Dolan of Sugar Hills (10 page)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The first thing Cane did was fling wide the window that Mrs. Dolan had instructed Fleur to close. He left the door open.

If he felt anything explosive in the air, and surely, thought Sheila, her rage and incense must shriek out at him, he made no sign.

He nodded coolly to Sheila and gave Fleur a light kiss. “How’s my girl?” he smiled. He crossed to the table and felt the teapot. “More important still, how’s the tea?”

“I’ll get you some fresh,” offered Fleur eagerly.

“No, let me,” entreated Sheila.

“I’m being rushed,” observed Cane. He gave Fleur a gentle push.
“
You,
honey,” he chose, and he smiled as she ran light-footedly out of the room.

Sheila, mindful of Fleur’s earlier indisposition, objected, “I should be getting it.”

He shrugged. “Let her go. It’ll please her. Give her something to do.”

Sheila stiffened. She felt that Fleur had all she could do putting up with his aunt’s hatefulness. She wondered if Cane had any idea of what went on in his absence, then wished she had not thought on that subject. For of course he did have an idea, he had a lot of ideas ... otherwise he would not say the disquieting things that he did to Fleur, make those dreadful schemes that Fleur repeated so often coupled always with that disturbing “Mark says.”

“What’s wrong with you?” Cane eyed her from the other side of the room.

“We had your aunt in for morning tea.”

“My aunt by marriage, my uncle’s widow.”

“I don’t care what the relationship is, I just want to tell you that it can’t go on,” Sheila said it in a rush.

“For you? For Fleur?”

“
I was thinking of Fleur.
”
It will not go on for me,
Sheila resolved,
I’ll be gone from here very soon.

“It won’t continue for Fleur,” said Cane Dolan. His tone was very quiet and final. He took out his cigarettes.

“Cane—Mr. Dolan, I—” There was intention in Sheila’s voice, she had decided to speak out.

“Quiet,” he said, “the little one is coming back.”

Sheila saw the quick flicker of gentleness in his sardonic eyes. The flash hurt her—and yet, she thought,
would I want anything else for Fleur?

The girl set down the cup, her eyes shining.

“I’ve remembered,” she said proudly. “Milk and no sugar. Am I very good, Mark?”

“You’re excellent,” he commended, and he sipped the tea and nodded in satisfaction.

“The Sugar Hills boat will be repairable, you’ll be pleased to hear,” he announced. “Tress is on it now. It won’t take him long either. I think we’ll try it out this afternoon.”

“Oh, that will be lovely,” clapped Fleur. “Where can we go?” This time the close glance was leveled on Fleur, not Sheila. “Hayman Island?” Cane asked her softly.
“
Hayman,
Fleur?” Whatever it was he wanted to impress upon her, Fleur obviously was unimpressed.

“Is it nice there?” she asked.

Once more the close glance. “Haven’t you been?”

“No, I haven’t, have I?” She looked questioningly at him.

“Never mind now.” He patted her hand.

“Shall I prepare a flask and sandwiches?” asked Sheila, trying to bridge something.

“Obviously you haven’t been to Hayman, either,” Cane grinned. “You don’t take flasks and sandwiches to Royal Hayman, you take yourself in your most festive attire. Be ready within the hour, ladies.” Cane drained the tea, grimaced secretly, then stood up.

There was a lot of chatter over what they would wear. Fleur ran down to Sheila’s room a dozen times before she made up her mind. “Oh, Sheila,” she protested, “you can’t wear that.”

“Why?” asked Sheila, rather hurt, for she liked her candy-striped dress with the huge skirt.

“Because the little train at the pier is candy striped,” said Fleur blithely. “The little candy striped train takes us up to the hotel. It goes from the mooring end of the pier.”

“But you haven’t been there, Fleur.”

Fleur looked confused.

Quickly, to detract her attention, Sheila said, “Anyway, I like my green dress better,” and pulled it over her head.

They made a contrast standing waiting on the patio, Fleur with her softly flowing pale curls almost the same color as her pale silk dress, Sheila with her dark-brown cap of hair as straight and unadorned as her green jersey sheath.

Cane gave an appropriate whistle when he joined them, though he pursed his lips at Sheila’s attire.

“Not the best for climbing in and out of a boat,” he stated of the sheath.

“It’s my fault, Mark,” Fleur laughed, “I told her she mustn’t wear her candy stripe because of the candy train. It meets us at the pier, doesn’t it, and takes us in.”

Sheila met Cane’s eyes. Neither of them spoke.

The boat set off. The sea was a millpond today, just as when Sheila first had seen it from the hill overlooking Cane’s plantation. Calm and placid like this, passing between the pine-clad islands was like passing down a fjord. To left, to right, the islands never seemed to cease. How could anyone find a destination among them, find one island, Sheila wondered. Then she realized that that was what she was doing now. They were passing the frigate-bird island. Her island. She recognized it at once.

