Wealth of the Islands

by Isobel Chace

  “I might do,” she answered. She wasn’t very sure that she would talk to him at all. If he still looked as grey and pale as he had the day before, he would be better off sleeping and resting rather than worrying about what she was doing. She wondered if Anita had whiled away the time with him all day and what they would have found to talk about. She wouldn’t have thought that they would have had anything in common, but since coming to the Islands Anita had surprised her. Even so, if she hadn’t seen her hanging over Gregory’s bed for herself, she wouldn’t have believed it of her sister-in-law. There had been nothing of the timid, self-effacing girl that she had always known in the look Anita had given Gregory then.

  Helen refused to think about it any more. It was funny how her thoughts kept going back to that moment, but she wouldn’t allow it. She would keep busy and think about other things. And that was exactly what she did all day. It was later than usual when they took the Sweet Promise back into the harbour and tied up at the jetty. The sun had set and it was as black as ink all about them. Taine-Mal lit a hurricane lamp and gave it to Helen to carry to light her way back to the hotel.

  “You tell the Boss for us,” he told her; “You tell him we carry on just fine!”

  “Yes,” Na-Tinn agreed. “You tell him, little sister.”

  Even so she might not have done, only when she got to the hotel, Miss Corrigan was there waiting for her.

  “Where have you been, child?” she demanded loudly. “I wanted you to help me prepare for my party!”

  “I took the Sweet Promise out,” Helen told her.

  “So Gregory thought,” Miss Corrigan retorted, unmodified by the explanation. “You’d better go up and see him.”

  “Now?” Helen said wearily. “I was hoping to change and freshen up a bit.”

  “He’s expecting you immediately,” Miss Corrigan muttered relentlessly. “You should have told someone you were going!”

  Gregory’s door was shut. Helen hesitated outside, putting off the moment when she would have to knock go in. “Come in,” Gregory’s voice bade her briskly. He sounded positively robust to her anxious ears. Robust and quite strong enough to bawl her out if she gave him the chance. She opened the door and went inside, hoping that she looked rather more confident than she felt.

  Gregory was sitting up in his bed. The grey look had gone from his face and he looked quite as well as she had ever seen him.

  “Oh, you’re better!” she said with real pleasure.

  “Much better!” he agreed.

  “I’m glad,” she added awkwardly.

  His eyes held hers mercilessly. “So you’ve taken out the Sweet Promise and brought her back —”

  “Unscathed,” she interrupted him quickly.

  “Unscathed but late!” he retorted.

  Helen said nothing. She thought that she must look a sight, with her hair all wet from the sea, and her face and hands unwashed and sunburned.

  “How did the day go?” he asked more gently.

  She told him that they were through the outer plate and that she had begun on the inner steel lining. He listened carefully to every word she said.

  “Any shifting?” he asked then.

  “A bit,” she admitted.

  His eyes met hers again. “I was afraid of that,” he said. “Look, Helen, you’re to promise me you won’t attempt to go inside by yourself. Is that clear?”

  She nodded. “Yes,” she said.

  He sighed with relief. “Then I don’t mind telling you that my leg hurts like hell and it’ll be a while before I can dive again.” He grinned at her with real affection. “You’re a better assistant than I deserve, Helen, my love!”

  Helen swallowed, longing to make some light retort but finding nothing to say. Instead, she hurried out of the room and slammed the door shut behind her. At least, she thought, she was glad he was looking better.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  THE first group of American tourists was expected to arrive on the same day as Miss Corrigan’s party. Peter Harmon had a theory that the local colour that the party could be expected to provide would do much to balance the unfortunate impression that he felt the swaying bamboo jetty and the other lack of facilities were bound to create.

  “They would send them before we’re ready!” Peter moaned. “I’m surprised they even allowed the plaster to dry out! What on earth do they expect me to do with them?”

  “I don’t suppose you’ll have to do much,” Helen tried to comfort him. “I expect most of them will want to lie on the gorgeous beaches and that will be about it!”

