Juliet Armstrong - Isle of the Hummingbird

by Juliet Armstrong

  'I could take you to supper at the Hilton. How would you like that? You've had rather a dull time lately.'

  Her eyes lit up. 'I'd love that.' And then, remembering how miserable Anne-Marie would be, left at home like a sick Cinderella, she said in quite a different tone: 'But I don't see how I could. It would be mean to poor Anne-Marie—even if she's sitting up by then I'

  'Nonsense, Bryony!' Miss Fanier exclaimed. 'She can surely put up with her old great-aunt for once in a way. Tina can concoct something specially delicious for us, and we can put on some of Anne- Marie's favourite records. Neither of us will want to sit up all that late.'

  'If you're sure it's all right by you?'

  Miss Fanier smiled, but it was Peregrine who spoke.

  'You know what, Bryony? You and I are turning ourselves into a couple of old fogeys. I'm not much more than thirty, and you're twenty-three. For goodness' sake let's go out and enjoy ourselves and forget our roles as guardians of the even younger.'

  Bryony's eyes sparkled again. It would be fun to go out for an evening with Perry, who could be quite amusing if he chose. And it wouldn't be letting Hugh down—not in the very least. Apart from her certainty that he would be going out with other girls when on his travels, she was sure of something else—that Perry would never show the slightest tendency to get fresh with her, even in his most lighthearted mood. Even if he had known nothing of Hugh's existence, it would have been the same. Laura was his type—cool, sophisticated, witty. She herself most definitely wasn't.

  When the all-important evening came, Anne-Marie, up and dressed now, behaved with an unselfishness which Sally, in similar circumstances, would have hardly managed to show. She was delighted that Bryony should have an evening out with Perry—and observed wickedly that it would be one in the eye for Laura. For herself, she and Aunt Isabel were quite capable of entertaining each other. As for missing the Glynn party, she had never felt less like dancing. Tonsillitis certainly knocked one right out.

  Soon after half past seven David and Kenneth O'Dane came in their mother's car to collect Sally, who looked so enchanting that Bryony almost forgot her prejudice against the Polydore establishment.

  She felt quite happy about her, with the O'Dane boys promising to take good care of her and bring her straight back as soon as the dance ended. They were good sorts, those redheads: thoroughly reliable—and in great spirits at David's having been entrusted with their mother's car, he having just obtained his licence.

  As soon as they disappeared down the drive Bryony went to dress, putting on a primrose silk cocktail dress and a pearl necklace which her mother had given her at Christmas.

  The necklace was so similar in design to Hugh's present to her that after a moment's hesitation she took out the case and looked at the bracelet. She hadn't really intended to wear it, because she felt certain in her own mind that it was more valuable then Hugh realised. She had, indeed, planned to return it tactfully, when an opportunity occurred. But the more she looked at it, the more it seemed to her just right for the occasion. And after a second's further reflection, she shrugged her shoulders, slipped it on and snapped the fastening.

  Peregrine, spruce in the white evening clothes worn so much in the tropics, made no comment on her appearance, but his eyes were approving, and though he had been called out to patients on the two previous nights, and might well have been tired, he seemed all set to enjoy himself.

  They reached Port-of-Spain rather too early for looking in at the Glynns' party, and he took her for a drive, out to Tuna-Puna, and up the winding mountain road to where the buildings of the Benedictine Monastery stood, white in the starlight. It was a steep climb, but he handled the big car beautifully, negotiating the hairpin bends with apparent ease. There was plenty of space for parking, and they left the car and wandered around, and presently he pointed out, forty miles to the south, so he said, a mound a glimmer with faint lights—San Fernando, the next town in size to Port-of-Spain.

  'I love this island,' Peregrine said suddenly. 'Iere— isle of the humming-bird—that's what the original inhabitants called it, before Columbus came.'

  'A beautiful name—for a beautiful island.'

  'The girls are mad to stretch their wings and fly away. But leaving to do my medical studies abroad was enough for me. This is my home, and that of my father and grandfather before me. My roots are here.'

