by Isobel Chace
“There’s no doubt about that,” Miss Corrigan said roundly, her cheeks quivering with emotion. “She was taught by her father!”
Gregory’s face became serious for an instant. “I don’t care who taught her! I’m not having any more amateurs botching up my operations and that’s that!” Nor am I having any more conflict with the authorities about unnecessary deaths, or anything at all—”
“Ssh, dear,” Miss Corrigan interrupted him, shocked. “Michael was this girl’s husband!”
Gregory looked at Helen, his face hardening. “So he was,” he said at last. “I’d forgotten that.”
He turned on his heel and walked quickly out of the hotel, the bottoms of his torn jeans flapping round his bare feet. Even from his back view it was possible to tell how close his suppressed anger was to erupting like a geyser all round them. “I’ll call for you in the morning,” he said from the entrance, and added by way of an afterthought, “And wear something sensible, will you?”
Helen watched his departure, her eyes wide with indignation. “And just who does he think he is?” she demanded.
Miss Corrigan shook her head sadly. “He’s a fine boy really,” she said pacifically. Her eyes met Helen’s, steely grey and twinkling. “It’s a pity, dear, you’re any connection of Michael’s—”
“I’m not just a connection, I’m his widow!” Helen pointed out.
“Yes, dear, I know. Very sad. I feel for you. I’m sure Gregory does too underneath. Only Michael’s death was a teeny bit inconvenient, if you don’t mind my saying so. Everything was held up for so long while they held endless investigations that got absolutely nowhere. So you can’t be surprised if Gregory prefers to forget all about him, can you?”
“Yes,” said Helen loudly, “I can. I’m sorry he was inconvenienced, but Michael died. Doesn’t anyone care about that?”
Miss Corrigan patted her hand with awkward sympathy. “You do, it would seem,” she observed dryly. “You can’t expect the rest of us to be so involved emotionally, my dear. Michael was a loner all the time he was here. None of us really knew him at all well.”
“Nevertheless, he was a man and he died,” Helen insisted, swallowing a painful lump in her throat.
“Quite right, my dear,” Miss Corrigan agreed. “But although one mourns the dead, life does go on. You’ll find that out. Now, I must find young Peter Harmon and he can take you to your room. You’ll dine with me tonight, of course?”
Helen licked her lips. “Thank you very much,” she said.
“Then I’ll find Peter,” Miss Corrigan said again, and she rushed off into the interior of the hotel, her head several inches in front of her feet in her anxiety to arrive at her destination faster than she could actually travel. Later, Helen was always to think of it as the one outstanding characteristic of Miss Ethel Corrigan. Her interest took her everywhere and she never had enough time to do all that she wanted to, so she was perpetually in a hurry, swooping from one place to another, her head stuck well out ahead of her and with her cheeks quivering with enthusiasm for whatever had seized her fancy at that particular moment. Miss Corrigan had lived for so long on the Islands that they had become her whole life, but she had by no means restricted her mental horizons. Anything and everything was grist to her mill as she poked about the place she had made her own particular domain.
Helen lingered in the foyer, studying the photographs of the Islands which surrounded the wood-panelled walls, until a nervous, fair young man came to rescue her. He stood playing with his fingers, while she finished her tour of inspection. Then he cleared his throat noisily to attract her attention.
“Mrs. Hastings? Miss Corrigan said you had arrived. I’m the manager of the hotel.”
Helen smiled at him. “Mr. Harmon?”
He looked taken aback. “Oh, you know my name? Miss Corrigan, I suppose,” he added with a shy smile. “I’m pretty new here still,” he confessed. “They only just finished building the hotel.”
“But you are open?” Helen asked him anxiously.
“Oh yes,” he agreed enthusiastically. “Actually, our only customer so far is Miss Corrigan. She’s decided she’d be more comfortable living with us. But pretty soon we’re going to be right on the tourist map! Yes, ma’am! We’re aiming pretty high here!”
