Chapter 42

"Stop? STOP? Don't be estupido, girl. I will happily make love to my pregnant wives as many times as I possibly can, until you are too large in front to be comfortable with my attentions. I love you girls, and want to love you to bits all the time ... a father; just think of it! I don't care whether you each have a son or a daughter. They are the children of our loins, and so worthy of bringing up in a loving environment."

Euphemia brought him back to the nitty gritty. "Darling, will you contact the seed merchants again, and confirm our interest in being sole distributor for Rehome? I spoke to them, as I said, to let them know, provisionally, our interest, and they said they would ring me back, but as you are the nominal proprietor of the business, you should make it official. If they agree, you can speak to the Oluwosu or Odumosu families, as they are starting a new farm and want to order seeds, and probably cassava slips."

Ebenezer was easy with that. "It all runs together, doesn't it: Seeds, pregnancies, and so on ... Life starting again ... it is great, being a farmer."

Susan was happy with her life. That visit to the Defreitas wives – officially to see their babies – had been extremely helpful. They were willing to give her their advice on how to make love with a man (or boy); how the two people handled each other; where the sensitive and erogenous zones were in a man; what touches pleased the man and what pleased the woman. She was amazed at what her former classmate, Dinah, knew. The girl raved about loving her man, and was delighted with her baby. "This little tyke took ages to arrive, and I was sore for a while, both during and after the birth, but it was worth the effort, Susan." She hesitated, then added, "Of course, I do not recommend getting pregnant before you have a permanent partner, be it a husband or not. Having a baby to look after on your own is hard work. Not only that; having co-wives to share the work is immensely helpful, provided you are willing to do your own part in the sharing. We feed whichever baby is needing fed, and dealing with a group of nappy buckets is almost the same as dealing with one, provided your nose can cope with the smell!"

Susan sidled close to her friend. "Dinah, do you think Peggy will be allowed back with Trevor, now that she has had her abortion and you have had your babies?" She held up a cautionary hand. "I know, but haven't spoken to anyone else."

"You know? How?"

"I saw how Peggy acted when Trevor was around. She clearly was besotted by him, just as you four are, so I caught her off guard by asking her when her attention was elsewhere – something to do with maths - and she responded automatically; but she swore me to secrecy. She said she did not want to do anything that might harm your family life. She meant it, Dinah. That girl has got it bad. If you refuse her access to Trevor, she will still keep her mouth shut, I am certain."

"Thanks, Susan. You are turning into quite a mature young lady, yourself. Am I wrong, or are you filling out a bit?"

"Yeah! I am finally starting to develop a bigger bust, and the rest of me is beginning to show more curves, instead of the stick figure I used to be. Maybe I'll get a boyfriend now. That's why I needed some girl advice on dealing with men."'

"Glad to help, Susan, but remember that a long-term partnership, such as a marriage, is more than just sex. It depends on being able to live comfortably together, accepting your partner's faults, and him accepting yours. Peggy, for example, had a lot of hang-ups, but with our understanding she managed to get over them, to the point where now she will make a fine wife for someone."

Susan cocked her head as she regarded Dinah carefully, "But not for Trevor, then?"

Dinah pondered the question, looking at it seriously. "I don't honestly know, Susan. Peggy shows all the indications of wanting to be a wife to Trevor, but that may be the "rebound" effect, so I am not certain. If she just wants sex, I am okay with that, and probably the others are also, for she learned well before her abortion, and accepted it was a temporary arrangement. I wouldn't want her to start again, with the intention of marrying Trevor, and then be turned down for marriage. All spouses have to agree before a new spouse can be accepted into the marriage, you see."

"I get you. Peggy would have to persuade all four of you that she would be an asset to the family."

"That's it. When you have just had a baby, your hormones are not back in balance, and your reactions may be abnormal, so one or other of us might be averse to Peggy at this time."

They were interrupted by Tracy looking in to the room. "Hush, you two! Peggy is just coming."

Dinah immediately switched to, "So you should concentrate on your studies, Susan, while your body matures, then you can worry about boys. An educated girl can cope with all sorts of life factors, and it allows you to decide whether a boy, or man, is worth spending a life with. Oh, Hi, Peggy!"

