Victoria Holt - Road to Paradise Island

She came to my bed and I murmured: "It... was a nightmare."

"So you have them, too."

"We all do at times, I suppose."

She laughed suddenly. "This is in reverse," she said. "Me... coming to comfort you."

I felt a tremendous relief sweeping over me. Felicity was more like her old self than I had seen her for a long time.

I took her back to her room and sat by her bed. We talked awhile and finally she slept.

I went back to my bed.

I was fully awake now. Fantasy receded. There was a logical explanation to everything.

Milton had rowed me to the small island where Magda had her plantation. Felicity had at first said she would come, which showed how much better she was; but at the last moment she had felt unable to face strangers. I did not attempt to persuade her because I felt she must be left until she was ready. She seemed to be progressing to some extent and I did not want to reverse that.

So here I was alone with Milton watching him as he pulled the oars with such ease that he made it seem effortless.

There was no wind. It had dropped that evening—but there was a faint mist in the air and the silence was broken only by the swish of the oars in the water.

I was intrigued at the prospect of seeing Magda Manuel in her own home. I have to confess that I felt a few twinges of jealousy. She had seemed to me so poised, so beautiful when she had called at the hotel.

I asked Milton as we rowed across: "She is a great friend of yours, isn't she?"

And he replied enigmatically: "A very great friend."

The distance between the islands was not great and in a short time we were there. Milton shipped the oars, leaped out and helped me to alight.

I was wearing a loose pale lavender-coloured dress which I had bought in Sydney for Felicity's wedding. It was cool and suited to the climate. About my neck was a necklace which Granny M had given me on my seventeenth birthday; it consisted of amethysts set in gold which matched my dress perfectly. I had taken great pains with my appearance.

The house was set back from the beach and, like Milton's, was surrounded by sugar canes. It was a white building, smaller than Milton's but otherwise not unlike it.

There were three steps to the porch and she was at the top of these waiting to greet us. She looked elegant in the extreme and was wearing white again. I wondered if it was a sort of mourning for her husband who was recently dead. I knew there were some people who wore white rather than the black we wore at home.

This white dress was low-cut; it accentuated her small waist and perfect figure. A thick gold necklace was tight about her neck-choker fashion—and she wore thick gold bangles. Creole earrings completed the picture.

Beside her stood a man, tall and if not conventionally good-looking, very pleasant.

Her welcome was warm.

"How glad I am to see you at last," she said. "I meant to ask you before, but I have been to Sydney on business. We have to make these trips now and then. By the way this is George ... Mr. Callerby."

He said: "How do you do?" and bowed.

"I was afraid there was going to be a mist which would prevent your coming," said Magda.

"There is a faint one in the air," replied Milton, "but it would have to be very thick to deter us."

She laughed and took us into a room—very elegantly furnished as I felt everything about her would be. It had french windows opening onto a grassy lawn which went straight down to the sea, which at this time of the evening was touched with the red of sunset. The sun was now like a great red ball lying on the horizon. Soon it would drop from sight and darkness would be upon us.

She served us with the usual drink with which I was now familiar, and she asked about my impressions of the islands.

I told her how they fascinated me.

"What do you find most interesting?" asked George Callerby.

"The people," I replied. "Undoubtedly the people. They seem happy ... and contented."

"They are not always so," she said. "Isn't that true, Milton?"

"We have our troubles ... now and then."

"It's the sun. There it is up there shining down fiercely most of the time. Who wants to work when the sun is shining?"

"But they always seem to be laughing," I pointed out.

"Laughter does not always mean amusement," Magda explained.

"That's true," agreed Milton. "You'd never get to know these people even if you spent a lifetime here."

"You manage them very well, Milton," said George Callerby.

"I've found the recipe. They have to be a little unsure of you, a little afraid of you ... and at the same time you have to be on friendly terms. It's the right mixture of the two. It takes some acquiring. I learned it from my father."

"And Miss Mallory is such a newcomer to the islands," said Magda.

"How long do you intend to stay, Miss Mallory?" asked George Callerby.

I hesitated. I was aware of Milton who was watching me rather ironically. I said: "My travelling companion has been ill. I want to wait until she is better before she undergoes the ordeal of a long journey."

"Yes, I heard how ill she was. Our servants discover everything for us. They go over to Cariba for the markets and there they glean all that is happening and bring the news back to us. So we heard about her and of course her involvement in that terrible case."

I could imagine that everything about us was known and that Magda was watching me intently—and Milton, too. I wondered what she was thinking behind those long languishing eyes.

"Shall we go in to dinner," she asked. "There has been great excitement in the kitchen. They have been discussing the meal all day long. I leave it to them, of course. Interference would be fatal. They would giggle if I suggested anything and if I insisted it would be spoilt... just to teach me a lesson. So I leave well alone."

