Children of the Storm

slim woman, one clearly born to position; she moved with a fluid grace, whether walking to the table or merely salting her potatoes, that must have come, in part at least, from having been raised in the very best private schools where a third of the classroom hours were spent in the establishment of good manners and habits of gracious elegance.
        The children-nine-year-old Alex and seven-year-old Tina-sat side-by-side near their mother's end of the table, on cushion-raised chairs, both dark-haired, dark-eyed and beautiful. They were dressed pretty much alike in simple, serviceable jeans and lightweight tee-shirts, clean but certainly not formal. Occasionally giggling, offering their own observations, but mostly quiet, they complemented the air of casual formality-if there could be such a thing, a mixture of easiness and distance. Perhaps the distance, the lingering note of formality was all in Sonya's own mind; after all, she had never been this close to a millionaire and his family, and she could not bring herself to think of them as just average folks.
        “I hope Bill didn't scare you too badly on the way over from Pointe-a-Pitre,” Joe Dougherty said. “Sometimes, he thinks the Lady Jane is a racing boat, and he puts her through her paces.”
        “It keeps the engines in good condition to open her up now and again,” Bill said. “You're just too land-bound to appreciate a good fast cabin cruiser.”
        Joe Dougherty grinned, winked at Sonya. “I don't think it's my landlubber leanings that turn me against speed boating. No, instead, I think it's just a combination of good common sense and-”
        “Bad digestion?” Bill Peterson suggested, good-naturedly.
        “No,” Dougherty chuckled. “Good common sense and-a good strong fear!”
        Helen laughed. “That sums it up for me, too.”
        Catching the spirit of underlying humor that existed between the Doughertys and their help, Sonya said, “Well, he came out here at top speed from Guadeloupe, but I didn't mind at all.”
        “You see!” Peterson cried, triumphant.
        “I just stood there by the wheel, at the safety railing, and I didn't faint once. If you don't believe me, you can go look at the railing-and you'll see where my fingers bent it.”
        “Betrayed,” Peterson said gloomily.
        “Did Bill take you on a tour around the island, before docking?” Helen asked.
        “No,” Sonya said. “I was anxious to get here, get to work.”
        “Tomorrow, then,” Helen said.
        “My pleasure,” Bill said.
        “I still can't get used to the fact you own a whole island,” Sonya said, shaking her head.
        For the first time, Joe Dougherty's face clouded, and he looked less than perfectly happy. “We don't, exactly,” he said.
        “But I thought-” she began.
        “We own most of it,” Helen explained. “But the Blenwell family has the cove at the far end of Distingue, and they own the Hawk House which overlooks the cove.”
        “I offered them an excellent price,” Dougherty explained. “Far too excellent for people their age to turn down.” He laid down his fork, wiped his mouth with a blue linen napkin. “Lydia and Walter Blenwell are in their seventies, far too old to live half an hour from the nearest ambulance service and an hour or more from the nearest hospital. Their children live in Jamaica, and up around Miami, but they steadfastly refuse to leave Hawk House.”
        “And that's the fault of Ken Blenwell,” Bill Peterson said. He sounded as if he did not much like Ken Blenwell.
        “You're right, of course,” Dougherty said. He explained: “Lydia and Walter have raised one of their grandchildren since he was two years old. The boy's father was killed at the outbreak of the Korean war, and his mother, not a Blenwell girl, never was very stable. She had to be institutionalized when the child was two, and she died at her own hand while in the-the home.”
         Madhouse, Sonya thought. She didn't know why Dougherty's euphemism, when speaking about a neighbor, was so frightening.
        “And her son, he's in his mid-twenties by now, Walter and Lydia's grandchild, has taken it in his head to own Hawk House when they're gone. He persuades them to hold out. Hell, he even persuaded old Walter to come to me and try to buy out our three-quarters of Distingue. Seems Kenneth wants to own the whole shebang some day.”
        “We don't intend to