Witch's Harvest (22 page)

broom at his side, there was no guarantee he would forgive her, or trust her sufficiently to tell her anything about the plantation.

She sighed. Instead of hanging about the house, feeling sorry for herself, she should have been down here with him, learning

about his work, about the way he provided for her, and the estate workers. Perhaps on that basis alone they could have

achieved some kind of rapport, and she could have been some use to him.

At least there would have been something to talk about, she acknowledged painfully. Something to fill those endless

impenetrable silences between them.

Because now it was probably too late.

No! She felt the protest so forcefully that for a moment she thought she might have uttered it aloud. It couldn't be too late, no

matter what Link might have claimed.

She felt sick when she thought about him. She had genuinely liked him, looked on him as a potential friend, thought she could

trust him. So how had it all gone so hideously wrong?

It occurred to her that in spite of his cynical offer to take her away with him, the woman he had really wanted was Luisa, even

though he had scornfully described her as the Black Widow. Abby could see now how that might have been a cover-up for

much deeper feelings.

Her own dislike of Luisa couldn't alter the fact that she was a beautiful and voluptuous woman. There could have been the

burgeoning of an affair between them, Abby thought, except that Luisa wanted Vasco instead, and made no secret of it.

She remembered Link's bitter references to Vasco as 'the great
fazendeiro
' and thought she could understand them now. To
Link, Vasco must have seemed the man who had everything—a successful plantation which could afford to support its own

workforce, a respected position in the community—and any woman he wanted, including Luisa.

Link must have found that a bitter contrast to his own situation, she realised with reluctant sympathy. She could understand the

resentment which must have been festering in him, probably for a longer period than he had realised himself.

And hearing Luisa's hysterical reaction to the news that Vasco was meeting Della in Manaus must have been the final straw in

convincing him he was wasting his time over her.

A flock of small birds rose in a noisy cloud in front of the pick-up, startling her out of her uncomfortable reverie. She saw they
were entering a section of the plantation that was entirely new to her. There had obviously been a stringent clearing programme

before planting, and the tiny trees were staked out with almost mathematical precision.

Abby studied the nearest ones as the pick-up halted and its occupants began to scramble down. The trees looked all right to

her untutored eyes. Perhaps the whole scare was an invention on Link's part—a piece of deliberate spite.

She swung herself to the ground and looked round her, wondering if someone would show her what to do. She was totally

unused to any kind of cultivation. Her aunt and uncle's house in London had possessed an elegant rear garden, and there had

been some land attached to their weekend retreat in Suffolk too, but they had employed gardeners to attend to each of them.

Abby had never had so much as a window-box of her own.

She hated the feeling of helplessness her ignorance engendered.

All around her, work had begun. People were moving methodically along the rows of leaves, hacking off the shoots and tossing

them into piles behind them.

Squatting to examine the tree nearest to her, Abby could see that some of the shoots seemed to be abnormally elongated and

swollen. She remembered the information Link had casually flung at her. '
You cut away the diseased part, and some over…'

Handling the machete gingerly, she cut away the distorted tissue and threw it behind her. But had she got it all? she wondered

frantically, peering at the rest of the fan-shaped branches.

A hand touched her shoulder, lightly and tentatively, and she looked up into the solemn brown face of a small boy aged about

ten. Silently he pointed at another shoot and nodded. When she had hacked it through and discarded it, he helped her to her

feet and led her to the next tree. Amusement mingling with gratitude, Abby realised he had appointed himself her mentor.

She squatted awkwardly, cut where he indicated, and moved on. The singing had died away now. There was only silent,

concentrated effort all around her, and she was part of it, part of a pattern, an aching, back-breaking rhythm.

There was sweat dripping from the end of her nose, and trickling between her breasts. The handle of the machete felt slippery in

her fingers, and she had to keep wiping her hands on her jeans. The shoots were tougher than they looked too, and her hands

were getting sore. She was going to have blisters, but it didn't matter.

I'm such a wimp, she thought in self-derision as she saw how effortlessly the other women seemed to be working. One or two of

them even had babies strapped to their backs.

And I would have been spending the morning with my feet up, Abby thought ruefully.

The pain in her back seemed to have subsided, or maybe she just couldn't single it out from all the other aches and twinges

which were besetting her. She had left her watch in her bedroom, and all sense of time had deserted her. Only the movement of

the sun above the canopy of trees gave her any indication of how the day was passing, that and the sheer weariness of her

muscles and limbs.

The boy tugged at her arm. '
Devagar, senhora, devagar
.'

He was telling her to go more slowly, but how could she, when there were still rows upon rows of trees stretching into the

distance?

