The Secret Woman (30 page)

Redvers said sternly, “Stop it. Don't say another word about matters of which you know nothing.”

He had spoken in such an authoritative tone that we were all a little startled. It was as though a new man had stepped out from behind the mask of urbane charm. Monique sat back gripping the arms of her chair.

Dick Callum said: “I have already gathered that this has been a record year for coconuts, and we shall be taking a good cargo of copra back to Sydney.”

It was the cue to turn the conversation; to try to restore normality, to change the sultry atmosphere to one of pleasant conviviality.

“Sugar is not in such a fortunate position.” Madame shook her head mournfully. “But we are forgetting our duty. It is long since we entertained. You would like a brandy, a liqueur? I can promise you a very good cognac. My husband left a good wine cellar; and we don't have much opportunity to make use of it. Fortunately its contents don't deteriorate with age.”

Chantel and the doctor returned, Chantel carrying a glass which she proffered to Monique who pouted and turned away.

“Come along,” said Chantel, very much the efficient nurse, and Monique took the glass like a sulky child and drank the contents.

She sat back in her chair scowling. Her mother watched her anxiously. I saw Redvers looking at her, and on his face was an expression of hatred mingled with weary exasperation. It alarmed me.

After that the talk became desultory, with several conversations going on at the same time. Dick Callum, who was near me, said that we must see each other (by which he must have meant alone) before
The
Serene
Lady
sailed. I replied that I thought there would be no opportunity for this.

“You must make one,” he said. “Please.”

Chantel was discussing Monique's treatment with Ivor Gregory.

“I think the tincture of belladonna is a good substitute for nitrite of amyl,” she was saying.

“It's effective, but as it's taken internally you must be more watchful. Make sure that she doesn't have more than the ten drops. During an attack the dose could be repeated…say every two or three hours. Have you a supply?”

“Yes, for two months.”

They talked earnestly of Monique's state, very much the professional nurse and doctor.

It was nearly midnight when Dick and the doctor returned to the ship. Redvers was staying at the house.

Pero was summoned to show Chantel and me to our bedrooms. She went before us carrying an oil lamp. I suppose it had been worked out that this was cheaper than lighting a candle.

They both came into my room and Pero lighted candles on my dressing table. I said good night and the door shut on me.

***

Sleep was elusive. I had carried one of the candles to my bed and when I was in blew it out. There was a moon so I was not in utter darkness. I lay and my eyes growing accustomed to the gloom I could see the objects in my room quite clearly. Faint light filtered through the shutters. One must keep them closed because of strange insects which flew in. I thought of Chantel who might well be lying sleepless along the corridor. It was a comforting thought.

I heard the creak of a board and was reminded of the Queen's House where boards had creaked in the quiet of the night without visible reason.

I went through all the events which had brought me here; and I realized that there had been a point in my life when it had been in my power to make a choice. I could have said: I will not come. I could have stayed in England. And then everything would have been different. I saw then that everything else which had happened to me—my life at the Queen's House, my relationship with Aunt Charlotte—had been unavoidable. And then had come the moment of decision, and I had chosen this path. The thought excited me, and at the same time alarmed me. I could say to myself, Whatever happens it was your own choice.

The sound of voices! Raised angry voices! Monique's and Red's. Somewhere in this house they were quarreling. I got out of bed and stood listening. I went to the door and stood there for a while. Then I opened it. The voices were more audible although I could not hear what was being said. Monique's raised, passionate and angry; Red's low, placating? Authoritative? I thought of his expression as I had seen it earlier. Threatening? I wondered.

I stepped into the corridor and opened the door of Edward's room. The moonlight showed me his face for he had thrown back the sheet. He was asleep.

I shut the door and went and stood outside my own room.

The voices continued. And as I stood there a shiver ran through me; for at the end of the corridor something moved. Someone was standing there watching me.

I stared at the shape. I tried to speak but although I opened my mouth, the words were not there.

The shape moved—large, bulky. It was Suka.

“You wanted something, Miss Brett?”

“N-no. I couldn't sleep. I went to see if Edward was all right.”

