The Doctor and the Diva (22 page)

“Ravell and I met in an English boarding school,” Hartley explained over dinner, tucking a big napkin under his neck. “Like brothers, we are. Our fathers lived in British colonies—Ravell’s father was a farmer in Kenya, and mine lived here in Trinidad.” After he’d finished huge helpings of every dish, he leaned back in his chair and patted his ample midsection. He had to unbutton his vest.

Uma, the same tall coolie girl who had come for the laundry, served the meal. She seemed to be a favorite housemaid of Mrs. Hartley.

“Those eyes,” Erika declared as a door swung shut and the servant had gone temporarily. “She has
green
eyes.”

“Uma is a lovely girl,” Mrs. Hartley agreed.

“It’s uncanny, don’t you think?” Erika said. “For a Hindu person to have eyes that color?”

Mr. Hartley laughed and shrugged and gulped his wine. “Must have been those marauding tribes north of India.”

“Uma had a harrowing childhood, I am sorry to say,” Mrs. Hartley murmured. She refrained from saying anything more as the servant girl returned to collect a remaining platter.

After dinner Mrs. Hartley drew Erika aside. “Why don’t you help me tuck the little ones into bed?”

Erika gave a strained smile, but she did not wish to be rude. As Mrs. Hartley lifted her skirt and headed up the staircase, Erika followed with dread. Upstairs they moved from room to room as Mrs. Hartley pulled one boy’s wet, wrinkled thumb from his mouth, patted another’s bottom with affection, and kissed all her darlings good night. After drawing doors closed, Mrs. Hartley led Erika into a room that smelled like a closet filled with too much sweet powder, too many hot breaths, milk that verged on souring. “I don’t believe in hiring wet nurses,” Mrs. Hartley said as she lifted her prized infant from a crib. She fell into a rocking chair, unfastened her shirtwaist, and pressed her breast against the newborn’s upturned mouth. Erika sat on a loveseat opposite them.

“How did you and your husband happen to meet our friend Ravell?” Mrs. Hartley asked.

“I was a patient of his,” Erika said, surprised that Ravell had divulged so little to his friends.

“Ravell’s doctoring days appear to be over,” Mrs. Hartley said, sighing. The nursery was dim, the walls so close that they might have been riding together in a carriage. “Ravell has forbidden my husband and me to mention anything to anyone on the island about his past career.”

“Did he deliver your baby?” She glanced at the newborn.

“No,” Mrs. Hartley said. “He didn’t wish to do it. Besides, he has so much responsibility at the plantation.”

Erika stood up abruptly. “I must get some air. I think I’ll head downstairs.” Mrs. Hartley looked faintly hurt by her departure.

With relief Erika joined the men in the grand parlor. At the fireplace Peter stood with a cigar in one hand, his elbow against the marble mantel. He slid his other hand into the trouser pocket of his three-piece suit. Erika found a seat on an ivory chintz settee, by a fringed lampshade. Mr. Hartley poured golden liquid from a cut-crystal decanter into glasses so clean they were nearly invisible. For privacy, he drew the parlor’s twin doors shut.

“You inquired about Uma,” Mr. Hartley began. He settled into a chair and rested his index finger against his cheek, as though considering where to start the story.

“Uma’s parents worked for my parents here on the estate,” Mr. Hartley explained. “Her mother was a strange creature. In the middle of the night, the woman used to have fits of caterwauling. The sound made me bolt straight upright in bed. You couldn’t lie back down and go to sleep, for fear you’d hear her again. Have you ever heard a howler monkey?”

Peter nodded, but Erika shook her head. “You’ll hear them,” Mr. Hartley said, “when you visit Ravell at the coconut plantation. Uma’s mother could have had a dozen howler monkeys inside her. The sounds could not have been more distressing.”

“A victim of lunacy?” Peter said.

Mr. Hartley gave a nod. “One night we smelled smoke and had to rush from our beds. She’d set the kitchen wing on fire. We’re lucky that we didn’t lose the entire house.”

He swallowed golden liquid from his glass and grimaced, as if the dregs tasted bitter. “Naturally you can’t keep a disturbed soul like that on the premises, endangering everybody. My father had Uma’s mother taken to an asylum where she eventually died.”

“A sad story,” Peter muttered.

“That wasn’t the end of it,” Mr. Hartley went on. “Rajiv—Uma’s father—wasn’t the most sane fellow, either. He held the whole thing against my father. One evening the other servants warned us that Rajiv had put poison in my father’s soup. Rajiv was the main cook on the estate, so this wasn’t hard for him to do.”

Mr. Hartley slouched at an awkward angle in his chair. “I remember that dinner rather well. When Rajiv brought my father’s bowl in, my father asked if the soup was any good. Rajiv said yes. So my father pulled a revolver from his pocket and held it against Rajiv’s head, and Father made
him
eat the soup.”

“And what happened?” Erika leaned forward, both hands braced against her knees.

