[Stephanos 02] - Dragon Bay

by Violet Winspear

  She fell, pain shot through her shoulder and arm, and then the dust on the path filled her eyes and her brain and everything went dark.

  She came to her senses in her bedroom at the Great House, and gazed up dazedly at the frilled canopy of her bed. She must have made a sound, for almost at once Clare was at the bedside and bending over her. ‘Kara,’ the other girl’s face was strained, ‘you gave us all a scare. How do you feel, my dear ? Does your shoulder hurt very much?’

  ‘My shoulder?’ Kara was still dazed, and when she turned her head she saw that her left arm was out of the covers and resting on a pillow. It was also a queer saffron colour.

  ‘You fell and badly bruised yourself.’ Clare helped her to drink some cool lime juice. ‘Lucan found you all crumpled up at the foot of the knoll on which the old sugar mill stands. He brought you home on horseback, and luckily old Doc Fabre was attending one of the workers and able to come in and pronounce you bruised but otherwise okay. You fainted, he thought, from a com­bination of shock and heat.’

  ‘Someone chased me on a horse,’ Kara said, with a shudder. ‘A big golden horse with a black mane.’

  Clare stared at her, as if the shock of her fall and the heat had affected Kara’s brain.

  ‘It’s true.’ Kara winced as she tried to sit up. Clare helped her, banking the pillows behind her, her hands strangely cool against Kara’s skin. Her clothes had been removed and she was in a sleeveless nightdress.

  ‘I undressed you,’ said Clare. ‘The doctor wants you to stay in bed for a day or so. You suffered a nasty bruise, and your hat fell off and left you exposed to the sun—’

  ‘I have not got brain fever,’ Kara shrank from the odd expression in Clare’s eyes. ‘Don’t you believe me about the horse?’

  ‘There was once a black-maned palomino on the estate,’ Clare admitted, ‘but that was ages ago. He be­longed to Pryde, and we got rid of him after my brother recovered from his accident but was confined to a wheelchair. We felt that Satan was too much of a re­minder to Pryde of all the things he could not do any more.’

  ‘Satan,’ Kara whispered. ‘He was golden with a fierce black mane?’

  ‘Yes—’ And then Clare turned to look at the door as it opened and Lucan came in. ‘Lucan, come and comfort this funny little wife of yours. She insists that Satan re­appeared this afternoon and rode her down.’

  Clare gave a laugh, but Lucan was frowning. ‘Will you leave us alone, Clare ?’ he asked.

  She nodded and left the suite. Lucan came to the side of Kara’s bed and stood looking down at her, anger in his eyes instead of concern. ‘You will not go near that place again,’ he said. ‘It’s benighted and should be burned right down!’

  ‘Someone chased me on horseback,’ she drew back against her pillows, as far away as possible from his tower­ing figure and his eyes that blazed like grey diamonds. ‘I did not imagine it, Lucan. I was not sun-struck.’

  ‘Did you go inside the mill?’ he demanded.

  She nodded. ‘I—I was curious to see inside, and then the bell in the turret made a noise and I ran out—’

  ‘And stumbled over a tussock of grass or a vine and fell down the knoll,’ he said grimly. ‘Kara, I begin to think that I did wrong to bring you to Dragon Bay—’

  ‘Are you wishing that you had brought Caprice in­stead?’ The words were out, the clamouring question was asked at last. ‘You went to Paris to see her. You meant to ask her to be your wife.’

  ‘Yes—I was going to ask Caprice to marry me,’ he ad­mitted.

  Kara closed her eyes and wished that wing of blackness would sweep over her again, shutting out the pain, and the driving anger. ‘Why did you leave her without asking?’ Kara’s great eyes were dark as shadows in her pointed face, her hair clustered in damp small curls at her temples and against her vulnerable neck. ‘Could you not bear to ask her to take third place in your life?’

  ‘Kara,’ he moved as if to touch her, then thrust his hands into the pockets of his breeches. His shirt was open at his brown throat, and the look of him was a lance in Kara’s heart. ‘I thought I could ask Caprice to share my life at Dragon Bay, but when we met again in Paris I knew it was out of the question. I have known her for several years and she is vivacious, beautiful—but it was out of the question. Then—at Fort Fernand—I met you.’

