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She did not see or hear of him for two days, and then she met him in the boutique. Wondering what he was doing in a place with white urns and dried and treated skeletal white leaves, white lace-like flowers, hand-painted caftans, Oriental kimonos, bamboo stools and small ornaments, she said uncertainly, 'Oh, hello.'

'I was looking for you,' he said, his eyes going over her.

‘Oh?’ She felt her heart lurch.

‘Only today I discovered your sun-glasses in my car.'

‘Where are they?’ she asked, seeing that he was empty-handed.

'At my chalet, waiting to be collected by their owner.' Suddenly he smiled. ‘Did you think I would return them? What have you been doing with yourself?’

The brooding, troubled words of a song sounded softly in the boutique, for music was piped just about everywhere in the hotel and in the health hydro.

‘Oh, working,' Jade said, ‘but I’m enjoying it. In its way, it’s very rewarding work. The boost on beauty is enormous on women and, apart from that, there’s the health side to it.'

‘Are you finished here?’ He glanced around the boutique.

‘Yes,' she said.

‘Well,' he took her arm and walked with her to the door, ‘men would tell you that the very best thing for skin and beauty is making love.’

In the cool, vaulted arcade she moved away from his touch. When she spoke her voice was cool. ‘The idea of therapeutic sex doesn’t appeal to me, I’m afraid.'

‘And I sincerely hope you don't have to resort to it,' he mocked her, ‘Your sunglasses are waiting for you to call for them.’

After he had gone Jade stood biting her lip. While he had said this his sea-green eyes had been fixed on her in demanding scrutiny and they had insisted that she look at him. It amused him, she found herself thinking bitterly, to get her to do things she didn’t want to do, for she wanted to go back to his chalet. He knew that.

When her telephone rang that evening she felt like collapsing at the sound of Marlow’s voice.

‘I'm speaking to you from Reunion,’ he told her. ‘The island. How are you, Jade?’

‘I-I'm fine.’

‘I’m sorry it had to be like this,’ he was saying, ‘but it couldn’t be helped.’

‘That’s all right,’ she assured him, but she was thinking that he might have phoned her before this or, at least left a letter for her to have read on her arrival in Mauritius.

There was a pause and then he said, ‘And so you are quite settled in with—with Nicole, then?’

‘Yes.'

‘And the work?’ he asked.

‘Yes. It’s what I’ve been used to, of course. It’s what I was trained to be—a beauty therapist. The clinic is full, with a good smattering of men. I thought you were in South Africa?’

‘I was. I’ve touched down in Reunion. I have some matters to attend to here.'

‘I drove out to your house,' she told him, and waited.

‘Oh?’ His voice sounded strained. 'And what did you think of it?’

‘I didn’t go in, of course, but it’s a gracious old house—everything you said it was.’

‘Look, Jade, I’m sorry to have to tell you I won't be back for another few days,' he said. 'Go out to the house, if you wish. Maybe you have things you want to take there?’

‘My belongings—the things I wanted to bring with me—will be arriving later,' she told him, ‘but in any case, thank you.’

After the call she walked about aimlessly, going from her room to the balcony and back. Her mind felt as if it was staggering beneath a weight of pressure and bewilderment.

She longed to be able to approach Nicole about the uncertainty she was experiencing, but realised that she could not do this. After all, it was her own fault, for she had done nothing about the inevitable, which was seeing too much of Laurent Sevigny and falling in love with him.

If she’d been a man, right now, she was thinking wildly, she would go and sit on one of the stools at the cocktail bar and get hopelessly and traditionally drunk. As it was, being a woman, she could only suffer.

Her pride would not allow her to go to the chalet for the sunglasses. Once she picked up her phone with the intention of phoning Laurent to tell him that she was coming, but quickly changed her mind.

Apart from the health clinic, Nicole de Speville also ran a training school where students studied all branches of beauty culture, with individual and personal attention by Nicole herself. There were at the moment three students and during weekends they 'worked' on clients, thus gaining valuable practical experience in client.'operator relationship, under actual salon conditions. This left jade comparatively free to do as she pleased.

It was for this reason that she decided to get away from everything, and the obvious place to go seemed to be her future home. After all, there were servants there, and Marlow had suggested that she might like to go there.

