by Isobel Chace
His eyes went straight to her wedding-ring and then back to her face. “That’s the penalty of marrying,” he said abruptly.
“It need not be,” she answered.
He hurried away in his bare feet to the rear of the boat and shoved the engine into gear and set their course for straight out to sea, avoiding the hidden reefs as he made his way towards the harbour and small port on the main island. Helen waved to the Polynesian Customs man and he waved vigorously back at her, glad to see his protégée successfully on her way. How lovely it was, Helen thought, as the water slapped playfully against the bow and the wind caught in her hair, giving her a taste of the freedom that only boats and a wide sea to sail in can give.
She sat on the roof of the cabin, her feet stretched out before her to keep her balance, and watched the men working on the boat around her. Most of the crew were Polynesians, their brown bodies gleaming in the evening light. They were all of them big men, their flesh as soft as a woman’s, deceiving the eye, because underneath their muscles were iron strong.
A few minutes later the man was back beside her. “You’d be safer in the saloon,” he said abruptly. “Come on in and I’ll make you some coffee.”
She thanked him and, although she was sorry to leave her vantage point on deck, she followed him down the narrow companionway into the saloon. It was bigger than she had expected it to be. Lined in polished wood, it was still possible to sit on the seats s that lined the central space and see out through the oval portholes.
“You have a beautiful boat!” Helen told him with appreciation. “How long have you had her?”
“Some years,” he replied cautiously. He plonked some instant coffee into the bottom of two mugs and poured boiling water on the top. “Milk?” he asked. She nodded and accepted the steaming mug he held out to her. The coffee was very strong and bitter, but it was good and very refreshing.
“I needed that!” she said with appreciation, and smiled up at him.
“Where are you from?” he asked her.
“Today?”
“Yes, today, if you like.”
“I was flown out with the freight for the Islands from New Zealand.” She yawned apologetically. “It was a very early start!” she confessed.
He grinned. “You look none the worse for it,” he complimented her.
She blushed faintly, aware suddenly of how closely he had been looking at her. “Thank you,” she said quietly. “My name is Hastings, Mrs. Helen Hastings.”
His face hardened dramatically. “Indeed?” he said coldly. “Then why have you come here, Mrs. Hastings? You should have known that there would be nothing here for you.”
Helen twisted her fingers together to give herself courage. “I thought I could carry on where Michael left off,” .she explained awkwardly.
He stood up. “Wouldn’t it have been wiser to have written first?” he suggested with icy politeness.
“I don’t see that it’s any of your business!” Helen retorted. “It’s between me and Gregory de Vaux. There’s no reason why he shouldn’t employ me—I’m a much better diver than Michael ever was!”
“You’d need to be!” he snorted. “And I can assure you that Gregory de Vaux has never been known to employ a woman!”
“There can always be a first time!” she shot back at him.
“But not with you!” he snapped.
“Why not?” she insisted.
“Because,” he said, and he sounded as if he enjoyed saying it, “I am Gregory de Vaux!”
There was a moment’s silence. Helen looked at him with wide eyes. Of course, she thought, that was what he was doing with the boat. But he didn’t look like a man entrusted with such a mission. She glanced down at his bare feet and the torn bottom of his trousers. Why, he could even do with a shave! And goodness knew when he had last had his hair cut! And yet she had to admit that the boat was spotless and the equipment well looked after. It was a puzzle to her to know what to make of him.
“But you don’t understand,” she said. “I have Anita, my sister-in-law, to consider. I made her come with me. I had to. You don’t know what it’s like living with Michael’s mother.”
“I can imagine,” he admitted with a fleeting smile. “But I don’t quite see what it has got to do with me. I can’t run my whole business round Michael’s relatives, you know.”
She held her head up high and looked him squarely in the eyes. “I’m not suggesting that you should!” she said carefully. “I’m only suggesting that you are short of divers—you were before Michael—before Michael died—and therefore you need me, just as much as I need a job!”
He looked at her with a certain sympathy. “But I don’t employ women,” he told hen “The men get upset and the whole expedition falls apart. I’ve had it happen to me before!”
Helen bit her lip. “I don’t think you understand,” she said desperately. “I have to dive for you! And as for my being a woman, Michael isn’t so long dead that I shall be looking for any romantic adventures. I can assure you of that!”
He laughed at that! With his head thrown back and with his hands on his hips, he looked more like a pirate than ever.
“You underrate yourself!” he told her frankly.
Helen drank her coffee uncomfortably. “Well, you needn’t be so beastly about it!” she commented.
He stopped laughing and leaned his brown, surprisingly well-kept hands on the table in front of him. “I’m sorry,” he said sincerely. “I didn’t mean to be beastly. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll give you a trial run some time and you can show me what you can do. But I’m not promising anything! Is that quite clear?”
It was clear enough, she thought. He would allow her to dive just to please her, and then he would tell her that she was not suitable for the work he was doing. Still, it was a beginning. She knew she was a highly competent diver and she had no doubts at all that she would be able to prove her worth to him. She sat back in her seat and smiled.
“All right,” she said. “That’s fair enough.”
