Cane Music Read online

  Roslyn did not comment, and presently he said: “So you don’t like our cane?”

  “It seems a terrible fuss to sweeten your coffee,” she said cuttingly.

  He cut back at her: “Also to make power alcohol, industrial acids, life-saving drugs, and that’s only a start.” Abruptly he turned into a steep sidetrack that led up to a small but rather lofty hummock. He never spoke until he had pulled up the car at the top.

  “Now look,” he said.

  Roslyn looked ... then looked away. She had never dreamed anything could be so lovely, so differently lovely. From their vantage point lay patchwork fields in different stages of growth, and through them piled lilliputian engines piled high with crop to be delivered to the crush, for the cut just now was at its zenith. But it was the cane itself that caught at her, long reedy grass, up to the elephant’s eye of the song, with feathery plumes that stirred in the warm soft breeze and made the scene look like some tapestry screen sewn in shot silk thread.

  “Listen,” he said, and she heard it. Cane music. The singing sound of wind and plumes, a million million plumes.

  “Well?” he demanded.

  “It’s lovely,” she admitted, and because there was a lump in her throat at such beauty, she turned back to the car.

  That night they stopped in an ample hotel, and by noon the following day they reached the outskirts of the Moreno sugaropolis.

  “It’s not called that, surely?” said Roslyn coldly.

  “Not officially, but the estate grew so big that the tag became apt. Particularly since, if not Italian, at least it had a certain Mediterranean affinity.”

  She looked at him in question, and he said: “The Acropolis, Sister Young, fairly close to Sugaropolis. But no, the place is actually named Clementine, after the first Moreno wife. An Australian girl, incidentally.”

  “So women are permitted, then?”

  “We find them necessary to carry on the family.”

  She knew he was baiting her, but held on to her temper. “Belinda will take some time yet,” she proffered.

  “No worry. It can be profitable time. Onion weeding. Wasn’t that what you said?”

  “I said?”

  “Sorry, it was the housekeeper.”

  She nodded, feeling she had won a point. “I suppose, though, there must be a lot of domestic work on a cane farm.”

  “The usual.”

  “But feeding the hands, for instance.”

  “They feed themselves. Also there is an ample staff in the big house. Don’t worry, Miss Young, you won’t be called upon to wash up.”

  “Except Belinda’s dishes.”

  He frowned at that. “She’ll eat like we do. After all, this is to be her life.”

  There were a lot of things Roslyn could have said, wanted to say, but she still held back. She was not aware that he was watching her until he pounced: “Temper, temper, you’ve cut your palms with your nails.”

  “I haven’t.”

  “Well, mop up the blood regardless, or Mr. Moreno will think I’ve been maltreating you as well as the child.”

  “Are we nearly there?”

  “We are there. Through those trees.” He pointed to a break in the cane and beyond the cane to another break in a thicket of banana and mango.

  She looked wonderingly. She had expected something a little more imposing of a sugar magnate than one of the cottages on stilts that she had encountered the last two days, perhaps a big bungalow with wide verandahs, or an expansive ranch house, but never had she anticipated a lofty castle like this. For castle indeed it was, pink-washed, arched, with beautiful details that the man beside her said had come from Greek influence.

  “The builder was a Cypriot,” he told Roslyn, “and he persuaded the first Moreno to let him work beautifully as well as functionally.”

  “I thought it was the Italians who came here.”

  “All the Mediterranean people; they understand the sun.” He grinned. “And now” ... a shrug ... “the sad south will understand it, too. Lose grey chill in golden warmth. Even you, Miss Young, will bloom for a couple of weeks. But it’s different for Belinda, it’s for a lifetime. “Belinda Moreno, you’ve come home.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  M. Moreno carried Belinda up the wide front sweep of steps. It was quite an imposing sweep, with decorative iron lace for side enclosure, and large pots of crotons on each curved rise. Roslyn noted that he kept glancing to the immense verandah above the entrance as though expecting someone, but the big brim of the house remained bare. Bare of people, that is; there were more cement pots of fireplant and hibiscus and several benches on which to rest.

