The Daughters of Eden Trilogy: The Shadow Catcher, Fever Hill & the Serpent's Tooth (110 page)

‘I think you’re lovely,’ said Belle with feeling.

Dodo blinked. ‘Gosh. Thanks.’

Belle meant it. She envied Dodo her mouse-brown hair and colourless eyebrows, and her long, narrow face. Dodo was so English and well-bred. Compared to her, Belle felt dark and coarse.

She glanced at the album in Dodo’s lap. It was open at a photograph which her mother had taken. It showed Belle’s aunt and uncle sitting side by side, smiling slightly as if at some shared joke. Ben’s colouring was dark, because his family came from Ireland, but Aunt Sophie had light brown hair and mischievous hazel eyes, and a wilful mouth. She looked nothing like Belle’s mother, her older sister.

Belle had never really noticed that before, but now it struck her forcibly. Aunt Sophie was fair and English-looking, and so was Papa, and so were the twins. Only she and Mamma were dark.

Outsiders, she thought with a flash of resentment.

She watched Dodo turning the pages. Dodo with her boarding-school expressions and her odd combination of humility and assurance. Dodo who always knew without even thinking precisely what was ‘done’ and what wasn’t ‘quite-quite’.

Mr Traherne would never have touched Dodo like that.

Belle glanced down at the album. With an unpleasant jolt she saw that her uncle had his hand on Aunt Sophie’s shoulder, just as Mr Traherne had had on hers.

Her heart began to pound. She flicked forward to her favourite picture of her parents, standing on the steps with Scout at their feet. Papa had his arm about Mamma and his hand on her shoulder. Why hadn’t she noticed that before?

Suddenly she was back in the airless green tunnel of the giant bamboo, and Mr Traherne’s hand was heavy on her shoulder. It slid down. It pressed hard against her breast—

No, she told herself. Papa isn’t like that. Neither is Ben.

‘Who’s this?’ asked Dodo, making her jump.

Dodo had turned back a few pages and was staring at an old albumen print of a group of young people at a party. The print was foxed and mildewed, but one could just make out a young man in a white suit, gazing down at a dark-haired girl. She was staring straight at the camera, and her face was very handsome in a strong, unsmiling way.

‘Who is she?’ said Dodo. ‘The caption just says “Boxing Day Masquerade, Fever Hill, 1866”.’

Belle frowned. ‘That’s my grandmother. Mamma’s mother.’ She swallowed. ‘Her name was Rose Durrant.’

‘She’s absolutely lovely. Do you know, I think you take after her a bit.’

‘No I don’t,’ Belle said quickly.

‘But you do. The same eyebrows, very marked, and sort of arched. And that Spanish-looking colouring, the dark eyes and hair. Oh, and I’ve just noticed, they’re in fancy dress! That’s why she’s wearing a mantilla.’ She grinned. ‘Now we know where you get your talent for dressing up.’

Belle licked her lips. She didn’t want to take after her grandmother. It seemed like the worst kind of omen.

‘What was she like?’ asked Dodo.

Belle shook her head. ‘She died ages ago. Long before I was born.’

Dodo waited for her to go on, and looked disappointed when she didn’t.

Belle said, ‘There usedn’t to be any photographs of her at all, except for a small one of Aunt Sophie’s that Mrs Herapath gave her. Then last year after Great-Aunt Clemmie died, Mamma found this one.’

Dodo nodded encouragingly.

‘We don’t really talk about her,’ floundered Belle. ‘I think she was – well, a bit wicked.’

Dodo’s eyes grew round. ‘Wicked? How?’

Belle began to feel hot. ‘I don’t exactly know. I think she ran away with someone. When they were both married to other people.’

‘
Gosh
. An adulteress! How absolutely ripping!’

Belle took the album and closed it and put her hands on top. She didn’t think it was ripping at all.

The trouble with the Durrants
, she’d once heard someone say,
is that they always went too far
.

At the time, Belle had thought that rather dashing. After all, it was a Durrant who’d built Eden, carving it out of the virgin forest at the very edge of the Cockpit country. Now she just found it unnerving.

You seem to enjoy breaking rules
, Mr Traherne had said.

Did she? Was that why he’d touched her? Because he could tell that she was an outsider – that there was something wrong with her?

Dodo was watching her anxiously. ‘I say, I didn’t mean to be nosy. It’s just that I admire you so much. You’re so different from anyone I’ve ever met.’

‘But I’m not,’ cried Belle. ‘I’m not different at all!’

