Victoria Holt: Road to Paradise Island

"When I grow up," said Philip, "I am going to have a boat and I am going to measure up the seas. Then I'll have my name in gold at the bottom of a map."

Granny M overheard that remark and her face was one deep happy smile, for it was just what she intended; and I guessed she was congratulating herself that she had rescued her grandson from the clutches of Granny C who might have tried to make an architect or even a politician of him, for her family had harboured people in these professions.

I learned a little of the family history over the years and discovered that Granny M had never entirely approved of her son's marriage to Flora Cresset. Flora, judging by her portrait which hung in the gallery, had been very pretty but frail, which seemed to have been borne out by her death at my birth; but then so many people died in childbirth— babies too—so that to survive was, in a way, a minor triumph. I said to Philip that it was an indication of the tenacity of women that the human race went on, to which he replied: "You do talk nonsense sometimes."

Philip was more down-to-earth than I was. I was a dreamer, a romancer. He was interested in the practical side of map making, calculations and measurements, and his fingers itched to take up compasses and such scientific instruments. For me it was so different. I wondered who would be living in those remote places. I wondered about their lives; and when I looked at those islands in the midst of the blue tropical seas, I wove all sorts of stories about my going there, living among the people and learning their ways.

We were quite different in outlook—Philip and I. Perhaps that was why we got on so well together. We each supplied something which the other lacked. No doubt because we were motherless-fatherless in a way, although our father was not dead—we had turned to each other.

When my father had brought his bride to the Manor, he was working in the family business. Naturally he had been brought up to it as Philip was being. Perhaps if my mother had not died he would still be there, doing more or less what Granny M wanted him to. But when my mother had died he had been unable to endure life at the Manor. There must have been too many memories. He might well have a dislike for the child who had seized her place in the world at the expense of one who was more greatly loved. However, he decided to go away for a while, to work in Holland with another firm of map makers—just for a short time to enable him to recover from the loss of his wife. Holland was a country which had given birth to some of the leading map makers from the earliest days and Granny M had, at the time, thought it was a good plan to help him recover from his grief and acquire new experience at the same time.

But my father stayed on in Holland and showed no desire to return, and in time he married a Dutch girl, Margareta, whose father was a wealthy export merchant, and to Granny M's disgust my father joined him in his business, deserting the glorious profession of map making for one to which Granny M contemptuously referred as "Commerce." I had half brothers and a sister whom I had never seen.

There was talk about Philip's going over to stay with his father, but Granny M always prevented that. I think she was afraid that Philip might be lured away by the fascination of the export business. So my father settled down with his new family and seemed content to leave his first one in the care of Granny M.

On my eighteenth birthday, which was in May and about three months before the great storm, the governess whom I had had for seven years left, and since I was no longer in need of such services, I knew that Granny M was beginning to think about finding a husband for me. Not one of the young men who were being invited to the house appealed to me so far. Nor did I see romance in such a prosaic charade. There were the Galtons from Great Stanton who had a son, Gerald. They were very wealthy and had interests in London—which was some twenty miles from Great Stanton—and not so far off as to cut Galton pere completely off from his family. Gerald accompanied his father on trips to London where they often spent several weeks, and their visits to the country house were of fairly short duration. Gerald, as a husband, would not be at home a great deal and when I realized that was a point in his favour, I saw at once that he did not fit into my dreams of romance.

There was Charles Fenton, the son of the squire of Marlington—a fox-hunting, shooting, sporty type. Quite jolly, laughing at almost everything, so that one longed for a little gloom in his company. I enjoyed being with both of these young men but the idea of spending my life with them was far from exciting.

Granny M said: "You must learn more social graces, my dear. A young woman has to make a choice sooner or later and choose from what is available. Those who delay the choice too long often find there is nothing to choose from."

Dire warning, which fell on deaf eighteen-year-old ears.

What was wrong with life as it was?

Granny M was more wary about Philip. His wife would be brought into the Manor. She would become a Mallory, whereas when I married I would relinquish that illustrious name. I had no doubt that Granny M had thought with some misgivings of the coming of Flora Cresset into the Manor. True, she had provided Granny M with two grandchildren, but the frailty of Flora had cost Granny her son who now, as Granny M put it, had been "Commandeered by that Dutch woman."

After the marriage she had not had a good word to say for the Dutch.

"But Granny," I reminded her, "you used to say that some of the best map makers came from that part of the world. Some of the earliest explorers... and Mercator himself was Flemish. Think what we owe to him."

Granny M was torn between the pleasure she always felt when I showed interest in the business and her dislike of being contradicted.

"That was long ago. Besides it was a Dutchman who first started buying old black and white maps and colouring them. Then selling them at a great price."

"A practice which those who came after followed to great advantage," I said.

"You are very perverse," said Granny M, but she was not displeased, and she did what she always did when not sure of winning the point—she changed the subject.

She was delighted that I considered it a treat to visit the shop, and on certain afternoons, after lessons in the schoolroom of course, I and my governess would go into Great Stanton where I would spend some very pleasant hours in the shop.

For one thing talking to Benjamin always intrigued me.

His life was maps. Sometimes he took Philip and me over to the building where the printing was done and he would ramble on about modern improvements and how in the old days they had used wood blocks which they called printing in relief because part of the wood was inked and that was transferred to the paper so that it stood out in relief.

"Nowadays," he said proudly, "we use copper."

I was rather bored by the technicalities but Philip would ask innumerable questions about various processes while I stood by not really

listening as I gazed at the maps on the walls. Most of them were copies of those which had been made in the sixteenth, fifteenth and even fourteenth centuries and I would be thinking of those intrepid explorers going to those places for the first time, discovering new lands.

Philip spent a lot of time in the shop and when he was twenty-one and had finished with his education, he was there all day, working with Benjamin, learning about the business. Granny M was delighted with him.

I hated to be left out and Benjamin sensed that. He, like Philip, seemed to be very sorry for me because I had been born a girl, which prevented me from taking an important part in this most fascinating business.