Antigua Kiss (11 page)

'There she is—my
Sunbird,'
said Ash.

Christie heard the pride in his voice as he steered her towards his own vessel. So might another man have said, of a beautiful woman, 'There she is—my wife.'

'But surely this isn't the boat you told me about, is it?' she asked, as they stepped on board what seemed to her inexpert eyes an almost new yacht.

'No, that's
Sunbird One.
She's up north in the British Virgins for a month. This is a more recent acquisition. I had her built for me in Denmark. She's a staysail schooner, built to take up to six guests; seventy-four feet long, not counting her bowsprit, with a beam of sixteen feet six. She has three double cabins and six single bunks; three of the cabins have basins, and the bathroom has a proper bath. I think you'll be surprised by the size of her saloon.'

Christie was. She had had no idea that a cruising yacht's quarters between decks could be so spacious and well-appointed. There was no question of roughing it. The saloon had a thick fitted carpet, well-upholstered banquettes and an armchair, and a library of several hundred books housed on shelves between built-in fitments of rich dark mahogany.

Ash left her to explore the passengers' cabins while he made coffee in the galley. By the time she returned to the saloon, greatly impressed by what she had seen, the coffee was ready.

'Normally we serve real coffee made from freshly ground beans, but I remembered that you prefer the decaffeinated instant stuff,' he said, setting the tray on the polished table, and turning to a cupboard containing bottles and glasses. 'What liqueur would you like? I think we have most of the best known ones.'

'Do you have Drambuie?'

'Certainly.' Having filled two small glasses, he left the bottle on the table, slid his long legs underneath it, and seated himself on the banquette at right angles to the part on which she was sitting.

'Now—to business,' he said, in a brisk tone, relieving her of the anxiety that having coffee on his schooner might be the nautical equivalent of being taken to someone's apartment to look at their etchings.

'As possibly you know,' he began, 'Antigua used to be covered with estates growing sugar cane. Nowadays, many of the mills and the Great Houses are in ruins. But some have survived in good order.

Unless tourists are interested in history or architecture, they don't usually see them, except perhaps Marble Hill. It's up in the north-west corner. An artist called Dominic Hapsburg lives and works there, designing hand-printed fabrics and clothes which are sold in most of the good shops. Another fine house is Mercer's Creek. It's kept up and used by outsiders, with Antiguan caretakers. There's also a scheme whereby people can lease these old places at reasonable rents, providing they undertake to preserve them.'

He paused to swallow some coffee and, after a moment, continued,

'I've bought a Great House called Heron's Sound. Tomorrow I'll take you to see it. It's full of splendid antiques, but it's been very badly neglected and needs drastic renovations. When it's done up, I mean to run it as a very superior kind of guesthouse. But first I need someone with taste to redecorate it, and then to act as the chatelaine—supervising the servants, arranging the flowers, making the people who'll come there feel as if they were staying in the house of an exceptionally good hostess. How does it appeal to you, Christiana? Instead of going back to London, to stay here and work with me?'

For some seconds Christie was speechless.

'But I have a job,' was her first reaction.

'People change jobs. I'm sure if you wrote immediately to your Principal—perhaps a cable would be better—explaining the situation in relation to John, your Head would be prepared to release you from whatever agreement you have with the school. After all, you are John's surrogate mother even if I am his legal guardian. Had you been married, and your husband had been posted abroad unexpectedly, you would have had to go with him.'

'Yes, that's true, I suppose.'

'Wouldn't you like to stay here? Doesn't Antigua appeal to you?'

'It seems a ... a paradise to me.'

'Nowhere on this earth is paradise,' Ash said, on a sardonic note.

'True, there are no serpents here—the mongooses have seen to that.

They were brought in to wipe out the snakes, and they did it a long time ago. The only slithering creatures are some blind- worms which live on Great Bird Island. But we do have scorpions and other unfriendly insects, and the climate isn't always quite as pleasant as it is now. It can be humid at times, and we have periods of drought, and hurricanes.'

Christie turned the stem of her liqueur glass, but she didn't raise it to her lips. She was far too preoccupied.

'But could I do it?—The job, I mean. I think you need a professional interior designer to do up a house of that order.'

'I think not,' was his crisp response. 'You have excellent taste of precisely the kind the house needs. I knew that as soon as I saw your flat.'

