Secret Harbor (6 page)

“I am not just paying you a compliment,” the Frenchman said, “but stating a fact, and that is why I know it would be impossible for you to marry a man like Maigrin. I have only seen him once, but I have heard a great deal about him, and I can say in all truth; better dead then that you should be his wife!”

Grania clasped her hands together.

“That is what I feel
...
but I know Papa will not
...
listen to me
...
and when he comes here I shall be forced to marry whatever I may say
...
however much I may
...
plead with
...
him.”

The Frenchman rose to his feet and walked to the rail of the verandah to stand leaning against it.

Grania thought he was looking at his ship and thinking how easily he could slip out of harbour into the open sea where he would be free and could leave behind him the troubles and difficulties of the island and her personal worries.

He looked very elegant standing there, his head silhouetted against the bougainvillaea.

But she had the feeling that instead of a ship there should be a Phaeton waiting for him, drawn by two thoroughbred horses, and that he would invite her to accompany him and they would drive in Hyde Park bowing to their friends.

Then there would be only the gossip and laughter of social London and no talk of revolutions and blood-shed or of marriage to Roderick Maigrin.

She was thinking at that moment, although of course
it seemed absurd, that the Frenchman stood for security in a world that had suddenly become for her horrifying and frightening, and in which she was completely helpless.

“What time do you expect your father?” the Frenchman asked at length.

She thought his voice had an edge on it, and it was a little louder than she expected.

“I ... I have no idea,” she answered hesitatingly. “When I left in the darkness very early this morning ... they had ... been ... drinking all ... night and had not ... gone to bed.”

The Frenchman nodded as if that was what he had expected and said:

“Then we have time. For the moment I suggest you stop worrying about the future and instead perhaps you would like to visit my ship.”

“Can I do that?” Grania asked.

“I should be very honoured if you would do so.”

“Then please ... may I change? It will soon be very hot.”

“But of course,” he replied.

Grania ran from the verandah and up the stairs.

As she had expected Abe had already taken up her trunks and put them down in her mother’s room.

He had undone the straps and opened them, and she suspected that later he would find one of the women who had served in the house before to come and unpack for her.

For the moment, all she wanted was a dress in which, although she would not admit it to herself, she would look her best.

Quickly she pulled one of the pretty gowns she had bought in London out of the nearest trunk.

She had worn it last year, but its full skirt was still fashionable, and the fichu although a little creased from the voyage was crisp and clean.

It took Grania only a few minutes to take off the clothes in which she had travelled and to wash in the
basin. She was not surprised to find a ewer filled with cool, clean water.

Then she dressed herself again and ran downstairs to where she was sure the Pirate would be waiting for her.

She was not mistaken.

He was sitting on the verandah having moved his chair into the sunshine, and she knew now that his skin was so dark because unlike the Beaux in London he had allowed himself to become sunburnt.

It became him, and she thought that in a way the fact that his skin had been burnt by the sun had prevented her from being shocked when she saw him naked in bed.

He rose at her approach and she saw a look of admiration in his eyes and a smile on his lips as he took in her appearance.

It was so different from the way Roderick Maigrin had looked at her last night, when she had felt that with his eyes on her breasts he was seeing her not as she was, but naked.

“Would you like me to tell you that you look very lovely, and like the Spirit of Spring?” the Frenchman asked.

“I enjoy hearing you say it,” Grania replied.

“But you must have heard so many compliments in London that they cease to be anything but a bore.”

“The only compliments I received were for the work I did at School, and one or two from gentlemen who called to take my mother to a ball or to Vauxhall.”

“You were too young to become a Society Beauty?”

“Much too young,” Grania replied, “and now, as that is something I have missed completely, I suppose it will never happen to me.”

“Does that distress you?”

“It is disappointing. Mama used to describe so often the Balls and parties I should attend that I feel as if they are familiar and I have dreamed of them.”

“I assure you there are other things to do in the
world which are far more entrancing,” the Frenchman said.

“Then you must tell me about them,” Grania replied, “to make up for what I have missed.”

“Perhaps that is something I should not do,” he said enigmatically.

Then when she would have asked him for an explanation he said:

“Come along. Let us go quickly and see my ship just in case your father returns before you are able to do so.”

As if she was afraid that might happen, she hurried down the steps of the verandah with the Frenchman beside her.

They walked through the untidy garden which had gone completely wild since her mother had left and found themselves amongst the pine trees.

There was just enough wind to move their leaves very gently and then ahead Grania had her first glimpse of the ship.

She could see the poop-deck, the fo’c’sle and the high raking masts. The sails were furled, but she had the feeling that they could be set very swiftly.