  But no one there at all.

  It must have puzzled him, for, frowning, he put Belinda on her feet and went striding down the long straight hall that Roslyn could see through the open front door. There were rooms on either side of the hall, she noted, and at the end of the passage there was a curved staircase evidently leading to more rooms upstairs.

  Belinda had found something that apparently interested her in one of the large pots of crotons, so Roslyn took the opportunity to look around. She liked the Greek influence of curved instead of squared corners to everything, the name Clementine marked out in Greek lettering, or so she supposed, as well as English, and presented in the form of unbeckoning arms.

  She took a step inside the hall, bare but polished brown-gold, and with a tropical bamboo runner laid down the entire length to soften the ring of footsteps, and would have left it at that, as just a curious step, had she not heard the small noise. At once she stiffened. She had not been a pro, then a nurse, then a Sister, not to be altered by the particular sound. With a swift glance back at Belinda to see if she was still occupied, and she was, Roslyn stepped right into the hall and towards the room whence the noise had come. She had not dealt often with that hard sharp sound, but the few times she had were indelible in her mind. Whoever had gasped out ... or rather choked out some of the membrane, for he was breathing fairly evenly blocking his or her windpipe, and he or she would be fighting for air. In some extreme circumstances it could even be a last desperate croak.

  It was a man lying under the covers on the bed, a very old man. Evidently the involuntary spasm had released some of the membrane, for he was breathing fairly evenly again. She found his hand and took the pulse. It was thin and thready.

  She bent over the old man. “Just a sigh in, just a sigh out—gently does it, don’t try for it, don’t force it, simply let it come and go. You’ll be all right.” She was aware she was being foolish, that his breathing, or lack of it, was controlling him and not he controlling it, but Doctor Chris had talked like that to patients, and it had helped. For a moment the old eyes looked comprehendingly into Roslyn’s, and they were familiar eyes. They were Belinda’s eyes, M. Moreno’s eyes again. So he, too, must be a Moreno. Mr. Moreno, the sugar king?

  She glanced at the medicines on the table beside him, and recognized them. Evidently the indisposition had been established previously, yet evidently, too, it had not been considered advisable to adopt any further remedial measures on him such as oxygen, or, in an emergency, tracheotomy. On such an old man the latter would be only an urgent step, anyway. Dedicated nursing would be the order instead, meticulous nursing, but where was the dedication? The meticulousness? Where, for that matter, was anything or anybody? This patient should never have been left, yet here he lay, quite alone. He should not be left now, she knew, but Belinda was still on the verandah, by her silence still absorbed. What was she looking at out there? Was it dangerous? If it scared her could she step back and fall down those steps?

  Still watching the figure on the bed, Roslyn withdrew a pace, watched and waited a moment, withdrew another pace, then turned to race out and check. But Belinda was coming towards her, triumphantly dangling the biggest frog that Roslyn ever had seen from a tightly curled hand. “Bad? Dirty?” she asked lovingly, for it was quite obvious she was taken with the frog and did not wish to be deprived
as she had been with the snake.

  Still watching the bed, Roslyn knelt down beside the little girl. “Take him to man, Belinda, then tell man to come here quickly. Understand hat, darling? To come quickly. Off you go, then, down there.” She pointed vaguely along the hall.

  “Man,” nodded Belinda, “come quickly,” and she trotted off, still holding the unfortunate frog by one struggling leg.

  When she had gone, Roslyn went through a million agonies. Where had she sent the baby? The place was still silent, still apparently deserted, yet she had packed the little girl off heaven knew where.

  She took the pulse again, and it was still thin but to her idea less thready. The eyes were looking at her as the eyes of the very sick do: begging you not to leave them.

  “You’re all right, and I won’t go,” Roslyn promised.

  She waited desperately for someone to come, but she hardly had expected when they did come that they would race down the hall without any attempt to soften their steps.

  “Miss Young!”

  “Lower your voice. This man is ill.”

