CHAPTER EIGHT
NUNO had still not returned from his fishing trip when the occupants of the fazenda set out on Saturday to attend the wedding in the Indian village.
The orange sun seemed double its size as it went down behind the trees of the forest, and the thudding of feast drums and wailing of bamboo flutes took on a pagan quality as the foursome made their way to Raya's house.
The house of the ransomed one, as she called it, set in a grove of whispering trees. The pagoda eaves overhung the veranda, and she insisted upon serving drinks and little cakes before they proceeded on their way to the wedding feast. "Now come, you must all sit down and let me be a real hostess." She smiled and fluttered among them, wrapped exquisitely in silk that looked as though it had been woven by silver spiders. There were creamy flowers in her hair, and small corals around her throat. She was guileless and charming, lovely as the moonflowers that grew in her garden.
"How are the scratches ?" she inquired of Morvenna as she offered her the honey cakes.
"Heaps better," Morvenna said quickly. "Mmm, yes, I will have one of those. They look delicious."
"I am very envious of Morvenna." Raya smiled up seductively at the senhor, who declined the honey cakes with an indulgent shake of his head. "Such a pity to scratch such skin on the barbs of the macca-bush.
It is white like the kernel of coconut."
Morvenna flushed as the others looked at her, simultaneously. "How did you come to get tangled up in a macca-bush ?" asked Leird, while Poppy fussed with the stole which she wore over a dress studded with rose-pink bugle beads.
"Miss Fayr was startled by a jungle creature," drawled the senhor. "He lurked in her path and she thought he would bite her, but as it turned out his intentions were not quite that fierce."
"You are a nervous little biddy," Poppy laughed. "Look at that snake the other night. Really ! It wouldn't do for you to live here permanently."
"I wouldn't want to live here," then Morvenna bit her lip, for she sounded ungracious. "I'm grateful for the hospitality I've received here, of course, but if there's no chance of finding my father alive, then there's nothing to keep me in Brazil."
"It's a shame the map was lost," said Poppy. "There might have been some buried treasure which we could have shared between us. As it is, you're without a soul, Venna. However will you manage ?"
"I shall go to the British Consul at Manaos." Morvenna avoided the quick blue eyes of Roque de Braz Ferro. She didn't want even the offer of her home-going expenses from him He had been generous enough, and once she left Janaleza she wanted to be independent of him.
"I shall be cabling from Manaos for an advance on my photographs and articles." Leird spoke with an eye on Raya. "You're welcome to whatever you need, Morvenna."
"Thanks, Leird, but I shall manage."
"Independent little cuss, aren't you ?" Although Leird spoke to Morvenna, he was gazing at Raya. She was being elusive, and looking so lovely tonight that he had an openly tormented look in his eyes.
"That dress you have on is rather attractive, Venna." The ice whispered in Poppy's drink as she swept a probing glance over Morvenna. "Don't tell me you got that from the island store ? If so, then I must inspect Flavio's merchandise."
Flavio was the young Latin Indian who owned the store, slim and handsome, whose single gold ear-ring gave him the look of a pirate. He flirted outrageously with the pretty girls of the island, but for all that he was shrewd and responsible, and even owned a lancha which travelled up and down the jungle rivers, carrying food supplies and merchandise to the Brazilians who lived on isolated plantations.
"Raya was kind enough to lend me the dress. She let down the hem because I'm a little taller, and Flavio let me use his iron to press it," Morvenna explained.
"That could have been done for you at the fazenda," the senhor said crisply.
"Flavio was at the dispensary having a splinter removed, and he's always so gay and obliging. He insisted on bringing over the iron, and somehow he's one of those people you can't resist." Morvenna smiled as she recalled the gaiety, the joy in living that surrounded the young Amerindian. The golden ring in his ear, he had told her, was meant for his bride when he fell in love. Raya had teased him and said that he would never love one girl. His eye was too roving and his fancy too fickle.
