Rooted in Dishonour
Rooted in Dishonour
Anne Mather
CHAPTER ONE
BELOW the verandah, the ground sloped away gently towards the shoreline. Clumps of sand-rimed grass marked the boundaries of the beach and the bleached whiteness of the fine coral sand was in sharp contrast to the luxuriant greenery that grew so darkly down to the water's edge in places. Palms spread their leaves abundantly, and when the noonday heat became unbearable provided welcome oases of shade, while the whispering fronds of the swamp oaks made their own shadows over the lagoon. Beyond the beach, the waters that curled more passively in the cove had been beaten into submission by the ragged ramparts of the reef just visible above the greeny-blue waters, whose spectacular display was heard in distant thunder from the house.
It was early morning, and the air was still cool with the dampness of the rain which had fallen before dawn. But already the warmth of the day was sending tiny spirals of mist rising from the trees into the arc of blue- gold brilliance, and soon the sun would rise above the mountains that swelled the hinterland of the island and its heat would banish the turtles and the sand-crabs to moister hiding places.
The woman came down the slope from the house, impatient at finding its occupant absent, and scanned the heaving waters of the lagoon. Almost immediately, she saw the dark head she was seeking only a few yards out from the beach, and as she watched, the body of a man rose from the waves to walk the shallow waters to the shore. He was some distance from her, it was true, but near enough for her to see that he was naked, the water streaming smoothly from his bronzed limbs. Long limbs, with powerful muscles, topped by the head and shoul- ders of a man who had not spent his days idling in this lotus-eating paradise, but who worked as hard as anyone to make the plantation pay. He was deeply tanned, and the darkness of his hair had often made her wonder whether there might be some distant ancestry there from even hotter climes, but perhaps that Flemish strain he possessed was responsible. Whatever, the sun made no impression on the black hairs that spread arrowlike down to his flat stomach.
She averted her eyes abruptly and turned away, knowing he had seen her, and presently he strode up the beach towards her, a towel looped carelessly about his hips. He came round her stiff figure to face her, and his peculiarly green eyes mocked her taut embarrassment.
'You should not come on me unannounced, Sister Barbara,' he remarked, without contrition. 'And don't tell me you've never seen me swimming before, because I should not believe you.'
'I am not your sister!' she declared crossly, and he moved his shoulders in an indifferent gesture, as she went on: 'I asked you to come to the house yesterday evening. You didn't come.'
He mounted the rise towards the building and she had perforce to walk with him. 'I was—engaged last evening,' he said at last, and saw the way her lips tightened to his words.
'You were visiting that Pecares woman!' she accused, and his dark brows ascended.
'You have been having me followed?' he enquired softly, and her pale cheeks flamed.
'Of course not,' she denied, but his expression confirmed that he did not believe her.
They reached the house, a bungalow really, its verandah supported on poles and shaded by a palm- thatched roof. Inside, the accommodation was adequate, but spartan—a living room, with armchairs and bookshelves, a kitchen-cum-dining room, with surprisingly modern equipment, and his bedroom, with its single divan and wardrobe. There were the usual offices, but as Barbara seldom visited the place, she had never used them.
Open-slatted steps led up to the verandah where two basketwork chairs and a glass-topped table created a second living area, and just now the table was set with a glass of freshly-squeezed orange juice, a slice of melon, some rolls and butter, and a jug of aromatically-flav- oured coffee. Provided by Tomas, Barbara guessed, identifying the black servant who lived in a hut out back of the bungalow. He owed his life to his master since he had saved him from a mob of drink-crazed youths in Martinique eight years ago, and since then he had lived on the island and looked after the man he looked on as his saviour. Barbara had found the whole story rather distasteful, and Tomas's ubiquitous presence about the place irritated her immensely.
'Raoul...' she began now, pausing on the verandah, but the man behind her made a negative movement of his hand.
'At least permit me to put on some clothes,' he remarked lazily, and she was forced to sit on one of the verandah chairs and tap her fingers impatiently until he reappeared.