On the Friday afternoon, when she had finished at the salon, she drove to Marlow’s house in the mini-bus, after arranging with the Creole driver to drop her off there and pick her up again on the Monday morning.

The wind started to blow in full force just after midday and she almost cancelled the lift in the minibus. From her balcony she saw that several fishing vessels had come in and if she had not already phoned Marlow's Creole housekeeper, explaining her intention to spend the weekend there, she would have cancelled her plans. Although the idea of going to a strange house filled her with unease and depression she allowed herself to drift on the tide and let herself in for yet another form of the kind of punishment she seemed intent on inflicting upon herself.

She was the last passenger to alight from the mini bus and Philipee, the driver, said, ‘I wonder what the met office at Vacoas will have to say about the weather?’

‘Oh, so there is a met office on the island?’ She tried to overcome the unease she was now feeling, and glanced towards the steps of Marlow’s house.

‘Yes, it supplies the weather forecast for shipping and flying and it warns the islanders in the cyclone season, when these winds get up,’ Philipee told her.

‘But you don’t think there’s going to be a cyclone, do you?’ Her blue eyes were frightened.

Laughing easily, he said, ‘No, I don': think so. I didn’t mean to frighten you. Have you heard of Paul and Virginie yet?'

She was puzzled. ‘No. Who are they?’

‘During the night in August, 1744, a ship was wrecked. All through our history ships have been wrecked in cyclones. This was the
St Geran,
and a hundred and fifty people were drowned and all cargo lost. Only nine people escaped, and we have this story of Paul and Virginie. They are something like your Romeo and Juliet, They were lovers. He saw Virginie drown and he was so brokenhearted that he fled into the forest where he died of a broken heart. When Virginie’s body was washed up the two lovers were buried together. There’s a statue of Paul and Virginie in the Curepipe town gardens.'

The story depressed her and she said, Do you think I should come back with you to the hotel, Philipee?’

Suddenly he laughed. ‘There won’t be a cyclone, miss. Don’t be frightened.’

‘But,’ Jade turned to look at Marlow’s plantation-house, ‘it’s only a
wooden
house.’

‘Yes, but look how long it’s been standing. This is a Victorian house, miss.'

She stood watching him as he turned the bus round and drove off and was hidden from sight by the tall cane.

What was it Nicole had said about Marlow’s house? Gracious, colonial ... built of tropical wood—under the constant threat of cyclones....

There was an old-fashioned knocker and she used it, and while she waited she stood looking at the wind, which could only be described as violent, she thought. Just when she was beginning to despair that the house was unoccupied, the door opened and she was almost dragged inside by an elderly Creole woman who said, ‘Quickly, miss. Everything bangs, if a door is opened. My name is Marie and I am Monsieur Marlow's housekeeper. I stay here on the property with my husband and daughter Juanita. We didn’t think you would come, but we prepared for you, anyway. The weather is getting worse, every minute. Come, I show you your room.'

Except for the buffeting of the wind which caused it to shudder, the house was very quiet. The room to which Jade was shown was furnished with the minimum of casual furnishings and there were shutters at the windows, which had been closed. Because of the gloomy conditions this brought about, Marie switched on the light.

‘It’s—it’s a typical sugar-plantation house, isn't it?’ Jade commented, feeling ill at ease. ‘Even to the fan whirring from the high ceiling.'

‘So you have been in a plantation house before?’ Marie sounded curious.

‘No,' Jade laughed, ‘but,' she shrugged, ‘you know how a person pictures something in their mind.'

The walls, she noticed, were painted an almost bright blue and the window frames were white. Twin beds were separated by a bamboo table and the floor was uncarpeted, but rush matting divided the space between the beds. There was red hibiscus, freshly cut, arranged carelessly in a blue-and-white vase.

'Monsieur Marlow’s bedroom is just across the passage,' said Marie. ‘You would like to see it?’

A feeling of sheer despair washed over Jade. 'No. No, thank you ... not now.'

‘Please to make yourself at home. Soon, of course, you will be married and this will be your home,' Marie went on, while something in Jade screamed, no, no, no...!