Inevitably her eyes met Cane’s. He must have read her instant recognition, for he said, “I brought your coral back.”

“Is it all right?”

“It’s not broken,” he replied.

Fleur was sitting in the bow, letting the wind make a silky scarf of her long pale hair.

“I love it,” she sang gaily. “I love it because I remember—”

Cane motioned for Tress to take over the control from him and he moved across to the girl.

“What do you remember, honey?”

“I remember the boat, and the wind and the spray, and Mark telling me to take the tiller.”

“And did you?”

Fleur wet her lips. Sheila saw her anxiously clench and unclench her soft little hands.

“I remember,” she said, and her voice trailed away.

Cane left her alone until they approached Hayman. Even a long way off you could tell it would be Hayman ... the lone pier, the little waiting candy-striped train as Fleur had said, the island itself with its modern lodges and large contemporary units.

Approaching the mooring, Cane tried again.

“Remember this place, Fleur?”

“Oh, yes.”

“What do you remember?”

“I remember it was fun. Mark went out on an aquaplane, didn’t you, Mark, but I wouldn’t go. I think—I think Mark fell off.”

“Did I? Did you see me fall off?”

“Yes, I saw you. I ... I mean I ... think I saw you. I ... I did see you, didn’t I, Mark?

“Did you, Fleur?”

It was piteous ... the little crumpling face, crumpling with the effort of trying to remember ... the distress in the big soft eyes and the trembling lips.

“Did you, Fleur?”

The eyes were beginning to waver in those opposing currents again now, the face to become dreamlike, but relentlessly Cane persisted. He refused to let her escape into unreality. Taking her shoulder, he gave it a little shake.

“Did you, Fleur?”

“Oh, Mark, I can’t remember.”

“Remember, Fleur, do you hear me, remember.”

It was too much. Shelia could stand it no longer. Softly so as not to disturb Fleur, sharply to catch Cane’s attention, she said, “She’s distraught, surely you can see that? Leave her alone, for pity’s sake.”

Across the boat he said, “Mind your own business, Miss Guthrie.” But she noticed that his hand left Fleur’s shoulder, that he did not bother her anymore.

They climbed onto the long, high pier, leaving Tress behind to look after their mooring, then journeyed on the candy-striped train into the tourist settlement.

It was all very modern, with much attention to luxury lodges with gardens of tropical flowers set between them, to shops with fabulous displays, to swimming pools, coffee lounges, cocktail bars. They sat on wicker divans beside the pool, sipping pink gins.

“I remember—” laughed Fleur, and her eyes sparkled.

Cane leaned over, his expression was very gentle now. “Keep on remembering, honey. I’ll walk Sheila up the hill to take in the view.”

They walked in silence for a while.

“Enjoying the taste of civilization again?” Cane asked at length. “It’s all very nice.”

“That faint praise sounds rather as though another island has first place with you. Has it?” He lit a cigarette.

She stared at him, wetting her dry lips. She wanted to say so much that she found she could say nothing.

He stared down at her, trying to read what was there waiting to be released.

She turned away. She could not stand that probing look. She knew that she could not face the answers even if he gave them to her, and he wouldn’t, of course.

“We’d better get back,” she said breathlessly.

He nodded carelessly, and they descended again.

Fleur was not in the lounge when they returned. Cane said quickly, “You take that avenue, I’ll take this. She can’t be far.”

It was Sheila who found her. She found Fleur standing beside one of the pretty lodges. She had her little hands clasped together and when she saw Sheila she smiled.

“That was where we stayed. It was our honeymoon. The room was very pretty. You can peep in now and see.”

“Yes, it is lovely, darling. Are you ready to come along?”

“But I’m not coming, of course. I’m staying in my pretty room with Mark.”

“Mark is going to take us back to Silverwake on the boat.” Sheila put her arm around Fleur. “Come, dear,” she coaxed softly. To her relief Fleur came.

It was half-light when they passed the frigate-bird island on their return, the lemon strip of moon was just beginning to ride the sky.

Cane roared the engine and sped past it. He seemed to speed deliberately, Sheila thought, though of course he might only be clapping on pace to make their own island before dusk.

For all his haste it was nearly dusk when they arrived, quite dark by the time they reached the house. There was no beckoning light oil the patio, the only illumination was a thin beam from beneath Mrs. Dolan’s closed door.

“I’m sleepy,” said Fleur childishly again. “I’m going to bed,”

Tress made supper and served it, but again Mrs. Dolan did not leave her room.

After the meal Sheila read awhile, then went to bed, as well. Her brain was whirling, she did not think she would sleep.

She did—at first. Then she woke, as she had the night before, hearing the steps again.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The following day ran rather in the same pattern as Sheila’s first day on Silverwake ... so did the days after that.