Then the ship would be gone, and she would be left behind never to see it again.

Ahead of them was a long narrow jetty which had been built out into the harbour. The ship was anchored at the very end of it, and there was a gang-plank to connect the deck with the jetty.

She and the Frenchman walked over the rough unplaned wood and when they reached the gang-plank he stopped and asked:

“There are no hand-rails. Are you afraid?”

“No, of course not,” Grania replied smiling.

Then he said:

“Let me go first and I will help you aboard, and of course I will be honoured to do so.”

There was something in the way he spoke the last words that made her feel a little shy.

He stretched out his hand and she took it, and as she
touched it she felt the vibration of his fingers and it gave her a strange sensation she had never had before.

The ship was entrancing, almost like a child’s toy.

The deck had been scrubbed spotlessly clean, the paint was fresh, and there were men busy with ropes who paid no attention at their approach, but Grania was certain their eyes were watching her as she walked beside their Captain.

He helped her down some steps and opened a door, which she realised led into the stern cabin.

The sun was steaming through large portholes making vivid patterns on the walls of the cabin.

She had always expected that a pirate-ship would be dirty and disorderly. In the stories she had read the Captain’s cabin had been a dark hole, filled with cutlasses and empty bottles.

This cabin was like a room in a house with comfortable armchairs and in one corner a four-poster bed with drawn curtains.

Everything was exquisitely neat and she thought she smelled bees’-wax and lavender.

There was a carpet on the floor, cushions on the chairs, and on the table there was a vase of flowers which she thought must have been picked from what had been her mother’s garden.

She stood looking around her, until she realised the Frenchman was watching her with a smile.

“Well?” he questioned.

“It is very attractive and very comfortable.”

“It is my home now,” he said quietly, “and just as a Frenchman likes his food he also likes his comforts.”

“But you are always in danger,” Grania said. “If you are seen by either the English or the French they will try to destroy or capture you, and if you are caught ... you will die!”

“I am aware of that,” he said, “but I find danger exciting, and I can assure you, although it seems a contradiction in terms, that I will not take any risks.”

“Then why ... ?” Grania began and realised once
again she was being curious and prying into his private affairs.

“Come and sit down,” the Frenchman said. “I want to see you at ease in my room, and when you are no longer there, I can look into my mind and will see you there again.”

He spoke in quite an ordinary voice, and yet she felt herself blushing at what he had said.

Obediently she sat down in one of the armchairs, the sun coming through the porthole turning her hair to gold.

Because it had been so early in the morning she had not brought a hat or a sunshade, and she felt somehow it was right for her to be sitting in this tiny room talking to a man who was more attractive than any man she had seen in London.

“Why do you call yourself Beaufort?” she enquired when the silence seemed somehow embarrassing.

“Because it is my name,” he answered, “the name by which I was Christened, and it does seem an appropriate sobriquet, since I cannot use my other name.”

“Why not?”

“Because it would be unseemly. My ancestors would turn in their graves, and also one day I hope to go back to where I belong.”

“You cannot go to France,” Grania said quickly, remembering the Revolution.

“I am aware of that,” he said, “but that is not where I really belong—at least not since I was very young.”

“Then where? Or is that a question I should not ask?”

“Shall I say that when we are together like this we can ask any questions of each other?” the Frenchman said. “And because I am honoured that you should be interested, I will tell you that I come from Martinique, where I had a plantation, and my real name is de Vence—Beaufort de Vence.”

“It is a very attractive name.”

“There have been
Comtes
de Vence in France for centuries,” the Frenchman said. “They are part of the history of that country.”

“Are you a
Comte
?”

“As my father is dead I am head of the family.”

“But your home is in Martinique.”

“It was!”

Grania looked at him puzzled, then she gave a little cry.

“You are a refugee! The British took Martinique last year!”

“Exactly!” the
Comte
said. “I should undoubtedly have died if I had not escaped just before they seized my plantation.”

“So that was why you became a pirate!”

“That is why I became a pirate, and I shall remain a pirate until the British are driven out, which they will be eventually, and I can regain my possessions.”

Grania gave a little sigh.

“There is always so much fighting in these islands, and the loss of life is terrible.”

“I thought that myself,” the
Comte
replied, “but at least for the moment I am as safe here as I am likely to be anywhere.”

Grania did not speak.

She was thinking that if he was safe she on the contrary, was in the greatest danger—danger from the revolutionaries, and more frightening still, danger from Roderick Maigrin.

Chapter Three

W
hen Grania looked
around the cabin she saw, as she thought she might have expected, that there were a great number of books.

