by Abor, Jane
Wilmot's teeth could be heard to grind. 'Not until I've told you, Irma Hue, to keep your nose out of my affairs,' he growled.
Her fat shoulders shrugged. 'Is that all that is new? Why, you tell me the same thing every time we meet, my friend. And so, for your lack of originality, I shall not now tell you what I know you need.' She turned to Donna. 'Run, child, and fetch the covered basket from ' my car. On the seat, yes. It is mangoes from Mousquetaire. You haven't a tree here, I know. We will take them together to Juno. Come.'
On the way to the kitchen quarters she suddenly chuckled. 'But you know what I threaten your bear of
an uncle with, don't you, child?'
Donna thought back to their first meeting and smiled. 'Perhaps I can guess. A—wife?' she ventured.
`But of course, a wife. He has been without one for too long.'
`And have you anyone in mind?'
Madame Hue's eyes widened. 'Naturally,' she said. `Myself.'
In the kitchen they found Juno iri an unusually sombre mood. Her smile did not flash and her tongue did not prattle, and in answer to Madame Hue's brisk questions as to what was wrong, she admitted she was 'troubled'.
`Troubled! ' echoed Madame Hue. 'You are not ill; you have a good master and a secure place and no wild children to worry about. Nor, you should be thankful, a bad husband. So what ails you?'
Juno shook a head on which even the ribbon topknot was limp. 'You say so, mistress, and all true. But it is not for myself that I worry. For my cousin Maria and her man Choc at Marquise, it is.'
`And what ails them, then?'
`Dey tink dey lose dere places, Mister Vance's cook and man.'
`Nonsense,' scoffed Madame Hue. 'Maria and' Choc Baptiste belong to Marquise as a banana does inside its skin. Elyot Vance would be a fool to get rid of them, and Elyot Vance is no fool.'
'A good man too,' Juno confirmed.
`So why should this good man dismiss them? Has he told them they are to go?'
`Not yet he say to dem go.'
`Then why should they think he means to?'
But Juno either did not know or was not to be drawn as to the reason for their fears. She stated again, `Dey tink so', and, further pressed by Madame Hue, added,
`Dey hear so' and 'People, dey talk, tell dem', but beyond that she would not go.
Madame Hue collected her basket from which Juno had emptied the mangoes, advised astringently, 'Tell them they make volcano out of anthill, and not to heed people's talk,' and then made a royal command of inviting Donna to luncheon at Mousquetaire.
As Donna feared it might be, the drive was a skin-prickling experience. At one point Madame Hue drove the nearside wheels of her car into a foot-deep rut at the road verge, whereupon she made a loud-hailer of her cupped hands, hollaed through them, summoning from an apparently empty landscape four or five youths who shouldered the car free, were rewarded with smiles and money, and melted again into their background as surprisingly as they had appeared out of it.
'When a woman finds herself in trouble, a man always comes along,' commented Madame Hue comfortably as she was enabled to drive on towards the next hazard, whatever it might be.
Mousquetaire perched on its steep hillside as if it had been flung there and had stuck. Donna never ceased to marvel at the narrowness of mountain shelves which had been judged wide enough to accommodate Larayan houses, and Mousquetaire was no exception. It jutted out above its precipitous approach like a beetling cliff.
For luncheon there was flying fish and a chicken and-rice dish. With it Donna drank cool coconut water —a -novelty to her—poured from a green coconut, hacked in two with a cutlass by Madame Hue's garden man.
Afterwards, as they sat on her verandah, she asked suddenly, 'You think me mad to suppose I could marry Wilmot, I expect?'
'Well—' Donna sought for a tactful answer, 'somehow I'd never visualised his rousing himself enough to
marry again. He's so—so negative about anything outside his own interests.'
'Which is why a positive person like myself must take him in hand. I agree—he would not marry; therefore he must be married—find himself so, and I am working on it. You will see!'
