Secret Harbor (3 page)

“Where shall we go?” she asked.

“Home, mistress. Much safest place. Few people find Secret Harbour.”

Grania knew that was true. Secret Harbour was rightly named.

The house which had been built many years before her father restored it was in an obscure part of the island, and likely to be a safe hiding-place from the French or anybody else.

“We must go at once!” she said. “Have you told Papa?”

Abe shook his head.

“No wake Master,” he answered. “You come now, Lady, Master follow.”

For a moment Grania hesitated at the idea of leaving her father. Then she thought she would also be leaving Roderick Maigrin, and that was certainly something she wished to do.

“All right, Abe,” she said. “We must go if there is any danger, and I am sure Papa will follow us tomorrow.”

“I three horses ready,” Abe said. “One carry luggage.”

Grania was just about to say her luggage was of no importance, then changed her mind.

After all, she had not been home for three years and she had nothing to wear except the clothes she had brought with her from London.

As if he sensed her hesitation Abe said:

“Leave to me, Lady, I fetch trunk.”

Then as if he was suddenly frightened he added: “Hurry! Go quick! No time lose!”

Grania gave a little gasp, then holding up her
dressing-gown with both hands she ran back through the room and up the stairs to her bedroom.

It took her only a few minutes to put on her riding skirt and pack the gown she had worn for dinner, with her night things on the top of her trunk which had not yet been unpacked.

Just one piece of her luggage had been brought upstairs and the rest had been left below.

She was just buttoning her muslin blouse when Abe knocked very softly on the door.

“I am ready, Abe,” she whispered.

He came in, shut her trunk, strapped it and picked it up.

He set it on his shoulder and without speaking moved silently down the stairs.

Grania followed him, when as she reached the hall she knew she could not leave without telling her father where she was going.

She had already seen that there was a desk in the room in which Roderick Maigrin had received them before dinner. Carrying a candle she searched for a piece of writing-paper.

She found it and also a quill pen which she dipped into the ink-well, and wrote:

“I have gone home,

Grania

Carrying the candle she went back into the hall.

For a moment she wondered if she should leave the note on a side-table where her father would see it.

Then she was afraid it might be removed before he should do so.

Nervously, conscious that her heart was beating violently she slowly turned the handle of the Dining-Room door.

It opened a crack and she peeped inside.

She could see the table and the light of the candles
revealed the two men slumped forward unconscious, their heads amongst the bottles and glasses.

For a moment Grania just looked at the man who was her father and the man he intended her to marry.

As if she could not bear to go any nearer she slipped the piece of paper on which she had written the message just inside the door before she closed it again.

Then she was running as quickly as she could, pursued by a terror she could not suppress, to where Abe was waiting for her outside.

Chapter
Two

G
RAN
I
A
rode without
speaking followed by Abe leading a horse with two of her trunks roped across the saddle while another horse carried a third trunk and a wicker basket.

She was aware as Abe pointed the way that he had no wish to travel on the road—little more than a track—which lay to the North of Maigrin House and was not only the nearest way to Secret Harbour, but also to St. George’s and the other Westward parts of the island.

She wondered at his desire for concealment and thought perhaps he was afraid they would meet a band of slaves rebelling against their owner, or wishing to join those who were already rioting in Grenville.

Abe had said “many English killed”, and she knew that once the slaves started looting, killing and pillaging it would be hard to stop them.

She was afraid, but not so afraid as she was of Roderick Maigrin and the future her father had determined for her.

She had the feeling as she rode through the thick vegetation that she was escaping from him and he would never be able to catch up with her again.

She knew this idea had no foundation in fact, but at least she was moving away from him, which was a consolation in itself.

There was a path of a sort which kept parallel with the sea, twisting and turning to follow the numerous bays and rugged outline of the coast.

Grania was aware that by this route it would take very much longer to reach home. At the same time she was in no hurry.

The scene around her had a strange, ethereal magic which was a part of her heart.

The shafts of moonlight seemed almost like a revelation coming down to them from the Heavens making a pattern of silver on the path ahead and on the great leaves of the tropical ferns.

They passed cascades that were like molten silver, then had glimpses of the sea with the moon shimmering on the slight movement of the water and breaking crystal on the sands.

It was a world Grania knew and loved. For the moment she wanted to forget the past and the future, and think only that she was home, and that the spirits that inhabited the tropical forests were protecting and guiding her.

After they had travelled for nearly an hour the path entered an open space and Abe walked beside her.

“Who is looking after everything at home while you have been in England?” Grania asked.

There was a little pause before he replied:

“Joseph in charge.”

Grania thought for a moment, then she remembered a tall young man who she thought was some relation of Abe’s.

“Are you sure Joseph is capable of looking after the house and the plantations?” she asked.

Abe did not answer and she said insistently:

“Tell me what has been happening, Abe. You are keeping something from me.”

“Master not live Secret Harbour for two year!” Abe said at length.

Grania was astonished.

