The Passionate Sinner (18 page)

‘The silver brocade?’ Paul remarked, standing there casually lighting a cheroot from his cylinder lighter with the enclosed flame’. Smoke issued from his nostrils and his eyes were narrowed as Merlin turned to glance at him.

‘Paul,’ she exclaimed, ‘will you never stop giving me things?’

‘You like them?’

‘Gorgeous! The
kain
is the colour of my moonstone, and there’s a lovely
kebaya
in the softest imaginable lace, and there are painted sandals! I—I can’t wait to wear them!’

‘Give them to her, Lon,’ Paul drawled, smoke curling against the deep crease in his cheek. ‘Now go and put them on, Merlin. I’ll send Tutup to you with a ginger blossom.’

Lon was still searching her face as he handed her the garments; she gave him an inquiring look, her large eyes half-scared of seeing dark accusation in his gaze. But his slanting eyes revealed very little, and his smile was enigmatical.

‘I regret that I cannot offer to be your valet,
meisje.’
Paul said, a quirk to his lips. ‘Do you think you’ll manage alone?’

‘Darling man, I’m not a baby,’ she said, and the tiny bells tinkled on her wrist as she hurried away with her booty, running lightly up the stairs to her room ... the bedroom that would become more of a sitting-room after tonight.

Tonight! Holding the lovely
kain
in her arms, Merlin went out on to her balcony to watch the sun going down. She felt the primitive magic of the evening, the fragrant spell that lay over the tea valley. The sky was carmine and sheerest gold, and the various trees were filled with birds, rattling the leaves and fruits as they grouped and hopped and began to settle down as dusk crept over the day.

A dazzling humming-bird lifted and fell among the flowering \ ines that overhung her balcony wall, then the bursting sunset was lost in a rush of milky darkness.

Now the many fragrances were richer than ever and Merlin took deep breaths of the cooling air, and felt the excitement growing in her veins. Was any of this real, or was it fantasy? She moved her wrist and the little bells made their music ... the bracelet had its symbolism, for she was enslaved by Paul. She didn’t know what to expect beyond tonight, and she didn’t want to think beyond the temple feast, the dancing, and the joyous culmination in Paul’s arms. Whatever was doomed to happen, her heart knew that tonight she would be wrapped in those arms, making the darkness a little more bearable for him. He had not spoken of love, but he had certainly shown her that she was desirable ... and that was all she wanted right now, to be desirable in these lovely things he had ordered for her.

Excitedly Merlin returned to her room, where she removed her simple wedding dress and replaced it with the shining glamour of the silk
kain
and the ivory lace jacket. Her sandals had flowers painted on the heels, and she felt incredibly graceful in the straight line of the skirt from hip to ankle. She brushed her hair into a shining cascade over the silvery brocade, the honey and amber lights in her hair matched by those in her eyes, so they looked luminous. Her skin looked exciting against the oriental silk ... it was like being clad in moonshine, flowing over the slim outlines of her body.

How much she wished that Paul could see her like this ... how very different she looked from that shy, restrained student nurse who had so often dreamed that Paul van Setan might notice her.

Tonight his island people would see her like this; there would be music, laughter, sincere good wishes, but not for a moment would she stop wondering if Hendrik’s wire had revealed her identity to Paul. He harboured a deep hatred in his very soul for the woman who had blinded him, but tonight he was a bridegroom and no matter what he might believe of her, he wanted her.

Merlin clung to that, for it was all she had. It might be all she would ever have, for she believed Paul was capable of killing her if he truly believed that out of sheer frustrated malice she had actually put something into that eye-cup that would darken his life and put an end to his splendid work.

Her fingers clenched his pearls on their jade clasp, glowing like pale satin and smooth to the touch. He’d have her, for there was a tiger in Paul, prowling and smouldering in his blood, and then he would end it because he didn’t really believe that life had very much to offer in exchange for what he had lost as a gifted surgeon. There had been a desperate note in his voice when he had said that he longed to use his hands ... clever, sensitive hands that had to remain idle when they longed to hold a scalpel again.

There was no way for him to forgive the nurse who had injured him ... and there had been something in that wire of Hendrik’s that gave Merlin this fateful feeling.

