by Неизвестный
‘You think I’ve been a fool in coming here?’ Her heartbeats quickened as the helicopter dropped smoothly towards the pale stretch of sand, curving away like the undulating tail of a snake, out from among the trees,
through a towering archway of black rocks to where the sea pounded.
The helicopter settled, a moment of shrill noise and then abrupt silence as the rotors came to a stop. The pilot turned to face her, peeling off his earphones as he did so. A jag of black hair was sharp against his smooth coffee skin. ‘A pebble and a diamond are alike to a blind man, as we say, but Tuan Paul has never been an ordinary man and it is well known in this part of the world that he worked upon the oil-burned face of a boy, the son of the man who owns this island, and made it good to look at again. If there should be harm to him in your arrival among us, then you would be wise to leave before I take you to him.’
‘How could I possibly want to harm such a man?’ Merlin gasped, feeling the deep twist of pain, the sudden grip of fear, the realisation that she would be in peril from these people if they ever discovered her secret.
‘Women are creatures of intrigue and no man really knows if his heart is safe in the hands of a woman. Your eyes, Miss Lakeside, are not easy to read. They are impenetrable like a forest flower, and they are shadowed when your lashes veil them. I can see you, but I don’t know you. The tuan will not see you, but to his fingers a pebble will not feel like a diamond.’
‘A-and what is that supposed to mean?’ Merlin asked, nervously.
‘Just this, nonya, don’t get too close to him.’ The pilot swung open the exits of the machine and Merlin alighted before he could come and assist her. He had unnerved her with his remarks and the way he seemed to guess that there was more to her being here than the mere wish to satisfy an urge to travel. She could feel a tremor in her legs as she stood there on the hot sand that was like crushed shell and replaced her sun-glasses in order to offset the dazzle and to hide her eyes from the young Indonesian. Fear couldn’t be altogether concealed and she could feel it in herself ... the mounting apprehension of what faced her within the next few minutes ... her meeting with Paul van. Setan for the first time in months.
King Tiger, whom she had been warned not to approach too closely.
‘Have we far to go to reach the house?’ she asked. ‘Is it a big house?’
‘It’s the island residence,’ he replied, a flicker of amusement in his eyes as he indicated a rock stairway that led up from the sands to a plateau above them.
‘Up there?’ she said, frowning. ‘Does that mean that Mynheer van Setan makes his way down that stairway? Isn’t that rather dangerous for him?’
‘He gives no thought to the danger, nonya.’
‘I see.’ She swallowed drily and wondered if Paul was careless of his life because he considered chat he had very little to live for since being cut off from his life’s work. Oh God, this was going to be harder than she had dreamed of, being here with him and having to endure the sight of him stumbling around, beholden to other people for the small things that sighted people took for granted, not caring very much if he plunged down those rocks and broke his neck.
‘He has a small island boy who leads him down,’ the pilot drawled, as if reading her mind. ‘You could not keep the tuan away from the sea, even though for him there is the danger of not seeing the silent approach of the tiger shark. We islanders go into the water with a knife strapped to the hip, but the strange part is that he has been swimming in our sea ever since he came here and the shark has not yet attacked him. Perhaps being blind he cannot exude the fear or panic that sighted people cannot suppress when danger comes close to them, and maybe the primitive shark senses that he shares the sea with someone who swims in total darkness.’
She shuddered at the words and tried to picture that tall, assured man of medicine living a life so primitive, so far removed from the clinical environs of the hospital where he had been a kind of god to those he healed and those he worked with. Paul van Setan, the most brilliant young surgeon Sir Ivor Cliveland had ever trained and who would have carried on the tradition ... and who was now a kind of blind beachcomber who in need of something to occupy his keen mind had hit upon the idea of writing a casebook and outlining the methods he had used in his restoration of the human face and body.
The tragedy of it struck through Merlin like a knife and as she stood looking about her, a hand was pressed tightly to her side.
‘You are all right?’ A hand touched her shoulder and she gave a start and found the Indonesian pilot close to her.