  Peter grunted. “I shall have to move you out of your rooms, I’m afraid. Do you think Anita will mind?”

  “Why should she?” Helen wondered.

  Peter shrugged. “She’s a might fussy that way, he remarked. “Haven’t you discovered that?”

  Helen was surprised. “You’re imagining things,” she told him. “Anita has never had anything much. Her mother saw to that!”

  “Then she’s making up for lost time,” he said dryly. Helen laughed. “I don’t blame her for that!”

  Helen said quickly. “You should meet my revered mother-in-law! The only person who ever managed to catch her attention was my husband. I think she was fond of him in her own way, but poor Anita never had a scrap of affection from the old dragon.”

  Peter grinned “That’s funny,” he said. “She’s made quite an impression here!”

  Helen bit her lip. “With Gregory, you mean?”

  “With us all,” Peter answered her. “She’s been about most of the time you’ve been out diving and she’s done quite a bit of the nursing that Gregory needed.” He smiled. “She’s got quite an air about her, hasn’t she?”

  “Has she?” Helen said, astonished. “I can’t say I’ve ever really noticed.”

  “She’s put me in my place more than once,” Peter reminisced with a thoughtful expression. “I’d say she was enjoying herself oh the Melonga Islands. How about you?”

  “I shall enjoy it better when Gregory gets back on his feet!” Helen sighed. “That reminds me, did Anita give you my shopping list for next week?”

  “She’s got it in hand,” he answered indifferently. “As a matter of fact she put through my order as well while she was about it. One never knows what tourists are going to think they want.” He cracked his knuckles thoughtfully. “I wonder if they even know that there’s nothing here as yet!”

  “There’s me diving!” Helen protested.

  A glint of appreciation came into his eyes. “I’ll remember to tell the male members of the party,” he promised.

  “You do that!” said Helen. She was getting low in cylinders of compressed air and she wished that Peter had sent the order to Auckland so that she could be sure that it would arrive before Gregory was up and about and demanding to know where it was. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Anita, but if she had known her sister-in-law was going to put in the order she would have checked it beforehand. Anita knew very little about such things and she showed remarkably few signs of wanting to increase her knowledge. It was yet another thing that was worrying Helen. Anita was being paid by Gregory, not by Peter, and as far as she could see Gregory was getting mighty little in return for his generosity.

  “When do you want me to move my room?” she asked Peter.

  He got up to go, checking his thoughts against the list he held in his hand. “As soon as you can,” he said. “They’ll be here the day after tomorrow!”

  Gregory was the only one who didn’t have to shift his room. It was just as well, for although he had only been in it a matter of days, it was completely chaotic. Well-wishers from all over the Islands had brought him gifts of shells, sharks’ teeth, and special fruits and foods. His treasures stood in every corner of the room, the most valuable being a collection of black pearls that he kept on the table beside his bed so that he could finger them whenever he wanted to and admire their iridescent beauty.

  Helen had found it increasingly d
ifficult to visit him. She could think of nothing to say once the subject of their work had been exhausted, and she had the feeling that site was unwelcome anyway. So she was surprised when, in the middle of moving her things to another bedroom on a different floor of the hotel, one of the Polynesian waiters came and found her.

  “Mr. de Vaux want to speak with you,” he told her. “If you have time now.”

  Helen knew that she would make time no matter how busy she was. She nodded briefly to the waiter and bundled her possessions into her new room in a hurry, racing down the stairs again because she couldn’t be bothered to wait for the lift.

  She was surprised, when Gregory bade her come in, to find him up and dressed.

  “Do you think you ought to be up?” she asked him.

  He smiled. “Why not? It’s been a few days now, you know.”

  It was a relief to her, though quite how much of a relief she didn’t want him to know. “Wh—what do you want?” she said instead.

  He gave a slightly quizzical look. “Do I have to want anything?” he teased her.