She could tell that he was taken back by her confidence, but he shrugged the matter off and glanced down at his watch. “We’ll be at the main island in about half an hour,” he told her. “Is anyone expecting you?”
“They know I’m coming some time, but I didn’t know that I’d be here today. A friend of my father’s, a Miss Corrigan, has arranged a room for me and for my sister-in-law when she comes, at the hotel.”
Gregory de Vaux stared at her. “Miss Corrigan?” he exclaimed. “Oh no! Don’t tell me you know her! The old gorgon has only got to take to you and she’ll twist me round her little finger—”
“Are you afraid of her, Mr. de Vaux?” Helen asked gently.
He glared at her. “Certainly not! Only I want to make up my own mind about your worth as a diver!”
Helen chuckled. “And so you shall,” she assured him soothingly.
“You don’t know Miss Corrigan!” he groaned.
Helen laughed again. “I am sure I shall like her very much indeed,” she said.
“I can believe it! Well, since fate is conspiring against me, I’m glad it’s such a pretty fate!” He disappeared up the companionway, his bare feet slapping against the lino-covered stairs. It was strange how much she noticed his going. His presence was rather like lightning, devastating, but noticeably exciting. She would enjoy working for him, she thought. It would make a pleasant change from mourning her dead husband in the suffocating atmosphere of her mother-in-law’s house. She and Anita would have time to learn to live again and that, at the moment, was all she asked of life. Particularly for Anita, her tired, pale, and rather insignificant sister-in-law.
CHAPTER TWO
ANITA had been Helen’s main worry after Michael had died. She had not noticed at first what Mrs. Hastings’ grief was doing to her daughter, for it had been bad enough living in the Hastings house when Michael had been alive, and Helen had moved out as soon as possible after the news had come that he w
as dead.
At first they had all been surprised how well Michael’s mother was taking the news. She had derived a strange pleasure from the fact that the telegram announcing the death had been delivered to her instead of to Helen. Later, when the confirming letter had come, she had snatched that away too, and it had been days before she had allowed Helen to read it.
“It’s addressed to me!” she had said defiantly. “I am Mrs. Hastings!”
“So, unfortunately, am I,” Helen had answered.
“So you’re regretting it,” Mrs. Hastings had accused her with satisfaction. “I knew that you never really cared for Michael.”
Helen wished that she had known it too. But she was too proud to show her sorrow to her in-laws. Any tears that she shed, she shed when she was alone, in the privacy of her own room. And then, when it had become too unbearable to go on living in the same house as Michael’s mother, she had left and had found a room for herself in London, fairly near school where she was still teaching.
In fact, so busy had she been coping with her own grief that it had been some weeks before she had noticed the change in Anita. She was ashamed to admit that she had done little enough to befriend Anita in the past. The girl had seemed little more than a pale shadow of her mother, following after her wherever she went, fetching and carrying for her and generally making herself useful, with no friends of her own, and apparently very little desire to live a life of her own. Helen had been all the more shocked therefore when, out of a sense of duty she had visited her mother-in-law to discuss the terms of Michael’s will. Anita’s face had fallen away into shadowed, tightly drawn skin stretched over bones, and her eyes were little more than two pools of sheer misery.
“Anita, what’s the matter?” Helen had greeted her.
“Ssh!” Anita had warned her. “Mother is listening.”
Helen had stood in the front doorway and had frowned at the pale, fair girl before her. “Why don’t you ever stand up for yourself?” she had asked her irritably.
Anita had sighed. “You don’t understand,” she had whispered.
“Oh yes, I do!” Helen had snapped back. “I understand a great deal too well! But if you let it go on you’ll spend the rest of your life being nobody but poor little Anita! Is that what you want?”
Anita had winced. “Perhaps that’s what I am,” she had said.
“Rubbish!” Helen had said, much as she would have done to a tiresome child at the school where she taught. “Where is the old witch? I’ll soon fix her!”
“Oh, but you mustn’t!” Anita had pleaded. “She’s so unhappy about Michael. She keeps on and on—”
“And I suppose his death meant nothing at all to you?” Helen had asked her witheringly. “Or to me either, come to that!” she had added with a touch of bitterness that was normally quite foreign to her nature. “You’d better leave me to see Mrs. Hastings alone,” she had told Anita imperiously. “Go and make some tea or something, and for heaven’s sake put on some make-up. You look like a little ghost!”
Mrs. Hastings had not been an easy proposition. She had, apparently, taken it upon herself to go into Michael’s financial affairs, and it seemed that he had left virtually nothing. “So you see,” she had told Helen with ill-concealed triumph, “he’s left you almost penniless!”
Helen had said nothing at first, then finally she had burst out with, “Mrs. Hastings, I have quite a bit of money saved. I’m going out to the Melonga Islands myself to find out what really happened to Michael, and I want Anita to come with me.”
“It’s out of the question!” Mrs. Hastings had gasped. “What should I do without her?”
“I’m more worried about Anita,” Helen had observed dryly. “Have you looked at her recently?”