Helen wondered how all the expected tourists were going to be brought to the Islands. As far as she knew there was only the one steamer a month which called at the tiny harbour. That, and the freight plane which had brought her in that evening. It seemed a far cry from American package tours coming and going in weekly shifts.
“I’ve given you a room at the top, as Miss Corrigan directed,” Mr. Harmon went on. “For there you can get a view right over the bay. You can even see the different coloured corals of the reef. It’s pretty beautiful!”
They went up in a lift that creaked with newness and walked a short way along a wide corridor before Mr. Harmon stopped outside one of the doors and opened it with the key he had brought with him. “Here we are!” he said in a pleased voice, and waited eagerly for her reaction.
He certainly had something to be pleased about. The room was full of flowers, beautifully arranged to lead the eye out on to the balcony and the sea beyond. It was too late to see the view properly now, but the lights from the boats twinkled across the moonlit scene, giving some faint idea of what it would be like in the morning light, with the sun shining from morn to night. The headboard of the bed was designed to resemble the spread tail of a paradise bird, and there was a chair to match set in the corner opposite. It was, Helen thought, rather overwhelming in its opulence. “Goodness!” she exclaimed.
Peter Harmon laughed. “I have the next room ready for your sister-in law when she comes,” he told her. “It’s just the same.”
Helen walked out on to the balcony and took a deep breath of air. “I never thought of the Pacific as smelling,” she said, amused by her own fancy. “But it does, doesn’t it? It’s quite different from the Atlantic.”
“I’ll say!” Peter Hannon agreed. “And I ought to know. I haven’t been here long myself. It’s my first job as a full-blown manager, though I’ve always worked for the same group of hotels.”
“Do you like it?” Helen asked him curiously.
He nodded vigorously. “It’s fun seeing people enjoy themselves,” he said. “Not the fancy types who are always around, but the people who have saved to have a really good bust! I like to see them eating good food and getting good service for their money. They’ve earned it, I reckon.”
Helen found herself liking this fair American very much indeed. “I’ve never thought about it, she admitted. “I’ve hardly ever stayed in a hotel. When I was a child, we always went everywhere by boat and then I grew up and became a teacher.”
His eyes bulged with astonishment. “A teacher? I thought you were going to be one of Gregory’s divers. I thought you looked a sight too smart for that!”
Helen coloured faintly. “Too smart?”
Peter Harmon tugged nervously at his neatly tied tie. “Have you met Gregory yet?” he asked in hushed tones.
“Yes, I have,” Helen said.
“Oh well,” he said, completely, embarrassed. “But he’s always like that. I mean—”
“His boat is well kept, though,” Helen observed.
“That’s exactly what I mean!” Peter said with relief. He isn’t the tuxedo type. And you can say that again!”
Helen sighed. He wasn’t any type that she had ever met, she thought to herself. But she was sure of one thing, he had enough sheer animal magnetism for a whole army of men, more in his little finger than this nice American had in his whole body. She puckered up, her mouth and sighed again. She disapproved of any man being so attractive! Peter was right, he probably wasn’t at all trustworthy. That might even have been why Michael had died. Goodness knows, he had been unnecessarily unkind about that! But she would have to kowtow to him long enough to get a job, but once the job was hers it would give
her the very greatest pleasure to tell him just what she thought of him.
She shut the door after Peter had gone and went and stood on the balcony for a long time before she realised that she would be late if she didn’t hurry up and change for dinner. Unpacking took her only a few minutes. She hung the dresses on hangers and put them away in the built-in wardrobe. The rest of her things she piled into drawers and left them to be sorted at her convenience later.
Miss Corrigan was waiting for her in the foyer when she went downstairs.
“I’ve made Peter serve dinner on the terrace,” the old lady said as soon as she saw her. “It’s prettier than the dining room, and anyway we don’t want to eat in lonely state in that enormous place, do we?”
Helen agreed that they didn’t. Besides, the balmy air of the evening appealed to her. They sat out on locally made cane chairs and sipped a fruit drink that was all the concession that Miss Corrigan was prepared to make to the cocktail hour.