Dodo blinked. Belle could see her casting about for something to say that would make things better.

Dodo reached over and touched her arm. ‘Do change your mind and come to Salt River.’

‘No. No, I can’t.’

Dodo bit her lip. ‘You’re not different at all, you know. And you can’t possibly want to stay here on your own, when you could be having a ripping time with us at the seaside.’

Belle hesitated.

Dodo pounced. ‘Oh, do come,
do
! It’ll be
such
fun! And I bet you
anything
that the beastly Trahernes won’t even turn up!’

Chapter Three

‘I had no idea,’ said Mr Traherne as they walked along the beach, ‘that you went in for photography.’

‘Oh, Belle’s frightfully good,’ said Dodo.

‘No I’m not,’ said Belle.

‘Such modesty,’ said Mr Traherne.

Belle did not reply.

Everything is
fine
, she told herself, clutching her box Brownie like a shield. Dodo is here, and you’ve got a nice safe job to do, and we’re out in plain sight, taking a walk by the sea. Everything is fine.

The Palairets had a houseful of relatives over from Scotland, and the beach below the big, ugly house on the Montego Bay road was reassuringly noisy. Children in bathing costumes threw themselves off the diving platform. Grown-ups drank tea at little tables under the wild almond trees. Belle could see Mr Traherne’s wife in her Bath chair, chatting to her widowed daughter, Mrs Clyne. Surely her presence made everything all right?

‘I’m off for another dip,’ said Dodo. She was pink with excitement, and Belle guessed that she’d only run over to them because she felt guilty about the unexpected arrival of the Trahernes.

‘Don’t go,’ said Belle.

Dodo flashed her a grin. ‘I’ll be back soon! I just wish you could come in too. You’re such a
muff
for forgetting your costume!’

Belle gave her a tight smile. ‘Forgetting’ her bathing costume had turned out to be the most awful mistake. She hadn’t wanted to be seen in it after what had happened with Mr Traherne; so instead she’d ‘forgotten’ it at home, and simply taken off her shoes and stockings for a paddle.

To begin with she’d felt quite grown up, helping to watch the little ones in the shallows. Then in disbelief she’d seen the Trahernes’ huge, sleek, mustard-coloured motor car pulling up beneath the willow trees.

Shortly afterwards, old Mrs Palairet had asked if she would mind taking a few snaps for ‘everyone’s’ albums, and Belle had been flattered, until Mr Traherne had offered to hold her sun-umbrella.

‘Go on, dear,’ Mrs Palairet had said. ‘What do you say?’

Belle had had no choice but to murmur an obedient ‘thank you’.

Now, with a sinking feeling, she watched Dodo racing off for the diving platform like a lanky red setter puppy.

Mr Traherne turned and started slowly up the beach. As he was holding the sun-umbrella and taking the shade with him, Belle followed.

He remarked on the weather in an easy, conversational tone, and she agreed that it was uncommonly hot for the time of year. He didn’t say anything more. In his other hand he held an ivory-headed cane, and he seemed content to walk along and tap little pockmarks in the sand.

Belle began fractionally to relax. After all, he was keeping his distance, and there were lots of people about. Lyndon was not a hundred yards behind them, teaching Dodo’s little sister to play croquet. A clutch of nurses, coachmen and grooms was having a gossip by the carriages. Aunt Sophie had just splashed into the shallows to rescue Mrs Clyne’s howling toddler, who was scared of water.

‘I was sorry that your mamma could not be here,’ said Mr Traherne in his steady old-gentleman voice.

‘I’m afraid,’ said Belle, ‘that Mamma is indisposed.’

Actually, she wasn’t sure about that at all.

‘I think I shall be indisposed,’ Mamma had announced briskly to Papa at luncheon. ‘Sophie’s going to Salt River anyway, so I’ll ask her to take the girls along too.’

Papa had met her eyes and bitten back a smile. ‘You poor darling,’ he’d said, sounding amused. ‘Shall I come back early, and read to you?’

Mamma had folded her napkin carefully on her lap. ‘Yes, why don’t you do that?’

The glance that passed between them was laced with humour and excitement and something else, just beneath the surface, that Belle didn’t recognize. It made her feel left out.

‘Have you done many portrait photographs?’ said Mr Traherne, making her jump.

‘No,’ she said bluntly.

He raised his eyebrows in displeasure, and they walked on in silence. Belle felt herself reddening. She’d offended him. How rude of her simply to say ‘no’.

