The Secret Woman

by Victoria Holt

  “No, no. Polish! It is not easily obtained here, and is very expensive.”

  Like candles, I thought, and I was exasperated.

  “Madame,” I said, “I am convinced that there is a small fortune in furniture and other rare pieces in this house.”

  “What can I do about it?”

  “It could be made known that it existed. That chiffonier I was talking about. I remember an inquiry from a man we had. He wanted one and would have been content I believe with something less than a Riesener. He would have paid up to £300. We could not satisfy him. But if he had seen that…”

  Her eyes glowed at the talk of money.

  “My husband brought this furniture from France years ago.”

  “Yes, it’s mostly French.” I went on rapidly, because the thought of inspecting this furniture delighted me, and I would enjoy telling Madame that she was not so poor in worldly goods as she believed herself to be. “I could make an inventory of what is in the house. This could be sent to dealers in England. I am sure with…results.”

  “But I did not know. I did not realize.” She was sober suddenly. “To make an inventory,” she said, “that is a professional thing. You would need to be paid.”

  How the thought of having to pay for something worried her!

  I said quickly, “I will do it for pleasure. It shall be my hobby while I am in this house. Madame, I should not ask payment. I will teach Edward something about antiques at the same time so I shall not be neglecting his studies. These pieces of furniture are allied to history.”

  “Miss Brett, you are a most unusual governess.”

  “By which you mean I am not a real one.”

  “I am sure you are more useful to Edward than what you call a real one would be.”

  I was excited. I talked about various pieces in the house. I thought: Those two months will pass quickly because I shall have so much to do.

  “Have some more coffee, Miss Brett.” A concession. Usually one had only one cup; and the rest was taken away and reheated for the next occasion.

  I accepted. It was excellent coffee and I believe grown on the Island, not in large enough quantities to be exported, but very pleasant for the people of the Island.

  She became confidential, telling me how the furniture had been brought over.

  “My husband was of a good family, the younger son of a noble house. He came to the Island after he had fought a duel in which he killed a minor member of the French royal family. It was necessary for him to get out of the country quickly. His family sent out the furniture for him at a later date. He arrived here with some money and little else. I met him and we married, and then he started the sugar plantation which prospered. He had wines sent out from France and this house was very different then. I had lived on the Island all my life. I had never lived anywhere else. My mother was a native girl; my father a remittance man who was sent out from England because his family wished to be rid of him. He was charming and I think would have been clever, but he was lazy. He liked nothing better than to sit in the sun. I was his only daughter. We were poor. He wanted to spend everything, on the drink that is brewed locally. It is very potent. Gali. You will hear of it, I am sure. And when Armand came, we were married, and we lived here and we entertained and there were few richer than we were on the Island.”

  “There is a social life on the Island?”

  “There was…and still is to some extent, but I cannot afford to entertain now and I would not accept invitations which I could not return. There is quite a colony of French, English, and some Dutch. Mostly they look after the industries and the shipping branches here. They go back after a while. Not many stay long.”

  She had given me a clearer picture of the Island than I had before. It was in fact a strange picture of the commercial and the uncultivated. Down by the waterfront there was activity in the mornings and late afternoons, and in parts of the Island among the thatched huts many lived in a primitive state.

  “My husband was a good businessman,” she said, “but fiery tempered. Monique takes after him in many ways, but not in her appearance. She looks like my mother. Sometimes she looks as though she is of pure Island blood. But she has inherited her father’s impulsiveness and alas his physical state. He had consumption and nothing the doctor could do could help it. He grew more and more ill until he died. He was young. Only thirty-one. And then I had to sell the plantation, and very soon after we started to be poor. I do not know how I manage. It is only with the utmost care…”

  An insect with glorious blue wings had come in and began to flutter about the lamp. She stared at it as it flew faster and faster in a mad frenzy.

  “He will drop in time. He cannot resist the light. How did he get in? The shutters should keep him out.”

  He was like a glorious dragonfly, too beautiful to smash himself senselessly to death.

  “Could I put it outside?” I asked.

  “How will you catch him? You should be careful. Some of these fly-by-nights are dangerous. Their sting can make you very ill. Some are fatal.”

  I stared in fascination at the insect, which with a final gesture of abandon had flung itself against the shade of the lamp and fallen onto the table.

  “Foolish creature,” said Madame. “He mistook the lamp for the sun and killed himself in trying to reach it.”

  “There’s a moral in it,” I said lightly, and I was sorry because it had interrupted our interesting conversation, and we did not continue with it. Instead she asked me to tell her more about the pieces of furniture I had noticed in the house, and we talked of that until I left her and went to my room.

  ***

  Monique was better the next day. Chantel told me that the belladonna treatment seemed to suit her, but she herself preferred the nitrite of amyl which she had in England and which it had not been possible to get on board.

  “We have to remember that she’s consumptive too. She’s a very sick woman, Anna. I always wonder whether she might…do something to herself.”

