Rooted In Dishonour. Anne Mather
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side, dual-storied and probably later additions to the main body of the building. In spite of the fact that the drive needed weeding and the lawns that stretched before the house were not as smooth as they might have been, Beth was enchanted, and looked it.
Willard was pleased. ‘Welcome to your new home, darling,’ he smiled, and uncaring that Raoul might see them through the rear-view mirror, he leant across and bestowed a warm kiss on her parted lips.
Raoul brought the station wagon to a halt at the foot of the shallow steps that led up to the shadowed portico, and Beth thrust open her door eagerly and got out. As she did so, she glimpsed the ocean between the trees, and a shiver of anticipation ran over her. She longed to go down to the beach and allow the fine coral sand to curl between her toes, or plunge into the blue waters of the Caribbean and feel its refreshing coolness soothing her overheated body. But for the moment those longings would have to wait, and Willard was demanding her attention.
Raoul had helped his employer out of the vehicle and had gone to the back to rescue their luggage when an elderly black-skinned manservant came down the steps of the house.
‘Mister Willard!’ he exclaimed warmly. ‘Mister Willard, sir. Welcome home!’
Beth turned towards him shyly as Willard came round the car to greet him, saying emotionally: ‘Jonas! Jonas, old chap! I’ve looked forward to seeing your ugly old face again.’
Beth stood to one side, watching their greetings to one another, and became aware of Raoul watching them, too. There was a curiously cynical expression on his face as he hauled the cases out of the station wagon, and then he looked at her and she looked quickly away, not wanting him to think she had been interested in his reaction.
‘Beth, this is Jonas,’ Willard announced unnecessarily. ‘Believe it or not, but we were boys together here. His mother used to work for mine, and I’ve lost count of the number of scrapes we got into together.’
Beth was a little taken aback to think that Jonas was only Willard’s age, or perhaps a little older. He looked ten or fifteen years older, at least, and there were lines on his face and grey in his hair which was not evident in her fiancé’s. But then, she thought reasonably, no doubt Jonas’s life had been vastly different from Willard’s, and no matter how unfair this might seem to her, it was commonplace here in the islands. One didn’t need to have been born and bred here to know that.
Greetings over, a shy young maid appeared behind Jonas, and she came down the steps to help Raoul with the cases.
‘Marya,’ said Willard, off-handedly, and although Beth accepted that she did not warrant the affection shown to Jonas, she couldn’t help noticing that Marya’s interest was all centred on Raoul Valerian. As she followed her fiancé and his manservant up the steps and across the portico into the house, she had to stop herself from censuring the other girl’s actions. What was it to her if Marya made a fool of herself with every man she met? She hoped she wasn’t going to become one of those awful women who were always trying to place restrictions on other people’s behaviour. But then Marya laughed, and all her good intentions flew in the face of an angry feeling of resentment that owed little to tolerance or charity.
The hall struck chill after the heat outside, but it was a welcome coolness, accentuated by marble floors and pillars, and a high arched ceiling that focussed on a circular stained glass window two floors above. Arched doorways led into the apartments that opened from the hall, and immediately ahead of them, a fan-shaped staircase split at the first landing to coil around the outer wall to the second floor. The staircase, like the floor of the hall, was made of marble, veined and fluted, and elegantly mounted by an intricately moulded wrought iron balustrade.
Yet, for all its elegance, the house had a vaguely neglected air, Beth thought. The bowls that surmounted the pedestals set about the hall should have been filled with flowers, but they looked dry and dusty, and no one had bothered to sweep away the leaves that had been blown in through the open doorway and presently shifted underfoot.
‘Where is my daughter?’
Willard was speaking to Jonas, and Beth turned her attention to the elderly servant.
‘She’s lying down, sir,’ Jonas informed him, rather uncomfortably. ‘She wasn’t well this morning, and she sent Marya across to Mister Raoul——’
‘Yes, I know about that,’ replied Willard, rather tautly, and looking at his face, Beth saw that he was beginning to look drained again.
‘Willard——’ she began, and as if anticipating her words, he turned to Jonas and said half impatiently:
‘Has a room been made ready for Miss Rivers?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Jonas nodded, and as he did so, Raoul and the maid came into the hall carrying the cases.
‘Where do you want these?’ he asked, but Beth moved forward at once and said:
‘I can manage my own cases. If you’ll leave them here, I’ll deal with them later.’
‘Marya can deal with them,’ stated Willard uncompromisingly, and Raoul’s dark eyebrows quirked mockingly.
‘I’ll take yours up,’ he commented, looking at his employer, and Willard nodded, saying shortly: ‘You know where to go.’
The maid was small and dark, not as dark as Jonas, but almost. Her gaze flickered half enviously over the other girl, and Beth felt the first unfamiliar pangs of knowing herself helpless in the face of Willard’s domination.
‘If you’ll follow me, miss?’ Marya asked politely, and Beth was bending to pick up her vanity case when Willard said:
‘Leave that, Beth. The maid will come back for it. Go with Marya now. She’ll show you your room. Which is it?’ he asked, transferring his attention to the maid. ‘The blue suite?’ Marya bobbed and nodded her head, and Willard looked satisfied. ‘Good. I’ll follow you up.’
Beth caught her lower lip between her teeth, glancing first up the stairs to where Raoul had reached the first landing, and then back at her fiancé. ‘Willard——’
‘I’ve told you, I’m coming up,’ he insisted testily, and she had no other choice, but to follow the maid.
The rooms on the first floor were along a white-panelled corridor, the central area being given over to what appeared to be reception rooms. Beth guessed that in the days when servants were plentiful and the master of the big house had lived in some style, there had been balls and dinner parties in these echoing rooms which now accommodated only a widower and his daughter, and a handful of domestics. And his wife, she added silently to herself, remembering her own reasons for being here, but it seemed unreal. Right now, the noonday heat had created a somnolence that filled the house itself, and even her own advent seemed an intrusion.
Following Marya along the corridor they passed an open door and glancing in, Beth was disconcerted to find Raoul Valerian straightening after depositing Willard’s suitcases at the foot of a square four-poster bed. The action must have caused his hat to fall from his head, for he had bent to pick it up, and as he straightened Beth couldn’t help noticing how thick and smooth his hair was compared to Marya’s corkscrew curls. Then he turned his head and looked at her, and she found herself quickening her step to follow the maid.
Her rooms were, she found, next door to Willard’s. Marya showed her into a light, airy bedroom, with cream walls inset with blue silk panels, and a matching blue bedspread whose fringe trailed to the mosaic tiling of the floor. The bed itself was similar to Willard’s, but smaller, and there was a continental armoire in which to hang her clothes, and a pair of chests, in the drawers of which she could keep her lingerie. There was no dressing table as such, although the circular mirror which stood on one of the chests was obviously for that purpose. Everything about the room was old, but serviceable, and apart from a little dust here and there, evidence of careless housekeeping, it was very tasteful.
‘Thank you, Marya,’ Beth said now, as the maid put down her luggage. ‘This is very nice.’
‘The