Suddenly there was a sound of fingers rapping on her door and her nerves quivered as she swung round from the mirror and watched the door as it opened. Tutup came in, grinning widely and showing his white teeth.
‘Tuan
say to give you this,
mem.’
He held out to her on the pale palm of his brown hand a lovely crimson flower. ‘Ginger blossom,
mem,
to put in hair, so you look like island girl.’

She smiled, but a nerve was quivering in her lip as she accepted the flower. Crimson as blood and with a spicy scent that evoked the deep forest where the tigers had their lairs.

‘What do you think of my dress, Tutup?’ she asked. ‘Will I pass for an island girl?’

‘You looking much pretty,’ he said. ‘I tell
tuan,
he be pleased. I tell him
mem
look like temple dancer, making bell music when she moves hands, with hair like wing of wild hawk.’

Merlin stared at the boy, almost stunned by that image of herself. Was that really how she looked? She couldn’t quite believe it, but all the same she let Tutup go running off to Paul with that word picture of her. It would do no harm. It might please him that in the
kain
she had an exotic appeal, especially when she had pinned the ginger flower above her left ear—was it the correct ear for a married woman and not the come-hither side used by single girls? Anyway, what did it matter? Everything tonight was geared to the senses, and if Paul needed the spicy scent of the jungle and a bride in oriental silk, then why should he not have them?

There was nothing she wouldn’t give him ... including her life.

She took a final look at herself in the mirror before going down to him ... lost forever, it seemed, was that pale ghost of a nurse in the slender, shimmering figure that the mirror gave back to her. The tiger’s bride, she thought, and as she made her way to him the silken
kain
made her walk like an island girl, with a lilt. And there was no way to stop that soft tinkling and chiming on her wrist... Paul heard it, for he came from the salon as she reached the foot of the stairs and held a hand out to her ... it was uncanny, as if he actually saw her.

‘There you are!’ His fingers gripped hers. He, too, had changed out of his formal wedding attire and was clad in tropical white, with a tan silk shirt open against his throat. He looked strong, lithe, unbearably exciting to Merlin.

‘I am informed by Tutup that you look quite remarkable in the island outfit—like a temple dancer, eh?’

Merlin gazed up at him and searched his face for some sign, some hint of what truly lay in his heart. What was there, waiting to snarl and spring at her? What did the deep purring in the throat really hide?

‘I’m sure I look absurd,’ she said. ‘All that’s needed to complete the picture is blue kohl around my eyes.’

‘No,
meisje,
I have an idea you now look as you feel in your soul, rare and strange.
Se passionnant pour la passion!’

‘
“One of Love’s lovers!”’ she murmured, translating the Merimee words into English.

‘Yes, my dear. I am a fortunate man, am I not? I don’t need to hope for passion in my bride, I know I have it. It is an odd fact of nature that the cooler a woman appears to be, the warmer she is beneath her cool pale skin. Fire in the diamond. Flame deep in the heart ... set free it will be beautifully consuming.’

‘Is passion all you ask of me, Paul?’

‘For now,’ he said, as they walked along the coffee-tree lane that led in the direction of the temple. ‘You and I,
meisje,
don’t discuss the future—we live for tonight.’

He had all but put it into words, the promise of heaven and hell, and Merlin sought his face with half-wild eyes and wanted to beg him to believe that she had never knowingly hurt him. Overhead the stars were like silver sequins spattering the velvety darkness, masses of them, lakes and eddies of sparkling gems. Great white moths flew in and out of the trees, and all around was the musky scent of dense gold devil flowers, like tiny hot eyes glowing in the shadows. Moon-moths and fireflies, and a feeling at her heart as if the blade of a
kris
had been driven into it.

‘Whatever you say, Paul.’ She kept her voice low, still holding back like a martyr the scream that had been in her throat ever since the light had been washed out of his eyes. Long, long ago girls had been burned as witches, and she felt as if it were happening to her, that no matter how she pleaded, she would still find herself tied to the stake, accused and condemned and unable to defend herself. Why it had to be that way Merlin didn’t know, but in silence she let Paul lead her into the courtyard of the Temple of the Seven Delights, where the bonfires were leaping and the gongs and bamboo flutes were making their strange music.

