand, like an enchanter in a tale, and shadows leaped to life, setting lights glimmering in the darkness.

Not shadows, people. People waiting to light lamps, pull over chairs, plump cushions. This wasn’t a tale, it was Barbados, and the colonel was no Prospero, just a neighbor with exceptionally strong drink and a well-trained staff.

Charles clung to the shreds of sobriety. “I should be getting back.”

There was something about the evening that sat ill with him, and it wasn’t just the punch. The colonel was too friendly, too warm, like an uncle in a stage play; Miss Beckles too demure, a caricature of ladylike reserve. Miss Beckles had said little, but when she had spoken, tension crackled in the air, as though there were another conversation being had, one between uncle and niece, one Charles didn’t understand. Maybe that was why he had drunk so deep, let Colonel Lyons press the claret on him again and again and again.

Miss Beckles had drunk only sparingly.

“Not just yet,” said the colonel, and Charles found himself half dropping into a cushioned wicker chair, a crystal glass in his hand. “You’ll not have me be chary in welcoming a visitor—not that you’re a visitor, of course.”

Wasn’t he? He felt like one.

You’ve been gone too long. That’s what his brother had thrown at him.

And it was true; Charles had forgotten more about Barbados than he remembered. He could remember now those early years in school in England, dreaming of Peverills, of the warm sun, the caves veiled with vines, the steady plip of the water through the dripstone. Over the years, Peverills had flattened into an illustration from a book, a botanist’s rendering of something beautiful but remote. He might call it home, but his memories were increasingly attenuated, stories told again and again until they had lost their meaning.

And now . . . Charles felt as though he had slipped into a familiar pair of shoes only to find that they pinched. Everything felt strange, unfamiliar: the scents, the sounds, the accents. On the veranda, the smells of the island pressed in on him: frangipani, mango, lime blossom, rum, manure, and the ever-present cloy of the cane. He could feel it catching at the back of his throat. It didn’t feel like home; it felt like the beginnings of an ague.

It wasn’t Beckles. It wasn’t the colonel. It was Charles; he was the odd one, wishing himself back in a London winter, back in his cramped quarters at Lincoln’s Inn.

The colonel was still speaking. It took Charles an effort to focus on his voice. “How do you find Peverills?”

“Busy,” he offered, for lack of anything better. Busy didn’t begin to describe it. All his studies, his legal training had never prepared him for this, for the books and books of ledgers, the land, the people, the complicated patchwork of leases that rounded out the corners of their lands. “My father’s affairs were—more complex than I had realized.”

“Ah, your father. He had grand schemes, your father,” said Colonel Lyons tolerantly. “A bit of a dreamer.”

Charles stiffened. “My father, sir, is—was a gentleman and a scholar. His ideas were much praised in London.”

Never mind that they had been left incomplete, left on Charles’s head, unexplained, half-finished. Charles’s head ached. Robert was right; he should have come home sooner, learned all this by his father’s side. But there had never been any hurry. There would be time enough, that was what his father said in his letters.

Until there wasn’t.

Colonel Lyons kicked back in his chair, stretching out his legs in their silk stockings and black evening pumps. “Oh, such things are all very well on paper, but—now, now, don’t bristle so. I mean no offense. But if you need practical advice, Beckles is a short ride, as you see. My door is always open.”

“Thank you,” said Charles stiffly. It was a kindness, he knew. But something about the colonel set him on edge. “I wouldn’t want to be a bother. I know you have obligations enough of your own.”

“It’s no bother, my boy. There isn’t much about the land that I can’t tell you. And my niece isn’t such an exacting taskmaster as that.” At Charles’s involuntary look of surprise, Colonel Lyons added, “Didn’t anyone tell you? It’s my niece who owns all this. I manage it for her. Have done since her father died. I used to have a place of my own—on Jamaica—but when my sister’s husband died, so young . . . well, family is family. I’m sure you understand.”

What Charles didn’t understand was why he was being told this at all, but he murmured what he hoped were appropriate noises of assent. “You’ve been here some time, then,” he said.

“Since my niece was a mere babe in arms. It’s been a burden, I’ll tell you that, but I’ve done my best for her.” The colonel smiled fondly, but there seemed to be too many teeth in it. He looked meaningfully at Charles. “The man who marries her will find him possessed of a rich dowry.”

Charles coughed on his sip of port. “Oh?” he said weakly.

The colonel gave a rich chuckle. “We’ve had the fortune hunters at the door, sure enough. But they don’t last long.”

Charles stood, with an effort. The seat of the wicker chair felt deeper than it had been when he had sat down. “Your niece is fortunate to have you taking such care, sir. Now, if you will pardon me—” I need to stick my head in a trough of very cold water, he thought.

“No, no. You misunderstand me.” The colonel stood too. He was a tall man, and spare. His hollow cheeks gave him an ascetic air. A misleading one. His glass had been refilled as frequently as Charles’s, although he showed no effects other than a slight skew to his severe gray periwig, a coarsening of the skin around his nose. “Being new to the island, Mr. Davenant, you should know—my niece is not like other women.”