It was a week or so later that Trevor got a call from the school secretary. "Mr Defreitas, the headmaster would like you to call in and speak to him, I presume about the progress with your girls. He didn't tell me. Can you call in the day after tomorrow, at 11.30 please?"

"I expect I can take some time off my work for an important matter such as education. How long is the appointment for?"

"Half an hour is allocated, but it may not take very long. It possibly depends on you, sir."

"Very well. I shall be there. Oh, what is his name, please? I can't just call him Headmaster!"

"Oh, yes. Robert Davies. He has been here for a few years, so he will know your family, sir."

Trevor turned up at the appointed time, and was show in. The Headmaster welcomed him with an outstretched hand. "Mr Defreitas! Teacher turned businessman, I understand."

"Correct, for one point, sir. I gather you are Robert Davies. Welsh?"

"Welsh origin. The family have travelled a lot over the centuries. Now, sir, What did you do with Peggy, eh?"

Taken aback, Trevor became cautious. "What do mean, Mr Davies?"

"I mean, young man, how did you manage to turn a shy, antisocial, non-achiever into a confident, happy and studious girl? Her class marks have shot up in recent weeks, and I do not put that down to the individual teachers, much though they might like to make that assumption.

You and I know that sudden jumps in improvement are often due to factors outwith the school. So, what did you do to this girl, to turn her round?"

"Mr Davies, I hate to appear simplistic, but it boils down to love. Have you met her parents?"

"I presume I did, when they arrived, but I got no more than an impression of reticence. That is all I recall. I have not met them since. I presume that you have."

"Indeed. At least, the father. He was a grumpy, self-centred oaf, convinced that he knew everything he needed to know. His attitude to school follows on from that. He regards schooling as a necessary evil. Society insists that he send his children to school, but that does not mean he has to like it. Peggy was in the position that her father and mother – I gather she is in accord with him – expected little from school, and did nothing to encourage studying. Peggy merely did what they expected of her. To do more was to invite verbal abuse. I am told by Peggy that they viewed her as a social stepping-stone. They expected to marry her to someone higher up the social ladder, and so raise their own social standing, in their estimation.

It blew up in their faces when Peggy revealed she was pregnant, and could not say who the father was. Quite simply, they threw her out as she was no longer "fit for purpose".

"Good God! I heard that there had been a change, to you becoming her guardian, but not the background to it."

"Well, the Governor decided that she should become a ward of the Colony. He got the parents to cede parental responsibility to the Colony, in the shape of him, and he then asked us, as a family, to look after her until she was declared an adult and able to decide for herself what she should do with her life.

All we did, Headmaster, is offer her love, reassurance, and encouragement. We also enabled her to have an abortion, as she intimated that the only reason she had not sought one before was that she might be taken back by her parents – which she wanted to avoid like the plague. As a former teacher, you know that I have insisted that Tracy and Dinah continue their schooling through their pregnancies, and Peggy was simply added to that teenage group. We expected her to study and improve, and so she is fulfilling that expectation. If you measure her IQ, again, I think you will find she has a much higher IQ than you originally thought. She probably took the original IQ test with the intention of scoring low, because scoring high would not have pleased her parents. She no longer has that fear."

"Thank you, Trevor – if I may use your first name – Can you then tell me why her new best friend, Susan Lubbock, is also showing signs of improvement. She did not have the same parental background, you must agree."

"True. Susan, according to my wives – who know all – was a skinny girl with low self-esteem because of her lack of curves, and was socially shy for that reason. She tried to demean Peggy at one point - the pecking order syndrome – but Peggy reacted unexpectedly strongly and Susan got a shock. They ended up being friends as a pair of social misfits, so when Peggy started devoting herself to study (and she has taken a particular interest in maths), Susan decided she should do the same. Susan has visited us to meet the family, and Dinah has been encouraging Susan to study. It is marvellous what a good example does to others."

"Dinah was encouraging her to study? This is the Dinah who was desperate to leave school less than a year ago? She was wanting to leave the minute she arrived, as I recall."

"Yes, the same one. I am quite proud of her and Tracy. Tracy intends to be the family cook, but Mary Kempe told her she had to be best at what she was doing, so Mary has been training her in all aspects of the culinary arts. You know that Mary Kempe is the finest chef on Rehome, I hope?"

