by Anne Mather
Karen shrugged. ‘Two days ago. You remember, he came to take you riding, but you were too busy. Or so you said.’
‘Oh—then.’
‘Yes, then.’ Karen folded her arms. ‘He was pretty annoyed, or I don’t suppose he’d have said anything.’
‘Well, what did he say?’ exclaimed Jordan, her nerves fraying, and Karen gave her a considering look.
‘He said you’d been with Rhys the night of the party.’
‘Did he?’ Jordan’s voice was tight.
‘Yes.’ Karen hesitated. ‘I didn’t take sides, if that’s what you’re thinking. I mean, you’re with lots of people at a party, aren’t you?’ She paused, then added ruefully: ‘He was probably jealous.’
‘Yes.’ Jordan caught her lower lip between her teeth.
‘And that’s all he said, honestly.’ Karen sighed. ‘I didn’t pry. Even though I’d have liked to,’ she finished candidly.
Jordan shook her head. ‘I suppose it’s all over the island by now.’
‘What? Your talking to Rhys at the party?’
‘We didn’t just—talk,’ said Jordan wearily. ‘We—oh, we left the party and went swimming together. You might as well hear it from me. Martina is unlikely to forget about it.’
‘She went, too?’ Karen looked perplexed.
‘No.’ Jordan bent her head. ‘She saw us coming back. My hair was wet, and—well, she wasn’t pleased that Rhys had abandoned the party.’
‘And her,’ said Karen fervently.
‘I doubt that.’ Jordan tried to be fair. ‘I don’t think she was ever that closely involved with him.’
‘But she’d have liked to be?’
‘I don’t know.’ Karen’s persistent questions were beginning to give Jordan a headache. ‘As I say, the fact that Rhys and I spent any time together is bound to be food for gossip.’ She paused, and then continued determinedly: ‘I don’t blame him for leaving. I wish I could.’
‘With Rhys?’
‘Oh, Karen!’ Jordan looked up at her sister helplessly. ‘Stop trying to put words into my mouth. How many more times? Rhys and I mean nothing to one another. Now will you stop catechising me?’
Of course, that was not the end of it so far as Jordan was concerned. There was gossip about the island. She knew from her own staff, after walking into the middle of an argument in the kitchen that was silenced by her appearance. Even Raoul regarded her with something akin to sympathy in his dark eyes, and he was especially co-operative whenever she asked for his help.
For her own part, the nights were the worst. During the day, she succeeded in coping with her emotions, even in the face of so many well-meaning—if unwanted—acts of kindness. She was able to concentrate on managing the hotel, to the exclusion of all else, working from morning till night with a resolution that bordered on drudgery.
But at night, her feelings caught up with her. No matter how hard she had worked during the day, she still found it difficult to sleep, and dark circles appeared around her eyes. Even make-up could not entirely disguise them, and when Karen found her in the storeroom one morning, feeling dizzy with the heat, she finally lost her temper.
‘That’s it!’ she exclaimed, grasping Jordan’s arm, and marching her out into the shade of a sprawling casuarina. ‘You’re going to kill yourself if this goes on. Now, I forbid you to do anything else today, do you hear me? You’re to rest this afternoon, and if you’re no better tomorrow, I’m going to ask Doctor Chesney to come and see you.’
‘Oh, Karen——’
‘Don’t “oh, Karen” me!’ The younger girl’s face was flushed with anxiety. ‘Oh, I know I can’t make you do anything you don’t want to do, but for goodness’ sake, take a look at yourself!’
Jordan sighed. ‘It’s very sweet of you, but——’
‘It’s not sweet at all. I care about you, Jordan. You’re the only sister I’ve got. Now, please, promise me you’ll do as I say. I don’t want you to have a nervous breakdown, but you will if you don’t let up.’
Jordan ran a weary hand over her brow. ‘Perhaps you’re right. Perhaps I have been trying to do too much.’ She gave Karen an affectionate smile. ‘All right, I’ll take the day off. But don’t expect me to stay in my room. I—well, I’d rather take the buggy for a drive.’
‘So long as you take it easy,’ said Karen, with more confidence. ‘Go and see Nana, why don’t you? You know she hasn’t been well, and it’s ages since you’ve seen her.’