A week went past.

How long was Cane allowing himself on the island? Sheila knew his time must be limited. The cane season was in its swing, and the tall grasses would not wait on a man’s whim. There had been a setback with the untimely arrival of the cyclone, but that would only mean a greater acceleration once the work began again. Surely by this time, Sheila thought, the crop was standing upright once more waiting to be cut.

The little she had seen of the sugar procedure had given her the impression that as the cutting proceeded so was the pace quickened. It was like a beat, she recalled once thinking, slow at first, and then mounting to a more rapid tempo, a brisk rhythm.

And that, too, was what it was like here, she felt uneasily, here on this island. A situation was rising ... a crisis was mounting to a climax ... something was coming to a head.

Outwardly they all did the same things ... Cane attended the property, Tress attended the boats, Mrs. Dolan attended only herself, Fleur attended nobody, Sheila ... Sheila simply waited with a sick heart.

Coming up from the beach alone one morning, she found her usual path to the house blocked. There was an upturned garden seat across it, a wheelbarrow, several large impeding tools. Well, that was nothing. A house in the course of its day must know lots of disarrangement. Why, then, frowned Sheila, did she feel uneasy now? Then a little hollowly she knew. She knew that it was because there was somehow something deliberate in the disarrangement. Someone wanted her to take another way into the house. Not only wanted it but was seeing to it that she had to take it if she was to get in at all.

She hesitated—then went down by the outer steps to the basement with the intention of taking the inner staircase up to the living quarters again. As she descended she thought with a sickening heart, Is this what someone planned?

At that moment she saw Mrs. Dolan rummaging in the basement, and she knew that it had been planned. Mrs. Dolan was out of her wheelchair. She was walking on her own feet.

Words came to Sheila, with stark reality.

“Mark says that it’s necessary for someone to see how she falls over, to say for certain that she can walk when she chooses. You see she has to walk to get there for it to happen, Mark says.”

Now I know,
thought Sheila,
why my path to the house has been blocked by a garden bench, a wheelbarrow, tools. Now I know that I was intended to see so that I can say “for certain.” Now I know
—

She took a step forward.

“Good morning, Mrs. Dolan.”

The elderly woman was taken completely by surprise.

“Good morning. I ... I’ve mislaid something.”

“And you’re looking for it here?”

Mrs. Dolan had regained her composure. “I suppose I’m entitled to look in a house that belongs to me,” she snapped.

Another echo came back to Sheila ... Cane’s words this time. Cane saying when Mrs. Dolan once had uttered almost the same thing as she had just now, “It does not belong to you—yet.”

Aloud Sheila remarked, “I didn’t know that you could walk.” Inwardly she was adding,
I knew you could at night, though, I
’
ve heard your steps.

“Oh, I can walk,” Mrs. Dolan snapped.

“Then why the wheelchair?”

“A bad ankle that comes against me; I dislike a stick. What business is it of yours, anyway? And what are you doing here?” Sheila murmured something she trusted would do for an explanation, then turned in the direction of the inner staircase.

On the third step she looked over her shoulder. “Take care there,” she advised. “There’s no protective rail, if you go near the edge you could—”

She stopped herself in horror. She realized she had been going to say “fall over and be killed.”

Feeling very sick now, she ran up the rest of the stairs.

Fleur was sitting on the patio. Cane sat beside her. The girl was playing cat’s cradle, her slender fingers darting in and out of red twine.

The anticlimax of it all struck Sheila very forcibly.

She stood and laughed hysterically. Fleur looked up and laughed guilelessly and childishly with her, but Cane did not join in the laughter, instead he got up and crossed to Sheila’s side.

“Steady,” he said sharply, “steady,” and instantly Sheila’s laughter left her. Cat’s cradle, she thought dully, Cane and Fleur playing cat’s cradle, while downstairs ...downstairs...

Cane was watching her closely. He put his hand on Sheila’s elbow and steered her off the patio down the track toward the beach.

“Well?” he said when they were halfway down.

His voice, his eyes, everything about him, demanded an answer. Sheila gave it to him.

“I didn’t know your aunt could walk.”

His reply was noncommittal. It seemed unbelievable to Sheila for a man who emphasized so strongly on his wife a certain importance, a certain urgency—merely to shrug carelessly and reply, “My aunt by marriage, you mean.”

She turned quickly away, but found herself whirled around again to him.

“What’s wrong, Miss Guthrie?”

“I want to leave here.”

“You can’t go.”

“I am going. I must go.”

“You find the work too arduous? We don’t entertain you enough? You’re bored?”

“I—”

“Shame on us, shame on Silverwake. This afternoon we’ll go out to the niggerhead and fish, fish in the orthodox manner, not with a spear.”

“I—”

It was no use, he was leading her back to the house, he was turning around himself in the direction of the beach, evidently with the intention of going through his fishing gear in preparation.

