Then he eased her away from him gently, his hands on her shoulders. ‘I have to leave you, petite. There are the rest of the shutters to see to, and the quay to check, I can’t leave it all to Jules.’
‘Yes, of course—I’m sorry, Dom.’ She left his arms reluctantly, but understood his reasons, and she looked up at him as she pushed back the thick untidy riot of red hair from her face. ‘Is there something I can do?’
A momentary glimpse of a smile lightened his expression and showed warm in his eyes as he stroked back stray wisps of hair from her neck with an absently gentle finger. ‘And get blown away in the wind?’ He put her away from him and walked back across the room, turning in the doorway to consider for a moment. ‘If you really want to help, you can go and sit with Jenny downstairs. This is her first experience of this kind of thing and she’s trying desperately to keep her British stiff upper lip under control. Maybe you can hold her hand until Jules can be with her.’
‘Oh yes, of course, poor Jenny!’
Neither of them mentioned Tim again, but the dark haunted look was back in Dominic’s eyes again when he strode off along the landing, and his mouth was a firm straight fine with thin lips. His feeling for Tim went much deeper than he ever let anyone see, or so Bryony believed, and with a stab of surprise she recognised how very much better she understood Dominic than she had even a year ago.
She found Jenny in the salon alone, with the shutters tight closed and the light burning with a fluttering unsteadiness that suggested the power might fail at any minute. Marie had only just left when Bryony joined her, bringing the inevitable rum-based concoction to bolster their spirits; a recipe guaranteed to give courage to even the faintest heart.
The room was big and seemed disconsolately empty with only the two of them occupying it. It needed the whole family to give life to its rather stiffly old-fashioned comfort, and the screeching wind was too suggestive of anguished loneliness as it tore at the shutters and tried to wrench them open.
Jenny was fully dressed. Apparently she and Jules and Dominic had stayed up for some time after she went to bed herself, and she looked as if she was trying hard not to show how apprehensive she was. Bryony found that her own natural jitteriness was mingled with a curious excitement, a reaction she did not quite understand, but which served to boost her courage.
‘It’s terrifying! I never realised it would be anything like this!’ Jenny’s voice was thinned by a shiver of fear and it was slightly unsteady; her sudden laughter served only to emphasise how she felt. ‘Jules has told me about hurricanes, but I didn’t—you can’t imagine anything like this, can you?’
Prompted entirely by Dominic’s expressed opinion, Bryony sought to reassure her. They sat side by side on the brocade-upholstered divan, and talking helped in part to distract the mind from the fury outside, although Bryony’s ears were constantly attuned to the slightest sound that would suggest Tim was home.
‘This isn’t really a bad one, Jenny, and it will soon blow itself out, without doing too much damage, we hope.’
‘I’ve seen newsreels and photographs—it can do a lot of damage, can’t it?’
‘It can cost the whole plantation,’ said Bryony, ‘if it goes on too long and is too severe, but Dom thinks it might not be too bad this time.’
‘Houses too get blown away, I’ve seen them. The village houses seem so flimsy, in this wind—’
‘They’re a whole lot safer than this one would be if they collapse!’ Realising how tactless that had been in the circumstances, Bryony hastened to amend the impression she had given. ‘But I’m sure Dom’s right—it isn’t going to be a very bad one.’
They were talking much more loudly than they would normally have done, and keeping up the exchange simply to counter the din outside, and neither of them mentioned Tim yet. Shutters banged somewhere inside the house, and Jenny jumped as if she had been struck, then immediately laughed and shook her head, looking at Bryony apologetically.
‘I’m as jumpy as a kitten—I’m sorry, Bryony.’
‘That’s the last of the shutters battened.’ Bryony spoke as if she knew for sure. ‘It keeps out some of the noise as well as making it safer.’
It seemed so strange to think that she was the one offering comfort to Jenny, and rather flattering that Dom had thought her able to do it, when she thought about it. She had not seen Jenny as a nervous woman, and yet she was so obviously terrified in the present situation.
‘Now we all just sit it out?’