About forty feet ahead of them, a young couple was standing beneath a wild almond tree. They made a nice composition, and Belle, remembering her obligation to old Mrs Palairet, stopped self-consciously and prepared to take their picture.

To her intense relief, Mr Traherne didn’t watch as she positioned her camera. He simply held the parasol above her head and gazed out to sea.

Belle tried to concentrate on what she was doing.

The young woman was Celia Palairet – small, dark, and delicately beautiful – whom she and Dodo had admired from afar. The young man was her husband – Alasdair? Adam? Dodo had a crush on him too; but then, Dodo had a crush on everyone.

Right now, the young man had his back to them, and was spoiling the composition. To Belle’s surprise she saw that he was angry. She could tell from the tautness in his shoulders, and the way he held his head.

Then he turned round, and the composition improved. Belle forgot Mr Traherne and became absorbed in her task. It was still early enough in the afternoon for strong light and shade, and their figures would be dramatically sidelit. ‘Try to bring out the emotion in whatever you shoot,’ her mother always said. As Belle took the picture, she thought that maybe this time she’d succeeded. She’d caught the tension between them. Then it occurred to her that they might not thank her for that.

Surreptitiously she glanced at Mr Traherne, who was still gazing out to sea. Perhaps, she thought, we can turn and go back now; back towards the others.

To her dismay, Mr Traherne saw that she had finished, and resumed his walk, slowly up the beach: away from the others, and towards the young couple.

Reluctantly, Belle followed. After all, there were people ahead, so it wasn’t as if they would be alone.

‘Careful,’ said Mr Traherne. ‘We’re under a manchineel tree. Don’t tread on the fruit.’

Belle said thank you, and threaded her way between the small, innocuous-looking green fruits.

Mr Traherne remarked how extraordinary it was that so many of Jamaica’s most beautiful plants were so very poisonous.

Belle nodded politely.

‘Oleanders,’ he went on. ‘Frangipani. Even the humble ackee. At least, when the fruit are young.’

She could tell from his voice that he was still annoyed with her for being rude. To smooth things over, she told him about the photographs she’d taken of Dodo the day before.

‘Ah, Dodo.’ Mr Traherne gave an indulgent chuckle. ‘You made a good choice there. That’s a very particular type.’

She nodded, although she didn’t quite understand. The way he said ‘you’ to her was incredibly personal. It was scary, but also a little bit thrilling. It made her feel important and grown up.

Up ahead, Celia Palairet left the shade of the almond tree, opened her parasol with a snap, and started towards them. Her husband remained where he was, with his hands in his pockets, staring stonily out to sea.

Celia Palairet wore an elegant white silk tunic-jacket and a narrow hobble skirt, and she moved well, taking tiny steps over the silver sand.

Belle’s spirits rose. Now she wouldn’t be alone with Mr Traherne any more . . .

Celia Palairet walked past them with the briefest of nods, and continued down the beach to rejoin the others.

‘Lovers’ tiff,’ remarked Mr Traherne when she was out of earshot. ‘But to return to what we were saying. Dodo Cornwallis. An amusing little face. But just a trifle – conventional, don’t you think?’

‘Um,’ said Belle. ‘I don’t know.’

‘But surely you’d agree that she doesn’t wear clothes very well? The slightest suggestion of a scarecrow?’

They turned and saw Dodo in the distance – tall and coltish in her baggy grey worsted bathing costume – waving at them furiously before launching herself off the diving platform.

‘Now you, on the other hand,’ said Mr Traherne, starting once more up the beach, ‘you wear clothes very well indeed. Because you only just tolerate them.’

Belle, struggling to keep up with him, shot him an uncertain glance.

‘For instance, that frock of yours is no more than tolerable, and I notice that your mamma has put in tucks at the bodice and hem to allow for growth, which rather spoils the effect. But on you it looks quite special.’

Belle flushed. The frock was a sponge-cloth tennis dress which she liked for its comfort. She’d never thought of it as having an ‘effect’; let alone being ‘special’.

‘And I see that you’ve taken off your gloves.’

‘To take the pictures,’ said Belle quickly.

‘Really? I rather thought it was because you hated wearing gloves.’

He was right. She did hate wearing gloves. Since she was ten she’d been having a running battle with Mamma over that, and also over sun hats and shoes. ‘A lady is known by her gloves and her shoes,’ Mamma would say.

‘Then I don’t want to be a lady!’ Belle would retort.