Trade Wind (67 page)

Freeing herself from the mosquito net. Hero looked about the room, but could see no sign of her clothes, so she pulled a sheet from the bed and wrapping that around her instead, went to the table by the window. It still bore the remains of her last night’s meal, but even the fruit did not tempt her, for she was not hungry: only very thirsty. She poured herself out a glass of the harsh red wine and drank it as though it had been water, and poured and drank a second that made her feel a little lightheaded but considerably stronger.

Turning from the table she caught sight of her own reflection in the damp-spotted expanse of looking-glass, and crossed the room to stand in front of it; staring at herself as though at a stranger.

There had once, long weeks ago, been a grotesque stranger who had looked back at her from a mirror in the cabin of the
Virago
, But the woman who faced her now did not seem to have altered at all from the girl who only yesterday morning had combed her curls and adjusted her riding-habit before the cheval-glass in a bedroom at the American Consulate.

It seemed incredible to Hero that the past night should have made no difference to her outward appearance and left no stamp on her face. She ought to look different: aged and soiled and ugly with the knowledge and experience of ugliness. It was an affront that she should look exactly the same.

She let the sheet drop, and for the first time in her life studied her naked body, and was surprised to find that though there were bruises on the white skin, it looked smooth and innocent and astonishingly beautiful. She had not known that naked, living flesh could be so lovely a thing, and as satisfying to the eye as the pure curves of stone nymphs and marble Aphrodites. Or that her own proportions could vie with either. The girl in the looking-glass was as tall and rounded and slender as Botticelli’s grave young Venus standing lightly on her sea-shell, and the damp-mottled glass lent her a curious look of unreality; as though she were indeed a picture—or a dream.

Intent upon her own reflection she did not hear the key turn or the door open, and it was a movement and not a sound that caught her attention, for there was suddenly someone else in the looking-glass, and she snatched the sheet back about her, holding it close.

Rory said: “A very charming and virginal gesture, but in the circumstances, surely unnecessary?”

Hero turned and looked at him for a full minute: and found that she did not experience any of the emotions she had expected to feel at having to face him again in the harsh daylight. Perhaps her capacity for emotion had been exhausted; or perhaps the wine she had drunk had given her a temporary armour against such futile things as shame or anger for something that had been done and could not now be revoked.

She said slowly: “You are only talking like that because you are ashamed of yourself.”

“I suppose so. I never thought I should come down to wasting my time regretting something I’ve done and can’t undo. But it seems I was wrong. And yet that isn’t quite true either…”

He pushed back the mosquito netting and sat down on the divan, leaning his head against the wall and surveying her with detached interest, his hands in his pockets and his face no longer tight and strained. His rage had left him as suddenly as it had come, and he felt as though he had recovered from a bout of fever or rid himself at last of a crushing weight that had been pressing intolerably upon his shoulders.

He said thoughtfully: “In theory, I regret having made you a whipping-boy for Clayton Mayo, because Batty was right and it was an unpardonably dirty trick. But I can’t honestly say I’m sorry, because anything that turned out to be so surprisingly enjoyable cannot be a matter for regret. Which is probably why I am suffering a slight pang of conscience on your account; for to be honest with you, I hadn’t expected to enjoy it much, and the fact that I did puts the whole thing on a different footing. I suppose I ought to send you back to him; though I must say it seems a pity. Like casting pearls before swine. Do you still want to marry him?”

“How can I—now?”

“Then that’s one good thing to come out of this. You deserve something a deal better than that double-dealing Lothario.”

“You don’t understand,” said Hero, evenly and without anger: “Nothing that you have said or could say can alter my opinion of Mr Mayo, or make me not wish to marry him. But he will no longer wish to marry me, and I shall not blame him for it. No one could wish to, now.”

“You mean because you are now a ‘Fallen Woman’?” Rory’s pale eyes were amused. “I don’t think you need worry. For one thing, no one in his senses could blame you for something that you could not possibly have prevented. And for another, your fortune if not your virtue is presumably still intact, so I expect he’ll be magnanimous and agree to overlook this distressing incident.”