She was anxious to have Jules there too, Bryony realised, and wished it was possible for Jenny’s sake. It had been a boost to her own courage to be close to Dominic for those few seconds in her bedroom, and she wondered if Jules had not taken time to offer similar comfort to his wife.
‘You and I sit it out,’ Bryony said. ‘Dom said they’d be going down to check the quay next.’ And to see if Tim had come in yet, she knew, but did not say so.
‘In this?’ Jenny looked appalled. She might not have minded so much, Bryony thought, if Dominic had taken the chance himself, but knowing Jules was going with him gave her something else to fear. ‘Bryony, they can’t!’
‘They won’t if it isn’t safe. The fact that Dom said they were going means it isn’t as bad as it sounds. You know Dom wouldn’t take unnecessary chances, Jenny.’
‘No, of course he wouldn’t.’
Bryony listened for the sound of the front door opening, and felt a great sickening lurch in her stomach when it happened. The storm had almost drowned the sound, but she was so alert to every sound that she heard it and Jenny did not. ‘He wouldn’t take any chances,’ she echoed, for her own sake as much as Jenny’s, and once more Jenny’s thin, tremulous laugh fluttered across the muffled fury of the wind and rain.
‘I’m sorry, Bryony, I’m being a real neurotic about this storm, aren’t I?’
‘No more than I was at first,’ Bryony assured her without hesitation. ‘I felt much better after Dom gave me a reassuring cuddle when he came to close my shutters.’ Her own laughter was much more confident, and she pushed back her hair with one hand to cover a sudden inexplicable shyness. ‘There’s no one quite like Dom for inspiring confidence at times like this!’
‘No, I imagine not.’ For the first time Jenny’s eyes showed interest in something other than the storm and the safety of her husband. She sipped the rum drink Marie had provided and looked at Bryony reflectively as the sweetened liquid slid silkily down her throat. ‘I never realised quite how much store you set by Dom, until this moment,’ she confessed. ‘I always thought you—well, not actually disliked him, but resented his authority over you and Tim.’
Fingers curved about her own glass, Bryony shrugged. ‘So I do most often, but he’s very reassuring, for all that.’
‘You’re really quite close to him!’
In some curious way Bryony thought she sounded almost as if she disliked the idea. It was something she had never given a lot of thought to herself, and she found it discomfiting to do so now. Her deliberately careless shrug betrayed it.
‘Dom and me? I don’t think we are, Jenny; it’s me and Tim that Jules calls the heavenly twins, isn’t it?’
‘Because you’re much of an age, but you—depend on Dom an awful lot, I’ve noticed; it’s being so much older, I suppose.’ Jenny laughed and took another sip of her punch before admitting it. ‘I suppose we all depend on him, come to think of it!’
‘Dom is Petitnue!’ Bryony made the declaration without any thought of being doubted, and Jenny was nodding thoughtfully. Laughing, Bryony spread her hands, unconsciously mimicking one of Dominic’s gestures. ‘I mean, he’s the Laminaire, the rest of us are invaders in a way, aren’t we?’
‘Hardly that!’ Jenny’s face had a flush of warmth, though whether from the effects of the punch or not, it was hard to tell. ‘Jules was born here!’
Resentment was something new too, and Bryony wondered if there were emotions hidden under Jenny’s quiet exterior that only
Jules knew about. She did not feel capable of putting Dominic’s special position into words, but she felt she ought to try. There had never been any doubt in her own mind that Petitnue belonged to the Laminaires, even though her own father had worked it for years. She remembered the antagonism between her father and Dominic, and how strongly Dominic had felt about taking the running of the plantation out of his stepfather’s hands. It had taken her father’s death to solve that situation, and she dared not think what might have happened if Rupert Charn had lived on.
'Do you think Dom thinks of us as invaders?’
Bryony knew she should not have hesitated before she answered, but sometimes she did wonder if Dominic would have felt more in control of his own small kingdom if he did not have his secondary family there too. ‘I don’t think so.’ She did not like to feel she was in any way resented by Dominic, for without Petitnue and the security it offered, she would feel like a ship without a rudder. ‘Oh no, I’m sure he doesn’t, Jenny!’