  “What on earth do you mean?”

  “Take an overdose.”

  “How could she?”

  “Well, the drugs are here. There’s opium, laudanum…and belladonna.”

  “How…alarming.”

  “Don’t worry. I keep my eyes on her.”

  “But she is not of suicidal tendency, is she?”

  “She’s mentioned it, but that’s nothing. People who talk of it rarely do. They like to frighten us, blackmail us into giving them their own way. She’s not the type. But she talks about the Captain not wanting her and Edward too, and that Suka woman encourages her. She’s been worse since she’s been here.”

  “Chantel,” I said, “if she did, it would be said…”

  Chantel gripped me by the shoulders and shook me. “Don’t worry. I won’t let it happen.”

  She could not comfort me. I said: “It’s so odd. Sometimes I think of it at night. Aunt Charlotte’s dying… I can’t believe that she took her own life.”

  “That bears out my theory. The people who do are those you’d least expect. They don’t talk of it. Our Monique likes to dramatize herself. She would never take her own life.”

  “Suppose she did. There has been gossip…”

  “About you and the Captain?” Chantel nodded agreement.

  “It would be said that it was because of that. It might even be said… Oh Chantel, it’s terrifying. It would be remembered that Aunt Charlotte died and that I was suspected.”

  “You’re working yourself up about something which is not going to happen. You’re as bad as Monique.”

  “It could happen.”

  “It won’t happen. I promise you. I’ll watch her. I’ll see that she never gets a chance.”

  “Oh Chantel, I never cease to be thankful that you’re here.”

  She comforted
me. I started to make my inventory which I found absorbing. I was certainly justified in my theory. There was a small fortune in furniture in this house, though I was appalled by the condition of some of it.

  I called Pero and told her what she must do. Dust was dangerous, I insisted. Insects bred in it. There were termites. I had seen them in the garden—they marched in little armies, but they could be big armies. I imagined them marching over some of this valuable furniture. I knew that they would eat their way through it and leave nothing but a shell.

  Pero said: “Polish is so expensive. Madame will never allow me to use it.”

  “Shortsighted folly,” I said.

  Poor Pero. She was nervous. I discovered that she wanted to go on working in Carrément House where she received a very small salary, but it was more than she could have got working on the sugar plantation or gutting the fish. She was not quick enough with her fingers to make the shell necklaces and earrings. She wanted to be kept on in the house, so she saved the candles and followed Madame’s orders and scraped the plates clean after meals. No food was wasted; it could always be used up. She was a good servant, her one idea being to please.

  Since my outburst Suka had seemed less truculent, but often I was aware of her watching me as I examined the furniture and added to my list. Once I looked up and saw her face at the window looking in at me; often I heard her raffia sandals padding away when I went quickly to the door. She seemed to have a new respect for me; perhaps she believed I was going to bring a fortune into the house. I could imagine the garbled stories which Pero and she and perhaps Jacques might contrive between them. The furniture was more grand than they had believed. I was going to sell it for them and the house would be rich again as it had been in the lifetime of Monsieur de Laudé. And the fact that I was to do this gave me new standing in their eyes.

  I had seen them looking with awe at the most crude wooden candlestick and old basket chairs.

  Pero polished a little now, using the polish very sparingly.

  But it was more pleasant in the house and I began to feel more at ease. The days were passing and Monique became more subdued. I had asked Edward to spend a little time with her now and then and to remember that she was ill and that was why she wanted to be assured of his love some days and at others was too tired to see him. He accepted this as he calmly ticked off the days in his calendar and watched with satisfaction the gradual approach of that Red Letter Day.

  He was with his mother one day when I slipped out on my own to walk along by the sea. I found pleasure in these solitary walks. The scenery was breathtakingly lovely and I was constantly discovering some new beauty. Making the inventory had had a soothing effect. I could lose myself in the task and forget the unpredictable future and the gloomy present by involving myself in the consideration of a settee or a cabinet which I was sure was the work of a certain artist but which lacked the sign of identification.

  It was afternoon; the heat of the day was past, but it was too hot to walk under the sun. I wore a big hat which I had bought at one of the thatch-covered stalls near the waterfront; it was plaited and made of native straw and being wide-brimmed and light it was excellent for the climate.

  I had walked a little inland seeking the shade of trees and had rounded the bay and come to a spot which I had not visited before. It was very lovely here. I could hear the pounding of the surf against the shore, and now and then the sudden buzz of a winged insect cruising past.

  My attention was caught by a rock in the water, not very far from the sandy shore. It stood erect almost like a human form with blue clear water all about it. I was high on the cliff and I could see for a long way out to the curve of a new bay; there were evidently many bays on the Island. I had heard that it was thirty miles by six which meant that it was one of the larger islands of the group—one of the reasons, I suppose, why it had become inhabited and to some extent cultivated. Far out to sea I could make out in the distance what looked like other islands but which were probably pieces of volcanic rock which had been thrown up centuries before.

