Juliet Armstrong - Isle of the Hummingbird Read online

  They sat down together on the wicker couch, and he brought out his cigarette case.

  'Laura's been scolding me,' he said. 'Accuses me of putting far too heavy a burden on your shoulders.'

  'Aren't I the best judge of that?' Bryony returned coolly.

  'She's a sensible woman, and a most valuable friend. The way she's come to the rescue of me and my partners when we've been without a dispenser is beyond praise. We're all sorry for her, too, over the loss of her husband. He was a leading oculist.'

  'How long ago did he die?'

  'Four years. He was very much older than Laura, and had retired some time. He knew my father.'

  'Wouldn't she be less lonely if she moved nearer to Port-of-Spain?'

  'One would have thought so. But her husband loved that house and garden.' He paused, then went on a little awkwardly: 'I wish you could get the girls to adopt a different attitude towards her. I know she's tactless sometimes, but she doesn't mean to hurt people. Living alone is very bad for people, you know.'

  'There seems to be plenty of social life on the island.'

  'Granted. But poor old Laura says that no one really wants a woman on her own.'

  There was a silence between them. Then Bryony said with an effort: 'I don't know if I can make them like Mrs. Forrest any better. I hardly think so. But they are going to make a fresh start over their general behaviour. They complain of your strictness, but I've pointed out that they give you very little cause to trust them. I've also told them that if they carry on meeting these boys behind your back, and generally do as they jolly well please, you'll be sending me home, and putting them in boarding-school. As they don't want either of these things to happen, they've decided to come to terms—and behave.'

  'Laura thinks it would be a kindness to you to put you on a ship bound for England. Says it's utterly unfair to load you with so much responsibility.'

  Bryony shrugged her shoulders.

  'If you want to get rid of me————- '

  'Actually, I don't. You're making a difference to this house, though I can't analyse how and why. Even Tina and Solomon feel it—so they say, in their rather odd way.'

  'Then let's leave it that I stay, unless it turns out that I've been too optimistic over the girls.'

  'That suits me. And Aunt Isabel, too, I know.' And then he went on, with a mischievous smile reminiscent of Sally: 'It was particularly irritating of Anne-Marie to point out to Laura that I might find you a more desirable companion, because you happen to be younger and—well—prettier. You can't wonder at Laura's being upset.'

  'Anne-Marie wanted to sting her, and found a most efficient way of doing so.' Bryony hesitated, wondering whether to tell Peregrine of Laura's rudeness to her. She decided against it. The poor man didn't want to be drawn still further into stupid feminine quarrels. And Peregrine, his mind on another track, asked her very casually: 'Have you seen or heard anything of that chap Woods? It was brutal of me to be so annoyed with you when I stumbled on the pair of you in that passionate end-of-voyage embrace.'

  'I've heard nothing of him, and don't suppose I shall.' Bryony had coloured a little at this unexpected reference to Hugh.

  'Just a shipboard romance?'

  'More or less. He was very kind and understanding. Something was worrying me, and he helped me to get it in perspective.'

  'That makes me feel ashamed. Maybe the girls are right when they accuse me of being narrow and prejudiced. If I'd known you even as well as I do now, I wouldn't have made such an exhibition of myself, shown myself such a bad-tempered prig.'

  'Oh, I don't bear you any ill-will,' she assured him lightly. 'You had a right to feel put out, after all you'd said in London about the necessity for discreet conduct. I was annoyed with Hugh myself.'

  'Poor chap! He was clearly carried away by his feelings.' He gave an odd little laugh. 'That's something that's never happened to me—and maybe never will. I sometimes think that having too much responsibility thrust on me before I was really old enough robbed me of my birthright, if you know what I mean. Most people have a few carefree years. I didn't. I was barely qualified when my parents died, within a year or two of each other.'

  'It was wonderful of you to keep the family together,' Bryony told him warmly. 'Anne-Marie and Sally don't appreciate it as much as they should. But they will, one day. Just as Yvonne does.'