‘He—’ Jenny stopped, shaking her head as if she had had second thoughts. Then she looked up and half-smiled, shrugging her shoulders in a way she had learned from Jules. ‘I’ve been living here for three years now, and I never—I don’t seem to be able to get near to Dom.’ She made the admission as if it was something she regretted very much, and Bryony nodded.
‘Dom isn’t an easy man to know,’ she remarked, as if she had experienced the same frustration herself.
For the first time since Bryony came downstairs, they fell silent for a while, conscious of the wind and the rattling fury of the rain against the shutters. Then Bryony realised it was diminishing, gradually dying out, becoming less noisy and less overwhelming, and she looked at Jenny.
‘It’s blown itself out! Just as Dom said it would!’ She saw the brief closing of Jenny’s eyes, as if she offered up a brief prayer, and then remembered Tim. Not that he had left her thoughts completely since it all began, but for a few moments at a time she had been able to put possible consequences to the back of her mind. Now she was once more reminded, and she got to her feet, swinging round quickly when the room door opened.
‘Marie?’
‘It’s dyin’, petite!’
Bryony listened to the howling wind, as it died slowly to a moan, giving up its strength like some dangerous monster with moans and cries. ‘It’s dying!’ she echoed, and gave it a while longer.
Marie’s round golden face had a slightly greyish tinge and her mouth was uncharacteristically tight-lipped. Her hair was greying, though not yet far enough to be called grey, and she carried herself with the inimitable grace of the Creole, despite her seventy years.
Five generations ago Marie’s ancestors had been landed on this jewel of an island with no say in whether they wished to stay or not, but a great deal had happened in the time between, both to them and to Petitnue. African blood had mingled with French and the handsome progeny mixed in turn so that Marie as a girl had inherited a light golden-skinned beauty that typified the Creole. She was as much part of Petitnue’s history as Dominic was, and they both recognised and acknowledged it.
The Laminaires had always Spoken French, only the advent of Rupert Charn had introduced English to the island, but Marie spoke it well, better than most of the other inhabitants of Petitnue did. She also had her own strict protocol with regard to her employers. Dominic was undisputed master, being the only Laminaire, then Jules and Tim. The women were rarely consulted and Bryony least of all, so it was quite automatic for Marie to address herself to Jenny, even though she was the last newcomer.
‘I go down an’ see if the schooner come back, maitresse—I won’ be gone long.’
Taken by surprise, Jenny looked at her for a moment uncomprehendingly, but Bryony followed her meaning at once and turned to her eagerly, filled with a restless need to do something positive at last. ‘That’s a good idea, Marie! I’ll go too, just as soon as I’ve put on some clothes!’
Clearly Marie had reservations about her going to the quay, and her dark eyes looked at Bryony as if she was still the small anxious girl who had arrived there eight years before. ‘I don’t know if I should let you go. Miss Bryony. If anythin’ happen to you, I have Monsieur Laminaire blamin’ me!’
‘He won’t blame you, Marie!’ Bryony brushed aside her fears, wishing yet again that Marie did not see her as such a baby, unable to take care of herself. ‘The wind’s dropping all the time, and by the time I’ve changed my clothes it’ll be as safe as houses out there!’ She took Marie’s plump hands and pressed them between hers. ‘I must go, Marie, you know I must; to see what’s happened to Tim. You know how I feel, with Louis out there as well—I must go.’
Louis was not only Marie’s grandson, he was the sole reminder of her marriage to a Portuguese overseer during Dominic’s grandfather’s time. Her only child had died giving birth to Louis and he was the zenith of her heaven; Bryony could guess how she was feeling, and she pressed the plump dark hands once more persuasively.
‘You must understand, Marie.’
‘Mais oui mon enfant, je comprends!’ Marie always spoke in French when she was emotional, and there were bright tears standing in her eyes when she turned away, a hand brushing across her face.
‘Don’t wait for me, I know you’re anxious.’ Bryony looked across at Jenny still seated on the divan. ‘You’ll stay here and wait, Jenny?’