"Oh, yes, I was aware of our celebrity chef, who married the Governor. There was talk of the Governor having stolen her to make her his personal chef. I would like to know how he did it, if true. How did you get to know Mary Kempe?"

"Oh, that was through Dinah and Tracy's parents, who eventually settled here. Curiously, a teenage girl who had been a babysitter at the Governor's mansion, Judith something, - oh, O'Hara. - suddenly became enamoured of the Montfords – the girls' parents – and ended up marrying them. Mary says that she is teaching Judith to be a good cook as well. There is talk of getting Mary Kempe to start a cookery school at the college. I hope it comes about."

"Well, thank you for coming in, Trevor. It was good of you to take the time to solve one of my little mysteries."

"You have more mysteries, then?"

"Not really. Surprises, I would call it. We have the situation where out of the blue we have an online education system for those children in rural areas who have trouble reaching the school. I had heard talk of the idea – it is based on the Australian outback educational system - and thought the finance was not there to implement it; but amazingly, it was there in a trice, and we have to supplement the course with the odd teacher to answer questions online."

"Trice! That was the Governor, showing off."

"Pardon?"

"Oh, sorry. A annoyance. One of the times I met the Governor socially he told me that the word "trice" is probably taken from a nautical term for tugging a rope over a pulley. It involved a quick action, so "in a trice" became "a very short period of time." The man does tricks of that nature, springing various non-sequiturs on you. I expect it wrong-foots people with whom he is having serious discussions, so it will be to his benefit. It is certainly off-putting.

I must be off, Mr. Davies. Call me if I can be of help, again."

At the evening meal, Trevor looked round his family seated at the table, and noted how Peggy fitted in so well. She was being attentive to people's needs; fetching things for wives who had their baby with them, helping to bring in the food from the kitchen; and contributing occasionally to the babble of conversation. He smiled contentedly, and waited until the meal was concluded.

"Ladies! If I can have a word with you all, please?" They all looked at him, and the ones that were thinking of leaving the table resumed their places. They looked at Trevor, expectantly.

Having got their attention, he continued.

"I went to the school today, at the request of the headmaster. I thought it would be about your home schooling, Tracy and Dinah, but it was about our latest addition to the family, apart from the babies. He wanted to know what I had done to Peggy!"

Peggy's face went white, and she blurted out, "I didn't say anything about us, Trevor, I swear! At least, only to Susan, and I swore her to secrecy. She would never talk."

"Calm down, Peggy. You have jumped to the wrong conclusion. Today's lesson: wait until you hear the accusation before you jump to the defence, otherwise you will give things away that you shouldn't have revealed.

No, he was pleased at your turnaround in social and academic improvements. He wanted to know what I had done, as an ex-teacher, to achieve this change. He knew it wasn't the school that had done it. I explained that it was very simple: I and my family, in contrast to her own family, had given her a loving environment, and a good example: Tracy and Dinah continuing their studies.

This was perfectly true. Anything else was immaterial to the discussion. Now, Peggy, I want you to keep up with your improvement at school. We are extremely proud of you, my girl, and I want to see you finish school with good exam results.

Having said that, I would like to hear what the rest of the family think about Peggy."

There ensued a silence, which stretched out, and Peggy became apprehensive while the other girls considered what to say about her. Amelia, as eldest wife, decided to start.

"Peggy has been fitting in well on the whole. She had a bad patch just after the abortion, but that event would knock anyone back, so let's ignore it. She has – and I hate to admit this – exceeded my expectations of her. The whines I expected, due to her previous bad treatment, did not arise, except for the occasional whinge about helping out. She has spent a lot of time in her room studying hard, and so overall I am quite pleased with her." She sat back, ready for someone else to contribute.

Dinah wanted to speak next. "I have known Peggy for all the time she has been on Rehome. I was not at all impressed with her before, but after she came to live with us she changed entirely. Trevor puts it down to the love she gets here, but it is a lot more than that – sorry, darling – and I would suggest it is Peggy's underlying resilience to life's problems, that makes the difference. She is putting effort into her school work; she is putting effort into social interactions, she has put effort into learning lovemaking with Trevor's assistance; and the damn girl thinks she ought to be another wife in this family." Peggy looked horrified at what Dinah was revealing about her aims, but Dinah went on, "I agree with her: eventually, I think she might be another wife in this family. I think she should be aged sixteen, though, for her own good."