It had been a long battle before Michael’s mother had given way. She had refused to pay so much as a penny towards Anita’s fare to New Zealand and had made the poor girl’s life quite miserable before they had finally left, but leave they had on the long exhausting flight right round the world to New Zealand. Yet, despite the tiring, non-stop flying, the eating of meals at unheard-of hours, and the hours of sleep snatched here and there at curious times, Anita had looked a great deal better on arrival than she had when they had left.
Twenty-four hours after their arrival in Auckland, Anita had gone down with appendicitis, and so it was that Helen had come on to the Melonga Islands alone. And now, she thought with satisfaction, she had got the chance of getting the job she wanted, the job that was going to keep them while they were there. There was the sound of shouting on the deck above her head and she flew up the companionway to see what was happening. The last light of the sun lit the small harbour and the island beyond, silhouetting the palm trees that fringed the silver sands. She had finally arrived.
The jetty had been built from roughly felled trees, joined together to form a platform, alongside which the boats of the local inhabitants could be tied up in safety. It was a rickety structure, but it served its purpose and so no one had ever thought of changing it for something more elaborate.
The Sweet Promise slipped into the still waters of the little harbour and berthed easily alongside the jetty.
“Now all we have to do is get you ashore! Gregory de Vaux said teasingly.
Helen smiled. “I didn’t know I was going boating,” she said.
“No?” He lifted his eyebrows faintly and grinned at her. “If it weren’t for the wedding-ring on your finger, I’d think you were too young for such adventures.”
“It doesn’t mean that I’m inefficient—at diving, I mean,” she said defensively.
He looked amused. “Of course not,” he agreed. “We’ll be able to find out about that tomorrow. Meanwhile, I’ll take you to the hotel and book you in there.”
She thanked him prettily, uneasily aware that he was adept at making her feel feminine and useless in a way that Michael had never been able to. She wished he wouldn’t stand there, looking as if he didn’t care a damn about anything, with the last of the light bronzing his skin until he looked like a statue of some pagan god demanding someone’s worship. Well, it wouldn’t be hers, she told herself with a no-nonsense little nod of the head. She was far too worldly wise to be taken in by a handsome face and a light-hearted manner.
Even so, she was not prepared to allow him to hand her ashore. “I can manage perfectly well by myself!” she assured him sternly.
“All right,” he drawled. He leaned back against the masthead and watched her struggle with her luggage. When she dropped one of the suitcases on the deck, he signalled with a lazy finger for one of the Polynesian crew to take it from her and carry it ashore, but he made no move himself. He only watched her until she was nervous and convinced that she would do something daft, just because he had succeeded in unsettling her.
“Are you sure you can manage the jump?” he drawled as she hesitated before taking off to land on the flimsy jetty, some feet below.
“Of course I’m sure!” she answered exasperatedly.
“Pride goes before a fall,” he commented, as though he were speaking to himself.
That made her jump! She took off with her eyes tight shut and landed with a jerk that knocked all the breath out of her. The timbers of the jetty creaked ominously, but to her infinite relief they held beneath her, and she gazed triumphantly upwards at the mocking face of Gregory de Vaux.
“See!” she said.
He laughed and the Polynesian crew laughed with him, their dark faces breaking into wide grins and their heavy flesh jumping up and down in time to the great guffaws of laughter that came out of their mouths. Helen was at first startled and then she began to laugh herself.
“What’s so funny?” she demanded.
“You are!” Gregory told her. He jumped down beside her as agile as a cat and grabbed her suitcases in either hand. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get you checked in and settled.”
He was as good as his word. He led the way through the shanty town and fish m
arket that had grown up round the harbour, to the wider streets beyond, lined by utilitarian houses, mostly built on a single-storey plan, past the Government buildings, and finally to the hotel itself. It must have been by far the biggest building on the islands. It towered some twenty storeys in the air, a vast construction of steel and glass in symmetric patterns of windows and balconies.
“Is this the hotel?” Helen asked with awe.
“That’s right,” Gregory de Vaux assured her cheerfully. He looked the building up and down with an amused smile. “Ain’t it somethin’?” he said.
It appeared that he was not at all in awe of the place. He opened the heavy glass doors for her to go into the foyer first, and came in after her, burying his naked toes into the deep pile of the carpet.
“Gregory!” a strident female voice reproved him.
“Why, Ethel,” he drawled. “I have your young friend from England here. I gather you are expecting her?”
An English lady of uncertain age came out from behind the desk, her hotel-key chinking in an eager, trembling hand. “Where is she?” she screamed in acute pleasure. “I’ve been longing for her to arrive! I knew her father, you know. Such a kind man!” She advanced across the foyer, her cheeks and dewlap flapping, her pale grey eyes alight with interest and delight. “My dear!” she exclaimed, embracing Helen with an awkwardness that betrayed her lack of practice. “My dear! How like your father you are!”
“I’m surprised that you can see what she’s like in this gloomy place,” Gregory observed flatly.
Miss Corrigan shook her head at him. “You are a naughty boy!” she informed him roundly. “Helen has come here as my guest, so you can just mind your own business!”
Gregory grinned. “I can’t very well do that,” he said. “She’s already asked me for a job.”
Miss Corrigan shuddered visibly. “And are you going to give her one?”
Gregory shrugged his shoulders. “It depends how good she is,” he said cagily.
