Victoria Holt - The Secret Woman

“We shall have to wait and find out.”

She looked at me sharply. “Something happened today.”

“What?” I asked.

“I mean to you. You went out with Dick Callum didn’t you?”

“Yes and Mrs. Malloy and the First Officer.”

“Well?”

I hesitated. “He asked me to marry him.”

She stared at me. And then she said quickly: “And what did you say? ‘Sir, this is too sudden’?”

“Something like that.”

She seemed to breathe more freely.

“I gather you don’t like him much,” I said.

“Oh, I’m indifferent. But, Anna, I don’t think he’s good enough.”

“Really. Not good enough for me!”

“Underrating yourself as usual. So you refused him, which refusal he took like a gentleman and asked leave to renew the invitation at a later date.”

“How did you know?”

“Regulation pattern. Mr. Callum would conform to it. I’m sure. He’s not for you, Anna.”

I felt a great desire to defend him.

“Why not?”

“Good heavens you’re not coyly considering, are you?”

“I’m not likely to get another invitation and many people believe it’s better to be married to someone one does not love than never to be married at all.”

“You give in too easily. I prophesy that one day you will marry the man of your choice.”

She narrowed her eyes and looked wise; and I knew what she was thinking.

I said: “Well, I refused him and we’re still good friends. He gave me this.”

I unwrapped the shawl and showed her.

She took it from me and put it round her shoulders. It suited her to perfection; but then everything suited her.

“So not being able to accept his proposal you accepted his shawl.”

“It seemed churlish not to.”

“He’ll renew his proposal,” she said. “But you’ll not accept him, Anna. It’s never wise to accept second best.” She had seen the fan and her eyes widened with horror. “A fan … a peacock feather fan! Where did you get it?”

“I bought it near Malabar Hill.”

“It’s unlucky,” she said. “Didn’t you know? Peacock’s feathers are cursed.”

“Chantel, what a lot of nonsense.”

“Nevertheless,” she said, “I don’t like it. It’s tempting fate.”

She picked up the fan and ran out with it. I ran after her. I caught her up at the rail; but she had already dropped the fan overboard.

There were hot days and nights when we crossed the Indian Ocean. We were too lazy to do very much but lie stretched out on our chairs on the port side of the ship. Only the two boys seemed to have any energy. I saw Redvers now and then; after the scene in his cabin he had appeared to avoid me for a few days, and then he ceased to do so. While we crossed this quiet tropical sea he had more lei sure; and as Edward liked to be with him as much as possible, that meant that I often was too.

Edward would say: “Come on, we’re going up to the bridge. The Captain said I might.”

“I’ll take you up,” I told him, “and leave you.”

“I know the way,” scorned Edward, “but the Captain said I could bring you too.”

So we were there among the navigating instruments, and during the lapses when Edward was so absorbed in some instrument that he would cease to ask his shrill questions, we would exchange a word or two.

“I’m sorry about that outburst,” he said to me on our first encounter after the scene. “It must have been most embarrassing for you.”

“For you too,” I replied.

“Not such a novelty for me.” It was the first time I had detected a note of bitterness in his voice.

“I was terrified that it would have some disastrous effect.”

“One of these days …” he said. His eyes, which seemed to have become even more blue since we were at sea, were fixed on the curve of the world where the sea met the duller blue cloudless sky. “Yes, one of these days there will be.”

Then he looked at me; his blue eyes piercing, interrogative. I felt my heart leap up. Was this another proposal, the proposal of a man who had a wife already living? Was he asking me “Wait”?

I shivered. I hated the thought of waiting on Death. When people had said to me “When your aunt dies you will be comfortably off,” it had shocked me. It was horrible to wait for death to remove others from your path. I was reminded of the vultures on Malabar Hill.

I feared that the slightest response from me would have released a flood of words which were better left unsaid, but as Chantel would have pointed out to me, the thoughts existed whether they were spoken or not.

Edward came up and saluted.

“Captain, what’s that thing with the handle?”

The moment had passed. “Better show me, Bo’sun.” He had christened Edward Bo’sun much to Edward’s delight; Edward made Johnny address him as such.

I felt deeply touched to see them together. I would never believe he could kill a man for a fortune. He was innocent. And yet … he had come to the Queen’s House and had not told me he was married. And now was he really suggesting that I should wait?

What a dangerous situation could arise when someone else stood in the way of something which was passionately desired. A common enough situation to have earned a cliché title — the eternal triangle. And to think that I should have been at one point of this.

I had left the sheltered life and come out into the danger zone, I, homely Anna (as Monique called me). I might have been safe in England, adviser to an antique dealer, companion to an old lady, governess to a child. Those were the alternatives.

Edward was absorbed.

“He’ll be a sailor one day,” said Redvers coming back to me.

“That would not surprise me, although children change and often ambitions of their early days lose their appeal as they grow older.”

“What was your ambition as a child?”

“I think it was merely to be like my mother.”

“She must have been a successful parent.”

“As you are with Edward.”

He drew his brows together. “I wouldn’t give myself full marks. I see so little of him.”

“I did not see a great deal of my mother.”

“Perhaps children idealize a parent when they don’t see too much of him … or her.”