  She was touched by his emotion. It was so unlike him to show any strong feeling. But because>she was already yielding to the spell of this island paradise she understood how it was with him. Understood how one could grow to love not only the warmth and sunshine and the fierce tropical showers, the great silver moon and the spilled jewels of the stars, but the small precious things—the butterflies, the little darting lizards, and yes—the tiny emerald-green hummingbirds, hovering like miniature helicopters over the bushes as they thrust their long bills into the flowers and drank the honey.

  Most important of all, understood what the human side could come to mean—especially to a devoted doctor. The people who came drifting into his surgery—old and poor, many of them—had the strongest hold on him. He would never desert them. Like him, they belonged to Trinidad, though their distant ancestors, like his, might have come from half the world away.

  Because she could enter into his feelings she found just the right thing to say to him.

  'It's good that Christopher wants to come and live and work here.'

  'I know. That would have pleased my father—and his father, too. They both worked as doctors here— could hardly have envisaged any other life.'

  After a minute Bryony said: 'I suppose Yvonne and Anne-Marie inherited their artistic talent from your mother's side.'

  He nodded.

  'She was very gifted. But marrying at eighteen, and producing five children, she didn't get very far.'

  'How tragic that both your parents should have died young.' She spoke with sympathy, but could not help remembering, at the same time, how much worse was her own case—rejected at birth, and handed over to strangers.

  'It was tough going; but how thankful I am that I managed to keep the family together. There was some talk of the girls, and Christopher, too, going to different relations in America and England. But if that had happened we should have lost that strong family feeling we all have, even when we're apart, or not seeing eye to eye about everything.'

  For a second she was tempted to spill out the story of her own circumstances, knowing how sure she could be of his sympathy. But he glanced at his watch just then, exclaimed on the lateness of the hour and declared it was high time they were on their way.

  It was nine o'clock when they arrived at the hotel where the dance was being held, and they received a kind welcome from Bernard's mother, a stout lady in pink lace. Sally, she declared, was one of the most attractive girls there—so pretty and so full of life—and she pointed her out, dancing happily, to

  Bryony's great satisfaction, with the eldest O'Dane boy.

  They stayed only a few minutes, and left feeling comfortably certain that they had nothing to worry about. Frank Dawson, they already knew, was over in Barbados; and as he had always been the ring-leader in mischief, apparently, it was to be hoped that Bernard would live down his own reputation for landing himself in trouble.

  But at the entrance Bryony's peace of mind was abruptly shattered. Two young men were coming into the hotel, and one of them, she could almost have sworn, was Leoni. She told herself she was a fool to feel frightened. Plenty of people were coming in and out of the hotel—people who had no connection whatever with this private dance which the Glynns were giving for their son. They might be going to the bar, the restaurant—anywhere. Even if it was really Leoni she had seen—and surely she was getting that young man on the brain—he would hardly be going to a dance more than an hour and a half after it had started.

  A minute later she was in the seat beside Peregrine, and he was starting up the engine of the car.

  'All very nice,' h
e said lightly. 'And now for the Hilton!'

  Resolutely she threw off that foolish sense of anxiety.

  'We ought to have had a meal here,' she said, smiling. 'It would have cost you a lot less.'

  'Come off it, Bryony.' He gave her hand a squeeze. 'Forget you're the economical housekeeper for a far from wealthy doctor. Forget, even, that you're not with your beloved Hugh.'

  'If you'll forget you're not with Laura,' was her swift riposte.

  He chuckled.

  'Touche, my dear,' he said.

  Dinner with Peregrine at the Hilton in its beautiful mountainside setting was an experience which Bryony was always to remember. Very different it was from a meal alone with Hugh. There were no loving glances, no pressure of foot against foot, but she had the impression, nevertheless, of being of great importance to him as a guest.

  His quiet air of authority brought him service at top level, and when she suggested that he should choose the meal he set about it with great care, consulting briefly but seriously with the waiter, whose old parents happened to be patients of his.