‘Yes.’ She tensed at his touch. ‘I—I’m taking in the strangeness of everything, and I do feel slightly nervous. Do you think he’ll mind terribly if he discovers that I’m a young woman?’
‘You had better let him first discover that you are a good worker.’ The white teeth gleamed against the coffee skin. ‘Then when the whispers reach him …’
‘The whispers?’ Her breath caught in her throat.
‘A nona, a young single girl in the house of a bachelor!’ His black eyebrows quirked. ‘On an island everything is known, everything is discussed, and you are very attractive.’
‘Don’t talk nonsense,’ she gasped, jerking away from him. ‘I’m not at all the type of girl that men look at.’
‘He will not be looking, will he, nonya?’ The foreign voice was insinuating. ‘He will be attuned to your voice, which is low and pleasing, and at some time his blind hand will brush against you.’
‘How dare you speak like this!’ Merlin felt that she had gone ashen, for his words struck at hidden and forbidden feelings deep inside her. It actually made her feel a little faint, the idea of one of Paul’s lean clever hands coming in contact with her body. She swayed and clenched her hand against the scaly trunk of a nearby tree. ‘I—I’m not used to this amount of heat,’ she said me infernal island of the devil’s.’
‘Perhaps you have, nonya,’
‘Yes, perhaps I have.’ She wanted to sink down on the sand and fall weakly into the shadow of the palm tree, and that would be childish of her. She was here on Pulau-Indah and must face the consequences of her own foolhardy action in coming all this way to be with a man whose life was blighted because of her. She might as well have handed him hemlock and then at least he would have dropped dead and not been condemned to a walking darkness.
‘Come,’ a hand closed upon her arm. ‘The afternoon is closing in and the sun is waning and you will find that the evenings on the island are a thing of magic. Come, let me take you to the Tiger House.’
‘Are you being funny?’ she exclaimed.
‘Not in the least.’ he replied. ‘That is the name of the residence—it was so named by the owner and, of course, it does have its significance in view of what the islanders call the tuan, but we are a people wrapped up in myth and symbol. We don’t take for granted the whims of fate, nor the joys and sorrows. We know that most things are ordained and that to fight against what fate has in store for us is a waste of energy. Don’t waste energy, for it is quite a climb.’
‘Couldn’t you have landed on the headland?’ she asked, as they began to climb the rock stairs side by side.
‘There is only a strip of land leading around the rim of the tea valley,’ he informed her. ‘It would be a very aromatic landing but a costly one.’
‘If there’s a valley, how do we reach the—Tiger House?’ She was intrigued despite her various fears. There was no denying the colour and strangeness of the island, and if fate had her on a chain, what else could she do but submit to being led into the tiger’s den?
‘We cross a bamboo bridge,’ he said, ‘slung across the tea valley to the gates of the house. It is somewhat like a fortress, for in the old days the Chinese pirates used to come raiding in search of girls and spices and teakwood. The island has a history, nonya.’
‘I sense that strongly,’ she breathed, and into her nostrils as they climbed towards the rim of the valley came the rich scent of the tea
bushes, mingling with the spice trees that still grew here, and the slightly scorched smell of sun-burned palms, so tall that they caught the full blast of the sun rays.
Her heart beat fast from a combination of exertion, excitement, and fear.
Very soon now, she would see again the man whom as a student nurse she had worshipped from across the chasm that separates the surgery dogsbody from the surgeon himself. Young and so romantic in those days, she had sometimes thought that it would be lovely to have an unexpected adventure with Paul van Setan, such as being trapped alone with him in the express lift of the tall hospital building, when he would look into her eyes and discover that she was a real live girl instead of just a pair of willing hands. ..
The sharp pangs of memory clawed at her ... willing hands that in their youthful, unknowing eagerness had blinded him, the one man in all the world she would have served with her body and soul had he asked for them.