“We held the funeral here at Eden—the very next day. Uma was a tiny thing then. I don’t think she remembers her parents, though she certainly must have heard stories. We’ve kept her on ever since. My wife tries to be particularly kind to her.”

Erika remembered the servant girl’s erect posture, how long and refined Uma’s fingers seemed, her slim arms like polished wood. “Uma would appear to be very different from her parents. She seems quite dutiful and composed.”

“She doesn’t talk much,” Mr. Hartley said. “Never has. But she does seem gentle. With the children, she’s gentle.”

Early the next morning, when the mosquitoes retreated from the lowlands and the danger of yellow fever temporarily lessened, Mr. Hartley took them to see Port of Spain. As might be expected in any British colony, they found order and cleanliness. It was odd to see a great Gothic church flanked by royal palms. A fine tramway service glided past the Queens Park Hotel, which now sat eerily empty. The cement roads were so cleverly engineered that as soon as the wild tropical downpours ceased, the roads drained, lost their shine, and became dry within minutes.

From the carriage they saw the Savannah, a vast park where horse races were sometimes held and where cattle were permitted to graze. The Savannah lay at the heart of everything, a verdant expanse. The governor’s palace overlooked it, as well as the Queens Park Hotel and the town’s finest residences.

“Let’s visit the tailor first,” Erika said. It was nearly Peter’s birthday, and she wanted to choose gifts for him.

While the tailor stretched a tape along the length of Peter’s leg, Erika stroked a silky handful of ties, deciding to purchase a mauve one because it reminded her of a cravat Ravell had worn.

“My wife dresses me,” Peter called over his shoulder to Mr. Hartley, who remained in the doorway watching a sudden shower wet the streets.

“And I’m very good at it,” she added. “Really, I ought to go into the business of dressing men.”

Peter was handsome, easy to decorate. She made the tailor drape a swath of charcoal pin-striped fabric across Peter’s chest to see if it would distinguish him. The prices delighted Peter. In Boston he paid fifteen dollars for a suit, but here the tailor charged one-third that price.

While Erika lingered at the tailor’s, finalizing her selections, Mr. Hartley took Peter to introduce him to gentlemen at the Trinidad Union Club. In the end she ordered eight suits for Peter, plus ties and shirts. All would be quickly sewn and delivered to the Eden estate.

Eight suits.
The abundance might startle Peter, but she was buying them for herself, wasn’t she? She’d be the one who would grasp the slippery tail of his tie and draw his moustache closer. At the end of the day, when he fell playfully against the bed, still fully clothed, she’d bury her nose in the fine pin-striped wool of his jacket.

Since the stillbirth, she had turned to her husband’s body again and again for relief. But the tumult inside her was never quite quelled, and she felt she’d grown more distant from Peter than she’d ever been.

When she touched her husband’s body with all that pleasure, why did her mind fly toward Ravell? She thought of the doctor daily, often hourly. She could hardly wait for the next day, Sunday, to arrive. Following the christening of the Hartleys’ newborn, a celebration would take place at Eden, and Ravell was expected to attend.

After she’d paid and prepared to leave the shop, the tailor looked at her worriedly. “Another foreign visitor died in San Fernando this morning,” he warned. “You and your husband really ought to finish your business here quickly. The two of you should leave Trinidad as soon as possible.”

Erika nodded. So little protected Peter and her from the worst—just three grains of quinine daily. That evening she’d tell Peter that they should increase their dosage to six.

As she stepped into the street, the smell of the recent but vanished rain rose from the pavement. She had arranged to meet the men around noon, so she had an hour to herself yet. Through the searing air of Port of Spain, she walked toward the lovely Savannah. If mosquitoes were apt to appear later in the day, where did they hide at this hour? She halted, propped a parasol over her head, and listened for the sound of a mosquito drilling past her ear. She detected no sign.

Cattle roamed on the Savannah. Mr. Hartley had mentioned that the coolie people were unusually gentle with animals, and now Erika witnessed a touching scene. A cow and her calf loped toward a coolie woman with almost a rhythmic love. The woman, clearly their owner, raised a curved arm in greeting, as though the pair of animals were family to her.

Later that day when Erika and Peter returned to Eden with Mr. Hartley, a message from Ravell awaited them.

Erika’s spirits plummeted, reading the lines he’d sent. Now that she and Peter walked on the island where Ravell lived—they smelled the same soil, their skin touched by the same fragrant air and temperature—he still seemed a hemisphere away.

“I’m afraid you have a rival,” Peter remarked to Erika the following morning. “Another lady in this house seems quite smitten by me.”

Gladys, the Hartleys’ seven-year-old daughter, waited on the landing as Erika and Peter emerged from their room and started downstairs toward breakfast. The little girl sat on a window seat, feeding her teddy bear chocolate creams. She sprang up when they appeared and ran at once to Peter, slipping her hand into his.

Apart from being the day of the christening, it was Peter’s birthday. By noon a dogcart arrived at Eden, bearing the eight suits and other birthday gifts the tailor and his assistants had finished.