  “N—no,” she agreed. “But Miss Corrigan and Anita seem to have done a very good job nursing you.”

  He made a face at her. “They were eager enough,” he agreed with a touch of resentment. “It’s not exactly an experience I want to repeat!”

  Helen felt again the horror she had known when he had lain on the coral beach, looking grey and remarkably close to death. “I should hope not!” she said.

  He smiled faintly. “The truth is that I’m bored stiff!” he told her. “I was hoping that you’d tell me all that you’ve been doing on the frigate?”

  “I’ve made quite a hole in her!” she grinned.

  “No trouble?”

  “None so far. But she’s rocking again.” Some of the anxiety she had been feeling surfaced again into her mind. “There’s no chance of any storms or anything until we’ve finished, is there?”

  “I shouldn’t think so,” he answered soberly. “You did listen when I told you not to go inside on your own, didn’t you?”

  “I wouldn’t dare!” she said frankly.

  “Good. Now tell me exactly what you’ve done.”

  Helen sat down in the spare chair in his room and began. She found, to her surprise, that she was enjoying herself. She told him how her navigation was improving and how she had fitted up a radio contact between herself as diver and Sweet Promise.

  “Does it work?” he asked her.

  “More or less. It will be a great help when you can come out with us again. I think Na-Tinn is rather scared of my disembodied voice!”

  She told him too of the turtle she had befriended. “I think it’s a green turtle,” she explained. “I’ve never seen such a monster. It gave me the fright of my life when it first came round the wreck, but I’ve got used to it now. I don’t know if it’s male or female,” she confessed with a laugh.

  “You soon will,” he told her. “The females make their nests ashore to lay their eggs. Turtles have reversed the process of evolution. They started on land and went into the sea. They have to be hatched out on land to be able to breathe. I’m afraid not many survive their first walk to the sea.”

  “Why not?” she asked, fascinated.

  “The birds take them. There may be as many as a hundred eggs hatching out at a time and sometimes there isn’t even one solitary survivor. I thought of trying to farm them at one time. It would be easy enough—and think of all the food they would provide. Anyway, I’ve never had the time. I did once save a few eggs and hatched them out right away from the birds, but even most of those were taken out of the sea when I released them. Somehow the birds seem to know by instinct where they are. But if one rigged up some netting and covered in one or two bays in that way, one would soon have more turtles than one would know what to do with!”

  Helen’s eyes shone with excitement “I’d love to try it,” she said.

  “Okay, it’s a date. As soon as we’ve finished the work in hand!”

  She longed to be as enthusiastic as he was, but she couldn’t be. She had to remember Michael and what he had meant to her. She had to remember that he was the reason why she had come to the Melonga Islands and why she was diving at all.

  “Are you coming to Miss Corrigan’s party?” she asked him shyly, to change the subject.

  “I gather we’re to be invaded by Americans, so I think not,” he said dryly, “They’ll turn the whole thing into a fake Hawaiian Hollywood musical!”

  Helen giggled. “Peter calls them the “blue rinse tourists’,” she told him. “I don’t think he’s expecting anyone younger than retiring age! But I don’t see Miss Corrigan allowing anyone to ruin her party, do you?”

  He laughed. “No, I don’t,” he admitted. “What does Peter plan to do with all these people when they do come?”

  Helen stood up, stretching her stiff muscles. “He doesn’t know!” she chuckled. “He’s at his wits’ end now. Goodness knows what it will be like when they actually arrive!”

  Gregory grunted. “At least I shan’t have to be around to see,” he said. “You can take me out on the Sweet Promise tomorrow. It will give me a chance to see how my leg’s behaving.” He gave her shoulder a mild pat. “Don’t look so horrified,” he added, “I’m not planning to dive, but I’ll go mad cooped up here much longer!”

