Anne Mather - Rooted In Dishonour

The Petrie sugar mill stood on the outskirts of the town. Raoul parked the Landrover near the warehouses which would soon house the cut sugar cane before its injection into the milling process, and walked into the small office where his second-in-command, André Pecarès, was solidly working his way through a pile of invoices. He looked up with a smile as Raoul entered, but Raoul returned his greeting only absently before flinging himself into the worn leather armchair behind his desk.

André finished entering the invoice he was working on, and then got up to cross to where a pot of coffee was simmering over a gas burner. He was a man in his early thirties, only about five years older than Raoul himself, but unlike his employer his skin revealed a darker cast. Yet for all that, he could pass for white, and Raoul had often speculated about which of Petrie’s ancestors had been responsible for that particular branch of his family.

‘Something is wrong?’ André asked now, bringing a mug of coffee to Raoul’s desk, and thanking him, Raoul raised the mug to his lips.

Then he set it down again and looked squarely at the other man. ‘Barbara came to see me this morning,’ he stated flatly, and André’s dark eyes took on a dawning comprehension.

‘Ah,’ he said, ‘she is not happy about your association with Yvette——’

‘No!’ Raoul was impatient. ‘Do you think I give a damn what she thinks? If I choose to spend my time with your sister, do you think she can stop me?’

André looked discomfited. ‘I merely thought …’

‘I know.’ Raoul’s mouth ground into a thin line. Then he shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have jumped on you like that. But it’s not to do with Yvette. Willard’s coming home.’

André nodded. ‘I see. He is recovered?’

‘Apparently.’ Raoul gave a rueful grimace. ‘Some might say—too well.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘He’s bringing some girl back with him. His nurse, no less. According to Barbara, they’re planning to get married.’

‘No!’ André was shocked. ‘But Mr Petrie—he must be—he must be——’

‘Fifty-six, I know.’ Raoul regarded his assistant dourly. ‘And this girl, whoever she is, is apparently twenty-four.’

André gasped. ‘But——’ He broke off awkwardly, but Raoul could guess what he had been about to say.

‘I know. Why would a girl of twenty-four want to marry a man of fifty-six?’ he drawled. ‘Barbara’s theory is that she doesn’t. That she’s only interested in his money. And if so, will she be happy to live here on Sans Souci without any of the accoutrements of the high life?’

‘You mean—they might live elsewhere?’ ventured André slowly. ‘But surely, Raoul, that is all to the good. We do not need Petrie to run the island. You have done it well enough while he has been ill, and you know as well as I do that Petrie’s contribution in recent years has been negligible!’

‘Hey!’ Raoul’s lips twitched. ‘That’s anarchy you’re talking, old friend.’

André’s dark cheeks deepened with colour. ‘I don’t care. It’s true!’ he exclaimed. ‘And Petrie knows this as well as I do.’

Raoul half smiled. ‘Well—maybe. But whether or not either of us runs the island is not the point here. Barbara’s anxiety runs in an entirely different direction. She’s afraid Willard might be persuaded to sell.’

‘To sell?’ André looked appalled. ‘But—last year——’

‘Last year he wasn’t thinking of getting married. Who’s to say what his fiancée might persuade him to do?’

André returned to his desk to flop dispiritedly against it. ‘You don’t think he might, do you?’

‘I don’t know.’ Raoul swallowed another mouthful of his coffee. ‘I just don’t know.’

‘But—getting married! At his age!’ André returned to the initial issue. ‘Who is she? What’s her name?’

‘You know as much as I do. She nursed him in the hospital in London. That’s all I can tell you.’

André sighed. ‘What is it you say about old fools? There are none like them?’

‘Something like that,’ agreed Raoul dryly, emptying the mug. ‘Well …’ He pulled a ledger towards him. ‘Did you check those supplies from Kamal Chemicals?’

‘Yes.’ André bit his lip. ‘I—I suppose it’s up to us to show Petrie that he would be a fool to sell this place.’

Raoul’s lips twisted. ‘Now let’s not get fanciful, André. You know as well as I do that growing sugar cane is a precarious business right now. The world sugar markets are changing. Prices fluctuate, and no one can pretend that Sans Souci is making a fine profit. Labour’s too expensive. And already the younger people are looking towards Trinidad and Martinique for employment. The fact that there’s unemployment there the same as throughout the rest of the western world makes little difference. It’s the glamour they’re seeking, and sooner or later we won’t have the men to harvest the crop.’

‘You talk like a reactionary,’ protested André in dismay. ‘Do you want Petrie to sell?’

Raoul didn’t even acknowledge his question, merely looking at him in a way that made André squirm uncomfortably. ‘I suggest we deal with something a little less nebulous,’ he remarked curtly, and André subsided behind his desk once more.

But while his brain ticked off the hundredweight sacks of lime stored in the warehouse, Raoul’s subconscious mind explored every avenue of what Willard’s actions might mean to all of them. Damn Barbara, he thought savagely. Damn her for putting the doubt into his mind, damn her for putting her finger on his own insecurity. And what in hell did she expect he could do? Threaten to withdraw his labour? Willard would find someone else. André, perhaps. Or Samuel, the massive black foreman who could do the work of half a dozen men. Or did she expect him to seduce the girl, to return her to her fiancé soiled by his hands, and in so doing destroy her and himself as well?

He wrenched open his drawer and pulled out a pack of cheroots. Putting one of the long narrow cylinders between his lips, he struck a match and inhaled deeply. The aromatic tobacco was fortifying, reaching down into his lungs, relieving the corded muscles of his solar plexis and relaxing the tautness of his thighs. Perhaps they were all being unnecessarily pessimistic. It might never come to a confrontation. He was letting Barbara’s jealousy influence his thinking. She would be jealous of anyone who threatened her position. She had been mistress of the big house for so long. She would not welcome any usurpation of her authority.

THE pilot had said it was raining in Castries, and the plane made its descent through banks of low-hanging clouds to emerge above a beach so white Beth could hardly believe it was real. For the latter half of the afternoon they had been flying over a turquoise ocean inset with a curling chain of islands that seemed so small from the air it was hardly possible to believe that anyone actually lived on them. But suddenly they were poised above St Lucia, and in spite of the clouds its colour and beauty were undeniable. The beach was lapped by foam-flecked surf, and away to the left was the tarmacked runway of the international airport, Vigie.

‘That’s Vigie Beach,’ said Willard, leaning past her to point out the luxurious hotels which faced the ocean. ‘And over there—those are the twin peaks of Gros Piton and Petit Piton, the islands’ landmarks.’

‘Piton,’ repeated Beth, frowning. ‘That means peak, doesn’t it? I’m afraid my French is not what it was.’

Willard’s arm lingered about her shoulders. ‘Big peak and little peak,’ he conceded, smiling into her eyes, and she drew her gaze away from him to look out of the window again.