Sheila went out to the patio again. Fleur still played cat’s cradle. “Mrs. Dolan is downstairs,” she said. “She’s walking.”

“Yes,” answered Fleur dreamily. “That was what you must know, must see, Mark says.”

That afternoon Cane and Sheila waded out to the niggerhead. Fleur did not like fishing, she refused to come.

A niggerhead was the result of years of massive coral being washed up on a reef crest during cyclones. They were usually flat on top but never smooth. The coral saw to that, then invariably, too, sea oysters added a rough crown.

On the other side of the niggerhead the shelf dropped very abruptly making a fine fishing hole.

Cane baited his line, but Sheila contented herself with watching the multihued fish. She tried not to think about what had happened a few hours ago.

She found it easier than she had thought to discard it all. The waters were crystal clear. One could even watch Cane’s victims nosing up to the lure. Each time they seemed about to take it, Sheila secretly would edge in a fragment of oyster shell. It was too lovely a day, she decided, to die. She believed she was unnoticed, but presently Cane wound in his line.

“What’s the good,” he shrugged, “when one of the fishing party is plotting against me?”

Sheila looked uncertainly at him and saw that he was actually grinning. She smiled back.

“You don’t mind?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Haven’t you discovered yet that I’m a kind person at heart?”

Her smile died away. A kind person, she thought. A
kind
person.
An old lady will fall over, won
’
t she? Mark says that.

“What’s wrong?” he asked quickly.

“Nothing,” she answered too quickly.

He looked at her, he seemed about to say something.

At that moment there was a great booming noise. They stood up together and looked in the direction whence the sound came. Sheila gasped in amazement. She had never seen anything like this before.

Far out in the distance there seemed to be a huge bird leaping up and down from the sea.

“It’s not a bird, it’s a ray, a giant devilfish, and it’s leaping in mad fury to escape the attack of some enemy beneath,” Cane explained.

They watched the fight go on and on ... the threshing water, the tremendous leap, and then the devilfish went down again and did not come up.

Sheila cried out in dismay. She had no special sympathy for the ray, but she hated the idea of the great flying thing not ever leaping upward any more.

“Spare your tears,” advised Cane dryly. “You’ll be needing them for yourself, I fear. Watching the ray I haven’t watched the tide. If you look down instead of out you’ll see it’s come in with a rush.”

Sheila looked, and was astounded at the height of the sea. No longer were they on a remote crown, but water lapped within a foot of them, even as Sheila watched an incoming wave made the level a few inches higher. An eel passed her within reaching distance, a big silver fish.

The next wave ran across the top of the niggerhead. Sheila glanced at Cane.

“At full tide it will be submerged to a depth of several feet,” he said, “and it’s coming in pretty fast. It will only take a big wave to wash us right off, so we won’t wait for that, we’ll set off at once.”

This time Sheila glanced to the strip of water through which they had waded. It now looked dark and deep.

Cane saw her dismay.

“Yes, it’s considerably more than wading depth, but in another five minutes it will be considerably more again.”

“Perhaps Tress—”

“Tress won’t even be thinking about us. He thinks only on one subject.” His dark eyes flicked at her. “You must have noticed that.”

She did not answer him, she was looking at the strip of water again. She did not hide her dislike.

“Look,” he said, reading her expression, “I’d go over by myself and fetch the dinghy for you, but the tide could beat me to it. I’m sorry, Sheila.” Without any more delay he took her up in his arms.

She pulled herself out of those arms, and he did not try to stop her. He let her wade, though he still held her hand.

The first few steps from the niggerhead were only waist deep. Then Sheila took another step and went right under. Instantly Cane’s grasp tightened. He did not actually carry her, but he completely supported her. Another step engulfed him, and after that he had to swim. He put her in front of him in lifesaving manner and pushed out.

They were almost out now. Sheila walked clumsily on her water-heavy feet.

Again Cane did not hesitate. Once more he swung her into his arms, and this time she did not struggle free. He carried her up to a little indentation beneath an overhang of rocks, then put her down.

The water was dropping from them both, but even at the same time, in the way of these tropics, they were already beginning to dry off.

The sun was setting. The burnished gold of the sea was turning to a deep, purplish blue.

Cane pulled off his dripping shirt and the last piercing light of the sun lit up the whipcord muscles of his hard brown shoulders. It flickered over the soft lines beneath Sheila’s soaked cotton dress.

Across the little distance between them, in the half-light, their eyes met.

In a second he had bridged that distance and caught her to him. There was a little shiver in Sheila as the sudden shock of his nearness struck inward. He had encircled her before, but it had not been like this...

A still moment went by.

She felt him hold her closer, then closer, then deliberately and forcefully he kissed her, kissed her again and again.

All at once Sheila was clinging to and kissing him in return.