Tomas came and asked her if she would like some breakfast, but she refused, speaking offhandedly, caring little, for the black man's feelings. This was typical of Raoul, she thought resentfully, ignoring her summons to the big house, and then making her wait his convenience after she had made the journey over here.
She crossed her legs and admired the scarlet ovals of her toes. She decided she liked the colour after all, although when the store assistant in Soufriere had showed it to her, she had been unimpressed. It went well with the background material of the floral cotton skirt she was wearing, and complemented the dark chestnut colour of her hair. She would try it on her nails, she thought. Papa would like it. And then the reasons for this hasty visit reasserted themselves, and her firm lips narrowed unbecomingly.
'Did Tomas not invite you to share my breakfast?'
She glanced round as Raoul joined her, a disreputable pair of denim jeans his only apparel. Their age did nothing to disguise his undoubted masculinity, and she had to force herself to look at the bronze medallion suspended from the leather cord around his neck.
'Do you call those things clothes?" she enquired shortly, anything to hide her uninvited attraction towards him, and he shrugged as he subsided into the chair at the opposite side of the table and raised a foot to rest across his knee.
'I'm sure you didn't come here to discuss my attire,' he retorted dryly, and as she strove for words to express herself, he swallowed half the orange juice in the glass.
'Papa is coming home!' she declared at last, and he wiped his mouth carelessly on the back of his hand.
'That's good news,' he said laconically. 'When? Today?'
'No!' She was impatient.
'Then why the sweat?'
She winced. 'Must you use those coarse metaphors?'
'Was it a metaphor? I rather thought you were in a sweat down there on the beach.' His lips curled mockingly. 'Or was that due to my state of undress?'
Barbara regarded him coldly. 'You transcribe everything to physical terms, don't you? It doesn't occur to you that there might be finer emotions '
She broke off abruptly, aware that she had lost his attention and resenting it. It was true. He did disrupt her emotions, and she suffered agonies of jealousy knowing that he would rather spend his nights with Louise Pec- ares than with her. Not that he suspected. He must never suspect. Not unless ...
Again her thoughts made a swift recoil from the intimate meanderings of her mind. One day perhaps, when she was mistress of the island ... But that was some way off. Her father was still a comparatively young man, and in spite of the heart attack that had forced him to remain in England longer than he had expected, he was a long way from dying. So far in fact that he was actually planning to marry again...
Her hands trembled in her lap as she recalled the cable she had received the previous afternoon. She had hardly been able to read it for the burning surge of rage which had clutched at her throat. Her father was cabling her that during his enforced stay at the hospital in London he had met a girl, a nurse, someone younger than Barbara herself, with whom he had become emotionally involved! It was unthinkable, unbelievable, disgusting He had been a widower for almost twenty years. He could not be thinking of marrying a girl thirty years his junior.
At last she had all his attention, and the curious green eyes revealed a reluctant curiosity. 'Getting married?' he echoed slowly. 'To whom?'
'A girl,' said Barbara shortly, and then seeing his faint mockery added swiftly: 'A young girl. Younger than me. His nurse!'
'My God!' Raoul's ejaculation was half impatient, half admiring. 'Well, well! Clever old Willie!'
'Is that all you can say?' Barbara glared at him angrily. 'Clever old Willie, indeed! He must be in his dotage, and you know it! What girl of twenty-four would want to marry him for any other reason than the obvious one?'
'Which is?' His eyes narrowed.
'Oh, don't pretend you don't know,' she stormed. 'His money, of course.'
Raoul lifted the coffee pot and poured some of the darkly coloured liquid into his cup. 'You consider your father has nothing else to offer a woman?' he drawled, and she gave him a contemptuous stare.
'What else can it be? A—person like that!'
He looked up. 'You've met her?'
'Of course not.' Barbara regarded him sourly. 'How could I?'
He shrugged annoyingly. 'You speak with such confidence. How do you know she isn't madly in love with your father?'