“I disapprove of strong drinks,” she told Helen. “My father did so from conviction, I from habit. I am afraid you will have to humour me just this evening. Do you mind?”
Helen didn’t mind at all. She accepted the drink that the waiter offered her and delighted in the sheer coolness of its icy contents. From somewhere in the distance, Polynesian songs were being sung, their tuneful quality coming across the still night air.
“What very pretty music!” Helen exclaimed.
Miss Corrigan’s nose twitched with sudden and all-consuming interest. “Do you like it? It’s my greatest passion in life! Unfortunately I can’t sing a note myself and I have given up trying, but I go into the villages as often as I can to hear them singing their songs and telling of their legends. I take them down on tapes. I believe,” she added in the humble tones experts are inclined to use when speaking of their own subject, “I believe that I have one of the largest collections of Polynesian music in the world. But then, of course, I have been here a long time to be able to acquire all the recordings that I have.”
“Always in the Melonga Islands?” Helen asked her.
“Latterly,” the old lady agreed. “Since before the war. I’ve got used to being here now and I don’t want to move. The war did that to me. One couldn’t move at all then and I got out of the way of wanting to.”
“But weren’t the Japanese here during the war?” Helen put in, fascinated by her hostess.
Miss Corrigan laughed. “Oh yes, we were occupied, you know. They sent an officer with about eight men here and they spent the duration of the war with us. I think they were rather sorry when it was all over and they had to go home. We had grown quite used to each other by that time. They had even managed to teach me Japanese—I think it made them less lonely to be addressed in their own language. Poor things, they came as stiff and starchy as you could wish, but life on the Islands soon changed all that!” she added with satisfaction.
Helen chuckled. She couldn’t imagine even the Japanese getting the better of Miss Corrigan. “I believe you enjoyed it all!” she accused her.
Miss Corrigan looked thoroughly ashamed of herself. “I think I liked the excitement,” she confessed. “It wasn’t exciting for very long, but Japanese legends and customs are absolutely fascinating and the officer in charge of the party, Kitsimu-san, was really very knowledgeable about them. The hard part was at the end of the war when we all had to remember that we had been enemies. It is so out of the way here, we had practically forgotten.” She sighed gustily. “But I want to hear about you, my dear. To think that you are Harold’s daughter! Why, it seems just the other day that he married your mother! You’re like him in your looks—”
“Am I?” Helen said lightly. “He always hoped I’d be like my mother. They were both killed in a car crash. You knew that, didn’t you?”
Miss Corrigan creased up her forehead while she thought about it. “Yes,” she said, “I did know, but I’d forgotten. I hope you didn’t grieve, child. Harold wouldn’t have liked it! And then there was that terrible affair with that young husband of yours!” She looked Helen straight in the eyes. “I do hope you are not a sad person?” she said accusingly.
Helen gave a startled gasp. “I—I don’t think so,” she said.
Miss Corrigan relaxed so violently that her chair creaked an ominous protest beneath her. “That’s a relief! I must admit I did wonder when you wrote and said you were coming out here to take Michael’s place with the expedition if you could. I suppose you were tired of teaching?”
“Not exactly,” Helen tried to explain. “It was because of my sister-in-law, Anita. Michael’s mother was driving her round the bend. I thought if I brought her out here, she would be far enough away to live her own life for a bit.”
“Ah yes,” Miss Corrigan nodded. “I had forgotten that she should have been with you. And are you expecting her to dive too?” she asked dryly.
Helen shook her head, laughing. “No, Anita would die sooner than put her head under water. I’m hoping to make enough while we’re here to keep the two of us.”
Miss Corrigan looked less than hopeful. “Gregory is so very unmalleable, if you know what I mean,” she warned gently.
Helen lifted her chin belligerently. “So am I. He can hardly deny me really,” she added. “He badly needs another diver. He knows it and I know it.”