'But my flat is a do-it-yourself job, with Laura Ashley papers and fabrics. They're some of the most reasonable on the market.'

'So much the better. If you can achieve the same effect at Heron's Sound without spending a fortune, I shall be very pleased. I don't believe in cheeseparing, but nor do I think the most expensive articles are necessarily the best. Good design is what counts, and not everyone has an eye for it. Clearly, you have.'

'So has your friend Bettina Long,' said Christie. 'Don't you think she might like the job?'

'She is ultra-modern in her taste. She wouldn't know where to begin restoring an old house—except by getting rid of all the original contents and starting from scratch with new stuff. As for the running of the place, she'd be hopeless. Bettina has a number of talents, but they don't include the domestic arts.'

'When do you want Heron's Sound to be ready?'

'As soon as possible. If you started immediately, I should think the place could be habitable by the end of February. I can lay on a work force to help you. You can't be expected to do-it-yourself on that scale.'

'What about my flat in London?'

'I suggest you retain it for three months. I'm sure Mrs Kelly would be happy to keep the place aired and dusted in return for a holiday at Heron's Sound later on. In three months' time you should have decided whether you want to stay here permanently, in which case you can fly back to arrange for your furniture to be shipped over, or she can take care of that as well.'

'I—I don't know what to say,' said Christie uncertainly.

'Don't say anything. Sleep on it. Drink your coffee before it goes cold.'

Christie did as he bade her, but without tasting hat she was drinking.

'How long have you owned Heron's Sound?' she asked.

'Not long. It's a matter of weeks since the deeds came into my hands.

But I've known about it for a long time, and suffered a good deal of uncertainty as to whether it would ever be mine. Eventually—

although not for many years yet—I hope to be able to afford to keep it for my personal use.'

Ash refilled his glass with Drambuie. 'As it's rather a gloomy place at present, I think it might be advisable not to take John with us tomorrow. No doubt Mrs Jones would be prepared to spend an afternoon on the beach with him.'

'Probably.'

There were footsteps on deck, and a man's voice called, 'Ahoy below!'

Ash raised his voice slightly. 'Ahoy there!'

The man who entered the saloon a few moments later was of medium height, very thick-set, with a neatly trimmed curly blond beard and light blue eyes in a brown face. He looked to be in his late twenties.

'This is Bob Wright,
Sunbird Two's
skipper when I'm not aboard,' Ash told Christie. 'Bob, this is Mrs Christiana Chapman, whose sister was married to my half-brother.'

'How d'you do, Mrs Chapman. Nice to meet you. Sorry to intrude on you, Ash, but I thought I'd have an early night. I was pretty late getting my head down laSt night, and I don't want to greet the new party with bags under my eyes.'

'No intrusion, Bob. We were on the point of leaving anyway. I'll be here to say hello to the new lot, and assure them that you are every bit as competent as I am.'

'In seamanship, maybe. Not at sailing downhill with the fair sex,' was Bob's quick-fire response. Then he glanced at Christie and reddened, clearly regretting his riposte.

Ash's dark face showed no reaction, nor was there any displeasure in the tone of his goodnight to the other man.

They walked back past three moonlit capstans surrounded by a low wall which was all that was left of the Capstan House.

'The capstans were restored by volunteers from two Royal Navy ships in the early Fifties,' he told her. 'I should have explained to you earlier that the whole of this dockyard was abandoned by the Royal Navy in 1899 because the winding way in was unsuitable for modern ships.

Fifty years later, in 1949, an ex-Navy Commander, Vernon Nicholson, with his wife and sons set out from England to sail to Australia in their schooner
Mollihawk.
They put in here for refitting and fell in love with the place which, at that time, was completely neglected and in danger of total dereliction. A couple of years or so later the Society of the Friends of English Harbour was founded, with people like the Queen and Lady Churchill taking an interest. The wealthy Americans who had bought twelve hundred acres of land to build the Mill Reef Club were also very generous supporters. But it was the Nicholson family who were the prime movers. I envy them sailing in here and, over a period of thirty years, seeing it slowly restored to the way it is now.'

'And, on a much smaller scale, you want to do something similar with Heron's Sound?'

