The House on Flamingo Cay (15 page)

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There being certain additional formalities attending the marriage of an American to a British subject, Conrad spent the following morning ‘fixing the details’ while Angela and Mrs. Stuyvesant went out to begin trousseau shopping.

Sara had managed to beg off this expedition, intending to go to the beach. Not that she was in any mood to enjoy herself, but at least she would be able to relax the mask of brightness which she had been obliged to assume since the announcement of the engagement.

She had been in bed and pretending to be asleep when Angela had come up the night before, and had dressed and left the room before her sister was awake. For the time being, it seemed better that they should avoid any private conversation.

At about ten o’clock, after the others had left, she was in the bedroom, rolling her beach towel and swimsuit, when there was a tap at the door.

Thinking it must be the chambermaid, Sara called, “Come in.”

But it was Stephen Rand who said, “Good morning. Going for a swim?”

Sara swung round to the door. “Oh—Stephen! Yes, I was.”

“Come skin-diving instead. I’m going over to Flamingo for the day.”

For the first time in twenty-four hours, the weight of her distress lifted a little. A day on Flamingo with Stephen ... an escape from reality.

“I’d love to,” she said simply.

Her ready acceptance of the plan seemed to surprise him. “Right. I’ll see you at the launch in fifteen minutes. It’s at the same mooring as the other day.”

“Oh, Stephen—I haven’t any flippers or a mask,” she said, as he turned to leave.

“That’s all right. I’ve got some gear that will fit you.”

Five minutes later she went along to Conrad’s room where she knew he was making some telephone calls. She told him she was going to spend the day with Stephen.

“Oh, fine, honey.” Conrad winked at her. “Could be we’ll be having a double wedding, huh?”

Sara flushed and withdrew. She knew he didn’t mean any harm, but there were moments when his waggishness made her shrink.

Halfway down the stairs she stopped short. Had the remark been just a jocularity—or did Conrad know how she felt about Stephen? If he knew—and he had never struck her as being notably perceptive—then they must all know.

The mere thought of it made her flinch. But they couldn’t know—they couldn’t! She hadn’t really known herself until the other afternoon, and since then she had hardly seen Stephen, except in glimpses. There had certainly been no moments when an unguarded glance or tone might have given away her secret.

Half an hour later, when New Providence was just an outline far behind them and all around was a sparkling expanse of glass-green sea that shaded to paler turquoise over treacherous sand bars or hidden coral heads, she gave herself up to the pleasures of the moment.

“How long does it take to get to your island?” she asked Stephen.

“About an hour. Are you sure you don’t want a sweater on?”

Sara shook her head. There was a fresh breeze blowing and from time to time a glittering veil of spindrift was flung back from the bows, a few drops sprinkling her arm. But the sun had the warmth of a perfect July in England and she was not at all cool.

“Some of the cays have such tricky reefs that you can only reach them by dinghy. Fortunately Flamingo has an entrance channel, so we can take the launch right in,” Stephen explained. “It’s round the reefs that you see all the shoals of little fish. The first time you go exploring under water, it’s like entering a whole new world.”

“I thought you had to use an aqua-lung to go very far down,” Sara said, with interest.

“You do for really deep diving,” he agreed. “But it takes quite a lot of practice to get down to thirty feet, and I doubt if you’ll get below ten at your first attempt. Even at that depth you can begin to feel pressure in your ears.”

“What happens if you do go too deep?”

He shrugged. “Sinus trouble, a punctured eardrum, a temporary blackout.” He smiled suddenly. “Don’t worry. I’ll be watching you.”

Something in his tone sent a surge of warmth through her. “Won’t it be dull for you, staying so near the surface?” she asked diffidently.

“The sea’s never dull. You wait till you see it.”

Ten minutes later, he pointed eastwards. “There’s Flamingo coming up now.”