  The cliff sloped down to a valley which was thickly wooded. The flowering trees were so colorful that I wanted to take a closer look at them; moreover the climb had made me very hot and I longed for the shade they would give me. I would rest a while there and perhaps gather some of those exotic blooms which never failed to enchant me. I kept them in my room in pots which Pero found for me.

  I was soon under the shelter of the trees and took off my straw hat and fanned myself with it. Both Chantel and I had acquired cotton dresses of the same color pattern as those worn on the Island, but we had altered them a little to make them more suitable.

  Among the trees a mud wall had been built. Strangely it wound its way in and out of the forest in a manner which struck me as being significant. But then I was always finding something unusual on the Island. There was a gap in the wall and I went through this. The trees grew thicker. I came to another wall, high this time. There was some enclosure in there and my curiosity was aroused. I walked round the wall until I came to a gate. I unlatched it and stepped into the enclosure. Inside the trees had been cleared and the grass carefully cut so that it looked like a newly mown lawn. In the center of this lawn was a stone figure. I went closer and saw that all round it were stones in various colors—mauve that looked like amethysts and a dark blue which could have been lapis and pale green agate; there were also big shells. These made a circle round the figure.

  And suddenly I was conscious that there was some tribal significance to this and that I had strayed into a secret place.

  I was overcome with dismay and I turned and ran from the place. I then began to wonder whether the copse itself was some private place and I had the horrible fear that I was trespassing. I tried to find my way out but I seemed to be farther and farther in the forest. I knew it was not large because I had seen it from the cliff top; but it seemed like a kind of maze from which I could not find my way. There were several paths which were considerably worn by use. I decided to keep to one of these and as I went on turning a bend I saw a house. It was a typical native house of mud and wood built on props with the roof of straw and branches. There was only one story of course but this was a long house and large by native standards.

  I was becoming very hot, largely because I was so uneasy. I had the distinct feeling that I was trespassing in no ordinary way and that my presence here would be most unwelcome. The forbidding figure in the ring of stones and shells had made me feel that.

  I turned and hurried back in the direction I had come. Every crackle in the undergrowth alarmed me. I had been warned of snakes and deadly insects but it was not them I feared. I was beginning to feel a mild panic.

  I found my way back to the walled enclosure and tried to work out what path I had taken to reach it, but there were so many paths and they all seemed to lead in different directions. I tried several. I visualized myself trapped in this maze of trees; then suddenly I saw a glimpse of the sea and I made for it. The trees were thinning. I was free. My relief was intense—far more, I told myself, than the occasion warranted. I was ashamed of my near-panic which had been inspired by that stone encircled figure and the certainty that I was prying into something which was not meant for me to see.

  I fanned myself vigorously. I was very hot—far more so than if I had stayed in the open.

  It was getting late. I glanced at the watch pinned to my cotton dress. It always looked incongruous there, I thought, but it was certainly useful. Five o’clock. I had been in the enclosure over twenty-five minutes. It had seemed much longer.

  I climbed the slope and as I reached the top I saw a familiar figure seated there looking out to sea.

  It was Suka. I was certain in that moment that she had followed me.

  “Suka,” I said, I hoped sternly.

  She turned her gaze on me.

  “I see you, Miss Brett,” she said.


  “How long have you been here?”

  She lifted her shoulders. “I have not this…” She touched her dress to indicate the spot where I wore my watch.

  “I thought I was lost,” I said.

  “You have been where you should not.”

  “I’m afraid I was guilty of trespassing, but unwittingly.”

  She looked at me as though she did not understand, which she probably didn’t. Chantel and I often had to simplify our language.

  “You went into Ta’lui’s land.”

  “Is that what it’s called?”

  “The land of the Flame Men.”

  “Oh, I’ve heard of them.”

  “They are very wise men.”

  I sat down beside her. I was exhausted with my panic, the heat and the climb.

  “They dance through flame. Fire does not hurt them. They can do what none others can.”

  “I saw a figure…perhaps some sort of idol…surrounded by stones.”

  Her face was blank, as though she had not heard me.

  “They dance. You will see them dance. Fire does not harm them. They came from the Fire Country…years and years ago when there were no white people on Coralle.”

  “Where is the Fire Country?” I asked.

  Again she ignored my remark. “Fire does not harm them as it does other men.”

  I could see that this was some native superstition.

  “I shall look forward to seeing this flame dance.”

  “They are clever. They are wise.” I had the impression that she was placating them in some way. “I will tell you something. When there was a fire…a big terrible fire…twenty houses were burning and the earth was blazing and no one could stop it, but the Flame Men did.”

  “That’s interesting.”

  “They fight fire with more fire. They turn people out of their houses and they blow them up. They understand fire and flame. Up went the houses and then there was nothing for the fire to burn. It could not reach the gap between the houses when the fire had taken those in between away.”