  “This man—Good lord, it’s Mr. Moreno!” M. Moreno knelt down beside the frail figure on the bed. “So that’s why the nurse is here.”

  “She’s not here ... this patient shouldn’t be left...” Roslyn said tightly.

  “But can you leave him?” came the unexpected urgent ‘ answer. “Can I watch him until you see to things out there?’

  “Out where? Mr. Moreno, you don’t seem to realize that—”

  “Miss Young, everything appears to have happened at once. We have a boy out there we might already have—” The man looked desperately up at Roslyn from where he still knelt on the floor. “Can’t I watch the old fellow?” he appealed.

  Roslyn hesitated. She had a feeling that the patient’s sharp spasm would not repeat itself, that whatever had blocked the windpipe had cleared on its own accord, cleared, anyway, for the time being. Also the old man had someone by him, someone knew—an important thing, Roslyn knew. She knew, too, that the patient was aware of it by the clearer look in his eyes. He had been frightened before, but now the fear was allayed.

  “What’s wrong there?” she asked. “Where do I go?”

  “Straight through the house. You’ll see the group of people.”

  “Where’s Belinda?”

  “She’s safe. Don’t worry about her. But will you go at once?” He spoke sharply, sharp, she could tell, from anxiety.

  She gave him a quick look, then gave a final look to the old man, held his wrist a few moments, then turned without another word.

  She did not glance to either side as she hurried through the house. The long bamboo matting ended in a wide back verandah, and at the base of the steps was a circle of men and women, and among them a young, white-capped nurse. Roslyn raced down and pushed through the circle. A boy lay on the grass and he certainly looked alarmingly ill.

  The young nurse, very junior, Roslyn judged, looked thankfully up as Roslyn joined her.

  “I just don’t know what to do,” she admitted, “I don’t know what’s wrong.”

  Roslyn was kneeling down beside the boy now, a boy quite grey-faced, no breath at all, but, unlike the old man in the house, not fighting for breath, beyond even that instinctive compulsive effort. She began passing her hands quickly round the lean young body.

  “There’s nothing broken ... Mr. Marcus found that out,” the nurse told her.

  “Mr. Marcus? Is he the doctor?”

  “No, the doctor’s not here. Mr. Marcus is Mr. Marcus Moreno. The younger Moreno.”

  “I, see. And did Mr. Marcus Moreno try mouth-to-mouth resuscitation?”

  “He was just considering it, then the little girl came and he rushed off to you. Are you going to try it now?”

  Roslyn bent close to the grey face. She was watching the face intently. Something was nagging at her, but she could not put a finger on it. She glanced quickly up at the circle of workers. “How did it happen?”

  “None of us saw,” they came back :n a chorus, “but we think Nino must have fallen from the tractor. At first we thought he was under the tractor, but he wasn’t, he was thrown clear.”

  Thrown clear! That was it! There had been an accident outside Border Hospital, but the man who was hurt in the collision had not concerned them so much as the child who had been thrown clear.

  “Winded. Absolutely and completely knocked out,” Doctor Chris had said of the little girl. “Every vestige of air forced out of her. It can be damned dangerous, but, thank heaven, less dangerous with every moment that elapses after that crippling deflation of the air balloon, as it were, for, wittingly or not, the air creeps back on its own accord.”

  “No,” said Roslyn aloud, “I will not give mouth-to-mouth. He’s recovering. There’s less grey. A hint of pink is stealing in.” Like she had with the old man, she bent over and said softly: “In, out gently does it.” She saw sweat breaking through the olive skin, dark eyes stop their staring in marbled fright and begin to flick normally again, and she knew he would be all right. She looked up again at the circle of people.

  “Get his bed ready. Some of you stand by to carry him to it You, Nurse, get back to your patient as fast as you can.” Roslyn felt like adding a stern: “And never do that again, do you hear? Never leave a patient,” but how could she have added it? The girl was young and obviously barely experienced, and who could have said which one of the two had needed her attention most?