Raya wasn't smiling at the moment. She stood rather
pensively with her back to the veranda rail, the sunset flames burning out behind her in a sky that was deepening to purple. The wedding drums pounded, and the tongues of the feast fire sleapt among the trees that shielded this little bamboo house from the rest of the village.
The Latin girl was like a filigree carving; a delicate, mysterious creature with a skin of softest amber, her triangular jade eyes set round by lashes dark as jet.
Morvenna was mystified by Raya. Up until yesterday she had not shown much inclination to be friendly, but at the dispensary she had been charming — soft and generous and pert, like a kitten in the sun. "You cannot wear to a wedding one of those cotton dresses from Flavio's store," she had laughed. "I have just the dress for you, and it would please me very much to lend it to you."
The dress was of palest gold, shading to apricot edged by flame, the colours of the island dawn.
"What are the drums saying ?" There was an excited catch in Poppy's voice, and her rings glittered as she laid a hand on a sleeve of the senhor's suit. Beneath the tropical tussore he wore a tan silk shirt, which Morvenna noticed was only a shade darker than his skin.
"That man is conquest, and woman submission," he replied. "That is the Indian viewpoint, and the Latin, but perhaps you feel differently about the matter ?"
"I wouldn't say no to being conquered by a real man." Her painted eyes flicked his shoulders, and dwelt meaningly on his lean, dominant face.
"Latin women are submissive," Raya said quietly, "because the love of a Latin man is adoration — when a woman had been fortunate enough to arouse it."
Morvenna heard Leird catch his breath. A Latin man, Raya had said, excluding the English photographer as surely as though she had shut a door in his face. Big and rough-haired, he climbed to his feet and Morvenna saw the angry pain on his face as he strode to the veranda steps. "Shall we be off to the wedding festivities ?" His voice was harsh. "It's a pity I can't take any photographs, but I suppose that's prohibited, senhor?"
"I would not advise it, Mr. Challen. A wedding to jungle people is a festive occasion, but also a magical one. They would not welcome the eye of the camera. To them it might be casting an unlucky spell on the felicity and fertility of the groom and his bride."
"I wouldn't want to do that," drawled Leird. He ran down the veranda steps, and on impulse Morvenna followed him. She tucked her arm in his. "It's me," she said gently.
"Hullo, you Welsh witch." He squeezed her arm against his side to let her know that he understood her sympathy and accepted it. They walked ahead of the others through the trees, towards the glow of the fires, and the coppery sheen of the Indian faces. Pig and kid meat were roasting over the flames. Great grass platters were piled high with jungle fruits, and reef lobster and fish. Bread-fruits, melon-big and knobbly, sputtered and sizzled in the smaller fires.
Excitement ran through Morvenna. Never in her life had she seen anything so colourful. The drums beat out a rhythm to which circles of dancers gyrated, fierce
and strange in their festive masks and feather crowns, with jaguar fangs strung round their throats and silver jewellery gleaming on their coppery arms. The smoke from the roasting meats and flames added a fearsome touch to the scene.
Over came the bride's father, beaded and be-feathered, to welcome the patrao and his guests. They were offered palm wine from cups carved out of coconut shells. Felicitations were exchanged and the wine was drunk — strong, sweet, causing tears to sting the corners of Morvenna's eyes.
She caught the gleam of blue eyes upon her, filled with wicked amusement. "You must drink every drop, or the toas
t to the bridal couple will not be complete."
She obeyed, gasping. "W-where are the bride and groom?" she asked, looking round for the usual shy figure who was the centre of interest at a wedding, a newly ringed hand clasped in that of a proud young man. Were Indian girls given a ring as a symbol of the marriage bond ?
The bridal couple, she was told, had departed for their honeymoon in the jungle several hours ago. They would live there like Adam and Eve for about ten days, fishing, hunting, and loving in the idyllic way of pagan man and his mate. The drums would go on all night to ward off bad spirits from the nest of fern and flowers that the groom would make for his bride. The wail of the bamboo flutes had in them something of the laughing, sighing, joy and tears of a girl when she becomes a woman.
It was primitive and strangely touching, with a beauty about it all that Morvenna would remember
long after she had left his jungle island.