However, it was a pleasant enough house. The sitting-room, as Marie referred to it, was detailed in straw and bamboo and tail potted palms grew in woven baskets, bound in leather. A fan made whirring noises over the wind noises. It was close and hot. Highbacked cane chairs brought glamour into the room.

The wind continued to batter the plantation house, which seemed to be very much at the mercy of it. Now that she was actually here, Jade asked herself what it was she had planned to do. She had had visions of herself washing flimsy drapes and of hanging them out on the washline to float about in the wind, after which she would hang them and stand back to gaze at them, and admire them. But there were no flimsy drapes at the windows of this house. There was about it a tropical-island environment with its louvred hurricane shutters, bamboo shades and pristine wicker furniture and rush-matting.

Later, Marie came to the door. ‘I have prepared dinner for you. Monsieur Marlow has what he calls his sundowner first, sometimes two, sometimes three,' she smiled. ‘If you would like this I will show you where to find it and fetch ice for you.'

The house shook and jade felt her first strong twist of fear. ‘Thank you—something is very much wrong with the weather, isn’t it? Don’t you think we’d better phone the met office to find out?’

‘The phone is out of order, but we have had warning one, miss, on the radio. I did not tell you. I didn’t want to worry you.’

Moistening her lips, which felt suddenly dry, Jade queried, ‘Warning
one?'

‘Yes. Warning one means that a cyclone is somewhere in the area.’

‘Oh, no! What do we do?’

‘Nothing. We wait for warning two. If we get another signal we must prepare to take shelter.'

‘But where? Is there some kind of—shelter—you know, like an air-raid shelter?’

‘There are cyclone shelters, yes, but not here. We keep indoors, fasten everything down,’ Marie told her.

‘You seem so calm,’ Jade said, feeling ashamed of the fear she was feeling.

‘Well,' Marie lifted her palms, ‘you can’t run from it. You sit it out. But who knows, it might pass us. Come, I show you something.’

Leading Jade into what was no doubt Marlow’s study, she said, ‘This is a track chart.’

Jade saw that the caption read: Cyclones in the Indian Ocean. The chart did not make sense, of course, but she was able to gather that Mauritius was in the cyclone belt and that the cyclone season was December to April, with January and February the peak period.

See the names,’ Marie began to read aloud, ‘Ginette, Joelle, Claudine, Dominique, Yvonne, Carmen, Janet ... see, all girls' names.’

Some of the names had INTENSE written beneath them.

The drink which Jade poured for herself did nothing to curb the apprehension she was feeling. While she was sipping it, the first squall hit the house, ripping its way through the harbour of Port Louis and the fantastically shaped mountains and the cyclone was on its way.

‘It's coming,’ said Marie. ‘When the big winds come, they will shake the island.’ She carried a portable radio and stood in the doorway to the sitting-room. ‘We have had warning two, miss. Don’t open anything, no doors, no windows, nothing.'

‘What about the dogs?’ Jade asked.

‘Oh, the dogs have shelter ... made of cast-iron,’ Marie replied.

Above the noise of the wind and rain, they heard the knocker and Marie said, ‘Somebody in trouble. I get Louis, my husband, to go.’

When the door to the wide hall was opened they could feel the suction it caused all over the house, and then the door banged.

‘It could take all the windows,' Louis's voice was loud. ‘This way, please.’

When Laurent Sevigny came into the room his eyes went straight to Jade. ‘Why the devil did you not leave word? Philipee, the driver, told me eventually.’ While a huge feeling of relief washed over her he went on, ‘I am taking you to my house. There is no time to make it back to the hotel.’ Turning to the Creole couple he said, ‘This is her first experience of this nature.’

It took them all their time to get to the car and it seemed like madness to be leaving the house. The shrubs and trees bent and shrank to avoid the tantrum of the gale force wind and everywhere cane seemed to be heaving and swaying.

Jade clung to Laurent’s arm, loving him in all the confusion. Even from the steps leading down from the verandah the car was hardly visible.

It was only after Laurent had helped her into the car that she was able to sort herself out and she discovered that she was in the back seat. Marcelle Fabre, the girl who managed his shop, was in the front seat and her long black hair was wet and she was shivering. She completely ignored Jade.