'Yes, if I can. I wasn't the first person to take an interest in it, but the owner—a man in his eighties— had gone back to England, and refused to sell it. He was a distinguished old boy, so I arranged for a friend to cable me as soon as his obituary notice appeared in
The
Times.
I was able to contact his heirs. Heron's Sound had been left to a nephew who arranged for a local surveyor to report on the state of the place, and estimate the cost of restoration and upkeep. On the basis of that report, the nephew accepted my offer. It wasn't a bargain, by any means, but I think it will prove to have been a sound investment.'

They had left the dockyard by now, and were almost back at the car.

Motoring up the long hill from Falmouth and then through the villages of Liberta, Sweets and All Saints, they were silent. Ash gave all his attention to the bends in the road and the ebony-skinned villagers who, unless they were wearing light clothing, tended to merge into the darkness, especially when there was oncoming traffic.

Christie had plenty to preoccupy her; not only Ash's astounding proposition, but also the several fresh insights into his nature.

With hindsight, she guessed that the cry of 'Ahoy' from on deck had been Bob's tactful precaution in case
Sunbird Two's
owner was engaged in 'sailing downhill' with his latest quarry.

And, as Ash had told his deputy that he would be present tomorrow to welcome the next charter party, it seemed a reasonable deduction that, if not spending the night with Bettina, he was sleeping in some bed other than his own on the schooner.

She was tempted to put him on the spot by asking where he kept his belongings when the schooner was not at the dockyard. But it might be she who was embarrassed if he chose to tell her the truth. No, on second thoughts, his private life had nothing to do with her, and it was better to pretend to be blind to it.

'I'll call for you at two, and we'll be back by five,' said Ash, as the car's wheels bumped over the grid at the entrance to the Colony. He escorted her inside the main block, where he asked if she would like a nightcap at the bar.

When Christie refused, he said, 'As you wish. Goodnight, Christiana.'

'Goodnight.' She had already thanked him for dinner, so she walked away quickly.

When, before turning a corner, she glanced over her shoulder, he had already disappeared. Whether to return to the car, to go to the bar on his own, or to hurry to Bettina's cottage, she would never know.

Mrs Jones answered Christie's enquiries by saying that John had been an angel, and she had enjoyed the supper brought to her on a trolley from the restaurant.

'Yes, certainly I'll come tomorrow,' she agreed. Now, will you join me in a cup of tea, Mrs Chapman. I've just this minute made myself a full pot, as vou kindly invited me to do so.'

Thank you.' Christie fetched another cup.

She had already explained the reason for her presence on the island, and John's uncle's connection with her sister.

After some minutes of small talk, the older woman said, 'So it's Mr Lambard who is the little boy's guardian. You didn't mention him by name when you were telling me about it before you went out. Had you had much to do with Mr Lambard prior to losing your sister, Mrs Chapman?'

'No, nothing at all. Neither had Jenny. The two men had kept in touch by letter, but that was all. They hadn't met each other for years.'

'I see.' Mrs Jones pursed her lips. 'That puts me in a difficult position.'

'Really? Why? I don't understand.'

'I'm not a gossip, Mrs Chapman. I have never indulged in the scandalmongering which goes on in any community where some people have little to do but to drink and discuss each other's shortcomings. However, you're very young, and I can see that the little boy is devoted to you, and you to him. So I feel it's my duty to tell you that, from all I've heard, Mr Lambard is a most unsuitable person to have charge of any child.'

CHRISTIE felt an automatic mistrust for anyone who prefaced revelations with 'I feel it's my duty . . .'

'In what way unsuitable?' she asked, her tone stiffening.

'He makes no secret of his predilection for the opposite sex. No attractive female, married or single, is safe with him. The granddaughter of two very dear friends of mine came out on holiday last year, and became entangled with him. She came with the young man whom her family hoped she would marry. He took her to the Lord Nelson Ball at the end of Sailing Week, when the Governor presents the prizes to the winning yachtsmen. Mr Lambard won two of the trophies. No one would dispute his skill as a helmsman. But I think even his friends in the sailing fraternity were shocked by the unscrupulous manner in which he cut out Lucy's fiance. My friends were not present themselves, but I've been told by someone who was that he flirted outrageously with her, ignored poor Roger and, quite deliberately, encouraged Lucy to drink more than was good for her.