‘Can I do anything to help if I come?’ Bryony shook her head and smiled ruefully. ‘Then I’ll stay here and wait for Jules. Dom might not take kindly to having us both under his feet if he’s busy down there!’
That was something Bryony preferred not to comment on. She simply waved a hand and followed Marie out of the room. ‘You set on goin’?’ Marie demanded, and Bryony nodded without stopping to argue the point, running upstairs as quickly as her long robe allowed, and Marie shrugged, then slipped out of the front door into the tail of the storm.
The bedroom seemed horribly stuffy with the shutters closed, but she hesitated to open them again yet; the wind was still high enough to be troublesome, apart from the fact that it would all take time and she wanted to hurry. There might or might not be news down at the quay, but at least she would not be sitting and waiting, feeling maddeningly helpless because there was nothing she could do.
She dressed quickly and with no thought to how she looked. She pulled on a pair of jeans and a shirt, then tied a scarf Madras fashion around her head and tucked in the ends, as the island girls did. Sliding her feet into leather casuals, she hurried back downstairs, looking in on Jenny again before she went out.
‘I won’t be long, Jenny, and I’ll tell Jules to come as soon as he can, O.K.?’
‘I’ll be glad to see him safely back,’ Jenny confessed, then bit anxiously on her bottom lip. ‘I do hope Tim’s safe, Bryony, Jules will be shattered if anything’s happened to him.’
‘So will Dom!’ Heaven knew why she made that swift, defensive statement, and she caught Jenny’s raised brow as she turned away. ‘I’ll see you, Jenny!’
Marie was already gone, and Dominic and Jules would have taken the jeep, but she knew her way around the plantation blindfold and she did not hesitate to take a short cut through the dark wet groves. It was a little more than three kilometres to the quay from the house, but she had taken longer walks than that many times and the prospect did not deter her until she stepped outside.
The wind had abated considerably, but it was still strong enough to make walking against it a breathtaking and vigorous exercise, and the darkness gave a sense of endlessness to the long path from the gardens to the groves. Despite the temptation offered by the road that circuited the perimeter of the island she still took the track through the tall plants, even though she regretted it almost as soon as she started.
It was too dark to see much, but a sliver of moon came cut from behind the clouds as she made her way through, and she could see that this part at least was virtually undamaged by the storm. Maybe around the edges, where the full
force of the wind could touch them, the story might be different, but here the huge ragged leaves of the bananas still fanned out against the night sky, glossy and heavy with rain, and shushing eerily in the wind.
One thing she had not allowed for in taking the track instead of the road was the soaking the ground had received, and she slipped and slithered on the unaccustomed mud. Confident of her direction, she branched off and heaved a sigh of relief to see the lights at the far end of the track, hurrying towards them as fast as the treacherous ground allowed.
The village had suffered very little damage considering its position and the light construction of the houses, but here and there a shutter hung awry, flapping despondently in the dying wind, and the women stood in gossipy little groups with the children around them, wide-eyed at being awake at the unfamiliar hour. Bryony was recognised and acknowledged with the unfailing courtesy of the West Indian as she enquired after everyone’s well-being, dark faces splitting into dazzling smiles, even in this situation.
A fallen palm leaned drunkenly across the rough track road, and she eyed it warily before venturing to duck underneath it and carry on down to the quay. The sheds were ablaze with lights, so obviously none of the island’s power supply had suffered damage, and the last squalling cries of the wind were almost drowned by the babble of human voices.
What Bryony searched for as she walked down on to the broad concrete loading quay was the second schooner; the Bonne Chance, praying that her name had been an omen in this instance. Her sister ship, the Felicite, was at her customary mooring, apparently none the worse after the storm, but she could see nothing yet of the Bonne Chance, and her heart thudded urgently as she approached a group of men loading piles of boxes and bags back on to a truck.
‘Have you seen Mr. Laminaire?’
They must have seen him, of course, but there was no sign of Dominic at the moment. One of the older men gave her a smile, one hand indicating the direction of the house and the road. ‘He gone back to the house, maitresse, Monsieur Jules too.’
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