“Edward will be all right.” She spoke as though I had been impertinent to suggest otherwise.

“Good night,” I said.

She nodded. I went back into my room and shut the door. I was still shaken from the shock of seeing her there and knowing that I had been watched when I had been unaware of it.

What was she doing there? Could it be that the door at which she was crouching had been that leading to the room which Monique and Redvers occupied? Had she been listening at their door, ready to run to the aid of her Missy Monique if she should be needed?

I went back to bed. How strange that I should be so cold in this humid heat. All the same I lay there for a long time shivering. It seemed like hours before I slept.

***

I was awakened the next morning by Pero who had brought breakfast to my room. It was mint tea, toast and butter with a very sweet preserve of which I did not know the origin, a piece of watermelon and two little sugar bananas.

“Very tired,” said Pero with a smile. “You did not sleep well?”

“It's being in a strange bed.”

She smiled; she looked young and innocent. It was amazing how differently one could feel in daylight. The room looked shabby but no longer eerie with the sun filtering through the shutters. Edward came in while I was eating. He sat on the bed and said gloomily: “I don't want to stay here, Miss Brett. I want to go sailing on with
The
Serene
Lady
. Do you think the Captain would take me?”

I shook my head.

He sighed. “That's a pity,” he said. “I don't think I'm going to like it here. Are you?”

“Let's wait and see,” I suggested.

“But the Captain is sailing tomorrow.”

“He's coming back.”

That comforted him as it comforted me.

Redvers had gone back to the ship to attend to business. Chantel was already with Monique who was not so well. Suka remained in the bedroom, staring at her, Chantel told me afterward, like a basilisk or the Medusa. “What she thought I was doing to her precious Missy, I don't know. I told her to go,” she added. “But Missy said she was to stay and was going to have hysterics if she didn't so I had to put up with her.”

Edward was a far less exacting charge. If he could not be with the Captain he wanted to be with me.

I said we would go and explore and asked Pero where we should have our lessons.

She pointed upward, very eager to please. There was the old schoolroom, she told me, where Missy Monique used to have her lessons. She would show me.

I took up the books I had brought with me and we went to a large room at the top of the house. The windows were not shuttered and there was a good view of the bay. I could see the ship lying there but I didn't point this out to Edward for I knew it would only upset him.

There was a big table with a wooden form beside it. Edward was amused by the form and sat astride on it, whipping an imaginary horse and shouting, “Gee up!” and “Whoa!” at intervals while I looked round. There was a bookcase in which there were one or two readers and textbooks. I opened the glass doors. I thought they might be of use to us.

While I was studying them Suka came in. Edward eyed her suspiciously. I guessed she had tried to play the nurse with him and he did not like it.

“So you are here already,” she said. “You'd not waste time, Miss Brett.”

“We haven't begun lessons yet. We're spying out the land.”

“Spying out the land,” sang out Edward. “Gee up!”

Suka smiled at him tenderly, but he did not see her. When she went to sit on the form beside him he got up and started running round the room. “I'm
The
Serene
Lady
,” he said. He gave piercing shrieks like a siren. “All present and correct, sir.”

I laughed at him. Suka smiled—not at me but him; when she turned to me her eyes glittered and she made me shiver again as I had when I had seen her on the landing last night.

There was a rocking chair near the bookcase like the one I had noticed on the porch. She sat on it and started to rock to and fro. I found the squeak of the rockers—they needed oiling—irritating and her presence embarrassing. I wondered whether she was going to follow me round. I was determined that she should not remain while we were having our lessons. At the moment though I could not tell her to go; and as she said nothing and I found her silence unbearable I said: “We have a real schoolroom, I see.”

“That is what you did not expect? You think we do not have schoolrooms on Coralle?”

“Of course I didn't think that! But this looks as if it has been used for generations.”

“How could that be? There was no house here until Monsieur built it.”

“And Mrs. Stretton was the only pupil?”

“Her name was Miss Barker.”

“Whose?”

“The governess.”

She rocked on her chair smiling to herself; she muttered something under her breath. It sounded uncomplimentary to Miss Barker.

“She came from England?” I asked.

