Spell of the Island (15 page)

‘Don’t waken him,’ frowned Louise. ‘Perhaps you’d better not—’

‘I won’t waken him,’ promised Emma. ‘I just want to see him once more, that’s all.’ It was only now that she fully realised just how much she had come to care for the child. He was so good and cheerful,
asking little and actually demanding nothing. Like a puppy, he was perfectly content if people would be kind to him; he seemed to want nothing more as yet. Perhaps he would change with the passing of the years.

Very softly Emma eased the nursery door open and took a few silent steps into the room, scarcely breathing in case even that should waken the little boy. She glanced at the bed—and her heart seemed to miss several beats before leaping right up into her throat.

The bed was empty, the covers thrown back.

She ran as fast as her legs would carry her and was panting when she entered Louise’s bedroom.

‘He’s gone!’ she gasped. ‘Louise—Jeremy’s not in his bed!’

‘He’s—’ Louise seemed not to be able to comprehend. ‘What are you talking about? Of course he’s in his bed.’

‘Would I be in this state if he—
Louise, he is not in his bed!’

Dazed, Louise could only stare, then shake her head as if to clear it. But then she was galvanised into life and rushed out and along to the nursery, Emma hard on her heels.

‘It’s possible that he’s—he’s b-been kidnapped.’ Louise turned an ashen face to her sister. ‘Paul’s a very wealthy man—all the Fanchettes are rich—’

‘I don’t suppose it’s as serious as that,’ broke in Emma who, with the first shock wearing off, deduced that, somehow, Jeremy had learned of Louise’s going and had run off somewhere. Most likely he would be in the garden.

‘We’ll have to tell Paul,’ was the first thing she
said. ‘And then we’ll all have to search—we can’t catch that plane if he’s not found in the next half hour or so. I couldn’t leave here not knowing what’s happened to him.’

‘Nor could I. . . .’ Louise was frowning and despite the urgency of the situation she was hesitating so that Emma in her impatience said shortly, ‘What’s wrong, Louise?’

‘I don’t want to tell Paul, not yet,’ she added hurriedly as Emma would have interrupted. ‘He’ll be furious, and put all the blame on me. Let’s, you and I, go out into the garden first and look around. We might just find him, and Paul could be kept in ignorance of the little episode.’

‘I don’t like that idea at all. The more people joining in the search, the better.’

‘But we don’t know if Jeremy’s actually missing. He might just have been unable to sleep and decided to wander off into the gardens.’

‘He’s never done it before, I reckon?’

Louise shook her head.

‘No, never—but there is always a first time.’

Emma shook her head impatiently.

‘I’m convinced that he’s learned of your leaving him, and he’s upset. Paul must be told.’

‘Can’t we just have one little search on our own?’ begged Louise, and after a moment’s hesitation Emma agreed, albeit very much against her will.

They separated on reaching the grounds and arranged to meet twenty minutes later. A wind was blowing, and Louise said it might be a prelude to a hurricane.

‘They have them occasionally,’ she added, glanc
ing up at the darkened sky. ‘I’ve experienced one, and it started with a wind of this force.’

They parted, and Emma’s fears became acute with every unsuccessful minute that passed. She and Louise had arranged to call loudly if either of them came upon the little boy, and so Emma knew that her sister was being no more successful than she. And when ten minutes had gone by, Emma’s fears were so heavy upon her that they lay like an aching, leaden weight in the pit of her stomach. For now Louise’s mention of kidnapping continually flashed into her consciousness as the minutes seemed to stretch to hours in her search of the grounds.

The wind was howling in the trees now, and trunks were swaying; the sea was roughening up and even the lagoon appeared treacherous.

Emma would never know what led her onto the beach, because the entire semicircle was visible from the chateau grounds. Yet her footsteps turned in the direction of the sea even while one part of her brain chided her for this waste of time. The child was nowhere to be seen. . . .

Emma’s breath caught suddenly in her throat, and she felt that every vestige of colour had drained from her face. A cry . . . her eyes scanned in the ever-increasing darkness, for the moon was totally obscured now. Her attention was transferred to the sea, even though the cry seemed not to come from there.

And then she saw it! A small dark shape scarcely discernible and seeming to be lifeless . . . in the water.

