"It could be well for you to remember that."
"I should be so glad of your help."
"Well," he said, "the first thing we must do is see if we can find that island. We need a fairly large boat... not like the one you came in from Sydney, of course ... but not just a little rowing boat. We'll take the map with us and we'll go off. The first thing to do is to satisfy yourself that there is no island, at least not in the spot indicated on the map."
"Thank you. Oh thank you."
"There is one thing to be considered," he went on. "When you have solved this mystery, will you return to England?"
"That is my plan."
"And marry the young man who is quite happy to lose you for months... in fact has helped to arrange it?"
"He is very understanding. He knows that I will never settle down until I find out what has happened to Philip."
"So he lets you go off..."
"He understood ... perfectly."
"I should never have let you go alone. I should have come with you."
"When shall we go on this boat trip?"
"It will depend on the weather. Leave it to me. In the meantime I shall try to find out all I can about your brother's stay on this island. Also I want to show you something of the island. I shall pick you up at five o'clock this afternoon. It will be cooler then. I want to show you the plantation, and you will dine with me. I advise you to stay in your room during the heat of the day."
He stood up. I rose with him. He took both my hands in his.
"If it is possible to find out where your brother is. we shall do it." he said. "Come with me."
We went out to the desk where Rosa was sitting smiling to herself.
He said he wished to speak to Mr. Selincourt and Rosa immediately left the desk to find that gentleman. In due course we were ushered into a room where Milton was greeted effusively by a short coffee-coloured man. to whom I was introduced and who turned out to be Mr. Selincourt. the manager of the hotel.
Milton asked to see the records of the last three years and I could see roughly at what time Philip must have come here. There was his name in the book. He had stayed here three weeks.
Mr. Selincourt remembered him. He had been a very agreeable guest. Yes. he had paid his bills: no. there had been no mysterious disappearance. He had paid his bill like anyone else and left.
"Did he leave on the boat to Sydney?" I asked.
Mr. Selincourt said that was the likeliest possibility'. But according to the date of his departure he had not left on the day the boat called. He had left on a Sunday. That was strange.
No, Mr. Selincourt had not seen him leave. He would make enquiries of his staff to see if any of them remembered.
This seemed good progress—and it was all due to Milton Harrington.
In spite of my anxiety about Felicity. I felt rather elated.
My hopes ran high during the days which followed even though Mr. Selincourt's enquiries among his staff produced nothing. No one saw Philip leave. He had just been there and then he had gone. But as he had left on a Sunday he could not have gone on the Sydney ship.
That was disconcerting, but Milton was sure we should find some clues which would lead to his discovery sooner or later. And at least I was doing something about finding him.
I was no longer so acutely worried about Felicity. She was very
quiet and aloof, but she was better. She liked to stay in her room and had ceased to have those fearful nightmares. The doctor had warned me that they could return at any time and probably would, so I must be prepared. She needed to be soothed and assured all the time.
She slept a great deal which was what the doctor wished for her. She was mentally as well as physically exhausted, and she needed sleep and complete peace to recover.
I was seeing Milton Harrington every day; he would come to ask after Felicity and take me off somewhere. I rode round the island with him on my newly acquired mare and I began to enjoy the days.
He had taken me round his plantation which was an entirely novel experience. I had no idea how sugar was produced and because of the enthusiasm he brought to everything, he made it sound completely fascinating.
We walked on foot through the little paths between the canes— some of them dwarfing us by their height, for they were at least twelve feet high and about an inch and a half thick. He explained how the climate was just right for sugar—warm, moist, with sea breezes and some very hot spells. I had a peep at the roller mills which looked formidable, and at the boiler house. The people—mostly natives of the island—stopped their work to grin at me. One of them showed me a mongoose who was there to keep down the rats and the white ants which were the plague of the plantation.
I said: "You would hate to leave all this. It is your life."
"No, no," he said. "It's a means to an end. My father started the plantation. He made a success of it. He made the island what it is today. I have gone on with it. But his plan was to go home when the moment was ripe. That moment never came to him, but it will to me."
"All these people depend on you."
"I should not go until I found the right person to take over my place..."
"Then you will."
"You know, there is one thing—even more important—that I am determined on."
"What is that?"
"You."
"That is not so easy."
"No. But not insuperable."
"I know you believe you could never fail."
"It's a good way to live."
"Tell me more about the plantation."
Blithely he went on to explain the system of pan boiling.
After our tour of the plantation, I dined with him again.
He said: "When you are tired of the hotel you can always be my guests— you and Felicity."
The hotel is comfortable," I replied. "They take good care of Felicity and really seem concerned about her. She only has to ring a bell and they are on the spot. And the view of the harbour is fascinating. It constantly changes."
There came the day when we took our sea trip. I could safely leave Felicity in the care of the hotel staff, so I set off without any fears about her and greatly looked forward to what we might discover.