Ages indeed, thought Jordan painfully, remembering the afternoon she had last visited Nana Fox only too well. That visit had precipitated her meeting with Rhys, and the memory was not one she wished to resurrect.
Nevertheless, driving back from Nana’s that afternoon, she found her foot easing off the accelerator as she neared the drive of Rhys’s house. It was all so familiar; the open gates, the cream-washed walls, the drooping scarlet hibiscus. She wondered if Tomas and Rosalie were still to be employed, or whether Rhys intended to sell the house this time. If not, she didn’t think she could bear to go on supervising his property. Not now …
The sight of Tomas, trimming the bushes to one side of the drive, brought her to a decision. There was one way she could find out what Rhys intended to do, and that was by asking. Why go on tormenting herself with possibilities? Rosalie would tell her. Rosalie had always told her everything.
Tomas looked up in surprise when the sound of her footsteps attracted his attention. ‘Missy Jordan!’ he exclaimed warmly. Then, with some embarrassment, he added: ‘If’n you’ve come to see Mr Williams, he ain’ here.’
‘I know that, Tomas.’ Jordan forced a slight smile. ‘Er—is Rosa about? I thought she might offer me a cup of tea.’
‘She’s in the kitchen, or noddin’ in her chair outside,’ Tomas declared, evidently relieved that Jordan was not to be disappointed. ‘You just go on round. She’ll be mighty glad to see you, I know.’
‘Thanks.’
Jordan lifted her hand, and continued on round the house to where the verandah overlooked the beach. Then, mounting the steps, she followed the wooden structure round to the side of the building, where a vine-covered porch gave access to the domestic apartments.
As Tomas had predicted, Rosalie was seated on the wooden bench just outside the door, nodding over her sewing. But like her husband she had heard Jordan’s approach, and her eyes widened at the sight of the girl’s slim figure.
‘Missy Jordan!’ she exclaimed, coming to her feet. ‘Tch, I didn’t expect to see you. Didn’t Tomas tell you——’
‘—that Rhys isn’t here? I already knew,’ replied Jordan, waving her back on to her seat. ‘Don’t worry—I know he’s gone back to England. It’s common knowledge in Eleutha.’
‘Then common knowledge ain’t right,’ said Rosalie, sinking back on to her seat and folding her hands. ‘Mr Williams isn’ in England, he’s in New York. Had a message from that manager of his, Mr Withers, askin’ him if he’d do a concert in aid of some relief organisation, or somethin’. He didn’ refuse.’
‘I see.’ Jordan moistened her dry lips. ‘So——he’s coming back.’
‘I don’ think so.’ Rosalie shrugged. ‘He only planned on stayin’ here a month, you know, and that time’s almost up. I guess he’s got other commitments after New York.’
‘Oh.’ Jordan knew Rosalie’s answer shouldn’t have depressed her, but it did. Just for a second, she had half believed he was coming back to the island, and while that news need not have meant anything, there was always the possibility that it might.
‘You feelin’ the heat?’ Rosalie was looking at her strangely, and Jordan struggled to pull herself together.
‘A—a bit,’ she confessed, running her damp palms down the seams of her cotton pants. ‘It is humid, isn’t it? Do you think it’s going to rain?’
Rosalie shrugged. Then, choosing her words with care, she said, astonishingly; ‘Why d’you let him go?’
Jordan caught her breath. ‘I beg your par
don?’
‘I said—why d’you let him go?’ said Rosalie succinctly. ‘Seems like I got th’ impression that you used to care somethin’ about him. That mornin’ when you came here, I was sure you were gettin’ set to put things right.’
Jordan gasped. ‘Rosa!’
‘Well! Young Lucy thought so, too. I heard her ask Mr Williams if’n he was in love with you, and he didn’ deny it, as I recall.’
Jordan, who had been supporting herself against the porch, straightened. ‘I think I’d better be going, Rosa,’ she said, unwilling to listen to any more of the black woman’s fantasising. ‘I don’t want to get caught if it is going to rain, and——’
‘I was wrong, you know,’ Rosalie interrupted her, bending her head over her sewing again. ‘When his wife came here lookin’ for him, I shouldn’ have told you.’
‘What?’ Jordan stared at her. ‘What are you talking about, Rosa? I was grateful to you for telling me. Good heavens, can you imagine how embarrassed I’d have been if I’d come here and found them together?’