  'Sometimes I think they almost dislike me,' he said bitterly. 'They're probably furious over my refusing to let them have those scooters—or any others, come to that. But apart from the very real traffic dangers—just as bad now as in England—we'd never know where they were, out of school hours. Even if they meant to be amenable, there'd be those shifty-eyed chaps hanging around, telling them not to be ninnies.'

  'I certainly prefer the O'Dane boys,' Bryony told him.

  'Of course. But they think they're tame. As I've tried to explain to them, it's not only that I don't care for Frank and Bernard—I thoroughly dislike and distrust the set they're in. And I'm by no means alone in that. One of these days they're going to land in bad trouble—that's what I think.'

  'I'll do all I can to look after the girls.' Bryony felt genuinely sorry for him.

  'You mustn't worry too much. I don't want to see lines of care on your smooth forehead.' He was trying, she could see, to shake off his heavy mood. 'And listen—if Hugh Woods should turn up again, don't imagine I'll disapprove of your going out with him. You've a right to do what you please in your free time.'

  'I'd like to see him again,' she admitted. 'I've never taken to anyone quite so quickly. But I certainly shan't break my heart if I don't.'

  He took her hand and squeezed it—not with anything of Hugh's fervour, merely in a brotherly way.

  'That's the girl!' he said.

  She was going to her room, leaving him locking the great wooden door leading to the front veranda, when there was a sharp rapping on the panels. She turned instinctively as Peregrine shot back the bolts, and saw a middle-aged woman standing there, neatly if rather shabbily dressed, an expression of deep anxiety on her face.

  'Doctor, I in big trouble,' she exclaimed, tears coursing down her cheeks. 'My boy, Lennie, fetch me from de city dis evenin' in his little ole motor-car. And a little piece down de road from here he fall asleep— unless he dead by now. I shake him, pinch him, but he not speakin' one word. De car in de hedge, an' I stop de engine. But no back lights on, and someone comin' along road behind him runnin' into him for sure.'

  'I suppose he's drunk,' Peregrine observed impatiently. 'Where do you live? Haven't you got any relations who'll come and carry him home? I can give you a hurricane lamp to tie on the back of the car while you go on and find someone.' And he added, frowning: 'I ought to know you, I'm sure.'

  'We living out far, far down the road,' the woman told him tearfully. 'Only been here two weeks. Come from Diego Martin way, where all my fam'ly livin' still.'

  'You'd better get to bed, Bryony,' Peregrine said over his shoulder. 'There's nothing you can do. I shall have to go along and see what's up—though I guess it'll turn out nothing at all. Might be cardiac failure, though.'

  And to the woman on the veranda he said with brusque kindliness: 'I'll get my car out and come. But if I find he's drunk, he'll be in for bigger trouble still.'

  After they had gone, Bryony decided to disregard his instructions about going to bed. There wasn't much she could do, except heat up a kettle of water, which would do for a cup of tea, if for nothing more urgent. And out she went into the kitchen.

  She was feeling distinctly worried. There was no moon as yet, and the darkness seemed to hold a menacing quality she had never known in England. Suppose this cock-and-bull story was a means of luring Peregrine out into danger? His patients loved him, it was said, but he might well have made enemies by his rigid standards and occasionally scathing tongue.

  The time dragged. The kettle cooled and she heated another, finally brewing a pot of tea for herself and taking it into the big sitting-room
. At last, when nearly an hour had passed, she heard the familiar sound of Perry's car coming up the drive, and went to the door.

  'You still up?' he exclaimed. 'What do you think you're up to?'

  'Making tea,' she returned laconically.

  His irritation gave way to a gust of laughter.

  'The typical British spinster! There's a cup for me, I trust.'

  'Of course. And a cracker!'

  'I ought to wash, but I'm not going to. I'm too done in.' And he sank into the nearest chair. Then, when he had swallowed down a cup of tea, he asked: 'Aren't you going to enquire what happened? Or aren't you interested?'

  'The main thing is that you're not lying in a ditch with a knife in your back,' she told him equably. 'However, what did happen?'

  'The silly young fool had been drugging,' he told her disgustedly. 'According to his mother he seemed pretty sleepy when he collected her from some friends she was visiting in Port-of-Spain, and finally ran his ramshackle car into a hedge—as she told me earlier— and went fast asleep.'

