Authors: Unknown
“Fat Rodrigo has two impressionable sons,” he told her. “You’ll knock ’em cold. We’ll leave early morning by mule, and get there about six, in time for a scented bath and a large, well-spiced dinner.”
It sounded fun. She nodded. “All right. Next week-end.”
But the following day Matt said: “I wouldn’t go if I were you, Phil. Astartes and his sons are great chaps, but you’ll only unsettle ’em. His wife’s in Lisbon now, flashing her diamonds and talking big, trying to attract wives for the boys, to keep them on the island.”
“Oh, lord, I wish I were a man. I ought to be safe enough with three Englishmen. I’ll act hard and unfeminine.”
He grinned. “You couldn’t keep it up, lovey. One smile and you’d sink ’em. Have you spoken to Julian about it?”
“No. Should I?”
“It might be as well to let him have the last word.”
“But if you disagree, he’s sure to.”
“Not a bit. Astartes has asked him over. Perhaps he’ll go along with you.”
She laughed a little..“You think he’d keep me out of trouble? Got immense faith in him, haven’t you?”
“Faith?” Matt rubbed his stubble. “I don’t know that you’d call it faith. Seems to me he’s the only one of us to be trusted with a woman, and that’s because he’s had more than enough of them. He doesn’t regard you as a woman, though.”
“Lately, he’s treated me as a lanky boy.”
“Leave it that way,” advised Matt. “As soon as he notices you have eyes and hips he’ll give you hell.”
Phil put on her old wide-brimmed straw hat with the red felt lining and walked through the wild banana scrub to the plantation track. She had not visited the managers house since, many months ago, she had gone there with Nigel to Sunday lunch with Mason, the former boss. She would like to make the trip again, to see Julian’s ruthless improvements, but the chances of an invitation were slim.
Today, in fact, she did not even reach the spacious clearing in which the plantation buildings were set, for as she came to the bend where scrub ended and cacao began Julian’s car came hurtling towards her. He stopped dead and poked out his head.
“Coming to see me?”
“Well, I was. But if you’re tearingly busy it can stand over till tomorrow.”
“The haste is temporary—I’m going down to the waterfront to make last-minute alterations to some shipping instructions. I shall be free after that. Hop in, and go with me.
She slipped into the seat beside him and hung her hat over her knees. Driving with Julian when he was in a hurry turned out to be a blood-freezing experience. When he swerved out to the shore road and braked, she let out a long, pent-up breath.
“Cut along to the market,” he said. “I’ll meet you there.”
Phil always enjoyed strolling in the narrow lanes between the market folk. Most of them, both men and women, preferred to spread their wares on the bare earth and to sit beside them, gossiping in clicking syllables, and smoking some acrid weed in a variety of pipes. The men offered trophies and skins from the mainland, drinking-shells and clay bowls, jujus and vile medicines. The women specialized in food: cassava roots, kale, dried meat, manioc meal, peppers and yams. Natives with a few coins to spend bargained noisily, demanding their money’s worth in pleasure as well as in kind.
Phil was interested in a native coaxing copper-wire anklets over a girl’s heel when Julian joined her. The whole foot had been massaged with oil, and while the boy worked, the dusky young lady scooped fistfuls of oil from his tub and anointed every visible part of her body till she glistened.
Julian remarked sardonically. “She’s out to snare a boyfriend or someone else’s husband.”
“It needn’t be a married man,” Phil protested. “She’s good-looking enough to attract anyone.”
“Women with looks don’t care for easy meat—it’s dry and uninteresting. They’d rather steal and experiment Let’s get out, of this stench.”
“But that’s frightfully unjust,” she argued, as they moved on. “According to you, every pretty face masks a snake.”
“Let’s say a potential snake. A good many don’t hatch out, but those that do . . .” He let it tail off at that.
“You must have known some horrid women,” she said soberly. “They’ve spoiled you for the right one, if she ever finds you.”
He smiled paternally. “The chances are against it, little one, so you need have no concern on her account.”
He shouldered between a mule and a mud wall, and dragged her after him. They skirted the usual bunch of ragged loafers rattling bones and calling numbers, passed a string of women and girls carrying driftwood on their heads, and eventually came out again to where the car stood on the shadeless road.
