Trade Wind (68 page)

It had been served on Moorish china in a cool, colonnaded apartment strewn with Persian rugs, but she had eaten very little of it, and afterwards she had gone up to the room in which she had spent the previous night, and locking herself in, stayed there all the long, hot afternoon. Listening to the waves and the warm wind and the drowsy cooing of the pigeons, and trying to think clearly—and finding that she could not do so, because her mind was a jumble of foolish, trivial and disconnected thoughts of no importance.

As the shadows lengthened the quiet garden of The House of Shade began to fill once again with chattering birds coming home to roost, and beyond the windows and far away on the horizon Hero could see the lilac-coloured hills of Africa, clear and sharp in the evening light and looking closer than she had ever seen them look before: so close that it seemed as though one might reach them in an hour. The sun plunged behind them in a blaze of glory and green twilight enfolded the Island; and suddenly it was night and there were a million stars in the sky.

The wind died with the day, but though the birds were now silent the night was full of sound. Frogs croaked in chorus from the lily pool and cicadas shrilled among the leaves, a distant drum throbbed with the soft insistent rhythm that is the heart-beat of Zanzibar, and the faint, phosphorescent line of the surf was still murmurous on the beach. In the garden the trees were full of fireflies; and the moon was rising.

Hero became aware of footsteps and voices, and leaning over the window-sill saw someone carrying a lantern along the terrace. A few minutes later Jumah came tapping at her door with the announcement that the master had returned and requested the honour of her presence below.

Hero considered replying that if the master had anything to say to her he could come up and say it through the door. But on second thoughts there seemed to be little point in that, since it could only serve to antagonize him, and if he really had made arrangements to send her back to the city she would have to open the door in order to leave. She asked instead for her own clothes, and found that Jumah had not waited for a reply, but merely delivered the message and gone away again. There was nothing for it but to unlock the door and go down; and she did so: wearing the Arab dress, and the spangled mask that hid her face and made her expression unreadable.

The moon had already topped the palm trees, and Rory was standing on the terrace, his tall shadow black on the silver-washed stone. He turned when he heard her step, and though he grinned at the sight of the mask, he did not comment on it A table had been laid on the terrace, and the lamplight gleamed on glass and silver and the white robes of Jumah who stood beside it.

Rory said: “I hope you will not object to dining with me. We are a little short of staff, because it became necessary to send the
Virago
on a voyage to the coast.”

He walked over to the table and drew back a chair, but Hero did not move. She said: “When are you sending me back?”

“Tomorrow, I hope. The situation in the city is still a bit disturbed, but I have received information from a reliable source that the
Daffodil
is on the way back here and should make harbour about dawn. If I know anything about Dan he’ll make the place a deal too hot for our friends from the dhows, so I imagine that peace will be reigning around mid-morning, or at latest by the afternoon, and it should be safe enough for you to ride back to the city after dusk tomorrow.”

“Why didn’t you send me back on the
Virago
?”

“Because as soon as Dan drops anchor he’s going to hear the whole sad story, and since I have no desire to have my ship boarded or sunk and my crew clapped in irons, I thought it best to send them out of harm’s way until this has all blown over.”

“Then why didn’t you go with them? Why are you still here?”

“Someone had to see that you got back safely, and Dan isn’t in the least likely to catch me. And neither is your uncle!”

“They will some day.”

“I doubt it But while there’s Life, there’s Hope. Sit down and have something to eat. You must be hungry, for Jumah says you’ve eaten almost nothing today, and you don’t seem to have had much yesterday.”

“Thank you,” said Hero frigidly, “but I am not in the least hungry, and if you have said all that you have to say I should prefer to go back to my room.”

“And I should prefer you to stay down here. So that settles the question, doesn’t it?”

Hero looked at him for an appreciable time, her eyes showing still and watchful through the slits of the concealing mask. She knew that he was quite capable of fetching her back by force if she were to turn and walk away, and even if she ran he could easily catch her; which would be undignified and humiliating. It had been a tactical error to leave her room, but having done so it would be better to humour him.