Hero said: “Even if he were willing to do so, how could I allow it? Knowing he would always know, and remember? I could not let him make such a sacrifice.”

“I’m delighted to hear it. Don’t let him talk you out of it. If it isn’t too personal a question, what has this paragon done to make you believe in him in the face of all the evidence?”

“What evidence?” asked Hero in the same controlled and expressionless voice. “You have given me no shred of evidence. Do you think I would convict a dog on the strength of wild verbal charges brought by such a person as yourself? I know Mr Mayo. I also know you; and if it is a case of his word against yours I shall know whose to accept.”

“Not even if I tell you—”

“There is nothing you can tell me that will make me believe ill of him,” said Hero, cutting him short. “I will not argue with you, because I am prepared to give you the benefit of the doubt and believe that you think you are telling me the truth. But then you do not know him, and I do.”

“And you really love him?” enquired Rory, but without mockery.

Hero hesitated for a barely perceptible moment, and then she said quietly, and quite definitely: “Yes.”

Rory laughed and stood up, stretching himself “You deceive yourself. Miss Hollis—as usual. I can see that I shall have to do something about it Meanwhile I hope you will make yourself at home. I’m not sure how soon I can arrange to return to you to the arms of the immaculate Mayo, because it depends on how much mayhem my fellow lawbreakers are creating in the city. Once they really get the bit between their teeth it may be a little difficult to stop them, so you might have to spend another night here. But this time I shall behave like a perfect gentleman and leave you the key.”

He stooped and picked up the lamp that he had overturned the previous night, and went out, and Hero did not see him again until late that evening.

It had been an odd, unreal day; and not the least curious thing about it had been the dress she had been given to wear. Her riding-habit had not been returned to her, and when she emerged from her bath she found in its place the dress and ornaments of an Arab lady neatly laid out on the divan. As she could hardly spend the day draped in a bed-sheet she had put them on; remembering as she did so the other occasions on which she had worn Arab dress. Those ill-advised visits to The Dolphins’ House, and the disastrous night when she had run through the streets to Beit-el-Tani to help smuggle the Heir-Apparent out of his house to
Marseilles
and the bitter end of his brief rebellion.

That wild night seemed almost as far away and as long ago as the days of Hollis Hill and Miss Penbury, and she felt infinitely old and tired and disillusioned—because she had imagined herself, then, to be playing a heroic part, and discovered too late that she had merely been an insignificant pawn in an ignoble game. And now once again she was being used as a pawn, and in an even more ignoble one.

The loose silk tunic and thin trousers were at least pleasantly cool, and in the matter of comfort a vast improvement on her own laced, boned and buttoned garments with their complements of petticoats and pantelettes: though for the sake of the moral support they lent her she would at that moment have greatly preferred the latter. She glanced at the ornaments and discarded them with a shiver of distaste, for they reminded her of Zorah and might even have once belonged to her and been worn by her in this house. But there was also a curious half-mask such as she had sometimes seen Cholé wear during those morning calls at Beit-el-Tani: a thing of stiffened silk elaborately embroidered in gold thread and spangles and edged with a little fringe of beads.

Hero picked it up, and trying it on before the glass found that it gave her a comfortable feeling of anonymity, because the woman she could see reflected there was no longer herself: the eyes that looked out through the embroidered slits were shadowed and unreadable, and the mouth below the dangling fringe of beads expressed nothing and gave nothing away. She drew courage from the sight, and turning from it, tried the door of her room and found that it was no longer locked.

Opening it cautiously, she saw that the key had been left in the lock, and she took it out and stood looking at it, turning it over and frowning. It was a clumsy iron thing that might have been made for a dungeon door in medieval England, and for a moment she considered locking herself in and refusing to come out again until Uncle Nat or Clayton came to fetch her. But the silence of the house and the apparent emptiness of the long, pillared verandahs that surrounded the open well of the courtyard made her decide against it, and removing a strand from the twisted silk cord that tied the trousers about her waist, she hung the key round her neck, hidden from sight by the loose tunic, and went boldly out into the verandah and down the shallow, curving stairs to the courtyard and the garden.