  The result of their deliberations was an ambrosial meal, accompanied by an excellent hock, which Peregrine pointed out was in keeping with the colour of her very attractive dress and by some first-rate calypso music.

  'And that's a lovely bracelet you have,' he remarked. 'I hope you had it insured before you left home. I know that people in England can be just as dishonest as out here, but I'm not sure they're quite as ingenious. Here they have a way of hooking things through the wrought iron screens which serve us for windows. And if you left it on your dressing-table some night you might find it gone in the morning.'

  He went on to tell her to her amusement how an illustrious guest from England had woken up one night to see his trousers disappearing—and how a prompt search of the grounds with a torch failed to reveal the thief or his booty.

  'No, it's not insured,' she said. 'At least I don't think so.' And she went on to explain a little shyly that Hugh had given it to her, telling her that he had bought it second-hand from a man whose wife didn't like pearls.

  'I didn't want to accept it,' she said, 'but he assured me it wasn't at all valuable. Since then I've been looking at it rather more carefully, and think he's wrong.'

  'I see,' was his thoughtful response. But she felt sure he didn't see at all, and went on awkwardly: 'I've been brought up to think one shouldn't let a man give you jewellery unless you were actually engaged to him. And though Hugh has talked about marrying me when he's in a better position, I'm not at all certain that anything will come of it—or even that I want it to.'

  'He seems a pleasant sort of chap—has the right manner for his job. But I certainly shouldn't go tying yourself up with him or anyone else unless you're dead sure you've found the right person.'

  'I know. Maybe I won't marry anyone. One can be perfectly happy without a husband. Look at Aunt Isabel.'

  He smiled.

  'She has nieces and nephews to keep her lively. You're an only child, aren't you, Bryony?'

  She nodded, and because she looked suddenly unhappy, he went on quickly: 'There are points about being the only one. You get all the love that's going and all the cash that's coming.'

  Then, before she could find the words she wanted, he reverted to the subject of the bracelet.

  'I'll get it insured for you, if you like. A twelve months' policy to cover your stay in Trinidad. I go to a very good firm in Port-of-Spain. They won't overcharge.'

  She thanked him, not sure whether she was glad or sorry that the moment for confiding in him about her parentage had passed. Probably it was a good thing. Men didn't want one to engage in painful subjects when they took one out for an evening's amusement. And Perry, of all people, had more than his share, day after day, of other people's troubles.

  It wasn't hard to regain her mood of cheerfulness. Perry, when out of harness, had a fund of amusing reminiscences about happenings in the island. She told him after a while: 'You're so different from the staid, almost cross-looking man I met in London, I can scarcely believe you're the same person.'

  'I was deadly tired,' he admitted. 'Rushing over to take that course, and then saddled with the ghastly task of finding a suitable woman to run the house and look after my young sisters.'

  'Why didn't you find someone here?' she asked him, a little puzzled.

  'I thought a stranger might be able to cope with the girls better. Everybody knows everyone here.' And then he added, his eyes on her face: 'You strike me differently, too, from what you did in London. You had —well, almost a hard look, at times. Or perhaps "strained" is the better word.'

  'Something was troubling me,' she said. 'Troubling me deeply.' Then, after a moment, she continued: 'It was Hugh who exorcised the demon—showed me that I was fussing about nothing. That's what drew me to him, and made me feel I could talk to him as I had talked to no one else. He's kind and understanding. But he has a store of the most devastating common sense.'

  'I rather wondered what the appeal was.' He was playing with the stem of his wine-glass. 'His background is obviously very different from yours.' He looked up and smiled: 'Maybe you'll find yourself able to keep that bracelet after all, even if it proves to be anything but a cheap number. Maybe you'll wear it with your wedding-dress!'

  She smiled back.

  'A possibility, I suppose!'

  'An extra reason for seeing about the insurance,' he said. 'If you'll give it to me tonight, I'll take it along tomorrow.'