The interior was oven-hot, but less dangerous than sunshine. Julian leaned an arm on the wheel and turned her way.
“Let’s have it, shall we?”
She tipped back her hat and told him of the proposed mule ride to the Novada estate.
“Matt’s against it,” she finished with a suggestion of mischief. “He’s afraid Senhor Astartes will rope me in as a bride for one of the sons.”
Julian’s straight thick brows rose. “You could do worse.
They’re an aristocratic and wealthy family. Are you expecting me to forbid you to go?”
Irritated by his tone, she answered, “I came to you for advice, not sarcasm.”
“But after I'd tendered the advice you’d have pleased yourself,” he said crisply. “You don’t get me on that again. If you fancy the trip, take it.”
“Had I guessed you’d be hateful about it I wouldn’t have come to you. Matt thought you might accompany us.”
“Accompany you! What do you think I am?”
“Since you ask,” she was stung to retort, “I think you’re a conceited beast. You live at the plantation in lordly splendour and treat the rest of us as if we were beneath contempt or morons. You could be charming if you cared to unbend. . . .”
“Thanks,” he returned coolly, “but I don’t. I wouldn’t join this picnic even to keep you out of mischief.”
She paused, then sighed. “You’re awfully difficult to be nice to. Why didn’t you state outright that you agreed with Matt? I won’t go if you don’t want me to.”
“What’s the matter?” he said. “Hooked a fever?”
She laughed, and they sat silent a few minutes, looking through Phil’s window at the boats on the heaving waters and the combers splitting over the beach.
“I like to think the Cameroons are over there and Nigeria that way,” she said, nodding seawards. “When I’m tired of Valeira I shall visit all the West African ports, as far as Dakar.”
“That’s an odd ambition for a girl. Don’t you ache for a gold ring on your finger and a man under your thumb, like the rest of them?”
“Heavens, no!—not for years, anyway. And I’m afraid I shall never be the sort to
manage
a man. If I love anyone it’s so absolutely whole-hog that they can trample on me.
“I seem to have heard that before,” he said drily, “in more sophisticated language.”
“You needn’t believe it,” she replied indifferently. “You’re the last person I’d try to impress.” She became alert, gazing intently out to sea. Her hand reached behind her and tugged his jacket. “Look, what’s that out there?”
He bent forward, then snapped open the glove box and took out binoculars.
In a moment he said, “White sails. A boat heading this way—a private yacht, by the appearance. Want to look?”
“Of course.” She grabbed the binoculars and adjusted them, gave an exclamation of delight. “The Fosters! How lovely! I’d given them up.”
“Keep still. Who are the Fosters?”
“A young married couple—friends of Roger. Drive me home quick, will you? They’re going to stay with me while they’re here.”
“Plenty of time. It’ll take an hour to get in and quite a while to wade through the customs.” He pressed the starter, before adding with exasperation: “I wish to heaven Crawford had had more sense than to invite them here. But there’s one thing”—with a hard glance in her direction as the car slid along the road—“this woman may succeed where I failed. She’ll make you long for smart clothes and parties, and everything else you don’t get on Valeira.”
“After which smug and vindictive pronouncement,” she responded blithely, “he savagely swung the car inland. You deserve to break an axle.”
IN different circumstances Daphne Foster could have been termed extraordinarily pretty, for normally she owned a piquant face, a head of fair curls and nice curves. But when she arrived at Valeira poor Daphne sagged ashore like a thin bag of wet meal. Lagos, she moaned faintly, had been bad enough; since leaving the port the atmosphere had grown hotter and damper, and the sea, though comparatively smooth, had nevertheless produced an uncanny roll in the ketch.
Apart from concern on his wife’s account, Gordon Foster turned out to be the cheerful, carefree sort that make excellent sailors and accommodating husbands. In England he and Roger Crawford had never advanced beyond acquaintanceship, but the meeting in Lagos two months ago Gordon had. counted fortuitous. He had always wanted to visit one of the West African islands and here was a sound reason. At the time Daphne had concurred enthusiastically, for was she not on her way to the mellower air of the Canary Islands? Now, nine weeks a bride and longing frantically for the cosy flat which awaited them in London, she viewed Valeira with weary loathing.