As in a dream, a fantasy, Merlin entered into the festivities, kneeling on woven matting with Paul as offerings to the gods were made. Above them, entwined in stone, were the erotic figures forever making love; carved hands upon carved bosoms, and the long stone hair streaming back from the rapturous faces.

The music had aroused the doves that lived in the dragon eaves of the temple and Merlin caught the flicker of their white wings in the firelight and heard the delicate tinkling of the tiny bells fastened to their feet, too light to have any effect on their flying. She saw the movement of Paul’s head as he caught the flying sound of the bells and she thought of what he had said to her when he had locked the bell bracelet about her wrist... when he called her his dove he was being sardonic. The only reality lay in his warning that they didn’t think about the future but lived only for tonight.

Enchantment, colour, the goodwill of the islanders who laid plum-tinted lotus blossoms at their feet, and murmured :
‘Selamet tinggal
—live in peace.’

Pyramids of food and fruit lay on wide wicker plates. A boar had been roasted in hot ashes, complete with its head and stuffed with herbs and onions. And while they ate, sitting with the headman and his wife, they were entertained by the dancers in their jewelled headdresses, with tinted feet and hands that flickered like flames in the glow of the red festival lanterns.

There beneath the camphor trees, and the papayas hung with green-gold fruits, the exquisite hand movements of the dancers were magical, combined with the lantern light playing over their golden skins and slanting eyes.

From the mouths of stone lions leapt jets of water, tumbling into lotus-shaped basins, and one of the temple towers was a mass of frangipani, a scented column of tiny starry flowers. Champac, jasmine, temple-flower and tiger-striped cannas. The praying branches of banyan trees, great moonflowers, and the air aromatic with flowers, spices and the strange spiked durian fruit.

Golden hairpins caught the lantern light in coils of glossy hair, and lovely eastern lace softly draped over silken
kains,
the patterns of the lace making mysterious shadows on dark gold skin. The women smiled at Merlin and came shyly to stroke her hands and wish her joy. She was presented with several charming gifts, a polished sandalwood box, a lovely tortoiseshell comb, a perfumed fan painted with a single lotus. Right now she couldn’t help but respond to the enchanting fantasy of her wedding feast, with Paul beside her, eating a slice of boar meat and laughing with the headman and his sons, listening to everything yet unable to see the glowing magic of it all. Merlin nibbled the meat of the ortolans which had been netted in the rice fields, and sipped from her cup of fruit wine. It made her ache that Paul couldn’t see the lovely dancers, yet she couldn’t help but wonder how she would have compared in his eyes to those swaying figures in their spangled dresses, the palms of their flexible hands like the inside of pink shells, moving so gracefully to the ching of metal castanets and the wailing bamboo flutes.

Suddenly Paul leaned to her and found her cheek with his hand. He put his lips to her ear: ‘These young men tell me that in your silver
hain
you look as if the moon had tossed you into this temple pavilion. I am informed that after a thousand moons of being alone, destiny has brought me a white dove.’

Merlin was speechless, for Paul’s breath came quickly against her face, as if it excited him that she was being admired. ‘Oh, Paul,’ she said at last, ‘I do wish you could see the wonder of it all. The dancers and the flowers and the lovely costumes. I—I wish I could give you my eyes!’

His face was utterly still when she said that, and then she saw a muscle jerk in his jaw. ‘You mean that, don’t you? Why do you mean it so much?’

‘I—just do.’ She said it very simply, for the truth is simple.

‘Don’t pity me,
meisje.’
His voice grated. ‘The ceiling of my toleration doesn’t reach that high. This is my wedding night, and I have already told you what I want from you!’

‘Yes,
mynheer.’
Her head drooped and her hair swung forward like a wing folding itself across her face. He didn’t want compassion, or what she held in her heart for him. He wanted the shape and feel of her; the scent of her hair and her lips under his mouth. He wanted passion to shatter the darkness for him, if only for breathless moments. She was to do that for him, having aroused in him something he had fought to keep out of his blind life. For long months he had been content to be alone in his bitter darkness, but when the typhoon had struck the island he had pulled her into his arms and a flame had been lit.