Island in the Dawn (5 page)

“Good,” he said.

Cassandra, sitting in the full revealing light of the standard lamp, tightened her lips a little. Harry Whitelaw thought that her face looked like a pale, smooth, deceptive mask—although he had known her such a short while he was certain it
was
a mask.

“You don’t ask me whether I am feeling refreshed after a long day devoted to being appallingly lazy, Mr. Halloran,” she said, in oddly silken tones.

He turned to her at once.

“I am sure you both needed to be appallingly lazy,” he returned, “and I hope you found your rooms comfortable? If not we must do something about it!”

Cassandra’s mouth turned down a little at one
corner
, as if this was not quite the answer she had expected
—
or the reaction to her mild reproof.

“Our rooms are beautifully comfortable, thank you,” she told him. “This whole house is an island of comfort.”

“I like to think that the island is one to which one will a
l
ways wish to return,” he said, and although he might have been speaking out of pure politeness, Felicity had the feeling that he was actually speaking from the heart. That for him the island was a place of refuge, a place to which he would return again and again—if he ever left it, that was—and that in his scheme of things it had acquired a very special significance.

CHAPTER FIVE

FELICITY remembered every detail of that first evening on Menzies Island very clearly in after days.

She remembered the gong booming suddenly for dinner. It was a huge brass going that stood in the beautiful entrance hall, and looked as if its rightful place was the palace of some eastern potentate, or somewhere where its hollow voice would pall many people to obey an insistent summons. In the gracious white house on Menzies Island it
s
ummo
ned
four people to take their places in a room that reminded Felicity of the dining room of an English country
-
house.

There were panelled walls, a sideboard groaning with Georgian silver, and a long dining table sparkled with cut-glass and plate and flowers. Above the table a magnificent specimen of a crystal chandelier was responsible for much of the sparkle, and Cassandra wanted to know whether the house made its own electricity—apparently in her uncle’s time they had had to be content with oil lamps. Paul Halloran admitted that he had introduced many improvements since commencing his tenancy. Most of the improvements were of fairly recent date, for when he first took over he had not, as he explained plainly without desiring any sympathy, been in a condition to be interested in improvements. He hoped to introduce still more.

Cassandra tried again to extract information about his future plans, and whether or not he intended to remain for some time on the island. But as before the information was not forthcoming.

Paul Halloran had no intention of discussing with anyone his future intentions, and certainly not a young woman he had met for the first time that day.

Cassandra accepted this, but explained that she was a little curious about her uncle’s movements. The added with a slightly artificial laugh that her curiosity was not unnatural, for one day—one day!—if any
thin
g happened to her Uncle James, the island might become hers. She would be quite thrilled to be the possessor of an island.

But even this drew nothing further out of her host. His expression grew a lit
tl
e more remote, perhaps, that was all.

The dinner was beautifully cooked and beautifully served, Michael doing most of the waiting, although Florence assisted by carrying in side dishes. Michael’s broad Irish accent sounded a little strange in such surroundings, particularly as he occasionally uttered exclamations that were full of uninhibited Irish humor. When he stopped behind his master’s chair, and that master refused something that Michael assured
him
had been prepared especially for him, he threw up his hands and called upon the saints to witness that he was doing his best to put a little flesh on Mr. Halloran’s bones, and thereby aid his convalescence. And when Paul waved him away with a good-humored smile—and the proffered dish also
—
he rolled his eyes to the ceiling and declared that it would injure Moses in a spot where he could not be injured more.

“And where is that?” Paul asked with interest, and waited with the smile of amusement clin
ging
to his shapely lips while Michael thought out the answer.

“At the heart of him, sor!” he brought out, at last. “The white heart of him, that is not a bit like his skin, that is black patent leather!”

Paul met Felicity’s eyes across the table, and he could see that she was
s
miling
,
too. His vivid blue gaze seemed to become temporarily anchored to her soft brown one, and when he looked away the color was palpitating gently in her cheeks, and Cassandra
—
on the opposite side of the table
—
drew her lips into one of the noticeably thin lines that had surprised Harry Whitelaw.