She nodded. “There was a family that came here. He came to see whether he would stay altogether. There was a girl and a boy and they had a governess. And Monsieur he said that it was time Missy Monique had lessons. So the governess came here and she taught them in this room. Miss Monique and the little girl and little boy.”

“That was pleasant company for her.”

“They used to fight. The girl was jealous of her.”

“That was a pity.”

“The boy loved her. It was natural.”

I felt dubious. I imagined Monique—a spoiled, willful and unpleasant child.

“And so the governess taught them all,” I said. “It was convenient.”

“Not for long. They went back. They did not like the island. Miss Barker stayed.”

“What happened to her?”

Suka smiled. “She died,” she said.

“How sad.”

She nodded. “Oh, not at first. She taught Missy here and she loved her. She was not a good governess, not strict. She wanted Missy to love her.”

“Indulgent,” I said.

She rocked to and fro. “And she died. She is buried on the hill. We have a Christian cemetery.”

Her great eyes roved over me and I thought she was measuring me for my coffin.

What an uncomfortable woman!

That afternoon there was great excitement on the shore. I was resting in my room because of the heat. Everyone in the house—and on the island—seemed to follow this habit. In any case it was too hot to do anything but lie behind shutters in the middle of the day.

I heard shouting, but I took little notice; and it was Chantel who came in to tell me what had happened.

“Our gallant Captain is the hero of the occasion,” she said.

“What occasion?”

“While you were slumbering it's been a matter of life and death out there in the bay.”

“The Captain…”

“Has been behaving with his usual eclat.”

“Chantel, do be serious.”

“He's saved Dick Callum's life.”

“What…the Captain!”

“You look surprised. Surely you expect heroic deeds from him.”

“Tell me what happened. Is he…?”

“Completely unconcerned by the adventure. He looks as though he saves lives every day.”

“But you're not telling me what happened.”

“How impatient you are! In brief, Dick Callum took a swim. He had been warned that the waters were shark infested, but he waved aside all warnings. He went in; the sharks were interested. Then he was overcome by cramp. He yelled. The Captain was at hand and ‘accoutred as he was plunged in' (Shakespeare). He saved him. Snatched him from the very jaws of the murderous shark.”

“He did that?”

“Of course he did. You wouldn't expect him to do otherwise.”

“Where are they?”

“Dick is on board and Dr. Gregory is in attendance. He's suffering from shock and is being kept to his bed for a day or so. At the moment he's sleeping. Greg has given him an opium pill. It's what he needs.”

I was smiling and she laughed.

“You look positively beatific. Ah, it is just as well he sails away tomorrow.”

She was looking at me wistfully.

“Chantel,” I said seriously, “you and I should never have come here.”

“Speak for yourself,” she mocked me. “And don't deceive yourself. You wouldn't have missed this for…a flourishing antique business.”

***

That evening was different from the previous one. Dick stayed on board in his bed; Monique kept to her room. Last night's outburst had had its effect on her and Chantel had been giving her the drops of belladonna as prescribed by the doctor, watching her carefully, she told me, because like most effective drugs it was highly dangerous if given to excess.

Dr. Gregory came to dinner; Redvers was there with Chantel, Madame, and myself. It seemed a much more civilized occasion without Monique. Pero and Jacques waited on us discreetly; Madame seemed more relaxed and played the role of grande dame with dignity.

We had excellent wine from the cellar which her husband had left her; the food was simple. There was more fish—the main dish this time served with a sauce which contained mangoes. There was a soup which I believed was mainly constituted of what had been left over from yesterday's meal; we finished with passion fruit and sugar bananas. After that we took coffee in the
salon
, as before.

The conversation was largely about the incident that afternoon. Madame told stories of some adventures with sharks; how a man had been walking along close to the sea when one had nipped off his arm.

“They are very dangerous in these waters. You were very brave, Captain, to venture when one was near.”

“He wasn't very close. I had time to get Dick in.”

“It will be a lesson to him,” I said.

“He's a strong swimmer. He would have been safe enough if he hadn't been suddenly attacked by cramp.”

“A dreadful experience,” said Chantel. “To be swimming strongly and suddenly to find oneself powerless.”