  The boy was only faintly grey now, and he was taking longer, more audible breaths. Roslyn sat him up and held him there to aid the breathing. “When he fell,” she told the men who waited to carry him to his cot, “he must have hit the ground in such a way it beat the air right out of him.”

  “Yes,” they said, giving Roslyn such looks of admiration at her wisdom that she felt embarrassed. But for that freak episode with Chris, she could have been as nonplussed.

  “You said his name was Nino?”

  “Yes, miss.”

  “Nino, you’re going to rest for the remainder of the day. The men will carry you to your bed. Will you promise me you won’t try to move, or do I have to give you something to make sure of that?” Roslyn was hoping for his cooperation, for she was not at all certain whether she should give him anything just yet. She was relieved when he answered in a scared voice:

  “I’ll do what you say, miss.”

  “Carry him now,” she directed, and after they had put him on an improvised stretcher, she followed the party to a row of chalets, evidently supplied for the workers. She saw that he was made comfortable, told one of the women to sit by him, left strict instructions for someone ... anyone ... to come immediately to the house if they were alarmed again, then went back to the place named Clementine. During all this drama she had not thought of Belinda. Mr. Moreno ... Mr. Marcus Moreno? ... had said she was safe, but where was she?

  She ran quickly down the bamboo runner, her mind only on Belinda now. When she came to the door of the old man’s room, she simply stood and stared. The last thing in the world she had expected in this quite mad world into which it suddenly seemed she had been flung was a family scene! For family scene it could have been with Belinda ... no frog now ... sitting on M. Moreno’s knee beside the patient whom the young nurse must have propped up, and was still supporting. The peaceful comfort of everyone after Roslyn’s agonising moments of doubt and fear now gave her a swift flash of anger. How dared they sit relaxed like that?

  They were quite unaware of her. Belinda was looking at the patient and he was looking back at Belinda. The young nurse was frankly enjoying her role of comforter. But the man nursing Belinda must have sensed Roslyn’s presence, for he slowly turned his head to the door ... very slowly, Roslyn seethed, nothing to worry about, leave worry to Sister Young. That, anyway, was the impression Roslyn received.

  “Ah,” he nodded coolly, “I knew you would fix it, Miss Fix-it.”

  Probably the young nurse had explained what had
happened, but the calm acceptance of what could have been a disaster riled Roslyn. She came right into the room and plucked Belinda from his knee.

  “You have a great deal of confidence in me,” she said coldly, “more, under those circumstances, than I would care to have myself.”

  “Perhaps, but I still knew it would be all right with you there.” He said it so certainly that she felt certain he must be baiting her.

  She did not look at him to find out. “Is our room upstairs or down?”

  “Rooms. Two of them. I thought you deserved that after—”

  Now Roslyn did look at him, a frozen look designed to freeze him into silence.

  It didn’t, but it did curb him. “Upstairs,” he said, not finishing his former sentence. “Adjoining rooms for you and the child. Meanwhile I’ve rung Doctor Carlton so as to be quite certain of everything. I’ll take you up now if you think it’s safe to leave the old fellow.”

  “It is.”

  “Then when Carlton comes I’ll give you a yahoo.” He saw Roslyn’s horrified look and amended: “I’ll let you know that the doctor has arrived. Better for you to talk to him, young Connie here is only on loan from the cottage hospital and only—well—”

  “I’ve just begun, Sister,” Connie came in humbly.

  “So better for you to talk to the doctor,” M. Moreno concluded.

  “I’m here for Belinda,” Roslyn reminded him stiffly.

  “But once a nurse always a nurse?” he slipped in. “Not to worry, you won’t be expected to stay here any longer than your arranged three weeks.”

  “Four.”

  “I’m corrected.” He gave an ironic bow. “Actually” ... benignly ... “I was only considering the disappointment to your young man if you remained longer.”

  “He’s not my—”

  “No, a doctor would scarcely be that, would he? Nor would he be your ‘fellow’. Then will we say he’d be your fiancé?”

  “He’s not my—”

  “Something, anyway,” he went smoothly on, “quite remote to a humble cutter of cane.”