"This is how my parents' marriage was celebrated by the islanders." There was a deep note in the senhor's voice. "My mother loved to talk about it. She had a great affinity with these people, and they adored her."
"Did your mother and father go off into the jungle, just like Indians ?" Poppy turned from the spectacle to give him one of her long, flattering glances.
"All lovers like to be alone at the start of their life together." The firelight cast shadows beneath the thrust of his cheekbones, and outlined the nose that was as straight at his glance. His eyes caught the gleam of the leaping flames, and his skin was as coppery, as tautly stretched as that of the Indians. "Would a honeymoon in the jungle not appeal to you, senhora ?"
"Are you asking my opinion, senhor, or inviting me to find out ?" Poppy said outrageously.
He laughed, and Morvenna caught the eloquent look which Raya cast at him. When his marriage took place, it would certainly be celebrated in this pagan fashion. He would take his bride into the jungle, and the drums would echo the beat of their hearts all through the opulently scented night.
The feast was about to begin, and the patrao and his guests were invited to sit among the relatives of the bride and groom. Morvenna found herself beside the groom's sister, whose handsome baby was sound asleep, like most of the younger children, in a palm-wood but that was thatched with an undulating roof of banana leaves and fibre.
The girl smiled happily, and piled choice pieces of meat and roasted jungle vegetables on to the big
banana leaf that Served Morvenna for a plate. Every crisp bite was smoky and delicious, and the two girls laughed together as they ate, and admired the tireless dancers. The din was ceaseless. The flames of the fires leapt high and sparks flew up to meet the stars that burned in a sky of wine-dark velvet.
It was late, and Morvenna was replete. All at once she felt a longing to steal away for a few quiet moments from the smoke and noise and the pungent smell of dancing bodies. The senhor was in conversation with several Indians, a flushed-looking Poppy at his elbow. Leird sat on a log drinking palm wine, a look about him of a man who wanted to be alone if he could not be with the girl he loved so hopelessly. Raya was nowhere to be seen, and after watching Leird for a hesitant moment, Morvenna slipped away under the arch of palm leaves and hibiscus which had been erected for the bridal couple. The hibiscus for love, the palm for fertility.
She pushed her way through the jungly denseness. Lianas roped the trees and the big silent bells of the flowering vines swung above her head. At last she reached a small clearing where it was dim and peaceful as a cloister. She breathed deep of the green and scented night air; it was good to clear her head of the smoke and the smell of food; the noise and the pungency of coconut oil on dark hair.
Stars gleamed through the fronds of the trees like ice-hot gems. A bird screeched. She gave a little jump, and then smiled wryly at her tendency to nerves, which the iron-nerved senhor so deplored. He seemed to forget that he had been born to these unexpected, savage
sounds in the night.
The lace of a tree fern hung round her like a mantilla, and she felt too languidly depleted by the excitement and the feasting to move away in case it concealed something that crawled. She rested against the fibred trunk of the palm, a slim maenad in her silk dress, dwarfed by the great trees that half concealed her. She would return to the festivities in a little while, she told herself. In the meantime she wanted to enjoy these moments of solitude which she had found.
She sighed quietly, restfully, and thought that the starlight silvered palm fronds looked like magic wands. They waved with little rustlings, and then above the chirring of cicadas Morvenna heard a thrusting back of the surrounding foliage that made her stiffen against the palm trunk. Her thoughts leapt to a puma on the prowl, or an Indian or two who had drunk too freely of the palm wine. Her instincts wanted to flee, but her body was held transfixed against the palm as into her solitary glade came two figures, that of a slim young man, and a delicately curved girl clad in what in the starlight looked like the shimmering, metallic winds of a dragonfly.
Morvenna felt herself going rigid, her fingernails dug into the fibred trunk against which she was pressed. She wanted to step forward, to make herself heard and seen, but as the girl's slim arms stole about the neck of the young man, as she raised her lips to his and had them fiercely taken, Morvenna knew that this was one of those fateful moments from which there was no retreat.