The cases had been skilfully inserted into the panelling and although they did not have a glass front, there was a bar which held them in place so that they would not fall out when the ship rolled at sea.

The
Comte
followed the direction of her eyes and said with a smile:

“I feel you are also a reader.”

“I had to learn about the world from books before I went to London,” Grania replied, “and then, just when I was going to step into a world I had read about in the School-Room, I had to come back here.”

“Perhaps you would have found that world, which is to some women very glittering and glamorous, disappointing.”

“Why should you think that?”

“Because I have a feeling, and I do not think I am wrong,” the
Comte
replied, “that you are seeking something deeper and more important than can be found on the surface of a Social life that relies on tinkling laughter and the clinking of glasses.”

Grania looked at him in surprise.

“Perhaps you are right,” she said, “but Mama always made it sound so exciting that I looked forward to making my debut, and to meeting people who now remain only names to me in the newspapers and the history books.”

“Then you will not feel disillusioned by reality.”

Grania raised her eye-brows.

“Is that what you have been?”

“Not really,” he admitted, “and I am, I suppose, fortunate in that I knew Paris before the Revolution, and I have also been to London.”

“And you enjoyed it?”

“When I was young I found it very intriguing, and yet I knew that my real place was here among the islands.”

“You love Martinique?”

“It is my home, and will be my home again.”

The way he spoke was very moving, and Grania said softly without thinking:

“I shall pray that it will be returned to you.”

A smile seemed to illumine his face before he said: “Thank you, and I am ready to believe,
Mademoiselle,
that your prayers will always be heard.”

“Except those for myself,” Grania replied.

Then she thought perhaps she was being unfair. She had prayed last night to escape from Roderick Maigrin, and for the moment she was away from him.

There was always the chance that if she was alone with her father she might persuade him such a marriage was so intolerable that he would not inflict it on her.

After all, he had loved her when she was a child—there was no doubt about that—and she was sure that it was only because her mother and she had gone away that he had fallen so completely under Mr. Maigrin’s thumb and was ready to acquiesce in anything he suggested.

The expressions which followed each other across her face were more revealing than she had realised, and she felt uncomfortably that the
Comte
could read her thoughts when he said:

“You are very lovely,
Mademoiselle,
and I cannot
believe that any man, even your father, would not listen when you plead with him.”

“I shall try ... I shall try very ... hard.”

He walked to one of the port-holes before he said:

“I think you should now return home. If your father arrives and finds you not there he will be very shocked to learn that you are with somebody like myself.”

“I am sure if you met Papa in other circumstances you would like each other.”

“But circumstances being what they are we must remain at a distance,” the
Comte
said firmly.

He walked towards the door of the cabin and there was nothing Grania could do but rise from the chair in which she had been sitting.

She had the strange feeling that she was leaving safety and security for danger, but she could not put such feelings into words and she could only follow the
Comte
up the companionway and onto the deck.

The sailors watched her from the corners of their eyes as she walked towards the gangway.

She was sure because they were Frenchmen they were admiring her, and she told herself it was impertinent of them to do so because they were outlaws and pirates who in fact, should be frightened in case she betrayed them.

Again the
Comte
must have read her thoughts for as they stepped ashore he said:

“One day I hope I shall have the privilege of introducing my friends to you, for that is what my crew are: friends who have no wish to be outlaws but have been forced to flee from your countrymen.”

The way he spoke made Grania feel ashamed.

“I am sorry for ... anybody who has been a ... victim of war,” she said, “but those who live on these islands seem to know ... nothing else.”

“That is true,” the
Comte
agreed, “and it is always the innocent who suffer.”

They walked through the thickness of the trees and the bougainvillaea bushes until the house was in sight.

“I will leave you here,” the
Comte
said.

“Please do not ... go,” Grania said impulsively.

He looked at her in surprise and she said:

“We have not yet heard what Abe and your man have found out about the revolutionaries. Suppose they are on their way here? I could only escape if you let me come aboard your ship.”

Even as she spoke she knew she was not so much frightened of the revolutionaries as of losing the
Comte
.

She wanted to stay with him, she wanted to talk to him, and most of all she wanted him to protect her from Roderick Maigrin.

“If the revolutionaries are here,” he said, “I doubt if even as a pirate I would be safe.”

“You mean they will think of you as an aristocrat.”

“Exactly!” he said. “The reason why Fedor has started a revolution is that he has been in Guadaloupe which is the centre of the French Revolution in the West Indies.”

“Is that true?” Grania asked.