  It gave her a nice warm feeling that at least they had that in common, but she wouldn’t let herself respond to his friendliness. More and more recently she had had to cling to the memory of Michael, and she felt she would be a traitor if she forgot him now. When they were out at sea, she promised herself, she would ask him about Michael and why he had died, and then she could bury his memory for ever. Perhaps, she thought, she would ask him tomorrow.

  “I’ll see you in the morning, at the jetty?” she said uncertainly.

  “Nothing will keep me away!” he said.

  She smiled just as the door burst open and Anita came in, a disapproving look on her face. “You’ll have to leave, Helen,” she said in an important voice. “Can’t you see you’re tiring him?”

  The world was still and strangely silent when Helen stood on the jetty the next morning, waiting for Gregory. No bird sang. Even the sea had gathered itself into a brooding silence and the friendly sound of the light waves lapping against coral sand was noticeable by its absence. The bamboo jetty creaked as Helen walked along it and she was peculiarly aware that it was only the surrounding silence that made her so aware of it. The Sweet Promise looked strange too and not quite real. She was badly in need of a coat of paint, Helen noticed, but bathed in early morning light, she looked romantic and lovely. Her furled sails were deep red, wet as they were from dew, and her white-painted sides looked pearly pink as they reflected the rising sun.

  Gregory arrived on a pair of crutches that Na-Tinn had made for him. Anita had carefully cushioned the parts that fitted under his arms with foam rubber, and he was already pretty adept at using them.

  “I expected you to be on board,” he said to Helen.

  She stood there, awkwardly, wondering how best to help him. “Can you manage?” she asked at last.

  Gregory looked over his shoulder. “Anita is coming to help me,” he told her. “She wants to see what the Sweet Promise is like anyway. Hadn’t you better get on board and see that everything is shipshape?”

  Helen felt decidedly unwanted as she jumped on to the narrow deck that was still wet and slippery from the dew, and went forward to check that she had enough cylinders of compressed air and everything else that she would need. The number of cylinders was dangerously low, she thought, but the new supplies had not yet come. She would not be able to stay down for very long on what she had, but perhaps it was just as well, for she hated the thought of leaving Anita too long alone with Gregory. She told herself that her sister-in-law would soon be bored with nothing particular to do, but it wasn’t quite that that made her reluctant to be gone for long. She just didn’t like much the th
ought of the two of them being alone together.

  When she came back to the cabin, both Gregory and Anita had come on board. She could hear their voices long before she went down the companionway, arguing as to whether it was too early for Anita to make them all some tea. The stillness all about them was unnatural H and set Helen’s nerves on edge. It was as if the whole of nature was waiting, but waiting for what? She tried to dismiss the matter from her mind, but she still felt taut and uneasy as she hurried down the steps to see how Gregory had stood the business of getting on board.

  “I think tea would be a good idea,” she said when she saw him. He looked pale and in pain to her.

  “Then you can make it,” Anita said tartly.

  Helen turned on the Calor gas and lit the burner from the box of matches she saw on the table.

  “Have you put in the order for more compressed air?” she asked Anita over her shoulder. “We’re getting low. We need some helium too. Did Peter tell you? If we do any deep diving we’ll need to mix helium in with the oxygen. I just wish we had a decompression chamber that we could sling over the side for when we come up.”

  Anita refused to look at her. “I didn’t think there was any hurry,” she muttered.

  “No hurry!” Helen repeated. “Of course there’s a hurry! If that frigate rocks about much more on that shelf, it’ll fall off and then we’ll never get the gold up. It will be lost for ever!”

  Anita shrugged. “Gregory won’t be diving for a while yet,” she said smugly. “Will you?” she said to him, seeking his confirmation. “Helen can’t do anything alone, can she?”

  “Does that mean that the order hasn’t been put in?” he asked, civilly enough.

  “Well, Peter did say he didn’t think there was any hurry,” Anita defended herself sulkily. “You always pick on me!” she added sourly.

  Helen gasped, exasperated beyond measure. “I haven’t said anything yet,” she warned her. “If I were you, I’d wait until I really get started on you!”