For a moment, before she followed the direction of his arm, Sara was half afraid that the island might disappoint her. After all, it could only be like most of the other cays, and they were really only low scrub-covered coral banks. It was the backcloth of vivid blue sky and the shimmering brilliance of the seascape which lent them an exotic appeal.

And then she looked and, with a little pang of relief, she saw that even from a distance Flamingo was a very special island. It had more vegetation than its neighbors, including a huge silk-cotton tree imported from South Carolina and, as well as the ubiquitous palmettoes, some tall pines. This, she learned later, was because the cay had two springs and unusually deep soil deposits.

As they neared the barrier reef, she was surprised to see a number of small stone-built cottages built round the curving bay and people moving about on the beach.

“But I thought it was uninhabited—except for you,” she exclaimed.

Stephen grinned. “We’ve a population of twenty-five—not including me. They’re all one family, actually.”

Once through the channel between the reefs, he steered the launch towards a small jetty and a half a dozen shouting brown children came tearing down the sand to meet them. And by the time the launch was berthed, it seemed that everyone on the island was waiting on the beach to meet them.

The first to come forward was an upright old man with a grizzled beard and skin the color of teak. He greeted Stephen, then bowed to Sara.

“This is Samuel Johnson, who came to Flamingo with my grandfather and has been part of our family ever since,” Stephen exclaimed. “Sam, this is Miss Sara Gordon.”

Sara met the shrewd eyes and held out her hand. “How do you do, Mr. Johnson,” she said, with a shy smile.

His hand was gnarled but still powerful, the palm calloused. “Youse welcome to dis cay, Missy Sara.” His voice was a husky drawl. Then, to Stephen, “Aurora, she up at de house, Massa Steve. We make everythin’ fit and nice like you give de word.”

He turned about and clapped his hands so that the welcoming party stepped back to make a passage to the beach.

Stephen cupped his palm under Sara’s elbow. “I’ll show you the house and then we’ll have lunch and go diving this afternoon.”

With the patriarchal Samuel leading the way and children dodging at their heels like so many boisterous puppies, they walked up the beach to where a narrow pathway led inland.

Sara’s first impression of Stephen’s home was of a long low bungalow built round three sides of a paved courtyard. In the centre of this sheltered patio, its seamed and twisted trunk encircled by a low white bench, grew a shady old tree, and all around were tubs of flowering shrubs in vivid bloom.

The entrance to the house was on the innermost side of the courtyard, and here, waiting for them, stood Mrs. Aurora Johnson. She was a woman of such enormous girth that she filled the whole doorway, and her massive proportions were accentuated by a dazzling gaudy cotton dress which, although it would have made half a dozen garments for someone of Sara’s slim build, seemed threatening to burst at every seam. Bright blue plastic ear-rings added to the width of her broad brown face and a large and sparkling paste brooch was pinned to the vastness of her bosom.

To some people, Aurora’s gargantuan bulk and her garish choice of adornments might have seemed grotesque or comical. But what Sara found most noticeable was the beaming radiance of her smile and the pride and devotion that showed when she looked up at Stephen.

“Aurora is the best cook in the whole Bahamas,” Stephen told Sara, when he had introduced them. “There’s not a chef in Nassau to touch her. If I could persuade her to take over the hotel kitchens, we’d have bookings ten years in advance.”

Evidently this was an old tease between them, because Aurora gave a high-pitched giggle. “Now you know I don’t care for dem city places, Massa Steve,” she said delightedly. Her voice was unexpectedly soft and light, and at first Sara found it difficult to catch all she said because of the lilting intonation. “If’n you like ma cookin’ so good, you should come back home to Flamingo and not go off rovin’ all de time.” After which good-humored reproof, she summoned her husband and went off to attend to the lunch.

Although Sara had had only the vaguest preconceptions of what Stephen’s house would be like, as he took her through the rooms, she wondered why she had not been able to visualize it more clearly. Now that she was in it, it seemed familiar to her because all the appointments were so reflective of his personality. Originally, he explained, there had been only the central block. The two outer wings had been planned by his parents, but had been built in the past five years. One wing comprised three guests rooms and overlooked the interior of the island, and the south contained his own bedroom and a spacious study.

