Anne Mather - Rooted In Dishonour

She averted her eyes abruptly and turned away, knowing he had seen her, and presently he strode up the beach towards her, a towel looped carelessly about his hips. He came round her stiff figure to face her, and his peculiarly green eyes mocked her taut embarrassment.

‘You should not come on me unannounced, Sister Barbara,’ he remarked, without contrition. ‘And don’t tell me you’ve never seen me swimming before, because I should not believe you.’

‘I am not your sister!’ she declared crossly, and he moved his shoulders in an indifferent gesture, as she went on: ‘I asked you to come to the house yesterday evening. You didn’t come.’

He mounted the rise towards the building and she had perforce to walk with him. ‘I was—engaged last evening,’ he said at last, and saw the way her lips tightened to his words.

‘You were visiting that Pecarès woman!’ she accused, and his dark brows ascended.

‘You have been having me followed?’ he enquired softly, and her pale cheeks flamed.

‘Of course not,’ she denied, but his expression confirmed that he did not believe her.

They reached the house, a bungalow really, its verandah supported on poles and shaded by a palm-thatched roof. Inside, the accommodation was adequate, but spartan—a living room, with armchairs and bookshelves, a kitchen-cum-dining room, with surprisingly modern equipment, and his bedroom, with its single divan and wardrobe. There were the usual offices, but as Barbara seldom visited the place, she had never used them.

Open-slatted steps led up to the verandah where two basketwork chairs and a glass-topped table created a second living area, and just now the table was set with a glass of freshly-squeezed orange juice, a slice of melon, some rolls and butter, and a jug of aromatically-flavoured coffee. Provided by Tomas, Barbara guessed, identifying the black servant who lived in a hut out back of the bungalow. He owed his life to his master since he had saved him from a mob of drink-crazed youths in Martinique eight years ago, and since then he had lived on the island and looked after the man he looked on as his saviour. Barbara had found the whole story rather distasteful, and Tomas’s ubiquitous presence about the place irritated her immensely.

‘Raoul …’ she began now, pausing on the verandah, but the man behind her made a negative movement of his hand.

‘At least permit me to put on some clothes,’ he remarked lazily, and she was forced to sit on one of the verandah chairs and tap her fingers impatiently until he reappeared.

Tomas came and asked her if she would like some breakfast, but she refused, speaking offhandedly, caring little for the black man’s feelings. This was typical of Raoul, she thought resentfully, ignoring her summons to the big house, and then making her wait his convenience after she had made the journey over here.

She crossed her legs and admired the scarlet ovals of her toes. She decided she liked the colour after all, although when the store assistant in Soufrière had showed it to her, she had been unimpressed. It went well with the background material of the floral cotton skirt she was wearing, and complemented the dark chestnut colour of her hair. She would try it on her nails, she thought. Papa would like it. And then the reasons for this hasty visit reasserted themselves, and her firm lips narrowed unbecomingly.

‘Did Tomas not invite you to share my breakfast?’

She glanced round as Raoul joined her, a disreputable pair of denim jeans his only apparel. Their age did nothing to disguise his undoubted masculinity, and she had to force herself to look at the bronze medallion suspended from the leather cord around his neck.

‘Do you call those things clothes?” she enquired shortly, anything to hide her uninvited attraction towards him, and he shrugged as he subsided into the chair at the opposite side of the table and raised a foot to rest across his knee.

‘I’m sure you didn’t come here to discuss my attire,’ he retorted dryly, and as she strove for words to express herself, he swallowed half the orange juice in the glass.

‘Papa is coming home!’ she declared at last, and he wiped his mouth carelessly on the back of his hand.

‘That’s good news,’ he said laconically. ‘When? Today?’

‘No!’ She was impatient.

‘Then why the sweat?’

She winced. ‘Must you use those coarse metaphors?’

‘Was it a metaphor? I rather thought you were in a sweat down there on the beach.’ His lips curled mockingly. ‘Or was that due to my state of undress?’

Barbara regarded him coldly. ‘You transcribe everything to physical terms, don’t you? It doesn’t occur to you that there might be finer emotions——’

She broke off abruptly, aware that she had lost his attention and resenting it. It was true. He did disrupt her emotions, and she suffered agonies of jealousy knowing that he would rather spend his nights with Louise Pecarès than with her. Not that he suspected. He must never suspect. Not unless …

Again her thoughts made a swift recoil from the intimate meanderings of her mind. One day perhaps, when she was mistress of the island … But that was some way off. Her father was still a comparatively young man, and in spite of the heart attack that had forced him to remain in England longer than he had expected, he was a long way from dying. So far in fact that he was actually planning to marry again …

Her hands trembled in her lap as she recalled the cable she had received the previous afternoon. She had hardly been able to read it for the burning surge of rage which had clutched at her throat. Her father was cabling her that during his enforced stay at the hospital in London he had met a girl, a nurse, someone younger than Barbara herself, with whom he had become emotionally involved! It was unthinkable, unbelievable, disgusting ! He had been a widower for almost twenty years. He could not be thinking of marrying a girl thirty years his junior.

She became aware that Raoul was watching her now as he buttered a roll and tore a piece from it to put into his mouth. Passing her tongue over her dry lips, she said without preamble: ‘Papa is thinking of getting married again.’

At last she had all his attention, and the curious green eyes revealed a reluctant curiosity. ‘Getting married?’ he echoed slowly. ‘To whom?’

‘A girl,’ said Barbara shortly, and then seeing his faint mockery added swiftly: ‘A young girl. Younger than me. His nurse!’

‘My God!’ Raoul’s ejaculation was half impatient, half admiring. ‘Well, well! Clever old Willie!’

‘Is that all you can say?’ Barbara glared at him angrily. ‘Clever old Willie, indeed! He must be in his dotage, and you know it! What girl of twenty-four would want to marry him for any other reason than the obvious one?’

‘Which is?’ His eyes narrowed.

‘Oh, don’t pretend you don’t know,’ she stormed. ‘His money, of course.’

Raoul lifted the coffee pot and poured some of the darkly coloured liquid into his cup. ‘You consider your father has nothing else to offer a woman?’ he drawled, and she gave him a contemptuous stare.

‘What else can it be? A—person like that!’

He looked up. ‘You’ve met her?’

‘Of course not.’ Barbara regarded him sourly. ‘How could I?’

He shrugged annoyingly. ‘You speak with such confidence. How do you know she isn’t madly in love with your father?’

Barbara shook her head. ‘He’s barely known her a month!’

‘What does time matter? There might have been a—mutual attraction.’

‘You would say that, of course.’ Her lips curled. ‘But don’t forget, all our positions here could change if Papa chooses to marry again—and produces a son!’