Barbara shook her head. 'He's barely known her a month!'
'What does time matter? There might have been a—mutual attraction.'
'You would say that, of course.' Her lips curled. 'But don't forget, all our positions here could change if Papa chooses to marry again—and produces a son!'
'Ah, I see.' His eyes narrowed sardonically. 'The old "do on to others before they can do it on to you" syndrome!'
'If you must be crude, yes.' Barbara leant towards him eagerly. 'Raoul, what are we going to do?'
'What are we going to do?' He finished his coffee and lay back in his chair indolently. 'Don't involve me in your schemes. If Willie chooses to saddle himself with some bloodsucking leech of a woman, what is it to do with me? I'll just go on doing my job—'
'So long as she lets you.'
'Don't be melodramatic, Barbara. Willie's not likely to fire me, and you know it. No one else would do the job so efficiently—-or so honestly. He knows hp can trust me. And besides, half the Africans wouldn't work for anybody else.'
'You're so confident, aren't you?' she sneered. 'So conceited! It doesn't occur to you that Papa might conceivably consider selling the island if—if this woman decides she doesn't want to live here! You know he had that offer last year from that American company. Several million dollars can't be overlooked.'
Raoul's mouth thinned as he contemplated her agitated face. Obviously he had not considered that eventuality, and she was pleased that she had found the lever she needed.
'Why should your father choose to sell now when he's always despised those consortiums, buying up the out- islands and turning them into tourist paradises?'
'I've told you. This woman he's planning to marry is English. What will she care about the island? And if she is marrying Papa for his money, how can she spend it here? The shops in Ste Germaine don't sell the kind of things she will want to buy.'
Raoul thrust back his chair and got abruptly to his feet, thrusting his thumbs broodingly into the back of his pants. He stood at the verandah rail, staring towards the shadowed line of the reef, watching the sun as it climbed above the mountains turning the surf to gold. This was his island, he thought fiercely, as much his as Willard Petrie's. How dared the other man put in jeopardy the one thing he had ever really cared about?
He was aware of Barbara watching him, aware of her eyes upon him. He knew her motives were less pure than his own. All he wanted was freedom—to oversee the plantation, to care for the black people who worked for him, to live here, in his house, within sight and sound of the ocean. Perhaps his ambitions were narrow, perhaps the production from the cane fields was not enough to warrant his dedication; but he had seen enough of that other world when Willard sent him to school and subsequently university in England. He wanted no part of that rat-race society, and he had assumed when Willard retired...
Fool, he thought to himself now, fool ! He should have known better than to trust a man like Willard. Hadn't he had sufficient proof of his untrustworthin-ess in the past?
Barbara rose to her feet, too, and came to stand beside him at the rail. She put her hand on his arm, her fingers curling confidingly round the firm flesh, but his arm remained still and unyielding.
'Raoul,' she said softly, 'don't get upset. It need never happen. You know what Papa is like. You know how quickly he tires of people. All we need to do is show him that this—this woman is not suitable, would never fit in here...'
Raoul looked down at her. 'If what you say is true, she may never need to,' he pointed out dispassionately.
Barbara moved a little closer so that her rounded bare arms brushed his chest. 'They're not married yet.'
He made no reaction to her nearness, but said flatly: 'When do they arrive?'
'At the beginning of next week. They leave London on Monday morning and fly direct to St Lucia. They're planning to stay there overnight, and come on here on Tuesday morning.'
'Tuesday morning.' He nodded. 'And how is your father? Does he say he's well?'
Barbara released him impatiently. 'He says he's never felt better. Can you believe it? A man of his age! And only four weeks since he had his attack!'
Raoul turned back to face the house, resting his hips on the rail. 'Love conquers all, as they say!' he quoted harshly.
Barbara snorted frustratedly. 'Well? What do you think?'
He shook his head. 'I think it's getting late. I think it's time I left for the mill.'
'Damn you, Raoul!'