“Poor Dick Callum!” said Red. “I've never known him so shaken. He seemed ashamed of himself…as if it couldn't happen to any of us.”

We talked of the Island then. Madame said she was sorry the ship would not be there for the great celebration. It was the day of the year for the islanders, and visitors always enjoyed it as much as the natives.

Chantel asked what happened during the celebration.

“Feasting and ritual dancing. You will be impressed by the flame dancers, will they not, Captain?”

“They are very skilled,” agreed Red. “They would need to be to perform this very dangerous dance.”

“That's what makes it effective, I suppose,” said Chantel. “The danger.”

“I suspect,” said the doctor, “that they are wearing some fireproof substance on their bodies. They could not possibly use their flaming torches as they do without.”

“Their skill lies in their speed,” said Red.

Madame turned to us, explaining: “There is a family on the island who have done this flame torch dance for generations. They wish it to be known that they have the protection of the old fire goddess. It is that which makes everyone so eager to see them perform. They would not dream of telling anyone the secret.”

“Does the old man still dance?” asked Red.

“No, it is the two sons now. They in their turn have sons to whom they are teaching the art. There's a legend which they make sure is kept going. Their ancestors came from the Fire Country and that is why they are on good terms with fire which will not harm them. That's the story. But as you say it is some substance they smear on their skin and their clothes I daresay; and of course their marvelous agility.”

“Do they still live in that house along the coast?” asked Red.

“They would never move.” Madame turned again to Chantel and me. “You will not see the house unless you explore thoroughly. It is hidden by trees. This family has lived there, so they tell us, since they came from the Fire Country. They have refused to accept new ideas which have come to the island. I think they would like to see the island go back to what it was a hundred, two hundred years ago.”

“And where is this Fire Country?” asked Chantel.

“In their imagination?” I suggested.

“That is so.”

“What is it supposed to be? A kind of sun?” said Chantel. “It could only be somewhere in the sky?”

“You are too analytical,” said Red with a laugh. “Just accept it. These people are expert performers. It may be that they need their myth to enable them to do this highly inflammable act. If so, let them have it, I say. The dance is very good entertainment.”

“You see,” said Madame, once more addressing Chantel and me, “there is some entertainment on the Island.”

The doctor went back to the ship at ten o'clock, and Chantel and I retired to our rooms.

I had not been in mine more than a few moments when I heard the sound of pebbles hitting the shutters. I opened them and looked out.

Redvers was below.

“I must see you,” he said. “Can you come down here?”

I said I would shortly be with him.

I blew out my candles and went out into the corridor. The oil lamp stood on a table, the wick turned low for reasons of economy. I found my way, rather uncertainly, down to the hall and went out onto the porch from where I saw Redvers standing in the shadow of the house.

“I had to speak to you,” he said. “There won't be another opportunity. Let's walk away from the house.”

He had taken my arm; I felt his hands burning my flesh as we went silently across the grass. There was not a breath of wind; it was a beautiful night and although the heat of the day still seemed to hang in the air, it was not stiflingly hot. The stars were brilliant; the Southern Cross—as remote as our own Plow—dominated the sky, fireflies flitted past and then I heard the drone of an unknown insect. There was a soft perpetual hum coming from the bushes.

“It's no good, Anna,” he said. “I have to talk to you frankly. Tomorrow I shall leave you. I had to talk to you tonight.”

“What is there to say?”

“What I have not yet said but what you must know. I love you, Anna.”

“Please…” I began faintly.

But he went on: “I can't go on with this pretense. You must know this is different from anything that has happened before.”

“It has come too late.”

“That mustn't be.”

“But it is. This is her home. She is in that house now. She is your wife.”

“God help me, Anna, sometimes I hate her.”

“No good can come of this. You must know that.”

“You doubt me. You have heard scandal…gossip. And even now I am talking to you in a way which you believe to be wrong.”

“I should go in.”

“But you will stay a while. I've
got
to talk to you. Anna, when I come back, you will be here and…”

“Nothing will have changed,” I said.

And I thought of Monique gasping for breath and of Chantel's saying: “She won't make old bones.” I couldn't bear it. I didn't want such thoughts to come into my mind.