Donna, remembering Wilmot's scathing criticisms of her hostess, doubted whether any amount of the latter's 'working' would bring him to the altar. But she was spared any comment as Madame Hue went on, 'Not that even I would take him on while he is so pigheaded over Louvet. No woman in her senses would marry herself to a brokenbacked banana patch by choice, and as I have all my senses about me, I think, he must sell it to Elyot Vance before I even consider giving him my Yes.'
Which, if it were true, gave Wilmot some breathing space, Donna thought with relief. For if Madame Hue were not going to lay concentrated siege to Wilmot's affections until he had sold Louvet to Elyot, she was likely to have to wait a very long time And even her subsequent musing, 'Though who knows?—one may find ways, perhaps, of working on that too,' did not unduly disturb Donna for Wilmot's sake. On that score she could not see Irma Hue's power to budge him an inch.
At about four o'clock they set out on the return journey to Louvet. But nearing it by a few miles, Donna was puzzled at the road her companion was taking, and said so.
Madame Hue nodded. 'That's right. I am not going straight to Louvet. We are making a detour first—to Marquise. If he is at home I am going to ask Elyot Vance the truth of these fears of the Baptistes, and if he is not, I shall find out from them.'
'But ought you to expect that you'll be told?' Donna asked, aghast, not only at her companion's interference,
but that she herself was being carried uninvited to Elyot's home.
'I mean to be told. For how can one help, if one doesn't know what the trouble is?' Irma sounded satisfied with the sweet reason of her reply. 'And didn't I tell you that I am known for solving other people's problems—so long as they confide in me what they are—which, sooner or later, they usually do?'
To Donna's relief Elyot was not at home when they arrived. But when Choc answered the door to tell them so, Donna was shepherded ahead of Irma to the kitchen quarters, where Maria was dispiritedly chopping peppers for a salad.
'And now what's all this about your having to leave Mister Vance?' Irma demanded of her.
Maria's eyes widened. 'How you hear, Missus Hue?' 'From your cousin Juno at Louvet. Who else? And so?'
Maria hung her head. 'Not right to say,' she said woodenly.
'Tcha ' Irma turned to Choc. 'You then—you tell me. What is it all about?'
'Well, Missus'—he hesitated, then plunged without his wife's permission—Like this, see. Missus le Conte, she come up Marquise; say Maria not do things right; tell me I not do things right; grumble, find fault. Say she tell Mister we no-goods, and she make big change; send us away, get fine valet-man for Mister, and proper chef.'
Irma Hue nodded. 'Margot le Conte, eh? And when does she say you are to go?'
Choc shrugged. 'Dunno. Just say.'
Irma turned to Donna. 'She means when she marries Elyot, no doubt. Interesting, that. One hadn't heard he had decided on double harness just yet.' Of Choc she asked, 'Does Miss le Conte tell you this when Mr
Vance is there? Did he tell her to say you must leave?' Again Choc said, 'Dunno. But she not say it for sure, 'less he 'gree?'
'We'll see about that,' Irma ruled crisply. 'When do you expect Mr Vance to be in?'
But her question was not answered when there was a shout for Choc from the front of the house, and he leaped to obey it, followed through from the kitchen by Madame Hue and, reluctantly behind her, by Donna.
'Ah, Irma Hue. I saw your car.' Elyot took her hand. Without being told, Choc picked up a drinks tray and carried it off, and Elyot's glance went beyond Irma to Donna. 'Donna too. How are you?' he asked.
It was not a question to answer literally, and Donna hated herself for blushing at the memory of their last parting. Irma was saying, 'Donna has been lunching with me and I am taking her home to Louvet. No, w
e aren't staying for drinks. I only looked in to learn the truth of a monstrous thing we heard of first from Wilmot Torrence's Juno about your Choc and your Maria —that, at Margot le Conte's say-so, you are sending them packing. Is that so? Are you?'
Watching Elyot's inscrutable expression, Donna wondered how Madame Hue could possibly have expected that his loyalty to Margot would allow him to give a straight answer to the impertinence of the question. Nor did he. He said smoothly, 'You heard this from Juno, you say?' addressing Donna rather than Madame Hue, who cut in,
'She didn't. We did—just this morning, and only the smallest hint from Juno. But I've coaxed the details out of Choc, and now, Elyot Vance, I mean to hear from you whether or not it is true.'