'All right.' He straightened, not pretending he didn't understand her agitation. 'I can't say I'm happy about it. But I don't see what we can do.'
Barbara seethed, 'There must be something!'
Raoul shrugged. 'Leave it with me. I'll think about it.'
She looked at him anxiously. 'You will?'
'I've said so, haven't I?'
She licked her lips again. 'Will you come to dinner tonight?'
Raoul's mouth turned down. 'I think not.'
'Why not?' Barbara was furiously disappointed. For once she had been sure he would agree.
'I don't think your father would approve,' he drawled mockingly. 'Dining with the hired help! No, I don't think he'd like that at all.'
Barbara's lips trembled with anger. 'That's just an excuse, and you know it.'
The green eyes were bland. 'Don't push it, Sister Barbara. You run along now while I go and earn some more bread for the rich lady's table.'
Her fists clenched, but she left him descending the steps with a recklessness that was almost her undoing. She righted herself and stalked off into the trees that formed a more than adequate barrier between Raoul's dwelling and the imposing grounds of the big house, her skirt a flame of brightness among the green foliage.
The sun was gaining in heat as Raoul left the bungalow and climbed behind the wheel of the dusty Land- rover that provided his only means of transport. The island, known by the imaginative name of Sans Souci, boasted few cars, the majority of its inhabitants contenting themselves with mule-drawn carts or bicycles, or simply walking. But it was some fourteen miles in length and a good five miles wide at its greatest extremities, and Raoul needed the Landrover to supervise the plantation. Pushing his blue cotton hat to the back of his head, he swung the vehicle round and headed up the rough road towards the town.
The harbour of Ste Germaine was the only part of the coastline accessible by sea. Some two hundred years previously a French privateer conveniently blasted a hole in the reef, making the island accessible to bigger craft than the canoes originally used by the Carib Indians, and its s
trategic position made it for a time a bone of contention between the English and the French. That the Caribs murdered both indiscriminately made little difference to the eventual scheme of things. The Caribs themselves were finally wiped out, and the small town that bordered the harbour still revealed its Anglo- French influence, and its native market managed to attract a few visitors from the yachts and chartered vessels cruising in the area. But in spite of its colourwashed houses, its shops and stores overflowing with native crafts, and the profusive beauty of flowering shrubs and creepers, Ste Germaine had no hotels, and Willard Petrie had kept it that way. Owner, governor, politician—he managed to maintain Sans Souci in the way it had existed for over two hundred years, and his family could trace their roots back to those first early settlers. Not that one enquired too deeply into anyone's antecedents in the area, and Petrie himself forbade any discussion of a certain quadroon serving maid who had lived in the big house during the early years of the nineteenth century.
The Petrie plantation stretched from one end of the island to the other. It was primarily given over to the growing of sugar cane, and each of the adult male workers was given half an acre of land on which to grow their own crops, and although Raoul knew that much of this land was unused or bartered over, it pleased Petrie to think that he was a good and generous employer. Living conditions were less easy to monitor, but at least there was a decent hospital in Ste Germaine, and a school for the younger inhabitants. Apart from the Petries and Raoul himself, there was only one other white family on the island—Jacques Marin ran the hospital, and his wife, Susie, was his assistant. They had two children—a boy, Claude, who was fourteen, and away at school in Martinique, and a girl, Annette, who was only six, and was taught by an American girl, Diane Fawcett. The rest of the population was a mixture of off-whites and coloureds, with a fair smattering of Chinese and Indians in the town, except Isabel Signy who ran the school, and whom no one would dare to categorise.
The Petrie sugar mill stood on the outskirts of the town. Raoul parked the Landrover near the warehouses which would soon house the cut sugar cane before its injection into the milling process, and walked into the small office where his second-in-command, Andre Pec- ares, was solidly working his way through a pile of invoices. He looked up with a smile as Raoul entered, but Raoul returned his greeting only absently before flinging himself into the worn leather armchair behind his desk.