  ‘And it was easier, asking me to become a Savidge bride.’ Kara spoke tiredly. ‘I should like to go to sleep, Lucan. I am weary.’ She closed her eyes, and a moment later heard him close the door. Even the fact that he had gone without further explanation was a source of pain to Kara. Her throat tightened and she felt utterly forlorn—and unwanted.

  Tears started to her eyes—the easy tears of someone who ached all over—and she wished she had never run away from Andelos and the security of her brother’s house. Here at Dragon Bay she was a stranger, bewildered and lonely. The one person who could have made her feel safe and secure had just admitted that she was not the wife he really wanted. She was second best, second choice.

  Kara sought for her handkerchief beneath her pillow, and winced as the movement caused her shoulder to throb. Someone at Dragon Bay even actively hated her. A person and not a ghost had sat in the saddle of that golden horse with the satanic dark mane!

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  TO her surprise Kara was inclined to welcome a day in bed. Rue came in early and perched herself on the foot of the fourposter, full of curiosity about the accident. ‘I stumbled and fell.’ Kara knew that this imaginative child must be told the lie that everyone else accepted as the truth. ‘Silly of me. I am usually as sure-footed as a Greek goat.’

  ‘It looks awfully painful,’ Rue said sympathetically.

  The bruise was like a rainbow this morning, spreading up Kara’s forearm to the front of her shoulder. In throw­ing up her arm she had caught the blow that might have found her throat. A shudder ran through her. Someone was trying to frighten her away from Dragon Bay, but she must not think about that with the child in the room.

  Instead she said brightly: ‘I am going to ask permission of Pryde to paint the walls of your room a- lighter colour. And we will change the curtains and put up something gay, and have a bright orange quilt made for your bed. Do you like orange?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Sue, looking eager and doubtful.

  ‘And while we are at it, some of that big old furniture can be taken out. I am sure in a house this size there must be some smaller items of furniture.’

  ‘I always think there is someone in the wardrobe—I hate that wardrobe, but Da says nothing must change at Dragon Bay. It’s the tradition.’

  ‘Things cannot help but change, Rue. The things that were appropriate fifty years ago are now heavy and old-fashioned.’

  ‘‘You had best ask Da,’ Rue said anxiously. ‘Uncle Pryde leaves the running of the house to her, and she doesn’t like things to be changed.’

  ‘I should think your happiness comes before furni­ture,’ Kara spoke with a touch of anger.

  ‘It’s different—if you are a real Savidge.’ As Rue spoke she looked at Kara out of the corner of her green eyes. It was not her usual look of mischief, but one that held a secretive questioning. Kara bit her lip. She could not answer the child as she wished to be answered. She could not say, ‘You are a Savidge; their blood is yours.’

  ‘We have something in common, Rue,’ she smiled. ‘The Savidges chose to make us part of the family.’

  ‘Are you glad?’ asked Rue.

  ‘Of course,’ said Kara, and she and the child looked into each other’s eyes and shared a secret. They both belonged to Lucan, but to neither of them would he ever really belong. They had to accept him as he was.

  At that moment the door opened and Kara felt her­self tensing … a tension that did not relax as Da entered the room carrying a tray.

  ‘Ooh,’ Rue knelt up on the bed, ‘breakfast in bed! Can I have some?’

  ‘Yes, poppet,’ Kara was looking at Da, who always made her feel lit
tle older than Rue and about as respon­sible. The woman was still upright and commanding, despite her age. Her skin was dark, lined all over as ivory is when aged. Her eyes were quick and obsidian dark, set deep beneath her Creole turban with its devil-horns. The weaknesses of people were known to her and used by her. She had a power that made Kara think of voodoo.

  ‘How is your arm this morning, ma’am?’ she asked politely, settling the tray across Kara’s lap and ordering Rue not to fidget.

  ‘It aches, but I expect that will wear off. What a nice breakfast, Da.’

  ‘Only one cup,’ grumbled Rue.

  ‘Hush, Miss Rue. You go and have yo’ breakfast down­stairs like a good girl.’

  ‘Let her stay,’ Kara smiled up into the obsidian eyes that did not smile back. ‘Perhaps Sam would be kind enough to bring up another cup ? And look, I shall never eat all this by myself.’

  There were croissants agleam with iced sugar, thick sliced ham, pineapple rings, toast, coffee, and fruit.