After dinner they returned to the big, comfortable lounge, and when the noise of the festivities in the village reached their ears they went out on to the veranda. The night was not so dark now, for a moon like a great yellow lantern had climbed into the star
-
studded sky above the plantation. It sailed into a position where it could be seen clearly by every human soul on the island, and turned to a plaque of beaten silver. From it poured light that transmuted everything, save the blackest shadows, to silver also.

The plantation was a thicket of mystery, but the tops
o
f the trees had an iridescent shimmer that was quite unearth
l
y. The lawns surrounding the house, running right up to the veranda steps, were lakes of silver, and the flowers in the beds were either carved out of ebony or made of mother-of-pearl. Roses actually tapping against the veranda posts were waxen and wonderful, and their perfume was like incense prodigally released.

From the village came a steady throbbing like the beating of drums, and there was also a gayer note, as if expert fingers were plucking the strings of guitars and twisting the heart out of an accordion. Harry Whitelaw explained that one of the villagers possessed an accordion, and he was obviously making the most of it tonight. Chanting voices sounded as if they were singing calypsos.

The bonfires were lighted later on, and their flames licked into the sky making it glow a little, as if the sun hadn’t really set yet Felicity felt awed by the thought of bonfires in this tinder-dry climate, but her host explained that they would be kept well under control. The villagers were not irresponsible, even when they were out to enjoy themselves.

As he was the man, apparently, who had made their enjoyment possible, Felicity thought he should know.

He stood a little behind her in the darkness of the veranda, and Felicity caught the faint perfume of his shaving-cream as the night-wind wafted it a little towards her. It was a curiously wholesome scent, just like his impeccable appearance, and combined with the faint scent of his cigarette it did odd things to her in the darkness. It made her, for the first time in her life, acutely aware that a man was standing near her, and that his eyes that had been sightless until a short time ago were searching the velvet screen of the night with her own eyes.

Cassandra, after using the most blatant methods to chain their host to her own side and failing, because he refused to be chained, was forced to accept the attentiveness of Harry Whitelaw if she was not to be overlooked altogether. He found it rather heavy weather arousing any enthusiasm in her for either the beauties of the island at night, or the fireworks that soon started to shoot across the heavens.

“Perhaps,” he suggested a little tentatively in her ear, “you might care for that walk to the village? Or, at any rate, to a point of vantage where you can see things a little better!”

But Cassandra declared she had a horror of snakes, and even if he assured her there were no snakes, she would be terrified of treading on one.

“Take Miss Harding,” she said, looking through the velvet gloom at Felicity. A note in her voice suggested that it had only just occurred to her that Felicity might be
missing
something that she could enjoy: “I’m sure she’d simply love to see the village at night, and she’s not as timorous as I am,” with a soft laugh that made a mockery of the final statement. For Cassandra was not timorous about anything.

Whitelaw looked a little doubtfully at Felicity, but before he could issue an invitation his employer spoke for him
—
crisply, incisively, just as he had spoken once before about something that concerned Felicity.

“Not tonight, I think, Harry! Remember that Miss Harding had only just arrived, and it’s quite a walk to the village. Another night, perhaps. And now may I suggest that you two ladies would do well to retire early? Don’t imagine that we’re anxious to get rid of you, but tomorrow you’ll feel more like concerning yourselves with the affairs of the islanders.”

Upstairs in her own room, while Felicity closed on
e
of the windows under her direction, Cassandra moved to her dressing table and stubbed out a cigarette in a crystal ashtray that reposed on it. The room was all pale golden warmth; in it Cassandra’s brilliant hair flamed, and the sequins that clung to her black net dress looked like fireflies that had found entrance and were concentrating on the litheness of her body.

“There’s something I’d like to say to you, Felicity, before you carry out our host’s instructions and go to bed!” Cassandra said. She lifted her head, and the graceful outline of it looked arrogant, and her eyes were hard green glass in the golden light.

“Yes?” Felicity turned to her, and looked expectant

Cassandra studied her coldly.