She accepted the chair he offered, but found that she could not force herself to eat, though she had taken little food that day and less the day before, and only an hour ago had been feeling distinctly hungry. Jumah poured her a glass of white wine, and she sipped it and found that it was ice cold and refreshing, and having finished it, discovered that it gave her courage and enabled her to reply in a cool, disinterested voice to her host’s bland flow of small-talk. But the food still seemed to stick in her throat and taste of nothing at all, and she toyed with her fork and made no more than a pretence of eating.

Rory watched Jumah refill her glass, saw her empty it and have it filled again, and presently remarked in a detached and conversational voice that wine taken on an empty stomach, and by someone unaccustomed to it, was apt to have unexpected effects, and was she not afraid of reaching a stage that he might be tempted to take advantage of?

“No,” said Hero positively.

“Don’t tell me that you are trusting to my honour?”

“Naturally not—as you do not appear to possess such a thing. But you seem to forget that there is no longer anything that you could do to me that you have not already done.”

Rory laughed and said: “My dear innocent! What a lot you have to learn! However, if that’s the way you feel about it, far be it from me to discourage you. Only don’t blame me if you regret it in the morning.”

He signed to Jumah to fill her glass again, and told him to take the lamp away, for the flame was attracting the attention of too many night-flying moths and insects who battered their wings against the glass and fell into the food and wine. Without it the moonlight seemed brighter and the hot night pleasantly cool, and Hero pushed her chair back from the table and looked at the star-spangled sky and the shimmering fireflies that filled the shadows with glancing points of light, and wondered why nothing seemed to matter any more.

She supposed that it was the wine she had drunk that was giving her this lofty feeling of detachment; as though she were merely an onlooker, standing somewhere outside herself and supremely uninterested in the problems and strivings and emotional agonies of Hero Hollis. The man sitting opposite her with the moonlight full on his face was equally unimportant, for he could not harm her any more. Nothing and no one could harm her any more. She need not even think about him, because tomorrow she would go away and forget him, and no one could blame her for what he had done to her; not even Clay.

Not that Clay’s opinion mattered either, for she was not going to marry him. Or anyone! She had learned things about men that she had never dreamt of or imagined, and knowing them she would never again give any man the opportunity, let alone the right, to touch her. Miss Penbury had been right when she had once described them as ‘Animals’ and women as their ‘Poor, helpless victims’; though at the time Hero had very little idea what she was talking about, and had certainly not looked upon herself as either poor or helpless.

She was helpless now. But she was not poor, and she could go back to Hollis Hill and become…What would she become? Not a nun. One had to have a vocation to become a nun. A recluse, perhaps? But that would be selfish. No, she would do what cousin Josiah Crayne had advised her to do: devote herself and her fortune to doing good in her ‘own back yard.’ She might even turn Hollis Hill into a home for Fallen Women, which would horrify the Craynes but be quite understood by Aunt Abby and Uncle Nat, and by Clay…

She must have spoken that last name aloud without knowing that she had done so, for Rory said abruptly: “What about him? Are you still so sure he is Sir Galahad—
sans peur et sans reproche?
Or are you beginning to have your doubts about him?”

“It doesn’t matter, does it? He won’t want me now, so I don’t have to worry any more. Not about anything.”

She finished the contents of her glass and reached out to put it back on to the table. But for some reason she misjudged the distance, and the glass fell to the stone flags of the terrace and shivered into a dozen pieces.

“Just as well,” commented Rory, removing the decanter out of her reach. “You’ve had about enough, and any more’ll give you a head in the morning that you won’t forget in a hurry.”

Hero looked down at the shining fragments that reflected the moonlight, and pushing them away with her foot, stood up and said carefully: “I think I shall go to bed now. Good night.”

She held on to the chair-back and frowned at the terrace which seemed to be moving up and down in a curiously unsteady manner, and Rory got to his feet, and walking round the table picked her up and carried her into the house and up the curving flights of stone stairs that led to her room.

Hero had offered no resistance, and as he set her on her feet outside the door something that had caught on a button of his shirt jerked free and fell to the floor with a sharp metallic sound, and he stooped and picked it up. It was the heavy iron door key that Hero had tied about her neck and forgotten.