  ‘You are the mistress here,’ said Da, and she took a look at the chatelaine watch on the lapel of her long black silk dress. ‘Massa Lucan tell me that Doctor Fabre call in aroun’ ten this morning to see you, ma’am. When you had breakfast, I send up one of the girls to help you wash.’

  ‘Thank you, Da. This arm is going to be a nuisance for a day or so.’

  ‘It’s all colours,’ Rue had sugar all round her mouth from a croissant. ‘I bet Yunk is mad enough to burn down that old mill—why, I bet the ghost pushed you over, Kara.’

  Kara looked at Da, whose gaunt face was expression­less. ‘You got too much imagination, Miss Rue. Folks all know that spirits can’t push people over.’

  No, thought Kara. Nor ride a person down on horse­back.

  Da went to each window and stroked back the curtains, and there was a look of fierce pride in her eyes as she gazed round the room. ‘This furniture was made at Dragon Bay a hundred years ago,’ she said, ‘and that marriage bed was built right here in this room.’

  The marriage bed—how old-fashioned a term, how strong and abiding. Kara cut a piece of ham and carried it to her lips, and she saw Da looking her over in the big, carved bed with its frilled canopy and its big square pil­lows. Kara’s heart shrank from the flicker of scorn in the obsidian eyes—for each morning the pillow beside her was as blank and smooth as snow, and bore no impression of Lucan’s head.

  ‘I will tell Samuel to bring another cup.’ With a rustle of black silk Da left the room quietly closed the door be­hind her.

  ‘She thinks she owns Dragon Bay,’ said Rue, who was nibbling a pineapple ring on a slice of ham and toast. ‘This is fun, Kara. I hope you stay in bed a whole week.’

  ‘No fear—and, young lady, watch that juice. I don’t want it all over my bedspread.’

  ‘All over your marriage bed,’ Rue giggled.

  The entrance of Sam with another cup was a relief, and after he had gone, Kara said: ‘Does Da’s son work on the estate?’

  Rue sipped her cup of coffee and milk and shook her head. ‘He’s a bit weird and lives all by himself in a stilt house by the swamp. You haven’t yet seen the swamp, but it’s very mysterious. Sam says he’s an obeah man — you know, someone who puts spells on people and makes love potions.’

  ‘What nonsense,’ Kara laughed, though she knew that a dark magic was still practised in these islands. Da her­self had the look of a voodoo priestess.

  When Rue had finished her breakfast, Kara told her to go and wash her face and agreed that she could come and eat lunch with her.

  ‘You are a sport, Kara.’ Rue gave her cheek a sticky kiss. ‘Aunt Clare isn’t like you. She is cold as a statue.’

  ‘From whom did you hear that one?’ Kara demanded.

  ‘Oh, Nils said it to her once, when they were together in her studio. "You are cold as the statues you chisel out of stone," he said. Do you think Nils is in love with her?’

  ‘You precocious child!’ Kara had to laugh. ‘Clare is very beautiful, but dedicated to her work as a sculptress.’

  ‘I don’t want to be dedicated,’ said Rue solemnly. ‘When I grow up I’m going to marry a man just like Yunk and I’m going to have ten children.’

  ‘Only ten, my poppet?’

  ‘You’re laughing at me, but I don’t care. I don’t like playing all by myself, and I wish you would hurry up and have a baby.’

  These words rang out as the door opened and Lucan came striding into the room. He paused, a bold eyebrow quirking above his green eyes.

  ‘Yunk!’ Rue scrambled off the bed and ran to him. He swept her up in his arms and studied her mischievous face before kissing her. ‘Pineapple juice and toast crumbs,’ he grimaced. ‘Wash your face before you go up to the studio to say good morning to Clare.’

  ‘Do I have to?’ Rue took a strand of his hair and draped it in a comma above his left eyebrow. ‘You are handsome, Yunk.’

  ‘And you are a minx,’ he said, his eyes narrowing. ‘You will certainly go and wish your Aunt Clare good morn­ing.’

  ‘All right. Shall I give you an Eskimo kiss?’ She rubbed her small nose against his hawkish one, and he chased her out of the suite and then returned and stood just inside the door of Kara’s room. The lines of laughter etched deep the brown skin of his face. ‘Minx,’ he muttered.

  Kara looked at him and wondered if he was thinking about the child’s mother.