’Oh, God—!’ Emma choked on the words, heart
thudding wildly against her rib cage. ‘Jeremy!’ No, perhaps it wasn’t him . . . but that little cry . . . it must be him! ‘Please God let him be alive!’ She had started to run and on and on she went, eyes dilated as she fixed them on the dark shape, never for a second letting it out of her vision. Fear lent speed to her limbs, but her heart was almost bursting, her lungs aching and heavy, and in her chest an excruciating pain. When after an eternity she was opposite the shape, she saw movement, and her whole body sagged with relief. The pitiful little cry again; and without more ado she stripped off her dress and underskirt and leapt into the water, swimming towards the shape—not as strongly as she would have wished but she was breathless even before she entered the water, and now the wind was also hampering her progress as she was, of course, swimming against it. Waves seemed to bury the small body, but it appeared again, and at last she reached it, almost spent herself.

‘You’re all right now, darling. . . .’ She spoke soothing words in response to the child’s whimpering. He seemed to have been holding on to a point of rock rising from the coral. Mauritius was a volcanic island almost surrounded by coral reefs, and here and there, at the far end of this particular beach, the volcanic rocks did appear.

Emma had never had any kind of tuition in lifesaving, but the rescue of a small child like this needed no expert knowledge; and she was soon swimming towards the shore, taking it slowly, praying that Jeremy would not struggle—though she doubted he had the strength—and also that her own ebbing strength would hold out. Naturally, questions
whirled about in her mind as to how the child had come to be in the water. But soon she was concentrating fully on the task in hand, for the wind was now treacherous in a different way: it was carrying her sideways, so increasing the distance from the shore. It was also causing the water in the lagoon to heave, and Emma, with her gradually failing strength, began to wonder if she would ever make it to the shore. Fear rose to block her throat; wildly, she thought she should have turned back after seeing the shape in the water and shouted to her sister before attempting the rescue. Or perhaps she should have stayed by that spiral of rock and clung to it, hoping that eventually help would come. So many regrets as, practically exhausted and aware that she was crying in despair, she fought on, hampered by her burden and losing strength with every feeble stroke she made.

And then without warning the sea heaved even higher and she was being carried helplessly towards another dark shape, an ominous one this time; the rock loomed up, and the heaving sea sent her crashing against it. There was a split second of excruciating pain alongside the awareness that Jeremy was carried away, and then a great blackness descended upon her.

She fluttered her lashes and opened her eyes. Silence and only a small light . . . dazedly she tried to focus. . . . Her head! The pain. . . .

‘She’s coining round—oh, thank God!’

‘What—?’ Emma was struggling to sit up, but a firm hand pushed her back against the pillow. She opened her eyes wider as memory came flooding in
and again tried to sit up. ‘Jeremy!’ she cried, her voice high-pitched to the point of hysteria. ‘Jeremy—he’s—’

‘Quite safe, Emma, so lie still. You’ve hurt your head and the doctor’s coming. He’ll be here in a few minutes.’ It was Paul’s voice, low and hollow-sounding, as if he were very tired . . . or dejected?

‘Emma—’ Louise broke off, swallowing hard to clear the blockage in her throat. ‘How scared I was! You were almost drowned and—’

‘That’ll do,’ from Paul and this time the voice carried an authoritative ring. ‘You can see she’s going to be all right, so go and get some rest.’

Emma said weakly, ‘How were we saved?’

‘Paul saved you, and Pierre saved Jeremy,’ said Louise who had ignored Paul’s order and was still sitting beside Emma’s bed. ‘But it was you who really saved him. You were so brave to go into that raging sea.’

‘It wasn’t raging when I went in. . . .’ Emma tailed off weakly then asked the time.

‘Half-past ten,’ from Paul who had laid a hand upon her brow. ‘Is the pain very bad?’ So kind the voice, and gentle . . . but yet there was something underlying that was unfathomable. ‘My mind is muddled,’ thought. Emma then answered Paul’s question.

‘It aches dreadfully . . . but I’ve been lucky.’ Her eyes were moist. It was stupid to want to cry when her life had just been saved. ‘Thank you, Paul,’ she quivered simply. Her hand had crept beneath the covers. She was naked and supposed it was Louise who had undressed her—not that there was much to
take off, only panties and a bra. . . . The dimness was fading to blackness, and Emma drifted back into unconsciousness.