“But after Michael dying like that, he doesn’t want to employ a woman,” Miss Corrigan explained earnestly. “Supposing you were to be killed too?”
Helen grinned, suddenly very sure of herself. “I’m a great deal better diver than Michael ever was! They won’t kill me off so easily!”
Miss Corrigan laughed and then tried to look shocked. “Really, my dear,” she protested. “What a thing to say! Do you think that Michael was deliberately killed?”
Helen shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said. “The only explanation of his death that we received was confused to say the least. That was another reason why I wanted to come here—to find out exactly what happened to Michael.”
“You were in love with him?” Miss Corrigan asked, much as though the whole topic of love made her feel uncomfortable.
Helen said nothing for a long moment. “I think so,” she said then.
“But you’re not sure?” Miss Corrigan pursued her ruthlessly.
“No,” Helen agreed, “I’m not sure. It seems so very long ago. We only had three weeks together and then he was gone, it’s almost a year now since he died, and when I shut my eyes, I can’t even see his face any more. All I can see is his mother—”
“And you would prefer not to?” Miss Corrigan added shrewdly.
Helen smiled sadly. “Yes, I would prefer not to.” she agreed.
CHAPTER THREE
IN the morning, Helen was still having breakfast when Gregory de Vaux arrived.
“Have some coffee?” she offered him, hastily finishing the piece of toast she was eating.
“Okay,” he agreed. He poured himself some and heaped several spoonfuls of sugar into the cup. “What have you got in that bag?” he asked, kicking it with a bare foot.
“I always carry my own rubber suit,” she answered. Didn’t he ever wear any shoes, she wondered, or anything else but those torn jeans and a shirt that had seen better days?
“You won’t need it here,” he said tersely. “A swimming-suit is enough. The water stays pretty warm. The ship is jammed on to the reef, by the way. It isn’t at all deep, thank goodness. At least it saves on the lights.”
“How deep?” she countered, buttering another piece of toast because he didn’t seem to be in such a hurry after all.
“About a hundred feet.”
Helen looked puzzled. “But how did Michael die, then?” she inquired. “I was sure in my own mind that he must have gone down too deep. I mean, I don’t suppose you have a decompression chamber here?” She paused, studying his face. “Then it wasn’t the bends?”
“I thought I’d explained in my letter,” he said patiently. “Didn�
�t you bother to read it?”
Helen winced away from the tone in his voice. It still hurt when she thought of the way her mother-in-law had whisked the letter away, not even allowing her a sight of it.
“Unfortunately,” she said dryly, “it didn’t appear to be addressed to me, so I never actually saw it.”
“Well, for crying out loud! Who do you think it was addressed to?”
“Michael’s mother,” Helen answered with restraint, because she couldn’t bear him to see how badly she had been hurt.
Gregory stared at her, open-mouthed. “You must have very strange customs in your family,” he said at last. “But it isn’t any of my business. Are you ready to go?”
She nodded and stood up, pushing her chair in under the table. Miss Corrigan had been right about the lonely state of the dining-room, she thought. It was too big for anyone to have to eat in it alone. And the palm tree that was the central feature of the decorations was a great mistake, for it towered up into the glass-domed roof and one couldn’t even see it unless one craned one’s neck to do so.
She grabbed her bag containing her rubber suit and hurried out after Gregory, a faint stirring of excitement within her as she thought of the clear blue water and how lovely it would be to feel it all round her. It was so long since she had been diving! Not since before her marriage. She shivered suddenly, remembering that that had been when she had met Michael. Oh well, she wouldn’t dwell on it, she promised herself. She would think back to far happier days, when her father had been alive and they had dived together in the Mediterranean. With some success too, she remembered gratefully. But then her father had always been lucky in anything he had touched. They had teased him about it. Lucky in money and lucky in love, they had said with varying amounts of envy. Now, Helen had the money he had made and she wasn’t lucky at all!
Gregory interrupted her reverie by pointing out the copra plantations that fell away behind the little town that had grown up round the harbour.