  They left the hotel about eleven o'clock and drove down through the city. It was still brightly lit, but the cinemas were opening their doors to disgorge their streams of customers—a cosmopolitan crowd, of every shade of complexion and of every variety of dress, talking and laughing in uninhibited West Indian fashion.

  At first, even along the country roads, there was a sprinkling of homeward-bound traffic. But after a while they were moving through an almost empty black and silver landscape, with the roadside trees leaping out like angry giants in the brilliant headlights of the car.

  Home at last; and she thanked him prettily for the lovely evening he had given her.

  'It's I who should be expressing gratitude,' he told her, helping her out of the car. 'The girls tell me I've been turning into a dull dog for long enough—but that I'm not quite so bad since you came to take care of us.'

  'I'd be glad to think I made things a little nicer for you all.' They were walking up the steps to the veranda, and he had slipped his hand through her arm in brotherly fashion. 'I've got fond of the Gray family, you know.'

  'Yes, I think I know, all right. In bulk—not as individuals.'

  She looked at him in surprise.

  'That's rather a silly remark I'

  'Of course. Put it down to the moonlight—or the hock—or anything you like.'

  He opened the door and they passed through into the sitting-room, where a thoughtful Solomon had left a thermos jug of coffee and some biscuits.

  'Now off to bed with you,' he said, when she refused any refreshments. 'I'll wait up for young Sal.'

  'No, Perry, it's for you to turn in. You've had two broken nights.'

  She spoke with a determination that amused him: made his face crinkle into a grin.

  'All right, miss!' And then he added, in a different tone: 'If it wasn't for your being so enamoured of that bloke Woods, I'd ask for a good-night kiss. I—I suppose you are serious about him? You're rather evasive, you know.'

  She sought for words, but could not find any that would just do. Because—well, how sure was she of her feelings for Hugh? Now hot, now cold—that seemed to be the way of it.

  Instead she reached up and gave him a quick little kiss on his tanned cheek.

  'Good-night, Perry,' she said. 'And I like you all individually, very much indeed.'

  He shrugged his shoulders.

  'Not good enough,' he said. 'But let it pass.' And off he went.

  She wondered about him a little, sitting alon
e in the large drawing-room, and decided that in spite of his tendency to staidness he enjoyed what old- fashioned people would call a mild flirtation. She even wondered whether, if Laura and Hugh didn't happen to exist—but she swerved away from that line of thought————— ! Most foolish and unprofitable I And very disloyal to Hugh. To keep herself awake she possessed herself of Miss Fanier's Patience board, and started a game. It didn't work out, and her silly thoughts began to wander again along ridiculous and shame-making channels, so she picked up a newspaper and tackled a crossword.

  This held her attention better for a while, but soon she was nodding over it, and when next she looked at the French clock on the tallboy she saw that it was past one o'clock. But before anxiety could take hold of her, she heard the sound of a car coming up the drive. And as she went out on to the veranda, it stopped.

  The O'Dane boys were sitting in front, and David got out and spoke to Sally, curled up in the back.

  'We're here,' he said. 'At last.' And his voice was hard. 'Come on out, Sally.'

  For a moment Sally didn't answer. Then she exclaimed drowsily and rather peevishly: 'What's the hurry? Give me time.'

  Bryony went up to the car then.

  'Come along, dear,' she called briskly. 'You're not the only one who's tired and sleepy.'

  At that Sally gave a great yawn, and emerged.

  'Thanks, David. Thanks, Ken,' she said. 'Goodnight.'

  'Good-night, Miss Moore,' came from both the boys, as they quickly drove off. But not a word did they say to Sally, and it was obvious that there had been some sort of a quarrel.

  Clearly it would be futile to start asking Sally questions now. She was deadly sleepy. And pallid! She must get to bed at once. Late nights evidently didn't suit her.

  Ten minutes later Bryony, undressed now, went to the girl's room to make sure she was not dropping off to sleep in the expensive white and silver dress.

  She had taken it off, certainly, but it was lying in a heap on the floor, and she herself was curled up on the bed in her underclothes breathing deeply—fast asleep.