“I would like you to understand that I am not normally very interested in men
—
that is, I have become a little bored with most of them
—
but our host is
unlik
e anyone I’ve ever met before! I’d say that he’s not interested in women
—
possibly because of what happened two years ago
—
but at his age it’s absurd
to
have renounced everything that makes life worth living, and having got back his sight
I
feel that there’s something else I could give him! Anyway, I mean to try
...
I know now why I suddenly decided to come here
—
it was Fate, if you care to call it that, and having been brought here by Fate I don’t intend anyone to spoil things for me. Least of all you, my dear Felicity!” Felicity looked as if she was quite uncomprehending
—
which she actually was.

But Cassandra explained rather crudely: “I
think
I’m going to fall in love!
...
And if I don’t fall in love, at least it will be exciting. But you must keep in the background, my dear. I’m not trying to flatter you that you’re easily noticed, but in order to escape from something
—
shall we say a woman who
could
attract him violently?
—
Paul Halloran, may turn to you. He may appear interested in you, but you can take it from me you are not the sort of woman to attract a Paul Hallo
r
an. And I strongly suspect that his heart is in the grave with that woman who died! But, wherever it is, it’s nothing to do with you!
...
Do you understand?” Felicity could find no words to answer. But she wa
s
conscious of a distinct sensation of shock.

Cassandra went on, in an equable voice: “Learn to melt into the background a little more than you do at the present time, my dear, and don’t look across the dinner table into the eyes of a man you’ve only just met as if he fascinates you
—
as if at a word from him you’d be crawling to him, openly pleading for favors! Perhaps you don’t know how you looked tonight, but
I saw you
—
and, quite frankly, I was horrified! I don’t know what Harry Whitelaw thought, and I can’t imagine what Paul Halloran himself thought. If you go on like that he’ll feel much safer if we leave the island.”

“I don’t know what you mean!” Felicity gasped.

“Don’t you?” Cassandra turned away. “Well, all I ask is
—
don’t do it again! If you’ve lost your
gi
rlish
heart try and conceal the fact!”

CHAPTER SIX

THE next few days passed in a somewhat unreal fashion for Felicity, although Cassandra seemed to find them very satisfying, and to extract a good deal of enjoyment from them.

After that first night of their arrival, when she made her intentions clear to her companion, and warned her,
as it were, to keep “off the grass”, she settled down to treating Felicity very much as she had always done. She was casually interested in what she wore, what she did
—
when they had been apart for a short while she always wanted to know how Felicity had spent her time
—
and how she reacted to the island, and the new impressions they were receiving. Cassandra had always boasted that she could stand any amount of sun, and it seemed to be true in those days. She tanned deliciously, in spite of her red hair, and as she had quantities of the right sort of clothing she always looked delectable. She seemed to have been bo
rn
to recline in a temperature in which it was preferable to do nothing else.

There was some wonderful bathing to be had in the warm, translucent water, and Cassandra was as much at home in the water as a fish. Felicity, not quite so much at home, envied her prowess with the surf board provided by their host, who was seldom, however, himself to be seen on the beach. He seemed to spend most of his time in the cool of the house, or on the veranda. Perhaps, because he had passed so many of his hours in the past year groping his way about the house and becoming accustomed to the feel of each article of highly-polished furniture, he had grown to look upon it as a sanctuary. He had developed a psychological dislike for wandering abroad, and this made Cassandra frown a little when she realized that it was a feeling that was not going to be easily uprooted.

“Uncle James used to do a lot of sailing,” she told Felicity, “and of course this is the one perfect
corner
of the globe for people who enjoy that sport. I must say I do! I’ve been trying to find out whether the boathouse that is kept securely locked still contains the small yacht in which we used to have such fun, and if so, what sort of trim it’s in. Harry Whitelaw doesn’t seem to know, because he wasn’t here in Uncle James’s time, but he is keen on sailing and when the opportunity present itself I’m going to ask our host about the contents of the boathouse. If he hasn't got a boat he ought to get one, and maybe I can persuade him to do so if the boathouse is empty.”

Felicity looked at her in obvious surprise.

“But if we’re leaving on the steamer when it calls here..
.”

Cassandra looked at her as if she was mildly amused.

“But I haven’t
said
I’m leaving on the steamer when it calls here!”

“No, but—but, surely, that is what we will have to do?”

Cassandra, who had been washing her hands for lunch, picked up a comb and ran it through her hair.