Out of the corner of her eye she saw that everyone seemed to be slackening off. Clearly it was time for some kind of break.

Abby's guardian vanished, returning a few minutes later with a shawl which he spread on the ground beneath one of the

banana trees, motioning her to sit.

She subsided thankfully, leaning her back against the trunk, and wondering if she would ever have the strength to get up again.

She closed her eyes, but opened them at another tentative tap on her shoulder. The boy was holding out a canteen of water.

The water was warm and tasted of chemicals, but it was the best drink she had ever tasted. She could have finished the lot, but

she was careful to leave at least half, as she wiped the mouthpiece and handed it back to him, with a smile.

'
Como se chama
?' she asked. 'What is your name?'

He squirmed with pleased embarrassment at her interest.

'Afonso,
senhora,
' he mumbled, and Abby nodded. She wondered if it was a tradition that estate workers should name their
children after the
patrão
and his
senhora
. If so, maybe the next generation would throw up a crop of little Vascos and Abigails,
she thought idly, liking the idea.

Afonso picked up a broad leaf and began to fan her with it, then stopped abruptly, jumping to his feet. Abby forced her drowsy

eyelids open to find Vasco standing staring down at her, his face a grim mask of displeasure.

He said, 'When Agnello told me I did not believe him. Are you quite insane?'

'I don't think so.' The words ended on a gasp as Vasco reached down and jerked her, without gentleness, to her feet. Afonso,

she saw, had tactfully disappeared into the undergrowth.

Vasco said, 'You will go back to
the fazenda
immediately, Abigail.'

'Oh, no,' she said, 'I won't. You can shut me out of your life, and your heart, but you can't stop me making amends for all this.'

She gesticulated wildly around her.

She must be suffering from heat exhaustion, she thought dazedly, otherwise she would never have dared be so frank. And,

later, she would probably regret bitterly that she had allowed him to glimpse, however briefly, the emotional anguish that this

non-marriage of theirs was costing her. But now, somehow, she didn't care any more.

She found her voice—that stranger's voice— again. 'I'm your wife, Vasco—the wife of the
patrão
of Riocho Negro, and I have a
right to be here. I should have told you about the witch's broom at Laracoca, and I know that now, but I didn't realise how

important it might be. But I do now, and you've got to let me do this. I need to do it, damn you—I need it!' There were tears

suddenly mixing with the beads of perspiration on her face, and she lifted clenched fists, pummelling violently at his chest. She

repeated chokingly, 'I—need this.'

His hands closed over hers, stilling them. He said with sharp authority, '
Calma
, Abby. You don't know what you are saying—

what you are doing.'

'Yes, I do. You have to let me help. You owe me that at least.'

'
Querida.
' He hadn't spoken so gently to her for weeks, she realised. 'There is no question of owing. And you have done
enough. Go back to the house—
faz favor
.'

'No.' She stared past him at those endless lines of trees, now wavering in the oddest way and the pain in her back had returned

stronger than ever, making her whole body tense watchfully. She sank her teeth into the inner softness of her lower lip. 'Oh,

what's the use? You don't want me here. You never have. Nothing I do will ever make any difference…'

She was babbling, she realised, because the pain was frightening her now, lashing at her savagely. All that bending and

stretching, she thought. She must have pulled a muscle.

Vasco said harshly, 'What nonsense is this?' His voice sharpened. 'Abby—what is it?' His hands were hard, clasping her face.

There was nothing, suddenly, but the pain. Abby looked up into Vasco's face, saw the dark glitter of his eyes, the swift strained

lines of his mouth.

There was something, she thought dimly, that she needed to say to him. Some reassurance she needed to give. She was aware

her lips were moving, but she couldn't hear what they were saying, because the roaring of blood in her ears was too loud, too

overwhelming.

As his arms closed forcefully round her, she cried out, and let the hot, painful darkness take her.

The witch's talons were clawing at her, tearing at her flesh, and Abby heard herself whimpering. A voice said gently, '
Calma
,
Dona Abigail,' and the pain began, magically, to recede.

When next she opened her eyes the room seemed full of the pungent acrid scent of smoke. She said hazily, 'They're burning the

witch…'

A man's figure was standing by the bed. As Abby focused, she saw it was Dr Arupa.

He said, '
Sim, senhora
. They are indeed doing so.' He paused. 'How do you feel?'

'My head swims,' she decided as she tried to sit up. 'And I hurt.' She sank back against the pillows, looking at the doctor's kind,
grave face. She said, 'I lost the baby, didn't I?'

'Regretfully, yes, Dona Abigail.' He sat down on the edge of the bed. 'May I know when you first realised something was wrong?'