“Perhaps. To me my mother was the ideal of grace and beauty, because I never saw her anything but gay. I suppose she was sad sometimes, but not when I was there. She laughed a great deal. My father adored her. She was quite different from him. It brought it back so vividly when we were in Bombay.”

“Did you enjoy your trip ashore?”

I hesitated. Then I said, “I went with Dick Callum, Mrs. Malloy and the First Officer.”

“A pleasant little party.”

“He has sailed with you many times, I gather.”

“Callum? Yes. He’s a good conscientious fellow.”

I wanted to say: “He hates you. I believe he would do you some harm if he could.” But how could I?

“I believe he thinks that I arranged the whole thing on The Secret Woman and that I have the jewels in safe keeping.”

“You know he thinks that?”

“My dear Anna, everyone thought it. It was the obvious conclusion.”

I was startled and delighted by the way in which he said “My dear Anna” because it made me feel as though I really was.

“But you accept that?”

“I can’t blame them for thinking the obvious.”

“But doesn’t it … upset you?”

“It has had its effect on me. It makes me determined to solve the mystery, to say ‘There, you were wrong!’”

“Only that?”

“And to prove I’m an honest man, of course.”

“And you can only do that by discovering the diamonds?”

“I believe them to be at the bottom of the sea. What I want to discover is who destroyed my ship.”

“These people think that you did.”

“That’s why I want to prove I did not.”

“But how?”

“By discovering who did.”

“Have you any hope of doing this?”

“I always hope. Every time I go to Coralle I believe that I am going to find the answer to the riddle.”

“But the ship is lost and the diamonds with her. How can you?”

“Someone somewhere in the world, and very likely on the island, knows the answer. One day I shall find out.”

“And you think the answer is on Coralle?”

“I feel it must be.”

I turned to him suddenly. “I shall try to find it. When Serene Lady has sailed away and left us there I shall do everything that is in my power to prove your innocence.”

He smiled. “So you believe in it?”

“I think,” I said very slowly, “that you could make me believe anything you wished.”

“What a strange statement … as though you believe against your will.”

“No, no. My will would force me to believe, because I want to.”

“Anna …”

“Yes.”

His face was close to mine. I loved him; and I knew that he loved me. Or did I know it? Was this an example of my will forcing my mind to believe?

“I was thinking of you all the time in Bombay. I wished that I could have been with you. And Callum … He’s not a bad sort but …”

I put out a hand and he took it. Then he put into words the thought that had been in his mind. “Anna, don’t do anything rash. Wait.”

“What for?” demanded Edward who had come over to us suddenly. “And why are you holding hands?”

“That reminds me,” I said. “We must go and wash our hands before lunch.”

I had to hurry away, I was afraid of my emotions.

* * *

On the boat deck Gareth Glenning and Rex Crediton were playing chess. Chantel was in the cabin in close attendance on Monique who had been ill during the night. Mrs. Greenall had cornered Mrs. Malloy and I could hear her talking about her grandchildren.

“Naughty of course. But boys will be boys and he’s only six years old. Why I said to him, by the time we get back to England you’ll be quite a little man.”

Mrs. Malloy grunted sleepily.

Edward and Johnny were playing table tennis on the green baize table at the end of the deck with a net round it to save the balls and through which I could keep a comfortable eye on them.

I had a book in my lap but I was not reading. My thoughts were in too much of a turmoil. I kept hearing one word in my ears, “Wait.”

He never spoke of his marriage to me; he never mentioned what he suffered through it. It was from Chantel that I was able to understand what a miserable failure it was. Chantel listened to Monique’s confidences; she lived close to them; she had spent some time in the Captain’s quarters when Monique had been there.

“I wonder he doesn’t murder her,” she said. “Or she him. She works herself up. Once when I was up there she picked up a knife and came at him. It wasn’t serious of course. She could hardly find the energy to breathe let alone drive a knife into that solid manly breast.” Chantel might joke about it, I could not.

“You see,” said Chantel, “he was trapped into marrying her. What he thought was a light love affair turned into something more. He had to marry her. There was some old nurse who threatened to put a curse on him if he didn’t She told me this. You can’t have a captain with a curse.”

I didn’t tell her that I had heard this before.

“Master Edward may or may not have been on the way. Dear, dear, the sins ye do by two and two you pay for one by one. At least you do if you’re found out. As for poor Monique, she continues to adore her Captain. She writes letters to him. I am continually taking them up to his cabin. She won’t trust them with anyone but me. Passionate, passionate Monique. Well, perhaps he might be nice to her. She can’t last for long.”

I said it was a very tragic situation.

“Less so than if she was a strong and healthy woman, though.”

I couldn’t bear it when Chantel talked like that. There were times when I thought we should have been wise to have stayed in England, both of us.

And here I was on the boat deck listening to the plop-plop of balls on a green table and the sudden shrill cries of joy and protest from the boys, glancing at the printed page, reading a paragraph and afterward not knowing what I had read, looking up and watching the porpoises frolicking or the flying fishes rising and swooping over the water.

A warm soft wind was blowing and perhaps this was what brought the voices to me so clearly.