CHAPTER TWO
It stood among the spice and camphor trees, with a great lofty veranda standing on palm pillars, and with an enormous thatched roof so thick it had a carved look. It stood back from a courtyard set round with stone lanterns and with a central fountain like a petrified lotus, and Merlin stood gazing at the house in spellbound wonder. It sprang complete from the colonial days when the Dutch had lorded it over these islanders, the spicemasters, the tea-planters, never brutal in their treatment but ruling with the iron hand in the gauntlet.
The casuarinas whispered, long-lost echoes of a past that still seemed to prevail as Merlin walked with the young Indonesian towards the steps of the veranda. There she paused and felt the shakiness in her legs ... now there was no turning back and she was committed to whatever fate had in store for her in the shape of Paul van Setan.
‘What do you think, Miss Lakeside?’ The pilot stood there with one foot on the veranda steps, studying her pale face and frowning a little as if he wanted to see behind the big rims of her sun-glasses. ‘Do you like your first glimpse of the Tiger House?’
‘It’s very striking,’ she said. ‘Very much in the old style.’
‘Things don’t change quickly on islands, nonya. Attitudes of mind remain fixed like dragonflies in amber. Are you sure you want to venture inside the house of Sang Harimau?’
There was a long moment of silence on her part, while deep in the trees the cicadas went on chirring and the tendrilled leaves of the casuarinas went on whispering. She knew then that she was being offered a choice and that if she took the coward’s way this young man would take her back to the helicopter and return her to the mainland.
‘Is that you, Lon?’ The voice came suddenly, breaking in on the silence between Merlin and the pilot. ‘You have brought with you the lady from England?’
Merlin felt as if her legs were going to buckle beneath her, for she had recognised that deep and faintly accented voice immediately, and she knew that when she turned to the left side of the house she would see Paul van Setan standing there. Too late ... too late, cried a small mocking voice in her mind. Now she couldn’t run away!
‘Ja, mynheer.’ Lon swivelled his lean body and Merlin knew that he was looking full at the man she must face in the next few seconds. She had never felt so afraid and yet so eager ... she longed to feast her eyes on Paul and yet she retreated from seeing his blinded eyes, even though she knew they would be covered. A barb of iron seemed to fly into her throat and she flung up a hand as if to stifle that choked feeling.
‘All is well?’ Paul asked, as if his acute senses had detected in the atmosphere something that put him on the alert. ‘Miss Lakeside had a satisfactory journey?’
‘I am sure she did, mynheer.’ The pilot replied for her, but Merlin knew the fatal moment had come for her to turn and speak, and become an actual presence to the man who couldn’t see her.
Very slowly she turned around, fighting for composure so her voice wouldn’t shake when she spoke to him. ‘I had a very good journey, Mynheer van Setan. Your pilot has been very kind to me.’
She watched breathlessly as that white-gold head slightly tilted, as if he were taking the measure of her voice and judging from it her height and disposition. Her heart ached and she was shaken to see that his eyes weren’t hidden away behind dark glasses. She retreated a step as if they could see her, gazing directly at her from that deeply tanned face, with the proud flare to the nostrils, with a definition both strong and commanding in the mouth and jawline.
A flame seemed to burn at the core of his eyes, a flickering illusion of being sighted. If there had been burn scars they had gone, and she knew the reason why. Sir Ivor Cliveland had done all he could for Paul at the time of the accident, and all he had been able to do was use his skill with the scalpel to restore to the steel-grey eyes the semblance of their keen, penetrating quality; to make them look as Merlin remembered them, deep-set, rather slanting, their heavy lids adding a sensuousness that now seemed more evident.
‘How do you do, Miss Lakeside?’ He approached her with a firm tread, as if he knew every inch of the courtyard, his hand held out to welcome her. ‘I hope you will soon find yourself at home on our island, which will seem strange to you at first.’
Merlin had placed her slender hand in that outstretched one a second before she realised the pilot’s warning about not allowing Paul to touch her. Her heart turned over, or it seemed to, as she felt the tensile fingers playing over hers, feeling their fine bones, their smooth skin, that lack of prominent veining in the hands of older women.
