Вайолет Уинспир: Dragon Bay

‘Rue is your child. How can you think of leaving her behind?’

‘I can’t take Leon’s child into my life with Nils.’ Clare walked quickly to the door. ‘Nor can I break her little heart by taking her away from Lucan. Rue trusts him even if you don’t!’

The door closed behind Clare, and Kara was left alone in the lamp shadows. Trust is another name for love, she thought bleakly. All I am sure of is that tomorrow, or the day after, there will come a moment when I am alone — entirely alone with Lucan — and I shall wonder why I did not run a thousand miles from this house at Dragon Bay.

There was to be a silver wedding party, and most of the workers on the Great House estate, including those who served in the house, had permission from Pryde to attend the festivities.

According to the young maid who attended to the Emerald Suite, the party was to be the gayest affair that Dragon Bay folks had known for a long time. There was to be a steel band, tables spread with goodies, and lots of dancing.

Rue danced with excitement and asked Kara to take her to see the ‘silver bride’.

Clare was just entering the suite and she smiled as she caught Rue’s remark. ‘It would be fun,’ she said. ‘I know Lila and Bajo, the couple who are celebrating their twenty-five years together, and I am sure they wouldn’t mind if I took Rue along to see the dancing. Would you like to go with me, Rue?’

Kara held her breath, and then Rue dashed across to Clare and hugged her around the waist.

Clare bit her lip, and then looked at Kara. A silent, eloquent look.

Kara could have gone to. the party as well, but she wanted Rue to be alone with Clare and Nils. She hoped fervently that Clare would have the heart and the courage to tell the child that they were mother and daughter.

The date of the silver wedding dawned — a hot, still Friday that grew strangely silent when after lunch the servants trooped off in their bright dresses and smart suits, and Clare’s small car turned out of the driveway, with Rue wriggling round in her seat to wave at Kara.

When the car was out of sight, Kara went back into the house. Through the silence that hung over the hall she heard the rustling of the miles of cane, grown tall and vividly green. Lucan was out there somewhere. He had been gone since early that morning, and he would return about four o’clock.

Her gaze dwelt on the door of Pryde’s study. She took a step or two in that direction, and then she stood hesitant and her gaze was drawn upward to the ceiling, to the blank space where a chandelier had once glittered. Her heart gave a curious lurch, for the new white plaster was cracked right across, a dark wavering line that extended to the centre of the ceiling.

Her nerves tightened as the clock chimed three times, and then a cloud rolled across the sun and the hall darkened. Kara looked around her and saw her slim, nervous figure reflected in the panelled mirrors, one of which gave back her reflection in an oddly distorted way. She approached the mirror and saw that like the ceiling it was cracked all the way across.

Kara went cold. A cracked mirror was a bad omen, and even as she stared at her distorted reflection she heard a horse gallop into the stableyard at the rear of the house. Something prompted her to run to the door of Pryde’s study. She pulled the door open. ‘Pryde?’ There was no answer, the room was empty of all but its rare ornaments, the lovely paintings and glossy crystal.

She gazed around her, and then crossed hastily to the window and glanced out. There was the stableyard, and a man dismounting from the back of a golden stallion with a lack of resilience that made her hand clench on the curtain. He walked in a halting way across the flagstones and entered the house through a side door. For seconds Kara couldn’t move — she knew herself alone in the house with a man who was determined and dangerous, and quite without mercy.

She was halfway to the door when it was blocked by a figure in knee-boots and breeches, a white shirt and tilted field hat. And in that moment there was not a stirring of a leaf or a stalk of cane. That cloud over the sun had not moved, yet the heat was tangible, weighing down all sound, pressing on the heart and the nerves.

The man and the girl stared at each other, then he swept off his hat and gave her a mocking bow.

‘Pryde,’ she whispered, and her pallor intensified the darkness of her eyes.

‘Yes, my dear.’ He took a heavy step into the room. ‘Pryde the fallen, who walks again, and rides. Perhaps not with the grace of my devastatingly attractive brother, but then I never had his grace of body, his ability to charm, or his way with the workers.’

Kara could feel herself shaking — she clutched at the edge of the desk and it was as though the very earth shook beneath her. ‘How long have you been able to walk — to ride?’ Her voice shook as well.

‘About a year ago I had a small accident,’ he tossed the field hat to his desk. ‘My wheelchair overturned and instead of finding myself a helpless object on the floor, I discovered to my joy that I could move my legs. Nils, such a very good masseur, has unknowingly been helping to restore the strength and flexibility to the lower half of my body. I am no longer helpless. I am again the complete master of Dragon Bay.’

‘Why did you never say?’ Kara’s fear was giving way to fury. ‘Why did you go on tormenting Lucan, playing the martyr, demanding his very soul for your loss of activity — no longer a loss but a recovery he would have rejoiced in?’

‘For years Lucan has had the use of his body while I have been helpless in a wheelchair.’ The grey eyes gleamed coldly, the handsome but sombre face was suddenly the face of a devil. ‘I wanted him to suffer in all ways for that. I even hoped that at my prompting he would marry that pretty fool in Paris. She would have demanded his attention when he was needed about the plantations; she would have refused to spoil her model’s figure by giving him the child that I demanded.’

Pryde gave a laugh, and poured himself a brandy from the decanter on his desk. ‘Lucan looks so self-sufficient, eh?’ He took a sip of the brandy and his eyes were fixed upon Kara. ‘As though love — and I don’t refer in this instance to physical love — were not a necessity he craves with all his secret, sentimental heart. He was always sentimental, and ashamed of showing it. Our mother preferred me because I had her ways, Lucan our father’s. There was none of that Irish romanticism in her. She revelled in being mistress of Dragon Bay, loved the power it gives to have a Great House and plantations filled with busy workers. Lucan looks upon it as a social obligation to provide as much work and as much comfort as possible for the people we employ.’ Pryde laughed again, scornfully.

‘Like the Irish brothers who founded Dragon Bay he would never make a slave of anyone — but I made a slave of him.’

Kara shuddered, and the ground beneath her feet seemed to shudder with her. ‘It was you I saw the other night on that horse out there,’ she said. ‘It was you who rode me down in the cane.’

‘What a pity you have discovered my secret,’ he mocked. ‘I meant you to think Lucan the culprit. I thought to change your heart, my dear. You are an unusual person, with a capacity for appreciating beauty, a woman of compassionate passion. I saw no reason why Lucan should have you.’ He put down the wine glass and took a step towards Kara. ‘I have a fancy for you myself.’

Her eyes grew wide with horror — if she tried to dart past him he would grab at her with those arms, made powerful by years of propelling a wheelchair. She glanced round wildly for a way to elude him, and then remembered that Lucan would be returning to the house at four o’clock. She must keep Pryde talking! She must keep on asking questions that he could not resist answering.