“There are times when she so maddens me that I…”

But I could not bear him to say it. I cried: “No…no.”

“But yes,” he said. “Tonight is different. Tonight is like that other night. The night at the Queen's House. I feel as though we are alone in the world as I did then. I could forget everything all around us. There were just the two of us then, and now it is the same.”

“But Aunt Charlotte came and showed us that it was an illusion. Of what use are illusions? They are nothing but dreams and we have to wake up and face reality.”

“One day, Anna…”

“I don't want you to say this. I should never have come here. I should have stayed in England. It would have been the best way.”

“I stayed away but I did not forget. I've been haunted by you ever since that night in the Queen's House. Oh God, how did I let this happen to me.”

“You loved her once.”

“I never did.”

“You married her.”

“I want to tell you how it happened.”

“Don't. It does no good.”

“But you must know. You must understand.”

“I understand that you no longer love her.”

“Sometimes I think she has become mad, Anna. Sometimes I think she always was.”

“In her way she loves you.”

He passed a hand over his brow.

“I hate her,” he said. “I hate her for what she is, and I hate her because she stands between you and me.”

“I cannot bear it when you talk like this.”

“Only tonight, Anna. I must tell you the truth tonight. I want you to know how it happened. We had met, you and I. You were a child and I was drawn to you then, but how could I understand? It was only later when I came to the Queen's House that I understood. Then I said, ‘I must go away. I must never see her again because this emotion which is between us is something I have never known before and I believe I should be unable to resist it.' I'm not a hero, my darling. I want you. I want you more than anything…to sail with you, to be with you every minute of the day and night, never separated. We should be part of each other. That's what I know. I knew it in the Queen's House, but I know it a thousand times more certainly now. Anna, there is no one else for me in this world and there is no one for you. Do
you
know this?”

“I know that it is so with me,” I said.

“My dearest Anna, you are so honest, so true, so different from anyone I have known before. When I come back, I shall take you home with me. That won't be the end. We shall be together, we must be together…”

“And Monique?”

“She will stay here. She belongs here on this evil island.”

“You call it evil?”

“It has been so for me. There has been nothing but misfortune here. That night of the flame dance…it is like a nightmare. I dream of it often. The hot night, the brilliant stars, the moonlight. It's always the night of the full moon. The drums are going all day to call people to this side of the Island. You'll understand when you've seen it for yourself. I thought it was exciting. I was carried away by the excitement. I didn't recognize the evil then. It was not until the misfortunes came. Here I married. Here I lost my ship. Here I experienced the great disasters of my life. No, I shouldn't talk of this, but tonight is different. This is our night when we tell the truth and come out from behind conventional nothings to say what really matters: the truth. I must make you see it. I can't bear that you should not. I'm not making excuses. Everything that happened was my own fault. Imagine it. Those drums, the strangeness of everything, the feeling that everything in life is working up to some tremendous crescendo. We sat round in a great circle; we drank the native drink. It's called Gali and it's served in coconut shells which have been treated for the occasion. It's highly intoxicating. They call it Fire Water. The Flame Men brew it in that house of theirs. They are at the very heart of the festival. They don't want the European way of life thrust on the islanders. I think this is the purpose behind the feasting and dancing. I am trying to excuse myself, you see. The excitement, the intoxication…and Monique was there, one of them and yet not one of them. She joined in the dances. She was not ill then. I went back with her to Carrément…eventually.”

“There is no need to tell me,” I said.

“But I want you to understand. It was like a trap and I walked into it. We sailed away for a short trip the next day and when we came back two months later…”

“I understand. Marriage was inevitable. And that old nurse saw that it took place.”

“Madame de Laudé, the old nurse, Monique herself…they were determined. I was still under the spell of the Island. I was a fool. Oh God, Anna, if you knew what a fool. I still am, because I am telling you this, I am showing myself to you in the worst possible light. These matters which an honorable man would keep to himself… Anna, you must go on loving me. It is only when I remind myself that you do that I can feel the slightest happiness. Sometimes when she is in one of her mad passions…”