She said uncertainly, looking at it: “That’s mine. Will you give it to me, please?”

He made no move to do so, but stood there holding it in his hand and looking at her. It was difficult to see his expression because the moonlight only touched the edge of the verandah. But she thought that he was smiling, and she said with a touch of impatience: “You said that I could have it.”

“I’ve changed my mind,” said Rory, and put it in his pocket “I did warn you, didn’t I?”

Hero stared at him uncomprehendingly, frowning a little in an attempt to see his face in the moon-thinned shadows. “But—that’s not fair.”

“I never play fair,” said Rory softly. “You ought to know that by now.”

He pushed open the door, and picking her up in his arms, carried her through it and kicked it shut again behind them.

30

The sky that had been clear when the moon rose had clouded over before it set, and on the far horizon beyond the mountains of Africa lightning licked and flickered, and the faint reverberations of thunder came uneasily on the wind. The brief, golden break in the monsoon was over and the morning dawned grey and misty. And before midday it was raining again.

The rain fell steadily in warm, heavy torrents that transformed the unmade roads and bridle-paths into rivers and quagmires, and soaked through Hero’s cloak to drench her riding habit and blind her eyes until she gave up any attempt to see where she was going, and allowed her horse to find its own way.

They had left The House of Shade a good deal earlier than Rory had intended, for tonight there would be neither moon nor starlight to guide them, so they must reach the outskirts of the city before darkness fell. And they were within less than a mile of it, at a place where the track passed through a mango grove, when two horsemen materialized out of the pouring twilight immediately ahead of them.

Hero heard Rory say sharply: “
Batty!
—what the hell are you doing here? What’s happened? Who’s that with you? Ibrahim?”

“Yus,” said Batty, speaking in an undertone. “I’ve left Ralub in charge of the ship. He and I, we suspicioned you’d be comin’ by this path. You’ve got to go back. Captain Rory. Young Dan’s watching out for you, and this time ‘e means to get you for sure.”

“He won’t,” said Rory briefly. “That is, not unless you and Ralub between you have given him the idea that I’m not on the ship after all. I told you to keep clear and keep out of sight. As long as he thinks I’m cruising somewhere away up the coast, I’m safe enough.”

“Well, ‘e don’t think it. Not judging by the way ‘e’s actin’. Or if ‘e do, ‘e’s playing safe and taking no chances neither way. ‘E ain’t ‘ad a sight of the
Virago
, I can promise you that, but ‘e’s got every road watched and the orders is ‘Shoot on sight and shoot to kill.’ S’
now!
”

“Are they, by God! That’s going to make a difference.”

“So I should say! And don’t say as I didn’t warn you. You gone too far this time, for there was two got snuffed in them riots, and they’re out to get you for that, dead or alive. And if it’s alive they’re for stringing you up and no questions asked. It’s the truth, I tell you.”

“I know. Our respected Consul took the trouble to tell me as much when he sent for me a few days ago.”

“And I suppose you thought ‘e were joking? Well ‘e ain’t!—not now. This time you been an gone an made the place too ‘ot to ‘old you, and I “opes you’re satisfied. Only thing you can do now is—”

Batty checked himself and turned to peer at the grey shadow that was Hero, and then reaching out he caught the Captain’s rein and led the horse a few yards down the soggy, tree-shaded track until they were out of earshot, and lowered his voice to a hoarse whisper:

“Ralub ‘e says the only place you’ll be safe is with ‘Is ‘Ighness, for e’ll ‘ide you until that danged
Daffodil
clears off. Dan can’t ‘ang around ‘ere for ever, so the quicker you gets to the Palace the better.”

“I thought you said all the roads were watched?”

“S’right. And old Edwards ‘as got ‘is Baluchi sharpshooters out after you too. But we got a purdah cart and a coupla gigglin’ wimmin back of them bushes, and you’ll ‘ave to go in that. They won’t dare ‘old it up, and if they stops it them wimmin’ll screech a bit just to satisfy them that there’s bints in it.”