‘But you wouldn’,’ insisted Rosalie stubbornly. ‘If I hadn’t warned you, you might never have known. Mr Williams would have sent her away, and that would have been the end of it.’
‘Rosa!’ Jordan was horrified. ‘What are you saying? That if I hadn’t known Rhys was married, that would have been all right?’
‘He’d have got a divorce,’ said Rosalie firmly. ‘Like he intended to do all along. Like he thought he had done.’
‘Do you really believe that?’ Jordan despised herself for arguing with the woman, but it was better than keeping it all inside. ‘Look, Rhys wasn’t a child. He knew divorce papers had to be filed. If he thought Jennifer was filing them, then he should have checked, not left it to chance.’
Rosalie shook her head. ‘You forget, he wasn’ in England that much. Those bands, they’re always goin’ on tour. And he trusted that solicitor of his to do what was right. But that woman had no intention of lettin’ him divorce her—not with all that money he was makin’.’
‘Oh, Rosa!’
‘I’m right, I know it.’ Rosalie nodded her head. ‘Lived with that for ten years, I have. Then, when Mr Williams came back, I thought everythin’ was goin’ to be all right.’
‘Well, you were wrong.’ Jordan put an unsteady hand up to the formal coil of hair at her nape. ‘And besides, there was Lucy to consider. You can’t deny Rhys’s responsibility there.’
‘He did,’ remarked Rosalie sagely, and Jordan sighed.
‘Then why is she living with him now?’
‘Her mother was killed.’
‘So?’
‘They didn’ leave here together, you know, Mr Williams and his wife. Even after you had that row with him, he still threw her and the child out.’
‘I know.’
Jordan felt the prick of tears behind her eyes. Oh, she knew that all right, she thought bitterly. After her first sense of outrage had been appeased, she had actually considered going after him, to beg him to forgive her for disbelieving him when he said Lucy was not his child. But then her father had had his accident, and by the time he was well enough for her to leave him, Jennifer had been dead and buried and the papers had been full of stories of Rhys and his motherless little daughter.
‘Anyway, I think you’re a fool,’ said Rosalie, with a sniff. ‘You’re in love with him, anyone can see that. Comin’ here all those years, carin’ for his property like it was your own. Ain’ no sense in it, less’n you intend to do somethin’ about it.’
‘What can I do about it?’ Jordan wrapped her arms around herself. ‘It’s been too long.’
‘You don’ believe that, any more than he does,’ retorted Rosalie sharply. ‘And what can he do? You rejected him, not the other way around.’
Jordan quivered. ‘You’re an old romantic, Rosa. Life’s not like that.’
‘Isn’ it? So what’s eatin’ you?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean you’re as skinny as a lath, and you’ve got them black rings around your eyes. What you got to lose, girl? Tell him how you feel, and see what he says.’
‘How can I?’ Jordan was amazed that she was actually considering it. ‘Rosa——’
‘Get on the next plane to New York. I know where he’s stayin’. Take a chance. Isn’t life worth it?’
‘You’re crazy, Rosa!’
‘I ain’ crazy. You are, if’n you don’t believe that man still cares about you.’
‘You don’t understand, Rosa——’
‘What don’ I understand?’
‘Oh——’ Jordan spread her hands, unable to tell her about the Hammonds’ party, and the way it had ended, ‘there’s so much you don’t know.’
‘I know Mr Williams was like a bear with a sore head the day after that party he went to,’ Rosalie declared, as if reading Jordan’s thoughts. ‘And I know how many nights he was down here, traipsin’ round the house when he ought to have been gettin’ his sleep. And the alcohol he drank!’ She lifted her hands in resignation. ‘You should have been here to see it. I’m not lyin’. Mr Williams is not a happy man.’
Jordan shook her head. ‘I can’t go to New York.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I can’t.’
‘That’s no answer.’
‘I’ve got the hotel to run,’ protested Jordan weakly. ‘And what if he refused to see me?’
‘You think he would?’
Jordan bent her head. ‘I don’t know.’
‘At least try.’ Rosalie got to her feet and went indoors, only to emerge seconds later with a scrap of paper. ‘Here’s his address. It’s an apartment building, or so he said. It belongs to a friend of his who’s out of town.’