A solitary, white-bearded retainer, drowsing in the shade of a pillar, rose and saluted her gravely as she passed, but except for a murmur of voices from somewhere at the back of the house and an elderly negro, presumably a gardener, who was lazily smoothing the crushed shell of the garden paths with a primitive rake, there was little evidence of activity, and no one made any attempt to stop her. But the sight of her own reflection in the placid water of the lily pool made her abandon any idea of flight, for the graceful Arab dress and glittering mask, though completely obliterating the identity of Hero Hollis, were far too colourful and arresting to avoid arousing considerable attention if their wearer were to be found wandering along the road or the open shore in broad daylight.

There was obviously nothing for it but to wait until Captain Frost arranged to return her to the Consulate, since she would not get far on foot in this unsuitable attire; and if she attempted it she might well fall into the hands of the dhow Arabs and end up in a far worse situation than she was in at present—if such a thing were possible! She would have to stay, even if it meant spending another night here: and at least she now possessed the key to her room. She could feel it hanging warm and heavy under the soft silk of the tunic, and touching it, was reassured.

The garden was full of butterflies and the scent of strange flowers, and a bougainvillæa scattered its bright blossoms on to the lily pads and the quiet water as the breeze shook it. Under the orange trees the ground was still damp from the last heavy fall of rain, and the buzzing of innumerable bees made a sound as drowsy and as soothing as the warm wind stirring the leaves overhead and die lazy surf creaming on the shore beyond the sea wall. It was, thought Hero, a very peaceful spot; which surprised her, for considering its past history and present lawless associations it should not have been.

The sudden creak of a hinge disturbed the morning silence, and she turned to see a second elderly negro come through the door in the wall and go away down a path that lay parallel to the dark, creeper-hung cells that had once been guardrooms and granaries. He had not seen her, and neither had he closed the door behind him. It stood ajar, showing her a brilliant glimpse of sunlight and blue water beyond the solid stone and the dense tree shadows of the garden, and she waited for a minute or two to see if he would return, and when he did not, went quickly and cautiously to the door and out on to the rocks above the bay.

The tide was out and the shadows of the palms and pandanus that fringed the shore lay black and sharp-edged on the wet, shelving beach where the sand was alive with little scuttling ghost-crabs, industriously digging holes that the waves would obliterate within an hour or two. The surf broke dazzlingly white on the curving shore and the sea was once again sapphire and turquoise, emerald and jade. But today there were no cloud shadows—and no ships. The bay was empty and the
Virago
had gone.

Hero went swiftly down the steep path to the beach, and keeping in the shadow of the palms, reached one of the tall outcrops of wind-worn coral that formed a natural breakwater on either side of the small bay; and rounding it, found herself looking down the long stretch of coast that she had last seen on the day of Aunt Abby’s picnic. Somewhere along there, beyond the green headlands and the mangrove swamps, lay Zanzibar city. But she could see no sign of any sail and not even a fishing
kyack
moved upon the blue.

Had the
Virago
returned to harbour? and if so, why had they not taken her with them? It would surely have been a simpler matter to take her back in the same way as they had brought her, land her at the water-steps and let her find her own way back to her uncle’s house, instead of making arrangements to have her sent or fetched by road. Unless that last had been a lie to keep her quiet? She could believe anything of Rory Frost, and if it were not for these wretched clothes she would walk along the shore now and get home by herself: it could not be more than ten miles at most, and was probably less. But there would be villages in between, and roving bands of Gulf Arabs. It was not possible…

Hero sat down tiredly in the shade of the coral rocks and stared at the sea and watched the busy ghost-crabs, and she must have fallen asleep, because the shadows had shortened and the sunlight was hot on her lap when a sound that was not the surf or the breeze made her look round, and there was Jumah; salaaming politely and informing her that the midday meal was prepared and waiting for her.