We went into another room. It was dark now and big oil lamps had been lighted. A net was drawn across the windows and one of the servants drew the curtains. This shut out the beautiful view but I had been here long enough to know that it was better to forget the scenery rather than endure the intrusion of certain insects.

Turtle soup was served. It was delicious. Fish followed. I was getting used to the many types of fish on the islands which were quite different from anything we had at home. This was followed by alligator steaks which were palatable and no doubt owed much to the spices with which they were garnished.

But I was far more interested in the company than the food.

Seated at the head of the table was Magda, looking mysterious in the lamplight. Every time I looked up I caught her eyes on me speculatively. I imagined she was wondering about my relationship with Milton as I was about hers. There was no doubt in my mind that she entertained rather special feelings for him and she was very curious about me.

They asked a great many questions about England. George Callerby had come out about eight years before and had been working on a station near Sydney. He had apparently met Milton there and it was Milton who had suggested that he come and manage the plantation.

"George came at the right time for us," said Magda. "We were so grateful to Milton for bringing us George."

She smiled her seductive smile first at Milton and then at George. "It was wonderful for us," she added.

"For me, too," said George.

"My husband you see had had this accident."

Milton put in: "You were talking a short while ago about the contented workers. Well, these were not so contented. Do you mind if I tell Annalice, Magda?"

"No, please tell Miss Mallory ... if she is interested."

"I am enormously interested."

"And may I suggest," said Milton, "that before we go any further we dispense with formality. Let it be Annalice and Magda... and George. We are all friends together. Miss This and Mr. That ... it is quite unnecessary in the circumstances."

Magda looked at me. "Do you agree?"

"Why yes, of course."

"All right, then. Tell Annalice, Milton."

He turned to me. "One of the workers put a stone in the grinding mill. Jose did not understand what was wrong. He tried to put it right. The thing exploded and he was badly crippled."

"How terrible."

"I don't know how I should have lived through that time but for Milton," said Magda.

"I did what any neighbour would. I came over, sorted out the trouble with the men and put the fear of God into them."

"And made them feel," continued Magda, "that in acting against us they were acting against themselves."

"They believed that with any more trouble I would close down the plantations," said Milton. "They didn't want that. They have the sense to see that their prosperity comes with sugar and they need to keep the plantations going if they are to enjoy their present standard of living."

"Yes, Milton saved the plantation for us. Something for which I shall always be grateful."

She was looking at him with such tenderness that I felt: She loves him. He is her sort. There is something wild about her. They fit together. She would have the same outlook, the same ideas, the same morals which would be less rigid than those with which I had been brought up. I believed that like him she would stop at nothing to get what she wanted.

"And then," she was saying, "he found us George."

Now her smile was turned on him.

"It was the luckiest day of my life when I was found," said George.

"George is a natural for this sort of work," said Milton. "I knew it as soon as I set eyes on him."

He was looking at them benignly and I felt there was some deep emotion in this room. I thought: She has asked me here to have a good look at me. She is angry because she will have heard of his attentions to me. She is very beautiful, the kind of woman to whom he would be drawn.

But he was drawn to me and I was not in the least like her. I saw myself as quite different. She was softly spoken, experienced with men; she knew how to attract them with that subtle flattery which was irresistible to them and which I would disdain even if I could master it. I was prickly, terribly uncertain, quite inexperienced.

They were talking about hobbies.

"George, you know, is an astronomer."

George laughed deprecatingly. "A very amateur one."

"He came out to Australia because he was tired of the night sky on the other side of the world," said Milton.

"That," replied George, smiling at me, "is not exactly true."

"I've always liked to hear about the stars," I said. "It is so fantastic to think of them all those light-years away. I've always found that particularly fascinating. To think that when you look at a star you may be looking at something which is no longer there because it is so far away that its light is only just reaching you."

"It's all very scientific," said Magda. "And it is not only the stars, is it, George? It's the Earth and its age and everything. What was it you were saying about climates and the ice melting and all that?"

"Are you really interested?" asked George.

"I am ... very," I told him.

"I was just saying what a difference climatic conditions make to the Earth. While everything is neatly balanced life remains predictable. But you only need a sudden change ... a slight change ... and there could be chaos. An ice age would freeze us all up ... or suppose it became warmer. The ice at the poles would gradually melt. Imagine the influx of water all over the Earth. Continents could be submerged."

"Let us hope that doesn't happen," said Magda. "We complain of the heat but an ice age would be terrible. And the idea of being submerged by flood I suppose even worse."

"I believe within the last hundred years there has been change," said George. "I was reading that there was a period of excessive warmth which melted some of the polar ice and the seas did rise a

little because of it. It wasn't all that noticeable as far from the poles as we are ... but it did happen according to geologists."

"I hope there is a warning if it happens again," said Milton.

"It would probably happen gradually."

We had finished the creamed pudding and Magda suggested that we go back to the drawing room.