  ‘Have you had breakfast?’ she asked.

  ‘A cup of coffee and some burnt toast at the overseer’s.’ His riding-boots creaked as he came across the room. ‘Some rats have got into the cane fields and we’ll have to see about getting rid of the pests. Can’t have a good crop messed up. How’s your arm—it looks as though Rue has been at it with her paintbox.’

  ‘It aches.’ Her throat had gone a little dry at his near­ness. She wanted him to bend and kiss her, and yet she couldn’t stop thinking about the things they had said to each other the day before. He had admitted that he wanted Caprice. How then could she, Kara, want his kiss? But she did, and her nostrils tensed as he sat down on her bed. The fresh air of the fields was on him, and the tangy smell of his horse. He took a sugar-apple off her tray, and his hair was wind tossed above his green eyes. Those strange eyes that changed with his moods—in cold­ness they were grey and he looked like Pryde.

  He took a bite from the apple and then held it out with a quizzical smile and she took a smaller bite. ‘It is usually Eve who does the tempting,’ she murmured, a warmth in her cheeks.

  ‘Are you prepared to be tempted?’ His gaze was on her slim neck as he spoke, and his closeness was a subtle torment. She reminded herself wildly that he did not love her. He had married her and brought her here for one purpose only, and she saw a gleam of sardonic amuse­ment come into his eyes at her movement of retreat.

  ‘I—I am too bruised to want to be touched,’ she said nervously.

  ‘Sorry, my dear.’ He tossed the core of the apple to the tray. ‘I have made enquiries about the palomino you thought you saw, but Josh the overseer, and the other boys, say they have not seen one on the island since Satan was sent away. The golden palomino is a rare animal, and one with a black mane rarer still—’

  ‘How would I know that Pryde’s horse had a black mane ?’ she asked. ‘That horse yesterday was golden as a new penny, with a fierce black mane that hid the rider’s face.’

  Lucan scanned her tense young face, and his nostrils flared and then drew in. ‘I found you at the foot of the knoll, Kara. Your hat had fallen a yard away, and the sun was hot on you.’

  ‘And it addled my brains and I imagined—this.’ She gestured at her bruised arm. ‘It’s funny. Someone thinks you care about me—’

  ‘Kara …’

  ‘Someone wishes to hurt you through your beloved bride, Lucan.’ She laughed on a broken note as he surged to his feet and stood looking down at her savagely.

  ‘Stop it!’ he ordered. He bent over her, one hand grip­ping the post beside her
unbruised shoulder. His eyes blazed into hers, and then, as if to stifle her bitter laughter, he crushed his mouth against hers and held it there until she sank silent against the pillows.

  She didn’t open her eyes for several minutes. He was gone, the room was quiet and as drained of colour as she was. Her lips alone were achingly afire.

  The doctor came, and later she had lunch with Rue, forcing herself to eat the crab salad, and the Angel’s food—fresh sliced fruit with a garnish of grated coconut.

  In the somnolent silence of the afternoon she lay listening to the whack of balls on the squash court. Clare and Nils, perhaps. Was Nils in love with that cool creature of marble? Attraction was a strange and subtle thing. A magnetic force that drew you to another person and held you there despite your misgivings.

  Suddenly she heard a distant cry and thought it came from the direction of the squash court. Later that day she learned from Clare that a ball had hit Nils in the eye, and now he was wearing an eye-patch and looking like a Viking pirate.

  ‘I don’t know how it happened.’ Clare paced restlessly about Kara’s lamplit room, her cigarette, spilling ash to the floor. ‘First you have a bad fall, and now I give Nils a black eye—sometimes I believe those weird tales about Dragon Bay. Sometimes I almost feel a malevolent pre­sence. Awful things do happen here. Look at Pryde!’

  ‘Do you think Pryde blames Lucan for what hap­pened?’ Kara asked.

  ‘My dear, they are twin brothers, made from the same block of marble. There might have been times when Pryde was — resentful, but he has too much pride to let himself be governed by an emotion that can’t be con­trolled. Hate — like love—is such an emotion.

  ‘Tell me,’ Clare sat down and crossed her long legs, ‘how did an innocent like you ever come to fall in love with Lucan?’

  ‘It just happened.’ Kara forced herself to smile. ‘Did I come as a great surprise to all of you ?’