It was not a large boat, but there were three men to manage it. I had the map with me. We made our way through the islands and for the first time I had a better view of that one which was a little apart.
"That's Lion Island," explained Milton. "You'll see why in a moment There is a little bay and the cliff rises high above. From some way out it looks just like a reclining lion."
There is a boat there. Is that a house?"
"Yes. The island is owned by a rich mining family from Australia. A sort of holiday island. They are not there very often, I gather. They keep themselves to themselves. There! You can see the reclining lion now."
We watched the reclining lion from afar and did not go any nearer to the island.
Soon we had left the group behind us.
"You need a fairly sturdy boat to come out here," said Milton. "A squall can blow up in no time. A flimsy boat could soon be overturned. Perhaps that was what happened to your brother."
I was silent. It was difficult to believe that now. The sea was so calm; there was scarcely a movement. I saw flying fishes skim the water and then rest lightly upon it. In the distance I caught a glimpse of dolphins at play. It was a beautifully peaceful scene.
Milton was holding the map in his hand.
"Now, according to my reckoning, this is where the island should be. You can see for miles. There's no sign of any land."
"Nothing," I said. "Nothing but the deep blue sea."
"We'll tour round a little if you like ... but there is nothing... nothing at all. There has been an error somewhere."
I shook my head. "I think I shall have to come to the conclusion that there is no island. I can't understand it. That's an absolute copy of the map we found."
"I suppose your brother had the one
you found?"
"Yes. He took it with him."
"Well, there it is. There is nothing here ... We'll have to give up the search, I'm afraid. So... back to Cariba."
<
I looked at that vast expanse of water and I thought of the young man shipwrecked, dazed, drifting on a quiet sea. How long he had drifted, he did not know. Had he become delirious? Had he dreamed of an island where everything was perfect? Perhaps he had died for a few brief moments and gone to paradise and then had come back to life to dream of an island that was lost to him.
The sea was so beautiful, so calm on this day. How different it must have been at the time of his shipwreck. The deep blue sea changed in certain places where it appeared to be lightish green. Looking back I saw patches of that colour on the surface of the water.
I was about to call Milton's attention to this when he said: k4 We were lucky the weather was so good to us. Look. You can see Lion Island in the distance."
So I looked and forgot about the colours of the sea.
I felt vaguely depressed because I had to be convinced now that there was no island. It was a dream which had been conjured up in the mind of a shipwrecked man.
The days were passing—lazy days full of bright colours and the sound of continual chatter and spurts of laughter coming from the harbour where people ran about among the bullock carts. What excuse was there to stay? I could discover nothing of any significance about Philip. It had been proved that the island did not exist—at least not where it was supposed to be according to the map.
There was Felicity, of course.
I said to myself: "We cannot leave here until she is well."
And I wanted to stay—of course, I wanted to stay. I wanted to see Milton Harrington every day. I wanted to bask in his admiration, in his passionate absorption with me. It was vanity of course, but I could not help it.
I liked to watch him from my balcony window when he came riding up to the hotel. I was proud of the respect he inspired. People stood aside for him. In this island he was all powerful—the King among them all, the man from whom their comforts flowed, for the prosperity of the island came from the plantation, and he was the plantation; he was the island.
Then he would catch sight of me on the balcony and pause and smile and I would see the glint of his blue eyes in his bronzed face. I should scarcely have been human if I had not been gratified by the attentions of such a man.
To what was it leading? I was not sure. And the very uncertainty added to the fascination. But I should have to go home. I should leave
this exotic life behind me. It would be something to remember all my life, but a life which did not include him would seem very dreary to me.
So ... I did not want to think about the future. I just wanted to revel in the present.
Felicity was a little better. On the previous day she had sat with me in the courtyard in the late afternoon when the sun had lost some of its fierceness. She shrank a little if any stranger spoke to her; but at least she had left her room for a while.
She was still getting the occasional nightmare. I slept lightly. I think I was listening for the tap on the wall even when I slept. It came now and then and I would leap out of bed and go to her. The horror in her eyes when she came out of those dreams haunted me, and I knew that it was going to take a long time for her to recover.
But it was comforting to know that she was a little better.
She would talk to the chambermaid who looked after our rooms and brought up our hot water and food for Felicity. I often had my lunch with her. She slept late in the mornings so I breakfasted downstairs and if I was going out, which I often did in the company of Milton, I would ask Maria to keep an eye on her, and if she should ask for me tell her I should not be away long.
Maria was talkative and eager to help. She was perhaps not the best of workers but she had a pleasing personality. She was young and slender with long black hair and laughing dark eyes and a light brown skin; her bead necklaces and bracelets jangled as she walked.
She would roll her eyes round as she talked and life seemed a great joke to her. Even when she was recounting some disaster she would laugh. She liked to keep us up to date with what was happening in the island. We learned that a certain Sam had hurt himself badly when he fell on the stubs of cut cane. "Cut about he was," she told us with a high-pitched giggle. "Hands and face bleeding. He'll be marked for the rest of his days." Then there was old Mrs. Joppa who was knocked down by a bullock cart which provided the same kind of mirth.