“Darling,
I wish you wouldn’t be so naive!” she complained. “Do you honestly
think
I’ve come here all the way from England to pack up and go home again after a fortnight?” Wouldn’t that be rather a senseless thing to do?”

“But we could go on somewhere else
...
I mean, you could!” Felicity had already prepared herself for lunch, and she was standing regarding her very distant connection as she finished dealing with her hair and removed the stopper from the flagon of toilet-water and placed some of it behind each of her ears, and at her delicate, blue-veined temples. The whole room became filled with the fragrance of the toilet water, which was expensive, and exquisitely refreshing. “Cassand
r
a, I’ll understand perfectly if you don’t want to pay for me at hotels, and would like me to go home. But, naturally, you don’t want to go home—and I don’t see how you can very well stay on here!”

Her employer smiled round her inscrutably.

“Don’t you?” she said. “Why not?”

Felicity made a little gesture with her shoulders. “Well, for one thing, this is the house of a bachelor, and
—
well, wouldn’t mos
t people think it a little odd?”

“Not when the ste
amer calls only once a fortnight!
”

“But if we miss the next steamer!
...”

“If I miss the next steamer, you mean, darling! You don’t think I could stay on here without you!
—
That
would
be rather unconventional, I’ll admit! But if we both miss it there could always be some reason found for it!”

“But how do you know that Mr. Halloran wants us to stay?” Felicity looked shocked.

Cassandra r
egarded her with a faintly pitying air, and she also looked as if something had displeased her a little
—
in fact, considerably.

“My dear Felicity,” she told the girl she employed rather sharply, “Mr. Halloran is no longer
blind
...
He may not be able to see yet as well as he will in a few week’s time, when his eyes have grown that much stronger, but even if he only sees me through a kind of a haze
—
and I know that’s not true
—
I don’t honestly
think
he wants to be left alone again quite so soon! That would be
too
unflattering!
...
To me, not to you! For although you’re very sweet in your way you’re hardly the
type
to detract from my limelight! And
Mr. Halloran has had the world at his feet, remember! I should imagine he’s rather selective.”

Felicity was silent.

Cassandra regarded her disdainfully.

“You should know by this time that men don’t normally wish to be rid of me,” she added coldly, “and in spite of his disastrous accident I don’t think Mr. Halloran is in the least abnormal. He may ignore you
...
If you feel that he ignores you you mustn’t mind, because in some ways you’re such an odd, shy little thing, and you go about here as if you are by no means certain of your welcome, and would like to apologize for your intrusion at every possible moment!”

This was so true that Felicity knew she couldn't dispute it, but as Cassandra herself was the one who was much more responsible than her host, for making her feel shy and awkward, and an intruder, she could have said something on that point.

But she didn’t do so. By this time she was used to Cassandra
—
coldly venomous at one moment, surprisingly generous the next, and she knew it would be useless to tax her with causing her to feel so self-conscious and awkward sometimes that she was afraid her host was becoming aware of it.

If was not true that he ignored her, and there were even moments when Felicity would have been much happier if he had done so when Cassandra was around. At meal times he seemed to make a point of being attentive to her, and she could sometimes feel Cassandra silently gnashing her beautifully cared for teeth when be ordered Michael to remove her empty plate, or provide her with something
—
such as some special dish concocted by Moses
—
that he felt sure she would enjoy.

Whether he was wearing his dark glasses or not he knew when Felicity was neglected, and he saw to it that the neglect was made up for by prompt and individual attention. More than once he drew forth her chair himself at the table, and he saw to it that a subject of conversation that seemed likely to exclude her was abandoned before she could even begin to feel out of it. Cassandra was fond of introducing topics that she knew beforehand would have Felicity out of her depth, either because she lacked the experience
—
as when Cassandra talked of places she had visited, and customs she had got to know about
—
or because her background had not permitted her to enjoy the same advantages as the woman who now employed her. In the days before he had shut himself up on his island Paul Halloran had mixed and moved with people Cassandra had known, and they shared a knowledge of all sorts of things that Felicity was very shaky about. Such things as social gatherings, events and celebrities that she had only read about.

Cassandra would have talked over her head
—
even ignored her altogether
—
but Paul Halloran would never permit this. When there were only the three of them it was less noticeable that he always strove to include her in the conversation, but when Harry Whitelaw shared the meal or after-dinner coffee, as he frequently did, it would have been more or less natural for the party of four to pair off.