‘Being blind has its difficulties, as you can see, Miss Lakeside.’ He deliberately turned her hand and she felt his fingertips travelling her palm, finding the life lines and the mound below her thumb; his touch was exquisite to the point of excruciation, for with this hand she had given him the eye-cup whose contents had poured darkness into his grey eyes.
‘We have to employ such methods in our reading of those we must live and work with, so don’t mind too much—ah yes, I can feel that you do mind, Miss Lakeside. Tell me, do you play the piano?’
‘Why—yes.’ She felt that her face was white as the tiny flowers clustering madly down a stone wall beyond Paul’s wide shoulders; she didn’t as yet know that the flower was frangipani, the temple blossom, because it had such an innocent look.
‘Excellent,’ he said. ‘I hope you will play for me, for I have grown fond of music in my solitude and we have a rather grand piano indoors that we care for like a jewel, is that not so, Lon? Covering it in a sheet of felt in order to safeguard it from the termites and the heat. I hope you are prepared for the heat, Miss Lakeside? You have a very cool skin, but we have a very hot sun, so don’t go strolling in it as if this were Hyde Park.’
Her heart gave an awful jolt when he mentioned that part of London ... the hospital had stood within the vicinity of the park and the nurses had been fond of strolling there and rowing on the Serpentine with the young doctors. Her eyes were fixed upon Paul’s face and she searched his sightless eyes in panic and fear. Was it remotely possible that he had guessed who she was ... this hard brown man in the jungle cloth trousers and thin shirt open to his belt. He was no longer the civilised and humane surgeon. That veneer had been scorched away by pain and long months on an island lost in time.
‘Mevrouw, have you nothing to say in answer to me?’ There was in his voice a note of amusement mingling with a certain indulgence, and the tension began to seep out of Merlin as she realised that he had called her madam in Dutch and was therefore unsuspicious that she was not a maiden lady, whom in his blindness he probably pictured as having an angular body clad hi something beige, with her grey hair severely coiffured.
Relief gripped her and a smile made its way to her lips. ‘I shall try not to be too much of a fool; mynheer. I do realise that I am now on a tropical island and I have come prepared with a big straw hat.’
His lip quirked. ‘I had an aunt who always wore a cartwheel gardening hat with a chiffon scarf tied round to hold it to her face. She said the scarf
had two functions, to defeat the wind when it blew, and to see that her chin was kept in place if her Maker should call while she pruned her roses. She was in her eighties, but you are not quite that old, eh?’
Merlin felt a momentary spasm of panic when he said that, dispelled when he turned in the direction of Lon, uncannily aware of where the pilot was standing. ‘Has Miss Lakeside’s baggage arrived?’ he asked. ‘If so, get Rani to take it to the Jade Room, which has been thoroughly cleaned and polished and made ready for the mevrouw.’
‘Ja, mynheer.’ As the pilot made his polite answer he caught Merlin’s eye and seemed to glitter a look of warning with his own eyes. For now it was all right, she had fooled a blind man into thinking her the mature type of woman who could share a dwelling with a man in his thirties and not cause speculation; a man who for all the sightless state of his eyes was brown and hard and utterly virile. Lon’s look warned her that she was playing with fire; that being deprived of his sight didn’t take away from a man all his other senses.
‘I will see to it at once,’ said Lon, ‘that the mevrouw’s belongings are brought from the boat and carried to her room.’ He too had used the word madam, hardly to be applied to someone of Merlin’s age, and in doing so he condoned what could only he called a deception. Merlin found she couldn’t look at him, and neither could she blurt out the truth to Paul. He might send her packing, and now she had seen him again she didn’t want to leave him; there was a poignancy to his blindness, but there was also something so physically exciting about this sun-and sea-hardened man that it would have been sheerest torment to be flown away from him now she had found him again.
‘You are quiet, mevrouw,’ he said suddenly. ‘Are you wondering if you have done the wise thing in coming to work for me in what must seem to you a wilderness?’
‘I—I am looking about me, mynheer, at the exotic trees and plants.’ She forced a confident note into her voice, but for just an instant as he spoke his face had looked hard and menacing. What did he imagine, that now she found herself in his presence she was put off by his blindness?