This laugh followed every item of news—joyous or tragic. I presumed it was a habit and of no significance.
Maria had a lover. One day she was going to join him in Brisbane where he was working on a property. Sabrino was going to have a property of his own one day ... just a little one for a start. Then Maria would join him. They were both saving their money to make that dream a possibility.
I listened attentively. Sabrino, it seemed, was the most handsome man in the world. He had been born in Cariba, but Cariba was no place for Sabrino; Maria lived for the day when she would join him.
The only time she was serious was when she talked of Sabrino.
She used to linger in my room. She was very interested in my clothes. Once I found her rummaging in my cupboard. I expressed surprise but could not really be angry with her, for her curiosity was so natural and she was so eager to please.
One morning I was sitting on the balcony when a very striking-looking woman came into the hotel. She was tall and her dark hair was piled high on her head; she walked with the exquisite grace such as I had noticed among the women of the island. But she was very different from the others. I felt she was of some importance and I had formed that opinion merely by seeing her walk through the crowd. She wore a white clinging gown and there was a gold chain about her neck.
I decided to ask Maria who she was when I next saw her. Maria would be sure to know.
To my amazement Maria came to my room. That was another habit of hers. She would come in without knocking, and although I had asked her to remember to do so, she often forgot.
"Miss Mallory," she said in a high-pitched excited voice and she appeared to be so consumed with laughter that she could scarcely speak, "there's a lady downstairs asking for you. She's come to call on you."
"Oh, who is she?"
Maria was so overcome that for a few seconds she was speechless.
"It's Mrs. Manuel," she burst out at length.
"Is that the lady I saw a little while ago? Tall, dark, in white?"
Maria nodded.
"I'll come down," I said.
Mrs. Manuel was seated in the reception area and I was aware of Rosa behind the desk, and several of them standing there, tense as though waiting for something extraordinary to happen.
She rose when I appeared.
"Miss Mallory," she said, "I have come to see you. I am Magda Manuel."
"Oh, how nice to meet you. I've heard of you."
"Everybody hears everything on these islands."
"I have heard about you from Milton Harrington."
There was silence about us. They were all listening intently as though there was something of great significance about this meeting.
"Perhaps we could go somewhere and talk," I said.
Rosa betrayed the fact that she had been listening by saying guilelessly: "Oh yes, Miss Mallory. Come this way."
She led us to the room with the balcony overlooking the harbour where I had once talked to Milton.
"You would like some refreshment?" I asked.
"Yes please."
Rosa said she would bring Lalu, which was the name of the local drink which was made of fruit and was only slightly alcoholic— the perfect drink for a hot day which was obviously why it was so popular.
We sat together side by side on the balcony.
"I have been meaning to call on you for some time," she said. "But we are so busy on the plantation."
"The plantation?"
"Oh, didn't you know. I come from Second Island. We have our plantation there. Not as big as the one here ... but there is a great deal to do in it. I can't keep my work people in order as Milton does his. I lack the touch ... so did my husband. Milton has taught us a few things."
"So you have a sugar plantation, too."
"Oh yes... It's a little too much. I lost my husband quite recently. I don't know how I could carry on without Milton's help."
The refreshment was brought by one of the men who seemed reluctant to leave us. I had a notion that beyond this room they were all talking about the meeting between myself and Magda Manuel.
"Milton was talking about you and I thought I'd call," she said. "You must visit me. Come to dinner. I believe you have a friend with you."
"Yes. But she has been very ill and still is."
"I heard about that terrible business in Australia." She looked at me apologetically. "You see, news travels fast here. It hasn't far to go."
"She is not well enough to see anyone just yet, but she is improving."
"You haven't been to Second Island yet, have you? I know you haven't or I should have heard."
"No, but I have often looked at it. It seems green and inviting."
"The green is the cane ..."
"Are you managing the plantation yourself?"
"Not exactly. I have a good man. George Callerby. He was my husband's right-hand man. So many things go wrong in a plantation. Storms can beat down the canes; rats and white ants can eat them; the boilers give up at the wrong moment and the mills grind to a halt. Milton has all his under control and the best equipment... and most of all a way of handling people. He rules with the iron hand in the velvet glove. I have never known how people achieve that. Nor did my husband. He used to say Milton had a genius for these things. These people must know who is master. They've got to respect you, otherwise they'll slack and you'll find them half asleep with their
cutters in their hands. But I am boring you with all this talk of business. What I want to know is, will you dine with us?"
"I should enjoy that."
"I'll fix a date. Milton will row you over. It is not really far. I've wanted to meet you so much but I have been busy. You see, my husband died only a few months ago. It was while Milton was in England."
Road to Paradise Island Page 34
