Sara Craven - Devil At Archangel

She sighed impatiently. There was little point in thinking like this. She was just making herself miserable. She was letting an absurd prediction, uttered to impress a crowd of credulous tourists, prey on her mind too much. After all, she had suffered none of these qualms back in England, when she could have retracted if she had wanted to. And she had also discovered, on Martinique, that this smiling Paradise could have its darker side, yet it would be foolish to allow this to outweigh all the other considerations. This, after all, was where Aunt Grace had wanted her to be, and she owed it to her godmother at least to try and give this new life a chance.

She lingered on deck as the boat docked, watching with fascination as the gangplank was run out and the freight and few passengers bound for the island began to be disembarked. An opulent car was drawn up on the quayside and a coloured man in a chauffeur’s uniform was standing beside it, leaning against the bonnet. Christina knew without being told that this was the transport from Archangel, and she went below to inform Mrs Brandon.

She was surprised and somewhat gratified to receive the beginnings of a wintry smile and even the command to see that all the luggage was collected and taken up on deck was delivered in reasonably amiable tones. Perhaps Mrs Brandon was pleased to be home and would mellow accordingly, she thought optimistically as she supervised the transfer of their cases.

She accompanied the older woman down the gangplank, carefully avoiding any appearance of concern or the offer of help. When they reached the quay, Mrs Brandon stood for a moment, white-lipped and an expression of strain tautening her clear-cut features, then she had herself under control again and was leading the way towards the car.

The chauffeur snatched off his cap and came to meet them, grinning broadly.

‘Welcome home, m’dame —missy.’

‘It’s good to be back, Louis.’ Mrs Brandon relinquished her cane to him and climbed into the back of the car. Christina watched as the chauffeur, in spite of the sticky warmth of the day, wrapped a silken rug around her feet and legs.

‘You may travel in the front, mon enfant ,’ Mrs Brandon decreed autocratically, and Christina climbed obediently into the passenger seat. It was very hot in the car and she would have liked to have wound down the window, but something warned her that Mrs Brandon liked to travel in the equivalent of a Turkish bath and that she would do well to accept the situation. Anyway, she thought, surreptitiously pushing her hair off the nape of her neck, Ste Victoire wasn’t a very large island and they would soon be arriving at Archangel. She began to think longingly in terms of a shower and a cool drink.

The harbour area of the island did not strike her as being particularly attractive—a cluster of whitewashed buildings with corrugated iron roofs, many of which seemed to be in an advanced state of rust. The streets leading away from the harbour were narrow and crowded with every type of traffic. A lot of people, Christina noticed, were riding bicycles, many of them wobbling along precariously with large bundles on their heads or on the handlebars in front of them. Pavement stalls heaped high with exotically coloured fruit and vegetables threatened to spill into the road, and there seemed to be children and animals everywhere. She had to admire the imperturbable skill with which Louis negotiated his route, but she had to breathe a silent sigh of relief when the township was left behind, and they emerged on to a wider, straighter road which they seemed to have all to themselves.

But after they had been travelling a few minutes, Christina realised ruefully that width and straightness were its only attributes. In other ways, it was little better than a dirt track with gaping potholes every few yards, and although Louis restricted the speed at which they were travelling to allow for this, not even the car’s luxurious springing could save them from being jolted.

The road began to climb quite steeply after a few miles, and Christina could see the sea again in the distance, a deep fantastic blue merging unnoticeably with the sky. She caught her breath at its beauty, and Louis grinned broadly as he caught a glimpse of her rapt face.

‘You wait, missy.’

They were passing through cultivated fields, where people were working. Many of them straightened and waved as the car sped by, and Christina had a vision of Mrs Brandon sitting alone in the back, acknowledging the salutations with a regal movement of her hand, but she did not dare to turn round to see if she was right. She guessed, however, that this was the edge of the plantation that Mrs Brandon had mentioned. The size of it frankly amazed her, stretching away as far as the eye could see, and interspersed with clusters of dwellings, belonging, she surmised, to the plantation workers. It was like a little world within a world and Christina found herself wondering whether she would ever be familiar with all its workings. Everything—the heat, the parched-looking ground, the vivid blossoms on the trees and shrubs that lined the road—seemed so alien somehow after the gentleness of the English countryside. In spite of the neatness of the cultivated acres, bisected by irrigation channels, Christina had a sense of wildness, of a landscape that had not and never would be completely tamed.

She took a handkerchief from her shoulder bag and wiped the perspiration from her forehead and upper lip. The car was running along at the side of the coast now, the road falling away unnervingly to the silver beach far below. Christina gazed longingly at the creaming surf curling softly on to the sands, and imagined the faint salt-laden breeze that would be blowing off the sea. The heat inside the car was beginning to make her head throb, and she was aware of a slight feeling of nausea. Surely the journey couldn’t take much longer.

She leaned back against the padded seat, closing her eyes and trying to ignore the frequent lurches as the car coped with the uneven surface of the road. Then, just as she thought she was going to be forced to ask Louis to stop the car, the ordeal came to an end. The car slowed, turned sharply and settled on to a surface that felt as smooth as silk after the horrors of the past few miles. Half unwillingly, she opened her eyes and found that they were travelling suddenly under a cool green arch of trees.

‘Nearly home, missy.’ Louis’ voice at her side was brisk and reassuring and Christina realised gratefully that her discomfort had been noticed. She could not repress a feeling of excitement as the seconds passed.

One last, deep bend and the house lay in front of them, shaded by tall encircling trees. It was painted white, a long two-storey building with a wide terrace running its full length on the ground floor and echoed by the balcony with its wrought iron balustrade outside the upper rooms. In front of the house formal lawns, and flower beds vibrant with blossoms stretched away, and Christina noticed that there were sprinklers at work. The car stopped at the foot of the terrace steps and Christina saw that a tall woman was waiting at the front door to greet them. By her dark dress and spotless white apron, she guessed she was the housekeeper. She waited at the side of the car while Louis helped Mrs Brandon out. The air was warm and filled with a dozen pungent scents. Christina breathed deeply, feeling the tension that had possessed her slowly draining away. She looked up at the housekeeper and smiled rather shyly, but the other woman did not respond. At closer quarters, Christina saw that she still bore the traces of an earlier beauty, although her face was haggard now, the cheekbones prominent under the coffee-coloured skin.

‘Ah, Madame Christophe.’ Her cane firmly grasped, Mrs Brandon began a slow ascent of the wide shallow steps up to the terrace. ‘Is everything well?’