'Why?' he asked.
It was the first time Donna had seen Irma non—
plussed. 'Why?' she echoed. 'Well—'
'Would you perhaps be thinking of taking them on yourself?' Elyot pressed.
`No, of course not. I have my Winston and my Sadie—'
Or could you, I wonder, have persuaded yourself that it's any of your business?' Elyot went on, as if she hadn't spoken.
'But of course it's my business! ' she snapped back. 'As it would be the business of any of your friends who saw you making a fool and a knave of yourself at the behest of a woman! Don't forget, young Elyot, I first knew you when you were knee-high to a footstool, and over six feet tall though you may be now and cocksure with it, when I give you advice for your own good, you will kindly listen to it.'
He nodded. 'Willingly. When I've asked you for it in the first place.'
The sound which issued from Irma's lips was a small explosion. 'Come, Donna! ' she ordered, stalking away. 'Doing a kindness; saving a man from his own folly—and what thanks does one get for one's trouble? None —none at all! '
Elyot, making no attempt to stop her, followed her out abreast with Donna, to whom, to her surprise, he said, 'Haven't we a provisional date for you to spend a shipment day on the estate? What about the next one —Thursday of next week?'
An olive branch? Or a sign of how trivially he remembered the acrimony in which their last meeting had ended; of how little a difference with her mattered to him? Donna heard herself saying, 'Thank you. I'd like that—if you can spare the time for me,' only to feel rebuffed by his careless, 'Good. I'll tell Couseau that you want to see the whole thing through, and he'll look after you. Do you want him to send a car for you?'
`No, I can walk over. It's no distance.'
'It means a very early start—soon after first light.' 'That's all right. I wake early.'
'And go prepared for any weather. If the heavens fall the shipment has to get away.'
'I'll do that.' His use of the word `go' emphasised for her that he was consigning her to the care of his estate manager; that he wouldn't be there himself.
Madame Hue's parting shot to him, delivered from her driving seat, was, If you part from good faithful people like the Baptistes you will regret it, Elyot Vance!' To which he replied, 'You think so?' and waved the car away.
Presently, after some minutes of wordless huffing and puffing, she said to Donna, 'Of course what I really meant was that he's a fool if he allows Margot le Conte to wear the trousers for him already. Do you suppose he understood that?' And then, without waiting for Donna's reply, added, 'And what was all that about a date with you?'
'It was just that, as I haven't see a consignment harvested or shipped from Louvet, he once suggested I should spend a whole shipment day on Marquise, and so suggested next Thursday.'
`You have been in touch with him then, since you met him by chance on your first day?'
'From time to time. He has been very kind.'
'And what does' Wilmot say to that?'
'Mr Vance doesn't come to the house, but Uncle Wilmot knows I have seen him sometimes, and doesn't mind.'
`Which is more than you can expect of Margot le Conte, if she suspects Elyot of being too kind to a pretty girl like you. But that is no bad thing either—some corrective jealousy for that young woman who has always been too sure of her men by half.' Madame
Hue nodded sagely. 'Yes, I for one would not be desolated for Margot le Conte to learn the hard lesson that a man like Elyot is only as faithful as his lack of opportunities allows:
Donna said drily, 'Well, she also has been kindness itself to me and must know she could have no possible cause for jealousy of me over Elyot.'
'Then you would still claim, as you did at our first meeting, that you are not, as you would say, turned on by him, or as .I would say, bouleversee, bowled over? Extraordinary ! ' marvelled Madame Hue.
'Why should it be?' Donna hedged.
'Because—' Madame Hue actually slowed the car for the plunge into the house lane—'because if he weren't the high-handed, self-satisfied tycoon that he is and just about as pigheaded as Wilmot Torrence, which makes two of them, I might fall for him myself,' she concluded as she rocketed down the lane and brought the car to a standstill within a yard of the cliff-guarding crotons for the second time that day.