  'Could you get him round?'

  'I didn't try. I bundled him and his mother into my car and drove them home. The place they're living in is miles away, and well off the beaten track. I managed to shove the boy's car farther into the hedge, out of the way of any other vehicle coming along. And first thing tomorrow I shall report the matter to the police. They'll be interested to learn where this Lennie boy got his drugs.' Then he got up and stretched himself. 'Off to bed with you now. And thanks a lot for the tea. Whatever Laura advises, I shan't be sending you home on a nice cruise ship in the immediate future. Not on your life. Not till your twelve months is up!'

  That first picnic on a Caribbean beach was something that Bryony was always to remember. The long, long curve of silver sand, backed with palm trees, the jade and turquoise sea under an azure sky, flecked here and there with a white cloud—its beauty caught at her heart. Surely no place on earth was nearer Paradise.

  They had come in three cars, in swimming gear, and lost no time in getting out towels and wraps and running down into the sea—only Aunt Isabel moving down the beach at a slow and dignified pace and entering the water in the same fashion.

  Although Bryony had heard the Caribbean Sea described as warm, she had taken this with a pinch of salt. Visitors at Roselands, her mother's hotel, had spoken in this enthusiastic way of the Kentish sea, at seasons when to plunge in took one's breath away. But now, she found, she had heard no more than the truth. No gasping, no gooseflesh here. One went straight into smooth tepid water, so buoyant that even a poor swimmer could easily have kept afloat.

  The sense of space, too, delighted her. There were other parties, bathing and picnicking, but spread out so thinly on that vast expanse that one scarcely noticed them. It was as though one had a great, private beach, safe from intrusion.

  In spite of Laura's presence, it was a very happy afternoon. Anne-Marie and Sally shed all airs of sophistication and behaved like tomboys with the young O'Danes, round their raft. It was good to hear their laughter ringing out, as they leapt and dived like young porpoises—almost as at home in the water as on land.

  Bryony, the least expert of the party, found a willing teacher in Dr. O'Dane, and presently Peregrine, who had been devoting himself to Laura—a first-rate swimmer—came to take her over. In carefree mood, revelling in his escape from work and worry, he looked much younger than usual. But after swimming with her for a minute or two he told her crisply that she had done enough for the time being. She must go in and have a rub down and sit quietly by Aunt Isabel—already installed in a light-weight chair.

  Presently they all came in, the youngsters declaring themselves starving, and soon were sitting on the hot sand, eating curry puffs and cold chicken and salad, fruit, jellies and creams, and drinking lime and grapefruit squash.

  The picnic over, the elder O'Dane boys brought out guitars, and Sally joined in the singing. But Anne- Marie, who had brought sketching materials with her, decided to get busy with her pencil, and asked Bryony to sit for her.

  'I know you hate people talking about your profile,' she said, 'but it's that I want to do. So if you don't mind sitting sideways to me '

  'What's so remarkable about Miss Moore's profile?' Laura Forrest enquired in a lazily amused tone. 'As compared to her full face, I mean,' she added as a pretended afterthought. And then was sorry she had spoken, for her attempt at making Bryony look foolish did not succeed. Bryony was, indeed, embarrassed, but Mrs. O'Dane and Aunt Isabel both exclaimed on the beautiful line of her cheek, while Peregrine remarked that he thought Anne-Marie had the artist's eye, and hoped she'd bring off a good study.

  'Where do you get your looks from, Bryony?' A lull in the singing had come, and Sally was watching her sister's efforts from a respectful distance. 'You're not like either of your parents, judging from the photographs on your dressing-table.'

  This time Bryony was not caught unawares. She certainly hadn't expected Sally to say anything to discompose her—accidentally, of course. But she had armed herself against any veiled attack from Laura, however improbable, and so was able to say now, with scarcely a heightening of colour: 'Oh, I'm a throwback, I expect. Some remote ancestress.'

  'The Moores are a fine old family.' It was Dr. O'Dane who spoke. 'You've every reason to be proud of them, Miss Bryony.'