Jordan shook her head again. ‘Look, Rosa, I know you mean well, but it’s no use you giving that to me. I—I can’t go to New York. I just can’t.’
Jordan was still silently protesting the sanity of what she was doing when the Eastern Airlines jet landed in New York. It was Karen who had booked the flight, Karen who had bought her tickets, and Karen who had contacted the hotel of a family friend in the city and arranged for her sister to stay overnight there.
Jordan hadn’t intended to tell Karen of her conversation with Rosalie. When she drove back to the hotel on the island, she had determined not to mention the fact that she had called at the house at Planter’s Point, but it hadn’t turned out that way. She was in her room, drying her hair after a shower, when Karen came to find her, and the younger girl’s casual enquiry as to whether she had seen either of the Simms,’ when she passed the house had brought a wave of betraying colour to her cheeks.
Of course, she couldn’t lie about it, but she was not to know how revealing her unwilling answers had been. In no time at all, Karen had solicited the information that Rhys was not in England, but New York, and without really wanting to, Jordan found herself voicing the doubts that Rosalie’s words had aroused.
‘You mean—she doesn’t think Lucy is Rhys’s child?’ Karen exclaimed incredulously, perching on the end of the bed.
‘I said she had doubts,’ amended Jordan, wishing she hadn’t started this. ‘Oh, you know what Rosa’s like. She knew why I’d gone there. She just wanted to—cheer me up, I suppose.’
‘Why did you go there?’ asked Karen pointedly. ‘You told me that affair was over, but it’s not, is it? Not as far as you’re concerned anyway.’
‘Oh, Karen …’
‘There you go again, treating me like a child! I’m not a child, Jordan. I’m nearly twenty-one. I do understand the facts of life. Why can’t you trust me? I can be trusted, you know.’
‘I know, I know.’ Jordan leant across and squeezed Karen’s hand. ‘It’s just—well, it’s not easy for me to talk about it.’
Karen hesitated. ‘But you are still in love with Rhys, aren’t you? And whether Lucy is or is not his daughter doesn’t really matter any more.’
Jordan bent her head. ‘
It should.’
‘But it doesn’t.’
‘I suppose not.’ Jordan sighed. ‘Does that sound terrible to you?’
‘It sounds like the truth,’ averred Karen drily. ‘For heaven’s sake, how long have you known?’
Jordan shook her head. ‘I don’t know. Since Rhys came back to the island, I suppose. As—as soon as I saw him——’
‘—at the hotel——’
‘No, not at the hotel.’ Jordan hesitated a moment and then briefly described their confrontation on the beach. ‘He looked just the same,’ she said unsteadily. ‘I couldn’t believe it.’
‘So that was why you wore those ghastly clothes when he and Lucy came to the hotel,’ exclaimed Karen nodding. ‘Poor Rhys! And he came to apologise, didn’t he? I thought it was odd at the time, but you wouldn’t talk about it. I assumed it was to do with something he’d done before he went away.’
Jordan picked up her brush and ran her palm over the bristles. ‘He said he wanted us to start over. Oh, not emotionally,’ she added, flushing. ‘Just to be civil with one another. Only I was so uptight I wouldn’t talk to him. That was why I went to the house.’
‘You went to—his house?’ Karen stared at her.
‘Yes. The next day.’ Jordan’s colour came and went. ‘Don’t ask me why. I just—had to see him again.’
‘To apologise, I suppose,’ remarked Karen with some humour. ‘Oh, Jordan! And you pretended you didn’t care!’
Jordan shrugged. ‘I didn’t want you to feel sorry for me.’
‘Why not?’
‘I can’t bear sympathy. I had all I could take when—when Rhys went away. Everyone was so—so sympathetic, I just wanted to die.’
‘But you didn’t.’
‘No.’ Jordan sniffed. ‘People don’t, do they? And—well, Daddy had his accident, didn’t he? What is it they say about ill winds?’
Karen frowned. ‘And you never forgave him? Rhys, I mean.’
‘I——’ Jordan hesitated. ‘I—yes, I thought about it. And if—if Daddy hadn’t been taken ill, I had actually considered going to see Rhys, to tell him I believed him about—about the child.’
‘So what stopped you?’