“Not live at Secret Harbour?” she enquired. “Then where
...
?”

She stopped. There was no need to answer that question.

She knew quite well where her father had been living, and why they had gone to Roderick Maigrin’s house rather than home.

“Master lonely after mistress leave,” Abe said as if he must make excuses for the master he served.

“I can understand that,” Grania said almost beneath her breath, “but why did he have to stay with that man?”

“Mr. Maigrin come see master all time,” Abe said. “Then Master say: ‘I go where there’s somebody to talk to,’ and he leave.”

“And you did not go with him?” Grania enquired.

“I look after plantations an’ house, Lady,” Abe replied, “’til last year Master send for me.”

“Do you mean to tell me,” Grania asked, “that there has been nobody looking after the place for over a year?”

“Go back when possible,” Abe replied, “but Master need me.”

Grania sighed.

She could understand how her father found Abe indispensible, even as her mother had done, but she could hardly believe that he would leave the house locked up and the plantations to run themselves while he was drinking with Roderick Maigrin.

However there was no point in saying so. She only thought it was what her mother might have expected
would happen if they left her father alone with nobody congenial to keep him company.

“We should never have gone away,” she told herself.

At the same time she knew that it was only because her mother had taken her to London that she had been educated in a way which would have been impossible if she had stayed on the island, and she would always be grateful for the experience.

She had learned so many things in London, and not only from books.

At the same time she had the uncomfortable feeling that her father had paid for that experience not in money, but first by loneliness, then by being obliged to seek the company of a man who was a thoroughly bad influence in his life.

But it was too late now for regrets, and as soon as her father joined her they must make up their minds what to do about the rebellion, if it was as serious as Abe seemed to think it was.

When the islands changed hands, which they had done regularly during recent years, there were always planters who lost their land and their money, even if they kept their lives.

But after the first elation and excitement the slaves invariably found that they had only changed one hard task-master for another.

“Perhaps it is nothing very serious,” Grania tried to persuade herself.

To change the subject she said to Abe:

“
We were lucky when we were coming here that we did not encounter any French ships, or indeed any pirates. I hear Will Wilken took Mr. Maigrin’s pigs and turkeys and killed a man while he was doing so.”

“
Pirate bad man!” Abe said, “but he not fight big ships.”

“
That is true,
”
Grania agreed, “but the sailors on our ships said that pirates like Wilken attack cargo boats, and that is d
i
stressing for those who need the food and
those who lose money they would otherwise have obtained for their goods.”

“Bad man! Cruel!” Abe murmured.

“Will Wilken is English, and I hear there is also a Frenchman, but I do not believe he was about before I left for England.”

“No, not here then,” Abe said.

He spoke as if he did not wish to say any more, and Grania turned her head to look at him before she said: “I think the Frenchman is called Beaufort. Have you heard anything about him?”

Again there was a pause before Abe said:

“We take path left, Lady ride ahead.”

G
rania obeyed and wondered vaguely why he did not seem to wish to talk about the French pirate.

When she was a child pirates had always seemed to her to be exciting people, despite the fact that the slaves shivered when their names were mentioned, and those that were Catholics crossed themselves.

Her father used to joke about them, saying they usually were not as bad as they were painted.

“They only have small ships, so they dare not attack larger vessels,” he said, “and are nothing more than sneak-thieves, taking a pig here, a turkey there, and seldom doing more harm than the gypsies or tinkers would do when I was a boy in Ireland.”

They rode on and now at last the way became familiar and Grania recognised clumps of palm trees and the brilliance of the poinsettias which on the island grew to over forty feet.

Now the moonlight was fading the stars seeming to recede into the darkness of the sky.

Soon it would be dawn and already she could feel a breeze coming from the sea to sweep away the heaviness of the air enclosed by the tropical plants which grew sometimes like green cliffs on each side of the path.

Then at last the jungle was left behind and they had reached her father’s plantations.

Even in the dimness of the fading moonlight she had
the idea they looked neglected. Then she told herself she was being unnecessarily critical.

Now she could smell the nutmegs, the cinnamons and the chives, while mixed with the scent of them all was the fragrance of thyme which she remembered was always sold in bunches with the chives.

As they moved on she thought she could recognise the strong fragrance of the Tonka bean, which her father grew because it was easier than some of the other crops.

“The island spices,” she said to herself with a smile and was sure she could distinguish allspice or pimento which Abe had pointed out to her when she was very small, their smell combining the fragrance of cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves, all mixed together.

Now the dawn was breaking and as the sky became translucent Grania could see in the distance the roofs of her home.

“There it is, Abe!” she exclaimed with a sudden excitement in her voice.

“Yes, Lady. But you not disappointed if dusty. I get women soon clean everything.”

“Yes, of course,” Grania agreed.

At the same time she was sure now that her father had never intended to take her home.

He had meant them to stay with Roderick Maigrin and if there had not been a revolution she would doubtless have been married very quickly, whatever she might say, however much she might protest.