“I am told that Fedor was given a commission as Commander General of the insurgents in Grenada,”

“You mean this has been planned for some time?”

The
Comte
nodded.

“They have arms and ammunition, caps of liberty, national cockades, and a flag on which is inscribed:
‘Liberte, Egalite, ou la Mort.
’ ”

Grania gave a little cry.

“Do you mean the English do not know this?”

The
Comte
shrugged his shoulders and she knew without his saying any more that the English in St. George’s had become complacent and too busy enjoying themselves to anticipate there might be an uprising.

It seemed extraordinary that they should have been taken by surprise, when the
Comte
knew so much.

At the same time she was well aware that in Grenada they often knew things that happened on other islands before they knew it themselves.

As the
Comte
had said, the very birds carried gossip across the blue sea, and the fact that there were French under British jurisdiction and
vice versa
was an open invitation for the slaves who planned to rebel if the opportunity arose.

They walked through the part of the garden which had once been cultivated and now was a riot of colour and blossom.

There were little patches of English flowers which her mother had tried to cultivate and which in their very profusion seemed to have become part of the tropical scene.

The house when they reached it seemed very quiet, and Grania knew at once that her father had not arrived.

She walked in through the front door followed by the
Comte,
and she went straight towards the kitchen to find it was empty.

“Abe and your man have not returned,” she said.

“Then I suggest we sit and wait for them,” the
Comte
said, “and it will be cooler than anywhere else in the Drawing-Room.”

“I wondered when I came here this morning why there were no covers on the furniture,” Grania said. “Have you sat there very often?”

“Occasionally,” the
Comte
admitted. “It made me think of my home when I was a child, and also of my house in Martinique, which is very beautiful. I would like to show it to you one day.”

“I would like that,” Grania said simply.

Her eyes met his as she spoke, then shyly she looked away.

“Perhaps I should offer you some of your own coffee?”

“I want nothing,” he said, “except to talk to you. Sit down,
Mademoiselle
and tell me about yourself.”

Grania laughed.

“There is very little to tell that you do not already know, and I would rather hear about you.”

“That would be dull for me,” the
Comte
said, “and as the hostess you must be generous to your guest.”

“An uninvited guest who has made himself very much at home!”

“That is true, but I had a feeling when I lay in bed looking at your picture that you would be as kind and welcoming as you have been.”

“I am sure Mama would have liked you,” Grania said impulsively.

“You could not say anything that would please me more,” the
Comte
answered. “I have heard about your mother and I know how understanding she was to everybody she met, and I am sure that she was very proud of her daughter.”

“She would not be ... proud if she ... knew what Papa is ... planning for me,” Grania said in a small voice.

“We have already agreed that you must talk to your father and make him understand what your mother would have felt had she been here,” the
Comte
said.

He spoke almost severely, as if he was instructing her like a School-Master, and expecting her to obey him.

“My father has changed ... since we have been ... away,” Grania said. “I felt when we were sailing back that he had ... something on his ... mind.”

There was silence for a moment. Then the
Comte
said: “If he had stayed and attended to his plantations, I am quite certain it would have brought him in the money he needs and he need not have become beholden to other—people.”

There was a pause before he said the last word and Grania knew he was about to say “Roderick Maigrin”, then changed his mind.

“Papa never made very much money out of the plantation,” Grania said.

“That is because he grew too many different crops at the same time, instead of concentrating on one for which there was a demand.”

Grania looked at the
Comte
in surprise and he said with a smile:

“My plantations were very successful, and I made a great deal of money.”

“And you have looked at ours?”

“Yes, I was curious about them and wondered why your father should make himself dependent on his friends and neglect what could be a considerable source of income.”

“I have always been told that the French were practical, and yet somehow you do not look like a businessman.”

“I am, as you say, practical,” the
Comte
replied, “and when my father died and I took over our plantations in Martinique, I was determined to make a success of them.”

“And now you have lost them,” Grania said. “It is too cruel that this should happen and I am so sorry for you.”

“I will get them back. One day they will be mine again.”

“In the meantime, please help us with ours.”

“I want to, for your sake,” the
Comte
answered, “but you must know it is impossible. All I can suggest is that you persuade your father to concentrate on growing nutmegs. They do well here, better than in other islands, and there is always a demand for them all over the world, as there has been since the beginning of time.”

“I think Papa finds the nutmegs unattractive because they take so long to bear fruit.”

The
Comte
nodded.

“That is true—eight to nine years. But they increase in yield until they are about thirty years old and the average crop may be three to four thousand nuts per tree every year.”

“I had no idea it was so much!” Grania exclaimed.