Victoria Holt - The Secret Woman

“Oh Chantel, why ever did you do this?”

“I was only teasing,” she said.

“I’ve been … horrified.”

“Flattering,” she said complacently.

“But to give me such a fright.”

“Poor Anna. You really are devoted to me, I believe.”

I sat down in her armchair and looked up at her — lovely, laughing and mocking.

“I’m a little worried about you, Anna,” she said. “You care for people so intensely.”

I was recovering myself. “One either cares for people or one doesn’t.”

“There are degrees.”

I knew what she meant. She was saying: Don’t worry about me. I liked Rex but I knew it wouldn’t come to marriage from the start. She was calm, judicial. I wished that I could be as philosophical.

“In fact,” I said, “I was thinking of myself. My emotions were entirely selfish. The idea of being on the Island alone quite frightened me.”

“That Island’s a weird place by all accounts. Never mind. I’ll be there, Anna. ‘Whither thou goest, I shall go. Thy people shall be my people.’ Has it ever occurred to you, Anna, that there are quotations to fit almost any situation?”

“I daresay that’s true. Chantel, you are … not unhappy?”

“Why? Do I look so sad?”

“Sometimes I think you hide a great deal.”

“I was under the impression that I spoke rashly without giving due thought to my utterances. At least that was your opinion of me.”

“I was thinking of Rex.”

“Rex is in Australia. We are on the high seas. Isn’t it time we stopped thinking of him?”

“I can if you can.”

“My dear, dear Anna.” She put her arms round me suddenly and hugged me.

* * *

Now we were out on the wide Pacific. The sun beat down on the ship and the afternoons were too hot for us to do anything but lie stretched out on the decks. Even Edward was languid.

The atmosphere had changed. We had four new passengers who were going out to one of the Pacific ports but we saw little of them; there was not what Chantel called the “house party” feeling.

Even the crew had changed. They talked about Coralle in whispers, almost looking furtively over their shoulders as they did so. The island of mystery, where a captain — their captain — had lost his ship. It was almost as though they expected something fearful to happen there.

I saw more of Chantel than I had at any other time during the voyage. She was sorry for the fright she had given me.

“Sheer egoism,” she commented. “I wanted you to know how necessary I was to your comfort.”

“You didn’t have to point that out,” I told her.

“Worrying about my affairs,” she scolded, “when your own are far more exciting.”

I was silent, and she went on: “Monique has changed. She’s, how shall I say … truculent. Soon she’ll be on her home ground. She’ll have allies.”

“You sound as though we’re going to war.”

“It might be something like that. She hates the Captain often. Then she loves him. Typical of her nature of course. Unreasoning, thinking with her emotions rather than her brain, which is not thinking at all. The setting for high tragedy. Steamy heat. It will be steamy, won’t it? Tropical nights. Stars, hundreds of them. The Southern Cross which always sounds so much more emotional than the Plow, don’t you think? Great waving palms, banana trees and orange groves, and the sugar plantations. Just the right background for … drama.”

“And who will be the actors in your drama?”

“Monique the central character with the Captain in male lead.”

“He won’t be there. He’ll stay for three days and nights and then he will sail away for two months.”

“How tiresome of him. Well there will be Mamma and the old nurse. There’ll be you and myself. I shall just be a small part player.”

“Oh stop it, Chantel. You’re trying to be dramatic.”

“I’m sure it would have been if he had been there. I wish we could think of some way of detaining him. Blowing up his ship in the bay or something.”

I shivered.

“Poor Anna, you take everything too seriously, me included. What would be the good of blowing up the ship? He would have to get back to Sydney, I don’t doubt without delay and await instructions. No, blowing up the ship won’t do.”

“Even supposing you could do it.”

“My dear Anna, haven’t you learned yet that I am capable of anything?”

She was flippant, and her flippancy was as helpful as her sympathy had been at the time of Aunt Charlotte’s death. But I was the one who should have been comforting her. After all she had lost a lover — for I am sure he was that — not because anything really separated them, but because he had not the courage to marry her.

I could not help being delighted that she was still with me, which was selfish of me. How much happier she would have been if she had eloped with Rex and was in Sydney with him now.

I was amazed and full of admiration for her ability to hide her unhappiness — for unhappy she must be.

She gave no sign of this. She flirted with Ivor Gregory; she kept up her assiduous care of Monique; and during the long drowsy afternoons she and I were often on deck together.

And in due course we came to the Island.

It was a deeply emotional moment when I stepped ashore on the island of Coralle. I shall never forget the impression of noise, color, and heat. There had been a heavy downpour of rain which lasted only a few minutes before the sun came out and set the steam rising from the earth. The heat seemed terrific and in my cream-colored blouse and navy blue skirt I felt suffocated.

I was aware of the scent of flowers; they were everywhere. Trees and bushes were covered with scarlet, mauve and white blossoms. There were a few houses near the water — huts rather, and they appeared to be made of mud and wattle and were on props so that they were a foot or so from the ground. Several of the inhabitants had come to see the ship. There were girls in long flower-patterned cotton dresses slit up to the knee on one side to show bare brown legs, who wore red, white or mauve flowers in their hair and necklaces of the garlands. There were men in light-colored trousers, torn and tattered mostly, and shirts as colorful as the women’s dresses; some of the children wore almost nothing at all. They watched with big brown wondering eyes.