CHAPTER SEVEN
WHEN Donna had told Madame Hue that Margot had been kind to her, she had been entirely sincere. Though they had little in common and a very little of the other girl's extravagant company was more than enough for her, she supposed that Margot probably tolerated her to about the same degree. So that Bran's blunt question of the following day found her totally unprepared for it.
'And what have you been up to, to get so thoroughly on the wrong side of Margot?' Bran wanted to know.
'I? On her wrong side? So far as I'm aware, I've done nothing to upset her. What do you mean?' Donna frowned.
'Well, having just gathered that you're by no means one of her favourite people, I wondered why,' said Bran.
'You gathered? How? What has she said to you about me, then?'
'About you, but not to me. I happened to be listening in uninvited.'
'Oh, Bran—eavesdropping?'
'Why not, when I realised she was talking about your Melford Drinan fiasco?' Bran paused. 'You do seem to have let her make a fool of you over him, don't you, my pet?'
'I don't know what you're talking about,' Donna sighed. 'For goodness' sake, begin at the beginning and explain.'
'Well, it was at her last night's weekly cocktail party. Margot was gossiping with her dearest rival, the man-
ager's wife from L'Hotel Atlantique on Bayonet Bay. I was standing solo nearby. The two of them were swopping boasts about the Top People they'd landed this season; the Court Circular and New York's Four Hundred had nothing on the list of the names they dropped. And when Margot quoted Melford Drinan of Hexagon Inc. and Mrs Tours came back at her with an oil-sheik plus bodyguard, Margot switched the interest back to Drinan by saying next, "The joke was that while he was here alone, before his fiancée and her mother—they're Bergers, you know—came down to join him, he took a temporary fling with one of my little girl tourist guides, a young innocent without a clue, my dear. Flattered to her eyebrows, of course, but dropped flat when the Bergers arrived and the Berger girl retook possession." Or words to that effect,' Bran concluded.
Donna felt suddenly cold, but tried to brace herself. 'And by the "little girl", Margot meant me, you knew?' 'Who else?'
'Of course. So what did Mrs Tours say then?'
'She sounded sorry for you. She said, "Poor child! But if she was as green as all that, shouldn't someone have warned her not to get involved?" And then, as if she'd been sharpening her knives in readiness for Margot, she went on very sweetly, "You, dear, for instance? Do you mean to say you didn't know all about Melford Drinan's having a Berger daughter for a fiancée before any of them came down to Laraye?" Which—as no doubt the Tours woman intended—rather put Margot on the spot, didn't it?'
'How did it?' asked Donna dully.
'Well, either she had to admit that she wasn't all that well informed, or that she could have warned you and hadn't. Anyway, she threw you to the lions by snapp
ing back, "But of course I knew. What are gossip columns for?" Not being willing to have it supposed
that she wasn't entirely au fait with all the details of her clients' social life, you see, she preferred to take any blame that was coming to her for not putting you wise when she could have done.'
'And did she really know Melford was engaged, do you think?'
'Sure thing, I'd say. Trust Margot,' said Bran with conviction.
'So did Mrs Tours hand out any blame?'
'Mildly. She murmured something about, In her place, she'd have thought it only fair to put you on your guard, etc, etc ... But Margot only shrugged and said, "Who would suppose nowadays that any girl out of her teens couldn't recognise and avoid a wolf—if she wanted to?" And then something about, So whose fault was it, if you took a tumble when he let you down? Which, when she switched the talk to something else, left me with the distinct impression that she might have been gunning for you for quite some time, and I asked myself why then, and now I'm asking you,' Bran finished, slightly out of breath.
Angry and bewildered, Donna couldn't tell him. 'Did you do anything? Say anything? Intervene?' she asked.
'How could I? It wasn't as if she had slandered you or lied about you. She'd only shown herself to be supremely mean.'
'Though she did lie about me without knowing it. For as I told you at the time, I didn't take any tumble over Melford Drinan. We were never on the terms she concluded we were. But it does show I've been wrong in thinking she liked me—well, moderately at least, whereas now it seems she hasn't had any use for me ever since—'