The next time she awoke the doctor was there, attending to the wound on her head.

‘You’re a very lucky young lady,’ he said in a kindly voice. He too was a blanc Mauritian, Dr. Chastel, and had been the Fanchette family doctor for over twenty years.

‘Yes,’ she returned, ‘I know.’

The doctor turned to Paul who was in the room, but Louise had gone.

‘Get someone to make sure she has these tablets regularly; they’re for the pain. It’s a miracle she wasn’t hurt more seriously, for that sea out there is vicious.’

When he had gone, Emma, feeling much better even though the tablets Paul had just given her could not possibly have begun to do their work, looked up into the drawn countenance above her and asked Paul to explain what had happened.

‘Don’t you think you should try to sleep?’

She shook her head.

‘Not until I know everything.’

‘Louise came to me, because you didn’t turn up at the time you’d arranged to be back at the house.’ He stopped and his mouth compressed. She guessed that he was angry that the two girls had not come to him immediately they discovered Jeremy was missing. However, it seemed that he considered there would be nothing to be gained by bringing that up now and he went on, ‘I immediately had everyone out to join in the search. It seemed that as you were
missing also, you must have found Jeremy—that was the logical explanation that occurred to me. Pierre happened to join me as I went out onto the beach; it was a forlorn hope, since I could see the whole bay in spite of the darkness. However, Pierre and I eventually did see you, just as you were being carried along. . . .’ He paused and Emma saw that little beads of perspiration were standing out on his forehead.

She said, speaking her thoughts aloud, ‘It must have been terrible for you, wondering if Jeremy were alive, seeing that your sister and her husband had put him in your charge.’

He looked down at her in silence, his face unmoving except for the pulsing of a nerve in his cheek. Yes, she thought, he must have been almost out of his mind with worry about his nephew.

He said at length, ‘I did worry about you as well, you know.’ There was censure in the tone . . . and again that something else.

‘Of course. I’m sorry. You would all be worrying about me.’

‘I came for you, as Louise said, and Pierre saved Jeremy.’

‘I was lucky—and so was Jeremy.’ She was still a little dazed and knew she had left some things out, questions she ought to be asking. One came to her and she wanted to know how Jeremy got himself into the water.

‘He said he’d gone paddling—’

‘Paddling! But he never leaves his bed once he’s in it—’ Emma broke off but added after a small hesitation, ‘Had he learned that Louise was leaving him?’

Paul nodded his head.

‘Sarogni told him.’ Paul’s eyes were hard. ‘He must have taken it to heart—’

‘I didn’t notice anything strange about him when I read a bedtime story to him,’ broke in Emma reflectively. ‘He seemed quite happy then.’

Paul was looking at her with an odd expression.

‘You were in the habit of reading bedtime stories to him?’

‘I enjoyed it,’ was all she answered to that.

‘And so would Jeremy, I’m sure.’ He moved restlessly, and she half expected him to bring the conversation to a close. She felt she would be able to sleep, because the tablets had been effective, and the pain was almost gone.

‘If Jeremy had an affection for you then
your
going would add to his unhappiness. He must have been confused and very upset. He said when questioned that he couldn’t sleep and wanted to ask you both to stay, but he went outside instead and apparently wandered about for a while. What made him go into the water will remain a mystery, since all he’ll say is that he decided he wanted a paddle. The lagoon is normally almost still, and in any case Jeremy can swim, as you know. And while I’d not consent to his going in the water alone, I’m sure he’d have come to no harm if it hadn’t been for the weather. He was carried out, he said, and when he found himself near the rock, he clung to it. He very clearly remembered your going to him there.’

‘So that’s the explanation,’ mused Emma, it just goes to show how unpredictable young children are when their minds become upset in any way. It
behooves parents always to keep a wary eye open, doesn’t it?’ She was very serious and thoughtful and failed to notice the almost convulsive movement of Paul’s mouth, or the pulsing of that nerve again. But she did hear him give a deep sigh and asked if he were tired.

But before he could answer, Pierre came into the room to ask Emma how she felt.

‘I feel much better now the pain’s gone,’ she answered, wondering where Eileen was.

‘We have you to thank for the fact that Jeremy is alive.’