Chapter 23
Late Christmas Eve morning, Hermione Parrish was enjoying her usual breakfast in bed when there came a furtive knocking at her dressing room door.
“Who is it?”
Auggie glided in to find her propped up against a mound of pillows in the magnificent mahogany bed with its froth of mosquito netting. She wore a beribboned silk negligee that billowed over her grand bosom, and her hair hung down in two long gray braids.
“What a splendid piece of furniture that is,” he remarked cheerfully. “No doubt Catherine and Adam miss it.”
“Even this bed is a far cry from what I’m used to. Nothing is right. We may as well be savages, living without indoor plumbing and electricity and motor cars...”
“I came to tell you about my visit to Gemma Hart. Aren’t you interested?” He perched on the far edge of the bed and helped himself to a wedge of papaya.
“You’re awfully chipper this morning. You must have had a success.”
“I think so. I told her everything you suggested—”
“That she should bring the child here and confront Adam in Catherine’s presence?”
“Yes. She resisted at first, but I think I finally convinced her that nothing else will work. She says that she doesn’t want Raveneau for herself, but I scoffed at that, then insisted that nothing will drive Catherine away from him faster than the presence of that child in the house.”
“And?” She stared fiercely at him over the rim of her teacup.
“And the two of us worked out a plan that I found quite brilliant. The question is, will Gemma Hart have the courage to go through with it?”
Anxiously, Cathy stood in the kitchen doorway and watched Josephine and Retta quarrel over the recipe for jug-jug.
“You do cut de meat too much,” Retta exclaimed, leaning against the work table for support.
“This is the right way t’ make it.” She chopped the salt meat and pork even finer, then added in stinging tones, “It’s the new way. Better.”
“De old ways best. Look at peas dere,” the old woman cautioned, pointing into the great pot where green peas were boiling with the meat. “Dey do be cookin’ too long!”
Josephine threw a mutinous glance toward Cathy. “I can’t do best job if this old woman be always watching me!” Then, grasping the sides of the pot with folded towels, she poured off the stock and began adding guinea corn flour.
“I do make jug-jug near one hun’red years,” cried Retta. “Orchid comes to island from Africa an’ she teach me jug-jug when I young as little June.” She glared at Josephine, who pretended to ignore her. “You parents not even born when I learn jug-jug!”
Cathy rushed over and put an arm around Retta. The frail old woman was trembling all over with outrage, while Josephine simply continued to stir the flour into the stock. With each turn of the spoon, she made a little noise of disapproval. Although Cathy was aware of the dangers of offending the temperamental new cook, she couldn’t be silent.
“Josephine, I would like you to listen to me.”
“I am list’ning, but I can’t leave the jug-jug.”
“Retta has been at Tempest Hall nearly all her life, and we all love and respect her very much.” She squeezed her thin shoulder gently as she spoke.
“Mmm-hmm.”
“I won’t tell you that you should take direction from her. After all, we hired you to be our cook and you must be in charge. However, I will ask that you treat Retta with the respect and kindness she deserves.” Then, without waiting for a response, Cathy got Retta’s walking sticks and helped her out of the kitchen and back into the main house.
“I jus’ sit ‘til I feel stronger,” murmured Retta as she collapsed in a chair in the little servants’ room off the back stairhall. “Chris’mas eve, so much work...”
Cathy’s heart ached for her; she’d never seen her looking so lost and empty. “I’m going to check on the rest of the house, but I want you to think about the poinsettia plants and where we should put them. Do you think we should group them all together, to make a huge red mass, or spread them around the sitting room and dining room , one by one?”
Retta stared off into space and sighed.
Tears welled in Cathy’s eyes as she walked slowly down the corridor to the dining room. When she came face-to-face with the painting of Adrienne Beauvisage Raveneau that now hung there, she looked into Adam’s grandmother’s eyes and wished with all her heart that she could talk to her. What advice would Adrienne give her? It gave Cathy chills to think that Retta had been at Tempest Hall to greet Adrienne when she had first come to Barbados from England, in 1818. Retta was Tempest Hall’s last live link with the past...