In this room, the outer wall was made almost entirely of glass and screened by slatted blinds. And when Stephen rattled up these blinds to let in the full sunlight Sara drew in a sharp breath of delight. She had not realized that, in following the path to the house, they had crossed the full width of the cay, or that this side of the building looked out on a powder-pink cove and the shining turquoise depths of reef-bound lagoon.

“Oh, Stephen, how perfect!” she exclaimed delightedly.

He smiled at her. “I thought you’d like it.”

Sara was enchanted. Beyond the reef, the deeper blue of the sea was dotted with other cays, some little more than rocks, some large enough to bear a little scrub or a solitary palm.

“I agree with Mrs. Johnson! If I had a house like this, on an island like this, I wouldn’t waste my time in any old city place,” she said fervently.

Stephen opened a cupboard and took out a couple of glasses. “It’s not entirely a matter of choice. When you build a house in the Bahamas, about ninety per cent of your equipment has to be imported from the States, and that isn’t cheap. You can make the shell from local materials. These walls are of stone and lime from Eleuthera and the roof is Abaco shingle. And for solid floors there’s nothing to touch Bahamas pitch pine. It’s so hard and heavy that you have to drill a hole before you can knock in a nail. But all the interior fittings have to be shipped here from America.”

“Anyway, I can’t really see you spending your whole life beachcombing,” Sara conceded, with a smile.

Stephen set their drinks on a table by the windows and pushed forward two slip-covered armchairs.

“There’s plenty to do on Flamingo besides idling in the sun,” he said drily. “All the fish you’ve been eating at the hotel was caught in these waters, and we grow citrus fruits and vegetables and have a small poultry station.”

Lunch was served in the courtyard, with Aurora hovering in the background to observe the success of her efforts. And, as Stephen had said, she was a truly superb cook. After a delectable crab-meat consommé came a tender spit-roasted chicken with a spicy sauce pressed from succulent young tomatoes, a crisp green salad and banana fritters. And finally, as her
piece de resistance,
Aurora produced a wonderful iced pudding that looked like a cloud of palest primrose froth with a whipped cream crest and tasted deliciously of pine-apples.

When the last spoonful had melted on her tongue, Sara gave a long sigh of contentment. “If I swim now, I shall sink to the bottom like a stone,” she said happily.

Stephen pushed back his chair. “We’ll have coffee in the study and you can rest for an hour. Do you mind if I leave you for a while? I want to go over to the cottages and have a word with one of Sam’s grandsons.”

“No, of course not,” Sara said readily. “I don’t know how you have the energy to walk. You had even more lunch than I did.”

He laughed. “I was raised on Aurora’s cooking.”

After a quick cup of coffee, he put some records on the radiogram, provided a stack of magazines and left her alone in the study. But Sara was content to relax on the linen-covered couch and look down on the placid lagoon where, later, they would swim.

She must have dozed off, and when she opened her eyes, three small brown children were peeping through the window at her. They darted away the instant she sat up, but she could hear them giggling behind a bush, and went out to make friends with them.

The two boys were crinkly-haired ragamuffins of about six and seven, with toughened bare soles and faded khaki shorts. They ran off laughing when she discovered their place of concealment. But their small sister—an unsteady toddler of about fifteen months stared solemnly at the white girl, then held out two plump little arms.

Sara swung her up against her shoulder and walked round the side of the house to find Aurora berating the boys.

“Now youse ought to know dat it ain’t good manners to go peeking at Massa Steve’s guests,” she was telling them severely. “I’se a good min’ to beat you with ma pastry stick.”

“I didn’t mind them peeping at me, Mrs. Johnson,” Sara said laughingly.

Aurora turned round, and the boys seized the opportunity to duck out of reach and disappear again.