The Secret Woman (25 page)

“But if I think so…”

“Then you are misled.”

“I can't imagine what it will be like on
Serene
Lady
once we have left you behind. Sailors do have friends ashore.”

“Then we'll be friends.”

“That's a comfort. I want to ask you something. Will you marry me?”

I picked up my peacock feather fan. I was suddenly so hot. “You…you can't mean that?”

“But I do.”

“You…but…you hardly know me.”

“I have known you since we left England.”

“That is not really very long.”

“But on a ship one gets to know people quickly. It is like living in one house. It's different from being ashore. In any case, does it matter?”

“It matters very much. One should thoroughly
know
the person one marries.”

“Does one ever thoroughly know another person? In any case, I know enough to have made up my mind.”

“Then you have been…rather hasty.”

“I am never hasty. I have thought, Anna is the one for me. She is handsome, clever, kind, and good. She is reliable. I think that is the quality I prize most.”

This was my first proposal although I was twenty-eight years old. It was not as I had dreamed—in those long ago days when I had imagined someone's proposing to me. This was a calm assessment of my virtues, the greatest of which was my reliability.

“I have spoken too soon,” he said.

“Perhaps you should not have spoken at all.”

“Do you mean the answer is ‘no,' then?”

“The answer must be no,” I said.

“Just now. I accept that. It could change.”

“I like you very much,” I said. “You have been very kind to me. I am sure you are as…reliable as you think I am; but I don't believe that to be a strong enough foundation for marriage.”

“There are other reasons. I'm in love with you, of course. I can't express myself as well as some. I'm not like our gallant Captain who would I am sure make the most impassioned speeches…and act accordingly…and not mean half he said.”

I looked at him sharply. “Why do you dislike him so much?” I demanded.

“Perhaps because I sense you like him too much. Anna, stop thinking of him. Don't let him treat you as he has others.”

“Others?” I said hoarsely.

“My God, you don't imagine you're the only one. Look at his wife. The way he treats her.”

“He…he is also courteous to her.”

“Courteous! He was born courteous. It's part of the charm. Charm! It's given him a place in the Castle. A place in the company. He's got charm…as his mother had before him. That's why she became Sir Edward's mistress. And our Captain can go his carefree way. He can be caught up in such a scandal that would have ruined any other man, but his charm…his eternal charm comes to his rescue.”

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

“You've heard of
The
Secret
Woman
. Or if you haven't you should. There was a fortune on that ship. One hundred thousand pounds, they say…all in diamonds. And what happened to them? What happened to the merchant? He died on board. He was buried at sea. I was there when they lowered his coffin into the water. The Captain took the service. Poor John Fillimore, who died so suddenly. And his diamonds? What happened to them? Nobody knew. But the ship was blown up in Coralle Bay.”

I had stood up. “I don't want to listen to this.”

“Sit down,” he commanded, and I obeyed him. I was fascinated by the change in him; he was vehement in his hatred of the Captain; he really believed that Redvers had murdered John Fillimore and stolen his diamonds.

“I
must
talk to you, Anna,” he went on, “and the reason is that I love you. I have to save you. You're in danger.”

“Danger?”

“I know the signs. I've sailed with him before. He has a way with women which I don't possess. I don't deny it. He will deceive you as he did that poor wife of his although he didn't escape entirely. He's a buccaneer if ever there was one. Two hundred years ago piracy would have been his trade. He'd be sailing under the Jolly Roger. No hijacking on the high seas for him now; but when he sees a fortune of a hundred thousand pounds within his grasp he can't let it go.”

“Do you realize that you are talking about your Captain?”

“On board I obey his orders, but I am not on board now. I am talking to the woman I am going to marry and I want to speak the truth to her. Where are those diamonds? It's clear to me. It's clear to many, but it can't be proved of course. They are hidden away in the safe deposit of some foreign port. They are his fortune salted away for when it will be safe to realize it. It's not easy to dispose of diamonds you know. They're recognizable, so he has to be careful. But he'll manage it. His fortune is waiting for him. He has to have a fortune of his own, doesn't he?”

“This is the wildest conjecture.”

“I have evidence to support it.”

“Then I suggest you lay it before the Captain.”

“My dear, dear Anna, you don't know our Captain. He would have the answer. He always has the answers. Didn't he conveniently dispose of the ship…the scene of the crime. The Captain who lost his ship! How many captains would have lived that down? Anyone else would have been dismissed, disgraced and living on a far distant island somewhere in the Pacific, like Coralle itself. But of course he would have his fortune in diamonds, so he would still be a rich man.”

“You have surprised me twice today,” I said. “First by your declaration of love for me and secondly by your declaration of hatred toward the Captain. And I notice that you are more vehement in your expression of hate than of love.”

He leaned toward me; his anger had brought hot color to his face; even the whites of his eyes were faintly tinged with red.

“Don't you understand,” he said, “the two are one. It is because I love you so deeply that I hate him so much. It is because he is too interested in you…and you in him.”

“You misjudge me,” I said. “I am surprised since you claim to know me so well.”

“I know that you would never act…dishonorably.”

“So I have another virtue to set beside my reliability.”