There was music coming from some of the houses, strange haunting music played on tinkling instruments.

The sand was golden and the moist green palms were very different from those dusty ones which we had seen in the East.

And as I stood there in that torrid heat I remembered that in a few days’ time Serene Lady would sail away and I should be left here … a prisoner until it returned. Here was a life of which I knew almost nothing. What was waiting for me I could not conjecture; but I fancied as I had when I first entered the Queen’s House some premonition was warning me. Beware!

I looked at Chantel standing beside me on that golden shore and was thankful for her presence as I had been many times before, and for a few brief moments I allowed myself to imagine how I should have felt if she had deserted me at Sydney and I were now standing here without her. The thought of that raised my spirits. At least we should be together.

Monique had come ashore with us. She might have been expected to come with her husband but the Captain was not yet ready to leave the ship and naturally Monique was eager to see her mother. I was surprised that she had not come to meet the ship. There was no one but an old coachman who stood there in tattered trousers, open grimy shirt, grinning and saying: “So you come home, Missy Monique.”

“Jacques!” she cried. “I’m here. And this is my little Edward — grown since you last saw him but still my baby.”

Edward scowled and was about to protest at being called a baby but I gripped his shoulder and I suppose he too was feeling bewildered, for he was silent.

Jacques was studying us curiously and Monique said: “It’s the nurse and Edward’s governess.”

Jacques said nothing; and at that moment a young girl came up and threw garlands of flowers about our necks. Nothing could have looked more incongruous than those red highly scented flowers on my plain tailored blouse and skirt. But Chantel looked charming in a mauve garland. She grimaced at me, and 1 wondered if she were feeling as apprehensive as I was.

“We shall have to get ourselves suitably attired,” she whispered.

We climbed into the open carriage. There was just room for the four of us. I noticed that the woodwork of the carriage was scratched, the upholstery dusty and the two horses which drew it were thin and ungroomed.

“Soon home, Missy Monique,” said Jacques.

“It can’t be too soon for me,” said Chantel, “and I’m sure I speak for Missy Monique. This heat is going to take a bit of getting used to.”

Jacques whipped up the horses and we rattled along; children stood back to gaze at us with wide solemn eyes as we turned away from the sea and took an unmade road on either side of which glistening green foliage grew in abundance. Enormous blue butterflies flitted about us and a gorgeously colored dragonfly settled on the side of the carriage for a second or two.

Edward directed our attention to it with delight.

“You will have to be careful,” said Monique with a certain gleeful malevolence. “Mosquitoes and other deadly insects will be thirsting for your fresh English blood.”

“‘Fee, fi, fo, fum,’” cried Edward.

“‘I smell the blood of an Englishman.’”

“That’s right,” said Monique. “You see it’s thick for a cold climate and therefore more tasty.”

Edward studied his hand intently and Chantel said: “I shall be here to take care of all bites and stings. Remember I’m the nurse.”

We had turned again and were now riding parallel with the sea. Before us was a sight of great beauty — the Island in its natural state, unlike the waterfront, which was spoiled by the little mud and wattle huts, and all that went with a not very affluent human habitation. Now we could see the curve of the bay, the coral reef, the luscious palms which grew close to the water; the pellucid sea clear blue, with here and there what looked like pools of peridot green.

“It’s safe for bathing where the water’s green,” said Monique. “The sharks never go into green water, so they say. It’s true is it not, Jacques?”

“That’s true, Missy Monique,” said Jacques.

“Sharks,” cried Edward. “They bite off your legs and eat them. Why do they like legs?”

“I am sure they find arms equally delectable,” said Chantel.

Edward was staring in fascination at the blue water. But I noticed that he moved closer to me. Did he feel this repulsion which was gradually creeping over me? I felt touched that it was to me he should instinctively move for comfort.

Monique had leaned forward, her eyes glistening. “Oh, you are going to find it very exciting here.”

There was a note of hysteria in her voice. Chantel had noticed it. She took her arm and held her gently back in her seat — the efficient nurse, mindful of her duties even when trundling over an unmade road into what even she must believe might well be a very trying situation.

We turned up a path and went through a pair of wrought iron gates into a wilderness of growth through which there was a path so narrow that the branches scraped against the sides of the carriage as we rode. We rounded a bend and there was the house. It was long, of three stories, and made of some kind of stucco, but little of this was visible because the walls were covered with climbing plants. There was a porch and an open balcony on the lower floor, and balconies at several of the upper windows and where the stucco was visible it was dilapidated and breaking away.

There was a stretch of grass before it which might have been called a lawn if it had not been so overgrown. On it were two large trees which must have darkened the house considerably. But my attention was caught by the woman who was standing on the porch. She was fat as I imagined the natives of the island would be as they grew older. She was tall too and wearing the flower-patterned robe which seemed to be the island costume; her heavy black hair — turning gray — was skewered up on the top of her head by pins with enormous heads; around her neck were rows of beads made of cowrie shells; and her dangling earrings were made from these too.