  She looked across at him and smiled.

  'So I am,' she told him stoutly; and decided then and there that she had been a fool to think of telling the Gray family that she had been adopted by the Moores as a tiny baby: that she had no idea of the true circumstances of her birth. Hugh Woods had been quite right in dismissing the matter as unimportant, in telling her that no man who fell in love with her would think the worse of her for having been adopted. He had not advised her, though, to go talking about it to all and sundry.

  The twelve months she was to stay out here with the Grays would soon pass, and the odds were that once she was home again, she would gradually cease to be in touch with them. Thousands of miles would lie between them—and people in the Caribbean were notably disinclined for letter-writing.

  As these thoughts rushed through her brain, another came to her. What if Hugh were to turn up again? What if their friendship were to prove more than a shipboard romance? Sometimes, as she had told Peregrine, that night when they had been alone together in the drawing-room, she felt that it was all over and done with. But sometimes, lying in the moonlight, remembering his kisses, she thought he would surely return. And perhaps, then, they might make their home out here in the sunshine which he loved so much. Foolish, no doubt, to dream, but it hurt nobody. Not even oneself, if one had sense enough to know that they were airy-fairy fancies.

  When Anne-Marie finished the sketch and passed it round, there was some lively comment. Everyone praised the artist, and Peregrine said forthrightly that she had considerably more talent than he had realised.

  'That's because you never have time to notice what we're doing—I mean, the things that matter, not our evil deeds.' Anne-Marie was smiling at him whimsically. And then she slipped her hand into his. 'I wish we saw more of you, Perry. It's ages since we had an afternoon like this, all gay and happy together. I'm sure you work too hard.'

  'So he does,' Dr. O'Dane affirmed. 'Too conscientious by a long shot. All that nonsense, Perry, about those people in the broken-down car getting you out at dead of night. It might have been a trap, for all you knew.'

  'That's what Bryony said. But it wasn't. And on any count, I'm glad I didn't refuse to go out. That boy may be giving the police some very interesting information on the source of the drug he'd got hold of.'

  'Sounds as though you worked Miss Moore abominably hard. Keeping her up at dead of night!'

  Laura laughed as she spoke, but no one else seemed particularly amused. And Peregrine said, rather stiffly: 'I was jolly glad she happened to be up. The cup of tea she made me saved my life.' Then, turning back to Anne-Marie, whose hand was still in his, he said
in a very different tone: 'What about having a barbecue when the moon starts rising earlier—giving the O'Danes a return party? That would be fun for Bryony. I bet she's never swum by moonlight 1'

  'Fine!' And to Bryony's pleasure, the girl reached up and deposited a kiss on her brother's cheek.

  There was more swimming, more singing to the music of the guitars, and then, before they packed up,

  Dave O'Dane, the eldest redhead, produced a transistor. Calypsos brought fresh talk of the approaching Carnival, of the fabulous costumes that were in the making, the money that was being poured out, the immense numbers of visitors who were said to be booked in at every hotel in the island.

  Listening to the calypso music on the radio, played by steel bands, Bryony felt, as always, a stirring of excitement. There was something in the rhythms of this Latin-African music unlike anything else. It was easy to picture people dancing all day through the streets. She could almost imagine doing it herself.

  The music stopped abruptly. The news came on— political items, at first, items from overseas. Finally mention of local happenings, among them one which made them all sit up, startled.

  There had been a disturbing number of thefts lately, the announcer said, of cars and motor-cycles, by clever and determined criminals. At first the police had thought it was a matter of individual offences, then had decided that there was a ring in operation. Enquiries at a garage in Port-of-Spain had resulted in several arrests. The police were also questioning a number of clients who had made recent purchases at this garage.—————'

  Anne-Marie and Sally exchanged horrified looks.

  Sally said: 'I bet it's the garage where we went with Frank and Bernard. What a mercy we didn't keep those scooters. They'd have been in trouble, and so would we.'

  'It's the people who stole the cars and cycles, and re-sold them, that the police are looking for,' Peregrine said, quickly and comfortingly. 'You needn't worry too much about those boys—certainly not about yourselves.'