“At the risk of sounding like a sneering cynic, it’s going to be awfully difficult to squeeze any Christmas spirit out of this house.”
Cathy whirled around in surprise and discovered that Auggie was sitting all alone at the dining room table, eating eggs and kippers. His observation made her take a long look at her home. The workmen had finished laying the new, unvarnished floor just the day before, and against the new wood the rugs looked older and more worn than ever. Now the men were enjoying their holiday, and there was no way to predict when they would return.
As for Christmas spirit, one did have to use one’s imagination. The poinsettia plants helped, but they were a bit straggly and wild-looking, and a far cry from the abundant blooms they’d had at Beechcliff. Worse yet, they didn’t have a towering evergreen Christmas tree. The best Simon and Adam had been able to do was a dwarf orange tree that they’d potted and brought into the sitting room. However, without tinsel and ornaments, it didn’t seem to have anything to do with Christmas.
“Can you even imagine what it must be like in New York City right now?” Auggie said in dreamy tones.
She tried to block the images from her mind, but it was too late; they’d burst into full color the moment he’d spoken. Cathy thought of snowy sleigh rides down Fifth Avenue, bells jingling on the horses’ harnesses, while every shop was decorated with pine garlands and plump holly-sprigged wreaths. The tree in their mansion ballroom was always too big and overdecorated for Cathy’s taste, but she did have some ornaments from her childhood that meant the world to her. When she’d begged her mother to allow them to hang on the tree among their new, more lavish counterparts, Jules had taken her part and together father and daughter had prevailed. Remembering those good-natured debates and the way her father’s eyes had twinkled so lovingly, Cathy now felt as if her heart had broken. Had she meant so little to him after all, that he would risk losing his daughter’s love for an actress?
She turned to Auggie, and her eyes grew misty again. “No, I’ll agree that Tempest Hall doesn’t look the way I might wish on Christmas Eve... but perhaps it’s better that I’m here rather than in New York. If I were in the Fifth Avenue house, I’d only miss Papa more.”
“If we were in New York,” he rejoined sourly, “we wouldn’t be treated to such Christmas specialties as jug-jug or that horrid red drink they make from pods. What’s it called?”
“Sorrel,” she replied, gazing off into the distance.
“I took a peek at the jug-jug, and if you ask me, it looks and smells like discarded stomach contents.”
“Auggie! That’s a revolting thing to say.”
“Not as revolting as jug-jug.”
Cathy wandered over to look out at the still-overgrown front gardens, yearning for the sight of just one snowflake and the sound of just one caroler. Instead, she saw a large iguana propelling itself across a pathway and into a tangle of bougainvillea. “Perhaps by next year I’ll be able to import a few things to make us feel more at home during the holidays. Ribbons and candles, and an Italian nativity scene. By then, everything will have fallen into place and the house will be finished, and Adam and I will laugh about all the calamities that befell us during my first Christmas on Barbados.”
“Well, that’s a nice dream, anyway.”
She wanted to sit down on the old settee and have a good cry, but just then Alice came trotting into the room. The old Lab’s gait might have been a trifle unsteady, but her tail was high in the air and wagging happily. She went straight to her mistress and pushed at her hand with her moist nose.
“Hello, darling.” Cathy hitched up her skirts and knelt to put her arms around Alice. “What would I do without you?”
“Now that’s true love,” remarked Adam as he came in carrying a big box. His presence lit the room. “You risk getting a big whiff of old Alice’s breath, and even I don’t love her that much.”
As determined as she was not to surrender to her husband’s potent appeal, Cathy couldn’t help smiling. “Poor Alice.” She covered the dog’s ears. “Don’t listen to a word he says. I’ll bet you’ve smelled his breath on many mornings-after without complaint.”
He laughed. “I’ve brought you a package that’s just come up from Bridgetown. It had a New York postmark.”
Her heart began to pound; her palms went damp in that instant. She sat down on a mahogany settee near the window. When he put the big parcel on the rug before her, Cathy saw that it had been addressed in her father’s own hand. Her mouth was dry. “It’s from Papa.”