Cassandra worked tirelessly to this end, but not always with the most satisfactory results. Harry Whitelaw worked just as tirelessly
—
although perhaps not so obviously
—
to get
hims
elf paired off with Cassandra, and very frequently he succeeded. Actually he and Felicity had much more in common, for she was very interested in all that went on on the island and he was an earnest young man who took his job very seriously. Felicity could listen without boredom to his explanations of the various methods employed to produce such things as larger and more perfect grapefruit, as well as other citrus fruit.

Cassandra would have been hard put to it to conceal a yawn if he had poured into her ears the details of the many tests
—
mostly laboratory tests
—
involved in the cultivation of finer fruit for the export market. But Felicity was keen to hear as much as she could on a subject that didn’t strike her as dull, but progressive; it was this very keenness that she displayed that made it comparatively easy for Cassandra to get her out of the way for a good many hours of one day, at least.

She persuaded Whitelaw to take Felicity for a tour of the island, and he did so in a jeep, which was not perhaps the most comfortable form of travel in a tropical climate, and on an island where the roads, suc
h
as they were, were decidedly rough.

Felicity started off with the knowledge that Cassandra was glad to get rid of her, although she didn’t know whether her host approved or not. It was not until she returned that she discovered that, had he been consulted, he would not have approved.

Harry Whitelaw for once was happy to have an appreciative listener, one whose eyes grew occasionally round with wonder at what she saw. He forgot the more glamorous Cassandra for the time being, and spun the tour of inspection out until it became more like a test of endurance to Felicity than an introduction to the secrets of the island.

She saw things that delighted her, color that charmed her eyes, and was introduced to many people in the course of the day. There were the packers who finally despatched the rewards of a lot of effort to the mainland, the sorters, the growers, the piccaninnies who were all part and parcel of the toilers under the hot sun. Some of the women enchanted her with their black eyes and their white teeth, and she was amazed at the quality of good looks amongst the men. In their villages they lived the simplest of lives, but none of them appeared dissatisfied with their lots. Frequen
tl
y she heard bursts of singing, and during their halt for a picnic lunch in the village where the laboratory section was concentrated, a young man in a scarlet shirt and a pair of swinging gold earrings entertained her with a calypso, accompanying
hims
elf on a guitar.

It was all a little difficult to take in; the hot blue sky; the green of the leaves amongst which the golden balls of fruit nestled until they were dislodged by expert fingers; the white dusty roads that criss-crossed the island. Sometimes the soil was reddish, like Devon soil, and down on the shore the reddish rocks littered the pale gold of the beaches. There were little coves and inlets overhung with palms; reefs, reaching out to sea, enclosing translucent gardens of coral and weed. There was creamy surf advancing in long lines, like a regiment of creamy-crested soldiers, and breaking on the untouched surface of that incredible sand.

As
th
e hours went by, Felicity’s eyes and head began to ache intolerably with the glare and the constant effort she made to take in all the information that was passed on to her. She thought a little light-headedly of travel brochures and stories about treasure islands, and wondered why this island wasn’t overrun by tourists, and whether perhaps it possessed a treasure. Then, jerking herself out of the light-headedness she told herself that of course it couldn’t be overrun by tourists when it was privately owned and there wasn’t even an hotel on the island. As for treasure, she had seen enough of that in the way of fruit growing in the sun.

She wondered whether the sale of the produce put very much money into Paul Halloran’s pocket, or whether it went into the pockets of James Menzies. Thinking about Paul Halloran made her wonder just how long he was likely to remain on the island. Perhaps he had
made up his mind to remain there for the rest of his life
—
James Menzies being in agreement
—
since he had surrounded himself with so many beautiful things of his own, and seemed disinclined to talk about his future plans. Perhaps he had had enough success in those early days, and now that he looked back on it it palled a little, or his accident had altered his whole attitude to life. If, as Cassandra insisted, he had lost someone who had been very important to him as a result of that accident, then it was not in the least unnatural that he should wish to forget about all that had gone before and live only in a present that was gradually becoming colorful to him because his eyes were serving
him
again.