It was as though chains held her by the ankles as the couple clung and kissed . . . they kissed wildly, and
with yearning, his lips against her throat, her eyes, then roughly against the side of her neck so that a creamy blossom became detached from her dark hair and fell to the forest floor. The starlight showered down on them and caught the gleam of a single gold ring in the man's left ear.
It is said that all women possess a secret . . . this was Raya's. This passion, or this dark enchantment, for Flavio, whose dark eyes were Latin, whose blood was half-Indian.
Raya caressed his hair and his handsome face with her tiny, speaking hands . . . the age-old gesture of a woman who yearned to be one with a man. Her mouth raised to his, as he gazed down at her, was a flower longing to be crushed.
suddenly A night bird broke into song and out of it, and
without words Flavio swept the light and lovely figure up into his arms and carried her away through the trees — but not in the direction of the drummers and the dancers. He carried her in the direction of her little bamboo house.
How long Morvenna stood, almost without breathing, she hardly knew. The pounding of her own heart brought her back to reality, for no matter how hard she tried to believe it, that love scene in the glade had not been a chimera. Passion had flickered there, flaring like a light in the man's eyes, blinding the girl's to all danger, her face against the hard, male shoulder as he carried her off into the darkness.
Raya and Flavio !
A beautiful girl whom nature had fashioned for a pagan love, who had answered the call in the wrong pair of arms.
Pain had been growing in Morvenna's throat, now she put up her hands as though to ease it. The excitement of the Indian wedding, the feasting, the drums, the pagan embrace she had just witnessed, had all been a little too much for her. She found herself crying, curved sideways against the palm tree, mantled by the lacy fern, lost to all eyes but those accustomed to the jungle at night.
"Why do you weep ?" The voice seemed to come from out of nowhere, deep and demanding. "What has happened, senhorinha? Tell me !"
The stars burned above the treetops, revealing her pallor and her wet, shadowy eyes. A step and he was closer, the shadows masking his face because he was looking down at her. "Has something frightened you ?" he said again.
"D-do you think I am frightened all the time ?" She mopped the tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand. "W-what a timid fool I must seem to you."
"No, not timid You are over-imaginative, Miss Fayr. I have known you before to paint the shadows with goblins — what goblin brought these on ?" He touched wit
h his fingertips a tear that spilled from her lashes, the last of that mysterious little deluge.
"Someone should weep at the wedding — th-thank you," as he thrust a large silk handkerchief into her hand. She scrubbed her cheeks with it, rather angrily — anger as illogical as her tears.
"It occurred to me that your tears might have something to do with Mr. Challen. A woman weeps more often for other people than for herself, especially a girl who is more sensitive than is good for her."
"I can't help my nature, senhor. If I'm thin-skinned, then that's my worry." She thrust his handkerchief into his hand and went to walk away from him. At once he stepped in front of her, and forgetful of the tree behind her she backed into it and within a startled flutter of her lashes and her heart was nailed to it by his hands. He gazed down at her, and she saw the glimmer of his teeth in a narrow, dangerous smile, and felt his touch right through the silk of her dress.
"Why Waste tears on a man to whom love is but a passing fancy ?" he asked. "Mr. Challen finds Raya attractive. Doubtless he thinks himself in love with her — and perhaps you think yourself a little in love with him, eh ? He is the hero who saved you from the sharks and you are still but a girl who must suffer the growing pains of being in love with love."
"Everything I do, and feel, you dismiss as callow !" She wanted to wrench away from him, but knew too well his strength and suspected his ruthlessness. Her heart beat in her throat and made her voice shaky, adding fuel to her fury in having let him trap her like this. "I suppose you came looking for me because you think I'm incapable to looking after myself, even in this part of the forest ?"
"Are you ?" There was a purr of mockery in his voice. "You seem to me adept only at running into situations from which you find it difficult to escape."
What he said was all too true, and she hated him ! He was so unshakeable, every pathway of the island, every danger known to him, his life all planned out. What would he do if she said outright that the girl he planned to make his wife was having a love affair with
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