“How do you
bear
it?” she lamented to Phil the first evening. “I was crazy about Gordon in England, and I’m hoping it will be the same when we go back, but this heat makes me feel I shall never be normal again. They tell you that heat excites the emotions, but it just flattens me out.”
“You’re tired,” Phil said. “Wait till you’ve lived here a few days and you’ll admit the island’s fascinations. My father and brother were held here by them, and so am I.”
“Men are different,” Daphne shrugged. “As long as there are one or two other men on hand and the mainland near enough to get a woman now and then, they can make out. I suppose you’re in love with one of them?”
Phil laughed. “I haven’t even that excuse. I just like it.” After a day or two within the coolness of the thick-walled house Daphne revived, though she was still incapable of tennis and bathed only in the evening. Because she was a guest on the island the other cliff residents also turned out to bathe at that hour, and most evenings Phil provided salads and cold meats. Clin brought his guitar which, he boasted, had serenaded from Marseille to Singapore, and Gordon Foster carried down a portable gramophone.
It was Matt who electrified the party one night by announcing an invitation for them all to have dinner with Julian Caswell the following evening.
“Has he that much cutlery and china?” Phil wondered aloud. “What’s come over the man?”
“It’s a duty gesture,” guessed Roger.
“Nothing of the sort,” Drew reproved him. “He’s the plantation boss, after all.”
“That’s what I said,” murmured his junior. “Still, it’s good of him.”
“Are you sure he included the bad lad of the island?” enquired Clin. “Six men and two women. Some binge— for the ladies.”
Daphne said: “Is he stuffy? Do we dress?”
And Gordon put in, “If only Daph could take to this climate I’d ask him for a job.”
Matt searched his pockets for a cheroot.
“You go back to your desk in London, young man,” he advised. “A couple of years in a place like this and you’re a misfit anywhere else.”
“You hear that, Phil?” said Daphne.
“Yes, but I don’t believe it. Matt trots that out to newcomers in self-defence. He’s afraid of someone starting up an opposition store.”
Next evening Julian sent his car to pick up Phil and her house companions, and Matt undertook to drive the other men over. Phil’s pulses hummed pleasantly. She wore a cream linen dress which enhanced the pale gold of her skin, and her hair, thick and curly, shone red on the crests of the brown waves. Under Daphne’s guidance she had used a dusting of powder and an almost indiscernible rub of flame lipstick. She could taste perfume on her lips, and it made her feel strange and exotic.
Julian’s house was without a garden; one could drive straight across the shorn grass to his veranda steps. He was waiting there in bright lamplight, suave and distinguished-looking in a white suit, his dark hair slicked close, his mouth amused and arrogant. Phil got the impression that he was digesting a private joke.
To Daphne, frail and attractive in pale green chiffon, he offered felicitations on her marriage and a couple of veiled compliments. He warmly shook Gordon’s hand and spared a friendly smile for Phil. He was different: the faultless host and good companion.
They had coffee on the veranda while two boys cleared the living-room. Surveying the expanse of polished floor from the french window, Phil was puzzled, until she realized that one of the three bedrooms had been dispensed with in order to enlarge this, the main room of the house. Much of the furniture was new, too, though still of the serviceable teak, and the cushions were uncompromisingly blue and grey.
Behind her, from his seat near the veranda rail, Julian was saying, “Is the trip to the Novada called off?”
“Postponed,” Clin drawled, “unless the Fosters care to go with us. Ever ridden a mule, Gordon?”
“Once, in Italy. What’s the Novada?”
Clin explained: “The estate is worth a tour, and Astartes is one of those chaps who can talk for a week and never repeat himself. He knows the complete history of these islands.” ‘
Ever hungry for fresh experience, Gordon put a number of questions; but Daphne demurred.
“No mule ride for me, thanks. Sorry, but I’m just not the type.”
“Why not use the boat?” suggested Julian.
“Yes, why not?” from Gordon. “You’d be all right in the boat, Daphne. The whole lot of us could go.”
“Not me,” grunted Matt. “I’m no seafaring man.”
“Darling,” said Daphne plaintively, “for me the best part of this honeymoon is when I’m on land. Next time I step aboard we head for home. You go to the Portuguese end of the island if you want to; I’ll stay with Phil.”
“But she’s coming,” said Clin. “Aren’t you, Phil?”