“Anna, forgive me. I have allowed my feelings to get the better of me.”

“Let's go. Our hour must be up.”

“Just like that! Have you no word for me?”

“I don't care to hear you make accusations for which you have no proof.”

“I'll get proof,” he said. “By God, I'll get proof.”

I had stood up. “You'll change,” he went on. “You'll understand and when you do I shall speak to you again. At least tell me that you won't object to that.”

“I should object very much to losing your friendship,” I said.

“What a fool I am! I shouldn't have spoken yet. Never mind, everything is as it was before. I don't give up easily, you know.”

“I'm sure you don't.”

“If you need my help at any time…I shall be at hand.”

“That is comforting to know.”

“And you don't dislike me?”

“I don't suppose a woman ever really disliked a man for telling her he loved her.”

“Anna. I wish I could tell you everything that is in my mind.”

“You have told me quite a bit to be getting on with,” I reminded him.

We walked slowly back past the vendors squatting beside their goods. The other two were already in the carriage.

“We thought we'd lost you,” said Mrs. Malloy.

When we reached the dock and had mounted the gangway, Dick pressed the white silk shawl into my hands. “I bought it for you,” he said.

“But I thought you had bought it for someone else.”

“For whom did you think?”

“Well, perhaps your mother.”

A faint shadow darkened his face. He said, “My mother is dead.” I wished I hadn't said that because I knew that the thought of her had given him pain. And then it occurred to me that I really did not know very much about him. He loved me; he hated the Captain. What other violent emotions were there in his life?

We were slipping slowly away from the dock when Chantel came into my cabin. She grimaced. “To think that I've had to be the stay-at-home.”

“How's the patient?”

“A little better. It was the heat which was too much for her. She'll soon recover when we're at sea again.”

“Chantel,” I said, “it won't be long now before we reach Australia.”

“I'm beginning to wonder what our island is going to be like. Imagine it! Or can't you? I think of palm trees and coral reefs and Robinson Crusoe. I wonder what we shall do when the ship has sailed away and left us there.”

“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 leisure; 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.

They were coming from the chess table. It was Rex speaking with more intensity than I had ever heard from him before.

“You…
devil
.”

He could only be addressing Gareth Glenning; and anyone less like a devil it would be hard to conceive.

I suppose he has put him in check, I thought idly. But how vehement he had sounded, and then I heard Gareth's laugh. It was unpleasantly mocking.

I must have been half asleep and full of fancies. They were merely playing their favorite chess together and I suppose Gareth was winning.

Soon, I thought, we shall be in Sydney and then it will be quite different. So many will have left us. Rex, the Glennings, Mrs. Malloy and all the passengers. The only ones who will remain were myself, Edward, Chantel, and Monique. And once we reached Coralle, there would be change again, but I should not be there to see that.

A ship had appeared on the horizon, her sails full blown in the strong winds. The boys came running out to look at her.

“Yankee Clipper!” cried Edward.

“China Clipper,” contradicted Johnny.

They argued together, forgetful of their table tennis. They stood watching the ship while Edward boasted of his superior knowledge gleaned from the Captain.

Miss Rundle strolled along, her big hat tied under her chin by a chiffon scarf to protect a complexion which Chantel had once said was hardly worth the trouble.

“Hello, Miss Brett.” The very way she spoke my name was a reproach. “Have you any objection to my sitting beside you?”

I had, but I could scarcely say so.

“Oh dear.” Her eyes rested on Mrs. Malloy and Mrs. Greenall. “
She
is not going to like saying good-bye to her officer.”

“I think it's just a shipboard friendship.”

“I think you are very charitable, Miss Brett.”

Which was more than I could say for her.

“But then…”

She paused with a snigger; but she had really said enough.

“And you will be staying on after we have said good-bye.”

“Only for a short time until we reach Coralle.”

“You'll have the crew…and the Captain…to yourselves. But
you'll
have to share them with the others. How is
poor
Mrs. Stretton?”

“She is keeping to her cabin, Nurse Loman tells me.”

“Poor creature! What she has to put up with, I shouldn't like to imagine.”

“Shouldn't you?” I asked with some irony.

“Dear me no. With a man like that. The way he smiled at me when he said good day…”

“Really?”

“He's a born philanderer. Yes, I'm very sorry for her…and anyone else whom he seems to fascinate. Of course people should have more sense, and more decency. But I don't know. People amaze me. There is your friend Nurse Loman…and er…” She looked round at Rex. “What does she think she will get out of it?”

“I don't think everyone is wondering what they are going to get out of their friendships. Well, they'd hardly be friendships if they were.”

“Oh you're very clever at talk. I suppose a governess would be. Those boys… How they shout! Shouldn't they be kept in order? My goodness, when I was young…”

“The old order changeth and gives place to the new,” I said, and thought of Chantel, who liked to quote and usually misquoted, as I was probably doing now.

“H'm,” she said.

“It
is
a Yankee Clipper,” Edward was shrieking. “I'm going to ask the Captain.”

He came running along the deck, Johnny in his wake.

“Edward,” I called, “where are you going?”

“To see the Captain. I want to look through that thing he has up there. It's wonderful. You can see things far away ever so clearly.”